[Anonymouse]

At a Lidl checkpoint I noticed a terminal...running what appears to be a DOS program on a network. So much for DOS being dead.

Mind you, as a former programmer I know there are still billions of lines of COBOL in use today - and the world's stock markets, businesses and others are dependent upon those programs, which cannot be shut down without causing a software version of what 006 intended in GoldenEye!

Yes, the powers that be have wanted to update them with more modern programs for decades. Problems:

1) COBOL is no longer taught in schools. As COBOL programmers retire/quit/are fired/die, they are not being replaced any more.
2) The programs run 24/7, and replacing them would require either parallel systems to gradually take over, or a shutdown.
3) It would cost far, far more to replace them than it did to write and install them. It's been decades, remember.
4) The documentation for a lot of them has been lost, so no-one even knows what'll happen even if they can be replaced. In fact there are many for which no-one even knows or remembers how they work.
5) AI can't do it - or if it can, it'll still cost a fortune, it'll still take years - and the chances are good that IT WON'T BLOODY WORK!

Made my day! Makes the point of my signature, doesn't it?