Go on ebay, and search around for 386 motherboards, 5.25 floppy drives, and the like - for old DOS systems. Prices fluctuate, but on the whole some of those boards go for an insane amount of money (for what they are).
A lot of this is "collectibility" bumping prices up; but a part of it is also the fact that there are more than a few companies in the world running CNC tooling that uses these machines as controllers. We're talking CNC machines that to replace entirely would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (USD), if not more in some cases. So parts to repair and keep these machines running are in hot demand.
There are, though, a few companies out there taking a different approach: Since most of these systems are DOS based, they work to reverse engineer the controllers, and build custom Linux or other embedded systems, running DOSbox or some other emulator, to keep these machines alive. In some cases, a complete reverse-engineering is done (both hardware and software). There is a demand for it, and very few providers of this kind of service (some machines have little or no documentation on how they worked or were controlled, some have manuals in a foreign language, software is highly proprietary and dongle-ized, etc).
So for that case - for your question - yes, this is still done, and likely always will be. I'm sure there are other more "mundane" examples of people using old software on either new machines (say in a VM, or maybe if it runs, just on the new system) or using emulation. There are a few kinds of software where there is great trouble to be had trying to emulate it or such (either because of security dongles, or other custom hardware) - but if it can be done, it is likely to be done...
Hm I think you are answering a different question than what I was asking.
I was asking more that if any "smart non-programmers" like optometrists these days still write custom software to run their business? Or if in the era of Windows/Mac/Linux, it's too complicated to do so. The stack is too high, you have to remember version 0.8 of this or version 0.9 of that.
I assume he could do it with Tandy computers because things were simpler in those days.
To me, the appeal of programming was always to play god and make things exactly how you want them.
But more along the lines of what you're talking about, my former boss runs a retro-computing site/company, for example:
I like this. I've been writing code since the 80's and doing it professionally for decades.
I'll say this, Nothing is Easy Anymore.
By that, I mean writing code is easier than ever with the tools and capabilities available today. But you spend proportionately more time trying to fix those most obscure shit.
To quote Judas Priest:
You can hang a left, or hang a right.
The choice is yours to do as you might, but your just backseat driving if your hands ain't on the wheel.
A lot of this is "collectibility" bumping prices up; but a part of it is also the fact that there are more than a few companies in the world running CNC tooling that uses these machines as controllers. We're talking CNC machines that to replace entirely would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (USD), if not more in some cases. So parts to repair and keep these machines running are in hot demand.
There are, though, a few companies out there taking a different approach: Since most of these systems are DOS based, they work to reverse engineer the controllers, and build custom Linux or other embedded systems, running DOSbox or some other emulator, to keep these machines alive. In some cases, a complete reverse-engineering is done (both hardware and software). There is a demand for it, and very few providers of this kind of service (some machines have little or no documentation on how they worked or were controlled, some have manuals in a foreign language, software is highly proprietary and dongle-ized, etc).
So for that case - for your question - yes, this is still done, and likely always will be. I'm sure there are other more "mundane" examples of people using old software on either new machines (say in a VM, or maybe if it runs, just on the new system) or using emulation. There are a few kinds of software where there is great trouble to be had trying to emulate it or such (either because of security dongles, or other custom hardware) - but if it can be done, it is likely to be done...