The first 3000 hardware emulator could be sold as hard goods

Most of the talk about creating an emulator to mimic HP 3000s in the future has been devoted to software engineering, and the OpenMPE organization has made the project an important part of its first two years of service to the 3000 community. But 3000 customers at HP World heard about a much more tangible project to emulate these servers, computers which HP will stop selling by the end of next month. The project is more tangible because its first generation will be sold as a hardware card, developed by a company with more than a decade of experience emulating vintage computer servers.

Willard West, the president of Strobe Data, spoke up in the OpenMPE meeting at HP World to report that his company is talking with HP about using PA-RISC processors to create a 3000 emulator card. West introduced himself to the crowd in the meeting after his company’s project had been summarized by OpenMPE’s Jon Backus, the chairman and founder of the group who’s done so much to get HP’s agreement on selling MPE licenses for just such a product. At the time of the meeting, Backus was reporting that Strobe’s idea of an emulator would be a software project, but the company didn’t seem to have a lot of MPE experience among its developers.

West said that his firm wants to be first to market with such a product, and Strobe plans to use PA-RISC chips purchased from HP if the two companies can come to an agreement on getting the components. A software-based emulator, he noted in correcting Backus, would be a longer-term product for Strobe after it releases the Intel-based hardware card. As for MPE experience in its development staff, West said that so long as his company can completely replicate the HP 3000 hardware processing in its card, then MPE compatibility would be assured. But West allowed that external testing of the product, likely by Allegro Consultants, could be part of Strobe’s development process.

Strobe, founded in 1974 by West and his wife Vera, who was also in attendance at the OpenMPE meeting, has been marketing processor emulators since the 1980s, starting with Data General systems, moving to PDP-11s, and then selling an HP 1000 emulator card. OpenMPE discussions led by Backus this spring featured a concept of joint development among three firms including Strobe, Allegro and SRI. Backus, speaking for OpenMPE’s board, said he believes there isn’t enough market out there to support more than one emulator solution. Although the OpenMPE group has yet to put more than a few hundred dollars in its accounts, at some point in the future the organization may have a budget to spend on supporting development of an emulator.

At the most recent meeting, Backus said that OpenMPE has concerns about multiple vendors attempting an emulator solution and the pool of customers may not be big enough. “We’re not in a position to fund Strobe and SRI,” he said. “If we have to believe what is the most viable solution, the only way to do that is to go through a formal RFP process.” There were no details shared either at the OpenMPE HP World meeting, or on the organization’s Web site and mailing list, about what Backus called “a community funding solution” to help an emulator along.

Strobe’s West said his company was in talks with HP about using the same chips that power HP 3000s, and in an interview after HP World added that HP hadn’t aired any concerns yet about being the source of chips for an emulator card. A hardware emulator, he noted at HP World, wouldn’t ever see any performance growth beyond what the platform is capable of today — which makes a software project the best long-term solution.

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