Jon cross posted by permission:

> It is September 1, 2009. A letter arrives from the
> Sales Tax Department of [insert your favorite] State.
> They wish to perform an audit of you sales tax
> collections for 2006. Your back-up tapes are sitting
> safely in some off-site storage facility, but where
> will you restore these files?   ....

IMO this is one of the more important benefits that an
MPE emulator would provide.  Even if you were running a
very large "real" HP 3000 in the "old days", an emulator
would probably be just fine for loading that old data
and running audit reports.

WRT knowing what is ON those old dusty backup tapes and
how to interpret same...  Well, that's another issue...
No magic wand for that;  regardless of what the "old"
platforem was...

Ken Sletten