This is such a weird take.
People are upset because their hardware is still working??
Is it better if it just stopped working one day?
People are upset because their hardware is still working??
Is it better if it just stopped working one day?
The Stago STA Compact (Max) automated coagulation analyzer.
The first version of this analyzer ran MS-DOS. It worked fine, but it was a bit difficult to use - it didn't have a mouse. There were some keyboard shortcuts, but mostly I had to use keyboard arrows and Enter/Esc to operate it.
Then there was an updated version (Max) which was basically the same analyzer with new brains: different computer inside, dual-core CPU, Windows XP instead of MS-DOS. It is much, much worse than MS-DOS version.
The database can only hold about 4-5 days worth of results. When it gets almost full, and the sample drawer is open, the internal MCUs timeout while waiting for commands from the main CPU, which gets stuck busy displaying the samples window. And there are race conditions everywhere. If I scroll the results window while the analyzer adds/updates results into it, it gets confused and shows the new results on the wrong table rows, corresponding to other patients - yes, it's that bad.
It's obvious they tried to avoid race conditions as much as possible, for example, it can't print internal control results while the analyzer is running samples, it won't open the samples drawer while running the internal control from the reactives drawer, etc. I would prefer the old MS-DOS system any time.
The system being slow and old doesn’t matter. It is running xp and airgapped. Sometimes you access the data by usb stick or burning a cd rom. The software stack it runs mainly dumps sensor data onto a flat file so its not really necessary to be very robust. And sure the ancient optiplex desktop idling all day drinks more electricity than a modern light weight chip, but that couple dollars more a week if that in electricity costs is hardly a concern in research setting.
For the people who use this old technology, life can get tedious. For four years, psychiatrist Eric Zabriskie would show up to his job at the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and start the day waiting for a computer to boot up. "I had to get to the clinic early because sometimes it would take 15 minutes just to log into the computer," Zabriskie says. "Once you're in you try to never log out. I'd hold on for dear life. It was excruciatingly slow."
..
Most VA medical facilities manage health records using a suite of tools launched by the US government in 1997 called the Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS). But it works on top of an even older system called VistA – not to be confused with the Windows Vista operating system – which first debuted in 1985 and was originally built on the operating system MS-DOS.
The VA is now on its fourth attempt to overhaul this system after a series of fits and starts that dates back almost 25 years. The current plan is to replace it with a health record system used by the US Department of Defense by 2031. "VA remains steadfast in its commitment to implementing a modernised, interoperable Federal [electronic health record] system to improve health care delivery and positively impact patient care," says VA press secretary Pete Kasperowicz. He says the system is already live at six VA sites and will be deployed at 19 out of 170 facilities by 2026.
Thank god that Windows 11 only needs about 3 minutes to boot up and 2 more to be usable after login in a corporate environment. How the times fly. /s