Sigh... wishing for good "old" VMS
I work on Sun boxes. I have a SPARCStation in my cube and the mid-range I work on is also a Sun running Solaris. Yesterday we took a power hit. Kind of typical durning a big thunderstorm. I was in a meeting at the time.

I get back to my desk and my SPARCStation has come down, so I reboot it. I try to log in, but the password file is hosed, because apparently the file gets corrupted if the machine takes a power hit. So I have to get the admin to come over and fix the box and reset my password. This happens EVERY time we take a power hit.

I then notice that the midrange is hosed as well. "Support is working on it." After about an hour, people start going home. "No use hanging out, I'm supposed to leave in 30 more minutes and it obviously won't be back up by then."

I get on this morning (surely it is ok by now), and find that the box is ok. I start working on it, and then my manager comes in and ircs the group. "Hey... we haven't gotten an OK to get on the box. As far as we know the disks are still syncing. Don't whine if you lose your work or cause the machine to take longer to come back up all the way.", so I get off.

I just CANNOT BELIEVE the state of the Sun/Unix world. (Maybe this is just Sun, maybe it is just Unix, I'm not sure which). Unix has its good points. And Sun has its good points. It just drives me nuts though how people claim that it is so much better than Digital and VMS. It is SO much an inferior "lights out, 24 x 7" platform.

Yes, we should have all this equipment on UPS. And then it wouldn't have happend. But still...

How long ago was the last big San Fransisco earthquake? A good 10 years right? At that time there was mail that went out about the computers. There were IBM machines that were taking days to bring back up. The VMS techs went in, pulled the ceiling tiles and junk off the VAXs, stood them up, plugged them in, and they were up and running.

I had a Vax 2000 in my cube. I NEVER had corrupted files because the machine took a power hit.

It just amazes me what garbage people are willing to put up with, when there has been so much better technology out there for so long. Sigh... marketing hype, PR lies.

Open... Yeah, I just love Open systems. I think I'd rather be working on a closed system where I could actually be more productive and do work, then on an Open system.

</whine> Guess I'll go finish my code reviews on paper, since I can't actually get onto the computer. :-(