Recent News and Tips
Since fall 2001, Robelle has been phasing in Allegro
Consultants of San Jose, California
(www.allegro.com) as a technical support
resource for our customers. We are very pleased with the
results. Now they are handling all the initial support
contacts, with our in-house programming team which is as always
still available as backup for difficult and perplexing issues.
Allegro has the strongest team of technical expertise
in the HP 3000 area, plus years of experience in HP-UX as well.
This is the reason we selected them to
assist us. With the prospect of declining volume in the future,
it made sense to outsource the first line of support to a firm
that already has an MPE/HP-UX staff in place, already knows our
products from using them, and already provides
tech support for other firms. By sharing these great people, we
can ensure economical and knowledgeable support for our customers
for years ahead.
Click the link above for our full profile of Allegro.
9/30/2002
One of the most interesting duo talks at HPWorld show this year was by Tien-You Chen and Michael Marxmeier Tien-You has been the Database Architect at CSY for years and is sorry to see TurboIMAGE retired, but he is "happy to tell you we have found a perfect replacement."
Michael Marxmeier, of Marxmeier Software AG and the author of Eloquence, explained that Eloquence was
first released in 1989 as a solution to move the HP 250/260 to HP-UX and was intended to be a 2-3 year solution.
It now has 2500+ installations worldwide and is used by about 60+ vars/isvs in a wide range of applications.
Neil Armstrong, Michael Marxmeier and Bob Green
Click the link above for a full report.
9/29/2002
Here is our team: Tammy Roscoe, Bob Green, Mary Ann Green and Neil Armstrong, in
our booth. And then our choice for the most fun booth: Strategic Memory with car racing.
Quantum was giving away a new Mini Cooper and
Forsythe had a life-sized Chess game.
9/27/2002
Reported by Gavin Scott, Allegro (gavin@allegro.com)
At Tuesday afternoon's two hour OpenMPE session, HP's Mike Paivinen and
Kriss Rant provided details about the decisions HP has recently made
that affect the topics of concern to the OpenMPE and MPE "homesteading"
community. The results are positive.
Click the link above to read Gavin's full report.
9/27/2002
News from HPWorld!
Direct from the show floor and the latest sessions:
Acucorp Cobol stopped by our booth to let us know that their HP3000 Cobol compiler version 5.22
and higher now reads Qedit format files. You can get more information about their products from
www.AcuCorp.com
At the Management Roundtable on Thursday morning, Interex tried to bar the press from attending!
Security was called when Ron Seybold of the NewsWire
tried to enter, but the audience spoke up for him and he was allowed to stay.
One of speakers announced that support for MPE systems could be extended beyond 2006 for
selected North American customers.
Dave Wilde of HP announced
that HP has a new Investment Protection Program where users of A and N class MPE systems can get
50% trade-in against a future HP-UX upgrade. In regard to the future of MPE, Dave said that HP intends
to pursue license transfers and license creation to enable creation of MPE emulators.
SIGIMAGE meeting was well attended and SIGIMAGE will continue to exist. Tien-You Chen gave an overview of
new features in the latest version of TurboIMAGE, including the second round of scalability enhancements, known
as the Extended HighWater Mark enhancement. One other important note is if you are going to use the Large File
database feature on MPE/iX 7.5 you will need to get the patch TIXMXA4. Stay tuned for more details.
Carly just gave the opening keynote speech and did not mention the HP 3000 even once.
"Getting Started with Eloquence", a 2 hour session this morning, led by Michael Marxmeier from Germany and Tien-You Chen from
HP Cupertino. Highlights: Tien-You has been the Database Architect at CSY for years and is sorry to see TurboIMAGE retired,
but he is "happy to tell you we have found a perfect replacement." Marxmeier, who created Eloquence in 1989 and whose firm
still supports and enhances it, announced a "letter of understanding with HP to transfer all the rights to Eloquence to
Marxmeier Software". Since they already do all the support and R&D, nothing will change, except dropping "HP" from the
product name. This is great news for users, since it means that a small, focused, nimble software company will
take over all aspects of Eloquence. Bob Green says: "I was so impressed with Eloquence, that I decided to be a reseller.
Check out eloquence3000.com and email me when you are ready for a demo."
Orly Larson, famous MPE booster, has retired from HP after 30 years, but he is at the show greeting old friends.
9/25/2002
Remote Procedure Calls allow you to run subroutines across a
a network. This example from Transformix shows how to issue TurboIMAGE calls
from a Visual Basic program across an network.
9/23/2002
With many sites thinking of staying on the 3000 as long as practical,
this page of Frequently Asked Questions from Phoenix Systems is very timely.
9/21/2002
Explore the riches of the Robelle website! At Robelle we're continually researching various sources and updating our website with industry software tips, information resources and current happenings of interest to the HP 3000 customer.
Whether you need to answer questions about Qedit and Suprtool, boost your MPE and HP-UX skills or hear about the latest happenings in the 3000 world, the Robelle sites have something for you. Plus…it's easy to navigate through our many layers of great information.
Just scroll down the left side of our home page to find dozens of useful links. And the right side contains daily news and tips about the HP 3000 and Robelle.
White Papers |
Product Manuals
|
Training Courses
|
HP Encyclopedia on MPE/ HP-UX
|
Technical Tips
|
Downloadable Product
Updates & Demos
|
Links to HP 3000 and HP 9000 Resources
|
Newsletters
|
Daily News
|
Migration Resources
|
Directory of Consulting Services for HP 3000 & Robelle Products
|
Tutorials like… Speeding up Quiz using Suprtool, IMAGE Internals &
Performance, HP-UX for MPE Users
9/20/2002
Big agenda for this important MPE database meeting at HPWorld:
11:00am til 1pm on Wednesday 25 September 2002 in Room 406B.
9/19/2002
Hear About Eloquence from the Source.
If you want the whole Eloquence database story, we recommend you attend the session by
Michael Marxmeier, of Marxmeier Software, from 08:00 - 10:00 on Wednesday in Room 408A.
He will also expected to be at the SIGImage meeting.
9/19/2002
Press Release: "Organized for the Future"
Robelle is committed to servicing the 3000 market, as well as the segment that migrates to HP-UX, with current and continually enhanced solutions.
We will be supporting Suprtool and Qedit for many years to come. Robelle is here to stay, and Robelle has the resources to do it. We have streamlined the company and our business processes to better enable us to service your changing needs at the highest service standards. ... Just because HP is retiring MPE, does not mean that we have stopped work on it. Quite the contrary!...
We have been very busy. Click the link above for more information on our plans.
9/19/2002
Wednesday (9/25), attend the OpenMPE session from 4:00 until 6:00 to learn details of
interest to MPE users who plan on continuing to run MPE beyond 2006.
9/18/2002
HP e3000 Hardware Conversion Kits provide real value for your server investment. They enable you to convert your existing HP e3000 A-Class and N-Class server hardware to HP-UX server hardware at no cost.
Click link for HP PDF file.
9/17/2002
TransforMix tools include middleware, application renovation tools for adding graphical user interfaces and web-enabling applications. They were the first ones to recognize the potential of HP Eloquence for MPE users, long before HP announced
the retirement of MPE.
9/16/2002
Recently we explored the benefits and drawbacks of using SAPdb as an alternative enterprise-level DBMS. Now we are going to take a closer look at the datatypes available for transforming a TurboIMAGE database.
9/13/2002
From the 3kworld web site, read this fascinating history of the IMAGE-lookalike database.
9/12/2002
The September 2002 issue of Robelle's newletter
is now available. Some of the highlights from this issue:
* Visit Robelle at HPWorld 2002 in Los Angeles
* The Story Behind Suprlink
* HP Advisor Link: Myths and Truths About "Eloquence"
* User Gives Advice for HP-UX Newcomers
* Qedit: Checking Comma-Delimited Files
* Test Drive of an Open-Source Enterprise-Level Database
* Suprtool: Adjusting the Display Width
* Avoid the "vi" curse
* Robelle Press Release: No Rush to Migrate, Until You Are Ready
Browse the HTML issues by clicking the link above or download the
PDF issues at http://www.robelle.com/library/newsletter/w2002-09.pdf
Hope you enjoy this issue.
9/11/2002
We have produced a new flier for the Suprtool/UX product and you can download
the PDF version from our web site.
Or you can
email sales@robelle.com and request a printed copy by slow mail.
From the Suprtool/UX brochure:
On the day after HP's obsolescence notice, Robelle identified the
Eloquence database as a valuable option for HP 3000 sites moving
to HP-UX. In a few short weeks we produced a new Eloquence version
of Suprtool and had it in user hands for testing.
9/10/2002
George Stachnik has been hosting a series of webcasts on issues related to
the HP 3000 end of life. The July 23rd webcast was on "Database Issues" and
is now archived for online viewing.
9/09/2002
Easy: we are in booth 1101. Just turn left when you enter the show floor and you will see us!
9/07/2002
HP has released a new version of MPE/iX (probably the last one). Read about
7.5 at the link above or in this PDF brochure.
Regarding Robelle products and 7.5, you should have at least Suprtool version 4.3.03 and Qedit version 5.0 (or a higher version!)
and you probably do.
9/06/2002
HP announced new N-class servers today. According to
this HP N-class brochure:
The new HP e3000 N-Class server packs the new PA-8700, and up to 750-MHz, into a high performance into a sleek package. Its superior rackability—with four servers to a rack—provides massive performance density to give you maximum power per square foot.
9/04/2002
HP announced new servers today based on the PA-8700 chips:
A400-100-150, A500-100-200, and
A500-200-200. According to this HP brochure:
the updated HP e3000 A400 and A500
servers double the performance and
capability of the previous A-Class servers
in the same compact package—and at
the same affordable price.
9/04/2002
According to this story on ZDNet, spam email is now 36% of all email traffic,
up from 8% a year ago, and destinated to make up the majority of email by yearend.
On the firms quoted in the article is Brightmail, which
provides services to filter out spam.
9/02/2002
From The Register newsletter:
Businesses using Microsoft's volume licensing programs may think that they
are buying OS licenses, but they aren't! Microsoft expects them to also purchase a new OS license for each
new machine, even if they immediately overwrite it under the volume licensing
program. Click the link to find out why.
9/02/2002
"Find all students from NY with 3.0 grade point, majoring in English, whose parents are alumni, and who have less than $5000 in student loans."
Once upon a time there was an HP 3000 site that had many user reports like the one above. Although their database was small, it was complex, with many links from the student master to the detail datasets about the student. Some reports like the one described above took two hours or more to run and interfered with interactive response.
Why were these reports taking so long and what could we do to help? Click the link above for the
full story, historical and technical!
9/02/2002
Archived News and Tips...
HP 3000 Book
HP 3000 Evolution:
Edited by
Bob Green of Robelle, from articles written by Robelle,
by The 3000 Newswire, and by other
experts in the HP 3000 field.
This 300-page book contains the latest information on three important
topics:
Homesteading
HP 3000 Tune Up
Migrating a 3000 application.
An essential reference for every desk!
Order your copy on-line for US$25.
