Eric Messalt writes:

[nice story snipped]

>Two years later I was working for my alma mater as the System Manager
>for our HP3000 system.  By that time I'd learned how well an HP3000
>recovers from power outages.  I even learned how the HP3000 would
>detect a power brown-out, beep a message on the console, resume its
>work, and none of the users would ever know there'd been a problem.
>But indelibly marked in my memory was the picture of a room full of the
>most sophisticated computing power commercially available absolutely
>dead because of a slight power sag and those four quiet HP3000s in the
>corner still humming.  And I remember thinking, "What is this HP3000 that
>even the *power supply* is better than the big mainframe??"
>
>My loyalty to the HP3000 family was sealed on that day.

Different story, same result:

In 1979 I had a contract to write some software for a Series III
(the HP3k was new to me at the time). My first introduction to the
system was made by Tony Engberg, the SE for the site, who after showing
me the system proceeded to ***turn off all four 120 mb disk drives***.

If I remember correctly, the console responded with messages like:

ldev #1 not ready. Please make ldev #1 ready now!

Until the disks were spun back up. Then everything continued to work
as before. Very impressive indeed. As you can see it made a lasting
impression on me as well.

duane percox