BASIC and bespoke systems
The one-off system someone wrote for your business years ago. Nobody quite knows how it works, and everybody depends on it.
Not every old system has a name. Many businesses run on software written specifically for them: by a founder who taught themselves BASIC, a contractor in the 1990s, or a small software house that no longer exists. There's no vendor to call and often no documentation. Sometimes there's no source code either.
We started programming on GW-BASIC and BASICA and have worked in most of the languages that followed, so we can usually work out what an unknown system is, how it's built and how it stores its data.
Identify it
If you don't know what your system is written in, that's the first thing we establish. It shapes every option, and it's often quicker to find out than you'd expect.
Keep it running
Moving it off a failing PC onto current Windows, using emulators or compatibility tools where needed, with printing and shared data working properly. For GW-BASIC and QuickBASIC programs, see our guide to old BASIC programs on modern Windows.
Rescue the data
Bespoke systems often store data in formats of their own invention. We decode them and give you a clean, checked copy in Excel, SQL or ready for a new system.
Replace it
Because bespoke systems usually do something specific to your business, the running system is the best specification you'll ever have. We document what it does, then rebuild it as a modern web application or fit it into a platform such as Odoo, checking every calculation against the original before you switch. Our guide to replacing old business software explains the approach.