This thread on reddit started out describing how IBM System/360 mainframes, still running after fifty years, monitor their own hardware and automatically order new parts when needed. I was able to find some corroboration to these stories on a recent Telegraph article:
Modern machines inform IBM of problems and automatically dispatch an engineer with the right parts. The first thing many customers know of an issue is when an IBM employee arrives to carry out maintenance. (source)
Equipment that “self-maintains” in this way is actually getting fairly common in the data center. But will any of these newer devices still be ordering their own parts fifty years from now?
The longevity of the machine itself is only about half the marvel here; the other half is the longevity of the corporate mothership.
