You know that, and I know that, but for someone who started working more recently the difference between CORBA and punch cards might be a little blurry because they're both so far back they've never seen either. It's like kids asking how the dinosaurs in LEGO Jurassic world were animated, because they don't move like real toys, and noting how much easier the 1993 live action Jurassic Park filming was because back then they could just film real dinosaurs. Feels weird, but makes sense from their perspective.
It's funny that you mention CORBA, because my first contact with Java was through a C++ CORBA service that interfaced with Java (this was around 1999). After that, I worked for many years using Java.
While many things changed, the world of remote services didn’t change radically: different technologies, same concepts.
Jurassic Park 1993 introduced UNIX to the mainstream world. Movies of that era showed SGI Sun, Cray or CM computers. All gone. I miss those days.
Too many secrets, indeed!