Skip to main content

Meet MOCAS — World’s Oldest Computer Program That’s Still In Use


cobol program
A COBOL program for representational purpose
MOCAS is the world’s oldest computer program that’s still in active use. It was launched in 1958 by the United States Department of Defense for keeping track of contracts and
payments. After 57 long years, MOCAS, pronounced “MOH-cass”, is still used to take care of the records using an IBM 2098 model E-10 mainframe.
Computers have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. We use them at work, carry their miniature versions in our pockets, use them to binge watch TV shows, and whatnot. If you’re a programmer or developer, you might be knowing more about computers and programming languages used to write its programs. Some of you might be even knowing about the first programming language for computers.
But, do you know which is the world’s oldest programming language that’s still used actively? Don’t worry, we are here to help you out.

MOCAS — Oldest Computer Program That’s Still In Use

Long back in 1958, fifty-seven years ago, the United States Department of Defense launched a computer-based contract management system. It was called Mechanization of Contract Administration Services, or MOCAS. It’s pronounced “MOH-cass”.
Written in COBOL, one of the world’s most important programming languages, MOCAS is still in use. The original interface of MOCAS was based on keycards or punchcards, according to MIT Tech Review.
In the later years, MOCAS was upgraded to work with green screen access, which is a terminal-like system that was widely used by airlines, banks, telecom companies, etc.
Over the time, new interfaces were created that were able to connect to MOCAS. This allowed it to extend its lifespan. There were efforts to create its complete replacements, which failed due to cost and complexity involved in the transition.
Today, the system manages about $1.3 billion in obligations and 340,000 contracts. It uses an IBM 2098 model E-10 mainframe. This hardware is able to perform 398 million instructions per second with the help of its 6GB RAM.
MIT Tech Review writes that MOCAS was the oldest computer program they could verify. If you believe that there are other programs that are much older, don’t forget to tell us. Also, do tell us your views and feedback.

Comments

Follow Us

WHAT'S HOT

Facebook Trying To Get Rid Of Fake, Low-Quality Live Videos

Facebook is updating its Live guidelines to limit the reach of fake and low-quality content. It's explicitly disallowing publishers from posting prerecorded videos as if they're livestreams and it also won't allow for static/looping images or livestreamed polls.

Poco F2 Pro 5G Officially Launched Globally With Snapdragon 865

After months of wait, Poco has officially launched Poco F2 Pro. The phone is a sequel to the Poco F1 which was a huge success for the company back in 2018. It is also the second Poco contender in 2020. In February, the Poco brand revealed a new phone lineup and launched Poco X2. The phone was priced at Rs 15,999 and featured similar specs of Redmi K30, a Xiaomi flagship that was launched back in 2018. The company has applied the same strategy for today’s launch. As we expected, Poco F2 Pro bundles all the specs of Redmi K30 Pro that Xiaomi launched last month. Poco F2 Pro Specifications, Availability and Price Unlike the Poco X2, the phone offers a circular camera at the back and a pop-up selfie camera at the front as opposed to the regular dual-hole punch cutout on the display of Poco X2. Poco F2 Pro comes with a 6.67-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a 92.7% screen to body ratio. On top of that, the phone has an in-display fingerprint sensor to keep up with...

Windows Subsystem For Linux Is Beta No More, Gets “Full Support” In Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

As we told you earlier, WSL on Windows 10  moved out of beta  in August. It still carries the beta tag in Windows 10 Creators Update. Also, it won’t require people to enable developer

Steps To Enable Speech Recognition On Windows 10

The accuracy of speech recognition increases through use, and the feature adapts itself to a user’s grammar, word usage, speech patterns, and vocabulary.