Fiddly Joe
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What is "always-young" software, that was developed back in 19xxs and still in active use?
I wonder whether there is a obsolete-free software which proves good coding can be used throughout decades!
How they/he/she did it?The theory behind making ?
How they/he/she did it?The theory behind making ?
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FreeDos http://www.freedos.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDOS
It's an Operating System designed to be a free open-source replacement for the Microsoft's MSDOS. Still in development and very stable.
You've got all sorts of compilers for it, Pascal, C, Assembler. Lots of old applications and games you can purchase on eBay or second hand to run on it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDOS
It's an Operating System designed to be a free open-source replacement for the Microsoft's MSDOS. Still in development and very stable.
You've got all sorts of compilers for it, Pascal, C, Assembler. Lots of old applications and games you can purchase on eBay or second hand to run on it.
The AS/400 software I mentioned and FreeDos above is constantly evolving and changing for changes in hardware and operating system, so even this stuff is not obsolete-free
There are some coding languages - especially in the scientific range - which have a long history in getting compilers build for new OS generations. This is because many libraries for scientific use have reached a very mature state - means that the've bee used so often that almost every possible bug in 'em showed up and got fixed.
Since most scientific algorithms reflect laws of nature or mathematic principles, the majority of scientific software is still in use even after decades - especially because it's available a source code so it could be mangled thru whenever a new compiler for another platform emerges. And to be able to use these old libraries, the new compilers must be backward compatible ... which lets many developers still use old languages - simple because it's most simple and secure that way.
That way a RasPi would probably be able to run software that was used to design SkyLab back in the sixties ...or the code that was used to calculate the outcome of "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" (or at least their early descendants).
This lines out what is needed to let old software survive decades: An extremely broad user base, evergreen algorithms which are still "up to date" and a constant flow of work to be done with it. And the world of science is the best breeding box for such software.
Since most scientific algorithms reflect laws of nature or mathematic principles, the majority of scientific software is still in use even after decades - especially because it's available a source code so it could be mangled thru whenever a new compiler for another platform emerges. And to be able to use these old libraries, the new compilers must be backward compatible ... which lets many developers still use old languages - simple because it's most simple and secure that way.
That way a RasPi would probably be able to run software that was used to design SkyLab back in the sixties ...or the code that was used to calculate the outcome of "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" (or at least their early descendants).
This lines out what is needed to let old software survive decades: An extremely broad user base, evergreen algorithms which are still "up to date" and a constant flow of work to be done with it. And the world of science is the best breeding box for such software.
@Fiddly Joe - Thank you and I was pleased to assist
The program logic from ages past will still be viable, but it will need to be written in a language that a modern chip understands. This can be done as long as the required libraries are updated to use more modern hardware, the program could remain the same, but it's a bit if a fudge because someone had to rewrite the library code to suit the platform