At 2002-10-01 03:01 PM, Mark Klein wrote:
On 1 Oct 2002 at 13:35, [log in to unmask] wrote:

 > In complete disagreement with Mark's assessment, I would back all of
 > the POSIX stuff out of MPE. POSIX really is not much more than a poor
 > imitation of UNIX. Given that Linux is freely available, it doesn't
 > even belong on MPE. It is nothing other than an unnecessary and
 > generally unuseful complexification of MPE.

More water under the bridge. Without it, MPE would've died in the mid
90's. As far as pulling it out - it is too tightly integrated with
the kernel today as to make that darn near impossible.

I agree with Mark.  Without the POSIX shell and all of its utilities, all
of the ports of Unix/Linux packages, etc., MPE would have died some years
ago, and I for one would not have been able to get an HP 3000 installed at
this site.  POSIX was not a mistake.  If anything, it came along too late
and wasn't complete enough.

 > But that market exists only if MPE is simplified and
 > made even more understandable to the average human than it is now.

Well, I suppose there's still MPE/V.

Very true!  While MPE/iX is far more powerful than MPE/V, there is still
much that can be accomplished with MPE/V.  That said, it is NOT my intent
to suggest any interest in running MPE/V on an emulator.  I don't see ANY
future for MPE/V on an emulator.

 > Indeed, I
 > suspect that it would become the dominant operating system for every
 > small and medium commercial use other than web servers and embedded
 > systems.

How would you propose going head to head with Windows, because that's
the market you're describing?

Some food for thought...

Just how many different emulators (or versions) are we talking about?  I
can see three classes of emulators on two different hardware platforms
(INTEL/AMD and whatever HP-UX ends up on).  Can MPE/iX on an emulator
survive with two hardware platforms?  Can it survive if there is only
one?  I wonder.

Platform 1, INTEL/AMD (PC) hardware:
MPE/iX on an emulator on INTEL/AMD could drive a lot of businesses.  While
I'm against the "only on HP hardware" restriction, I can see some cases
where such a restriction would be acceptable.

Workstation Version
I've ordered well over 150 HP e-PC units, and been very pleased with them
(much more so than other HP PC products).  Were an MPE/iX and emulator
license available for an HP e-PC at a reasonable cost (assuming $150 for
Windows XP, say $250 for MPE/iX & emulator), it would make a great
developer workstation (shades of the old Micro VAX).  And with Linux free,
$250 might be a little on the steep side.  $250 or less might not sound
like much for a license fee, but you either have a reasonable license fee
and get many licensees, or you make the license fee steep and get few
licensees.  Which would be better for MPE/iX?  Would you be interested in
getting an e-PC with MPE/iX & emulator license for home use?  How much
would you be willing to pay?

Small Office Version
A NetServer class machine would be the small-office production version -
with RAID, multiple NIC support, etc.  Maybe the emulator would come in two
flavors - workstation (non-RAID, single NIC) and server (RAID, multiple
NICs) versions.

What would be an appropriate license fee for a server/production
machine?  I don't know.  Keep in mind the cost of Linux.  My personal
opinion is that the competition is either free (Linux) or is overpriced for
its stability (Windows).  A case could be made for charging a higher
licensing fee for MPE/iX and the emulator than for Windows, but just how
much more would be the $64k question.  Again, how much would you pay?

Platform 2, on HP-UX hardware:
Enterprise Version
Then there is the enterprise level machine.  In my opinion, this is where
the real license money would be.  If MPE/iX were running on an emulator on
HP 9000 hardware, how much would you pay?  Would HP-UX be required?  Could
the emulator and MPE/iX license be purchased instead of HP-UX?  Could the
emulator (and thus, MPE/iX) be booted directly from the GSP so that there
would be no need for HP-UX?  Oh my! That sounds like HP would have to be
involved in the sale!

There are many questions and few answers, as well as many possible
directions and many possible dead ends.

Thoughts anyone?

John