After reading Ken Sletton's adventure with HP DLT drives, I can't help
but wonder...

Why does HP make such a *huge* effort to differentiate 3000 "things"
from 9000 "things"?  Separate part numbers, different prices, but we
all (at least most of us that have been around) know that they are
essentially the same hunk of silicon and other raw materials.

There was no big secret in the early PA-RISC days of the 930/950 and the
corresponding 9000 equivalent 800-series models that you had the same
box.  When I was at UTC we took the "FastLane" migration service and
went to the migration center to port a critical application from
compatibility mode to native mode.  The processor there was labelled
simply "Indigo" - nothing 3000/9000 specific about it, in fact, it was
running HP-UX when we arrived (as I recall).

We buy desktop machines without regard to Windows 3.1/Win 95/Win
NT/OS2/Novell/etc.  They are operating systems.  Why perpetuate this
myth that 3000 hardware is mystically special and financially more
valuable?  I will grant them the "sector atomicity" argument about disc
drives, but that argument went down the drain when HP's DMD Boise
division closed its doors.  Continuing the argument down to tape drives
is getting a bit ridiculous.

As a user, and one who has to argue the position of the 3000 in an open
market, I would prefer to see hardware to be "common" and/or "off the
shelf" when applied to my systems, lest I suffer the argument of
justifying proprietary systems/peripherals.  So what if the 3000/9000
systems share hardware; advertise that fact, don't hide behind a
purchase order.

Jeff Kell <[log in to unmask]>