Erik,

Not every thing is rubbish once the paint is dry.

There are lots of devices that still work just fine with the old, 197x MCU in them. In most cases, replacing the MCU with something more recent won't improve them, and, based on current quality standards, using today's labor pool, it's likely they'd become much worse. There have been threads recently touching on this reality.

In the early '80's, 1000-hour testing was routine. Nothing went "on the market" without substantial rigorous testing. Today ... if it compiles, ship it! No visual inspection, aside, perhaps, from the external package, no testing.

I have an old disk drive tester that is based on an 8748. I also have the source code ... Now, if the chip ever died, perhaps due to stupid handling, I could replace it and restore the instrument to functionality. Replacing it with a current-generation MCU wouldn't improve anything, would require much more effort, and would cost more, since I've still got the 8748's.

That old BASIC is called an "interpreter." There are BASIC compilers, but that isn't one of them.

RE