Few companies are weathering a demise as public as Circuit City's. The consumer electronics retail outlet is closing its doors this spring, doors which have seen millions of people pass through looking for closeout deals. Also on the shutdown list are four HP 3000s which have run at the retailer since the 1980s, operating in-house applications.

The apps continue to operate, perhaps right up to the end of the company's computing. Bill Cooksey, who once worked with the 3000s and now has duties elsewhere in the firm's IT ops, said "the 3000s play a key role in transaction logging for our stores, and other sales functions, so as long as log records are generated we'll need to keep them up. Once they're down, nothing will replace them because everything will be shut down in time."

These systems are going offline the same way many computers go dark: the company folds its tent. The bankruptcy of Circuit City will accomplish what the company tried to do at least four times in the past: put another computer in place of the 3000s which was just as reliable.