[HECnet] Vt100 tester

[Cory Smelosky]

----- Original Message -----
| From: "Dave McGuire" <mcguire at neurotica.com>
| To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
| Sent: Wednesday, 6 March, 2013 12:11:41 PM
| Subject: Re: [HECnet] Vt100 tester
| 
| On 03/06/2013 07:29 AM, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
| >>   I've mentioned this to one or two folks here privately, but now
| >>   that
| >> it has come up...My mother is a journalist with Associated Press,
| >> and
| >> she recently took a new assignment in a different city.   Their
| >> office
| >> has a VAX-4000 running VMS, handling some sort of database.   They
| >> love
| >> it, and they have no plans to migrate away from it.
| >>
| > It would be appreciated if a few interesting aspects concerning
| > the system were shared so we could understand how such a
| > mature system manages to compete.
| 
|     I suspect it's not trying to "compete", at least not any more than,
| say, the desks (not the desktops, but the DESKS) in the offices, etc.
| It's an appliance; it sits there and does its job.   There's no valid
| reason to change it.
| 
|     There's an odd consumerist attitude that goes something like "oh,
|     the
| manufacturer has introduced a new model, this one must somehow suck
| now,
| I'd better replace it!"...That attitude is common in the worlds of
| computers and cars, but not much else.   If Great Neck (a
| common-in-USA
| manufacturer of cheap-but-usable hand tools) introduces a new model
| of
| hammer, I'm not going to throw my old one (probably twenty years old)
| and rush out to buy the new one.   That would be stupid...and it's
| just
| as stupid with computers and cars.

How do you even add new features to a hammer?   Do you make it electric and capable of making coffee? ;)

| 
|     I'm pretty sure I'm preaching to the choir here...at least I really
| hope I am. ;)
| 
| > (a)   When was the system first installed?
| 
|     I have no idea.   She says she thinks it was a 4000-500, which would
| put it in the mid-1990s.
| 
| > (b)   Approximately how long is the up-time between re-boots?
| 
|     Again I have no idea. (this is my mother's place of employment,
|     1200mi
| from here, not mine)   Let's put it this way, though...it's likely
| that
| this machine is running VMS, and it's not at all unusual for VMS
| systems
| to have uptimes in the 5+ year range.   If it didn't get those sorts
| of
| uptimes, it probably would've annoyed someone and gotten replaced by
| now.

Try managing uptimes like that with linux! ;)

| 
| > (c)   Do they have any virus problems?
| > (d)   Have they ever been hacked into?
| 
|     ROFL!!!   I haven't had a laugh this good on a long time. ;)
| 
| > Other information such as the physical details would also be
| > interesting along with the number of users.   Anything else
| > your mother felt willing to share would provide the list
| > members with good hard information.
| 
|     She's pretty busy in her new assignment, but I'm sure she can do
|     some
| digging.   I'd love to find out more myself.
| 
|                                 -Dave
| 
| --
| Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
| New Kensington, PA
| 

-- 
Cory Smelosky 
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