Thread

1. freeli · 1790375986 · focus · HN ↗

   A certain nuclear power plant had a Windows NT 4.0 machine running as late as 2007. The reason is interesting.

   The machine's purpose was to report status of the control rods that mitigate nuclear reactions. Basically, "are the rods inserted, and if so, how many / how far?". I want to emphasize that this was reporting only, NOT control.

   The original software was written back in the 80's, when the plant was originally commissioned, for AmigaOS. Of course, it's hard to buy Amigas anymore, and the original one died long ago (nobody remembers when).

   So in the mid '90s, the utility purchased an AmigaOS emulator that ran on Windows NT 4.0, which was current at the time. The emulator (IIRC) was developed by a firm in the UK. The firm went out of business sometime in the late '90s. The control rod monitoring software ran under this emulator on top of NT4.

   Windows NT 4.0 was the last OS to allow the emulation software direct access to the physical hardware that produced the status signal. Later versions of Windows abstracted the hardware access away, and the monitoring software broke. Because the emulation company had gone belly up, there was no way to fix the incompatibility.

   So the utility had a choice: get new hardware/software certified (by NRC?), or keep doing what they were doing with the software (and hardware) that they had. They chose the latter.

   So this is how, in 2007, during a tour of the facility, I stumbled across a Pentium 1 system running an AmigaOS emulator on Windows NT 4.0 that was responsible for displaying the status of the control rods of a nuclear power plant.

   Spare hardware for this setup was purchased off of eBay and stocked on an adjacent shelf.

   1. sajithdilshan · 1790413535 · focus · HN ↗

      This is crazy. Why on earth wouldn’t the respective government spend money to modernize a critical infrastructure like a nuclear power plant?

      This is how we would end up with nuclear disasters, not because the technology is bad, but purely because of mismanagement and human negligence.

      1. cromka · 1790416801 · focus · HN ↗

         If it's not broken, don't fix it.

         Same reason why MTA in NYC still operates subway using 100 y/o signaling hardware on most of the lines.

         In a way, your comment and the responses you get is a perfect allegory to inexperienced vs experienced engineering.

         1. jodrellblank · 1790433736 · focus · HN ↗

            But similar reasoning is why Canadian trams are worse than other countries, and it's not "good experienced engineering". In this nearly hour long rant by NotJustBikes[1] the section I've linked is about the technology and how the transit authority will not move on from 100 year old track technology which makes everything worse for customers. There are junctions where tram drivers have to stop and look at the track to make sure the junction is correctly set because the single-point switching is less reliable than modern designs. Or the driver has to stop the tram and get out to use a stick to move the track and change the junction because they aren't electrified. And then pass through junctions as slowly as 10km/h because the old track design has higher risk of derailment than modern designs.

            The designs for the electrified track switches were made by one company which was sold, re-sold, and then burned down and the designs lost, and there isn't anywhere else to buy them because nowhere else uses such old track design anymore, so not only is Toronto struggling to buy parts to continue electrifying the manual junctions, it's struggling to custom-make enough replacement parts to keep the aging electric switches working faster than they fail.

            And they were using trolley poles to connect to the overhead power lines instead of Pantographs until 2017, 50-100 years after everywhere else, which meant a) they couldn't get enough power through them to run air conditioning, and b) they are more likely to fall off the power line and the tram stops and the driver has to get out and reconnect them, and c) their newer trams now have to have custom dual-power connections to go through older parts of the network, and d) the carbon shoes on the trolley poles wear out quicker which means the trams are dirtier and taken out of service for maintenance more often in the wet which is when people want to use trams more.

            [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;HhQxNHrD6fA?t=2311" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;HhQxNHrD6fA?t=2311

            1. cromka · 1790442938 · focus · HN ↗

               OK, but the context here is IT in mission critical infrastructure, like energy or banking. These industries will not jump on the latest technology and will drag their feet for as long as possible, and for good reasons.

               Also, I happen to be familiar with NotJustBikes, watch regularly. I don&#x27;t see this as the same kind of problem. What you explained is clearly BROKE. What we&#x27;re talking about works just fine and migration to newer technology doesn&#x27;t provide advantages outside easier maintenance. It can&#x27;t be justifies by costs, either.

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