Yes last night I missed my friend Chuck by 15 minutes. He had a family
emergency and could not stay and toast our old friend the passing of the
HPe3000 family member. Together, Tom, Gary and myself enjoyed passing the
time with old stories of what used to be. Like many parties all over the
world last night, ours was no different. Seeing old friends and breaking
bread.
I brought by vintage "2 yr old" HPe3000 swiss army knife and gave it to Gary.
I got this knife at HPWorld 2000 when it really meant something. Still in the
package it was given, and never touched. Thankfully I still have another one
to enjoy later on when I start to think about what the HP3000 "not mis-
spelled" has meant to me over the years. I started with a series III back in
my days at Bose Corp and had my hands full with our system since it really
needed care and feeding, once called archiving and load balancing for you
older 3k junkies. The work we do now on our loved systems seems to be with
teaching our old faithfull HP staffers that come on-site to repair or replace
bad parts, the Art of the HP3000. It seems that the only thing left that HP
has not fully dismantled is the V-CSY. There are no CE's left that I have
seen. I just got finished with a really bad experience with HP and a VA7100.
Took HP almost two weeks to give an explaination and finished with "Gee, had
we known the system was down it would have been different". They are all
afraid of Virginia Wolfe aka- C.F.
Well I am done beating on the "DW's of the world" They are just errand boys
sent to collect the bill. I will enjoy my last bit of HPe3000's over the next
three weeks while I replace an older HP3000/969-100 with a brand new
HPe3000/N4000-380-100, the last of a long line of best in class hardware. I
will personally miss my role of making sure that HP installs the box the way
it should be installed, a role that I never liked since you assume that the
role should be reversed but that was then and this is now or should I say
that this is the last curtain call for what was/is in my life the best of
times and the worst of times.

In the old days, you could sit in the computer room and listen to the HP3000
and know what process it was on just by the noise it was making.
It was a fun run and I have enjoyed the last 25+ years of operating, backing
up, restoring, installing, repairing, replacing the good old friend.

It's up to us now to keep the thoughts alive with stories like these and
admire what we had done over the years as we look back.
There will never be a replacement for what we had, just memories.

Goodbye my old friend, you will be missed

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