>When I first started working with the hp3000's, I was told to never power
>off the console.  'They' said if the messages could not display on the
>screen, they would fill up the buffer and eventually bring the system down.
>Being the good girl that I am...I never tested to see if this was correct.
>Is this correct information and/or does it still apply?  Thanks.
 
This used to be the case, sort of, a very very very very very very very
very very very long time ago. More recently, if you left the console shut
off and your Series 37/Micro 3000 suffered a power failure, the system
wouldn't come up because it needed to see the console (though it would
recover as soon as the console was switched on).
 
Today, the system doesn't care if the console is switched on or not.
However, if the console is left hung via a control-s, console message
buffers will eventually fill up and any process that tries to send a
console message will be suspended until the message can be delivered, at
least for a minute or so.
After that, the system gives up and starts tossing all its undelivered
messages into the system log file. So if you _have_ managed to hang up your
console (turning it off won't do it by itself), you'll need to look in your
log files. I'm not sure what happens if you don't have console logging
turned on -- the system won't crash, but it's not clear what, if anything,
will happen to undeliverable messages.
 
On my system, it takes about 80-90 short-ish undeliverable messages to get
the system to suspend processes wanting to send a message.
 
-- Bruce
 
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