51–60 of 85 posts
This seems relevant: http://www.pcworld.com/article/249951/if_it_aint_broke_dont_...
It covers PDP's and some home systems (eg Apple IIe) too.
Prehistorik 2 (1993) even displays a notice on startup "wow, this game still runs in 2013", blisfully unaware that it's inside DosBox on an Android tablet. So indeed, the oldest software will probably be running inside a VM.
We use DOS programs within virtual machines to process data that comes in on 1/2" tape from government sources and return it to them on DVD's. The oldest of these would be mid 80's I guess. Edit: Changed "in-virtuo" to "within virtual machines" for clarity.
PC-DOS or DOS/VS? (Intel or /360 architecture DOS)
The programs convert the ebcdic files on tape to ascii and then build a cheesy search index for other DOS based programs. It takes 2 different virtual machines, two different dos releases and 4 different programs to get it done.
The whole process is an exercise in Seuss-ian ridiculousness.
WinAmp 2, which I believe is from 1998/1999. I have a zip of the download, and just keep installing it and moving forward. I never quite made the jump to Winamp 3 and once I stopped moving forward every update to Winamp deterred me some more.
Try Foobar2000.
Over the years I have tried everything, but I like WinAmp 2.
WinAmp 2 just works great. It's no nonsense and I love the quick find (CTRL+J) on the library... search file name, path, and metadata. Which is how I need search to work, based on my file conventions as well as the metadata.
I know a lot of old pub quiz machines still running on Windows 2000.
However, the real question here is: Why are you using a piece of software that is 13 years old even though there are patches/updates for it?
Ask a mainframe shop. The back-compat date for mainframes, even just-off-the-line System Z boxes, is 1964. --edit-- I also play Commodore 64 games in emulators, and they date from the 80s, but I suspect this is not the sort of answer you're looking for.
I'm doing an internship at a mainframe shop right now. I took a look into it and the oldest macro I could find that I use semi regularly is SYS1.MACLIB(DCBD). A utility for working with data control blocks which dates back to 1977, putting it at 36 years old. There are definitely older programs on the system, but I'm not sure how often they're used.