Aging Computer Infrastructure
Doghouse – Old Systems
As unemployment claims surge, US computer systems are straining under the increased load. In this column, maddog weighs in on COVID-19 and COBOL.
The first language I ever programmed was Fortran, and I learned to program it in 1969 by reading a book and practicing on an IBM 1130 computer that ran one job at a time and had basically no operating system. You linked the device drivers for the hardware into your program and effectively booted your program, not the operating system. Later in life, I would tell my students that we were not doing "Computer Science," but "Computer Black Magic."
Few systems were "networked," or if they were, they were dial-up networks to computers that held "bulletin boards" for exchanging programs and data. Music was on vinyl, and graphics were ASCII art printed on line printers (for the most part).
I am writing this today because of a YouTube video by Russell Brandom (https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=Ox_Wm6XQnxI), who criticized the US government for still using COBOL on certain systems. He said that these systems were not up to the huge number of unemployment claims currently being filed, whereas companies like Netflix can scale to meet the large number of demands on them "even during the coronavirus outbreak." He inferred that it was the "fault" of COBOL.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Related content
-
Tech Unemployment Half of National Average
According to Dice, the recession is over for software developers, system administrators, and other IT specialists.
-
Project Cauã: A large-scale project to reduce waste, improve computing, help solve digital inclusion and create jobs
-
Tutorials – COBOL
Despite being more than half a century old, COBOL is still in use. Explore this fascinating old-school language and see how it ticks.
-
Doghouse – Beyond Politics
No matter who the US President is or why, it's the citizens who need to understand how they can prepare for the jobs that are begging to be filled in modern economies.
-
Doghouse: Business Incubator
Neither time nor politics can stay the progress of Project Cauã.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Plasma Bigscreen Returns
A developer discovered that the Plasma Bigscreen feature had been sitting untouched, so he decided to do something about it.
-
CachyOS Now Lets Users Choose Their Shell
Imagine getting the opportunity to select which shell you want during the installation of your favorite Linux distribution. That's now a thing.
-
Wayland 1.24 Released with Fixes and New Features
Wayland continues to move forward, while X11 slowly vanishes into the shadows, and the latest release includes plenty of improvements.
-
Bugs Found in sudo
Two critical flaws allow users to gain access to root privileges.
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
LibreOffice Tested as Possible Office 365 Alternative
Another major organization has decided to test the possibility of migrating from Microsoft's Office 365 to LibreOffice.