Staying old to stay reliable
January 17, 2007
Contrary to what is preached by some 3000 experts, there's a school of thought that says older is better, if you want to keep your HP 3000 running as long as possible. Some customers will consider their migration deadline to be the last day their HP 3000 cannot boot up anymore, or when the 2027 CALENDAR intrinsic rears its head and makes a muddle of dates on MPE/iX.
If you know you're that kind of customer, ever careful with the budget but mindful of uptime, staying older — in generations of equipment, anyway — could make your survival simpler. A modern-day vendor of 3000 printers might subscribe to that theory, considering the recent offer from Printer Systems International.
Me, I turn to a five-year-old piece of advice, minted just months after HP said it would stop its 3000 operations. Wayne Boyer of Cal-Logic, holding forth on older printers compatible with many a 3000, said
Continuing to use somewhat older equipment makes servicability EASIER! It’s hard for us in the used equipment business to have all the newest items in stock and even harder to justify cannibalizing something very new. A unit that is a few years old that is a common piece of equipment is going to be easy to support with used spare parts. Thus it is also going to be cheap to support.
Boyer got to a few specifics, circa 2002. "Right now LJ-4Si printers for example, are a great bargain. Lots of printing horsepower with minimal cost compared to new alternatives."
On that topic, a resource for printers compatible with HP 3000 financial and billing applications announced a 2007 deal. Printer Systems International posted this message to 3000 users a few weeks ago:
PSi is still manufacturing and supporting the PSi P405 printer for 2007. The P405 is fully compatible with the HP2934 and HP2235 Rugged Writer printers for use with the HP3000 system. The P405 comes standard with Centronics Parallel, RS232 and RS422 interfaces and has Ethernet as an option.
In addition to the HP emulations, the P405 has other resident emulations, that make it compatible with most other computer systems, in the event your plans include migrating from the HP3000 in the near future. The money spent on P405’s won’t be wasted.
From now until February 29, 2007, PSi-US is offering users a 20 percent discount from MSRP for P405’s (HP emulation) purchased with standard or Ethernet interfaces. These P405 printers include a two year depot warranty.
See the P405 at www.psi-us.net and contact PSi-US at 800-901-1946 to discuss your application.