Next big things that never lived up to the hype, failed, or disappeared without a trace... What do you remember??

[ebikeerwidnes]

I retired a few years ago, but I understand your pain - it was the greatest OS ever written, and the manuals arrived on a pallet (at least in the 1980's) - every.single.thing was fully documented

Yup
We had a large cupboard full fo the manuals

A Unix expert came in one day for a meeting about something and said "That's what is wrong with VMS - too many manuals - for Unix the manul is in one book not a whole cupboard full"

Which was rather laughed at, at the time!!

I loved working on it - did some weird things on it but most of them worked
(although we did redefine the term "worked" a few times)

sad to see it go - but apparently I could still get a job on it if I wanted to - and was prepared to move to somewhere like London!

 

[Dogtrousers]

I retired a few years ago, but I understand your pain - it was the greatest OS ever written, and the manuals arrived on a pallet (at least in the 1980's) - every.single.thing was fully documented

A steam train designer could probably make themselves useful at a heritage railway.

There are probably fewer opportunities at heritage datacentres Though I don't doubt that there are some out there. somewhere.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

A steam train designer could probably make themselves useful at a heritage railway.

There are probably fewer opportunities at heritage datacentres Though I don't doubt that there are some out there. somewhere.

A lot of very big companies still have "legacy" (i.e. old) programs and system that are running using Cobol on old systems like this

The people who have been supporting them are - and have been for some time - retiring on their rather large pensions

and the companies are getting desperate for people to help them until they can get AI systems to convert them to other languages/systems

Basically - if I had taken the job I was offered in Redding when I was made redundant in 2001 then I would be far richer than I am

but I would have never met my wife

so

err


I sure there was a point to that

 

[Sharky]

A lot of very big companies still have "legacy" (i.e. old) programs and system that are running using Cobol on old systems like this

The people who have been supporting them are - and have been for some time - retiring on their rather large pensions

and the companies are getting desperate for people to help them until they can get AI systems to convert them to other languages/systems

Basically - if I had taken the job I was offered in Redding when I was made redundant in 2001 then I would be far richer than I am

but I would have never met my wife

so

err


I sure there was a point to that

Yep, I was brought up on COBOL and worked on decimalisation projects. I heard a story that, as you say, the big banks over night systems are still running COBOL. On one of their upgrades, somebody upset a "s/w switch" and their reports stated churning out figures in £SD

 

[Ming the Merciless]

A steam train designer could probably make themselves useful at a heritage railway.

There are probably fewer opportunities at heritage datacentres Though I don't doubt that there are some out there. somewhere.

It is very much alive in 2026

“COBOL, which stands for Common Business-Oriented Language, continues to power an enormous portion of the world's business infrastructure. Despite decades of predictions about its demise, COBOL systems process more transactions daily than any other technology stack on the planet.

The numbers are staggering. An estimated 95% of ATM transactions rely on COBOL code. Roughly 80% of all in-person financial transactions pass through COBOL systems at some point in the processing chain. Approximately 43% of banking systems are built on COBOL, and the language processes an estimated $3 trillion in daily commerce. There are over 220 billion lines of COBOL code in active production use worldwide.

These are not legacy systems limping along until they can be replaced. These are mission-critical applications that the modern economy depends on every single day.”

 

[stephec]

Time travel. You do not see the machines anymore.

You'll probably see one yesterday sometime in the future.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I was an expert on an OS called VOS for a few years in the 80s/90s. When I wandered off to Unix it was a different world in many respects. The level of documentation being just one aspect.

I've no idea if anyone's still running VOS anywhere. Unfortunately I'm still wasting neurons on remembering it. Which is why I can't find my reading glasses.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

SOme years ago I bumped into a lad I used to work with in Littlewoods

apparently all the credit card transactions for the whole company went through the credit card authorisation I wrote befroe I left

They had even moved it to run on more machines to increase its capacity
if they had asked I could have done that in about 10 minutes without the cost of a new computer!

Apparently the 2 lads I had worked with directly claimed to not know how it worked so couldn;t change it
Like Hell!!!
they knew exactly how it worked

Nice to see they were making the point that I should never have been made redundant!!

 

[Ming the Merciless]

You'll probably see one yesterday sometime in the future.

Well you used to see loads in the 1980s, but now…

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

When I was working in IT in the 1980s/90s lots of "the big new thing" came along and then

went

mostly very technical and better than anything else
until another company came up with a better idea

I have recently heard that OpenVMS - an operating system - is being discontinued
it was always massively better than anything Microsoft came up with
(even when then recruited the person who wrote it!!)


but marketing won out as usual

sorry - probably means naff all to most people - but VMS being kicked out means ANOTHER load of my memories, expertise and experience is now as much use as if it was based on designing new Steam Trains

I never did much under OpenVMS but did a lot of years developing in assembler (Macro-11) under RSX-11M.
Brilliant OS.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I never did much under OpenVMS but did a lot of years developing in assembler (Macro-11) under RSX-11M.
Brilliant OS.

I did some work on that
but my boss was the expert - he worked on it mostly using RatFIV
a weird pre-compiler that produced Fortran IV

they used it to control the conveyor belts in the main warehouse until the whole building was replaced
I was the second line support for it

The support instructions were
"If they have a problem ask XXX what he thinks (an ex shift leader ain the computer room - now a manger)
keep asking until he comes up with something then tell him to do that
if all else fails get them to reboot it
or switch it off and leave it powered down to 15 minutes
delay them until I get back from holiday and I'll sort it then"


Needed that a few times - worked pretty well!!!

 

[wakemalcolm]

Well you used to see loads in the 1980s, but now…

I see the lack of time travel as proof that the human race annihilated itself before it became possible.

Happy Friday everyone.

 

[Alex321]

It is very much alive in 2026

“COBOL, which stands for Common Business-Oriented Language, continues to power an enormous portion of the world's business infrastructure. Despite decades of predictions about its demise, COBOL systems process more transactions daily than any other technology stack on the planet.

The numbers are staggering. An estimated 95% of ATM transactions rely on COBOL code. Roughly 80% of all in-person financial transactions pass through COBOL systems at some point in the processing chain. Approximately 43% of banking systems are built on COBOL, and the language processes an estimated $3 trillion in daily commerce. There are over 220 billion lines of COBOL code in active production use worldwide.

These are not legacy systems limping along until they can be replaced. These are mission-critical applications that the modern economy depends on every single day.”

I remember when I was in University in 1980, where one module was on comparing computer languages. This included COBOL, and the lecturer said (roughly) "This is included here because there is still code in use, but you won't be seeing any new code written in COBOL within a few years".

I was still modifying COBOL programs in my previous job at Hoover-Candy, in 2019. In my current company we don't have any, but the company was only formed this century.

 

[Dogtrousers]

It's unsurprising that COBOL programs are still running. All you have to do is plonk a compiler in your desired environment and bingo, investment protected.

But what starred all this was @ebikeerwidnes announcing the death of an OS - OpenVMS. But I had a look at the website and it doesn't seem very dead at all. https://vmssoftware.com/ . Not necessarily thriving but not dead. It's got a roadmap and everything.

I have recently heard that OpenVMS - an operating system - is being discontinued
[ ... ]
VMS being kicked out means ANOTHER load of my memories, expertise and experience is now as much use as if it was based on designing new Steam Trains

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

It's unsurprising that COBOL programs are still running. All you have to do is plonk a compiler in your desired environment and bingo, investment protected.

But what starred all this was @ebikeerwidnes announcing the death of an OS - OpenVMS. But I had a look at the website and it doesn't seem very dead at all. https://vmssoftware.com/ . Not necessarily thriving but not dead. It's got a roadmap and everything.

Oh - I read - on a proper computer place

that "they" had said that there was no further big changes for it - they were basically just letting it carry on as is and not taking it any further

I will have to check
sometime "the media" talk rubbish!