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
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.