[HECnet] Vt100 tester

[Dave McGuire]

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.

  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.

(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