How the 60-Year-Old IRS Computer System Failed on Tax Day

On Tax Day 2018, the IRS electronic filing system went down. Turns out the government's computers were still partially relying on code 60 years old written for gigantic IBM mainframes like the Martinsburg Monster. What happened?

● LGR links:

● Music used in order of appearance:
"Nautical 2" by Loscil

"Anekbah Theme"

Glancing at the Moon, Open For Business 3, Observations, Driven Electronics 4

● Sources for this episode's info:

#LGR #TechTales #Taxes

[Geforce]

"Mr. Simpson, this government computer can process over 9 tax returns per day. Did you really think you could fool it?"

[smittenthekitteninmittens]

i don't understand why tech tales isn't as popular as other LGR things..i could listen to Clint talk about old/new/obsolete tech all day long!!!

[atreyuws]

I am a COBOL programmer. Some of the proprietary code I work with was written before I was born! Companies still use it because it doesn't break too often and it's relatively simple to fix (unless it's a huge pile of spaghetti of course). We don't use physical cylinders and tape for storage anymore, but like LGR mentioned, it is emulated.

Notice, the new firmware failed, not the old software or mainframe ;)

[saleendriver]

Being a former IBMer, I enjoyed this video. Well researched, well done. I am so glad I found this page a year ago. Thank you once again sir.

[KentHambrock]

My wife is from just outside Martinsburg and had never heard of the Martinsburg Monster. Entertainingly, she's working as a contractor on a NASA project currently that still uses Fortran and C code written in the 80's.

[LazerLord]

One thing I want to know about those old mainframes is what those tapes do and why they move in that iconic way.

[thetman]

This is why you always file early.

Be Ned Flanders. Don't be the rest of Springfield.

[kyleheckman]

A lot of old large companies that adopted computers early on face this problem, it’s hard / expensive to migrate all that data and write new code for modern machines without creating issues. and since it still works, for the most part, getting the budget and resources approved is a challenge

[jimmyvau]

The financial world runs on IBM Mainframes and COBOL

[JHMBB]

Oh man, my dad worked at the IRS since the late 80s, I wonder if he's seen these old IBM main frames. I did walk into the building once as a child in the early 90s, it looked a lot like some of the footage shown here! **Edit: That computer chronicles episode listed is showing footage from the exact office i visi ted as kid, might be why it looked so familiar!

[cromulence]

This is utterly unsurprising. I work in a bank and the primary critical system is called ATLAS. Written in the 1980s, again in COBOL, it is an amazingly flexible (if not antiquated) piece of software, comprised of millions of lines of code to do just about every single financially related function you can think of. It was originally written to run on Tandem NonStop computers, which were bought by Compaq, who were then bought by HP. The crux of it is that a new mainframe was bought for each branch, which not only cost serious cash, but is the last of the Itaniums.

Old code is great when it works, but this needs round the clock modifications to keep up with changes that happen in the finance sector. There are contractors making serious cash from their COBOL skills.

Yes, eventually these systems will disappear, but the effort needed to replace them is huge.

[jonathanellis]

It's mad and a little worrying when you think about the amount of old, overworked, and abused, infrastructure the modern world is dependent on!!

[Frankfurtdabezzzt]

As a sysadmin, this is what my nightmares look like.
Those poor guys at the IRS IT...

[Hyreia]

In their defense, if it ain't broke don't fix it... And now it broke. So time to fix it.

[Mn]

In my city there's a car repair shop that still to this day uses a Commodore 64 in conjunction with custom-built software and hardware for balancing axles.

[ryanpaaz]

From what I’ve read applications like this are perfect use cases for mainframes. High reliability, high access, zero acceptable errors. Banks use mainframes too.
I can only imagine if the IRS tried to cobble something together in Visual Basic.

[ZeroWalker]

fun thing is the labor office and tax office
here in my city in Sweden still uses Dos system so when there is a problem the whole system can be down for weeks because they only have 1 single man that can dos and the old system and the fun part that man is old has retired but they have to call him in away. I told them to hire me because I grew with DOS and that retired man could teach me what I need to learn before he kicks the bucket. Or better yet they should maybe upgrade.

[MrIfrit]

Systems too complex to be replaced. Pretty soon we'll dealing with these technologies the same way the adeptus mechanicus deal with theirs.

[Ryusuta]

I legitimately didn't know I'd be spending my morning listening to a video about IRS tax computers from the 1950s. And now that I am, I'm glad I did so. =)

[thecomputerinside]

sounds like the Martinsburg Monster was an absolute unit?