Since we write for a tech magazine, our eyes are always on the future. But in the real world, sometimes the past has a pretty firm grip. As computer companies constantly push out the latest and greatest hardware and software, consumers struggle to keep up with the times.
We all know how much of a pain it is to upgrade the operating system on your computer. Pair that with the fact that much of the software run by big organizations is purpose-built for them and there's no guarantee that it will even work on a more modern machine. The bigger an organization, the more risk-averse they tend to be as well, and you can't blame them for holding back on upgrades for fear that they might jeopardize business.
The end result is that companies and agencies all around the world are using some shockingly obsolete systems to handle incredibly important tasks. Come with us as we unearth the ancient machines that run some of the world's biggest organizations.
Department Of Defense
Nuclear missiles are the most powerful weapon ever invented by human hands, so you'd think that the military would keep them as technologically up to date as possible, right? Not so fast, buddy. As revealed on a recent episode of 60 Minutes, the launch controller for the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles is a computer so old, it still reads data off 8-inch floppy disks. Introduced commercially in 1971, those floppies were obsolete by the end of the 1980s. Although they're pretty hacker-proof, the problem is that the magnetic charge that keeps the data on the disk is slowly dissipating, meaning when they're gone, they're gone and we can't launch our missiles.
Office of Personnel Management
One of the most vital reasons we need to keep technology up to date is the growing threat of information warfare. Hackers from China and other nations are becoming increasingly adept at penetrating sensitive systems and absconding with information, and when they got into the Office of Personnel Management's files in 2014 they took home the birth dates, Social Security numbers, medical records, and more from thousands of government employees and contractors. Here's the rub: none of those files were encrypted, because the OPM's legacy computers weren't modern enough to handle the task.
Orly Airport
If you're reading this on a Windows laptop, chances are you've upgraded to Windows 10. Okay, maybe Windows 8, or even Windows 7? Whatever you may have, it's no doubt more current than the system that air traffic controllers use to tell pilots about weather conditions at Paris's Orly Airport: Windows 3.1. That's not a typo - these flight-critical systems use an operating system that came out in 1992. When the machines went down in November 2015, planes were grounded while the airport had to find an IT guy who could deal with computers that ancient.
Secret Service
Protecting the President and other high-ranking US dignitaries involves a lot of information analysis. So what kind of computer does the Secret Service use to store case files? A rickety old mainframe from the 1980s, according to former Sen. Joe Lieberman. In a 2010 review of the agency's technology, it was revealed that the system is only online 60 percent of the time due to the age of the hardware. The mainframe, which was built by IBM, runs 42 "mission-oriented applications," but not terrifically well. After the report came out, the Secret Service committed to replacing the aging machines but we're not sure if it ever happened. (Image)
Department of Transportation
Moving and storing hazardous materials is a pretty sensitive job, so you'd think the government would keep the technology that tracks them up to date, right? Sorry, nope. The Hazardous Materials Information System (HMIS) that the DoT uses to keep track of accidents involving potentially dangerous substances is a relic of the mid-1990s, using Microsoft's .NET framework and ASP page serving. The organization has committed to replacing the software by 2018, but we'll see if that happens. (Image)
Internal Revenue Service
There are few government agencies as disliked as the IRS, especially in April of every year. But all the money we're paying in taxes sure isn't going to make its computers any better. In 2015, the agency announced that its software was dangerously out of date, revealing that some systems dated back to the Kennedy administration. Several of the IRS's custom software applications are written in COBOL, a language invented in 1959. Because the agency needs to maintain continuity, it has been upgrading and patching its systems instead of replacing them, and the end result is a Frankenstein of ancient, barely working code.
New York City Subways
If you've ever wondered why New York's subway trains never seem to run on time, it's because much of the technology that manages the lines goes all the way back to the 1930s. On many of the city's lines, dispatchers track the movements of trains with a massive light board, recording positions by hand with a pencil and paper and manually operating a system of relays to switch tracks and turn lights on and off. The machinery is incredibly difficult to maintain, and when something breaks, a replacement part often has to be machined from scratch. The city has pledged to transition away from the prehistoric system as quickly as it can.
Copyright Office
The US Copyright Office performs a vital task in America's creative economy, letting artists, writers, filmmakers, and others protect their work from exploitation by others. But the actual process of submitting a creative work for copyright protection revolves around technology that has been obsolete for a decade or more. Have a newspaper or other publication? You need to send it in on microfiche. Movie or TV show? They only accept Beta videotapes. To make matters worse, all of the filings are on paper and don't exist in electronic form, making searching them an absolute nightmare.
NASA
Historically, the space program has been one of the things pushing technological advancement forward. Leaving this planet is going to take the best and most powerful science we've got, right? Well, NASA's new Orion spacecraft, which is designed to take humans farther into space than ever, runs on hardware that's about as powerful as your iPhone. The flight controller for the Orion is a 12-year-old Honeywell International Inc. flight computer that has been bulked up with additional shielding and radiation protection. NASA is sticking with it because, although it lacks power, it's still incredibly reliable.
Veteran's Administration
The VA has been the subject of a lot of criticism in recent years for the often poor job it does in keeping our veterans healthy. One major cause of that is insanely outdated software. VistA is a command-line interface based on MS-DOS, the precursor to Windows that went out of use decades ago. The manual for VistA is a staggering 500 pages long, and there is very little online help available, so even simple tasks like scheduling an appointment take multiple steps and several different people to handle. Even the way it keeps track of patients - by initial and four digits of their Social Security number - can lead to massive screw-ups.