On Sun, 12 Nov 1995 15:05:29 -0800 Stan said:
>Alida says/asks:
>> We did put in the Power Patch which is supposed to get us to the .02
>...
>> However, when we looked at the revision log, it said that this
>> patch is for systems with less than 24mb of memory. (This does not
>> apply to us.)
>
>Say what?  HP has no business pretending that MPE/iX is usable on a machine
>with less than 24 MB.  I'm quite surprised that a patch would have that
>kind of comment.  The only kind of patch *that* underconfigured a machine
>needs is a hardware patch: more memory boards!
 
There is a really neat quote that I can't remember the source of, but it
was along the lines of "regardless of advances in processor and memory
resources, software will grow to consume it".  Of course, this idea is
driven by hardware/memory advances in price/performance, with little emphasis
on results.  At the beginning of my computer career, I dealt with an IBM 360
with 64K RAM and 4x22 Mb disc.  Yet it did payroll, payables/receivables,
student records, registration, and other tasks.  And discounting the time
spent for keypunch operators, it worked rather well.
 
Then came the 3000/II - 256Kb RAM, 2x47Mb disc.  Interactive registration.
 
It still disturbs me that I have several orders of magnitude of processing
power on my desktop than what used to run our business.  But I digress...
 
24Mb of memory was unheard of in the classic 3000 line, and this wasn't so
long ago.  I wonder how a classic 3000 could perform with 256Mb memory.
 
My point (finally) is why 24Mb memory is insufficient.  We all know that it
isn't enough for MPE/iX, but why not?
 
>> Also, when I do a :SHOWME, it shows the release number 5.00.00, even
>> though our revision log file does show that the Power Patch was put in.
>> Why does it not show up on our logon message? Does this mean something
>> is wrong?
>
>Yes, Alida...this means something is wrong...but with the patch process
>and MPE naming mechanism, not with anything you did.  Installing a PowerPatch
>does not change the :SHOWME release number ... incredible, eh?
>
>I've passed the above comment/question to the SIGSoftVend working group
>that is talking with HP about MPE release naming problems.
>
>--
>Stan Sieler                                          [log in to unmask]
>                                     http://www.allegro.com/sieler.html