John R. Wolff writes: > Of course, MPE/iX uninhibited would run rings around a similar speed > HP9000 -- it would be most embarassing for HP to have to admit that > the obsolete MPE/iX is faster than the modern wonderful HP-UX! I > must conclude that it has nothing to do with keeping prices low or > some technical issue or other altruistic claims. This is simply a > mis-guided marketing strategy gone wrong with the goal of getting rid > of MPE/iX in favor of HP-UX. Scenario: an Engineer is called into the Boss's office at CSY (perhaps in the mid- to late 1980s?) and told, "The Company wants to sell more HP-UX, but jacking up the price on MPE boxes and licenses hasn't helped HP-UX sales enough. Marketing says we're making the UX division look bad. We need to come up with a way to slow down MPE, give the other guys a chance to catch up performance-wise, relatively speaking. Can you add some extra no-op cycles or something to MPE?" (Assuming a somewhat PHB here -- no offense intended to anyone!) Who knows, he may have even reassured the engineer with, "Don't worry, once HP-UX sales take off we'll be allowed to pull out the idling code. We'll send out a patch and tell the customers they're getting a 'performance enhancement,' that'll make everyone happy. We just need to put it in temporarily. For the good of HP as a whole, you understand." Assuming this scenario, if that engineer (or group of engineers) would come forward and tell his/her/their story, *that* would be the "smoking gun." Patrick (What did I say about not believing in conspiracies?) "The truth is out there." - [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Patrick Santucci HP e3000 Systems Administrator Computer Operations Team Lead http://cornerstonebrands.com * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, * * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *