Thanks again to PeterH for sharing.
I just heard on the Mclaughlin Report that the
recession will last 18-24 months. Having lived through
a few of these ('70s, 1982-84, and early '90s), I pray
for all of us to soldier on.
Keep the faith!
George M.
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> In a message dated 10/6/01 1:23:56 PM,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
> <<
> I can always count on PeterH to stir the pot!
>
> [ snip ]
>
> Perhaps Peter can fill in the unintentional blanks !
> >>
>
> ;-)
>
> >>
> Someone also said the computer industry today is
> what the auto industry was
> in the '80s. The comparsion is a bit stretched. But
> I have seen boxes of auto
> parts in a Chrysler dealer marked "made in Korea"
> in the '90s.
> >>
>
> Well managed companies, such as IBM, always keep the
> "mission critical"
> strategic components inside the company and obtain
> commodity components
> outside the company.
>
> At the company I was employed by, we achieved 15
> percent market share, and
> then IBM lowered the boom on us. It was all down
> hill from there.
>
> A natural reaction was to reduce costs by obtaining
> more and more of our
> "mission critical" strategic components outside.
>
> This placed us at the mercy of our suppliers, which
> were also supplying
> others with their "mission critical" strategic
> components.
>
> In the end, you lose your ability to compete as
> everyone is making its
> products from essentially identical commodity parts.
>
> Once everyone has an essentially identical hardware
> platform, you are now
> dependent upon your software platform.
>
> And should that software platform be from Microsoft,
> you can pretty much
> guarantee that software reliability will be
> completely out of your control.
>
> In the case of my former employer, we designed our
> hardware platforms for IBM
> system software, and that system software had been
> "proved" over several
> decades to be essentially fault free. Also, that
> system software came with a
> license which covered prompt correction of any
> software faults which were
> discovered by the customer.
>
> It was not uncommon for one of our systems to be
> IPLed (IBM-speak for booted)
> once, and for that system to remain operational for
> many processor-years (we
> offered up to 16 processors; IBM offered up to 12
> processors) without any
> unplanned interruptions.
>
> "Inline" (that is, while the processors are actually
> operating) firmware
> updates was possible.
>
> System software updates generally could not be done
> "inline", but it was
> possible to take one or more processors "offline",
> IPL a new version of the
> system software those processors, and then migrate
> applications over to that
> new system software in an orderly fashion.
>
> Primary storage (system RAM) could be varied (i.e.,
> moved from one status to
> another) online or offline and varied from one
> processor or set of processors
> to others. This facilitated maintenance while the
> hardware was still
> operating.
>
> However, system storage and most data paths were
> provided with error
> detection and correction, and in most cases system
> storage had multiple bit
> detection and correction.
>
> So, even if system storage proved to be faulty, the
> fault would be
> transparent to the software, although the fault
> would be "logged" for future,
> planned maintenance activity.
>
> About the only required maintenance was replacing
> the air filters once per
> year.
>
> "Lights out" operations were a reality.
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