Reviving ancient code

phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org
Sat Jun 27 20:08:40 UTC 2009


Back in the early 90's, I worked with ROM staff to refurbish the solar
telescope in the McLaughlin Planetarium. (You can still see the shaft
poking out of the roof in the south east corner of the building). When the
planetarium was closed, the solar telescope was sold and disappeared from
view.

A week ago I received a query from the Boonshoft Museum of Dayton Ohio.
They had purchased the hardware and it had sat around for a long, long
time. The hard drive in the original computer was DOA, so they asked if I
had the original computer programs. I did, in my basement archives, and
sent them off. By my count, the Turbo Pascal code and the 68HC11 assembly
language sat in my basement on 3.5 inch floppies, for 17 years before
someone needed them again.

They tell me that the solar telescope is now partially operational and
undergoing commissioning.

Anyone else have stories of having to retrieve code from a dusty archive?
Can you beat the 17 year interval? ;).

Peter


-- 
Peter Hiscocks
Syscomp Electronic Design Limited, Toronto
http://www.syscompdesign.com
USB Oscilloscope and Waveform Generator
647-839-0325

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