Kathy writes:

> Naturally, the current staff favors the HP3000, and is championing

A good staff...they deserve a raise!

> it; part of their argument revolves around the potential of the
> HP3000 to eventually support 64-bit processing. My search of HP's
> website turned up lots of info on 64-bit processing in their HP9000
> line, but nothing about the HP3000.

Maybe only the HP 9000 customers needed reassuring, to prevent them
from bolting to some other flavor of Unix?

Seriously, at the recent IPROF (Interex Programmers Forum) meeting
in April, we were shown slides that indicated that many models of
HP 3000 were planned throughout at least 2005, with many
multiples of performance gain as well.

>         1.) assuming HP will eventually provide this technology in the
>         HP3000, will the benefits be the same, greater, or less than on
>         the 9000?

Probably similar benefits.  The server versions of HP 9000s generally
run on essentially the same hardware as the HP 3000s.

>         2.) what will be the impact on third party software providers? I
>         assume some changes would need to be made to the programs in order
>         to benefit from 64-bit computing.  Is this a large or minimal

To some extent, many applications will benefit automatically.  We've been
able to do applications that manipulate files of up to 4 GB years before
most platforms could.  We'll have the ability to manipulate terabyte
files soon, on current hardware ... and in a cleaner, more thorough
implementation than provided in Unix.   That means that application vendors
will soon be able to take advantage of such files prior to any new hardware
being shipped.

So, we benefit automatically where improvements in the underlying operating
system happen to speed up file access, for example.

On the other hand, yes...I'd hope that some applications would be changed
to do a better job of taking of new hardware, particularly the amount
of memory that can be put on a machine.

BTW, HP's already announced that they will be directly supporting the
new 64-bit hardware in the future ... this will allow, among other things,
a machine to have more than 4 GB of *memory*.

>         3.) which brings up the next question: are the benefits of
>         64-bit computing likely to be applicable to just large shops, or will

There are two primary benefits:

   faster CPUs

   bigger memory capacity

All shops can benefit from the former.

However, most small shops won't benefit from bigger memory capacity
because they won't be interested in (or capable of?) *buying*
more than 4 GB of main memory.  (At least, not for the next 5 years or so)


--
Stan Sieler                                          [log in to unmask]
                                     http://www.allegro.com/sieler.html