Welcome to our 12th edition of Online Extra, the e-mail update of articles in the December 3000 NewsWire and items of interest since we last mailed our First Class issue. This service is an exclusive to our paid subscribers. We'll e-mail you this file between the First Class issues you receive by mail, updating stories you've read and adding items that have developed between issues.
IN THIS MONTH'S EXTRA
We're waiting to hear about the compilers for the 3000
9 Gb drives in the wings for 3000s
OpenDesk migration offers abound
Samba takes steps on HP 3000
Web kit gets an even easier install
How to fix UPS communication problems
LISTF will have ACCESS capabilities soon
3000 comes out at Internet World
St. Paul integrates applications with Oracle
Time is nearly out for 4.0 MPE/iX
HP 3000 training surfaces in California, North Carolina
WE'RE WAITING TO HEAR ABOUT
THE COMPILERS FOR THE 3000
No one could be awaiting this month's HP Strategic video
conference any more
breathlessly than we at the NewsWire. There's one announcement in
particular we think
is important to the future of the system -- news that the MPE/iX compilers
are getting
rejuvenated for the latest versions of PA-RISC. HP long ago introduced
newer versions of
its COBOL and C compilers for HP-UX systems, compilers that reach for the most
horsepower from PA-RISC. That's an architecture that leans heavily on
intelligence from
its compilers. Before the latest chip shipped last year, HP increased its
SPEC benchmarks
by 30 percent for the PA-8000, primarily through improvements to the
compilers it used
in the HP 9000 testing.
Support for new chips like the Merced family might be important to some of you. And getting a 64-bit-ready version of MPE/iX will have an impact on the larger sites. But better compilers, tuned to the changes that took place between PA-RISC 1.1 and 2.0, can have an impact on everybody who's running programs on 3000s. It's one of the most global enhancements HP could make to the system.
Compiler technology is part of the Roseville, Calif. operations where
HP 3000
software such as OpenDeskManager is being maintained. The list of things in
Roseville
that need attention on behalf of the 3000 community isn't getting any
shorter. We're still
waiting to hear how much CSY has been able to get Roseville to commit to on
behalf of
MPE/iX customers.
9 GB DRIVES IN THE WINGS FOR 3000s
Early word is out that HP will introduce the first 9Gb disk drives for
the HP 3000
soon. NewsWire subscriber Stan Sieler, ever the sleuth about such things,
"found some
interesting lines in IODFAULT.PUB.SYS" that showed 3.5-inch Seagate drives'
configuration is already included in MPE/iX 5.5. The drives are currently
available as HP
NetServer peripherals, priced at $2,795.
What's more, subscriber Michael Gueterman offered this report, which he found buried in the Read Before Installing file for the 5.5 PowerPatch 1:
"A new 9 Gigabyte single-ended or fast-wide disk drive is not
supported with this
PowerPatch. It will be supported in the very near future. For more
information, refer to
the Release Notes. Before installing this drive, you should be aware of the
following
considerations:
--
The patch must be install prior to connecting the 9 GB disk drive to the
system
-- The 9 GB drive is not supported as LDEV 1."
Gueterman adds, "The Release Notes also has a page on the drive. Without quoting it, it implies the drives will be from Seagate and Quantum, and have the same performance characteristics as the 2 and 4Gb versions. It also states, 'With this new large capacity 9 Gb disk drive, MPE/iX will cross an Operating System limitation in the Secondary Storage manager (SSM). An SSM patch is required to address the full 9 GB range.' "
OPENDESK MIGRATION OFFERS ABOUND
Since HP's Roseville SST operations aren't rushing to provide ongoing
enhancements to OpenDeskManager, several sources have come forward to migrate
customers who have relied on HP's e-mail package for years. Some of the
migration
offers advocate moving e-mail operations to another platform, and others
don't. HP's
running a promotion to get OpenDeskManager sites to install OpenMail. The
replacement package, which runs on HP-UX systems, is half-price to Desk
users. HP has a
Jan. 31 deadline on the half-off deal, and it will be glad to sell you
consulting on getting
OpenMail working at your site.
Other options lean heavier toward keeping the HP 3000 as an active element in your e-mail picture. Why not -- last time we checked mail was a mission-critical application in most companies using it, making it a great match for the 3000. NewsWire sponsor E-Mail, Inc. (818.836.4788) does have a service to move you to Microsoft Exchange NT, but it's also billing itself as "the experts in legacy mail migration." The firm offers One-Stop Mail, an SMTP gateway and a UUCP EasyLink gateway for your HP 3000s.
Finally, 3k Associates (800.NETMAIL) is offering a migration bundle of its DeskLink MIME compatible SMTP gateway, POP Server/3000 and NetMail/3000 electronic mail system. 3k's posting a 20 percent discount on the $8,490 bundle for orders until April 1.
3k Associates is also looking for "OpenDesk sites looking to migrate to the next generation of electronic mail solutions. In addition to special pricing, 3k Associates will assist these sites by developing migration toolsets and customized consulting services to assist in their migrations."
Rumor has it that HP would have been willing to sell off its DeskManager business during the past year, but now it's concentrating on getting HP 3000 customers to use HP-UX servers for mail instead. Desk users still don't have an answer on why OpenMail can't be ported to MPE/iX. HP is ready to move OpenMail to Windows NT, after all. Maybe OpenMail isn't Posix compliant enough...
SAMBA TAKES STEPS ON HP 3000
Samba, the freeware device and file sharing mechanism that lets you
run its client
on a server to see files, directories, disks, and printers on Windows for
Workgroups,
Windows 95, and Windows NT servers, is headed for the HP 3000. Samba forms an
extremely reliable and important part of client solutions for companies
around the
world, including sites that use it extensively in a mixed Unix, NT and Windows
environment. Jeff Kell, Randy Medd, Andrew Tridgell, Neil Harvey, Jim
Wowchuk, Lars
Appel and others are working in a shareware effort to bring MPE/iX into the
Samba fold.
Appel reports, "Samba/iX version 0.2 is now available for testing. The
difference to
version 0.1 is that it no longer needs to be launched by INETD, but can
also be used
in a "standalone" listener job (similar to the FTP Monitor or the HTTP web
servers from
Jazz or Open Market). Thus it should also be usable on 5.0 systems."
Chris Bartram of 3k Associates is now hosting the latest version of the software on his public FTP server, ftp://ftp.3kassociates.com under the POSIX directory. The FTP site is the host for Samba source, binaries, configuration file samples and Read Me's. Details are also at the Telemon WWW site.
Neil Harvey adds, "Lars Appel has done extraordinarily valuable work on the porting the Samba client and server to the HP 3000. It's still in test mode, but VERY promising. So far we can "mount" accounts and groups, and drag and drop files, edit them across platforms (e.g. use Notepad to edit MPE files). We hope that people will try Samba out and uncover bugs."
WEB KIT GETS AN EVEN EASIER INSTALL
After more than a month of the easy-install Web Starter Kit for HP
3000s, the Kit
itself has a simplified version available. Stan Sieler reports:
"Through the courtesy of Lars Appel and Joe Geiser, I've been able to repackage their WWW starter kit into an LZW-format package that doesn't require any intermediate :STORE tape manipulation to install. It's at: http://www.allegro. com/software/#WEBSTUFF"
HOW TO FIX UPS COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS
HP's Customer Engineers are reporting that Series 969 systems running
MPE/iX
5.5 are unable to talk to HP's PowerTrust UPS through the UPS port on the
MFIO card.
Mark Bixby of the Coast Community College District says, "Both my HP CE and VAR CE say this is happening to a large number of machines. UPSUTIL.MPEXL.TELESUP reports "down/broken," and UPS event system logging reports read timeouts on the UPS port."
Gary Dietz of Whitman College reported a fix for the problem.
"In a previous post I stated that we had gotten things to work by re-creating our NMCONFIG file from scratch, but during the process making sure that we did NOT go into the UPS configuration screen and do a "save data." That worked, but it was a painful solution at best. After talking to the HP "Expert Center" again on Friday afternoon they have decided that the problem really lies in the configuration of the UPS itself, and not in the HP 3000. The problem is that the UPS's are supposed to ship pre-configured to talk at 1200 bps, but in reality many shipped pre-configured to 9600 bps.
"Now here's where it gets interesting. It seems that if you have NEVER gone into the UPS Config screen in NMMGR and done a "save data," things still work fine even though the UPS Config screen says 1200 bps by default. Apparently if a "save data" was not done it gets the info from SYSGEN, which defaults to 9600 bps. Once you have gone into the UPS Config screen in NMMGR and done a "save data" however, the 3000 tries to communicate with the UPS at 1200 bps, and since the UPS is configured to 9600 bps it doesn't work.
The good news here is that it makes available a very painless solution. All you have to do is go into the UPS Config screen in NMMGR and change it to 9600 instead of 1200, do a "save data", Validate, and then re-boot with a "start norecovery". I tried this on my 918 and it worked just fine."
LISTF WILL HAVE ACCESS CAPABILITIES SOON
Just before Christmas the CSY lab in Bangalore, India gave users an
update on
enhancements to LISTF, expected to be available in a patch to 5.5 soon:
The patch contents are
o LISTF accessors formats 8 and 9 (Who is accessing the file?)
o LISTFILE seleq=[access=inuse|open|excl|lock]
seleq=[code=number|mnemonic]
o PRINT ;NONUM - Printing files in RAW mode without
interpreting trailing 8 characters of
the record as numbers.
o HPLASTSPID variable - $stdlist Spool ID for the job defined by
the HPLASTJOB variable, typically the job
you most recently streamed
o HPSPOOLID variable - Output Spool ID for current $stdlist
(jobs only)
o PAUSE on JOB(s).
PAUSE [sec=num_secs] [job=job_id] [interval=int_secs]
[;exist | wait | notexist ]
o FLABELINFO accepting three new items:
o #58 returns the integer number of sectors a file occupies.
o #59 returns the integer number of extents a file occupies
o #60 returns the integer time when the file was created.
o FINFO accepting the same item numbers and the following mnemonics
o #58 or "SECTORS" or "NUM SECTORS" (rtns integer)
o #59 or "EXTENTS" or "NUM EXTENTS" (rnts integer)
o #60 or "CREATETIME" or "FMTCREATETIME" or "CREATION TIME"(rtns string)
o #-60 or "INTCREATETIME" or "CREATION TIME INTEGER" (rtns integer)
o INPUT ;READCNT parameter. - Read number of characters from $STDIN
INPUT [NAME=]varname
[[;PROMPT=]prompt ]
[[;WAIT=]seconds ]
[[;READCNT=]chars ]
o PRINT command with CONTINUE option Q, QUIT => stop printing.
The photo display, which is low-impact even over a dial-up connection, notes that HP will also be showing off the 3000 at the next Internet World show in March, too. It's great to see the 3000's new Internet capabilities, especially those wired into applications such as Smith-Gardner & Associates' MACS II, used to interest new customers in the 3000.
ST. PAUL INTEGRATES APPLICATIONS WITH ORACLE
St. Paul Software
(612.603.4400) has finished its
integration between Oracle Applications and St. Paul's spEDI*EClipse
client/server EDI
product and spEDI*interface integration tool. spEDI*EClipse consists of
spEDI*tran,
spEDI*map, spEDI*exec, spEDI*delivery, spEDI*stat and spEDI*fax, and offers
enterprise
wide EDI and Electronic Commerce capabilities. spEDI*interface allows direct
application integration with Oracle Applications. The integration has been
approved by
Oracle Corporation's Design and Migration Services (DMS), an organization
that assists
companies in the various stages of integration through the Cooperative
Applications
Initiative (CAI).
St. Paul says the integrated solution enables the two systems to operate as one EDI-aware product. "The customer can implement both Oracle Applications and St. Paul Software's product to satisfy their business needs without bearing additional overhead from handling business transactions on paper and consequent data entry or data duplication."
The first phase of the integration includes version 10.6 of Oracle's Accounts Receivable, Order Entry and Purchasing. It automates the transmission of invoices, customer orders, ship notices, purchase orders and releases. These generic transaction maps specify field to segment relationships between the flat files and the X12 standards for most of the required fields and some optional fields.
An integration between St. Paul Software's spEDI*interface and Oracle Applications version 10.7, including Oracle Accounts Payable and Supplier Scheduling is planned for June 1997. spEDI*interface sets up of complex mapping between trading partners using Oracle database tables and defining maps by cross referencing Oracle Applications tables directly. It extracts and imports EDI transactions directly out of and into Oracle Applications, eliminating the need for flat file transfers. It also provides a trading partner map set library that allows users to get trading partner maps up and running quickly. St. Paul Software maintains and updates trading partner map sets as new EDI transactions are added or versions change.
TIME IS NEARLY OUT FOR 4.0 MPE/IX
After two sudden death overtimes, the clock has nearly expired on
MPE/iX 4.0. HP
has said it will stop taking support contract money for the release as of
February 1,
prompting the entry of many HP 3000 systems into the world of Posix and
5.0. Some
customers are advocating moving straight to release 5.5. HP is already
talking about a
second PowerPatch to 5.5 sometime soon.
HP 3000 TRAINING SURFACES IN SO-CAL,
RETURNS TO NORTH CAROLINA
A reliable source of HP 3000 training and a new resource are doing business
during January. The new resource is from Abtech Systems, a Southern
California reseller
of HP 3000 equipment. Given the wealth of HP 3000 experience in that part
of the US,
it's no wonder there's a good resource. Abtech said it has "qualified
instructors with
knowledge of most third party applications, custom courses structured to
your specific
needs, and the most competitive rates in the industry. Contact Abtech for more details
(800.474.7397, www.abtechsys.com)
In Charlotte, N.C, the mighty MARUG regional user group is having another
conference with specific HP 3000 training. MARUG members now make up more than
half of the Interex board of directors, and the RUG has absolutely nailed
down the
process of putting together worthwhile training. The Jan. 23-24 meeting includes
seminars on remaking your HP 3000 as an open system with the right software
selections, MPE technical roundtable to get questions answered, data
warehousing with
the HP 3000 from CSY "Swat Team" member Vince Clapps, and a MPE/iX 5.5 network
printing primer with live demos. The conference includes a vendor exhibit,
and it's
happening at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Charlotte. Contact the hotel at
704.372.4100 to make reservations.