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Solid software for HP Servers |
Highlights from our recent on-line customer news. The links and full articles are available at www.robelle.com/news |
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What’s Up DOCumentation
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Interex
has gone into bankruptcy, cancelled the HPWorld conference in San Francisco and
stopped operating. From their web site: "Unfortunately our publications,
newsletters, services and conference (HPWorld 2005) will be terminated
immediately. HP 3000 Blog from the Newswire Ron
Seybold, publisher of The 3000 Newswire has started a Newswire blog and
already has some great stories posted. A blog is a web site that is frequently
updated with new stories/tips/links. New items are added at the top and old
ones fall off the bottom (going into an archive). Here are the headlines today
on Ron's 3000 blog: Deep
Enough to Hold a Mansion Ron
has comments enabled, so you can add your own ideas to his stories. The URL is 3000newswire.blogs.com and to
syndicate it for a news aggregator such as bloglines,
use this link. Recently,
I have noticed a positive level of activity in the MPE universe. People with an
interest in the platform have been working on it and acting to keep it
supported and practical. To read my full report, click the link above. A few
examples are: Resource
3000: newsletter and services Of
course, the product downloads for Qedit and Suprtool include the user manuals
and help files in digital format. But
did you know that you can also order printed manuals? You can have your own
personal manual to hold, mark up and dog ear! Robelle
allows you to order the most recent manuals on-line. These professionally bound
manuals will be printed immediately upon your request and billed to your credit
card (via a service called OnDemandManuals.com). The price is $25 US. SUPRTOOL/QEDIT/HP-UX Training in
October Kubler
Consulting, Inc., an authorized SUPRTOOL Training partner with Robelle
Solutions Technologies Inc., is offering a three-day SUPRTOOL-QEDIT Training
course in Tampa, Florida. This course is being offered by popular demand at an
eastcoast site and is being hosted by the SUNCOAST CREDIT UNION. The dates are
October 17th - 19th. If you have an interest in the training please send email
to jeff@kublerconsulting.com or call 541-745-7457. Further information
including the topics covered, detailed location and training references, etc.
are available upon request. Additional information on travel arrangements can
be found at www.kublerconsulting.com
One
student had this to say, "Suprtool is the fastest data extraction tool I
have ever used with many capabilities added through the use of STExport,
DBEDIT, and SUPRLINK. The training I received as a report developer allowed me
to make a connection to the appropriate database where data could be combined,
formatted and massaged in accordance with user specifications." Doug
Cowart , GTE Federal Credit Union Staying, Migrating and SurvivingBeechglen
has an interesting Patch Analysis Script on their web site (link above). It
compares your current system's patches to the latest available and provides you
with a list of recommended patches to apply. Included with this list will be
the text descriptions of each patch so you may review what each one will fix. I
can't tell if they are keeping this up to date for all the latest patches, but
it wouldn't surprise me. Vladimir
Volokh of VESOFT fame called us recently, and passed on an interesting story.
He was doing MPE system and security consulting at a user site. One of his
regular steps is to run VESOFT's Veaudit tool on the system. From this he
learned that every user in the production account had System Manager
(SM) capabiity! Giving
a regular user SM capability is a really bad thing. It means that the users can
purge the entire system, look at any data on the system, insert nasty code into
the system, etc. And this site had recently passed their Sarbanes-Oxley audit. Vladimir
removed SM capability from the users and sat back to see what would happen. The
first problem to occur was a job stream failure. The reason it failed was
because the user did not have Read access to the STUSE group, which contained
the Suprtool "Use" scripts. So, Suprtool aborted. Click the link
above to read the rest of this interesting story. Have
a question for Robelle? The answer is probably on our "top 10" page! The
Interex Contributed Library The
3000 Newswire Blog continues to
produce excellent daily articles on the 3000 world. For example: "... a brief report on the location of programs contributed to the Interex Contributed Software Library (CSL). Links to the CSL went dark when Interex cut off its Web access on July 18, but the programs are safe in the hands of Chuck Shimada, a longtime Interex volunteer and de-facto curator of this collection of HP 3000 utilities." "Shimada
reported that he won't be releasing the entire CSL library for quite some time.
Legal rulings over the years have established the group of programs in its
entirety as a copyrighted Interex asset, he said. ... "But
anyone can get individual CSL programs from Chuck, if you send him an e-mail (at
his personal address) and ask for an individual program. Knowing what to ask
for becomes a matter of research if you don't have the full CSL index of
programs. The NewsWire's new search feature can help, as can the rest of the
3000 community." Suprtool TipsClean Command for
Masking Data! A
customer called with a problem. They were trying to mask sensitive data in a
report. They did not want to mask all of the data in a field, just parts of it
so that it was unreadable. What
the customer was doing was just doing Defines and replacing every 5th character
with an "*" so that the data would look like: Barr* Pau* Dur*nd
However, that was quite tedious for 6X30
fields. So, Barry Durand suggested that
the customer use the Clean command to change certain characters to
"*". So replacing all of the vowels would make the data look like: B*rry P**l D*r*nd This is definitely not
what the Clean command and the $clean function were designed for but it is a
good use. Note: here are the
commands: >set cleanchar "*" >clean "a","e","i","o","u" |
New ProductIntroducing SUPRAMXW –
Suprtool with AMXW for HP-UX SUPRTOOL for AMXW, also known as SUPRAMXW, is now
available for download from Robelle's web site. SUPRAMXW is not just an
amalgam of super-acronyms-it's the newest migration solution available for
SUPRTOOL customers. Developed between Speedware and Robelle, SUPRAMXW resolves
migration obstacles for HP e3000 companies that have SUPRTOOL. The challenges Hundreds of sites have
already migrated their Suprtool tasks from MPE to HP-UX, but there are hundreds
more that need help. Suprtool for HP-UX has
the same commands as Suprtool for MPE, but an MPE job stream is more than just
Suprtool commands - it is also MPE :File commands and :Build commands and
:IF-Endif JCL logic. In fact, to migrate an MPE task to HP-UX may require you
to find an HP-UX equivalent for any of hundreds of MPE commands and functions. For customers who have
made extensive use of MPE features, or who are short of qualified staff
resources and/or time, this conversion can be a major challenge. The solution Robelle concluded that
the solution was to link SUPRTOOL for HP-UX with Speedware AMXW, renowned
MPE-enabling migration software for non-MPE platforms. SUPRAMXW, is a unique
hybrid MPE/HP-UX version of the SUPRTOOL software. Speedware and Robelle agreed
to work collaboratively to solve this migration challenge for HP e3000
customers. The strength of
SUPRAMXW/AMXW is that much of the SUPRTOOL code or intrinsics found in
application environments can remain untouched and continue to rely on MPE
concepts and access MPE files on Unix/Windows. Less code to change translates
into less risk, quicker start-up time, increased productivity and significant
cost savings! Two technologies combined From a migration point of
view, a SUPRTOOL customer requires two components installed: AMXW for HP-UX and
SUPRTOOL for AMXW. AMXW will easily migrate 3GL applications and SUPRAMXW can
be used as the new SUPRTOOL on HP-UX that will support the existing SUPRTOOL
code. MPE-enabling on non-MPE
platforms The real power of AMXW
comes from its outstanding ability to keep MPE functionality on non-MPE
platforms while maintaining a high-performance. Since most of the application
code, MPE commands and MPE file types does not need to be modified to be usable
on other platforms, this reduces the time and cost of migrations. SUPRTOOL on HP-UX
supports MPE concepts SUPRAMXW is a hybrid
product, which runs on HP-UX and calls "MPE" intrinsics, the
"MPE" being a reference to the intrinsics provided by AMXW.
Essentially, it is a special version of the SUPRTOOL for HP-UX product linked with
AMXW libraries. With SUPRAMXW,
"MPE"-isms are re-integrated back into portions of Suprtool for HP-UX
allowing concepts such as record size, foptions, aoptions, device class and the
like, so that Suprtool would be able to read, write and understand all of the
MPE attributes of MPE files. This is possible because SUPRTOOL for HP-UX now
has calls to MPE intrinsics like FOPEN, FREAD, FWRITE, FGETINFO and FCLOSE
courtesy of AMXW. JCL migration: Sustain
your MPE and SUPRTOOL code MPE scripts containing a
mixture of SUPRTOOL commands and MPE commands such as JCL batch jobs, command
files, etc. can remain untouched on HP-UX. In addition, SUPRTOOL can now
support any of the MPE commands supported by AMXW. This is possible because
SUPRAMXW simply calls AMXW's HPCICOMMAND intrinsic in the case where the
command is not a Suprtool command and/or it is preceded by a colon. Suprtool for AMXW, also
knows when it is being run from inside AMXW's MPE shell (nlsh) for various
internal reasons and startup command processing. As such, MPE concepts like
file equations, session variables can
remain in the code and continue to be used in a SUPRTOOL environment. For the SUPRTOOL Techies Popular data-reading
commands like "Input" and "Table" continue to access
MPE-type files by opening via FOPEN, getting specific information using
FGETINFO and finally FREAD to read the data. Similarly, data-writing
commands like "Output" and "List, at the lowest level Suprtool
again uses the typical standard MPE/AMXW intrinsics to write to MPE-type
files. Reading and writing of MPE-type
files is accomplished using AMXW's MPE intrinsics and by making sure that
AMXW's MPE-properties file (.NL file) is kept up to date using AMXW's
FWRITELABEL/FREADLABEL intrinsics. Efficiency maintained: SUPRTOOL is known for its efficiency to
process data at remarkable speed. With AMXW, SUPRTOOL continues to provide a
high-efficiency in data access since native Unix functions continue to be used
for data access. Key features:
Key benefits: Less risk, effort and cost
Technical
Details Suprtool
for AMXW is a hybrid product, which runs on HP-UX and calls "MPE"
intrinsics. The "MPE" being a reference to the intrinsics provided by
AMXW. Suprtool
for MPE, reads Image databases, files and Allbase database files on the HP 3000
and has done so for over 25 years. Suprtool
for HP-UX, reads Allbase, Oracle and Eloquence and all manner of flat files on
HP-UX. The Eloquence interface operates at both the "Image" intrinsic
level and also a lower overhead higher speed mode via Eloquence internal API's.
This mode is invoked by the setting set fastread on. Click here for
more technical details on SUPRAMXW. HP History and OdditiesMike
Gemeny (MGemeny at pgcpsdot org) dropped me this note about the original HP
2000 Time-shared Basic operating system, which preceded the HP 3000: HP2000
Access Date Code 1812 up and running after all this time. I
just wanted to drop you a note and let you know that we have recovered the
original HP2000 operating systems for versions E, F, and Access and have a
simulator running which simulates the original hardware. We are able to boot
and run these original HP2000 operating systems and are in the process of
recovering the contributed libraries. We
have a Yahoo group for the HP2000 if you have an interest. (Click
link above for Yahoo group). “The garage was the reason Bill Hewlett decided to rent the Addison Avenue property in 1938. He needed a spot that he and his friend, David Packard, could transform into a lab and workshop. The Professorville home was "A-number-1," Hewlett assured Packard in a letter. He paid $45 rent to hold it. The young engineers divided the garage into two sections: the left side for design and the right for manufacturing. The table saw sat outside.' |