Hello Friends:

Jim Phillips, trusty Ohio reporter, forwarded a hopeful note from an HP rep
verifying support of Classic 3000 code (i.e., 16-bit of the MPE V heritage)
on forthcoming HP 3000 IA-64 boxes. If you do the math, it looks like an
application written in 1974 would run on hardware created 30 years later.

While this is truly an impressive display few other platforms (if any) can
claim, we're not sure HP has promised this yet. In our May 3000 NewsWire
Q&A interview with Dave Wilde -- the CSY R&D section manager for growth
projects including IA-64 -- we asked about this.

NewsWire: What's the latest word on the decision to support Classic 3000
16-bit code in 64-bit HP 3000s?

Wilde: We have looked at this a little bit, but it's much too early to say
anything conclusive about it. We need to figure out what the customer needs
are and what makes sense technically as we plan our roadmap.

Our gut feeling at the NewsWire is that CSY will support this code, so long
as there are enough customers out there who need to run it on the IA-64
systems. Think about the likelihood of that, however. You're a shop
supporting 16-bit code. Are you really likely to be buying bleeding-edge
hardware? In general, we expect that actual use of the IA-64 3000 systems
will be limited at first, when after they're available in 2003 -- because
HP will continue to make PA-RISC as good a performer on 3000s as IA-64 for
several years after IA-64 rolls out.

<plug>
If you haven't taken a free trial subscription to the 3000 NewsWire, visit
our Web page below and sign up (in the Subs section). We'll make sure you
get a copy of that May issue, including that Q&A with Wilde.
</plug>

Ron Seybold, Editor In Chief
The 3000 NewsWire
Independent Information to Maximize Your HP 3000
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