"There's been very little effort to revive Interex," said Denys Beauchemin, an IT consultant who was vice chairman of the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based user group. "The heart of Interex -- what really created the whole thing originally -- was the 3000 group anyway."

"The 3000 group," as he called it, represents HP e3000 users who once gathered at Interex's annual HP World conference. This year they will meet in November at a conference sponsored by the Greater Houston Regional Users Group.

Richard Pringle, the Houston user group's president, said the conference will provide the latest information on migration, as well as "homesteading" for those who plan to continue running the midrange system. The focus of the November event will be on addressing user issues, said Pringle, who manages infrastructure, including an e3000, with a contractor at a NASA site.

"We're coming from the users" perspective, said Pringle. "We're not coming from the manufacturer's."

Encompass, a Chicago-based user group that grew out of a different user base, that of Digital Equipment Corp., has been trying to broaden its appeal to Interex members. Next week it will launch an e3000 special interest group focused on migrating off the platform. Although the HP e3000 has been discontinued by HP, support will be offered until December 2008 or later, the company said late last year.