A call was made for HP3000 Success Stories, here's one of mine (kind of).
 I may have said this before, but here it is again, (probably with a little
more embellishment:)

I was working a Hughes Aircraft in the mid 1980's and we were under
pressure to get some HP3000 computer time for a new application we were
developing.  Due to the bureaucratic nature of Defense contractors at the
time (I'm sure it has been relieved somewhat by now), we couldn't get any.

We could NOT get assigned accounts and disc space from a mega-MIS computer
department that had several HP3000 series 950s (those were NEW then).

What we did, was go to the Hughes Surplus Warehouse (it was huge, IBM 360s,
PDP-11s, leftover IBM disc farms, etc.) and dragged an old HP3000 Series
III and some 792x disc drives (one model still had a window on the top) to
our trailer.

In our trailer, we set up a "computer room" consisting of the HP3000 Series
III and the drives.  There was 220v available.

Bear in mind, we didn't even have an operating system.  We fired it up so
that there were lights on the octal display panel (although they weren't
"blinking", just some on, and some off, and the disc drives were spinning.
 It was pretty, and it made a lot of noise.

We even had a "console" powered by an HP3000 Series 37, an HP Salesman had
"loaned" us.  (Somehow HP Salesmen had more freedom back then.)  He had
loaned it with the understanding were would eventually buy it.  (We never
did, and we had to return it.)  The Series 37 was hidden underneath my
managers desk 3 offices down and was connected via a small serial cable
through the overhead tiles.

Then we gave the "announcement" of our "own" department's computer center.
 For which we said had build from scratch out of "surplus" in order to
"save" Hughes aircraft money.  We were able to justify it to our own higher
echelon management because we weren't given computer time from the mega-MIS
department.  Local executives were invited for a "walk-through" through our
new "computer center".

Yes they were impressed by the lights, and the noise of the drives.

People being political machines as it were...we were told to "shut down"
this new computer room the next day.  We were immediately given computer
time, disc-space, and accounts also, from the mega-MIS department, that we
couldn't get before.  Of course we "packed it all up" and sent it back to
the Hughes Surplus Warehouse.

You guessed it.  The director of the mega-MIS department had to tell
someone "why" we weren't given any computer time before.  When a decent
explanation wasn't forthcoming, political hell broke loose, and we got our
HP3000 Series 950 account, disc space, and CPU time.

Accolades and "cost savings" award documents were handed out to all
participants.

We eventually did develop our program called "SPARS".  It was a program
translated from a Microfocus COBOL application on a PC into Powerhouse on
the HP3000 using Image.  (My Manager had written the program, and released
his rights willingly in this case only.  He still has the copyright.)  It
stood for "Supplier Performance and Reporting System" (or something like
that) and it rated vendors based on statistics gathered about their parts
during Receiving Inspection.

Of course this in the end helped Hughes improve it's Quality Control during
the period, as it decertified vendors based on inspection performance of
MILSPEC standards.  It weeded out the bad vendors and keep the good.  Bad
vendors had to undergo a rigorous recertification procedure.  (It could
still be used out there again, as ISO-9000 certification is a priority
these days.)

You see, HP3000 Series III's are still useful, even when they DON'T work!