Re, question 2:

> A couple other questions occur - I am given to understand that MPE/iX newer
> than 6.5 won't run on my 927LX, but 6.5 will - are the differences between
> 6.0 and 6.5 significant enough to be worth trying to find the media?  I've
> done some digging and have had no luck at all finding media for MPE/iX.
>

From the 6.5 communicator, the major changes from 6.0 to 6.5 are:

• Large Files (>4GB)
• Increased disk spindle limits (up to 511 spindles)
• Larger physical memories (up to 16 GB on some systems)
• Larger network limits (TIO connections, network sockets, VT)
• Improved handling of large Image/SQL transactions

Of those, only the first is likely to be of possible interest to you, and
even then, I doubt it.

For a hobbyist/collector, 6.0 might be a bit more stable/reliable than 6.5

The first release of Large Files had several major issues discovered,
diagnosed, and reported by Allegro Consultants, including data corruption
problems in IMAGE databases and in large sort operations.  Because of that,
HP issued a patch preventing IMAGE from creating a Large File dataset ...
you can still have Jumbo datasets, which appear to be more than 2 or 4 GB,
but are actually a collection of smaller files (somewhat behind your back)
(and, ahem, designed/implemented by Allegro for HP :)
IIRC, they also issued a patch to prevent SORT from using Large Files.

The other raised limits (e.g, # of spindles, max memory, more networking)
are of no interest to just about any 9x7 or 9x8 system.

There are a small number of programs that are MPE/iX release dependent
(e.g., UNDEDLOK (name or spelling is wrong)), but I doubt you'll run into
them.
(E.g., IIRC, for practical purposes, any HP compilers from about 5.0 or
later will run on any release from 5.0 through 7.5, with one or two minor
possible exceptions)
All of our (Allegro's) products and contributed software runs on 6.0, (and
older and newer releases).

Stan

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *