J. Dolliver -

Your post is definitely inspiring!

On 9/15/06, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Soapbox ON
>
> MPE is alive and well, It's the only reason HP gave the death sentence an
> additional 2 years of life support or " a revenue stream for HP and also
> making the case that they are just not willing to give it to ANYBODY" There
> are over 300 Ecometry sites, 35 or so Amisys sites, Uncounted ManMan sites
> and then there are the Precision3000,SFD, Custom shops aside from the many
> QSS and Carter Pertaine now merged sites still running MPE. Jim Chance just
> cannot find or see the light that there are many reasons that MPE should
> live on. Maybe we should do a survey AGAIN but this time count the customers
> and non-customers. If you know them see if they are willing to speak up.

Don't know them.  I've been out of the HP3000 world for awhile, and
the last time was to nursemaid an ancient inhouse manufacturing system
along until it could be replaced by the new corporate ERP system.
Ugly ancient stuff, but it worked day in and day out, 24x7.

They are the first part of the key.  Anyone know anyway to probe them
for interest?

The second part is getting some tech savvy 3rd party developers on
board that aren't making their money off conversions to something new
they own.  Most of the rest should have some financial incentive to
creating an viable MPE future.  In fact, if they could be convinced
that the plan was viable and that the remaining customers would buy
into it, I am sure that this will happen.  If they were convinced that
the future looked good, and they would sell more of their MPE
product(s), the solution will happen very quickly.

MPE as a business information solution platform grew for over 20
years, taking on newer technology and larger competitors, and still
winning.  Why?  Not because it was a 16 bit machine in a 32 bit
machine world, but because it was simple to program for and maintain,
it was dependable (partially due to simplicity), it performed way out
of proportion to its specs (helped by simplicity here too), and it had
an integrated database which helped with the performance part.

A Linux OS distribution is a wild and crazy place where almost all
things are possible, there is 20 ways to skin a cat, and the kitchen
sink is thrown in for good measre.  There are some very brilliant
people keeping it all sorted out and making it work where the best
efforts of the richest man in the world, with a war chest containing
billions and billions of dollars could not squash with their best
efforts.  It has all of the tools to create a complete replica of a
MPE user mode environment, where applications that don't dip into
priviledge mode or SPL can exist without modification.  Apparently
already done in MPUX.  Critical mass just needs to be achieved, with
or without HP's help.

As long as the principles of simplicity, dependability, and
performance are maintained, MPE could easily be morphed into a very
modern business information application environment riding atop, and
sheltered from Linux and all of the turbulence that come along with
it.

Maybe HP will hand over all of the MPE code, and someone will create a
software emulator that give adequate performance on modern server
hardware.  Maybe.  You at the very least have a huge pile of some very
complex code, which had the comment in MPE-V source code, "I don't
know what the following code does, but if you take it out, MPE dies!".
 Emulating that and PA-RISC's execute ahead of a branch could be a bit
daunting.

Some input at this point from Ecometry, Amisys, ManMan, Precision3000,
and/or SFD would be very helpful at this point.  As would input from
Robelle, Adager, and VESoft.

> My 2c MPE LIVES FOREVER.... or till I retire :-)
>
> Soapbox off

- Pete