HP 3000 S/36 mode

["Richard B Baird" <rbaird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

moved to non-tech

Chris,

My memory is thin on the subject, but I recall that it was a "less than
seamless" conversion.

They told us that they had TONS of customers but few off-the-shelf
applications.  We were promised "if you build it, they will come".  Don't
know if that was true or not - like I said, only played around with it,
then paying jobs replaced the playing jobs :) The hp3k sat idle for about 6
months before they came by to take it back.

Rick
---- original message ----
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 09:44:14 -0800
From: Chris Rehm <javadisciple@earthlink.net>
To: midrange-l@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Proprietary Systems...
Reply-To: midrange-l@midrange.com

Richard B Baird wrote:

>Does anyone remember HPs stalled attempt at gaining market share from the
>S/36 world?
>
I sure recall that. I was at Comdex and I visited HP and they had an
exciting
computer there which I guess must have been a 3000. My business cards
probably
said something about me consulting IBM Midrange because we got on the topic
of this S/36 conversion thing.

The salesman was really excited, he told me how I could automatically
convert
all my source programs and that every part of the applications I was now
running on S/36s could be run on HP with almost no trouble. I could tell
he knew this was quite an accomplishment.

I was being very honest when I asked him, "Why would anyone want to do
that?"

I thought he might tell me about increased performance or cost savings or
something, but I guess he hadn't been trained past the part where it could
be done. He paused for a minute, stumped, and I left.

It's too bad, maybe. Because if I had thought that was useful I'd have kept
it in my toolbox for when it fit someone's need. But I never gave it a
thought.

--
Chris Rehm
javadisciple@earthlink.net