SX2000 - RIP 5/1/2010

[SXWizard]

As everyone should know the SX2000 is being Manufacturer Discontinued (MD) on 5/1/2010. It's been a great 25 years. Just remember, inside every 3300 beats the database of the SX2000. At least that won't die!

I will have many fond memories of all the nights I fed in floppies to upgrade those SX2000 SG, S & VS systems (before tapes & RSD).
I shed a tear..... and lift a glass....

From Mitel:
"This bulletin is a final reminder to all Mitel SX-2000 customers that the date for the last time to buy the final remaining SX-2000 specific parts is approaching.
The date of May 1st 2010, will see all sales of specific SX-2000 parts ended. For customers looking to purchase line cards and or any SX-2000 software options, now is the final opportunity."

 

[UncleRalph]

That is sad. I started with the 2k at E Stream. 1st box in Michigan fully redundant including the pers.
Thing I remember most about them is how heavy they were - 3 tons, I'm sure. Trying to move them down a flight of steps. Ah, good times....

Ralph

 

[danramirez]

excellent equipment!! But the 3300 is also nice product!!

 

[SXWizard]

First system I worked on was SX2000SG - .75 Stream (Alpha) which went to .8 Stream (Beta) and then Release 1.0. It had bubble memory for storage. Hard drives came after bubble memory didn't work, that's why HDD's were never built into the SG but sat on top. It had a 48VDC rectifier and was fully redundant (4 back door power supplies) - weighed a ton! That SG is gone but all the peripheral cards are still running in an SX2000 Light at the same site 25 years later. Customer got a great ROI...

 

[UncleRalph]

Wow! Alpha! I am jelous! Would have loved to work for Mitel at that time.

Interesting to see why the HDs were on top. Didn't know that.

Your's sounds like one I worked on with a redundant 48v rectifier. Ah, the good old days.

Ralph

 

[nytalkin]

Ah for the days when a truss was a job expense. First big 2k was two SG's networked with E&M ties. Installation time was weeks instead of hours. bought a lot of stuff with the overtime too.

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED!

 

[MitelInMyBlood]

Back in the day" we had 5 total cabinets of "SG" (2 systems) sitting alongside one another. The first was a 3-cabinet (4 peripheral pairs + a 16-Link DSU shelf). Next to it stood the 2-cabinet system (2 peripheral pairs + a full 32-link DSU shelf) configured with MFRD-23 (Tandem-Resale). Over the years it seems like I probably fed thousands of floppies to those behemoths. We used to schedule the start of the job so that we'd insert the "Miscellaneous Disk" around dinner time, then go eat a hearty meal, smoke a good cigar and come back to find that one disk nearly complete. I still have a couple of the black plastic flip-over 5-1/4" floppy cases and a retired coworker has one of the system interface panels (with the RED LED Clock/Day & Date display) wired up and displaying the time in his study. Brings a tear to my eye just to see it. We have a number of the original MC320 ONS cards still in service today in the 2K Light.

It has indeed been a very good long run, 24 years for me come December. Looking forward to retiring myself. As the song says, "you've got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em".
.


Original MUG/NAMU Charter Member

 

[mitelmitel]

I have spent many years working on hundreds of SX2000s.... I loved the robustness of the hardware! Oh the winch to winch and the scratch qualifiers!

 

[Jakt99]

Yep a sad day...Hate getting old

Did my sx 2k training at kanata in 95, 2 week course loads of fun breaking it and work on heaps of 2k boxes since