[blihp]

It doesn't. The same type of solution could be provided today with a low cost PC/embedded system with a trivial amount of specialized hardware. The cost for a modern version of what they had (solving any major issues the old system had) would be a fraction of the cost and time the original took. But no business owner in their right mind wants to be stuck selling that: low margin, virtually no growth. What they replaced it with is something completely different than what they had.