[rescue] Cray J90s

[Joshua D. Boyd]

On Tue, 12 Jun 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:

>   Try calling them up and asking them.  The first words you'll hear are
> "what serial number please?"  And when you give it to them, they'll
> ask you if you're such-and-such and the CIA or wherever your Cray came
> from, and when you say no, they'll tell you to pound sand.  And guess
> what?  Then they know who you are, that you have one of their
> machines, and that you likely have an [unlicensed/illegal/hugely
> expensive] OS load for your machine.

Are they still charging so much for the OS now that they are offering
cheaper hardware?

I'm looking, and I see that a particularly monstrous MTA-2 (this one has
112gigs of ram, and other purchases have as little as 8gigs for instance) 
was purchase for a sum of $5.4 million, which includes multiyear service
contract.

A MTA, minus service contract, should be far, far, far cheaper.
Especially if it was previously used.

But then, the MTA isn't a vector machine...  Don't know what OS it runs.

Anyway, so, just because you called them doesn't mean you have the OS.
Probably the reason you called to find the OS after all.

And, (entering RANT mode), why the hell do companies who charge millions
of dollars care if some hobbiest wants to bring the machine back to life?
It's not like anyone is going to pay for a license for a J90 once it has
been in the hands of a hobbiest (and thus probably is no longer elligible
for a service contract).  IBM is another company that is rather prickish
here.

>   Some machines never get de-installed by Cray personnel...those are
> the lucky ones.

So, which category do your machines fall into?

--
Joshua Boyd