Trey Edward Troegel wrote:
> Also, what kind of chip does the HP3000[...] run
> on?  An Intel, AMD, Cyrix, or does HP make a chip for it?
 
> Also, I'm new to the MPE iX OS so I'll probably be asking several
> beginner like questions in the near future.
 
If you aren't already in HP corporate management, you're a fine
candidate :-)
 
Just kidding as an inside joke to our readers, Trey; we'd be more than
happy to be of assistance to your introduction to our beloved machine.
What you are asking would take volumes so I won't attempt it, but to
give you some concrete answers as a start, here's a very condensed
version...
 
PA-RISC is "Precision Architecture"-RISC, an HP trademark.  It is a RISC
chip but one tailored to high-level architectures.
 
The 3000 began as an HP-proprietary CISC chip in the mid 1970s, unique
in that it was a hardware implementation of a stack architecture machine
with inherent separation of code and data; dynamic, shareable,
relocatable and re-entrant code by default; kernel-level (and above)
shared libraries (which Unix only recently bothered with); and many
other comp-sci geek delights.
 
When PA-RISC was developed, HP ported the old 3000 systems and the 680x0
9000 workstations to the PA-RISC architecture.  The hardware is
precisely the same with the exception of a few EPROMs here and there to
make sure you can't run MPE on the cheaper HP-UX systems, and to provide
the extra integrity inherent with MPE.  Same hardware, different
brains.  Like Albert Einstein and Adolf Hitler.  One has all the
answers, the other is out for world domination at all costs :-)
 
So the 3000 isn't a "strange an ancient beast" hardware-wise, it runs on
the same stuff as the 9000.  Software-wise "MPE kicks butt" because
everything on the 3000 was created for the 3000, not for every generic
box in the universe.  But we are losing the software advantage as
vendors and HP are putting less and less into software
development/enhancement for the 3000.  We're being starved.
 
It has nothing to do with "the right thing to do", it's "the profitable
thing to do" for the vendors and HP.  Ask any 3000 user here, we love
our systems, and nobody wants to give theirs up (come to think of it, I
don't recall many, if any, readers disgusted over the system, just the
ones disgusted at HP/vendors)
 
But things are shaping up, we're hanging in there.  Welcome aboard.
 
Jeff Kell <[log in to unmask]>  Founding HP3000-L rabble-rouser :-)