MM/3000 stalwart serves, stocks 3000 docs
July 27, 2012
We're still thinking about how to organize and capture the wealth of lively links at hp3000links.com. This site has been without an administrator for most of a year, and it's still got more than 100 links on it that lead to useful information.
But the links to HP's documentation on the 3000's software and hardware go nowhere. Most of them were hosted on HP servers that have either been retired -- like the 3000 division's Jazz webserver -- or they point at a baffling HP webpage where somewhere or other there's a way to find documentation.
However, there's another web resource that seems to pop up quickly when we do a search for HP manuals like the MPE/iX 7.5 Maintenance Manual. It seems that one of the stalwarts of the HP Manufacturing Management application, Scott Petersen, has been stockpiling 3000 manuals at his hpmmsupport.com site. MM/3000, as it was called through the '90s, sold a lot of new 3000s -- because in choosing a platform it's all about the application, isn't it?
It is, until you make that choice, and then you're facing system administration like keeping an SLT up to date for your 3000. How to create a CSLT is part of that 7.5 manual. Petersen's site has it and much more.
Petersen said that access to these documents is vital to supporting the 3000.
I have needed the 3000 information in the past and felt that it was a good community service to place the manuals and other things oout there for all to see. I am a pack-rat and decided that having access to the information was critical.
Petersen adds that he's "always on the lookout for things that might go away relating to the 3000, and adding them to the site if it is appropriate." MM/3000 didn't go away after HP dropped it. The software was bought and revived and expanded by former HP employees who became eXegeSys, with products named to match. Manufacturers were surprised, too. But the apps have supported a diverse group of users from governments, sports clubs, job shop manufacturers, process manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies.
Many of these have migrated to other applications. Our goal is to continue the process of high quality support for those organizations that have either not been willing or able to move to another platform and application. We knew the application when it was designed, and we are aware of how customizations have allowed the application to change.
This was an application vendor as surprised as any about HP's exit from the 3000, if memory serves from my meeting with them in 2002. But they've perserved, well beyond HP's capabilities. Things don't go away easily in a community stocked with these kinds of stalwarts.