Uncommon operating systems/ program languages still in use that were designed in the last century

[GON]

A BITOG member on another thread shared his Wife has been programming a MUMPS (spelling?) operating system, working from their home, for decades. He further mentioned that his Wife gets half dozen inquires a week on LINKIN to jump ship and work for the inquiring organization.

Made me wonder, what "rare" computer languages from the last century are still being used, and have limited computer programmers that know that language? The only computer language I know from the last century was PICK, written by **** Pick. PICKs OS claim to fame (last century) was that it had no RAM memory constraints- it used the hard drive in some manner. I suspect that is no big deal today, but 50 years go that was a real big deal.

Do you know of any old rare programming language from the last century that is still in use today and is not being migrated to the latest programming language?

* Disclosure- I know little about computer operating systems, and likely much less than little. Just thought the subject was fascinating.

Pick operating system - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[JohnnyG]

Cobol, Fortran, Basic, really. I never got into programming, but knew a few people that took grad courses in those "machine languages".
I can't even pick up Linux, and it's quite popular.

 

[GON]

Cobol, Fortran, Basic, really. I never got into programming, but knew a few people that took grad courses in those "machine languages".
I can't even pick up Linux, and it's quite popular.

I think in high school in 1980 we had a computer class that used cobalt and programming was done by a paper tape punch. The instructor marked an answer on a test of mine wrong, when I wrote printers could be used for input. Teletypes are printers that can be used for input into a computer. It is called KSR (keyboard send and receive). He didn't budge after I challenged the answer being marked wrong.

 

[spackard]

I thought one was OS/2 - BofA’s ATMs ran on it until maybe 2012 or so. A 2020 article says NYC’s MTA still uses it.

 

[simple_gifts]

COBOL is still in use where I work; as is a Tandem machine (HP's virtual version of it)

 

[supton]

I have a vague idea of C, and by extension C++. I really should learn Python, it might do things for me (run scripts so as to automate things). Did a bit of assembly for PIC's, and later a Rabbit, but would never call myself any good at it, just enough to know how to stumble around (and wish for a C compiler!).

 

[Wheel]

IBM's system 36 and variants (os/400, IBMi) will take a while to go away.
Cobol is still kicking. Basic should go away, there are better teaching languages.

 

[97K15004WD]

Don't know what language this was, but I would imagine it's hard to find someone to fix it. I sure hope they replaced it.

One Ancient Commodore Amiga Runs the Heat and AC for 19 Public Schools

The 30-year-old computer has been running day and night for decades

www.popularmechanics.com

 

[OVERKILL]

Cobol, Fortran, Basic, really. I never got into programming, but knew a few people that took grad courses in those "machine languages".
I can't even pick up Linux, and it's quite popular.

Yup, Cobol and Fortran for sure, Basic was updated, QBasic, VBasic...etc.

 

[Dave Sherman]

When I co-oped in college in the 1990s, I was working on security systems running on Intel 8085 processors running software written in PL/M, which I had to learn some to write some diagnostic software. The monitoring end of those security systems were running OS/2, so I got very familiar with installing OS/2 and knowing my way around it. As a co-op I had to find peripherals that would support OS/2 to be used on the monitoring computers.

 

[uc50ic4more]

A few months ago I had to do a double-take when a member here mentioned using Solaris. I just did a search on this site for "Solaris" and found it: @Y_K https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/looking-for-pc-recommendations.369160/post-6532654

I am going to wildly speculate that the DE would be GNOME 2.32 or thereabouts?

 

[cptbarkey]

COBOL is still in use where I work; as is a Tandem machine (HP's virtual version of it)

My old job at Dell was to access data from a giant Tandem mainframe, which itself was really just a giant chunk of memory. It was fun to gawk at it through the server windows. We employed old fogeys even back then who were Cobol experts.

 

[OVERKILL]

A few months ago I had to do a double-take when a member here mentioned using Solaris. I just did a search on this site for "Solaris" and found it: @Y_K https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/looking-for-pc-recommendations.369160/post-6532654

I am going to wildly speculate that the DE would be GNOME 2.32 or thereabouts?

I was using Solaris not all that long ago, when they ported it to X86 (I couldn't afford a SUN box when I was a student, lol). Also used IRIX a lot (good 'ol SGI!).

 

[Oily_Thing]

RPG

 

[Pew]

I'm happy just knowing how to use the CMD prompt.

 

[SC Maintenance]

COBOL is still way more common than people think. Its still running a lot of finance back end stuff. https://stackoverflow.blog/2020/04/...is-a-60-year-old-language-suddenly-in-demand/

Trying to get my daughter to learn it. She is a programmer and she is 19. Could be good money in the future transition.

Fortran believe it or not is still used for old defense industry stuff as well.

 

[SC Maintenance]

I'll add another story. I got out of college in the late 90's and I started at a large company in R&D. I got to know a bunch of the older programmers at the company cafeteria - back when they still had them. All the younger people went out for lunch. I was too poor. Anyway this company had a in house business system written ions before and contstantly maintained by these people. In 2018 they laid off or bought out all of them and decided to implement Oracle due to Y2K concerns.

In 1999 they hired a bunch of them back on contract once they figured out they would never have Oracle implemented on time so they had to fix their own system. One that I knew well told me he was making 3X more on contract than when he worked there. I told him that was excellent, he should wonder in and demand 4X more. He said he wasn't that greedy.

 

[Y_K]

I am going to wildly speculate that the DE would be GNOME 2.32 or thereabouts?

No, it is CDE - ancient Solaris 8 (x86) on a Thinkpad T60. Installs like a charm, no workarounds required. It is quite an old base, the first thing I do is install SSH, create wheel group, etc.

Runs a few ancient applications that keep making money. I love native Java and Korn Shell environment.

I love Plan 9 , it is still way ahead of its time. It is like a living language.

 

[brianl703]

Lots of traffic signal controllers run OS/9. One that I'm sure of is Siemens/Eagle EPAC M50.

 

[andrew_j]

I'm happy just knowing how to use the CMD prompt.

Fun fact I used Unix in 1988 HS computer programming using pascal. I learned Unix commands that still work and use daily in a terminal of a MAC book pro 2023 with my job.