I'm one of those list guys who pop on and off - and it has been a concern of
mine that many of you think I only come on when I am in trouble - so I
thought I'd tell you a bit about myself...

When I went to "sleep" about 10 years ago, I had just brought a State of CA
agency out of the "stone age" - they had an HP 3000/30 - then 52 - and were
actually entering data though the view form - what the heck was/is that
program called? You used FORMSPEC and you had an entry program - ENTRY I
think ;-) Anyway creating flat ASCII files - sort - merge - to get what they
wanted.

I designed an IMAGE data base which they are still using to this day.

The bureaucracy was getting to me - when I asked a supervisor what happened
to my request for a promotion I filed 6 months ago - he said he lost it.

I took over a business my father & I had built in the 70s - automotive
customer follow up - "thank you" and "reminder" cards...It is about a third
the size it was in the early 80s because of several factors but we still
have a loyal following because of our quality.

While here I was out of the mainstream of advances and "advances" - I put
some around quotes because most of you know what I mean - went by me.

When I went to sleep there wasn't anything you couldn't do with an IMAGE
data base - and with a 3rd parties ability to do partial key lookups, I mean
anything. I got so comfortable with network data bases I selected an
application for a C project, db_Vista - that - once you deciphered what
their buzzwords meant vs HPs - it was all pretty much the same. I wrote a
100,000 line C program for our industry and it came out just as Windows was
gathering steam. We have a total of 2 people using this package. I like to
say it is the best DOS program in a Windows world...

As to my current problems, getting an update to MPE/ix 5.5 so it really is
Y2K compatible I have been trying to get our current installation clean of
error messages on bootup prior to updating...

Apparently the people who sold this didn't configure it too well - I am
learning about ddev among other things - paths - several of which the system
is complaining about - I'll bet once I get this cleaned up we'll be able to
use our SPOOLER commands for our 2566A on the HPIB board -

Anyway - Mark & others - thanks for your efforts in trying to help - someone
locally is also trying to help so my plan is to study as much as I can on
the CD Rom our CE gave us - and then ask some questions...

One other comment - I think this HP list is one of the most civilized lists
I have been on - where else could one have a discussion of gun control and
still keep it relatively civil -

Bill