[Info-vax] For sale: VAXstation 4000/90 128MB Fully Working and Tested

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 6/29/22 22:01, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 6/29/2022 3:36 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 6/29/2022 3:28 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>>>                                   My days working with VMS, and 
>>> computers in
>>> general, seem to be coming to an end.
>>
>> What??
>>
>> We expect you to stick around for a few more decades!
>>
>> Arne
>>
>>
> 
> Erik (the boss) is 80, I'm 76, Bill in early 70s, and Niel is late 60s, 
> and really want to retire.
> 
> We made a pitch to the customers.  Buy the software package, and we will 
> give you a year or whatever we can to train new people.  They said they 
> didn't want to be in the software business.  (Almost every business for 
> the last 30-40 years has been in the software business, in some way.)
> 
> Largest customer, now being run by original owner's children, had their 
> auditors come in, and were told:
> 
> You can't use that ancient OS (VMS) ...
> You can't continue with that ancient language (Basic) ...
> You need a relational database ...
> And a few more ridiculous claims ...
> Above all, "you can't count on these old geezers" ...
> 
> They refused to give them a successful audit ...
> 
> Can't purchase business insurance without successful audit ...
> 
> Then they pointed out a company with a cloud based solution for the 
> customer to talk to.  Too bad they didn't mention that the company was a 
> wholely owned subsidiary of the auditing firm.
> 
> :-)
> 
> The app uses a single connection to the cloud.  There is inadequate 
> throughput. It is slow.  Every time the customer asks for a feature in 
> Codis, they are told that cannot be done.  After several postponements, 
> the customer went live on the cloud solution.  They are missing many 
> features they counted on.  The system is inadequate.  For example, (Bill 
> likes to gather statistics), max orders from Amazon have hit 100 per 
> minute.  The new system is lucky to handle 5 Amazon orders per minute.  
> Most people aware of this are predicting that they're going to crater.  
> There is also the penalties from Amazon if a vendor does not perform as 
> agreed.
> 
> This customer might have spent a million over the last 30 years on 
> Codis. Already they have spent over 5 million trying to get the new 
> cloud based working, and it isn't doing so well.
> 
> We have continually offered to help.  Other customers are looking at the 
> clusterfuck, and are re-thinking about being in the software business.  
> Codis does all they need to run their companies.  The main problem is 
> the age of the people involved.  We'd really like to do something about 
> that, but if we could, we'd be rich and in the medical field, not software.
> 
> Erik has told the customers, the company is shutting down at the end of 
> 2023. We'd like to continue, but we can't make any promises.  We will do 
> what we can. But if the beer truck gets us ...
> 
> We have told the customers:
> 
> VSI is currently supporting VMS, and porting it to x86 ...
> VSI is currently (I hope John) supporting Basic ...
> The auditing firm is a bunch of crooks ...
> 
> The names were changed to protect the guilty ...
> 

Should have used COBOL.  Then they could move to z/OS and DB2.
DB2 meet the relational database requirement.  And z/OS, well,
nobody ever got fired for going with IBM.   :-)

bill

(Still time to do the conversion.   :-)