OK, gentle (or not so gentle) readers, what is happening with the
3000
in the next couple of years?  It seems to me that HP could come
up
with a 64 bit MPE on the 8600 with an eye to converting it to
IA-64
when that comes out.  It may mean writing more code (some would
obviously have to be rewritten) but a two phase implementation is
usually more robust than a giant leap.

Nick D.