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legacy system

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legacy system

[′leg·ə·sē ‚sis·təm]
(computer science)
A computer system that has been in operation for a long time, and whose functions are too essential to be disrupted by upgrading or integration with another system.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

legacy system

(jargon)
A computer system or application program which continues to be used because of the cost of replacing or redesigning it and often despite its poor competitiveness and compatibility with modern equivalents. The implication is that the system is large, monolithic and difficult to modify.

If legacy software only runs on antiquated hardware the cost of maintaining this may eventually outweigh the cost of replacing both the software and hardware unless some form of emulation or backward compatibility allows the software to run on new hardware.
This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)

legacy system

An older computer system such as a mainframe or minicomputer. It may also refer to only the software (see legacy application).
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References in periodicals archive
At their core, they're the same legacy systems designed to be deployed on customers' premises to handle financial accounting--and not much more.
* Create a framework of imperative questions and quantifiable answers that can improve the decision maker's ability to pinpoint which legacy system opportunities for reuse stand the greatest chance of success.
Human service agencies spend valuable time and money trying to squeeze what they can out of legacy systems that are, in fact, putting the squeeze on already scarce taxpayer dollars.
This article explains how to apply the ABAP programming language to your Legacy System Migration Workbench (LSMW) objects in order to meet your business requirements.
The total cost of ownership for the legacy system was unacceptably high, in part because functions and processes that were hidden in the patches and solution "band-aids" of the antiquated, poorly documented legacy system added to the cost of operation.
"The Telex Legacy system is essential in a wireless network system," Gubser said.
When his school blended several legacy systems, Sift turned to dbaDIRECT, so staffers could focus on infrastructure issues rather than spend much of their time on data cleansing and other routine tasks.
The hardware provides full backwards software compatibility with the company's previous APC control cabinets so that profile control upgrades can easily be made to any legacy system from the company.
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