[rescue] Re: Help IDing Old Drive

[Bob Keyes]

On Fri, 19 Mar 2004, James wrote:

> I happen to personally know a Prime that is happily churning away in
> Mechanicsburg, PA. It's a company that repairs car radios for Ford and GM
> (warrantee and repair work). It runs their accounting/payroll software and
> tracks repair tickets and inventory. Companies outside the Metro areas often
> stick to what works, especially since many of these companies can't afford
> to keep reinvesting in data systems. I'm talking about very pragmatic people
> who ask the simple questions like "what does this thing do different?" The
> answer is usually "it lines your vendor's pockets with cash". The PC
> revolution got bogged down in skepticism in cow country.

But how long will it continue to do so?

A lot of money was made on systems like that when the y2k bug reared its
ugly head. People that didn't know what was going to happen...simply
upgraded their systems. I think it added a lot to the Boom Times of the
Roaring 90s.

But what will happen with the pr1me is that eventually no one will be
available to do any maintenance for it. Parts will become difficult to
find. The benefit of 'COTS' hardware is that there's a lot of parts
around, and lots of expertise.

Maybe the Mechanicsburg people should look for pr1me and primos emulators
for x86 hardware. I don't know if any exist, I imagine they do.