At 3:28 AM -0600 8/13/00, Jeff Woods wrote:

>Where do I send my personal check?  :)
>
>And how much do we need to raise?

Good questions.  Julie?  Ron?  Anybody?


>I'm sure there are other advantages...  for HP, for HP's shareholders, for
>MPE users (old and new), and if Wirt is right (and by my count he's dang
>near always right ;) it's good for the future of computing in general since
>MPE is so far the closest thing we have to "computing appliances" which
>must ultimately win out in the process of natural selection in the
>evolution of computer systems.  So... this isn't for everyone else's
>good.  This is for *my* good... and yours.  Think about it.  And choose
>wisely the path which leads to long term consequences you desire.

To be fair, it would be interesting to hear (from HP's Corporate Managers)
the *straight* answers to a few simple questions:

1) What are the disadvantages for HP caused by HP's Corporate Managers
    *mentioning* MPE outside of the installed base?

2) What are the disadvantages for HP's shareholders caused by
    HP's Corporate Managers *mentioning* MPE outside of the installed base?

3) What are the disadvantages for MPE users (old and new) caused by
    HP's Corporate Managers *mentioning* MPE outside of the installed base?

4) What are the disadvantages for the future of computing in general
    caused by HP's Corporate Managers *mentioning* MPE outside of the
    installed base?

5) What are the long-term consequences that HP's Corporate Managers
    desire to achieve by NOT *mentioning* MPE outside of the installed base?



>And last but certainly not least: TANSTAAFL


A quick search on the web reveals this among 2940 other possibilities:


TANSTAAFL /tan'stah-fl/

[acronym, from Robert Heinlein's classic "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".]

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch", often invoked when
someone is balking at the prospect of using an unpleasantly
heavyweight technique, or at the poor quality of some piece of
software, or at the signal-to-noise ratio of unmoderated Usenet
newsgroups. "What? Don't tell me I have to implement a database back
end to get my address book program to work!" "Well, TANSTAAFL you
know." This phrase owes some of its popularity to the high
concentration of science-fiction fans and political libertarians in
hackerdom.

( http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/TANSTAAFL.html )


I am hungry now.  Time for lunch.  Oops, I missed lunch again!  Programmers
keep the strangest hours :-)

  _______________
|               |
|               |
|            r  |  Alfredo                     [log in to unmask]
|          e    |                           http://www.adager.com
|        g      |  F. Alfredo Rego
|      a        |  Manager, R & D Labs
|    d          |  Adager Corporation
|  A            |  Sun Valley, Idaho 83353-3000            U.S.A.
|               |
|_______________|