Hello once again HP3000-L:

I was a frequent contributor 4 quite a few years, but it's been some time
since I posted anything to 3000-L.
But now it's time to say sayonara:

After over 20 years of running our entire shop production on HP 3000
platforms, we completed internal migration of our IMAGE-Transact
client-server system from our trusty 959KS-400 to Microsoft Windows Server
and SQL-Server back in September 2005.  There were a number of ''speed
bumps'' here and there on the road to SQL-Server, but overall I believe it's
fair to say that we were fully successful (I can't claim much of the credit;
that goes to the C++, C#, .NET, and SQL experts on our team).

Our production system is now running SQL-2005, C#, and .NET 2.0 on DELL
servers; with a smattering of Java Script, HTML, and etcetera on the client
side.  While there continue to be the occasional and usual ''surprises''
from Microsoft (especially as I recall in moving from one version of .NET to
another), up-time and performance have been good; certainly ''good enough''
(no empirical data; just our general consensus). . . . 
Oh, yeah: 
When we turned off our 959, HP totally dropped out of the picture at our
site (other than HP LJ printers).

SIDEBAR:  Just for grins the other day, after our 959KS-400 was powered down
in December 2005 and not restarted for 18 months, I fired it up a few days
ago.  Darned if it AND all those old discs didn't all come up O.K.  Too bad
it will never be used again.

OBSERVATION:  Was in COSTCO last weekend:  Saw they had the 750 GB Seagate
FreeAgent Pro 7200.10 external drive with USB 2.0, dual Firewire, eSATA-3.0,
on-board software, and a 5-year warantee for $249 with coupon.
Considering HD Movies take a lot of GB;  and that even music CDs can chew up
400+ MB if U load them ''lossless'' into Windows Media Player on Vista;
what the heck:  I splurged.  
Afterwards it crossed my mind that on that tiny little drive that U can hold
in your hand U can store over 1850 times as much as we could put on the old
404 MB HP 7933 ''washing machines''.  Considering the FreeAgent Pro unit
(excluding base) fits in a volume approximately one-half of 1 percent the
size of the old 7933, that means data density from the point of view of the
overall external package has increased by something on the order of 370,000
times. . . . .  Even though that's over a period of 20+ years, I still find
that fact reasonably amazing. . . . .  Not to mention the drop in
cost-per-GB:  At $0.33 per GB 4 FreeAgent Pro, ya gotta wonder how much
cheaper consumer stand-alone storage can get in the next 10 years or so.

FINALLY:  After 30 years as a Federalli systems and software engineer, I'm
retiring this Friday 29 June; followed by an escape to Okanogan County (the
best of the Old West in WA (but with multiple high-speed ISPs) ). Keeping my
TurboIMAGE and a few other MPE manuals for old time's sake, but the cold
objective reality is that chances I will ever seriously work on an HP 3000
for the rest of my life are I expect pretty slim. 

THEREFORE:
Even after retirement my next 10 years appear to be fairly fully booked
already.  Sooo. . . :  
Needing to do triage somewhere, at the end of this week I will be
UNSUBSCRIBING from 3000-L.
If anyone on the list should 4 whatever reason want to contact me in the
future, much of the time I should be findable at or thru:

ken-AT-kensletten-DOT-com
509dash429dash8280
Box 902
Winthrop, WA 98862-0902

OFF-TOPIC FOOTNOTE: Over the last few years I recall that several people
expressed potential interest in joining a Colorado River float trip thru the
Grand Canyon.... Unfortunately I can't find a good list of who that was
anymore. So FWIW:
My private permit does not come up until September 2009, but (probably) in
September 2008 I am planning to try and put together what amounts to a
private float trip with one of the commerical outfitters that run the Grand
Canyon. . . Figure a test run to see if I'm still up to rowing it myself
might not be a bad idea. No guarantees on schedule or available seats yet,
but I will be trying to start to put a trip together in the next few months.

Cheers,
Ken Sletten
Former SIGRAPID Chair,
Former SIGIMAGE Chair,
Former HP e3000 user.

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