2020s
Wisconsin opened a new claims website in 2021. The benefit rules behind it are still 1970s COBOL, and after federal grants ended in May 2025 the state wrote that it "will be unable to migrate to a cloud-based IT system."
Wisconsin DWD report to the legislature, Q2 2026
Direct File was the IRS's own free filing site. In October 2025 the Treasury announced that the IRS would suspend it. The master file underneath, written in the 1960s, carried on.
2010s
Monzo started paying salaries a day early in 2019. It can only do that because Bacs takes three days, and Monzo can "see it coming in the system."
2000s
A factory in Taiwan kept its microSD testers on Windows 2000 because of a 20-year warranty: "Updating Windows, or even installing software would void."
1990s
137 machines in our list were born in the 1990s, more than any other decade. The middle machine of all 293 was born in 1991.
Muni in San Francisco loads its subway train control from floppy disks every morning. "It was from an era that computers didn't have a hard drive," said Mariana Maguire of the agency's Train Control Project.
1980s
Card payments, email, phone signalling, the internet's addressing and Social Security's COBOL all date from the 1980s.
Kevin Huffman ran his warehouse payroll on an Apple IIe he bought in the mid-1980s. "I still use the machine because it is so simple to use, I know the software, and I can still update the tax tables manually."
1970s
A lathe from 1976 still reads punched tape, now fed by an old IBM PC through a card that pretends to be a tape reader. "The NC lathe hadn't missed a beat in 50+ years, why mess with what works?"
1960s
Bacs and the US 911 network both date from 1968. The IRS master file's code also dates from the 1960s.
In July 2025 the US government's auditor listed the 11 most critical old federal systems. They were 23 to 60 years old.
1950s
A family bought an abandoned eight-lane bowling centre in the rural Midwest for $105,000. Its Brunswick pinsetters are about 70 years old: "my 70-year-old bowling equipment (still) doesn't work perfectly."
1940s
Sparkler Filters in Conroe, Texas, ran its payroll on an IBM 402 punched-card machine, a model from 1948. "I may be the only punch card tech left," said Duwayne Lafley, who serviced it.
1930s
New York's subway still keeps most of its trains apart with fixed-block signals, some of them from the 1930s.
