All you old actuaries: share your stories

[limabeanactuary]

So, I'm writing up a paper/presentation for the European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group conference in July, and one of the things I'm going over are the various systems I've used in my life [computers, OS, software].

Now, I'm 36, and started in this profession in 2003. I have run across some legacy systems, but for the most part, I've been doing my work in Excel/Access/proprietary systems. [to be sure, I started computing back in 1982, when my dad got one of the first IBM PCs, but for the first 10 years or so of my computing, I was doing "toy problems", not having to work on anything where the answer might be useful to anybody.]

So I'm wanting to hear war stories of the various systems people have gone through, stories of systems that have continued for decades after they were last supported, and how they had to be held together with bubblegum and paperclips. That sort of thing.

Anybody?

[and yes, I'm specifically calling out JMO and Brad Gile here, but anybody else feel free to chime in]