Rich Rankin wrote:
>This is something I am working with also.  We just received a copy of our
>support contract only to learn in 8 months, most of the hardware will be out
>of support.  Now I have to approach the powers to be that we need to adjust
>the 2 year budget that was signed 1 month prior.

Patrick Santucci wrote:
>Or it may not. This page only discusses software. I'm interested in
>knowing where/how I can look up end of support dates, past and future,
>for hardware. I've found some on the Y2K pages but nowhere does there
>seem to be a comprehensive "Vintage Hardware" list.

I've been fighting the "end of hardware support" issue for almost two years
now.  I've  asked for HP to post a list of equipment with support
termination dates even if it's in an access controlled area on the ESC.
The only resolution has been the addition of these dates to the support
renewal contract.  The only other option to get these dates has been to
call the contracts support specialist and ask for an updated list of
termination dates for the equipment on our support contract.

We have a 937 box that is slowly being "terminated" to death.  The console
(700/92), tape drive (7978B), printers (2564B and 2934), and soon, the
1.3GB full-height internal drive are all unsupported.  I'll be replacing
the 1.3GB disc this summer because we can't live with just two 2GB drives.
I'm prepared for the failure of everything else except the tape drive.  We
exchange tapes with a DEC VAX and the reel tapes are the only thing we have
in common.

What really frosts me is that we'd have upgraded to a 9x8 or entry level
9x9 two years ago.  That is, until we got the cost on the tier upgrade from
that well-known 4GL vendor -- the one that members of this list seem to
love to complain about regarding their upgrade pricing.  We have two major
applications and several smaller ones written with that 4GL.

We were considering an upgrade because we were running the Multiview
Client-Server accounting system using Oracle on the 937.  We were one of
the three initial sites for the MVCS product.  Neither Multiview nor we
knew how bad the performance would be on the 937.  That was a Multiview
issue -- not Oracle's.  MV was using a 967 (I think) for development and
could only guess about the 937 performance.

Instead of upgrading the 937, we moved the MV CS software to a Windows NT
server.  As I recall, the cost of the server was less than just the 4GL
tier upgrade pricing for the 9x8 -- the server cost about $25K.

The last I knew, end of support for the 937 is July, 2001.  We will have to
keep it running until Multiview provides accounts receivable and fixed
assets modules in their client-server product.  I think it will be a race
to see which of these two events happens first. <grin>


------------------------------------------------------------------
John Pearce  <[log in to unmask]>       | Bethesda Management Company
Speaking for only myself             | Colorado Springs, CO  USA