Comment by stego-tech

Wegmans’ cash registers still use a TUI. It looks quite clean and friendly compared to the GUI-heavy slop of, say, my time at a major retailer. Speaking of nostalgia, my old gaming store also used a TUI for transactions, and it was highly responsive for anything local (and a PITA anytime it had to communicate with the CO). Also been exposed to a number of businesses these past few years who still use old AIX/Unix/TUI boxes for critical business functions, and most seem happy with them.

And therein lies the rub: if the process works, and modern software doesn’t necessarily offer any better value proposition, then there’s no real reason to migrate. For a lot of companies, the status quo might literally be all they’ll ever need, and IT’s role is to just keep it up, available, and secure as times change. Sure, I’ll side-eye a theater using a Windows box as an intermediary for Ticketmaster to run transactions against their old AIX rig collecting dust in a corner of a closet, but if it works and it’s secure, well, more power to them keeping costs down.

The advice I’d give is not to knock something just because it doesn’t fit current narratives around technology. Our jobs - first and foremost - are to build and support solutions that amplify productivity of humans in a way they can use without external support; whether it’s an ancient TUI or a modern GUI isn’t as relevant as its efficacy.