Re: Never throw old stuff away
If you do certifiable work for aircraft/spacecraft you have to be able to produce hardware/software for the 30+ years of service. OK, you can upgrade the LRU (Line Replaceable Unit) to a newer version that is FFF (Form, Fit and Function) compliant for new supplies, but you still have to be able to produce identical binaries for the old systems and have retained some representative hardware to test it on.
If there is a crash and the FAA, etc. come knocking on the door, they may want you to prove it did work as intended when new, or worse, make you fix a bug from 20 years back.
There are many companies with store rooms full of very old PC kit, hardware dongles, components, etc. all stored in nitrogen, just in case. Yet another reason why your military or aircraft kit cost so much more than the retail equivalent.
(I personally know someone who has to practice their core memory fixing skills for a yearly test, just in case!)
Anonymous, as I used to work for a company that threw all the old kit out during a weekend soon after a takeover. Our protestations to the new senior management once we found out were to no avail as it had all been shredded!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
