This legacy system issue doesn't just happen to remote/low budget operations either. While they've now moved to emulating the system on what are presumably VMs, Columbia University uses what amounts to a 40 year old system to post final grades to the student administration portal. Official transcript grades are updated once daily, at some time in the wee hours of the morning. From a Columbia CS professor:
"Columbia processes grades by using a system that was first released in 1972. In order to have kept it running for more than 40 years, it has consistently run special-purpose emulators that make its otherwise state-of-the-art systems think that they are stuck in the 70s and using an operating system called “CP/CMS”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(operating_system)
The grading system is written in a programming language called “Focus,” which in 1975 was one of the very first database languages developed and released:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOCUS
But because of this, grades are processed only once per day, in a batch job that runs at about midnight every night. I am not making this up.
The university, recognizing that it is time for it to upgrade, does have plans for replacing the grading system. The upgrade is scheduled for the year 2020. I am not making this up either."
http://bwog.com/2014/01/06/why-your-grades-take-so-long-to-s...
I imagine these schools will eventually move to something similar: an emulated system with specialized hardware to interface with the mechanical equipment.
"Columbia processes grades by using a system that was first released in 1972. In order to have kept it running for more than 40 years, it has consistently run special-purpose emulators that make its otherwise state-of-the-art systems think that they are stuck in the 70s and using an operating system called “CP/CMS”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(operating_system)
The grading system is written in a programming language called “Focus,” which in 1975 was one of the very first database languages developed and released:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOCUS
But because of this, grades are processed only once per day, in a batch job that runs at about midnight every night. I am not making this up.
The university, recognizing that it is time for it to upgrade, does have plans for replacing the grading system. The upgrade is scheduled for the year 2020. I am not making this up either."
http://bwog.com/2014/01/06/why-your-grades-take-so-long-to-s...
I imagine these schools will eventually move to something similar: an emulated system with specialized hardware to interface with the mechanical equipment.