As technology marches on, some people get trapped using decades-old software and devices. Here's a look inside the strange, stubborn world of obsolete Windows machines.
    • Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      14 hours ago

      1. IBM still manufactures new mainframe computers and they will actually support your ancient mainframe from 1962 (assuming you’re still paying your licensing haha)

      2. the vast majority of Windows 7 and older computers that are still in production are attached to specialized hardware or industrial equipment. Stuff that costs many hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.

      3. emulating older OSes doesn’t really solve the problem at all because the actual concern is security, not hardware issues.

      4. emulation isn’t perfect, especially with passthrough. Especially when you’re trying to pass through an ancient connector through a virtual adapter (show me a modern computer with SCSI)

      I could keep going but that’s all I have enough care to do right now

      • vivendi@programming.devEnglish
        12·
        5 hours ago

        Industrial emulation is easy to do, a sandboxed and controlled VM won’t die from hardware faults like a hunk of shit from 1993

        Also there are NEW computers made specifically for this particular purpose, they even have ISA buses and shit

        I don’t understand why lemmy is living in la la land, the moment you go against the narrative you’re brigaded to shit

        Yes, y’all do be in fact wrong

        Bonus: IBM sells emulation packages for migration to new architectures. IBM probably knows better than the lot of us.