[throwawayboise]

In general most older machinery was designed to be repairable. Often using industry standard sizes for things such as motors, bearings, relays, screws, etc. As long as you can get (or make) the parts and are willing to maintain the equipment, you can keep using it.

[klelatti]

Indeed. It’s often the case too that it becomes outdated - more modern designs are more efficient etc. I’m probably more intrigued / surprised that it’s economically effective to keep a seventy year old machine working.