----- 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 http://gewt.net Personal stuff http://gimme-sympathy.org Experiments http://dev.gimme-sympathy.org Home experiments