On 03/06/2013 01:50 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote: | 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 dunno, but you can bet yer butt that somewhere there's some clueless moron who is trying to figure out a way to replace a hammer with a Windows box. | 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! ;) I do, at least 2-3 years, but not quite to the level of VMS. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA