A Microsoft Access 97 database (written in 1997) is still the "system of record" for all instrument wiring diagrams within the biotech plant. I was recently asked to review it (19 years after I wrote it) and to develop a step-by-step for how to add reports to it. To put this in perspective, this biotech is the largest in the SF Bay Area, and the plant represents roughly 1/2 of the world manufacturing capacity of this type. And its single source of truth for how things are put together is a Microsoft Access 97 database.
Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?
291–300 of 363 posts
Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?
#292I have 6809 code running under FLEX09, in my 6809 emulator, running under my XP VM, on my OS X machine. Games, diary software, editor I use to read my (really) old snail-mail records. Still works fine. This stuff is circa the late 1970's, early 1980s. I have paper tape and punch cards carrying my software from previous systems, but it's not actually in use, so... :) Lots of people are using my Flex/6809 emulator, REFLEX, which was first released in 1985 (for the Amiga) and later ported to Windows. It's still getting downloads today, and it still works fine.
Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?
#293I designed and wrote a lot of BFD in 1989-1991, and then the binutils that use it like nm, objdump (which was actually written as a way to debug BFD, but turned out to valuable in it own way), strip etc as well as some changes to the crt0 emitted by gcc. I started working on BFD before we hired anyone at Cygnus.
Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?
#294People still play the Warcraft III map I made in 2006, mostly in Russia. It relied heavily on an extension of the scripting language called vJass created by a genius eastern european hacker named Vexorian and was one of the most advanced of its type for a while. It was also ported to the DotA 2 engine, where it has millions (!) of subscribers.
Come on... Say all that and not mention the name of the map? Is this 'petrosianshina', the clone of 'Vampirism Fire'? Being russian I can only name this as something with millions of subscribers and is not dota.
It was called Pudge Wars! The DotA 2 version is here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=29683... where you can see its subscriber count (and my name cited as the originator)
Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?
#295People still play the Warcraft III map I made in 2006, mostly in Russia. It relied heavily on an extension of the scripting language called vJass created by a genius eastern european hacker named Vexorian and was one of the most advanced of its type for a while. It was also ported to the DotA 2 engine, where it has millions (!) of subscribers.
Which map if you don't mind? Curious if it's one of those I played with my friends in high school.
The map was called Pudge Wars
Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?
#296People still play the Warcraft III map I made in 2006, mostly in Russia. It relied heavily on an extension of the scripting language called vJass created by a genius eastern european hacker named Vexorian and was one of the most advanced of its type for a while. It was also ported to the DotA 2 engine, where it has millions (!) of subscribers.
Isn't Vexorian from South America? I've noticed he's often high up in the leaderboards in Google Code Jam.
Hmm, my understanding was that he was from Eastern Europe, but I could be wrong about that. I want to say it was in his location line on the wc3c forums for a while.
Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?
#297MP3 importing code for the Audacity audio editor. I wrote this in 2002. https://github.com/audacity/audacity/blob/master/src/import/... Amusingly, a TODO I put is still there: /* TODO: get rid of this by adding fixed-point support to SampleFormat. * For now, we allocate temporary float buffers to convert the fixed * point samples into something we can feed to the WaveTrack. Allocating * big blocks of data like this i…
“There's nothing more permanent than a temporary hack.” - Kyle Simpson (via @CodeWisdom)
Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?
#298I was the author of a 2002 quality assurance software written to receive images from a microscopic camera attached to a robotic arm and turn them into 3D models as part of a friend's doctorate thesis that was later sold to mercedes as a prototype.
One German engineer later noticed that it contained my copyright, located my address and subsidized me every time the system was commercially sold up until 2008. Not sure if it is still in use, but I am thankful for his sense of justice.
Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?
#299ToneLoc (a war dialer), written in 1991, last version released 1994 before going to prison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ToneLoc People still have modems???
Wow, thanks. I have many memories of using ToneLoc as a misguided youth. :)
Re: Ask HN: Oldest code you have written that is still in use?
#300Around 1989 I wrote a PC program that replaced an Epson HX20 storing injection molding machine programs on small cassettes. 2000 I got a call the molding machines had been sold and the old IBM PS/2 ditched. The new owner asked me if I still had the program. I re-mounted my old QIC streamer sleeping in a box, installed Borland Turbo Pascal in a DOS box in OS/2 and could recompile it from source. Got the same price as…
Did you adjust the asking price for inflation? ;P
Damn, I knew I missed something %-P