<<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.>>
 
Have I missed something? The fact that the CIO+HPIB+peripheral
combination and the CIO+HPFL+peripheral combination are supported on the
9x7 boxes would indicate that all of this hardware/environment testing
has been done from the NIO connector out. Likewise, the fact that the
CIO+HPFL+peripheral combination is supported on the 9x9KS boxes would
indicate that the entire system has been certified. I just don't see that
there's that much left to test, and what little there is seems to be
limited mostly to the low-level software interface between the 9x9KS box
and the HPIB card on the CIO adapter.
 
Steve Dirickson         WestWin Consulting
(360) 598-6111  [log in to unmask]