Mike Ryan at HP Burlington posted a fascinating 23K of data on these kits.
I found the following lines most interesting:
 
>HP 3000 Server and software support contracts will be
>terminated on the day of conversion with credit given for any
>unused portions of the contracts.
 
How is a customer supposed to run parallel operations under this policy?
Perhaps David Copperfield is part of the conversion team -- to make the
"magic weekend" strategy work :)
 
Here's the bottom line on how much you may lose in the conversion
(performance and investment-wise):
 
>Since performance is very application, operating system and
>work load dependent, no guarantees are made as to the relative
>performance between the original HP 3000 Server and the converted
>to HP 9000 Server. If additional performance is required on these
>converted HP 9000 Servers, processor, memory and I/O upgrades are
>available as HP 9000 add-on products. User level licenses are a
>function of the operating system and the data base; no credits
>are given for user level licenses previously purchased on the
>MPE/iX \ operating system or for the IMAGE/SQL and the
>ALLBASE/ SQL data bases.
 
Translation: Without significant re-engineering, you may need a bigger
HP-UX system to match MPE performance. You get no credit for user licenses
or the HP database you've bought.
 
And finally:
 
>For information
>on converting an existing HP 9000 Server to an HP 3000 Server,
>please contact your local HP sales representative.
 
From our March FlashPaper:
 
CSY officials from general manager Harry Sterling on down all stress
they've never actually had a customer pay for such a conversion.
Ironically, many of them recall a major site which converted an HP 9000 to
an HP 3000. That kind of conversion is also available from HP, although you
won't find it on the current price list. It's available as a factory
special, the same status the 3000-to-9000 "kit" had for many months.
 
We'll have a full report on the kits in our April issue. Fill out a free
trial subscription form at http://www.3k.com/other/seybold/wiresub.html to
make sure you get your copy.
 
Ron Seybold, Editor In Chief
The 3000 News/Wire
Independent Information to Maximize Your HP3000
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