The last of the calendars went out today. In total, we shipped 1003 calendars
this year, up from the 748 of last year.

If you don't get your calendar in a week or so, please let us know and we'll
make you a replacement. Similarly, if your calendar arrives in poor
condition, we'll be pleased to replace it.

While some of you will see the calendars as advertising, originally we
produced these calendars only for our customers, simply to show them the kind
of invoices they could produce, if they wished, and to spark their ideas on
how they might use QueryCalc. However, now that we give them out to anyone
who asks, given the email that I get back, they seem to be doing a lot of
good in helping to keep enthusiasm for the HP3000 high in their various
companies, and that's only for the good of us all.

And I do appreciate all of the mail.

All of this was done on a small 918, running in batch. You can actually see
the printer and the HP3000 that produced the material, if you wish:

      http://aics-research.com/calendar.html

Also, normally, in the five years we've been doing this, I generally use some
sort of time-related quote from Voltaire or Jefferson or Whitman and put it
on the calendar, but this year I took a line from the movie, "2001: A Space
Odyssey," where HAL says that no 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or
distorted information in any manner. For all practical purposes, he
continues, the 9000 series is foolproof and incapable of error.

I thought that was a particularly nice quote for a bunch of 3000 users who
aren't nearly so disposed to shallow that sort of thing without a large grain
of salt.

Wirt Atmar