Deutsche Bahn is hiring a Windows 3.11 administrator
IT Home reported on January 29 that just last weekend, a German railway company released a job posting, and the position is - Windows 3.11 system administrator. That's right, you read that right, it's the same old operating system that was born in 1992 and has long since been discontinued by Microsoft. MS-DOS experience is preferred in addition to proficiency in operating Windows for Workgroups on a 30-year-old system. What's even more surprising is that the system that needs to be maintained for this job is still stuck in the era of 166MHz processors and 8MB of memory.
At first glance, it is worrying that modern railways are still using such an ancient system. But for mission-critical systems, the "don't fix it if it's ainto" philosophy tends to prevail. Security expert Konkretor explained on Twitter that the recruitment company is responsible for the operation of "almost all railway display panels in Germany", systems that apparently rely in part on aging MS-DOS and Windows 3.11 applications.
IT House noted that the job postings have now been taken down, but the content mentions that the new employees will maintain and update these aging systems, which are still critical to railway operations. More specifically, these software are responsible for "high-speed train and regional train cab display systems, which display the most important technical data to the driver in real time".
It's worrying to see such an old system being used to transmit important real-time data. But in fact, it's not uncommon for old, mission-critical systems to run old software. In addition, these display systems may only provide informational data and do not involve safety-critical systems.
Windows 3.1X is the first version of Microsoft's GUI-based operating system with integrated networking capabilities and the introduction of the 386 Protected Mode networking stack. This web-friendly operating system was released in 1992 and ended support on December 31, 2001. Did Deutsche Bahn miss the news?
According to a discussion on the Hacker News forum, the old system is currently in use on ICE 1 and ICE 2 trains in Germany. If true, then software that relies on MS-DOS and Win 3.11 may need to be used until 2030 or later. Another interesting detail is that some railway systems running Win 3.11 use a 1996 BIOS with a 166MHz processor and 8MB of memory.
In fact, similar situations are not uncommon. Not too long ago, the Japanese government had just moved away from its reliance on floppy disks, and some computer enthusiasts were still keen on retro modds based on the venerable 8088 CPU and ISA bus graphics cards.