Re: HP 3000 S/36 mode

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

Chris,

>It seems like HP thought there was some pent up demand to buy their
>products and escape IBM. I'm sure the original concept was just to make
>it possible to switch, but the behavior that you and I experienced seems
>as though there was some belief at HP that zillions of IBM customers
>were just begging to abandon IBM.

It was my impression that they wanted software to help sell the box - there
were plenty of s/36 packages out there, but not as many hp3k.

>The big hole in this with my customers was that they were mostly small
>shops that didn't even employ any full time MIS people. They loved the
>S/36 because they never had to know anything about it, it just ran and
ran.

I loved the 36.

I cut my teeth on that box, and by the time the 400 came out, I thought I
could make a 36 SING and DANCE!!.  until about 3 months into working with
the as400 at least.  I then realized that I really didn't know much about
real programming, but I wanted to learn.

until 6 years ago, I still had a couple clients on 36s.  I hear that one of
them is still there (thier package is running several monolyth WSU's - what
a mess!) - They are running out of support options, but the damned thing
just keeps running.   I heard they are moving soon, to an NT solution.
They don't have an IT staff - boy are they in for a suprise.

>A small telemarketing firm contracted me once for a little update and I
>remember telling the office manager (who was the person who had
>contracted me) that I needed a security officer sign on to do what I
>needed to do. "What's a security officer?" It turned out she was a SO,
>but she had no idea. I don't know how these guys would have ever
>converted to another system.>

You probably could have just signed on using the default user and password
- probably wasn't changed.  (..he pauses, racking his brain for the s/36
equivelent for QSECOFR...) boy, that was a long time ago.  I can't remember
what it was!

--
Chris Rehm
javadisciple@earthlink.net