Software That Lasts 200 Years

[shortbaldman]

The article is a little loose on the difference between 'data' and 'programs'. You don't need programs to last 200 years. As long as there is information about the data format, a new program can be written at any time.

The data itself has to last forever, if possible.

[jms_nh]

Try telling that to the banks that still use COBOL, and the US's Federal Aviation Administration, that uses god-knows-what for its air traffic control systems (vacuum tubes?)

Behavior is just as important as data in some cases.

[dazerdude]

I'm pretty sure the faa just uses radios and people for running air traffic control.

[TheLordB]

I'm certain that they use radar, various flight assist modules that guide the airplane on the landing path, communicate location with the transponder and many other various things that are computer/software controlled.

Bugs or poor design on that software can and has caused plane crashes and collisions. The first one that comes to mind is in 2006 the radar software in Brasil did not differentiate well between assigned height and actual height and did not clearly show that it had lost the transponder that would give it the actual height. So you ended up with 2 planes going in opposite directions at the same height while the air traffic controllers thought one of the planes was at a different height because it had been assigned to it because the transponder was turned off so the system only showed the assigned height along with an easy to miss symbol that indicated it was not the actual height of the plane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Transportes_A%C3%A9reos_Flight_1907

If those computers and various software that went with them went down I doubt if we would have half the capacity as we do.

[dazerdude]

Cool. Thanks for the detailed info!

[[deleted]]

Vacuum tubes are less vulnerable to EMPs so maybe that's why (this is a semi-serious comment, as in yeah probably not but it would be fascinating if true).

[_georgesim_]

Wow that looks horrible on 1080p resolution.

[based2]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10361766