Hello, All!

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/14/amiga-controls-school-district-hvac/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

An '80s-era Amiga controls the heating for an entire school district

Think the Windows XP workstation you use at the office is ancient? It
doesn't hold a candle next to what the Grand Rapids Public School district
is using to control its climate systems. All 19 schools covered by the
authority depend on a nearly 30-year-old Commodore Amiga 2000 to automate
their air conditioning and heating. It communicates to the other schools
using a pokey 1,200 baud modem and a wireless radio so behind the times
that it occasionally interferes with maintenance workers' walkie talkies.
Oh, and a high school student wrote the necessary code -- if something goes
wrong, the district has to contact the now middle-aged programmer and hope
that he can fix it. It's a testament to the dependability of the Amiga in
question, but you probably wouldn't want to trust the well-being of
thousands of students to a computer that's probably older than some of the
teachers.

There's a good reason why the school district has been hanging on to this
vintage solution for so long. Replacing it with a modern system could cost
up to $2 million dollars, which isn't exactly chump change when an HVAC
controller upgrade is usually low on the priority list. There may be relief
in sight, however. If the electorate passes a $175 million bond proposal,
the district will have the cash it needs to replace its Amiga with a
computing platform that was built sometime this century.

    WBR, Alex Kovrigin 

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