IBM's mini computerslack thereof 827

Another clbutt of things lost if not used is that of the basic concepts buttociated with designing a large system.

out of an unholy mess created because the data center had been running with the same architecture, with the same programs, and with the same mission, for about 10-15 years...and had long since fired all of their systems design and support staff. Finally, in the early 1980s, the organization was replacing the BIG S-360 systems with current-production equipment and operating systems -- and the contractor had *nobody* on its staff who knew what they needed to even look at to design the new configuration and rehost all of the mission-critical applications involved.

It would have been funny if it hadn't been my tax dollars *NOT* at work.

For reasons that aren't germane here I didn't accept their offer although I did do several weeks of work for them as an independent contractor in a (reasonably successful) effort to give them a basic level of clueness about what they needed to look at, and a solution for the problem that was breaking one of the biggest mission-critical applications.

Joe Morris