[Macha]

> Could they not get more juice out of a single, modern server

They could probably get more performance out of one core on a modern phone, never mind a single modern server. But you see some really old systems in a lot of equipment, not because the porting costs are expensive, but the certification of proving the new system works the same is more than the operational cost of the legacy equipment.

[api]

I’ve heard of consultants who will virtualize systems like this in place using qemu emulation of CPUs like Alpha and Sparc and run it on a single server or in the cloud.