Pretty sure they're only using it because, like buying an _old_ laser cutter off Ebay which will probably be running a Windows ME board or something, their patt

Pretty sure they're only using it because, like buying an _old_ laser cutter off Ebay which will probably be running a Windows ME board or something, their patterning equipment is designed to work with that machine + punch cards. It's not worth the time & money for them to integrate a modern computer with that old equipment. They're still using modern computers, the simulation of what the actual fabric would look like was amazing and I'm sure when that old computer was new, they would've killed for something like that. Unlike the fetishists of HN, I doubt that they romanticise their use of the old computer; it's simply the only one that works with their older equipment. You say it's "easy to maintain" but they'd still need a specialist to diagnose & fix, you can't take it to any computer repair shop. And getting certain parts would be an absolute nightmare as well. You say "everyone using the system is familiar with it" well duh...the sky is also blue, of course people that use it are familiar with it, but for an industry that is on the decline, trying to get fresh faces in to revitalise won't be helped by a computer that those fresh faces would never have even seen before. Power usage doesn't matter when the looms probably pulls tens of kilowatts or more anyway. But yeah, it is cool. Impractical, but cool and that rings true for everything that they're doing, small & bespoke manufacturing of traditional wear. It's unfortunate, but a lot of boutique industries like this are dying in Japan at the moment.