Eric wrote:
>
> But where are those interfaces?  After living on the 3000 for over ten
> years, the marketing strategy is one of a niche market.  Nothing on the 3000
> CREATES demand for it, it simply follows behind the industry and when enough
> customers cry for some feature, it gets implemented - usually years behind
> the current markets.
Before coming to CSY, I was pretty much focused on one COMPONENT, IMAGE.
So, there may be more examples of where your statement is off.  IMAGE/SQL
was an INTERFACE that did get done, got done prior to the customers
screaming for it, and way ahead of the market.
 
The first release of this interface, although read-only, was around
Aug/Sept 1990.  In fact I personally thought it was funny that the Boston
Tea Party ever occurred (yes, I was there to see it first hand).
Normally, we techies do not pay attention to marketing, but to the labs.
The labs were saying "IMAGE is alive and well, and here's IMAGE ATC (the
old name of IMAGE/SQL) to prove it."  But in a twist of rolls, techies
heard marketing say "We removing IMAGE from the fos to kill the 3000."
Which we all now know wasn't true.
 
As I remember the old days, we relied on HP to provide the most reliable
fos, the most reliable database (IMAGE) on the most reliable hardware.
If we needed something done, we did it ourselves.  This is how I
connected a satellite directly off the back of a 70 INP to handle
real-time record transfers to some 'mainframe' IBM on the east coast.
Did I have to write some things myself?  You bet I did.  Did I get help
from friends in the 3000 community?  You bet I did!  Did it work?
You bet it did!  Was it supported by HP?  Of course not!  But it didn't
need to be because it never failed.
 
I know of hundreds, maybe thousands, of examples where we, the community
solved our own problems (just re-read Isaac's post earlier this week on
the disk drive controllers).
 
I don't specifically disagree with Eric's thought.  It would have been
nice for HP to have already developed the software I needed to run my
satellite.  However, where I've needed the action (fos/IMAGE/hardware),
I've received it.
 
I, for one, have had my fair share of complaints against the 3000 over
the last 15 years, but I've had far more success with it than failure.
This is one reason I joined CSY.
 
--
Larry Boyd    <[log in to unmask]>
"Talk is cheap because supply is high and demand is low."
  - Someone who knows what they're talking about