Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
A lot of medical labs still use analyzers and stuff from the '80s and only replace them when they die, so a lot of people getting healthcare might be using older tech than they think :)
Whilst I'm being cheeky, spoon and probably bowl technology remains relatively unchanged for a huge amount of time.
I guess the oldest thing I regularly use is my tractor from the '90s. I do often wish I hadn't accidentally killed my Amiga 500 as I'd likely still be gaming on that occasionally.
Only for niche and custom tests. Or maybe extremely small labs. Everything is automated and has been for many many years. The modem machines read the tube barcode, look up the patient/test, perform the test, and upload the results electronically. The only thing a tech touches is loading/unloading the tube and dealing with errors.
It may have changed more recently (or depend upon country as well), but I was still getting results from old serial/null modem devices about 10 years ago (I worked on the centralized IT side so I didn't see these devices, but this is what the on-site tech was telling me when troubleshooting things)