Daniel Warmuth wrote:
>in a few days I will possibly buy a HP 3000/927 LX

First remember this important law: Once you open a can of worms, the only
way to recan them is to use a larger can.  The can of worms I'm talking
about is asking this list questions like "what kind of O.S. is MPE?"

Anyway, the HP3000 is a midrange server running HP's MPE/iX operating
system.  It's greatest strength is it is a very efficient, reliable, and
easy to use OLTP machine.  It comes bundled with a DBMS, "TurboImage", that
is a network model DBMS which is also very efficient  and reliable.  The 927
is an obsolescent machine (HP will stop supporting them in April), that is
the bottom-of-the-line, entry-level system with very little expansion
capability.  (the 917 is a "lesser" machine, but employs the same processor,
I believe).

It is a uniprocessor machine (other HP3000's provide up to 12-way
multiprocessing), that uses HP's PA-RISC chip, but I don't know which one.
It is a 32-bit RISC processor.  If you are at all familiar with HP's UNIX
machines, the HP9000's, the 3000's are the same hardware.  The difference
between a 3000 and a 9000 is the nameplate on the front and the operating
system.  Although MPE is a proprietary OS, it has a Posix shell which allows
reasonable easy porting of Unix applications.  Many open-source tools have
been ported and are available for downloading at HP's website dedicated to
the 3000 at http://jazz.external.hp.com.  By the way, the Jazz website is
hosted on an HP3000.

As I said before, there are a very limited number of slots for expansion of
the 927.  The machine uses an HP-proprietary bus, so only HP makes cards to
fit it.  (The newest HP3000's use PCI busses.)  There are plenty of
components available cheap on the used equipment market.

If you buy this machine, I'm sure you'll have fun with it.  In addition to
the website cited above, the manuals can be found at
http://docs.hp.com/mpeix/all/index.html.  This discussion group is an
excellent and generous source of information and help.

Regards,
John Clogg

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