[rescue] System/36 IPL Signon

[Sheldon T. Hall]

Mr Bill said ... 
> On Sun, May 20, 2007 at 11:42:34AM -0700, Sheldon T. Hall wrote:
> >
> > So I'm doing something unusual like installing patches, and it says
> > something like "TO AVOID DISK REFORMAT PRESS F11".
> > There are only 10 function keys on an AT keyboard.
> 
> So what did you do? 8-)

Exercised parts of my vocabulary usually kept hidden from my co-workers,
while ripping the Smart Alex product manager a new one.  My position was
that there should be some documented way to supply _all_ the keys the native
S/36 terminal had, even if the PC emulating the terminal didn't have them.
His position was that I should have known the emulation would be incomplete,
since I could see both keyboards.

IIRC correctly, the dispute went up a few levels, and both the product and
the doco were fixed eventually. So was the PMs job, since I was able to show
that the competition's product handled the problem sanely, and outsold ours
even to our own customers.

As for the S/36, well, that day I just turned off my PC, walked down the
hall, and used the real console to re-run the job that "failed" because the
terminal "lost connection."  That was the short term.  In the long term, the
S/36 went bye-bye, but I'm not sure if it or the POS Siemens phone system
was the subject of the CEO call to the vendor, the one where he told them it
was on the loading dock, and that the forecast was for rain.

-Shel