I can't recall the particulars, but my father has a radiation instrument of some sort that was custom built in 1981 to the tune of $350k. It communicates via proprietary software running on a National Semiconductor Starplex. Its data has to get across the Department of Energy's encrypted network. There's something about a random cipher that opens a random extension on a sandboxed VoIP PBX like some kludged-up Enigma machine or something. The thing is literally this guy.
We are both chumps compared the the guys who are still using a C64 in production. Somewhere out there, a Vic20 is chugging along.
Let's be honest, though - a C64 at an auto shop is useful for showing you spark hysteresis and that's it. American Motor Corp was making cars well past the point of Commodore making 64s. Back when I was an acoustician, I had gear that ran on CPM. But that was ten years ago now.
I still run into stuff running CP/M as a friend offering "bail me out, pal" advice to people I know. It is light weight, low latency, solid as software can be, and loves to have analog data fed into it via serial ports. Novell supposedly has some of the similar benefits, but I never got into the Novell stuff. From my own experience, USB to Serial conversions work for people who do not need microsecond or better timing. I use a few of these adapters to feed GPS time signals into cameras for a telescope and spectroscopy project I gave up on a few years back. I did not have an old PC that could run WinXP reliably, so I had to use Windows 7 and the converters. Since you are an audio guy, you've probably run into this as well. This same issue is one of several reasons why the 'real' stuff uses Audrino and not Raspberry Pi for their inputs. Microsats for instance. It is my understanding that the Pi inputs run over USB while the Audrino run native into the bus.Back when I was an acoustician, I had gear that ran on CPM.
I have never in my life encountered serial protocols that require microsecond timing. Pretty much every serial thing I've ever had to deal with runs RS232, and I have seen RS232 run a thousand feet on f'n lamp cord. The 'real' stuff uses Arduino because it has a much longer lineage and a lot more devkit support. The 'fake' stuff runs RaspPi because it was deliberately designed for frivolous uses by people afraid of programming. Not that there's anything wrong with that. They both spook the shit out of me.
Raspberry Pi is really good at all the things you'd use a mac mini/old beige box gathering dusting in your closet for at $30 and small enough to fit in a project box. It's not very good at embedded systems, but it's not really meant for embedded systems. My standing desk is controlled by an Arduino, because after a couple of months of sending bug reports to the manufacturer I learned they didn't have any actual engineers on staff, just some dude with a degree in industrial design, and it would be much less trouble for me to DIY than to try to funnel electronics 101 to the dude with an industrial design degree via the customer support people who act insulted when I notice half the bugs I'm reporting are caused by them confusing pin 4 and pin 17.
These things are freaking awesome We are swapping out all out thin clients for these as the mini's are cheaper than the new thin clients, have a Windows license and we can change our minds and run local software if needed. For the price, they are great for businesses that need cheap, yet good, desktops. Still cannot beat a Pi 3 for the price if you are willing to put in some sweat equity and do sone Linux learning.
Glad to be of service. The thing is literally a laptop with no battery and no screen. And everything inside is Intel so Linux will run great on them; I hope to put an Ubuntu load on one of these and tinker with it when the deployment slows down.
I so want to get into it but all the shit I need accomplished is like way the fuck harder than anybody who sucks at compiling should try for. I decided Arduino wasn't for me when I was trying to figure out how to write code that would turn a button press into RS232 and even that was well beyond my ability. You have my mad respect. Hey, you're smart. Know what I want to do? I want to use a RaspPi or equivalent to pull a webcam image and display it full screen. Or pull a webstream and display it full screen. That's it. Like, I want a live-capture photo frame. Why is this so hard?