Thank you for Christian and Gavin Scott's clarifications.

Gavin's phrase "HPe3000 hardware emulator" is clear and concise.   I propose
we all use the phrase.

What HP proposed is a license to use MPE/iX with HPe3000 hardware emulation
software.  Now we need language to keep the existing MPE/iX license (the
license that is bundled with new HPe3000 hardware) distinct from the
proposed MPE/iX-for-a-HPe3000-hardward-emulator license.

Cortlandt Wilson
(650) 966-8555

>-----Original Message-----
>From: OpenMPE Support Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of
>Gavin Scott
>Sent: Monday, March 03, 2003 8:50 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: MPE/iX Licensing and Distribution for an Emulated
>Environment
>
>
>Christian writes:
>> It is my understanding that so far, the most promising path
>> is a PA-RISC emulator. In that kind of software, only the
>> 150-odd PA-RISC instructions are emulated, and perhaps a few
>> other parts (low-lev I/O ? drivers ?) that may be necessary,
>> not "everything" per se. But emulating PA-RISC is enough
>> to enable MPE to run, and it's probably the easiest and
>> shortest way to market.
>
>Yes, exactly, but...  The "150-odd PA-RISC instructions" are the easy
>part, requiring comparatively little development effort.  It's not quite
>a "weekend project" but the instruction set is well specified, nicely
>modular (you only have to worry about one instruction at a time), etc.
>
>The parts that are *hard* are the rest of the hardware system visible to
>software.  This means parts of the system chipset, each I/O interface,
>and the actual peripherals attached to those interfaces.
>
>These devices such as the SCSI interface, the LAN interface, and so
>forth, are each as complicated in their own right as the PA-RISC
>instruction set, and for the most part there's no documentation
>available that tells you what you need to know to simulate them.
>
>So a PA-RISC emulator is easy.  An HPe3000 complete hardware emulator is
>much, much more difficult.
>
>G.