3000 NewsWire Online Extra Welcome to our 27th edition of Online Extra -- the e-mail update of articles in the March 1998 3000 NewsWire, plus items that have surfaced since we mailed our latest First Class issue. This service is an exclusive to our paid subscribers. We e-mail you this file between the First Class issues you receive by mail, updating the stories you've read and adding articles that have developed between issues. Flogging that Express-PowerPatch horse We don't like lingering on such a mess, but customers are still trying to figure out what they need to install to get their HP 3000s up to the PowerPatch 4 level of MPE/iX. HP has made it plainer than it was, but you still need to step carefully. Check any subsys tape that HP sends you in a rush to be sure it has all your subsystem software products on it. We saw one report from a manager who discovered that network services had been left off of hers. One manager came to the 3000 newsgroup for help. "My 928 has 5.5 loaded on it... FOS/SLT only. I have remaining a SubSys Tape, Express 3 tape and the PowerPatch 4 tape. My thoughts are to 1. Apply the Subsys tape only. 2. Apply the Express 3 tape by itself as I would a normal power patch tape. 3. Apply the PowerPatch 4 tape. Is this anywhere close to right?" Jeff Kell of the University of Tennessee replied, "it depends on the 'flavor' of the Subsys and Express 3. If the subsys tape is just TurboStore, and the 'Express 3' is just patches, you can do this in one step. Restore pat@.install.sys from PowerPatch 4 and use Patch/iX for doing an add-on subsys and PowerPatch using the PP4 tape (they are cumulative). Just don't attempt Patch/iX with anything other than the PP4 version of Patch/iX. "If your subsys is more 'cumulative' but Express 3 is still powerpatch only, you can skip Express 3 and again perform the above. If you have subsys components on your 'Express 3' you'll have to do multiple steps as you originally presumed." Michael Hensley of Allegro Consulants reports he's installed to the PowerPatch 4 level several times already with some success. (He didn't note how much puzzling he had to do to succeed, but at one point in February said he was wearing a "grumpy hat" during the process.) He notes that any tape with a system handle on it is automatically a subsys tape, so that Express 3 tape qualifies as such. Hensley recommends this to sort out what tapes you want to use: "1) Find out what subsystems are on the SUBSYS tape and the Express 3 tape. If they aren't the same, call HP Contracts and make them FedEx you a proper "Express 3 SUBSYS" tape with all of your subsystems on it. Have fun! 2) Install the "Express 3 SUBSYS" tape as an "add-on SUBSYS." Do NOT install PowerPatch 4 at the same time. If some subsystem on the SUBSYS tape is not already on your system, Patch/iX will not qualify any patches for that subsystem. Major bummer. 3) After you complete installing the "Express 3 SUBSYS" tape as an "add-on SUBSYS", then install the "Power Patch 4" tape using Patch/iX. Be sure to examine the list of patches that did not qualify (there is a filter for that), to see if there are any "enhancement patches" you want to force ("enhancement patches" don't qualify automatically, you have to force them). You won't be able to force patches for subsystems you don't have (see point number 2)." We haven't heard when we can expect to see MPE/iX 5.5 Express 5, which might be a more straightforward solution to upgrading. Or not. Take note that neither Express 3 or PowerPatch 4 have a fix on them for that data-corrupting DDX TurboIMAGE bug. (There's a beta-release patch for the bug.) Stay tuned. Manufacturing options make the pie richer already Sometimes there are solutions already available for challenges in the 3000 world, ones vastly under-promoted. Such would be the case for Oracle Manufacturing, an application set that's apparently been running on HP 3000s since 1995. Symantec was once a reference account for the solution, although we've heard that shop isn't leaning on Oracle for manufacturing like it once did. Technically, this qualifies as one of the BOPS manufacturing solutions we hoped for in our March editorial. We just overlooked it. The fact that it's installed in so few 3000 sites could mean that name-brand manufacturing apps need more than a strong brand. Oracle is notable for demanding more from database administrators, and that might make it finish behind SAP, PeopleSoft and Baan's solutions. There are client-server options coming for HP 3000s that use IMAGE at their hearts, applications like the solutions from eXegeSys or the MK Group. Go quietly about using MM II or MANMAN for now, and hold out for a better future from those suppliers if you can. If you need a name brand, there's always Oracle to bandy about on the 3000. JDBC/iX on the way -- but from who? We heard a rumor that CSY has selected a vendor to partner with for a JDBC implementation on MPE/iX. In case you didn't know, JDBC is the database middleware that connects Java applications with databases, in this case IMAGE/SQL. People are already doing this using JDBC-to-ODBC middleware, then using an ODBC tool on their 3000s.We know that's a lot of overhead. What we don't know yet is who CSY is working with for its solution. One leading candidate would have to be M.B. Foster Associates, the company providing the ODBCLink/SE solution that's in MPE/IX 5.5 Express 3 and later. The CSY choice, whatever it is, won't stop third party solutions from emerging, thankfully. Minisoft says they're well along on their JDBC product for the 3000. The company's version 1.2.0.13 released April 10 of ODBC/32 remained read-only, but founder Doug Greenup told us last week write capability would be ready soon. They'll automatically upgrade both customers and sites taking demos with the write-capable version when it ships. IMAGE fans still want what they want That SIGIMAGE Web ballot yielded some new favorites among the customer wish lists, but one perennial still popped up through the spring turf: an ODBC solution for native TurboIMAGE, one that doesn't require you to learn about the Allbase/SQL nuances. This will make the second year this request has topped the SIGIMAGE list. HP has been plain about not doing this. Customers have been just as diligent about wanting it. SIGIMAGE chair Ken Sletten said his group won't be dropping the "native ODBC" request from its ballots. Sometimes when you resist a thing, it becomes even more powerful. Look for TurboIMAGE 7.10 to fix problems The latest version of TurboIMAGE, C.07.10, repairs problems with Mode 6 Backward chained reads against an AUTO Master, according to SIGIMAGE's Ken Sletten. You get the version of the database as a patch, TIXKX62A for 5.0 and TIXKX62B for 5.5. Both are still beta versions, and we suspect they supersede the TIXKX45A (for MPE/iX 5.0) and TIXKX45B (for MPE/iX 5.5) patches that have been out to repair a DDX bug. We hope to have some better news (like the patches are out of beta) and more complete as well, in time for our next First Class issue in May. For now, however, we know that the 62A and 62B patches do fix the Mode 6 problems. Sletten says that "B-Trees are now working fine in all modes we have tried, using Transact/iX, IMAGE QUERY, and ODBC client access." Answer your 3000 Frequently Asked Questions from the Web It's a great resource, that Internet, if you just know where to look. 3k Associates, one of the better friends the 3000 has in cyberspace and the world of electronic commerce, put out a Web-based version of the Frequently Asked Questions document on its server not long ago. It's a great tool to tap the collected wisdom of a computing community that's 25 years smart. It's a natural that we'd see it on a server at 3k, people with lots of experience in mail transport and clients that don't need no NT, just 3000s. Browse to the FAQ at http://www.3kassociates.com/faq/hpfaqi.html. What can you learn? Well, how about learning when your system was last restarted -- Print the contents of 'LOGDCC.PUB.SYS', or get the 'UPTIME' (free) program from Allegro Consultants. EDI Service business booms at St. Paul Speaking of e-commerce suppliers like 3k, business is so good in the services side of St. Paul Software's EC Center that it's spun off the EDI outsourcer into its own division. The EC Center service bureau is now known as SPS Commerce. St. Paul said the rapid growth of SPS Commerce over the past three years is a result of an increased demand for trading partner enabling and outsourcing services. The bureau helps companies enable 100 percent of their trading partners or satisfy internal EDI needs with limited resources. It focuses on the needs of large companies and their relationships with their trading partners. The services accommodate varied data formats of smaller trading partners and translate information to and from EDI using St. Paul's EDI/EC products. Services include: WEB EC, fax to EDI, EDI to fax, application to EDI, EDI to application and manual processing. SPS Commerce also outsources for companies that aren't ready to dedicate internal personnel to manage or expand their EDI system. Making HPDATEFORMAT work in Transact Transact customers are happier now that they can use the new HPDATEFORMAT intrinsic available through MPE/iX 5.5 PowerPatch 4. It's a little non-intuitive, but Transact expert and NewsWire subscriber Cecile Chi tracked down the how-to from HP SSD engineer Kelly Sznaider. The HP engineer reported: The HP date intrinsics have a minor glitch. For the format spec, you must terminate the string with a NULL character. I find it cumbersome when you also tell it the length. Change your program to: move (formatspec) = "DD-MON-YYY" + CHAR(0); That CHAR(0) is the NULL character. Copyright 1998, The 3000 NewsWire. All rights reserved.