Apple ][ still used in industrial process

[superpantoufle]

Did you see that post over at TUAW?

I find it pretty impressive and really cool that a ][ is still in regular use to drive that industrial machine...

 

[bibilit]

Nice,

Not Apple related, but in one of my former jobs we got second hand IBM PS/2 series computers (a set of 3)

This was around 1994 (so these were quite old already)

I recently came back to say hello...they are still in use today, powered 7 days a week and 24 hours a day.

 

[Gary_W]

My buddy used his original Apple IIe for word processing and some accounting software right up until a cpl of years ago when the power supply failed. I replaced the power supply and he ended up giving the IIe to me.

I have upgraded it since to include Woz's signature! viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14694

Gary

 

[waynestewart]

About 7 or 8 years ago I fixed a language card for a guy. He had his businesses database on an Apple II on 13 sector disks. I don't recall the program but the guy had a special chip on the motherboard that was needed to run the program. He would have liked to upgrade but didn't have the time to enter his whole database in a new computer. I was too busy at the time to see if other software would read the files.

 

[shred]

I've come across Macintoshes used in some unusual applications.

One was used by a stone mason to drive a special stencil cutter. Basically, the text required for a tombstone would be typed up on the Mac. The cutter would cut the shapes of the letters out of a sheet of rubber. The finished stencil was then placed over a tombstone and sand blasted. Remove the stencil and "ta da" one finished tomb stone.

Another unusual one involved Macs being used to run nuclear medicine CT scanners http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computerised_tomography. The Macs were fairly high end models at the time and were networked together, so the medical specialist could sit at a Mac in his office and view the output from any one of the machines in the practice. There was a techo who specialised in looking after the medical hardware, but he sometimes liked to have a Mac specialist handy for software upgrades, which was where I came in to the picture. A very interesting application with a fascinating test/calibration procedure.

 

[olePigeon]

Well into the 2000s you could buy a Scanning Electron Microscope that came with a brand new Quadra. Probably one of the most expensive Macs ever.

 

[Twilight_Rodent]

A couple of years back there was an Apple IIe running an Electron Microscope on Ebay for sale. It would take up a whole room or two.

Not an Apple but before they closed the place I worked at used a TRS80 to run a Nitrogen producing unit for heat treat. It was controlled over the phone lines from some company in Texas.

Take Care

 

[Cosmo]

Less than a year ago we had at work, an 386 PC running 24/7 for printing stickers. Uptime must be something like since 1993 we moved to that location.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

How about OWC still running a 6100 for testing?

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/10/exploring-other-world-computings-super-green-headquarters.ars

 

[onlyonemac]

BBC Micros/Masters are still used in various control processes, such as the tellescope at Mount Wilson observatory .