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Software from the 80's? Get that new fangled garbage outta here. If it doesn't predate the first Alien movie it's probably full of bugs.
Is there actually pre-1979 software I am using that I probably didn't know about?
Unless you're running BSD or some other genetic Unix probably not as everything GNU is newer than that. GNU is 80s, original Unix 70s, in the 60s you still have giant minicomputers with very little standardisation, including ISA, and before the 60s there were not even compilers.
A decent chunk of software traces lineage back to then, even if the old code has been retired:
viis the screen terminal mode ofexwith is a more featurefuledwhich got most of its features fromqedwhich is 60s software. Cutting-edge: You didn't have to punch holes any more, you had a keyboard and a printer. Someone figure out whereddhas its argument syntax from so we know whom to blame.The program
dd(data duplicator/disk destroyer) is named after the DD (data definition) command in IBM's Job Control Language. The syntax forddis also based on IBM JCL.Dunno where CP/M got it from but PIP and REN use DEST.EXT=SRC.EXT, so that arg style dates back to then at least.
Also, CP/M 2.2's ED is great, it's my daily driver editor on my RC2014.
E: Wow, I really can't type.
As far as I'm aware, a lot of the core utilities originate back some time ago, stuff like ls, CD, chmod/chown, cat, sed, awk etc.
Now the question is, is a piece of software that's been maintained or ported since the 70s considered pre 79 software?
Off the top of my head, vi came out in the late 70s (though it might have been a little while later before you could start editing directly through vi)