Re: 1998 system still running
I worked in a small engineering company about 10 years ago and they had a DOS machine running a specialist software package linked to a handheld colour scanner in the QC dept (I'm thinking spectrometer but not 100% sure).
Until it broke one day I didn't even know it existed, no network connection so it never showed up on scans.
The HDD had some bad sectors which a VCR scan with remap fixed and it booted back up. I recommended an upgrade but the software cost was in the £thousands so no go. I did P2V into VMWare Player just in case though.
They probably still use it.