14 Dec
2006
14 Dec
'06
3:08 p.m.
Brad Pritts wrote:
In the early '80s at ADP Network Services (old
timesharing service),
we connected a couple of IBM and compatible mainframes (IBM 4381,
Amdahl 470) to our packet switching network.
Brad,
did you have any experience with the Microdata systems run by what I
recall was called the Commercial Division, or with
Dealer Services?
They had several thousand Microdata Reality systems running all around
the country doing accounting crap for people
and for the Dealer services they did insurance prep and sales paperwork
for the Car dealers. Also did inventory, and
kept the info for the dealers for their cars.
Later Microdata did a system that emulated a modified Reality firmware
which ran on a custom PDP 11 system and
moved that "Low End" system to the dealers location, as timeshare began
to fall out of favor, and began to loose
cost effectivness.
I believe that the competition ran Reality as well, as far as the Dealer
services competition was concerned but went
out of their way to deny it.
Lots of nice HP3000's, Microdata systems would have been to be had when
all those data centers were converted
and shut down.
Jim