# Professions that still embrace archaic technology **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 19, 2009, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926 "2009-05-19T03:14:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/41 "2009-05-19T16:58:33Z")
[QUOTE=F. U. Shakespeare] I’ve never worked in banking, but this agrees with what I have heard. I well remember the late 1990s, when kids graduating with computer science degrees were reportedly getting hired by the banks at $80k and up, if they knew how to fix Y2K bugs in existing COBOL code. [/QUOTE] It’s gotten worse since then - we’ve taken to hiring promising people and training them in COBOL, ACF2 and RACF ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/42 "2009-05-19T17:04:02Z")
> [@Claire\_Beauchamp](#): > > WP isn’t _archaic_ – it’s just not as popular as it once was. For many years WP was far superior to Word, and there are things that it simply does better than Word, still. WP “thinks” differently from Word, and for those who learned it early and well, transitioning to Word is painful and, to them, a step down. WP perfected tools that are useful to preparation of law documents and Word played lagging catch up for a long time. I still prefer the way that WP does labels to the way that Word does them. I agree with this - I only use WP for my documents. In particular, it has Reveal Codes - Word simply does not provide that function. I often work to deadline for court filings, and if something goes wonky in WP, I just open Reveal Codes and can fix it easily. When something like that has happened in Word, I’ve often had two or three secretaries gathered around, trying to figure out where the styling has gone wonky, and more than once the solution has been to delete entire paragraphs and re-type. When I’ve got to get something filed by 4 p.m., that’s not an option! So from my perspective, Word is the inferior product that has never caught up to WP. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/43 "2009-05-19T17:20:17Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Militaries worldwide are still using firearms technology that hasn’t progressed in quite some time. Metallic cartridges date to the mid-19th century. Smokeless powder to the late 19th century. Belt-fed machine guns are only slightly newer than smokeless powder. The “assault rifles” issued by virtually all nations are all variations on an idea and technology dating to the 1930’s. Electricity is old, too, but that doesn’t make the iPod archaic. A C7A2 is way more advanced than a late 19th century rifle, even if it uses cartridges, smokeless powder, etc. * * * Agreed, by the way, on the remarkable continued existence of clunky old AS/400 systems. I never fail to be amazed at the number of my customers who still use it. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/44 "2009-05-19T17:37:56Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > [QUOTE=elmwood] > > Lawyers and those in the legal field prefer WordPerfect to Microsoft Word. Huh? This is like calling someone old fashioned for driving a Chevy instead of a Ford. [/QUOTE] To me, it seems more like calling someone old-fashioned for driving riding a horse that is well-behaved, obedient, swift-footed, sure-footed, tireless, and intelligent rather than riding a horse that continually tries to buck you off its back and then kick you to death. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/45 "2009-05-19T17:42:32Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Electricity is old, too, but that doesn’t make the iPod archaic. A C7A2 is way more advanced than a late 19th century rifle, even if it uses cartridges, smokeless powder, etc. The only thing more advanced than ca.1959 about that rifle is the optical sight with which it is often issued. Autoloading rifles appeared early on after the development of smokeless powder. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/46 "2009-05-19T18:14:14Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > [QUOTE=ftg] > > [Quote=elmwood] > > Lawyers and those in the legal field prefer WordPerfect to Microsoft Word. Huh? This is like calling someone old fashioned for driving a Chevy instead of a Ford. [/QUOTE] To me, it seems more like calling someone old-fashioned for driving riding a horse that is well-behaved, obedient, swift-footed, sure-footed, tireless, and intelligent rather than riding a horse that continually tries to buck you off its back and then kick you to death. [/QUOTE] Okay, you may be evil, but you’re _good_ evil! ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/47 "2009-05-19T18:23:48Z")
Theatre and film scenic designers are a mixed bag; it’s still not unusual for designers to do drafting by hand, even among younger designers. It’s such a ephemeral and quick-draw (pun intended) process compared to architecture that it sometimes makes more sense to do some drafting by hand, on location, especially if there’s no large printer available to print out drafting. ---
**Author:** ![PhiloVance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e19adc/32.png) [@PhiloVance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhiloVance)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/48 "2009-05-19T18:39:11Z")
> [@](#): > > but it’s all driven by hulking old mainframes and grotty old Tandem systems. Careful, **gotpasswords** I work in mainframes. IBM has changed the name of them now, they’re called ‘servers’ or better yet ‘eservers’. The one I work on is an ‘IBM 2086 eserver’ and it is about the size of a small refrigerator. Hardly old technology, probably faster with more functionality than anything on the market today. You can run _any_ operating system in the various logical partitions (LPARS). We happen to run IBM z/OS. ---
**Author:** ![emmaliminal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emmaliminal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emmaliminal)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/49 "2009-05-19T18:48:51Z")
In publishing, as a copyeditor, I was required to use a specific brand and shade of colored pencil (Col-Erase Carmine Red, if you’re interested) to correct paper proofs until I got promoted out of copyediting in 2004. I think the copyeditors have gone completely over to PDF markup now, but I’m not sure; copyeditors are themselves another archaic technology, apparently, and there’s about 1 in 5 left compared to when I started, so I rarely see one to ask. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/50 "2009-05-19T19:18:56Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > . . . When something like that has happened in Word, I’ve often had two or three secretaries gathered around, trying to figure out where the styling has gone wonky, and more than once the solution has been to delete entire paragraphs and re-type. When I’ve got to get something filed by 4 p.m., that’s not an option! > > So from my perspective, Word is the inferior product that has never caught up to WP. I’m a legal secretary, and I’m in complete agreement. WP was intuitive and tailored to the law profession’s particular needs. Word, however, was what came with our clients’ computers and was the application they started to use. After awhile, it was either conform to our clients’ crappy software or stick with our better software. They won, and most law firms have switched to Word. Poop. A similar war is starting to brew between using the awesome Deltaview application for “redlining” documents vs. the crappy “track changes” function which comes with Word. Why do I think Word and track changes will win? ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/51 "2009-05-19T19:30:03Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > In my (very limited) experience, I haven’t seen a government or nonprofit office running on wordperfect. The US DOJ uses WP. My agency uses Word, but I draft docs for Justice every day. So I have to use both. I’m not sure I’d call either beter than the other - they are just different. But I’m a pretty low end user; I ignore most of the bells and whistles. Reveal codes is nice, tho. ---
**Author:** ![nivlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3bc359/32.png) [@nivlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nivlac)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/52 "2009-05-19T19:35:21Z")
> [@chaoticbear](#): > > Retail inventory management systems - at least at Wal-Mart, everything done on a computer is still a black and green mess of F3 and F12. For the most part, true, except it’s not necessarily a backwards or archaic thing. If you have actually talked or worked with the users of such older user interfaces (and that’s what we’re talking about since the underlying technology can be quite up to date), you will discover that these users can be incredibly fast and productive in navigating around the application using function keys. I was quite astounded and impressed when I first observed that. In inventory management you have to quickly identify problems (shortages, overstocks, bad forecasts, late shipments, unexpected sales trends), prioritize the problems, access information for deciding what to do, and act. Sometimes having a lot of windows popping up, tabs, breadcrumbs, etc. are not all that helpful for getting one’s job done. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/53 "2009-05-19T19:41:22Z")
[QUOTE=PhiloVance] The one I work on is an ‘IBM 2086 eserver’ and it is about the size of a small refrigerator. [/QUOTE] Awww, what a cute widdle computer! 😛 At the moment, most of our big iron is well, bigger. Each datacenter has a dozen or so 2094 System z9 processors plus tape silos and DASD arrays, and there’s a move to upgrade some of them to the z10. Certainly none of these are archaic. It’s just the concept of “mainframe” that people think is antiquated until they try to rev up a Windows server to handle four million financial transactions per second and find there’s more to it that how many GHz their Pentium can run at. ---
**Author:** ![Elysium](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@Elysium](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elysium)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/54 "2009-05-19T20:04:48Z")
> [@emmaliminal](#): > > In publishing, as a copyeditor, I was required to use a specific brand and shade of colored pencil (Col-Erase Carmine Red, if you’re interested) to correct paper proofs until I got promoted out of copyediting in 2004. I think the copyeditors have gone completely over to PDF markup now, but I’m not sure; copyeditors are themselves another archaic technology, apparently, and there’s about 1 in 5 left compared to when I started, so I rarely see one to ask. In my company we don’t do hard-copy edits any longer. We have them markup the manuscripts electronically for both the copy editing and the proofreading. I hate hard copy editing. We try to avoid that as much as possible, and I recently got my LAST holdout freelancer to switch over to using Acrobat instead of mailing me her edits. So much quicker! Faxes are another bane of my existence. We are working with our lawyers to formulate an e-signature for all of our copyright transfers, but it’s taking some time. I can’t wait until I don;t have to handle any paper during the production process. ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/55 "2009-05-19T20:08:30Z")
> [@Sound Mind](#): > > Up until about 10 years ago ( when I left the business, may still be true ) theatre professionals had a inordinate fondness for analog clocks backstage and consistently rejected digital clocks in favor of these. I learned to tell time on an analog clock, I prefer it too. But, I’ve gotten used to digital clocks. These days I don’t care much what time it is anyways. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Reloy3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c68b51/32.png) [@Reloy3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reloy3)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/56 "2009-05-19T20:38:02Z")
Cowboys and ranchers ---
**Author:** ![PhiloVance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e19adc/32.png) [@PhiloVance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhiloVance)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/57 "2009-05-19T21:55:47Z")
> [@Reloy3](#): > > Cowboys and ranchers Cowboys? Ranchers? 😕 State your outdated technology as I will not pretend to know. ---
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/58 "2009-05-20T13:51:22Z")
> [@nivlac](#): > > For the most part, true, except it’s not necessarily a backwards or archaic thing. If you have actually talked or worked with the users of such older user interfaces (and that’s what we’re talking about since the underlying technology can be quite up to date), you will discover that these users can be incredibly fast and productive in navigating around the application using function keys. I was quite astounded and impressed when I first observed that. In inventory management you have to quickly identify problems (shortages, overstocks, bad forecasts, late shipments, unexpected sales trends), prioritize the problems, access information for deciding what to do, and act. Sometimes having a lot of windows popping up, tabs, breadcrumbs, etc. are not all that helpful for getting one’s job done. Well, that’s also true, and our pharmacy software at least is in color, but relies on the same F-keys. Well, you don’t HAVE to use them, but I could rattle off what all of them are, since they do make the work more efficient. And there’s also the Alt+ shortcuts I use, and Ctrl+Shift+ ones. I ignore the Ctrl-shortcuts, mostly. I use my mouse far less than the other guys at work 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/59 "2009-05-20T18:50:42Z")
> [@PhiloVance](#): > > Careful, **gotpasswords** I work in mainframes. > The one I work on is an ‘IBM 2086 eserver’ and it is about the size of a small refrigerator. So four of them would be the equivalent of an 8086 IBM? ---
**Author:** ![Caractacus\_Pott](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@Caractacus\_Pott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caractacus_Pott)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926/60 "2009-05-20T20:53:27Z")
An addition to the banks already mentioned. I watched our shiny new-ish NCR flat screen color ATM cold boot. It booted into, yes, OS/2 Warp. I thought IBM had stopped supporting that a decade ago. It turns out they only stopped actively selling it back then but only a few years ago discontinued support. Before anyone jumps on me, I liked OS/2, I worked with one of its programmers but, damn, except for banking, everyone has moved to Windows or Linux/Unix. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-that-still-embrace-archaic-technology/496926.md?page=2)