On Mon, 18 Dec 1995, F. Alfredo Rego wrote:
 
> The whole issue reminds me of "rearranging the furniture on the deck of
> the Titanic..."  The key question is whether or not, at any given point
> in time on any given "vessel" we are on the Titanic or not.  The handwriting
> on the wall can be washed out quite quickly.  Just witness Java, the new
> programming language from Sun Microsystems and what it did to Microsoft
> in the last few DAYS.  I know, because I was at MIT just a couple of days
 
  I sometimes think the HP 3000 is the 'Titanic with rearranging
furniture'.  One primary problem with the platform is the single-track
usage of the system.  MPE is designed for databases, basically nothing
else.  While it has incredible potential for other uses, it is not cost
effective.  If the market for HP3000 and MPE remains small, it may
eventually die as potential customers go somewhere else to get better
platform integration and can do more with their systems than just
database.  UNIX offers a wide range of free software to do just about
anything, and you don't need an expensive POSIX development kit to even
consider trying to compile it for MPE.  Not to mention when running
POSIX, you have all the overhead and emulation of the overlayed
environment in MPE.  Should MPE shops buy seperate UNIX boxes just to do
a little e-mail over the Internet?  It would be better to have one
mid-range cost box that will do everything, and that can be software
upgraded in the minor areas with leading stuff (NCSA httpd 1.5, Pine
3.91, etc) that MPE cannot do, but yet still have your necessary database
stuff.  Fewer systems means less maintanance and fewer system operators
to pay.
 
> "Proprietary" is a funny word.  Windows is not UNIX, yet it is wildly
> "successful" (at least in terms of number of users).  In fact, what can
> be more proprietary than Windows?
 
  Windows is the standard, just as BSD and AT&T UNIX are the standards
for the UNIX world.  Windows is a personal computer standard, meant for
single user 'fluff' applications. (I personally can't stand it... I find
it to be very sluggish, bulky, and slow).
 
> Why not?  Defeatism is contagious but it's curable :)
 
  MPE needs a new look.  It needs to make a comeback soo outrageous and
extraordinary that people will be willing to switch to it.  We need to
see HP3000 workstations, smaller boxes that run MPE on the desktop, but
still have the RISC chips and nice XTerminals.  These little MPE boxes
should interface seemlessly to the databases of the 'big brother' HP
3000s, share binaries, and even NFS mount transparently.
With more smaller MPE boxes out there, more people will by them for
affordability, and thusly spread the knowledge base of MPE to more people.
 
 
  My $0.02 worth (for whatever it may be worth...) :)
 
Daniel Kosack  -- Linux Man --
 
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// HP 3000 and MPE systems administration //
//        Internetwork Operator           //
//       Walkersville High School         //
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