Mark writes:
> > which version should HP make available to the emulator companies
> > (Allegro & SRI) initially.
>
> For some reason, I thought the emulation is not the operating system level
> but at the machine level.  I seem to remember that the devices would be
> virtualized and the device drivers would make many kinds of hardware look
> like a compatible device.

Correct, so the answer to the Which Operating System Version question
*should* be irrelevant, i.e. if the emulator can run 7.0 but not 6.0, then
there's something wrong with the emulator.  In reality, we would probably
target a specific version to do development around, and that might be the
only working or supported version for some period of time.  Of course if HP
chooses to only license specific version(s), that might have an impact.

I would generally say that if we had to pick one version it ought to be one
of the later ones, though whether 7.0 or 7.5 have anything in them that
people absolutely must have may be questionable.  7.5 is mostly new hardware
support which we may not care about for example.  If an express release to
7.5 actually implements some of the "longevity" features that HP has talked
about, then it certainly might be the best release.  The "last" release
might also have the most accessible source code and/or engineering expertise
at HP also.

> BTW, can you get HP-IB for an Intel box?

There certainly have been HP-IB/GP-IB interface cards for PCs, and assuming
someone makes a PCI based one that will work in a modern PC, or perhaps a
USB/Firewire to HP-IB adapter, it shouldn't be any harder to map the MPE
HP-IB functionality on to one of these cards than it will be to do any other
part of the project.  The question is, will this be enough benefit to a
large enough group of users?  It could be one answer to the "where do I get
a tape drive?" question that will inevitably arise.

G.