The February meeting will be the postponed January 2000 meeting. Same speaker, but hopefully there will not be 21 inches of snow. I believe that winter is gone and spring is here.

We need to start the 4 step election process as follows:

1) February meeting - a nomination committee is setup,
2) March meeting - a slate of candidates is presented,
3) April meeting - elections are held, and
4) May meeting - the new officers take over.

We need members to run for the following offices:

President - presides over the monthly meeting.
Vice President - gets speakers for each meeting.
Secretary - keeps the minutes of the meetings and mails newsletter.
Treasurer - keeps track of the money.
Communications - publishes the monthly newsletter.

Please think about being on the nomination committee.

Member duties - vote for your officers, come to the meetings, submit articles for the newsletter, pay your annual dues, give your undivided attention and feedback to our monthly speakers, and so on.

Bring your 2000 SPARTA dues to the meeting.

See you Tuesday February 29th, 2000 at LabCorp. Subs, drinks, and dessert will be provided.
 

Future Speakers

Feb. 29 Mike Dilio of Cisco - the purchase of IBM’s Network Hardware Division
Mar. 28 To be announced

We need ideas and volunteers for future speakers. Please consider giving a presentation at a future meeting. Presentations don’t have to be fancy, just informative and interesting. Even a 5 or 10 minute talk can start an interesting interaction. Contact John Bryant at the phone number or e-mail address below.
 
 

Chris Blackshire - President
Northern Telecom 919-992-4602
P.O. Box 13010
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 Chris.Blackshire@nortelnetworks.com

John Bryant - Vice President
Glaxo Wellcome Inc. 919-483-9548
M/S D111; 5 Moore Drive
RTP, NC 27709 JEB33378@GLAXOWELLCOME.COM

Mike Lockey - Secretary
Guilford Co. Information Services 336-412-6235
201 N. Eugene St. 336-227-2021 (Home)
Greensboro, NC 27401 MLOCKEY@netpath.net

Mike Killam - Treasurer
SAS Institute 919-677-8000 x7103
SAS Campus Drive 919-493-7434 (Home)
Cary, NC 27513 Mike.Killam@SAS.COM

Ed Webb - Communications Director
SAS Institute 919-677-8000 x4162
SAS Campus Drive 919-362-0232 (Home)
Cary, NC 27513 EDWISTUO@aol.com

Meetings are scheduled for the last Tuesday evening of each month (except no meeting in December), with optional dinner at 6:30 p.m. and the meeting beginning at 7:00 p.m.

These monthly meetings are held at LabCorp’s Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology (CMBP) near the Research Triangle Park (except as noted). Take I-40 to Miami Boulevard and go north. Turn right onto Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn Left to the CMBP Building. In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Brad Carson. Brad will escort you to the conference room.
 

If you have any ideas for speakers, presentations, newsletter articles, or are interested in taking part in a presentation, PLEASE contact one of the Board of Directors with your suggestions.
 

The SPARTA chapter policy is to mail a copy of the monthly chapter newsletter to each SPARTA member, NaSPA national, each advertiser, persons who have requested a copy, and to other chapters who send us a copy of their newsletter. The newsletter is mailed about the 20th of each month so you can prepare for the meeting. The mailing list is maintained by Mike Lockey at (336) 412-6235; if you have corrections or problems receiving your newsletter, call Mike.
 

Brad Carson now has copies of version 421 dated August 1999 of the CBT tape. Brad brings cartridges to each meeting and swaps a scratch cartridge for a copy of the CBT. If you need a round tape, contact Brad at LabCorp (Brad_Carson@labcorp.com or 336-436-4065) for details on sending a tape to LabCorp.

The new CBT tape is also available from www.cbttape.org.
 
 

•Meeting was canceled because of severe snow storm over most of North Carolina.
 

Items of Interest

HFS and PDSE No Longer Have to be SMS-Managed

Here’s some info about the recent PTFs to support unmanaged (non-SMS) HFS and PDSE data sets. It’s not clear from this IBM Flash 10007 if the function actually works on OS/390 R3 or whether it’s just tolerated from R3. Anyway, take a look at:

www-1.ibm.com/support/techdocs
/atsmastr.nsf/PubAllNum/Flash10007
 

Enterprise Server Essentials

An interesting read. Select IBM’s S/390 URL to review the complete white paper document (GF22-5122-01).

www.s390.ibm.com/marketing/gf225122.html

(Ed. note: The following is an excerpt from the GF22-5122 book)

Enterprise Server Essentials

A non-technical guide for executives whose business goals cannot be compromised by I/T-imposed limitations

December 1999

Automated function & usable capacity: The essential differences in a “mainframe-class” reality test

Winston Churchill once quipped that Americans and the British were “one people divided by a common language”. Something similar may be said of the world of Information Technology (I/T) staffs - with one branch having a mindset steeped in mainframe traditions and another in distributed computing traditions. I/T professionals in each branch assume that their counterparts in the other branch interpret things the same way they do. The assumption is not altogether warranted. This can be a frequent cause of confusion as end users communicate their business and I/T needs to these differing I/T perspectives.

The intent of this document is to remove some of this confusion and provide a reality check so that, before you commit your time and resources to an new I/T project, you can better appreciate the essential function and usable capacity of an Enterprise Server (and of alternative I/T server platforms), to meet your business needs without compromise.

Sometimes the confusion stems from the marketing claims of competing server vendors , with terms such as “mission-critical,” “mainframe-like,” “industry-leading performance” and “enterprise server.” Today's IBM® S/390® Enterprise Server is the result of nondisruptive evolution spanning more than 30 years - a platform of maturity, proven function, and performance, and yet a platform totally transformed from its predecessors, known as “mainframes”.

It was only a few years ago that the term “mainframe” was used derisively by vendors of distributed computing systems. How times change. Today, the term is invoked by these same UNIX® server vendors - as in “mainframe-class” or “mainframe-like” - when they want to suggest that their products offer function and performance that rise to the highest levels in the I/T industry. Were these “mainframe-like” claims related to some of the capabilities of the mainframe of 10-to-25 years ago, there may be some validity to them....
 

Humor

Top 20 Things on a Y2K Survivalist’s To-Do List

20) Apologize to the neighbors for all of those silly “See Ya Sucker!” New Year’s Eve remarks.

19) Think of new and exciting ways to use that expensive generator.

18) Find the grocery store receipt for 10,000 packets of ramen noodles.

17) Apologize to next-door neighbor about the tripwire incident; offer to replace dog.

16) Take up pork-and-beans skeet shooting.

15) Gather recipes for Spam, dehydrated potatoes, and crow.

14) Cancel subscription to Stockpilers Quarterly, but keep the free can opener.

13) Convert weapons back to semiautomatic.

12) Pitch “1000 Ideas for Wheat Gluten” to Martha Stewart’s people.

11) Return 753 videos to Blockbuster.

10) Water the yard, one lousy gallon at a time.

9) Prepare for the dreaded but little-known “Arbor Day Bug.”

8) Explain to the kids one more time why it was better to be prepared than to go on vacation to Disney World last year.

7) Learn how to disarm a Claymore mine before cutting the lawn.

6) Laugh at all those losers out there fighting each other for scraps of food, and thank the Lord for the safety of the bunker, cut off from all connection with the outside world.

5) Find the shyster who sold me all that dehydrated water.

4) Wonder if we wouldn’t have been better off getting zapped with Y2K.

3) Convert my anti-Y2K-Bug tinfoil hat back into an anti-Katie-Couric-Mind-Control tinfoil hat.

2) Make sure the babes in the bunker still think we need to repopulate Earth.

1) Make friends with the 6 billion other Y2K survivors.
 

What Goes Around Comes Around

His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer. One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran to the bog.

There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.

The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman’s sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved.

“I want to repay you,” said the nobleman. “You saved my son’s life.”

“No, I can’t accept payment for what I did,” the Scottish farmer replied, waving off the offer.

At that moment, the farmer’s own son came to the door of the family hovel.

“Is that your son?” the nobleman asked.

“Yes,” the farmer replied proudly.

“I’ll make you a deal. Let me take him and give him a good education. If the lad is anything like his father, he’ll grow to a man you can be proud of.”

And that he did. In time, Farmer Fleming’s son graduated from St.Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin.

Years afterward, the nobleman’s son was stricken with pneumonia.

What saved him? Penicillin.

The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill.

His son’s name? Sir Winston Churchill.

Someone once said: What goes around comes around.

1. Work like you don’t need the money.
2. Love like you’ve never been hurt.
3. Dance like nobody’s watching.
 

Truths

Hell hath no fury like the lawyer of a woman scorned.

Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.

Drugs may lead to nowhere, but at least it’s the scenic route.

I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Everybody repeat after me: “We are all individuals”.

Eagles may soar, but weasels aren’t sucked into jet engines.

No one is listening until you make a mistake.

Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view.

The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.

The severity of the itch is proportional to the reach.

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

If at first your don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
 

Boeing Scientists Discover New Element

Material scientists at Boeing have stunned the scientific community with the discovery of a new chemical element. They recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element ever observed. The element, tentatively named Lockheedium, has no protons or electrons and thus has an atomic number of 0. However, it does have one neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons and 111 assistant vice neutrons, which gives it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by a force that involves the continuous exchange of meson-like particles called morons. It is also surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. At the center of the atom is a large seemingly inert mass called a “Teets”. Research continues in an attempt to discover how it got there and what it actually does.

Since it has no electrons, Lockheedium is chemically inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction it comes in contact with. According to the discoverers, a minute amount of Lockheedium caused one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally have occurred in less than a second. It also acts as a catalyst in creating a pulp like substance called “paper” in quantities so vast it has yet to be explained. Lockheedium has a normal half-life of approximately three years, at which time it does not decay, but instead it reorganizes. Reorganization is a reaction in which the assistant neutrons, vice neutrons and assistant vice neutrons simply exchange places. This reaction was observed to have taken place very recently. In fact, a Lockheedium sample's mass actually INCREASES after each reorganization, since some of the morons become neutrons, forming new and potentially dangerous isotopes. Reorganization does not have any observable effects on the peons, however.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to speculate that perhaps Lockheedium is spontaneously formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as “critical morass”. The most noteworthy characteristic of Lockheedium is that anything made of it doesn’t work. Some devices have been known to explode, while others crash into the first planet they pass close to.

Membership in the SPARTA chapter is $20.00 per year for January through December. The 2000 chapter dues are due January 1, 2000. Please renew your membership! If you want to join SPARTA, an affiliated user group of NaSPA, please send your check for $20.00 for the 2000 annual dues to either:
 

Treasurer Secretary
Mike Killam Mike Lockey
SAS Institute NaSPA / SPARTA
SAS Campus Drive P.O. Box 13194
Cary, NC 27513 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-3194
Work (919) 677-8000 x7103 Work (336) 412-6235
 

Make check payable to SPARTA. The membership dues are not prorated to simplify our accounting procedures. Please include the membership application form with your check.
 
 

As a member of the SPARTA chapter, you may request copies of the handouts for any meeting that you may have missed. Please request copies from any officer.

Take I-40 to Miami Boulevard and go north. Turn right onto Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn left to the CMBP Building. In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Brad Carson. Brad will escort you to the conference room.
 
 

SPARTA News
P.O. Box 13194
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-3194
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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