Gavin Scott wrote:

> As far as the restriction of running MPE under a platform emulator
> only on HP hardware, this was in fact *my* suggestion to HP in my
> original proposal to them that they should give me the right to
> distribute MPE (essentially for free) along with an emulator product.
> The requirement to run on "boxes that say HP on the front" (or Compaq
> now) would have provided some comfort to HP that emulated MPE/iX
> hardware would not be taking sales away from HP, at least through
> end-of-sales or end-of-support of the "real" MPE boxes.

Okay, now that you've explained the rationale, it makes sense. Since my
message on Friday I have seen a number of posts which indicated that the
hardware restriction would be temporary, but that information was not in the
original meeting report.

Sorry for stirring up a hornet's nest, everyone. And Gavin, I apologize to
you in particular for saying the requirement was "asinine." Since it was
reported as HP's requirement I naturally thought it was HP's idea. So I
offered what I thought was good *business* sense:

> Why not give the emulator (and the company that writes
> one) a *real* chance to catch on and be successful?

Was it also an emotional post? Yes, but I didn't mean to impugn anyone's
good will, hard work, or contributions to this point (on MPE or OpenMPE). I
just wanted to throw up a red flag with regard to what I saw as a potential
obstacle, again, from a *business* perspective ($$$ to buy new HP hardware).

And while I still believe what I wrote earlier, namely,

> I think that one important goal of an emulator -- a strategic goal,
> if you will -- should be to make it possible to run MPE on *more*
> varieties of hardware, *not* less!

... I can see that we must take it in incremental steps. Getting the okay
*at all* from HP to do an emulator is obviously a big accomplishment.
Getting one running within the parameters defined (i.e. on HP hardware)
should be the priority, and we can talk about future hardware platforms...
in the future.

Respectfully,
Patrick
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Patrick Santucci
HP e3000 Systems Administrator
Computer Operations Team Lead
Cornerstone Brands, Inc.