Genii Weblog
What is your oldest executable?
Thu 12 Jun 2003, 09:52 PM
Tweetby Ben Langhinrichs
So in this rather silly thread in the R4 & 5 Gold forum, I was mentioning a product that I made long ago (read the thread if you must know, as I can't bear to repeat it) that I still use, and was wondering if it was the oldest executable I still use on a regular basis. It isn't, as it is from 1991, and I have an executable from 1989 that I still use fairly regularly. Anyway, I wondered about others. What is the oldest executable you use? Not the oldest you can find on your system, although you're perfectly free to tell me that too, but the oldest that you actually use. Older than 1989? Older the 1995? Come on folks, don't be shy.
Copyright © 2003 Genii Software Ltd.
What has been said:
17.1. Julian Robichaux (06/15/2003 07:53 PM)
Well, I think the oldest program that I actually use is from 1996 (Corel Xara, which I still have some graphics files saved in). I'll have to crank up my laptop later and see when MS Visual C++ 4.0 came out (I think around 1995?), because I still use that too.
Otherwise, taking a peek around in my closet, I've got plenty of old-looking boxes laying around. When did Borland Paradox 1.0 come out? Oh, how about Borland Turbo C++ for DOS? That's showing 1992. Not that I've used that in a long, long time.
Of course, if I started cranking up some of the old computers I have in the closet, I'm sure I'd find older than that...
You've definitely got me beat on the oldest one still in use, though.
- Julian
17.2. Ben Langhinrichs (06/15/2003 09:24 PM)
What is scary is, I have two programs from 1989 which I use regularly as part of my livelihood. When I wrote this, I was thinking of a utility called icomp.exe which is a command line comparison program to compare two files for differences. What I didn't realize is that the text editor I use every day (Vq - with Brief emulation) is also from 1989. I only use the DOS version now, but the OS/2 version is included in the directory for those rare times I use OS/2 now). Even I find it incredible that I use a program from 1989 as an integral part of my everyday development work (although I also use TextEdit as well now). Wow!