[pocksuppet]

It does. But it's nothing special. This isn't "software engineering applied to a physical system". This is just software (and some hardware) engineering. This is just engineering. Making things to do things. You want to do something and you make a machine that does it.

[Bisuta]

Fair point. I think what I found interesting was using modern, affordable hardware to replace an expensive proprietary system.

[pocksuppet]

Now you get to sell copies of your system for slightly less than the other proprietary system, thus creating a competitive market.