>We are in the dark ages here within my company out in our wire plant, but don't tell anyone here that. I am not talking about our VFP programs.
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>Our Scanners use DOS software, as well as some Linx Basic language. Some code is compiled in VB 6.0, but since I don't code in that, if our one Windows 95 PC breaks down that contains these programs, we are going to be up a river real quick without weighing scale data, without production data basically.
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>Because of the economy taking a nose dive, which is my contrary belirf to what the government is telling us (and Fox news), and the dollar is losing its value, and the costs of raw material is soaring, we are still using DOS and as long as our equipment continues to work, we are fine. However, if the old equipment and old operating systems fail, we will be a sunk ship, unless we have an emergency plan in place.
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>Is there any way to use DOS on these old DOS Scanners? is there any way to do the same communciation with these LINX Data Terminals that the LINX Basic does? Or, do we really need to upgrade to modern equipment and technology? I fear the latter, although I'd heartily welcome it.
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>Has anyone out there in the Fox world ever heard of LINX BASIC?
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>What would anyone on this forum recommend we do, just to be prepared for failures of our old equipment, remembering that production is down and costs are up.

I'd recommend sparing up scanners and PCs, before they fail. A quick Google search on your scanner model came up with some links of outfits selling used ones. You might also try eBay.

You could also purchase one or more old PCs (maybe you could find some with the same motherboards as your production machines, if you're not in a hurry). These will be dirt cheap if you do it now, while you're not in a rush/dire emergency.

Then, with both the backup scanner(s) and PC(s) I'd clone the production ones to them, and have them on the shelf in stores ready to go the second a production unit packs it in. Hopefully there is a way to clone or backup/restore the configuration of a scanner; for PCs you could image the hard drive, then dump that on to the spare(s).

You could also consider protecting the PCs as best you can (use UPSs, enclose them against dust, vacuum them on a PM, ...). Scanners are typically pretty tough, probably not much PM needed there.

Think about an OP/OQ for spare scanners and PCs on the basis of the cost of line time or production value while one is down, it shouldn't be too tough a sell to your production manager.