Oh, those kinds of columns. I thought we were talking text columns, and I was about to relate.
I work at a small business. Despite computer software being about the literal opposite of our business (plants), the founder built an entire suite of interconnected tools that runs off MS BASIC for Xenix, on a single HP machine running SCO OpenServer. The machine has so many customizations, self-scheduling cron/at jobs, odd nooks for files, weird tweaked programs, and special conventions that if a server with a dedicated hostname qualifies as a pet (as opposed to cattle), I'd be THIS THING'S pet.
The system handled EVERYTHING. Accounting, payroll, pesticide management, inventory, attendance, business contacts, shipping label printing... all out of a bunch of terminal menus (which are actually text files with control codes that get `cat`ed out).
But by God, the most horrifying part of it all are those BASIC files. They're IMPENETRABLE.
Firstly, I don't believe this version of BASIC supports named functions or subroutines. At all. But that's fine. MS BASIC being what it is, the interpreter only can deal with a certain number of characters per logical line, and that includes data definitions.
This version of BASIC (like so many others) includes its own serialization format and record/file access scheme. You declare the layout of the data file you want, open that file, and BASIC will handle (most of) the rest.
So when the founder started hitting the internal line limit while defining the data file's fields, he would cut the names of the fields down to fit more on that one line. Over time `30 AS EMPLOYEENAME` became `30ASEMPLNAME`, which became `30ASEMNAME` which became `30ASAF(1)`.
Every cent we transact, and every employee's timecards still flow through this old system, some even using bona fide Wyse terminals. To reiterate, this man was, first and foremost, a farmer. His contraption is terrifying, but commands immense respect. It's lasted 30-some years with continuous tweaking and refining, and we still have yet to replicate even half of its functionality. (Though there are other organizational issues that are making that difficult.)
On a personal note, aside from the calcified codebase and occasional spelling errors, it's a stellar business application. It's fast, mostly coherent, and keyboard-driven in such a way that experienced employees can navigate it faster than the terminal can refresh. We've been working for years to replace it, but at the same time, there's a lot our newfangled Angular+PHP+MySQL replacement could learn from it.
In consumer banking, there is a pretty popular software called Finacle developed by Infosys. It was originally a TUI called Bancs2000 and was written in C and Pro*C. It could basically accept input as fast as one could type. With a few months experience, you would be blazing fast. Then they replaced it with a web based component and called it Finacle - and everyone hated it at first. The replacement wasn't particularly slow by standards of a web based component, just that the users were spoiled by the combination of muscle memory supported by TUI speed.
I work at a small business. Despite computer software being about the literal opposite of our business (plants), the founder built an entire suite of interconnected tools that runs off MS BASIC for Xenix, on a single HP machine running SCO OpenServer. The machine has so many customizations, self-scheduling cron/at jobs, odd nooks for files, weird tweaked programs, and special conventions that if a server with a dedicated hostname qualifies as a pet (as opposed to cattle), I'd be THIS THING'S pet.
The system handled EVERYTHING. Accounting, payroll, pesticide management, inventory, attendance, business contacts, shipping label printing... all out of a bunch of terminal menus (which are actually text files with control codes that get `cat`ed out).
But by God, the most horrifying part of it all are those BASIC files. They're IMPENETRABLE.
Firstly, I don't believe this version of BASIC supports named functions or subroutines. At all. But that's fine. MS BASIC being what it is, the interpreter only can deal with a certain number of characters per logical line, and that includes data definitions.
This version of BASIC (like so many others) includes its own serialization format and record/file access scheme. You declare the layout of the data file you want, open that file, and BASIC will handle (most of) the rest.
So when the founder started hitting the internal line limit while defining the data file's fields, he would cut the names of the fields down to fit more on that one line. Over time `30 AS EMPLOYEENAME` became `30ASEMPLNAME`, which became `30ASEMNAME` which became `30ASAF(1)`.
Every cent we transact, and every employee's timecards still flow through this old system, some even using bona fide Wyse terminals. To reiterate, this man was, first and foremost, a farmer. His contraption is terrifying, but commands immense respect. It's lasted 30-some years with continuous tweaking and refining, and we still have yet to replicate even half of its functionality. (Though there are other organizational issues that are making that difficult.)
On a personal note, aside from the calcified codebase and occasional spelling errors, it's a stellar business application. It's fast, mostly coherent, and keyboard-driven in such a way that experienced employees can navigate it faster than the terminal can refresh. We've been working for years to replace it, but at the same time, there's a lot our newfangled Angular+PHP+MySQL replacement could learn from it.