Gentle people out there in 3000-land.
I've been working with the 3000 for many many years. Recently, I've kind of
moved away from the platform and am a bit disheartened with the quality of
the stuff I've been involved with.
Windows NT:
Reboot! Reboot! If you change anything, even the desktop settings, you'll
be prompted to reboot the system. I think we all know this one. Just
getting an NT system to a useable state (ie service packs, applications
etc) involves 7 hours just watching that blue screen as the system starts
yet again... Windows NT will start in 759 seconds... 758 seconds... 757
seconds,...
Windows 2000:
Not bad actually. A vast improvement on NT but still quirky. I quite like
W2000 to be honest. I pray to god that MS doesn't try to put XP "niceties"
into it. I actually quite like W2000 god help me...
Solaris 2.x:
Don't go there... please. The O/S from hell. CDE fonts are too small to be
readable and it has a shell (CI) that is as friendly as Osama Bin Laden at
a Hog Roast. I keep seeing the file "core" in almost every directory I
navigate to! Sun can't even work out what to call their system... Solaris..
SunOS... 2.8, 5.8.. Confused? You will be. "We have 3 seperate SPARC
installers, all of which don't really work" I hear them cry. It doesn't
inspire me to learn Java really.. Please report Solaris bugs to
[log in to unmask]
Linux:
Basically very sound. If only someone would port Image and View to this
platform then it would be second in line to the throne.. I like Linux. I
like open-source and the theology behind it. Linux can be reliable and it's
my 2nd choice behind MPE. Now if only MPE could run on Intel boxen... now
there's a thought....could become a cult!
Windows XP:
Horrific. Looks like the Teletubbies film set on acid. I have nightmares
about this --- Tinky Winky... Lah Lah... They are MS designers! These
people have got electric-blue on the brain... Are they ex-IBM staff or
something? PS. My "personal" icon is the yellow duck.
Footnote: IBM Websphere.
Basically, IBM have usurped Apache, stuck a weird front-end admin site on
it and mashed up the install scripts (on Redhat Linux 7.1 anyway). I have
never seen such a poor quality piece of software in my entire life. I don't
know what they tested it on... "drugs" probably. It was supposed to install
"out of the box" and I ended up picking through the install script to
install the RPMs manually. It still isn't working and it's going to take me
many, many hours to get there...
To ditch the 3000 is such a poor, poor decision! Carly Fiorina -- this will
be your epitaph -- "We really, really screwed up -- BIG time... If only
we'd had the foresight re the HP3000 and Compaq then...".
Personally, I think HP is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The
3000 is the most reliable and rock-solid system I have ever, ever worked
with, making the others look like mere toys (especially the vastly over-
rated Sun.. what a total and utter disaster Solaris (aka SunOS) is). Move
over Tandem Non-Stop -- you are the weakest link -- goodbye..
If you've got it... flaunt it. HP is making the most awful mistake in
ditching the 3000. We can, I think, agree on that. I, for one, will shed a
tear when SE's look at that 3000 in the corner, gathering dust, having run
a critical app faultlessly for 8 years with no backups done in 4 years and
say... "You really should replace that with an HP-UX machine you know!"
<Bows out>
Mark W.
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