Still there, but no longer actively maintained. It's "orphaned" in the sense that it doesn't have anybody there to care for it.
Not removed, just quasi-deprecated and no maintainer.
So who'll volunteer as tribute? Someone must be able/want to?
Why? The hardware has been "stable" for about 2 decades now. I reckon you'd have more trouble with the IDE/USB interface drivers these days. God knows connecting an old LPT CNC machine to a modern computer proved ridiculously hard - ended up just using a very old laptop with an integrated LPT port/controller :D
I don't think it's about new features or anything, but running regular regression tests to make sure that changes elsewhere in the kernel don't break it.