Conference 7.286::digital

    .-1

    that is just because they are not working today in the stock market,
    it is a good Friday holiday, someone just did not leave the day's befor
    numbers in the data base.

    plus, what are trying to do? GIVE US DECeee's A HEART ATTACK!! for crying
    it out loud??

    \nasser

    
    
    Whoever was responsible for the Stock Quotation on the net should have
    left a message such as 'no trading' etc.
    
    I have to pinch myself when I saw those figures....

>>    Whoever was responsible for the Stock Quotation on the net should have
>>    left a message such as 'no trading' etc.

EVERYONE is responsible.  ANYONE can update that quote information.  It is done
via a very clever method that allows very little information to be returned to
the requesting network task.  The QUOTE_V0.EXE program tries to parse what it
gets back from that node, and if it is invalid, it will display an error.  It
does not have the smarts to return "market closed today".

The quote server lives on a single node on the network and all it takes is for
that system to go down and the quote information will be invalid.

The bottom line, don't sell/buy on the information you see on the network,
verify the information somewhere else first.

bjm

    The Digital stock quote server does have a provision for indicating
    that no information is available.  This is the message it is
    initialized to upon execution.
    
    Normally, if there is no trading on a given day, the server will simply
    return the last quotation that was given to it (which anybody on the
    network is allowed to do), along with the time and date that indicates
    it is a previous day's quotation.  If the system crashes or is shut
    down on such a day, the no-information message should be returned after
    it is rebooted.
    
    To return a quote of all zeroes, somebody must have updated the server
    specifing those amounts.
    
    
    				-- edp

You can be sure that an Official Stock Quotation Product would
be designed to return appropriate error messages (well, maybe
not) but on the other hand you'd still be waiting for it
to be implemented.

    How can I install the Quote program you are talking about?
    Bruce

See the SUBWAY::DIGITAL_INVESTING conference.. do a DIR/TITLE=QUOTE
and you should find a pointer.

Lee

    Lets get back to the real question -> How low can it get ?
    
    Well if we go believe what today's Wall Street Journal is gossiping,
    that we will show a $ 25M loss, it will not go to $ 0.00; however it
    will go quite low, because that is about $ 25M higher that we (DEC)
    committed last quarter to the investment community.   Our commitment
    (just in case we forgot) that we 'will break even' -> that means 
    no loss or a more reasonable loss (single digit or less than $ 10M).
    So folks, $ 25M loss is NOT GOOD ENOUGH...again we did it to ourselves
    !!
    

    	What's this "we" stuff? The loss might have only been $24M, but we
    have this nice new purple logo with round dots over the i's to show for
    it. I'm sure this will more than pay for itself in the long run. I've
    heard that Wall St., after seeing the new logo, is recommending a "buy"
    on Digital stock. HP and IBM will changing their logos to "hp" and
    "ibm" respectively with purple backgrounds. Already, farmers in Iowa
    rate this new logo as one of the most highly-recognized corporate
    logos, right up there with Coca-Cola.
    	So stop worrying. The higher-ups know what they're doing. The money
    will come pouring in during Q4. We won't know what to do with it all.

    .8
    
    DEC has never committed to anyone that we will break even in Q3.
    It's the folks at Wall Street wishing that we will break even
    in Q3.  Also Palmer in his latest public speech also stated that
    we are not out of red yet.
    
    Wendy

    i feel thick today more than my normal, like how can a company *guarantee*
    how much profit/loss they'll make ahead in time? isn't that depends
    how much people buy our stuff? 

    is this forecasting? even weather forecasting i dont trust too much 
    never mind 3 month ahead profit/loss forecasting in such a quick
    changing world we live in.

    i know i should have went to business school instead, then may be i can 
    talk more smart than iam doing now.

    \nasser

    re:.9   I love it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
            Dipirro, you've just made my day !
    
    	    Maybe we did not commit, maybe we did.   We truly caused a
            lot of expectations.
    
    	    Hey, folks, don't get me wrong $ 25M red (if its true - the
            official results are not out as of yet !) is not that bad.
    	    We are going in the 'right' direction, however, don't know
    	    how, who or when, we (DEC) caused the expectation that we will
    	    be less than $ 10M in the red for Qtr. 3, and we (looks most
            probable) will be in the $ 20ish M red.
    
    	    On the other hand, if we have a strong Qtr. 4 (as usual for
    	    DEC); we may be looking at a big bang gain in stock
    	    appreciation.   So lets have our eyes and ears open, we may be
    	    able to purchase stock in the $ 35.00 and sell in the $ 60.00
    	    a $ 25.00 in three months.....I'll take that !!!!!!!!
    

    re:.13
    If you really want to put your money where your mouth is, call up a
    stockbroker and buy DEC call options.  They give you the right to buy
    stock up to a given data at a given price.  I don't have today's WSJ
    but I betcha that a September 50 would be pretty cheap right now.
    
    Or if you've heard some of the Q3 rumors that I have, you may be a bit
    late to buy a Put option...

The year that Good Friday occurred on April 1 was a lot of fun -- the
quotations ran up and down wildly all day (for both DEC and the DJIA).
Some people were quite upset about this.  I felt that 

    1)	Anyone actually thinking about selling or buying would have found
	out that the market wasn't open, so no one was actually hurt, and

    2)	Anyone who puts implicit faith in the accuracy of a computer
	data base (especially if they don't know how the data was gathered)
	REALLY desperately needs to be taught the danger of that view!

Of course, I was taught to not even rely on the results my pocket
calculator gives me without checking them for reasonableness.
If we don't apply judgement to the results, computers are simply
a way to make mistakes more quickly.

	Enjoy,
	Larry

>The year that Good Friday occurred on April 1 was a lot of fun -- the
>quotations ran up and down wildly all day (for both DEC and the DJIA).
>Some people were quite upset about this.  I felt that 
>
>    1)	Anyone actually thinking about selling or buying would have found
>	out that the market wasn't open, so no one was actually hurt, and
>
>    2)	Anyone who puts implicit faith in the accuracy of a computer
>	data base (especially if they don't know how the data was gathered)
>	REALLY desperately needs to be taught the danger of that view!
>
The author of the Quote_v0 program was "told not to let it happen again" or
the stock quote program would be removed from the network and he could be
in trouble. Since the program allows anyone to update the data, he really has
no control... JC told me this at his annual PIG ROAST that year.

Some people just over react to the smallest things (someone complained to
personel) and this could ruin it for the rest of us. The quote_v0 program was
written on personal time and implemented with the idea that enough DEC people
have ways of finding out the current stock price that the last price input
will normally be up to date and accurate. It is a nice thing to have!!!!

Dan Buckley, CT ps

    Re .16:
    
    > The author of the Quote_v0 program was "told not to let it happen
    > again" or the stock quote program would be removed from the network and
    > he could be in trouble.
    
    I was told no such thing.  And if any jerk tried to tell me such a
    thing, I'd explain where they could put it.
    
    
    				-- edp

re .16:  "Would you prefer not to have it at all??"

I would prefer for Personnel to explain to people that the stock quote
program comes with no warantee of accuracy, and indeed, no records are
even kept of who entered any given quote.  Therefore, ANY data they
receive from this program could be erroneous and NO decisions should
be made without confirming the data -- as they should for any other
database whose contents are not vouched for.

Of course, that's only the right response if one's goal is to solve
the underlying problem.  The surface problem, that of people getting
frightened by wildly swining stock prices, could more easily be solved
by saying "don't change the stock price when the market is closed, or
else."  It says something (about people's assumptions or experience)
that so many of us believed that Personnel responded in that fashion.  
I'm glad that the program author did not, in fact, receive dire warnings 
from Personnel about that incident.  

	Enjoy,
	Larry

re:    -< Personnel has nothing to do with the 'stock quote' hack >-

Personnel has *everything* to do with interpreting policy and enforcing
it on those who are perceived to have violated it.  Personnel is also
where you call if you want to get someone else in trouble, e.g. for
allowing a program to run that shows the DEC stock price changing wildly.

I have "personal" experience with this.  I once had a couple of talks
with the guy in charge of Personnel at my site because somebody lodged
a complaint against me.  I had sent an email reply to a notes file flame,
and this guy didn't think I had a right to use his mailbox.  (No, he was
not complaining about what I said to him, just about the fact that I had
mailed him a message).  It eventually got resolved, but what a mess while
it was going on.

	Enjoy,
	Larry

PS -- They're really called "Human Resources" now, but I tend to find
the old name of "Personnel" less confusing.  LS

    re .-1
    
    be cool, man...
    
    why don't you go spend some of your valuable energy on selling
    profitable materials to our customers, instead of spending the
    equivalent time on this relatively low priority note topic??
    
    an alternate solution is to simply turn off the quote hack, which
    usually comes about from people like yourself asking for things to be
    carefully regulated... be careful what it is you are asking for... 
    
       what I see in this topic is alot of energy going into a hack which
    (if I was a manager) would be turned off to reduce the "noise" level so
    I could focus on selling, and surviving.
       Be Cool.... Go Sell!!
    
    Bruce (who-noticed-this-has-gone-on-for-2-wks-plus)

re .-1:

    an alternate solution is to simply turn off the quote hack, which
    usually comes about from people like yourself asking for things to be
    carefully regulated... be careful what it is you are asking for... 

My point was exactly the opposite of wanting something regulated.  .-1 was 
a reply to someone who wanted to know what Personnel has to do with this.

       what I see in this topic is alot of energy going into a hack which
    (if I was a manager) would be turned off to reduce the "noise" level so
    I could focus on selling, and surviving.

My energy in this note has nothing to do with the quote hack and everything
to do with some people's dangerously blind dependence on computer databases.  
That's a message I feel is worth taking a few minutes to spread.

       Be Cool.... Go Sell!!

Thanks, but I design some of the stuff that gets sold, and I feel that
"being cool" is bad advice if there's a problem people are ignoring.
But then, different job functions require different personalities.

	Larry