A software company which sells an emulator for the Digital VAX computers and VMS operating system has taken an interest in creating such a product for the HP 3000 community, one which would let users run MPE applications on non-3000 hardware. Robert Boer, CEO of Software Resources International (www.softresint.com) has asked on the 3000-L mailing list and newsgroup “If there is interest in an HP 3000 emulator for Windows/Linux, similar to the VAX emulator (www.vaxemulator.com) we have developed?” The company’s CHARON-VAX emulator “contains exact models of several VAX systems, so precise that you can install on it a new copy of the VAX operating system from the original VAX distribution CDs. Due to the fact that the VAX hardware is emulated (not the operating system), the application user interface stays exactly the same and the emulator is not restricted to a specific VAX operating system.” There’s a couple of caveats: customers have to provide their own copy of the hardware’s operating system — VMS for CHARON-VAX, MPE/iX for a possible 3000 product. And HP would have to stay out of the way of the project, just as Compaq did for the Digital VAX product.

The upside is that such an emulator might extend 3000 applications’ life into other applications residing on the host hardware. “Using access points in its virtual components, existing VAX applications can be connected to new applications on the host system without making any changes to the original VAX code,” according to a description from the company’s Web page. Boer said that “Typically we would start with a proof-of-concept of a simple system (essentially CPU, disk controller and console) which we would distribute as freeware to get feedback on the concept. Based on the feedback (and commercial considerations) we would take it one step further. We do not accept external funding. To consider a proof-of-concept, we need a suggestion of a low-end HP 3000 configuration (we would not spend time on performance optimization) and very detailed hardware documentation."

Boers commented on the licensing prospects for such an emulator as well. “HP licensing might prevent the use of emulators, so I have to look into that. In any case, reality drove Compaq to accept ours.” Boers was referring to the conduct of prospective HP partner Compaq in regards to the CHARON-VAX emulator — conduct that might determine how HP could help a 3000 emulator effort. Compaq says the Software Resources International product “prolongs the usability of Compaq OpenVMS VAX and MicroVAX applications by enabling their transfer to new hardware platforms without any conversion effort.” Compaq provides extension licenses at $500 and $1,000 for CHARON-VAX, allowing the OpenVMS operating system and OpenVMS layered products and licenses to be transferred to the CHARON-VAX environment. That means subsystems and VMS applications like its office suite, Compaq/Digital-brand compilers, TCP/IP services and clustering solutions all can be run legally under the emulation environment without any further license fees. What’s more, Compaq’s Services group will provide support for OpenVMS on CHARON-VAX, if the emulator is being run on Compaq hardware.