Hello fellow listers !

My contribution to this thread. Comments embedded within the text.

Please note that no offense is meant, I'm only speaking for myself and
referring to past experiences and personal knowledge.

So Larry wrote :

> 1.      Calculation is for hp-ux only.
> 2.      This is only for large systems and that my small system uses a
> different calculator.
> 3.      Multipliers are for a different application and mine is very good
> use of memory.
> 4.      MPE 6.5 software upgrade is going to require memory expansion.
> 5.      The calculator is over estimating the memory requirements to sell
> more memory.

I don't know about 1, 2 and 5, though I have personal feelings about #5.

#3 seems more than likely. It's obvious that different application mixes on
a given box will imply different memory requirements.

#4 also seems reasonable, though I would not expect a high difference,
probably no more than (depending on app mixes, again) than a 10-15%
increase.

> Can any of you folks running 6.5 give me an idea of memory requirements
> needed for 6.5?

See above.

> Also mentioned is the fact that 6.5 is a 64-bit operation system and "The
> full benefits of 64-bit computing will not be realized until a system has
> more than 4 GB Ram"  can some one else verify this statement for MPE 6.5?

Ah ? MPE/iX has crossed the 64-bit barrier ? What a laugh !!! At best,
that's a highly miscontrued interpretation of 6.5 features, at worst it's a
blatant hoax !!! The only user-interface change that uses "64-bit" features
is the so-called "large files" enhancement. In fact, KSAM files (annouced
at HPWorld'99) and MPE/iX flat files (announced later on) can now be larger
than 4 GBytes, thus leading to (in my own eyes) the badly misconstrued
interpretation of a 64-bit MPE/iX Operating System. In fact, as far as I
know, the large file project was implemented by using existing MPE/iX file
system features, like a 32-bit recourd counter, which yields like 4 billion
record, along with each record being 256 bytes in lenght, wich in turns
yields a file with is one tera-byte in size, all this without significantly
altering the internals of the file system, and more specifically without
any native 64-bit internal operation within the file system.

Which does not mean that such a huge file would not require a bit more
memory to operate. I've not done any measurements on large files so far, so
I cannot offer any specific elements. But it's my feeling that we are a bit
far off than what Larry was suggested in the mail he quoted to us.

Can anyone from HP please shed additional light on this ? Thanks.

To cut a long story short, there will probably be some additional memory
requirements to go up to 6.5, and to implement large files, but not nearly
in such dramatic proportions !

Hmmm... May I suggest, Larry, if you've not already done it, that you do
some Glance analysis, or order some performance consultancy, before
committing to anything else ?

Christian Lheureux
Responsable du Departement Systemes et Reseaux
Head of Systems and Networks Department
APPIC R.H.
HPConnect Systems Integrator / HP3000 Expert / HP e-Partner
Tel : +33-1-69-80-97-22   /   Fax : +33-1-69-80-97-14 / e-mail
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