It just shows that good things can still be done with the old stuff.

The 8039 was as "out of date in 1993 as the i8752 is today. It is, after all, a ROM-less 8048. It still worked, didn't it?

There are still devices in use today, e.g. some of my test equipment, that used 8080 and 8085 processors. They still do exactly what they were supposed to do when new, and, in some cases, an updated version of the device isn't even available. I built a device for a friend, using an 8748, in 1994. It worked as required. Displayed its output and produced the desired actions. My old HDD exerciser still does what it is supposed to do, as do some of the old FDD's that use 8048's to control them.

In what way would it have been "better" or "easier" to do this with a more modern chip? I don't use HLL's for small tasks, BTW, so, though I could have programmed the 8748 in some HLL, I wouldn't have done that.