Chris after Wirt:

>> If HP has abandoned BASIC, it would be an extraordinary gift to the
MPE
>> user community to make it and SPL legal freeware. It would probably
have
>> to be on the terms that "you find your own manuals and don't call us",
>> but in today's environment where information can be so easily and so
>> cheaply distributed, that should not be much of a problem.

>Now *there's* an excellent suggestion. It certainly doesn't hurt
anything
>at this point to make it freeware, and fits in well with the wealth of
other
>freeware (samba/bind/java/apache/etc) that are becoming available on the
>platform (almost all without "official" support or significant
official/$
>investments from HP).

>How about it HP???

Clearly a good idea.  I would only add and suggest that one
or more sites with a direct vested interest in BASIC/V and SPL
(we are Transact and C/C++ users) be sure to PRE-SUBMIT
this as a question for the Management Roundtable at HP World.
I don't see links on the Interex HP World index web page to pre-
submit roundtable questions yet, but I think they will be coming
soon.  Likely URLs are:

http://www.interex.org/hpworld/index.html
http://www.interex.org/hpworld/cfr97/cfrcov.html

At the top of the second URL it says:  "Check back every 2
weeks for program updates."

Note that in general it looks like Interex has put up a pretty
good collection of web pages on HP World this year.....

Ken Sletten