I had similar beginnings. Late 80s transforming literal reams of 360/70 assembly to “modern” cobol 85. Was still earning my cs degree at the time. As you know,

I had similar beginnings. Late 80s transforming literal reams of 360/70 assembly to “modern” cobol 85. Was still earning my cs degree at the time. As you know, the pay wasn’t so hot for stuff like that back then. But it was an improvement over manually unloading flatbed trucks stacked with steel conduit, which was my prior line of work! Today I think it’s much different. Some banks and insurance companies and the like still at least partially run on software as old as the Apollo missions. Maybe I’m wrong, but finding people still alive with that knowledge intact must be difficult and I imagine their compensation reflects that simple supply/demand formula. Shrug.