If you have the skills and know how to manage MS-DOS and Windows 3.11 systems, then a job at the German Railways is waiting for you.
Last Saturday-Sunday, a different job ad appeared than the usual ones. A German railway company was looking for an IT administrator with knowledge of Windows 3.11.
Don't wake up your grandpa to apply. The ad only remained online for two days, perhaps because the candidate was probably found (?).
According to user X (formerly Twiiter) konkretor, the work was about the railway display signs that are widely used in Germany.
Do you have MS DOS and Windows 3.11 skills?
I have a job for youhttps://t.co/vcAitUnvbZ
between you and me, we are talking about the german railway display boards for almost all of germany. There are still running with legacy os. pic.twitter.com/VJJsbMcbGT— konkretor (@konkretor) January 27, 2024
The company was looking for someone to oversee machines running on 166MHz processors and 8MB of RAM, which are used to display important technical train data to their operators, in real time.
Reasonably and after the tragic accident in Tempe, one will wonder how they can rely on ancient software for vital infrastructure. It may seem like a security risk, but it is quite the opposite.
Legacy hardware and legacy operating systems have been battle-tested, and extensively explored and patched during their prime. In addition, the monitor may provide data for information only and not safety critical systems.
The same goes for software written for these platforms. It has improved to the point where it can perform its intended tasks without any problems.
Remember the law of IT engineers: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
You will now tell us that an old system can become an easy target for hackers. Old platforms are less likely to be targeted by modern cybercriminals, as learning the ins and outs of an old system doesn't make sense for a hacker since there aren't many targets to try their luck on.
A hacker will prefer to learn a new system very well as it is used by millions of users.
This is why legacy systems are still used to run mission critical systems. Some airplane manufacturers still use floppy disks to push service updates to older aircraft.
Floppy disks you will find even on the International Space Station.
