Tina Johns just said:

> I work on an HPe3000 system that is currently using TRANSACT
> for their programming needs.

So do I...    :-)

> ....  I was curious if there was a way to easily convert the old
> language of TRANSACT to JAVA.

"Easily" is of course another one of those words of matchless
elasticity....  But if we try and take an "average" value for "easily",
I'll bet the answer is:  No:  It's a re-write.

....  While Transact has been around for quite a few years, "old" in
this case certainly does not mean it has been stagnant for a long
time.  In fact, over the last five years HP has implemented a number
of major enhancements to the Native Mode Transact/iX compiler,
including full TurboImage B-Tree support and the ability to import
externally generated database and file ID's.

Combined with GUI capabilities that are and will be in QCTerm, I'm
of the opinion that Native Mode Transact/iX with the Trandebug/iX
debugger is and will continue to be an excellent, reliable language
for optimized TurboIMAGE database I/O by host-based applications
on the HP e3000 via TELNET to thin QCTerm clients....  In fact, I
continue to be somewhat amazed that more COBOL users haven't
switched to Transact, to save themselves all that extra work (sorry,
Ms. Jeanette...      :-)   )...

> and would like to know the costs of such a conversion tool.

No such animal exists that I know of.......  And because of the cost
to produce something worth running and the limited size of the
Transact installed base, I very much doubt there ever will be.

> Since I also have heard that the HPe3000 will not be supported
> after 2005 or 2006, could you also tell me what would be suitable
> for new hardware and the costs?

What you heard is flat-out wrong:  Only some of the older *models"
will go off support in that timeframe...   Main reason is that HP just
came out with the new A-Class and N-Class HP e3000s (hardware
is the same as same class HP 9000 HP-UX boxes), and they are
"encouraging" users to move to the newer platforms...  One of the
presentations a senior HP manager gave at a recent HP World was
entitled ~"HP e3000:  The NEXT 25 years"....

> ....  I was thinking that the HP-UNIX would work but am not positive.

If you are going to go to UNIX (ugh....), there probably isn't much to
be gained or lost from a relative perspective between HP-UX, IBM's
AIX, and Sun's Solaris;  WRT difficulty in "converting" from Transact
and TurboIMAGE....  In large part it amounts to "start over"....

Ken Sletten

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