(Apologies if this is a duplicate. I got a 'bounce' msg from the list
saying that I had sent an empty msg.)


For me, the teleconference was worth attending though I was not
terribly thrilled by what I saw and heard. It will probably be
available on video tape, though I think there's a 4 to 6 week delay.
(Dial 1-800-224-hp3k. Sorry, Oz, I don't know a non-800 number.)

You know how they have those pads from which to ask questions?
This time they gave an email address as well. From what I heard,
it should be usable for some time to come. Try

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The best part of the teleconference (for me) was the 15-second
(if that) demo of Lars Appel's port of Samba/iX. Nice work, Lars!

The funniest parts (for me, and no doubt for me alone) were the frequent
references early in the program to "Customer Delight," even the mention
of a "Customer Delight Team." I found it especially humourous since
Dr. Gilbert Amelio, CEO of Apple Computer (and former CEO of National
Semiconductor), used the term extensively in 1996. It is also mentioned
in his 1996 book "Profit From Experience" (pages 56-57).
It seems HP listens to Apple. ;)  (I know... now THAT's funny. :)

I also appreciated Rosie Chiovari's presentation on the secure web
server product for the 3000. She mentioned sending in some reply card
to obtain a white paper on using the 3000 in this manner, and she
mentioned the web site <http://www.hp.com/go/3000servers/>. Oddly
enough, she made no mention about whether the white paper is on
the web site (I assume it's not).

Unfortunately, there were many low spots:

- Dave Snow: >4GB support not until 1999 (MPE 7.0).

- Kriss Rant: COBOL will get multiple entry points
  late this year [20 years after other languages], but he neatly
  skirted the question of support for the latest COBOL standard.

- Kriss again: 929/939/949 machines will NOT have built-in support
  for the year 2000. [Can someone verify I got the numbers right?]
  (MPE 6.0, expected in 1998, will have this.) Oddly enough,
  someone asked about MPE V (that's not the odd part) and
  Becky Carroll said MPE V does not have a problem with the year 2000.

- Denys must have been bummed. Kriss stated that support for NT
  will not be delivered until MPE 6.0, again expected in 1998.

- Alvina Nishimoto, formerly on the Image/SQL team with Jim Sartain,
  is "Internet R&D Program Manager" (that's good for her).
  Unfortunately, her demo of some package (name withheld) for
  browsing and ordering with Netscape and the 3000 was
  less than convincing.

- I asked about POSIX (is it still an active project, etc.) from
  the HP Mountain View (CA) office, but the audio feed was there
  was suppressed from the time my "pad" became active to the time
  they completed their answer (and it was a long one). Guess I'll
  order the video to hear the response (and hope it's not editted).

Probably the single biggest downer for me was hearing Mr. Sterling
say that porting MPE to the 64-bit architecture is not a "high
priority" for the next five years.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and make an assumption:
SOMETHING will be ported to the 64-bit architecture.
I'm guessing... HP-UX.

Why?
Sure, Unix used to be used most heavily in engineering applications
(as I understand it), and they REQUIRE horsepower. However, since
the world seems intent on using Unix for business applications,
CPU power would appear to be less of a concern (but don't tell that
to resource-intensive relational database vendors).

Why do the arguments for porting HP-UX to the new architecture
not apply equally to MPE?

Let's assume further (and this will likely break that limb)
that 64-bitness is NOT something we need. Now HP will have
a 32-bit OS and a 64-bit OS. Tell me THAT won't be fodder
for industry journalists talking about the "languishing, legacy OS."

Let me put this differently: Which do you run now, DOS on a '286,
or Windows (whatever version) on a '486 or later?

I know that Mr. Sterling has been a champion of the 3000.
It just seems that even if, technically speaking, the
3000 doesn't NEED to run on a 64-bit architecture, the
PERCEPTION will be that it's officially on its way to pasture
if it is not ported.

Sorry for the diatribe.

--Glenn Cole
  Software al dente, Inc.
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