In message <[log in to unmask]>, F. Alfredo Rego
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>Roy Brown <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>>, you're
>>going to rewrite MPE/Image to run on a big Mac?
>
>Very nice!  I flipped when I read your clever comment.

<Blush> Thank you!
>
>Ironically, though, that would be overkill.

<Snip>

> Nevertheless, with enough
>hardware scalability, good-old MPE/Image can support many thousands
>of concurrent users.  For a specific example, please have a look at
>http://www.adager.com/SuccessStories1.html

It's the scalability that has always defeated Wintel solutions. I used
to compare computers with cars - Big-Iron IBM (and a few others) made
trucks, HP (and a few others) made panel vans, Dell (and a few more
others) made pick-ups, and *everybody* made family autos.

Except those family autos are more sport cars (and ones that can outrun
Indy cars!) now. But you still can't get *that* much in back of them.

>Now, would you also like to fry the competition with that order
>of MPE/Image?

I wish HP had decided to give Image away, shortly after the Boston Tea
Party. A port to Wintel, and placing it in the public domain, would, I
think, have changed the way things went after that.

OK, the smart money was on relational at that point, but the key word is
*money*. Image - non-relational - free.  ProductX - relational - $$$$$.

Which attribute do we think would have weighed more strongly with the
developer community?

The chance has gone now, alas, with ProductX - relational - free out
there. But I reckon with a free db out there back then, the demand for a
relational one would have withered on the vine.

And we'd all have rosy futures, I think, instead of the uncertainty that
faces us.
>
>See my comments on MPE/Image at Computerworld's public forum:
>[log in to unmask]@.ee9af39" target="_blank">http:[log in to unmask]@.ee9af39
>:-)

Saw them...

>>Gotta laugh, or I'll be weeping here......
>There is no reason to weep.  There are all kinds of reasons to
>laugh.

I'm sure. But I did permit myself a light blub on hearing that an old
friend's ailments were apparently terminal...

On which note, I'll Open (Append) an old series of gags of mine to add:

How many MPE users does it take to change a light-bulb?

(iv) They can't. Once the current bulb burns out, that's it..... :-)

--
Roy Brown        'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be
Kelmscott Ltd     useful, or believe to be beautiful'  William Morris

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