John continued:

> I also think that even though HP specifically said no,
> we should continue to press them on converting used PA-
> RISC HP9000s to HP3000s. If Itanium takes off, it is the
> nature of the Unix world to want the latest, hottest box.
> This will free up large numbers of A-/N-class HP9000s
> that could be used as HP3000s.

I agree that this seems to offer the possibility of an
order-of-magnitude (and probably then some) increase in
the number of "real" PA-RISC boxes that could easily be
made to run MPE...  I would offer two follow-on thoughts:

While HP said "no current plans to do this" at HPW-LA,
IIRC they also added later that if there ended up being
a shortage of "real" MPE boxes they might be willing to
revisit this question...  So what I pretty much heard was
"no right now;  but may revisit later."

Would people consider it a reasonable outcome if in the
next 12 months OpenMPE could get HP to say:

"HP will allow conversion of used compatible PA-RISC HP
9000s to HP e3000s no later than the end of 2006."

????...  One HP concern I could see if that they started
to allow this conversion even after end-of-HP-sales at the
end of October 2003, then at least potentially they could
face a larger number of machines to "support" for the next
three years;  and / or the "pool" of hardware that HP
itself could draw from to support existing MPE boxes might
be substantially reduced...  But if we could accept waiting
until end-of-HP-support just over four years from now, then
all HP concerns about the "support environment" should be
moot...  at least that seems logical to me...

Key determinant for above is obviously another question:
Does anyone see the need to do substantial numbers of
HP 9000 to HP 3000 conversion PRIOR to end of 2006 ??;
i.e.:  Will current population of MPE boxes plus those
that are yet to be sold in the next 13 months be enough to
support demand for "real" MPE boxes for next 51 months ??

Ken Sletten