An anecdote about backward compatibility

I love this absolute example of old systems interfering with new systems, rewriting old systems.

My old man started his tech work on hot rods, then mechanical typewriters, calculators, eventually continuing into mainframe electronics and nearly followed all the transitions up to today’s AI.

The number of times I’ve scratched my head at a problem and he had a clear understanding of where the logic broke… based on a historical decision that could not physically be undone.

For those who don’t get it: It’s referring to the ink soaked ribbon that would print characters on a piece of paper, similar to a typewriter. This is a preceding technology to digital consoles. Also why most programming languages refer to outputting a string to stdout as “print”.

IBM is the undisputed king of backward compatibility. There is code running on mainframes right now that is going on 50 years old. Microsoft is a close #2 with windows.

I'd probably consider using IBM if it wasn't so goddamn weird and expensive. I suppose all that backward compatibility does have its downsides. Windows feels a bit weird in some places too, but at the same time it didn't start out life as a typewriter.