Creative applications (and creative ADD-ONs to applications) are the
lifeblood of any computer platform. The HP3000 has enjoyed a highly
qualified group of tightly-knit application providers. Some of them have
grown into gigantic conglomerates. Some of them have remained small.
I believe it is a good idea to review the current offerings and to bring
them out into the open.
In terms of Internet/Intranet HP3000 research and development, two names
immediately pop into my mind (with apologies to hundreds of others, not
mentioned here): Chris Bartram and Duane Percox. They are both active on
HP3000-L, and everyone here knows about their accomplishments.
In terms of manufacturing software, I have recently enjoyed exchanging
ideas with a very creative German fellow, Peter Hellmann.
A statement of his that caught my attention is:
The focus is "to find" and not "to search".
Let me share some quotes from his messages, to give you a feel for his
areas of interest:
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I have developed some add-ons for the MM3000/PM3000 System using Turbo-Image...
[... snip ...]
I had some other ideas that i never have realized until today:
1. Using Tom Sawyers Software (CA) to generate a Diagram of a
Item-Structure-Tree.
This software is used for the SunNetManager to automatically do the layout
of complex networks. It is a graph-layout-system. I thought, why only print
a list of assembly-component relations (which is not very readable for the
user). Why not use the graph-layout-toolkit to parse the STRUCTURE and
ITEMDATA Dataset (MM3000) and print out a layout of the tree of all the
Items including Item-Data-Number and Item-Data-Name.
Maybe there is a need for MM3000 users or Production-Planners in this
feature !?
2. It is always hard to find the right Item in a Dataset (ITEMDATA) of
10000, 50000 or maybe more Items if u don't know the Item-Number.
To buy a HP3000 with higher performance might not solve the problem,
it's simply bad when you search fo an item, and it takes 5 minutes until
the system says: Sorry, this Item is not in the Database ! If it takes only
2 minutes it might look better, but i have a better system anyway which i
have called: INOI.
INOI= Item Name oriented Identifiers. That means to specify all the
Kriterias to describe an Item, but don't hang it on the ITEMDATA-record,
because the Identifiers are always depending on the Item-Name. If for
example u want a screw to be searched by the length or material-type or
head-type, your Form on the screen looks good if u display an Item that
is a screw, but if u display an IC for example, no-one can uderstand to
identify an IC using a "head-type". For an IC it is interesting to know the
Type, Function, number of pins and so on. That's why i have developed INOI.
U can specify Item-Names, Identifiers, and then relate Identifiers to the
Item-Names. When u search for a specific Item, u choose the Item-Name, and
then have all the Identifiers for that Item-Name to search for. The values
of the Identifiers are stored in a way (Automatic-Master) that u can see
all the values that are available so that u will never search for something
that u will not find.
The focus is "to find" and not "to search".
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Peter also has some interesting ideas regarding Microsoft Help and HTML and
has done all kinds of work in all arenas of life. He is definitely NOT
your standard 9-to-5 clerk :-)
Companies that USE manufacturing software (and companies that WRITE or
support manufacturing software) might be interested in contacting Peter
directly for further information:
Peter Hellmann <[log in to unmask]>
The more applications developers, the better :-)
_______________
| |
| |
| r | Alfredo [log in to unmask]
| e | http://www.adager.com
| g | F. Alfredo Rego Tel 208 726-9100
| a | Manager, Theoretical Group Fax 208 726-2822
| d | Adager Corporation
| A | Sun Valley, Idaho 83353-3000 U.S.A.
| |
|_______________|
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