August 2002
To: Users of Robelle Software Re: News of the HP e3000 and Robelle, 2002 #8 If you haven't been visiting the Robelle web site, www.robelle.com, at least once a week, here is what you have been missing. Included are many of the stories posted to the web since the last newsletter.If you are reading a PDF or text version of this newsletter, remember that the headline of every story is actually a web link to the full story or more information. If you want to follow a link to get more information, go to the web home of the current newsletter: http://www.robelle.com/library/newsletter/latest.html Table of Contents: |
Press Release: Robelle Leads in Migration Solutions
First 3000 Vendor to Support Eloquence: Robelle forges a clear migration path, amidst the panic and uncertainty surrounding HP's November 14th 2001 announcement regarding the end of e3000 production. By March 2002, Robelle led the way by expeditiously adding support for HP Eloquence databases into the HP-UX version of Suprtool.
The 3000 NewsWire has a special offer for 3kworld members: they will give you a password to access the 3000 Newswire articles on-line: All of the NewsWire's continuing coverage of developments in the HP 3000 user community - plus technical reviews and advice on managing the systems through a Transition to either Homesteading or Migration futures - will be available to any 3kWorld Colleagues who request access to the NewsWire site.
HP Extends Support for More 3000s to Dec 2006
The hardware support life for all currently supported HP e3000 systems is now extended, uniformly, to the end of December 2006. HP also is extending the support life for MPE/iX Release 6.5 to December 31, 2004. (This announcement does not change the status of products for which support has already ended, such as the 917 - 987 family)
NewsWire: HP To Continue Patching MPE
The 3000 NewsWire quotes Jeff Vance of HP's 3000 group as saying “Patches will be generated through EOL,” meaning the end of the 3000 line in 2006, not the end of sales. "
Transforming TurboIMAGE Data for Eloquence, Oracle, and More
This PDF file contains Bob Green's paper for HP World in Los Angeles (Sept 23-27, 2002). It presents practical tips on how to transform TurboIMAGE data so that it can be used on other databases: HP Eloquence, Oracle, SQL Server, mySQL, and PostgreSQL.
NewsWire: How to Copy a Patch Tape
A useful tip from the 3000 NewsWire.
Alfredo Rego: How to Read a Manual
Here is Alfredo Rego's classic on how close reading of the manual can lead to impressive improvements in results (from Robelle's HP Encyclopedia).
QWIN: Customizing Your Syntax Highlighting
Qedit for Windows 5.3 contains a new syntax coloring feature that is customized by language definitions, which exist as XML files. This article shows how to customize one of the XML language definitions for your own special needs.
Robelle Tech: Export to MS SQL Server
In our Robelle Tech column for July, we discuss techniques for transforming TurboIMAGE data for Microsoft SQL Server.
According to this report on The Register web site (and confirmed on other news sites), it will get increasingly harder to buy a PC with Windows 2000 installed, with no more after 9 months.
For more Windows tips, visit the permanent location of these articles.
PostgreSQL is an Object-Relational database management system that supports almost all SQL constructs, including subselects, transactions, and user-defined types and functions. It is free to download, use, and modify provided the included copyright notice is included. Also, it is able to run under many OS types, include Unix variants and Windows machines under the Cygwin environment. Click the link above to read about migrating data to PostgreSQL.
Suprtool Training At Your Site
Paul Edwards, a Robelle-authorized training instructor, will come to your site and teach your staff how to use Suprtool: the course consists of lecture and hands-on labs with plenty of examples. The object of the course is to take the student through the fundamentals of SUPRTOOL syntax followed by a more advanced discussion of SUPRLINK, STEXPORT, DBEDIT, tables, duplicates, Web reports, SUPRTOOL2, SpeedDemon, How Messy, and a PowerHouse interface. If you are trying to learn SUPRTOOL on your own or not using the rich features of the product to make your data extraction processes more efficient, then you need to seriously consider having this course taught at your company.
Summary of HP Eloquence Tech Data
Clink the link above for our summary of HP's TurboIMAGE look-alike database for HP-UX.
Ad Technologies: Tools For Migrating Code
Adtech's TransPort product migrates applications in COBOL and other languages to new platforms. Former Robelle employee Ken Robertson now works at Adtech and says their tools are quite "cool".
George Stachnik Webcasts Are Online
HP's George Stachnik has been hosting a series of webcasts dealing with the issues of HP's November 2001 announcement of the death of the HP 3000. Archives of these webcasts are now coming online. The original January 22, 2002 webcast, "First Steps", can be viewed and listened to by clicking the link above. Here are the links to the other three webcasts:
Webcast #2: Planning the project
Webcast #4: User Interface Issues
The fifth webcast on database issues is not yet online.
3K Consultant: Dennis Hassell and Associates
Dennis is teaming up with his brother, Bill Hassell, to provide seamless 3000 to 9000 migration expertise. Please contact him to arrange for an assessment of needs for your business.
SAPDB: An Open-Source Database
Duane Percox of QSS writes on 3000-L: "For our other applications we are choosing an open source database that is relational and sql-92 compatible. For those who believe that open source, freely available databases, are not worth investing your future product plans, I suggest you point your favorite web browser at www.sapdb.org and spend some time checking out their story. Not only will you have an entirely new perspective on the open source movement, you just might find the motivation and ammunition you have been waiting for to justify selling the last of your oracle stock holdings :-)"
3K Consultant: McAfee Consulting
Larry McAfee specializes in HP 3000 applications. In 2001 we migrated the data for an entire MM3000 application to AS/400.
Acucorp to support HP 3000 users
Acucorp announces support for HP COBOL features. For example, most HP COBOL syntax and extensions are supported on all ACUCOBOL-GT platforms, as well as most of the HP COBOL preprocessor and macros.
Consultants: H/P Technologies Inc.
This is a firm that specializes in providing both direct permanent staffing and consulting solutions to a broad cross-section of healthcare/managed care clients nationwide, including AMISYS sites.
How do I use MPE Variables in Qedit?
You can use MPE/iX variables in Qedit commands by prefixing the Qedit command with a colon and a slash (:/). The colon tells Qedit to send the command to MPE, which knows how to dereference variables, then the slash tells Qedit that it is really a Qedit command, not a MPE command.
For example, to change the string {insert date here} to the value of the "mydate" variable in all lines,
run qedit.pub.robelle text myfile :/change "{insert a> here}" "!mydate" all
Experiences with Web-based Training
Robelle programmer Francois Desrochers originally published this article in the July issue of the 3000 News Wire: I was looking for training on Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC). This is taught at many sites across North-America, but only a couple are found in the Montreal area. The courses at these sites are scheduled at most twice a year. Last year I signed up for one, just to have it cancelled at the last minute. Since I did not want to travel, I decided to look at web-based training (a.k.a. e-learning). ...
Robelle Solutions Technology Inc. provides the What's Up, DOCumentation? newsletter as a service to our customers. The newsletter is available on the web: in HTML format for browsing and PDF format for printing. Visit www.robelle.com/library/newsletter/
Comments about this issue, as well as ideas for future issues, including news, tips, and suggestions for articles, can be sent to bgreen@robelle.com.
* HP "Blesses" Eloquence. Minisoft ODBC support.
* MPE: Long versus Short numbers
* Understanding RAID drives
* Suprtool tips: Using tables to replace Quiz links, Subtotals and sorting, Long IF commands, Exception reporting.
* Porting IMAGE data to Oracle
* Searching a fileset with Qedit
Browse the HTML issues at
http://www.robelle.com/library/newsletter/w2002-07.html
Download the PDF issues at
http://www.robelle.com/library/newsletter/w2002-07.pdf