Jeff Kell writes:
>On Mon, 8 Jan 1996 19:03:26 GMT Jon Cohen said:
>>Supporting HPIB peripherals on the new platforms could possibly imply
>>the following:
>>
>>   o  Increased support costs.
>       + Why?  We're talking about the SAME peripheral, SAME I/O cards
>         as currently "supported" configurations.
>>   o  Delays in the delivery of releases.
>       + Ditto
 
I'm with Jon on this one. Getting HP's overall system reliablity requires a
LOT of testing. For example:
 
   1. Test at all combinations of temperature and line voltage extremes.
   2. Test at all legal bus (HPIB or SCSI or...) loadings.
   3. Test full legal bus load at line voltage extremes.
   4. Test at minimum and maximum bus loads with differential temperature
      and voltage extremes.
   5. Test with marginal timing at temperature extremes.
   6. Test with marginal signal levels at temperature extremes.
   7. Verify powerfail operation at line voltage and timing extremes.
   8. Verify diagnostics; assure that there are neither unreported
      problems or false problem reports.
 
And so on. There's a lot of tedious work that goes into certification; the
fact that a peripheral/CPU combination works perfectly when both boxes are
performing typical operations in the middle of their environmental
specifications isn't sufficient to certify the peripheral as supported.
 
On the other hand:
 
>>Could you perhaps offer us some guidelines in how long we should support
>>old peripherals on new boxes?
>
>YES YES YES.  Don't "artificially" nudge a product out of support like this.
>When the 9x9 was announced it appeared that it was perhaps a new architecture
>bus or other technical limitation that prevented HP-IB support.  This would
>have at least made sense not to create a "new" driver card and LLIO software.
>Don't drop support "just because".  I would rather hear the announcement of
>the 5-year clock on HP-IB in general than have it disappear overnight like
>this, especially when there are such marginal (if any) technical issues.
 
Or make a predictable practice: Support any peripheral sold within three
years of the introduction of the new CPU. That's an adequate planning
horizon and limits the number of peripherals that HP has to certify. It
might result in some odd-looking specs, supporting some HPIB discs but not
others when everyone knows that if one works, they'll all probably work.
But it would limit the amount of certification HP has to do while insuring
that customers don't have to throw away things that they bought last year.
 
-- Bruce
 
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