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

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 6/30/22 11:06, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
> Den 2022-06-30 kl. 15:02, skrev 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.   :-)
>>
> 
> I think that Davids application runs as a distributed system.
> z/OS are usually very centralized systems.
> 
> 

I guess my comment was too tongue-in-cheek.  The same auditors who are
trying to push VMS and BASIC out the door would apply equal pressure
on z/OS and COBOL today.

Oh, and Dave, I thought you were the boss?
:-)

bill