John asks:

> Maybe someone else can come up with a way to start a process on the PC from
>  the HP3000?

The trick I use is twofold. The first is that I install a really nice bit of
shareware (US$30) called FTP Serv-U (http://ftpservu.deerfield.com/ ). This
step is necessary to convert the PC into an FTP server. Without it, the
HP3000 can't initiate FTP sessions into the PC (the other way around is
possible with the native Windows FTP client, but that requires the PC to be
the initiator of all conversations, and that's not what we want).

The second part of the trick is to assign a hard IP address to the PC, as you
would any server (you can't aim at a moving target). Security is provided by
creating a one-way path to your HP3000(s), allowing only their IP addresses
to be accepted by the FTP Serv-U server on the PC.

Once you've done these two things, the rest is merely the HP3000 FTP command
given in a batch job (or typed in manually, by hand):

     quote site exec c:\myfolder\myprocess.exe

Wirt Atmar