HP once blew up a computer with very high grade explosives, proudly. That Superdome was vaporized, probably. But the happy ending in that film was that an instant cutover of the system preserved all data. Not crowing over a computer as junk, to be sunk as a reef. HP also once wrecked a 3000 while it shot a video. George Stachnik, pitchman of the division, pushed that 3000 off a roof, and there was a happy ending there, too — they booted up the machine they’d tossed off a two-story office building.

But the latest disrespect to the 3000 -- a schoolboy display of firearms online at YouTube -- feels like those years when our Spurs were winning their four basketball championships by playing defense, not being flashy. Preventing scoring was boring. But those four trophies and four banners now gleam and fly in their arena. Boring gets the job done. And as basketball fans have noticed over the last few weeks, scoring drops off during the NBA’s May. Like the 3000’s legendary defense against abuses of flood and fires, the absence of bad times is what we honor. Preventing calamity makes room for prosperity.

I guess if you’ve managed or consulted on one of these 3000s, you’d recall times when even a semi-automatic wouldn’t be enough. This spring I re-gifted a gag called a Tech Sledge, boxed up as a "data processing and technology tool." Just a two-pound wood mallet from the '80s. A gift I had never used, but it enjoyed a featured spot in my old Chronicle editor’s office. My friend Steve, who’s done IT since the ’80s, understood the sentiment in the gift. These days we both consider ourselves part of the old guard. You might, too. For some it's an honor, for others, an epithet.