So does Linux (486SX is the minimum supported CPU), there is nothing inherent to NetBSD about supporting old hardware than the developers wanting to do so.

> Now why someone wants to run current software on museum-piece hardware is quite beyond me though.

I can think a lot of reasons, e.g. keeping them useful. While there are many things that old hardware cannot do, there are things it can do as long as there is software to provide the functionality.

AFAICT the article isn't asking writing new software that runs on the old hardware, it is asking to let existing software that could run on the old hardware remain accessible.