Yet another Hacker News

22 points mlaux 2 hours ago 5 comments

Do you currently work with or know anyone who is still using:

* dBase/Clipper/CLARION/Paradox/other DOS RAD environments on period hardware to run business processes?

* CNC mills/spectrometers/microscopes/other industrial instruments controlled by ISA cards (either bespoke or standards like GPIB)?

* Anything with a parallel port dongle?

If so, I'd be very interested in hearing your experience here, or feel free to send me an email at the address in my profile. I'm not trying to sell anything, just doing some research for an idea around keeping these going on modern hardware.

DASD 14 minutes ago | parent

Perhaps look into environmental services labs that do contract EPA work. I would not be surprised to see entire HP-Agilent(ISA-carded) - (think liquid chromotography analyzers) fleets that would match what you're looking for.

sippingabonedry 8 minutes ago | parent

Does BART still run on 5.25" floppies?

sgerenser 3 minutes ago | parent

Does the idea make use of https://86box.net? Just heard of this recently on hn and it seems promising for anything that requires low level/cycle accurate emulation vs. your typical high level emulator.

smackeyacky 1 minute ago | parent

I know of a DOS machine at a wool testing place that uses an ISA card based imager for measuring the micron and other things. They also have a supporting DOS machine with a dBase looking database on it. When I spoke to the owner he didn’t really understand the risks involved in running ancient hardware and in fact had a storage room with period PCs in it if the machines failed. He didn’t have much of a backup plan for the imaging hardware though.

My opinion is that if these guys are still running this gear, they already have a strategy in place (no matter how flawed) and would likely retire before throwing money at something they consider a non problem.

Good luck with the idea. It likely is a tiny niche market with customisation for every customer and given they are normally hardware constrained AI may not be much of a help.

All of them have no money as well.

ynac 1 minute ago | parent

It's not totally for business, but I run some antennae and radio telescopes that feed through a Gateway 386/33/16MB RAM. As well as a Getac, no idea what model, but it's from the early 2000s. They both feed through to a A/B switched Paradise CRT (so cute). dBase is on the list.