Sometimes knowing the old technology is worthwhile.
One lab where I worked had a testing machine that ran on DOS and had an ancient computer hooked up to it. The IT department refused to touch the thing, so when the computer died there was much panic.

I ignored the chaos and got the computer to restart, got a floppy disc and copied the software onto it. I then used another old machine to transfer the software onto the network, set up an icon to run it in a DOS shell, and then told my boss where it was.

Four engineers in their forties couldn't figure it out. It took a lowly assistant to get the thing going again. FFS.
( Wanderer, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 16:20, 3 replies)

Yep. Old automated bed-of-nails machine for testing PCBs had an 8-inch floppy drive
when I worked at the mixing desk manufacturing company. The computerised desk testing machine was a DOS 286 with a black and white monitor. But, as they say, if it's not broken, don't try to fix it.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Thu 4 Nov 2010, 16:25, closed)

This was a color tester for checking the formula of plastic resin samples.
It was running on a 286 with a green monitor. All anyone there knew was that you put in your sample and hit Enter.

These engineers were all about my age. They had all used DOS machines when they were the state of the art. And none of them knew how to edit a batch file or how to get to the autoexec.bat file.

Overpaid twits.
( Wanderer, Thu 4 Nov 2010, 16:31, closed)

That's bad I.T. right there.

(waxdart hello., Thu 4 Nov 2010, 17:52, closed)