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Interesting Mac Day
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Andrew Stephens
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May 16, 2009, 04:02 AM
 
I spent Friday afternoon on a call out at a local engineering company. OK I thought so they use Macs in the office. But it turns out that they had a couple of very large computer controlled cutting machines which were controlled by Macs and one wasn't working.

So we opened up the control station to find inside, a Mac IIcx, running system 6. It seems that the control software for these machines only runs on System 6.

I never thought I would have to engage System 6 troubleshooting again in my life, but there you are.

After much fiddling we tracked the fault down to the motherboard on the IIcx so now we are tracking down another cx to replace it.

While we were working I was taken by how fast 6 booted. From turn on to running was easily under 10 seconds. I know 6 is far far simpler than a modern OS but boy those short boot times make trouble shooting much less frustrating. I'm now longing for an SSD for my powerbook to try to emulate some of that speed.

So, anyway. It was interesting to see that such a vintage version of the OS is still in use, and infact these machines are pretty common in engineering shops so there are more of these old Macs in daily use than you might have thought. I'll be hoovering some up on ebay to act as part storage as there are a dozen or so local firms with these machines.
     
Spheric Harlot
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May 16, 2009, 04:11 AM
 
The amazing thing is that this box has been running for TWENTY YEARS, obviously without any major faults.

     
olePigeon
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May 16, 2009, 04:16 AM
 
I can tell you why.

CAM software is expensive. Most of the software is proprietary and only works with a particular vendor's product. You'll see a lot of those machines running DOS, old Linux, or System 7/6 machines. There are a few reasons for this. One, of course, is that if it isn't broken, why fix it? Most of the designs are done on other machines, then you copy an EPS or DXF to the host machine and have it run the plots. Second, the company went out of business. Since their software is the only software that works, there's no possibility on upgrading the software to work with your $25,000 machine. Third, the company is still in business, but since they hold a virtual monopoly over your equipment, they charge you a ton of money for the software. From my experience, it's often really buggy and doesn't work very well.

Still really cool to see an older machine like that running.
"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
     
Andrew Stephens  (op)
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May 16, 2009, 04:23 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
The amazing thing is that this box has been running for TWENTY YEARS, obviously without any major faults.

This is true. The machine has been in daily use in an industrial environment for 20 years. we thought it needed a new power supply but it was the motherboard. Still it's a good operational record.

There newer machine has a 7300 running System 7.

The control software is tied directly to the model of cutting machine so it's never updated once the machine is designed and once the machine is superceded that's it. Since these machines cost so much they are expected to have long productive lives, so the controlling Macs have to last as long as the machine.

Still strange to think that the continued operation of a £30,000 machine relies on a £20 Mac (well it cost £4000 back when it was new).
     
macforray
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May 16, 2009, 08:11 PM
 
We just had our oldest Strippet CNC Sheetmetal Punch Press rebuilt a couple of months ago. The reason for the rebuild was entirely mechanical, but because the manufacturer no longer supported the System 7 OS, (or Mac), they put a new PC in with XP. The System 7 (not sure of what hardware) never gave us any problems in all the years (?) we had it.
macforray
     
OreoCookie
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May 17, 2009, 11:28 AM
 
While not running on a Mac, a friend of mine works on a Windows 98SE (or ME, not sure) PC which controls a €500k electron microscope. They cannot upgrade to anything based on the NT kernel, because the software doesn't work on it
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
cwkmacuser
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May 17, 2009, 11:31 AM
 
I know 98 is unstable. I used to use it for computer games that I had to use on Windows. It was just horrible. Is Mac OS 6 stable, or does it crash a lot?
Chris K.
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Don't hold me accountable for jokes-I have a lousy sense of humor!
     
Spheric Harlot
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May 17, 2009, 12:07 PM
 
System 6 (not "Mac OS 6" - they didn't start calling it "Mac OS" until v. 8) was great.

Extremely limited (we're talking 1988 here, not 1998), but very light and nimble.
     
Railroader
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May 17, 2009, 07:49 PM
 
We had some equipment at the last manufacturing facility I worked at that ran on vacuum tubes. And one of the milling machines ran with a card punch. Both were still used every day.
     
seanc
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May 17, 2009, 08:03 PM
 
I know of some machines used for 'printing circuit boards' that have software which runs on nothing other than Windows 98 - at least they built those with Mini ITX systems.
     
Railroader
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May 17, 2009, 08:06 PM
 
They also had some machines running IBM OS/2 where I last worked. Actually, everything was run on some pretty old stuff.

Out of thousands of computers there was a single Mac, and it ran OS 8. I was a quality inspection machine.
     
cwkmacuser
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May 17, 2009, 08:10 PM
 
Hey, my dad still uses OS/2!

However, I am trying to convince him to switch to mac one of these days.
Chris K.
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Don't hold me accountable for jokes-I have a lousy sense of humor!
     
   
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