Making a 3000 Reunion a Personal Affair
June 11, 2018
With the Duke of Edinburgh pub set aside for June 23d's 3000 reunion, this year's event has now become even more personal. Orly Larson, the affable creator of Hewlett-Packard songs about the 3000, is holding a garden party at his home near the old HP campus on Friday the 22d.
Lyrics to Orly's 50th Anniversary HP song
Reunion kingpin Dave Wiseman sent out a notice to the community, asking "can you join us the previous day, Friday, June 22nd for a visit to Valhalla for a social get together late afternoon/evening?"
For those of you who don’t know, Valhalla in Norse mythology is a majestic, enormous hall where Viking heroes slain in battle are received (also known as Viking Heaven). Located in Asgard, ruled over by the god Odin, and is used for partying. Or, to put it another way, Orly Larson’s back yard.
Complete with swimming pool, hot tub, dart boards, table tennis, bean bag toss and a sound stage (not really). This yard is the same place Orly had a pre-San Francisco INTEREX ’89 Conference dinner party for some of the 75-plus HP 3000 users who helped him sing HP and Interex songs together at local, regional and international conferences.
The plan is to chip in for some beers and pizza and chill out.
Pizza and beers, chilling out in an colleague's backyard and catching up on what's happened to everyone since we last worked together. It's a very personal aspect to a reunion that may seem like a memorial to some. To register an RSVP and a pizza preference, contact Wiseman at [email protected].
To RSVP for the afternoon at the Duke, head over to the webpage of the event's Jot signup form. You might have chip in for the pizza, but the drinks at the Duke are on CAMUS, the MANMAN user group, for at least the first few rounds.
By the late 1989, when the songs were being crooned by customers at user group meetings, the greatest champion of that edgy IMAGE database was Larson, who wrote and led the music a cappella. An SQL interface had been added to IMAGE. Paul Edwards reports that "that we, employees and customers who called ourselves The Sequals, used the HP song book all over the world to sing with Orly." Singing about the HP 3000 became a tradition. HP marketeer George Stachnik extended the singing with a guitar and eventually a band at user group events. Larson led his choruses a capella—complete with ensemble kicks at the close of the song New Wave.