It was only an experimental demonstration, but more than a few longstanding 3000 advocates were excited by a free graphics- and sound-ready 3000 terminal emulator Wirt Atmar was showing off at HP World. The solution supplier who sells the QueryCalc application for 3000s demoed a still-in-development graphical version of his QCTerm freeware emulator, a client with a language built-in, ready to display animations, MIDI sounds and accept mouse clicks to communicate with HP 3000 programs. Atmar described the software as “a test” that would be ready to use and download in four to six months. Graphical objects are transmitted from the 3000 and then rendered at the PC level. It relies on Advanced Telnet, a network link HP has been readying for MPE release since last year. QCTerm has a graphical interpreter inside.

“This is the thinnest of all possible clients,” Atmar said. The software runs only on Windows PCs, using escape codes and an API of a small graphics scripting language that one developer said “looks a bit like PostScript.” While some observers said a graphical emulator was a new development in the late ’80s for the 3000, others said Atmar was making an end-run around the complexity of using PC middleware to put 3000 applications into windowed environments. Atmar plans to release the API at the end of the year for developers to design toward. Atmar described the code as “still warm from the factory forge… we haven’t even decided on the final form of its behavior.”