Technologies that Have Exceeded Their Expectations? 1037
drfunch asks: "With the recent 'passing' of Pioneer 10 after over 30 years of service, I wonder what other technologies have far exceeded expectations. One example from my own experience is my trusty HP calculator, which is still going strong after 21 years. What technologies or devices have gone far beyond your expectations?"
Voyager (Score:3, Insightful)
Homemade marijuana "hitter". (Score:4, Funny)
Voyager last forever.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Voyager (Score:5, Funny)
Well, except for 7 of 9. She wasn't flat.
Voyager Interstellar Mission (Score:3, Informative)
Voyager proves you can get bang for your buck if you plan for the long term...
Beating a Dead Horse? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Beating a Dead Horse? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Beating a Dead Horse? (Score:5, Insightful)
Washer and Dryer (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Washer and Dryer (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Washer and Dryer (Score:3, Funny)
And being a poor college kid, I've got a 20 year old car that, by the looks of it, has been through hell and back.
Re:Washer and Dryer (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Washer and Dryer (Score:5, Funny)
My parents have a toaster that they bought at a garage sale back in the 50's. It still works great. I don't think I've ever had a toaster that lasted longer than 2 years. I'm hoping to inherit it.
Re:Washer and Dryer (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Washer and Dryer (Score:4, Funny)
Outlasted Dad...
Re:Washer and Dryer (Score:5, Funny)
Also of interest is some of the food in my refrigerator. Perhaps it's not as old as the toothbrush, but it's still a wonder of archeological history.
Not Just HP! (Score:4, Interesting)
I have an FX-502p (Score:4, Interesting)
Magic Eightball (Score:5, Funny)
TV/Telephones (Score:4, Insightful)
How about COBOL? x86? (Score:3, Funny)
Or how about Intel's shitty (for now) chip design based on a great (for then) 1970's design?
Re:How about COBOL? x86? (Score:3, Informative)
Depends on what you mean by good. If you mean the Darwinian sense, then yes, it's phenomenally successful.
However, you write like a person who has never had to work under the 8086 real mode in assembly language. Here are a few things wrong with it (the whole family, over the years):
- Too few registers
- Registers have special purposes, and are
not generic enough
- Many instructions are very rarely used
- Did not have a supervisor mode (pre 386)
or MMU support
- Unbelievably lame 16-bit segmentation
- Overcomplicated memory protection (few
if any OSes take advantage of segmentation)
These are design failings that are not "in the eye of the beholder". Intel overcame the first two by going to a hidden RISCy core with many more registers, the third by implementing many rarely used instructions in microcode, the next two by essentially discarding the 8086 and 80286 architectures in going to the 80386. Intel deserves a lot of credit, but they had to work very hard to overcome these problems.Comparing it to the 68000 is left as an exercise for the reader.
Re:How about COBOL? x86? (Score:3, Insightful)
Initially, yes. However, it lasted this long because Intel worked very hard to keep it alive. If the x86 trailed, for example, the PowerPC-based Macintosh by 50% in performance, many things may be very different.
Had that not happened, x86 would be at best a footnote, along with the 65XX, Z80, etc.
The 6502 and Z-80 are not "footnotes". They deserve prominent spots in CPU history marking the beginning of personal computing and affordable gaming consoles. When the x86's time finally comes, it will also be a major milestone marking the maturing of personal computing.
old phones (Score:5, Interesting)
A friend of my younger brother was over there a few years ago and had to ask my dad how to use the phone because he'd never seen a phone without a number-pad on it. Pathetic. Times are changin and these young whipper-snappers aren't learning things that we took for granted. Like learning to read the time off of the face of a (non-digital) clock.
Anyways... back to the subject.
TV, telephones, wallclocks, pocket calculators (solar powered ones too), etc... there are a bunch of pieces of technology I use every day that have lasted beyond initial expectation.
I wish I could say the same thing about computers now-a-days. (Most are considered "old" or "out of date" within 6 months.)
Re:old phones (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh huh. And can you successfully start up a crank-started car? Ride a horse (sans saddle)? Skin an animal from stone chips you've made yourself?
Remember, just because something *used* to be a certain way, doesn't mean it can't be improved. And people aren't stupid for not learning how things aren't done anymore.
Re:old phones (Score:4, Funny)
Next time you're confronted with one, try screaming "MAN CLOCK" at it. Even it that doesn't work, somebody's bound to notice and tell you what time it is.
Re:TV/Telephones (Score:4, Insightful)
Does anyone have a quality cordless phone? (Score:3)
Wouldn't bluetooth work pretty well for household cordless phones? I can't remember if the range is good enough or not.
Every cordless I buy stinks. I've stayed away from 2.4 GHz just because I don't like it fuzzing out while someone uses the microwave and all the 900 MHz phones I buy either have crappy quality or don't answer half the time when you hit the magic "talk" button.
Does anyone have a high quality recommendation?
Unix (Score:5, Insightful)
Palm OS Devices (Score:4, Interesting)
My Apple //e still works. (Score:5, Funny)
I got it in 1983.
Not a //e but still... (Score:4, Interesting)
Wha'ts Aztec? sounds familiar. (Score:3, Informative)
Ultima III, Ultima IV, Karateka,
Deadline (I still havent beat that
damn game! INFOCOM>>>>> DAMN YOU)
Snakes (still better on the Apple
than on my phone), What was the
name of that tank game? Battlefield
or something (they remade it recently),
Bolo, and of course I have all
the Original Bard's Tales (1-3) and
the AD&D Character Creator Disk.
Those were the days..... I have
Appleworks as well but the keyboard
on the Apple
I just bought (last year) a complete
Apple IIc with the monitor, mouse,
external disk and carrying case. Sweet
deal.
What else as gone beyond the norm? (Score:4, Funny)
..my liver.
Re:What else as gone beyond the norm? (Score:3, Funny)
FAA System (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Sad, I think (Score:5, Insightful)
I just find it depressing that, as good as the ideas embodied in Unix were 30 years ago, they haven't been dramatically surpassed, perhaps two or three times, over a time span in which hardware performance has offered four or five *orders of magnitude* increase in power.
The GUI probably counts as one, but it's not as if the CLI itself has improved dramatically (except in performance), or the GUI and CLI have joined forces to dramatically increase the power of the combination. The closest you get is running a GUI to do GUI-only things and to open several simultaneous windows in which you can do 30-yr-old CLI-only things.
I guess a technology can exceed expectations by virtue of the fact that no significant improvement has occurred in years.
Re:Sad, I think (Score:5, Insightful)
Technology isn't supposed to change. It's supposed to *optimize.*
I would suggest that since it hasn't changed significantly for decades is an indication that its users, at least, consider it something near optimum.
It is the *fact* that it hasn't changed much, and your objections to this, that combined serve to prove it has exceeded expectations.
Further proof that it has exceeded expectaions can be found in the fact that your premise is essentially flawed. The developers of UNIX have since gone multiple generations beyond in development, i.e. it *has* changed over time, but the users see no particular reason to make any switch.
About the absolute worst you can say about the 30 year old technology of Unix is that "it suffices."
KFG
This is Easy... (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, wait, I dont think thats what you mean, was it...
hmm...
I know one.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Granted the main core has gone through some overhauls (Major ones include 486DX2, Pentium, P6 Core, K6, Athlon).
Seriously though, who would have thought it would hang in there for this long ?!
Re:I know one.. (Score:5, Informative)
The Internal Combustion Engine (Score:5, Insightful)
-S
Not the engine itself... (Score:4, Interesting)
Spark plugs have not changed at all in at least 60 years, as far as the OEM styles go. They have been remarkably similar since their original designs, a graphite core surrounded by a ceramic insulator surrounded by a metallic threaded ring. Amazing.
Re:The Internal Combustion Engine (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the biggest changes in internal combustion engines over the last half century are the addition of solid state electronic management and improved production methods and materials. These have rendered high end technologies like the Merlin sported practical for mass production and distribution.
Re:The Internal Combustion Engine (Score:3, Interesting)
But maybe one day when Americans have to pay real money for gas, they will start looking at producing and buying cars with higher fuel efficiency. But until then, you'll excuse me if I keep my old Pontiac.
Re:The Internal Combustion Engine (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, a modern diesel engine with direct fuel injection and regenerating particulate filter rivals or may surpass Compressed Natural Gas "clean air vehicles".
Clean Diesel [google.com] has a lot of practical promise.
In many parts of the US, electricity is principally generated using coal, natural gas, and diesel anyway, then 50-70 percent of the energy is thrown away as waste heat and of the remainder 12 percent is lost in transmission, of the remainder that makes it to your recharging station the battery cycle consumes 20 percent or so. In the end the best of all feasible electric cars is getting 40% thermal efficiency and is carrying an enormous amount of extra weight in batteries.
Clean Diesel hybrid vehicles with ozone catalysts on their radiators would do wonders for consumer adoption of more env. friendly technology, and all the technology is available TODAY.
SR-71 Blackbird (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:SR-71 Blackbird (Score:3, Funny)
I remember a documentary about it just as it was retiring describing this bird as "10,000 loose rivets flying in close formation".
DC-3 (Score:5, Interesting)
So durable that eventually the FAA gave up and declared it exempt from end-of-life regulations.
So durable that some have been flown under combat conditions with a third of the wing blown off.
The only thirty year old cargo plane ever to be reconfigured as a combat gun platform (the Dragon, a.k.a. Spooky, a.k.a. Puff the Magic Dragon)
Rebuilt as a turboprop and outperformed new aircraft.
Left abandoned in a field of snow up past the Arctic Circle for an entire winter and then, dug out from under the snow, started up, and flown home.
No longer manufactured after 1946, still in use to this day.
The one, the only, The DC-3!
Yay!
Rustin
My cell phone. (Score:3, Insightful)
Tech Life (Score:3, Insightful)
pants (Score:5, Funny)
man, am i hung over.
Re:pants (Score:3, Informative)
HTML (Score:5, Insightful)
My old windows install floppy. (Score:5, Insightful)
I used it back when my parents got their 486 (in the early 90's) for holding windows 3.11, it was an OEM release and the first time you loaded the machine it prompted you through swapping disks to copy out recovery disks.
This disk has followed me in moving about the country four times now, it's gone from alaska to oregon to new jersey to california to illinois. Currently it's a boot disk for redhat 7.1, and I use it at work several times a week.
No it's not a 20 year old calculator, but considering most claim floppy disks have two year lifespans, the fact this is STILL my most reliable floppy makes it interesting. It even has the original "Windows 3.11 disk 8" label I wrote up for it on it, scribbled out. Underneath it is written "slackware #1" and "redhat boot".
They really don't make 'em like they used to.
Another interesting one.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I exclude SVHS because it's more or less a completely different format on the same media.
Kinda crazy if you think about it.
Casio Scientific Calculator (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh and another thing - when I first started college, I bought a single Sony double-density 3.5 floppy disk. That's 12 years ago and it still works. Yes, yes, I know, floppies are obsolete... but really, I bought a box of 3.5s (figuring they'd be a lifetime supply) and I'm lucky if I get a dozen rewrites out of them. That original floppy has been overwritten literally thousands of times. What gives with that?
Trusty Old Computers... (Score:3, Informative)
The plain old wood pencil and ball point pen (Score:3, Insightful)
Other methods have more fidelity, but none have the simple human factors.
Guess I have to add paper to this list as well...
Re:The plain old wood pencil and ball point pen (Score:3, Informative)
TCP/IP (Score:3, Insightful)
The Internal Combustion Engine. (Score:3, Interesting)
Invented more than 100 years ago, it's been refined to a point where it is very reliable and reasonabally effecient (from a chemical energy perspective).
Even a modern engine is still basically the same as the Ford Model T. We've just made it more effecient.
My first car, a 1975 Buick LeSaber had an Olds 455 that sucked so much gas I needed to take out a loan to fill the tank (and gas was $.34/l). My latest car, a 2003 Mercury Marauder has a 4.6l Cobra Engine that would kick that old 455 easily. It uses 1/6 the fuel with 3/4 the displacement developing 40% more ponies, and won't need to be rebuilt as often.
Ballpoint pens (Score:4, Insightful)
How about the B-52? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ethernet (Score:5, Insightful)
The Aloha based system was not supposed to scale. The problem pointed out by IBM / TI and others were that collisons increased as the useage increased, prohibiting a steady throughput. The problem of non predictability of packages was equally mentioned.
Token ring and other methods were supposed to supplant Ethernet in a few years, back when we were at 1Mbps.
10Mbps were supposed to be the EOL for ethernet.
Where are we now? 10Gbps is getting to be deployed.
Re:Ethernet (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ethernet (Score:3, Informative)
The system were manual but the "rules" were when you heard someone else talk you had to shut up. Both parties. Then there were stocastic rules for how long you had to wait before you re-try. The stocastic manual system minimized repeated collisions. Aloha [techtarget.com]
Anything older than 20 years? (Score:3, Insightful)
Somewhat analagous to the space program, eh? Pioneer, Voyager, etc.. much more longevity than anything that gets sent up these days.
Re:Anything older than 20 years? (Score:3, Insightful)
Old stuff, durability, costs, & the space prog (Score:4, Insightful)
And the space program differences are all about cost. The Pathfinder mission (which landed on mars) was part of the Discovery series of missions, capped at $150 million. Cassini, the last of the Voyager/Pioneer-type "heavy engineering" designs cost $3.4 BILLION. Pioneer 10 cost $350 million, in 1970. Voyager 1 and 2 cost $875 million together, in 1977. (those obviously need some inflation adjustment to be fair to a 1996 mission, but even Pioneer is more than double the cost without adjustment!) Of course there's going to be a performance difference when you pay many times as much. Even so, Galileo (another old-school nasa design) cost $1.6 billion, and its main antenna never opened. Would you rather have 10 cheap missions where 8 fail, or one expensive mission that fails?
Sure, we've lost lots of recent mars missions. But all added together, they barely cost as much as some of those single probes.
Links:
pioneer cost [nasa.gov]
cassini cost [astronautix.com]
voyager cost [nasa.gov]
pathfinder cost [nasa.gov]
Unix and C ofcourse.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Games that spring to mind (Score:3, Interesting)
My jeep. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a 93 jeep with 300,000 miles on it, mostly original engine (replaced after about 400 miles. See police car below). Original transmission, and, well, basically over it's lifetime, we've put maybe 25000 dollars into it-- including buying it new and only two major technical breaks in its lifetime (transfer case and shorted computer chip), and all of the copays.
Three of the accidents were my family's fault-- Including the drunk in the truck. Cop called it her fault, but failed to give her a breathalyzer-- small town, cop didn't want to arrest his mom's friend. drunk contested, because of how she hit us, it looked like it was our fault, and no proof she was drunk. Let this be a lesson to you-- ALWAYS require a breathalyzer, even if it's obvious they're drunk, or the cop doesn't want to-- you can request it, and if the first cop won't, call 911, and say you were hit by a drunk driver.
Things that it's been hit by:
A) Big Rig
B) Police Car
C) Drunk in truck
D) New driver in new truck.
E) Idiot in el camino.
F) at least three other actionable accidents (had to have almost every panel replaced-- the roof is the one exception.
The most remarkable thing, 90% of the miles were put on within its first 5 years. After three years (180k miles), my parents stopped giving it regular maintenance("well, we're gonna sell it soon, what does it matter"), followed by not replacing the brakes. Six months later, they gave it an oil change. a year later "well, the brakes aren't getting any better".
Most of my friends received new cars on graduating HS, or before or during the first couple years of college. I got the beast because the dealer was going to give them only like 1800 trade in on it-- So my parents signed it over to me. Most of said friends have since seen their cars blow up/go kaput/stop moving.
Other than the cd player and the oil leak, there's nothing wrong with mine
Colt M1911 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Colt M1911 (Score:4, Interesting)
This is kind of a metaphysical issue. Each system is the pinnacle of its design philosophy.
The Kalashnikov is inherently rugged and tolerant of environmental variables. AK derivatives operate flawlessly in sand and water, at any temperature. Years ago I read an interview with Uziel Gal where he said that was why IMI (meaning Israel Galili and himself) chose the AK as the basis for the Galil. Israeli combat experience showed the AKs to be the only weapon to operate at or near 100% efficiency in desert combat.
The AR-15 is a totally different animal. It is a beautifully balanced and elegant design. While the AK was based on proven designs and manufacturing methods, the AR-15 was ground breaking. New materials and manufacturing techniques made it feather light, robust and easy to produce. Eugene Stoner's baby was an unbelievably efficient weapon. As you say it was more accurate than the AKs. Its ammunition was also (at the time, AKs have caught up) lighter, which meant you could carry more of it, and more destructive. The lightweight small bore cartridge also made the weapon easier to use.
Unfortunately, the AR-15s strength turned out to be its weakness. It was such a finely balanced design that the slightest change in specifications completely destroyed its functionality. This is painfully clear from the history of the M-16 in Vietnam. While the AR-15 was highly prized in that war, the "militarized" M-16 was a disaster. To the casual observer, the differences between the two weapons were trivial. The M-16 had faster twist rifling, which improved the already excellent accuracy but drastically reduced the bullet's destructiveness. The bullet retained stability after impact while the AR-15's tumbled. The M-16 had a plunger on the right side of the receiver for forcing the bolt closed when jammed with debris. Forcing a debris jammed bolt home is probably not going to solve your problem and can permanently damage the weapon. But neither of these changes explained the shocking reduction in reliability between the two designs. The AR-15's reliability had been outstanding, both in tests and in combat. The M-16 was terrible. GI's and parental complaints were so voluminous they sparked congressional hearings. What had changed? Believe it or not the cause of this unreliability, which probably killed hundreds of GIs (and wounded thousands), was a simple change in the type of gunpowder in the cartridge. Against Stoner's advice the DOD had changed from a Winchester bar powder to their standard ball powder. The higher chamber pressure and temperature, as well as the dirtier combustion, completely destroyed the functionality of the weapon. It took years of tweaking to bring the M16 back to reasonable reliability standards. The problems never occurred in testing because the Army never bothered testing the new powder. The M16 evaluation was all don with Stoner's Winchester powder.
By contrast, the AK variants can digest any ammo you cram into the magazine with roughly equal efficiency. The Russians learned there lesson during WWII when brass shortages forced them to use steel cartridge cases. If you can cram it in the chamber, the AK will fire it, eject it and load another.
The AR-15 is a fine piece of engineering. Israeli soldiers who used the Galil like it because of its balance and light weight. And for theIDF's current uses it is probably perfect. But it isn't any lighter than the AK-74 and accuracy is a secondary consideration. Reliability, durability, flexibility and quantity are more important. The Kalashnikov wins on all those counts. For most militaries I think the AK-74 is a better choice.
I also think the Browning Hi Power was a much better design than the 1911, and only twelve years newer (design not production).
$.02...blah, blah
IBM PC/AT keyboards (Score:3, Interesting)
Almost All Apple Products (Score:5, Informative)
Mars Pathfinder mission (Score:3, Interesting)
Pathfinder's lander had operated nearly three times its
design lifetime of 30 days, and the Sojourner rover operated 12 times its design lifetime of seven days.
Easy one.. Paper! (Score:5, Insightful)
and the amount of "paperless office" ideas floated,
one must say that there is still nothing like good old hardcopy.
In fact, computers have increased the amount of paper used.
A rep. for a paper-mill I once visited said that the laser printer was the best thing that ever happened to them.
Computers are great for distribution. But they've got a long way to go
if they want to beat paper at (text) presentation.
The Wright's four basic airplane controls. (Score:4, Interesting)
Throttle.
Ailerons (via "wing warping).
Elevator.
Rudder.
That basic configuration hasn't changed since Orville and Wilber used it in 1903.
Microwave (Score:5, Insightful)
When microwaves first came out, people thought of them as a new way of cooking the same old foods, quicker. Nice, but not earth-shattering. Since then, though, microwaves have spawned a whole new kind of cooking. Whole supermarket aisles are full of products that have been specially formulated to be microwave-friendly, or that wouldn't exist at all without the microwave. People's lifestyles have changed because of the microwave. If you looked around at all the gadgets in the average person's house, you'd be hard pressed to find more than a couple whose absence would be more keenly felt than the microwave...the computer, the TV, the phone. All of those were expected to be revolutionary though, so they haven't exceeded expectations as the title asks. The microwave has had a much more profound effect than expected.
C= 64 - The Commodore 64 (Score:3, Interesting)
But that's not all, the machine was hacked so much *in software* that near the end of its life in the western world hackers could display 640 x 480 (oe 640 x 400?) high resolution graphics on a chip hardwired to produce only 320 x 240 (I think those are the numbers if I recall correctly, might be 320 x 200). Hackers also broke the sprite (i.e.: high-speed moving/animated graphics blocks) barrier from 8 (or 16?) to basically an unlimited number. Hackers also figured out a way to display graphics in the "overscan" area (i.e.: the black area around the display), thus increasing even more the resolution. You can also find software-based synthesizers that could extend the number of sound voices to 6 (or 8?). There were also hacks to make it seem as if it could display hundreds of colors (as opposed to 16).
Up to this day millions are still used for all kinds of control applications (robotics, telecom, industrial, etc).
I guess we could call this machine the world's most hacked machine ever (and pretty close in second place was probably the Commodore Amiga).
Re:C= 64 - The Commodore 64 (Score:3, Informative)
Why doesn't someone make machines like this anymore? Something that could so infinitely be tinkered with? I'd sure buy one. Hell I'd buy parts for it and automate my room.
Oh, and as for old technology, my original Apple ][c is still working (the ugly fat beige one), complete with original disk drives and green monitor.
The green monitor is the neatest part, it takes a standard RCA video cable. It really freaks people out to see themselves on camera on an ancient green computer monitor, but hey, Apples have always had better graphics.
Where can I buy myself a nice C=64 these days? I'd love to own one, emulation is fun but nothing beats the real deal.
PS One more thing, if you like the C64, you might check out the SidStation [sidstation.com], a synthesizer built with the C64's SID6581 sound chip. It has been used in numerous famous songs such as Zombie Nation's "KernKraft 400" (yes, that's right, the lead in that song came from a Commadore 64's sound chip). Kind of neat, and if you're into the whole techno thing, a novelty piece of gear, especially because they're limited. From Their site:
Re:C= 64 - The Commodore 64 (Score:5, Funny)
Someone, mod this up to 3 (or 5?).
The Commodore 64 (or 66?) was definately a cool piece of hardware, but at age 12 (if I am accurately recalling my age; 14?) I had to suffer with a Tandy Color Computer 2 (or 3?).
your sample size is small (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not too impressed with durability claims when it only involves a sample size of one. Do you know anyone else who owns the same model of your calculator?
The ultimate technology. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, Kraft Mac & Cheese....
Plutonium 239 (Score:3, Funny)
GalileoSpace Probe! (Score:4, Interesting)
It became the first spacecraft to take a close up photo of an asteriod and when it reacher Jupiter in 1995, the first space craft to drop a probe into a gas giant. It's mission was to last only until 1997, but it was given a two year extension. The mission continued another three years AFTER the extension, sending its last scientific data back in November 2002 as it passed the moon Amalthea. In August of this year it will burn up in Jupiters atmosphere.
The spacecraft has operated over twice as long as expected and has taken three times the radiation it was designed for, and still it mostly works. The plunge into Jupiter is because the craft is running low on fuel and they would rather burn it up than risk having it possibly slam into Europa, contaminating it before we can check for native ba cterial life there.
While it's certainly not lasted as long as Pioneer, it has taken one hell of a beating from the intense radiation of Jupiter, the tidal stresses of orbiting the gas giant and its planet sized moons as well as flying through toxic (and possibly caustic) volcanic plumes kicked off of the surface of Io by eruptions.
So I would say that Gallileo is in fact in the same class as Pioneer when it comes to be being built tough.
USENET! (Score:3, Interesting)
It's still a little weird; may people post without having any idea what USENET is, but it still works, and is still (sort of) useful even with trolls and spam.
My vote goes to... (Score:4, Informative)
From a history of the paperclip on about.com [about.com]:
"Johan Vaaler, a Norwegian inventor with a degree in electronics, science and mathematics, invented the paperclip in 1899. He received a patent for his design from Germany in 1899, since Norway had no patent laws at that time. Johan Vaaler was an employee at a local invention office when he invented the paperclip. He received an American patent in 1901 -- patent abstract "It consists of forming same of a spring material, such as a piece of wire, that is bent to a rectangular, triangular, or otherwise shaped hoop, the end parts of which wire piece form members or tongues lying side by side in contrary directions." Johan Vaaler was the first person to patent a paperclip design, although other unpatented designs might have existed first."
Over 100 years old and still going strong...
Of Course, the Internet (Score:3, Insightful)
Who woulda thunkit.
Shuttle software (Score:5, Insightful)
The Great Wall of China (Score:5, Interesting)
So with that in mind, I nominate the Great Wall of China, still standing after all these years. I think it qualifies whereas things like the Pyramids don't, in that they never served any real function. I bet the wall would still work pretty well today, if there was a war. Not perfect, but good.
If the goal was to pick classes of technologies, I think most of the responses here are exceptionally shortsighted. I think sail technology, the steam engine and the wheel had a lot more staying power, and who knew?
I think there are some good specific examples. Any real old bridges out there? Panama Canal is great, 'course it was designed to last a long time. I bet there are some irrigation ditches somewhere that were dug thousands of years ago, and still work. Stepped hillsides fall into that category, too. Most people who built them probably paid no heed to them lasting longer.
Pioneer is unique, because there was really no way to maintain it, and it was a 1 (or 2) shot deal. Those HP calcs are fine, but have more than 10% lasted this long? I'd love t hear about some scarecrow that's been scaring away crows for 200 years without a person laying his hands on it. What's the longest any manufactured item has lasted (and remained useful) for without human intervention? Kudos to the winner.
Re:As a tech support person... (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember when I was working as a summer intern doing desktop support for a rather large construction & engineering company. I was tagging along with a full-timer, and we walked into a rather large office where the guy I was with remarked "Heh-heh, you're gonna love this guy..stupid fool needed help defragging his HD".
Then I noticed on the wall he had a PHD in physics. Kind of humbled me right there and I realized he could probably learn my job in a month, where as I probably couldn't do his in a million years.
Re:As a tech support person... (Score:5, Funny)
I once knew a Ph.D. who called saying that his "CD-ROM" drive wasn't working right and that it messed up his CD. No problem, I'll be over shortly to check it out. Then, I got to thinking, "He doesn't have a CD-ROM drive!!!"
Sure enough, the guy tried to put a CD in a 5 1/4" Floppy Drive. The drive actually tried to read the CD! It messed up his CD and the drive! I couldn't decide if I should smack him or just laugh until I couldn't breathe.
OH, BUT IT GETS BETTER!
His Ph.D. was in Computer Science!!! I kid you not!!!
The man was just too smart to get out of the RAIN and had the common sense of a rock.
Re:Not everyone can do every job (Score:5, Insightful)
Defragging a HD is not an obvious concept. Hell, on a decently designed system, one should never have to invoke a defragger!
But it doesn't seem to occur to everyone here, than most physics PhD's never use windows. Why use windows when you can use UNIX? The guy has probably used UNIX all his academic life, simply because that is what we use in academia. So he uses a Windows box for the first time, and hasn't heard of defragging or know how to do it. Big deal.
Re:The 3.5" Floppy (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Paper Products (Score:3, Insightful)
I work at an engineering consultant office doing HV/P/E work. We got a laser-plotter a few years ago... want to check the drawings? Plot out a set. Only takes about 5 seconds per sheet (30" by 42"). After marking it up with highlighters and colored pens, there's a good chance the whole set will be plotted again with the changes we made.
Usually between 10 and 20 sheets for a job, sometimes as many as 80 sheets.
Before the laser plotter, we had an inkjet plotter. It would take nearly 10 minutes to plot out a single sheet on that thing! Corrections were done by printing out portions of the drawings on letter paper. You better believe we're going through a lot more paper now!
Especially when there's an obvious mistake. "Oh crap. Guess I'll have to reprint it..." *click click* *another 12 square feet of paper wasted*
=Smidge=
Re:How about.. (Score:3, Funny)