Recent News and Tips
"How to extend the life of your HP 3000 with modern, non-HP peripherals" - don't lose the link to this
article. In it, John Burke explains the details of connecting current and future SCSI disk and tape drives to
your existing HP 3000 system, with links to the sites that provide necessary connectors and
convertors. An essential reference if you plan to keep your 3000! A great service to the community John. Thanks.
4/29/2003
There are three firms that have shown an interest in creating an HP 3000 emulator that would allow
MPE to run on Intel hardware, thus allowing HP 3000 shops to protect their investment in
business software. One is Allegro Consultants, a firm
with MPE and PA-RISC expertise. Another is
Strobe Data, who make emulators for the Data General NOVA systems. And the third, SRI of Switzerland, makes
DEC VAX emulators. SRI has begun preilminary R&D on a prototype HP 3000 emulator. More information
in July, according to their web site.
4/28/2003
John Burke has posted his April net_digest column onto his web site.
Based on 3000-L discussions, it answers questions such as "how to logon to MPE from LINUX?",
"what does a filecode of -491 mean?" and much more.
4/27/2003
John Burke has posted his 3000 Newswire column for April onto his web site.
Very interesting topics: figuring out HP error messages using Google, finding
the path for network cards, configuring multi-function IO cards,
Virtual Hosts in Apache, and much more.
4/26/2003
Here are the top 3 requested changes for MPE:
1. Remove CPU throttling code on existing affected A-/N-class systems post 10/31/2003.
2. Put ALL HP 3000 documentation on the Internet. Note that the CE hardware manuals are not currently available on the Internet.
3. Produce a "parking" PowerPatch for 6.5, 7.0 and 7.5 including all General Release patches by 10/31/2003. And make it available via the Internet. Produce a “parking” release of MPE in the 2005-2006 timeframe.
4/25/2003
Suprtool now has the ability to accept free-form "numbers" as display
data types (via the new $Number function). This means that numbers in the form:
1234.45-
-12345
-123.2134
12343
can now be accepted and converted to any other numeric data type. Click the link above for
full details.
4/22/2003
Most commands now support a string range to identify which lines to work on. A string range is made up of a start string (the first string of the block), a slash and a stop string (the last string of the block). For example,
List "Start-Procedure" / "End-Procedure"
finds the first occurrence of Start- Procedure, finds the next occurrence of End-Procedure from that point and displays all the lines between the 2 points including the start and end lines themselves. A string range can be further limited by specifying a line number range as in
List "Start-Procedure" / "End-Procedure" 10/50
4/21/2003
The Eloquence database is very much like the TurboIMAGE database. Although it does not run on the HP 3000 (MPE), it does run on the HP 9000 (HP-UX). Many sites are happy with their existing HP 3000 applications and would like to replicate them on a platform with a longer future. For them Eloquence can be part of the solution.
If this sounds interesting, read our non-technical introduction to Eloquence, which should answer many of your questions.
4/16/2003
Michel Kohon has updated his classic paper about the "Step by Step" method and allowed us to
post it on our web site (link above). Also, he has sent his expansion of it into the
Product Development Process (MS Word document).
Michel is now CIO of the American Academy of Ophthalmology in San Francisco. He lives in Berkeley, California. Contact: mkohon at aao.org.
4/15/2003
Version 5.4 of Qedit for MPE and Qedit for HP-UX is now available. This version offers numerous enhancements and bug fixes for the host-based module as well as the Qedit for Windows server. Here are some highlights:
- Most line-mode commands now accept a string range to identify which lines to work on. For example,
List "Working-storage"/"Procedure division" will list all lines between the string "Working-storage" and "Procedure division".
- Full-screen mode is back on HP-UX 11.0 and later.
- The tilde "~" character can be used in line-mode to go back to the last line accessed in full-screen mode.
- DeleteJ prompts the user for confirmation before deleting a line.
- RCRTMODEL 1234 can be used to make full-screen mode work better on terminal emulators unknown to Qedit.
- The new Length option on Text allows line folding on HP-UX.
- Qedit for HP-UX can handle files without Newline characters.
Click the link above to get all the details on the new Qedit version.
4/11/2003
François Desrochers has written a technical tip
on how to fill a rectangular column area with text in Qedit for Windows:
In Host-Based Qedit, to
put New text in columns 1 through 10 on all lines, you would do:
/Change 1/10 "New text" All
Even though the Qedit for Windows Replace command can work on columns,
you can't use it
as it only replaces existing string occurrences found within these columns.
Click the link above to learn the solution.
4/11/2003
A Qedit user called with an interesting problem. He had a large MPE data file that was used as input to a program. The input records had many trailing blanks, so he thought he could save a lot of disc space by converting the file to variable-length records instead of fixed-length records. His first attempt at converting the file was not successful. He had used FCOPY to convert the file from fixed- to variable-length, but the file didn't take any less space. It seems that FCOPY did not strip the trailing blanks.
Click the link above for all the details of the solution.
4/09/2003
The April 2003 issue of Robelle's What's Up DOCumentation newletter is
now available. Among the interesting stories this month:
* Robelle manuals available from ondemandmanuals.com
* Support Call of the Week: C Compile error
* Qedit tip: inserting same block many times
* Suprtool tip: spliting byte fields
* Suprtool coding style, tips from Neil Armstrong
* Eloquence B.07.00 Official Release
* Quick and Dirty Solutions with CI Programming
Browse the news by clicking the link above or
download the PDF issue.
4/04/2003
Duane Percox of QSS has some interesting COBOL benchmark timings on their web site
(the lower the number the faster the program.). Currently they are comparing HP COBOL
on various HP 3000 platforms against NetCOBOL and Kompany COBOL on LINUX with an Intel platform, and MicroFocus COBOL
on HP-UX. There are computation, file, and db tests.
4/02/2003
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.
