I'll pass this along, as part of my "store-and-forward" service:
>... I, for one, support the HP3000 because
>it makes my life easier - I sleep well at night. And I try to make sure my
>boss sees a clip every now and then from these discussions. Now if only HP
>would see fit to visit the existing customer base every now and then,
>perhaps we could throw some of these Unix boxes out and get back to work.
Just in case some gentle HP3000-L participants might think that there is a
Unix vs. MPE "war" going on, I would like to remind them of a couple of
facts:
1) The members of the Unix community have contributed dramatically to the
advancement of computing. Just in case you were doing your Evelyn-Wood
super-fast scanning of the top line of this message and missed the deep
implications of my statement (as usually happens with super-fast reading,
unfortunately), "store-and-forward" is a technique that Unix networks
perfected. There are many truly wonderful things in Unix. This is just
one of them.
2) HP, through MPE and the HP3000, has contributed dramatically to the
advancement of BUSINESS computing. I consider business computing as a
vital SUBSET of computing in general.
The author of the message I quoted above is a distinguished member of a
major university in the U.S. (no, it's not Notre Dame). I'm sure they have
lots of Unix systems as well as Cray computers and many other truly
advanced number crunchers. It would be silly to ask their HP3000s to even
attempt to do what those supercomputers do (my friend would surely NOT
sleep well at night). On the flip side, it would be even sillier to ask
those supercomputers to do what the university's HP3000s do so well (my
friend would QUIT sleeping well at night).
Computing, at the fundamental theoretical level, is based on bits and a few
logical operations that manipulate such bits.
We store such bits in "containers" that have been categorized into
well-defined hierarchies (super-fast and super-expensive registers, only a
precious few of which exist per computer; caches; memory; disk; CDs;
magnetic tape; paper tape; punched cards; ...)
The logical operations that manipulate these bits are implemented on
super-specialized, fast, tiny chips (or whatever they are called outside of
Idaho). It's amazing to realize how FEW these logical operations are and
how you can play games with them to combine and recombine them in ways that
make them more useful, or faster, or more economical in total number of
components, or whatever it is that the designers want to accomplish when
faced with a specific challenge. Some names: BUF, NOT, AND, NAND, OR, NOR,
XOR, XNOR.
Theoretically, you could sit down and MANUALLY fool around with these
primitive functions to move bits around from "container" to "container"
(including containers on the other side of the world, through networking)
to accomplish your computing objectives. Practically, though, you want to
impose a structure on both storage and operations and you want to create a
bunch of trusted assistants to carry out your orders. Eventually, what you
get is a file system and an interface with (at least) two "senses" (one
that senses and responds to programs and one that senses and responds to
humans).
Unix, MPE, MacOS, Wintel machines, Amigas, your toaster, and so on, ALL
follow the same ideas. Some are better suited for some tasks, or are more
economical to operate, or more reliable, or whatever, than the others.
Some simply have more users and, in a true democratic (or is it
"GENOCIDAL") fashion, want to kill the minorities, just because they are
minorities. It's perfectly natural for them to want to do so. But is it
"good"?
--------------------------------------------------
This is the question, in general: Is genocide ok?
--------------------------------------------------
The MPE folks don't want to have a war with the Unix folks. We all use
Unix too much for that (we don't use Unix for EVERYTHING, of course, just
as we don't use MPE for everything). We just don't want the Unix folks to
kill MPE. MPE is too useful to too many people (even though they are a
minority) for that. And MPE can become even more useful with a little
tender loving care from HP. Is this too much to ask from MPE's parent?
----------------------------------------------------------
This is the question for HP: Is "love and leave them" ok?
----------------------------------------------------------
Tough questions, indeed!
+---------------+
| |
| r | Alfredo [log in to unmask]
| e | http://www.adager.com
| g | F. Alfredo Rego Tel 208 726-9100
| a | Manager, Theoretical Group Fax 208 726-2822
| d | Adager Corporation
| A | Sun Valley, Idaho 83353-3000 U.S.A.
| |
+---------------+
|
