Community experts gather to swap intelligence

      A hotel meeting room, filled with 40 men and women wearing Post-It notes, could be considered an unusual nexus of HP 3000 energy in the year 2009. But there's been little that's been usual or expected about the 3000 community's Transition since late 2001.

    That's why the dominant feeling at this year's e3000 Community Meet was not shock, over seeing more than 40 IT pros on hand for a day devoted to the 3000, but delight over any reunion. Because the 3000 has been a business tool and commercial opportunity since the 1970s, most of the people in the room were well past 40 years of age.

    The years of relationships between those developers, vendors and a few users made the event come together on the shortest of schedules. The organization was so tight that name badges were handwritten Post-It notes attached with large paper clips.

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HP Q4 results show business servers stalled

Hewlett-Packard reported its fiscal year and fourth quarter results late Monday, results that drew good news from services business, PC and printer sales, and little else. While the headline news showed an increase in Q4 profits over the same 2008 quarter, HP achieved its rise on cost cutting. Its total sales dropped 8 percent versus the prior fourth quarter and 3 percent for all of fiscal 2009.

That's a $114 billion year in sales, with HP reporting a total profit of $10.1 billion. The 2008 numbers hold the records for both categories -- and that was a fiscal year where EDS didn't contribute for two of HP's four quarters. Enterprise Server sales, part of the ESS group in the chart below, were off during 2009 by about $4 billion.

The numbers were brightest in the services sector which contributed most to 2009 sales. Once HP added EDS to its portfolio of acquired companies, the unit delivered both profits and sales that rose throughout the year. Services has kicked in upwards of $1 billion per quarter in 2009 profits, becoming the new printer group of HP's financial desires. The EDS unit came close to topping HP's PC business in sales, all while earning three times as much profit. Services now represent almost 38 percent of all HP profits.

PCs sat at the center of analyst questions in the briefing held after the US markets closed. HP is taking market share from Dell, but sales revolve around the least expensive products in the Personal Systems Group lineup. Wall Street and investment experts didn't ask about the Enterprise Storage and Server unit or the group's Business Critical Servers division. ESS generated more profits than in Q3, but its $481 million in earnings was 30 percent below the same 2008 quarter.

The latest numbers for the BCS products, such as the Integrity HP-UX server line and the ProLiant Windows servers, wouldn't inspire confidence in prospects for a renewal of former's sales growth.

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HP to roll out Q4 results this afternoon

HP's stock flirts with $50 a share today, as the company is set to release full details on its 2009 fiscal year and forecasts for business during 2010. The company will take questions from Wall Street analysts today in a Webcast which starts at 5 PM EST, after the US markets close. (Follow the link at the right, in our Twitter Updates, to find the Webcast page for HP's report.)

The financial condition and strategies of the world's biggest computer and services provider should matter to HP 3000 owners who are migrating. Business plan changes prompted HP to leave the 3000 market when the company decided revenue growth was not great enough to continue 3000 investments. Future surprises about support for non-standard environments could be impacted by financials.

HP took some of the surprise out of today's Q4 results by pre-announcing its financials on Nov. 11. HP said it earned 99 cents a share on revenue of $30.8 billion for the period, compared with a profit of 84 cents a share on $33.5 billion sales during the same period a year ago. HP trotted out those results along with news that it is buying the No. 2 networking equipment provider 3Com Corp for $2.7 billion.

But today's full report will include data on the performance of HP's enterprise server operations. The unit which develops and sells the Integrity systems that run HP-UX, as well as Windows ProLiant servers, is far from the spotlight for financial mavens. Performance of HP's PC business, the company's printer and imaging group, and the rise of the high-profit services unit are much higher on HP's hit parade.

Small migration steps shadow resistance

At this year's e3000 Community Meet, a roundtable discussion offered insights into why more migrations aren't completed by now. After all, it's eight years since HP announced its exit from the 3000 business. What's holding up some sensible companies? For the 3000 site accustomed to managing its own development and operations, one barrier seems to be in-house experience.

Rick Goldman of Spellbinder Systems Group shared a typical tale of resistance. Small steps can soften the blow of change, he said, but moving something task-specific into enterprise-wide design can throw up a hurdle. Spellman is consulting on Speedware implementations as well as migration.

"In some cases people don't want to move because they want to avoid risk -- not realizing the risk they've got in staying on the 3000," he said. "They're afraid of introducing some new mix to their technology." The reluctance to extending a point technology like replication is one example Goldman shared.

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OpenMPE's march to source halfway home

The treasurer for the OpenMPE advocacy group has announced that the drive to raise licensing fees for MPE/iX source is halfway home. Contributions have been trickling in since Brian Edminster of Applied Technologies kicked in the first $1,000 in September. The money can help connect customers to patches, as shown in the chart, so MPE can continue to serve companies, both those homesteading and those on a long-term migration schedule.

Although the group doesn't have an official deadline from HP to submit its fees for read-only source, the vendor's "Jennie Hou says the sooner the better," reported treasurer Matt Perdue. At September's e3000 Community Meet where the fundraising kicked off, Perdue estimated that about $20,000 would be needed to pay HP as well as manage the licensing process.

OpenMPE has applied for the license, and must be prepared to pay the license fee, upon approval by Hewlett-Packard. "We are now more than half way to the fundraising goal," Perdue said in a note to the HP 3000 newsgroup, "so please consider what you can contribute."

Specifics of the source code license terms are under wraps, thanks to a Confidential Disclosure Agreement that all applicants must sign. HP hasn't announced which companies have been approved and granted licenses. The program was first announced by HP in February.

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Houston, we have HP-UX training, free

Even though many IT pros disregard the word free, and cull it from e-mail, the old-school HP 3000 community remembers genuine gifts to customers. Source Direct, a supplier of enterprise hardware, is sponsoring free training in the Houston area in three weeks. The source of the training makes it easy to identify the value you'll get on Dec. 9.

On that Wednesday from 11-5 you can receive HP-UX training from Bill Hassell, one of the best recognized Unix gurus in the HP community. Two years ago, the Greater Houston Regional User Group (GHRUG) included Hassell in GHRUG's user conference. Hassell has demonstrated enough HP-UX savvy and experience to fill a full day of pre-conference training at the HP Technology Forum. His training during that HPTF day was being sold at $495.

GHRUG may not have mounted a public meeting this year, but the user group has delivered notice of this free training to its membership list. As HP 3000 members of GHRUG have made transitions to HP's Unix, they need the kind of administration tips that save time. The cost of the training is already saving them money. There's a free lunch, too.

To reserve a seat and get directions to the event you can contact Dave Crawford, Regional Client Business Manager at Source Direct -- (713) 473-5368 or dcrawford@sourcedirect.com

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HP's 3000 legacy includes A, N-Class details

In our recent report on the seventh anniversary of HP's 3000 exit notice, we referred to a shining moment for the community. We captured the first-ever introduction of A-Class and N-Class HP 3000s on February 7, 2001. Although HP introduced its final generation of 3000s over and over for the next six months, that spring morning showed off the new design in extensive detail.

Product Manager Dave Snow is introduced by General Manager Winston Prather at the e3000 Solutions Symposium in our video, waltzing down the meeting room's aisle with an A-Class server under his arm. He's borrowed one of the few that were testing-ready that day from HP's MPE/iX labs. In a separate movie of 5 minutes, Snow leads a tour of the advantages the new design still offers over the 9x9 and 99x 3000s. HP pulled the covers and cabinet doors off to show internal hardware design.

HP hasn't manufactured these N- and A-Class models for more than six years, but they remain popular among community members who need to upgrade 3000s. They were built to a standard of reliability and durability that gives the computers a longer lifespan than many business servers. It's not easy to find this video's level of configuration detail here in 2009, even while the servers continue to be bought and sold

Snow discusses the length of that 3000 lifespan as he starts his advantages tour. The term of useful service of an HP 3000 gave customers an advantage in the short term -- but some say that that same service level contributed to HP's departure from your community.

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Living a Long Afterlife

Eight years ago this week, your community lay in a state of shock. Some vendors were not surprised that HP announced the end of its HP 3000 business, but an overwhelming majority of customers and suppliers found themselves caught off guard. The approach of the 3000's afterlife began on Nov. 14, 2001. Like the horizon, of course, the complete exit of 3000 customers has remained out in the distance.

HP continues to find itself surprised at the pace of migration. Alvina Nishimoto, one of the few HP employees left who can help out with 3000-specific issues of moving to HP's alternatives, said as much during the roundtable discussion of this fall's e3000 Community Meet.

It's very quiet on the 3000 front at HP, she explained. But when asked what the surprises have been during the Year No. 8 of the 3000 Transition, Nishimoto said the unexpected continues to surface.

"They're migrating late, which is kind of surprising,” she said. “We have 9x7 customers coming out of the woodwork,” a data point that would seem to suggest more than 1,000 customers continue to use a 3000, because the 9x7s were first shipped 15 years ago. That's been a busy 15 years, since more than half of it has comprised The Afterlife.

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Command the 3000's Service General

It's a powerful part of your HP 3000 that runs whenever the server is plugged in. The General Service Processor (GSP) is the maintenance control console that commands the server to "reboot, do memory dumps and even fully power down the HP 3000," reports consultant and outsource support expert Craig Lalley of EchoTech.

Lalley has been on the hunt for a method to make the 3000's GSP as useful as the unit in an HP-UX server. "On HP-UX it is possible to reset from the host OS," he said. "I have not found a way from MPE."

Lalley explains that on HP-UX it is possible to issue the command

stty +resetGSP < /dev/GSPdiag1

to reset the GSP. From time to time a reset may be required for diagnostics services. If your 3000 gets loving care from outside your computer room, you may need a paper clip to keep service at HP-UX levels.

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Battery up that 9x7? A project or a hunt

Vintage HP 3000s present some risks of hardware failures, but not many. Any computer's hard drive can fail, and will at some time in the future. Power supplies have been reported going AWOL. Memory can forget its purpose. Most of these failures can be planned for, so a site will experience little downtime.

Perhaps not so much with the 9x7 internal batteries. A few weeks ago we reported that a 3000 which forgets what time it is may have a failed internal system clock battery. Sad to say, this isn't an easy hardware failure to recover from, and a good reason to invest in spare parts server. Or arrange for complete hardware support.

Bob J. of Ideal Computer Services filled out the details on getting a working battery to replace what he calls "the Dallas Semiconductor DS1287 real time clock module. The replacement is a DS12887 and is available from components suppliers. The only concern is getting a replacement part that has been on the shelf too long."

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Investing in 9x7s could be part-ly wise

A Series 947 HP 3000 surfaced on Craigslist yesterday priced at $400. Offered by Alan Cartwright of Gilroy, Calif., the computer was purchased at auction. Gilroy said the system is new to him and he'd like to resell it. He's not really certain how he should price this computer first released in the 1990s.

"I really have no idea what this is worth," he said on the day after he posted the item, "so any info you could give me based on the facts already at hand would be great." He did note that as configured, the server sold new for more than $150,000. So that would make his asking price a 99.8 percent discount.

Since he's not sure if his paperwork will pass HP's muster to transfer the MPE/iX license, Cartwright will have to wait on that assessment. But Bob Sigworth of Bay Pointe Technology took a quick look at the listing. The 3000 hardware reseller said it's been a long time since he's seen a Series 9x7 with decent license paperwork. The phrase "parts box" came up to describe Cartwright's offer.

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Micro Focus extends ACUCOBOL future

For more than a year after Micro Focus acquired the ACUCOBOL family of products, Acu users had grave doubts about the merger. Micro Focus sold one of the most popular, competing COBOL compilers. It paid $40 million for the entire entity of Acucorp, its Extend development suite, even Acu's Chief Scientist Drake Coker. Buying your competition to gain prospects, while retiring their tools, is commonplace in the computer business by now. Just ask any of the customers whose ERP or CRM apps now belong to Infor. (MANMAN is among those put out to pasture.) Micro Focus announced Project Meld in 2008, in which two products were to do a Vulcan connection to become as one.

So it came as a surprise to the enterprise solutions community when ACUCOBOL regained its development future at Micro Focus this year. Peter Anderton of Micro Focus explained the turnabout at the e3000 Community Meet in September. "We told our customers we were merging Micro Focus and AcuCOBOL, and they told us we were daft," the Englishman said with British candor. "And we were."

Migration service suppliers had a hard time visualizing an ACUCOBOL that would survive. Mike Howard of Unicon Conversion Technologies pointed out that a customer couldn't purchase AcuCOBOL since the acquisition. Anderton said that's changing now, and his company has a roadmap available that visualizes an ACUCOBOL 9, created by Micro Focus.

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A New 3000, to Mitigate Risks

At this fall's e3000 Community Meet, ScreenJet's Alan Yeo shared an unexpected story. His company helped to establish a new HP 3000 customer site within the past year. While there's a lot of talk about the risk of remaining on the HP 3000 due to the vendor's exit in 2010, this company saw a 3000 app as a way to avoid the trouble of falling behind.

In our 3-minute video (click on the embed above, or view it on our YouTube channel), Yeo related the case study. A 3000 solution beat out IBM iSeries apps and outlasted the promises of a migration too often postponed.

They were in a position where they hadn't been allowed to do anything for years — because the answer to everything they wanted to do was, “wait until the new ERP system comes in.” They said they needed to do something, so they looked in their group to see who was doing what. The best systems they had in the group happened to be HP 3000 systems. Even though they had IBM i5 apps running.

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3000 shareware lives at 3k.com

Some programs from the former HP shareware server Jazz are online at Speedware and Client Systems hosts. But some are not -- especially the 3000 tools written by the user community. One of the best repositories of such 3000 programs is still online and serving software. 3k.com is, as its founder and curator Chris Bartram says, "a site with arguably the largest collection of public domain/shared software, or links to the such software on the Internet."

We agree, and want to note that 3k.com was always a Web resource with more scope than the now-defunct Jazz. The 3k Associates site hosts a 3000 technical Wiki, did a 3000 FAQ before that, hosts a raft of technical papers, has a link to the freeware from 3000/9000 support vendor Beechglen, points to another set of tools from Allegro Consultants, and has been home to the biggest directory of HP 3000 software products. How long has this resource been around? Well, 3k.com is a two-character Web address. You simply can't buy those anymore, having been snapped up long before the 3000 business was closed off at HP.

HP closed down Jazz one year ago this month, but the vendor did more than pull the plug on the freeware server. As we've reported before, the Jazz programs are now walled off by a 40-page End User License Agreement. At least the ones that HP engineers developed for free use by the community. The third-party tools that were hosted on Jazz aren't covered by the HP EULA. That's where 3k.com comes in, during a time when OpenMPE is still working to try to get its hosting site open to the public.

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Links show the Way to SQL Server flexibility

A serious share of HP 3000 migration projects target SQL Server as an IMAGE replacement. The Eloquence database is a sleeker, faster, more 3000-friendly solution, plus it runs across all three major migration environments. But SQL Server is a Microsoft product, tied to Windows, the most popular migration target.

All those follow-the-crowd reasons show why a brief announcement from Computing Solutions Ltd. (CSL) could help migrating 3000 sites.The UK company sold Linkway an IMAGE-to-ODBC utility starting in the 1990s. Now the vendor is tossing its development hat into the SQL Server arena.

CSL's SQL Server Job Monitor (SSJM) software is on sale at launch prices through this month, according to Tom Moore of the company. The utility helps supply automated monitoring of batch work (SQL jobs) to the Windows environment.

Linkway earned good marks from the community in the late '90s, while IMAGE was still gaining tools like the company's founding product. The company continues to support some 3000 customers still using its products and services. Batch work under Windows merits special considerations while making a migration, according to Unicon's Mike Howard.

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Education takes up broader set of IT causes

By Birket Foster
Special Report to the NewsWire

Whoever imagined a conference agenda with the discussions on the appropriateness of using iTunes to distribute e-learning content, or open-source versus proprietary applications? How things have changed!
 
This week I’m attending the Educause conference in Denver, where I will be taking a dive into the modern world of educational computing looking at these topics and more.

The world of computing for education used to be really simple. Early HP 3000 adopters included many higher-ed and K-12 organizations. There were consortiums that were formed to build common applications iN Washington state, California and other places. The HP 3000 market had several providers that sprung up – SRN provided fundraising software, degree audits and more. Bi-Tech provided financials and many customers flocked to conferences. There were even conferences within conferences, as there was a SIG-ED track at Interex.
 
But the modern campus landscape has evolved to include massive IT infrastructures – internet, wireless, servers, secure networks, mobile computing, peer to peer file sharing, High Performance Computing, and Learning Management Systems (LMS) dot the landscape of the modern campus.

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IBM midrange users manifest new activism

IBM made a gallant effort at capturing users who pondered an HP 3000 migration seven years ago, but the alternative midrange iSeries server has seen declining share of Big Blue attentions. Now a group of iSeries (and AS400) owners, vendors and leaders are mounting an effort to make the iSeries manifest a brighter destiny. The campaign bears a striking resemblance to the OpenMPE advocacy -- with the distinction that IBM hasn't canceled the iSeries futures.

The iManifest initiative took off in the spring in Japan. What does the iSeries need that IBM sales and marketing isn't supplying? The launch manifesto doesn't call out IBM's shortcomings, but aims to rally the users to recognize their systems' value.

More widespread usage of IBM i is the best way for corporations to strengthen their management capability and business power. We have started activities to add to the user community as many new companies as possible. We ask that users renew their firm confidence and belief that IBM i is the best infrastructure available to support managerial and operational innovation.

2009 is the 20th anniversary of the iSeries family, which started when IBM migrated its System 36/38 customers to the AS400. At the same time HP was moving its HP 3000 sites to the PA-RISC 3000s and MPE/XL. iManifest is trying to ensure that HP's 3000 history doesn't repeat in a fadeout of the iSeries. The initiative recently gained new members in the iSeries chief scientist Frank Soltis, as well as the top application supplier Infor -- which owns the MANMAN customer base in the 3000 world.

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Connect board election nears finale

The Connect user group for HP enterprise customers will close its voting for a 2010-11 board on Nov. 12. This election of directors is following a pattern HP 3000 customers will recognize from OpenMPE board voting. The number of seats open equals the number of candidates on the slate. For any company pursuing an HP 3000 migration, however, this organization has a lot to offer in networking opportunities.

In situations like an election without a contested seat, members understand their vote won't influence the outcome of the balloting. But voting will keep you engaged and more interested in what the board of directors will propose for the year to come. This year's slate of directors includes a candidate from the HP 3000 community running for re-election. Steve Davidek of the City of Sparks, Nevada is volunteering for a term that runs through 2011.

Connect members are the only people who can vote. Membership is only $50 for a year for an individual. You can cast a ballot after looking over the slate at the Connect site, then following the link to vote. 

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3000 tools lose one, gain another UK entry

Birth and death are both parts of the 3000's ecosystem, even on the sixth anniversary of the system's World Wide Wake. The Wake was concocted by Alan Yeo of the UK-based company ScreenJet in 2003, a worldwide celebration in October of that year to mark the end of the 3000's manufacture. A half-dozen years after dozens of meetings lifted a glass to the 3000's HP lifespan, Yeo has introduced a new product for 3000 sites, while another UK company has closed its book on its programmer's environment.

First, the obituary. Whisper Technologies ended its 18-year run as a supplier of programmer tools, according to the company's founder Graham Wooley. (Tip of the hat to Duane Percox of QSS, whose development labs used Whisper's products.) The UK's Whisper built and promoted the Programmer Studio PC-based toolset, selling it as a development environment which understood exchanges with the 3000 but could be used to create programs under Windows. Robelle responded promptly with a Windows version of Qedit, and the 3000 ecosystem had a lively competition for programming tools for more than five years.

The birth was first announced at this fall's e3000 Community Meet. Yeo introduced EZ View, a tool for migrating the 3000's VPlus forms to industry-standard XML forms. As Yeo suggests in the video above, EZ View promotes a no-changes transformation of 3000 app hosting. Whatever the behavior of your 3000 apps today for the user base, EZ View will copy it faithfully to another environment so no retraining is required. At the same time, the door to .NET Windows or anything which XML supports can be opened.

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Links to 3000 via Unix, Linux stay free

Companies which continue to rely on the HP 3000 connect to the system using other servers. In this case, other means non-3000 computers, especially running Linux and various flavors of Unix. A free program was once available to install on the Unix or Linux host, but freevt3k has been found recently and rehosted for public use. It works with block mode well enough to drive the NMMGR tool shown above.

Mark West of Car Hop, an auto sales and finance firm, needed to perform this kind of link, but discovered that the known links to freevt3k through telemon.com have gone dead. West dug up the source code for the utility, rehosted it in a forge on SourceForge.net, then told the community about its lost-then-found resource.

I've been trying to find a suitable terminal to access the HP3000 servers we use at work. I made a couple of small corrections and set up a sourceforge project to store the freevt3k code on. While I’m sure this isn’t the most recent copy, at least it’s been saved from the lost and found. I’ll be happy to accept any patches sent to me.

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Sites turn 3000 clocks back, and back on

This is the week in the world when the loss of an hour must be weathered in IT, as Daylight Savings time ends. (The UK lost its hour last weekend; the US does so Saturday night.) The HP 3000 does time shifting of its system clock automatically, thanks to patches HP built during 2007. But what about the internal clock of a computer that might be 15 years old? Components fail after awhile.

The 3000's internal time is preserved using a small battery, according to the experts out on the 3000 newsgroup. This came to light in a discussion about fixing a clock gone slow. A few MPE/iX commands and a trip to Radio Shack maintains a 3000's sense of time.

"I thought the internal clock could not be altered," said Paul English. "Our server was powered off for many months, and maybe the CMOS battery went flat." The result was that English's 3000 showed Greenwich Mean Time as being four years off reality. CTIME reported for his server:

*  Greenwich Mean Time : THU, JUN 17, 2004, 11:30 AM   *

* GMT/MPE offset      : +-19670:30:00                 *

* MPE System Time     : THU, SEP 10, 2009,  2:00 PM   *

Yup, that's a bad battery, said Pro 3k consultant Mark Ranft. "It is cheap at a specialty battery store," he said, "and can be replaced easily, if you have some hardware skills and a grounding strap." Radio Shack offers the battery.

But you can also alter the 3000's clock which tracks GMT, he added.

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Fortune 500 beds down for 3000 use

Large scale IT operations are already migrated away from the HP 3000, right? Well, maybe not as many as you'd think. Imagine a company that makes "a broad variety of engineered components and products that can be found in virtually every home, office, retail store, and automobile." Better than $4 billion in annual sales. Got to be off the 3000 by 2009, you might think.

In this case you would be wrong. Leggett & Platt is managing its health plan using an HP 3000 and the EnCore claims system. Migration is probably not going to happen before sometime in 2012.

"We do plan on migrating to another platform, but not for another 3-5 years," said Douglas Grimes in IT. Our longtime subscriber added, "I am not sure which one we will go to. We will probably wait to see what EnCore does and follow them."

Leggett & Platt, New York Stock Exchange-listed and 125 years old, makes bedding and furniture assemblies. For example, its Mira-Coil continuous coil innerspring unit "grew in popularity in the 1980s and was patented in 23 countries."

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COBOL offers you can't refuse

For a 50-year-old language, COBOL seems to have a lot of new options and energies lately. Especially for 3000 customers who are making migrations, the ones looking around for their next platform and language. For millions of companies around the world, COBOL is an offer they cannot refuse.

We've recently heard from Chuck Townsend, a COBOL and modernization consultant who helped launch the software vendor LegacyJ. He recalls that LegacyJ "implemented the HP COBOL syntax, the HP Intrinsics (excluding IMAGE), the HP Macro capability and you might remember the VPlus capability as well." So LegacyJ offers a COBOL for use on platforms other than the 3000. One that claims to know something about the 3000.

Then there's ACUCOBOL-GT. It was easy to believe that ACUCOBOL would decline in favor of Micro Focus COBOL, when MF bought Acucorp in 2007. But Alan Yeo of ScreenJet reminds us that:

The ACUCOBOL product is still available, and we have migrations that are still in progress with our ACUCOBOL GUI conversion for VPlus products. In fact, Micro Focus are adapting that technology as the Thin Client GUI for the Micro Focus COBOL products. Like the 3000, rumours of ACUCOBOL's death appear premature.

Now that Micro Focus owns the product, it may not be as easy to ask for ACUCOBOL by name, but the GT suite still appears for sale on the Micro Focus Web site. What's even more interesting at that MF site is a pep talk by analyst Dale Vecchio of Gartner, above. The research VP comes across as a consigliere (mob elder statesman) in a six-minute sermon about why retirements are good for IT's future. He seems to invoke that image with his comparison of IT practices and the methods of The Sopranos.

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HP 3000 Becomes a Copy Cat

Sometimes, the HP 3000 can surprise you with its capabilities. Not long ago, the system revealed another life, this one as a minicomputer which controls a copier.

Both of those technologies, mini and copier, are considered old-school. Everybody understands what a copier does, but few people under 50 know what the term mini represents. For anybody reading who's only just arrived in IT during this decade, computers were known as mainframes, microcomputers, and minicomputers. People who know what mini means helped connect a Ricoh copier to a 3000. Over a network, no less.

Of course this Ricoh CP M4000 is not a copier of the '80s, not any more than the HP 3000 is a minicomputer of that era. The Ricoh prints for PCs (microcomputers) at Victor S. Barnes Company. It also stacks and staples, a feature set that IT manager Tom Hula wanted to extend to its 3000. The system became a copy cat by telling the copier to stop looking for some of its configuration information. A third party tool helped provide another way to claim this new life for the 3000.

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HP's history becomes a phenomenon

The company which created the HP 3000 is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. Perhaps it's the coincidence of a zero-numbered commemoration, but history that relates to the 3000 seems to be in the air this week. Most of it represents snapshots of an era we'll never return to, and some community members are thankful for the departure. But what's been left behind could be much more valuable than histories and manuals.

Today Forbes has an early review of the first book by a retired HP executive, Chuck House, who knew and worked with the HP 3000 business. The HP Phenomenon earned praise from a reviewer who's written his own HP book, George Anders. But the reviewer of Phenomenon wrote a more upbeat take on HP's changes than House's clear-eyed memories. Anders wrote the Carly Fiorina saga Perfect Enough, a kinder view of the changes that CEO inflicted on the HP which House remembers.

House still reveres the HP of the Sixties through the 1980s, just like the 3000 community venerates the MPE Software Pocket Guides of the 1970s and '80s. A current thread on the 3000 newsgroup has floated into memory lane about that era of the 3000. Like the guide itself -- and the HP computer management which House admires in his book -- the world has changed enough to make its best days appear to be behind it.

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E-forms integration worth discounted price

Minisoft announced this morning that its eFORMz document management software is being discounted by 35 percent through the end of January, 2010. The software creates PDF documents for e-mailing and secure exchange. It runs with multiple platforms, including the HP 3000. Customers using products such as Optio, CreatForm and Jetform qualify, as well as others.

In addition to smart forms, deeper barcode features and a secure numeric font for check printing, eFORMz brings something even more significant to a paperless drive toward PDF forms and e-document management: ongoing support and continued updates. Those are benefits that are worth paying a vendor for, rather than working with open source solutions.

Enterprise IT in the 3000 world can have pretty low budgets these days, but free solutions cost something. The price is the integration expertise, usually measured in hours or days spent plugging in an open source tool. You rely on the open source community to keep your free solution updated, too, unless you've studied the source code enough to create "diffs" for MPE/iX versions. That's what QSS developer Mark Bixby is doing this month. He has also advised the 3000 community to learn such porting skills.

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COBOL migration options: More advice

Last week we examined a COBOL to Java path for 3000 applications which are migrating to other platforms. The story called out two suppliers, Veryant and LegacyJ, who have promoted the Java path to 3000 customers. Those companies were reading that article and offer even more detail on getting to Java, the "write once, run anywhere" language that's still got fairy dust on its collar 12 years after it went global.

Alfredo Iglesias of Veryant tells us that " the majority of our customers find the idea of leveraging their COBOL and application expertise while deploying pure Java applications is very attractive." You can move away from COBOL completely, too.

If someone who knows the COBOL application takes the time to study the Java libraries that isCOBOL provides for the runtime environment, it is possible to take our generated Java code, clean it from the COBOL ‘accent’ and continue development in the Java programming language.

Then there's Daniel Meyers of LegacyJ, the company named after its mission of getting legacy applications into Java. He says the company "has had HP-compatible COBOL and COBOL II solutions -- among 16 others -- for years." I think we'd all like to know more about another COBOL that, like AcuCOBOL, has had COBOL II intrinsics designed into it. Excising 3000 intrinsics from COBOL II can be detailed work, although UNICON reports it's got an automation tool to do this to 3000 apps.

Read "COBOL migration options: More advice" in full

Service alert: Use our alternate address Thursday

We're having routine maintenance on our 3000newswire.com Web server on Thursday. Between the hours 7AM EDT and 5 PM we expect a gap of about two hours of downtime, as our Web host 3k Associates has new electrical service installed.

Despite the downtime on the archive/original Web site, you can still read the NewsWire's blog Thursday at anytime. Please use the alternate address:

3000newswire.blogs.com

to keep up with our news and features. Like any HP 3000 site, planned downtime is a part of our lives. We're happy to have an alternative to go along with our high-uptime main Web service on 3000newswire.com. Next year we renew that Web address for our 15th year. Along the way we're been lucky to have the savvy and experience of Chris Bartram, our original Webmaster, at 3k.

Open source port project in play for print

QSS, the K-12 app software company with clients in both HP 3000 and Unix/Linux markets, has kicked off a porting project for MPE/iX software. Founding partner Duane Percox reports that his company is rewriting open source software to aid in printing documents for 3000 systems.

Mark Bixby of QSS is at work on the porting project. Bixby ported the Apache Web server as well as Internet connectivity software to the 3000's OS late in the last decade, then joined the HP 3000 lab technical staff in the Internet & Interoperability unit. He left HP to join QSS in 2008.

Percox said the project will bring Ghostpdl and Ghostscript to the 3000. The former software can be used as a file format converter, such as printer language-to-PDF converter, the latter can be combined with a printer driver in "virtual printer" PDF creators. The QSS work will focus on including the 3000's common printer language, PCL, in the conversion options.

Ghostscript has been ported to Windows, HP-UX, Linux, OpenVMS and Mac operating systems. The QSS project will be shared with the 3000 community as open source when the work is complete, Percox said.

Read "Open source port project in play for print" in full

Unwrapping the Myths of Security

What the Computer Security Industry Doesn't Want You to Know

Review by Steve Hardwick, CISSP

I have worked in the information security business for more than 10 years, and I’ve learned there is one constant throughout – change. Keeping up with the ever-present cat and mouse battle between the hackers and security industry is a full time job. The Myths of Security by John Viega (O'Reilly Media, $29.95) provides a good view of what the security industry faces and why they sometimes fall short in the eyes of many people. So the next time you are hitting your computer with your keyboard in utter frustration, put it down, pick up this book and take a look at why computer security is so hard. You can also learn what doesn’t work to secure computers – and by extension, good security practices. Some of the biggest security weaknesses will surprise you.
 
This book begins by outlining how easy it is to have a security problem. Early chapters cover the methods of attacking computer systems and how they have evolved. These include simple viruses focused on specific operating systems up to more sophisticated Web-based attacks and social engineering exploits. New attacks are independent on the operating system; rather, they exploit the lack of knowledge of the user. (Despite their sanguine outlook, even Apple users are wide open to these types of attacks.) Chapter 15 has an excellent example of a phishing attack that demonstrates how the bad guy can get key information without ever touching the operating system. According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, June of 2009 was the second-highest month for number of new phishing sites detected.

The author makes two very crucial points: First, it is no longer just a battle of viruses anymore – any computer user is vulnerable. Second, users will want an antivirus application that can deal with all manner of information security threats — viruses, malware, adware, phishing, cross site scripting and more.

Read "Unwrapping the Myths of Security" in full

Developers work to preserve power to port

Several developers in the 3000 community are working to preserve a key tool for porting software to the computer's MPE/iX operating system. The magic wand is the GNU C++ compiler suite, bootstrap software needed to move open source utilities onto the 3000, or keep them updated for security and functionality.

Mark Klein of DIS International did the port of C++ back in the middle '90s, a crucial step to porting Java, Internet networking tools, Samba file sharing, perl, Web services and more onto the 3000. Klein hosted the suite on an account at Invent3k, the public access development 3000 HP closed down in November of last year. Invent went dark and the programs, accounts and tools went offline. For a short while, even Klein couldn't be sure he had the bootstrap software on a server in his own lab.

HP's 2009 policies on Invent3k and Jazz content aimed to share such resources with the community. But a 40-page HP End User License Agreement (EULA) inserted restrictions, terms and fees to control where such freeware and open source software can be hosted. The vendor did not simply pass along code and utilities written by third parties. New hosting outlets must arrange their own agreements to host the independent tools, now that HP has closed up these resources.

Much of it was built on the back of Klein's work, volunteer nights and weekends for the equivalent of a year of full-time coding. The new language opened the door for the HP 3000’s interoperability. He reported today, "I may just host the GNU stuff here in my lab, and at OpenMPE." A third outlet for open source is getting ready to open, too.

Read "Developers work to preserve power to port" in full

Leaving COBOL? isCOBOL offers Java path

Migrations away from the HP 3000 mean leaving a fine-tuned COBOL behind. HP shaped COBOL II to include intrinsics which plug directly into the IMAGE database and the 3000's OS. Customers who move to another platform need to rewrite those intrinsic calls for a new COBOL. AcuCOBOL needs far less revision that other COBOLs, because it was designed in 2001-02 to incorporate most of those same 3000 specialties.

But if you're going to be doing any rewriting at all, why not aim for more than a new COBOL that acts like the old one? If a transfer to Java from COBOL is your desire, a software company called Veryant has a language that claims to speak both languages.

Java got a jolt of news this week while its bridegroom, Oracle, gathered the Oracle faithful at its annual Oracle World. James Gosling, considered the father of Java, reported that Java's NetBeans development environment and Glassfish, an open source application server, are more popular than ever. Gosling said this week that Glassfish, as free as any Linux distro, has been downloaded at the rate of a million copies a month.

Except that Oracle already has its own development environment. Plus an application server that it loves. There may be some overlap in that acquisition. But a million copies a month carries a lot of clout. It's things like Glassfish that make Java look attractive during a move away from COBOL. That's where Veryant's isCOBOL could take a role in the move away from COBOL. It all depends on what caliber of Java you get out of it.

Read "Leaving COBOL? isCOBOL offers Java path" in full

A word on how to catch our words quickly

 Permit us to pause a moment to show readers how to get immediate notice of our reports. We'd also like to highlight a new reason to return to our front page during the day to see mini-updates.

Twitter makes both of these features possible. The moment a blog article is posted, Twitter notifies you if you're following @3000newswire on the service. Even if you don't participate in Twitter, the note appears in our Twitter section of this page -- right-hand column, just under the Transoft ad.

That's also the spot where our mini-updates appear, as well as in your Twitter feed if you follow us. (Do you see a pattern here? We like Twitter because tweet have to be short: 140 characters or less. For an old print headline writer like me, it's a fun challenge.) We're working on one or two Twitter extras during the workdays, sometimes with a link. We'll do Outtakes, since most stories have more material than we can use. We don't want to wear out our welcome. Readers have things to do in addition to keeping up with what's new or helpful.

You can also get our reports sent to you via other services. Twitter is hot now. But there's other technology to keep our news on your plate.

Read "A word on how to catch our words quickly" in full

Managing Applications Instead of Migrations

Commerce in the 3000 community has been dominated by migration tools and services. While many utility and some app vendors are selling support contracts, new business has been hard to acquire. It's been close to eight years since HP announced its exit from the community. And after two postponements, the closing of HP's support doors is less than 15 months away.

But that timeline hasn't dislodged applications from many 3000 customer workflows. So some of the same companies who offer migration engagements will also manage your 3000 apps. Speedware is discounting those services for customers who sign on until the end of 2009. Its marketing manager Chris Koppe said that HP's "end of life" label for 2010 doesn't match up to everything he sees.

2010 = End of Life is valid at some larger sites, but smaller ones will rely on 3000 apps for awhile. End of life "has a different meaning for different people," he said. "While the smaller shops have applications on the side, like mail servers, their core businesses are running on the HP 3000."

And so, Speedware (like a few other providers) sees 3000 app management as an important service to the customer. For a limited time it's waiving fees for "application support set-up and knowledge transfer" services to attract this homesteading business, designed to match the lifespan that a customer sees for its 3000s.

Read "Managing Applications Instead of Migrations" in full

HMS host makes do with 3000 hosts for now

Last week we reported on a pair of 3000s running the duty free shop at two US airports. They're not alone. Brian Edminster, who manages the duty-free application and the 3000s, called to report on two more airports running the server as well as a HQ system. HMS Host, the customer, once consolidated retail services for 20 airports' duty free shops on the HQ's 3000.

HMS Host was listed as a 3000 customer on the OpenMPE online roster, compiled several years ago. The company is exiting the 3000 user community as quickly as it can, but customized applications like the duty-free app keep HMS in the fold for now, probably into 2010.

"There's still value in the business logic," said Edminster, who's studied the application with its creator since the middle '90s. He thinks the retail app is so sound that it could be used in a small chain of department stores.

Whatever the future value of the duty-free app at the HMS-run airport shops, the program is getting the job done there. HP continues to service this customer with support, but Edminster is the key link to keeping the shops online. This relationship defines one share of the 3000 community: stable apps maintained by third parties with no products or support to track for anybody who's counting the 3000 populace.

Read "HMS host makes do with 3000 hosts for now" in full

HP 3000 work still surfaces, on contract

Even in a marketplace for a computer the vendor stopped building six years ago, jobs emerge to manage HP 3000s. I put out a Google Watch on the HP 3000 (and HP3000) years ago, and the daily results have delivered some surprising gems. Today's catch includes an opening in the Orlando area for six months of administering HP 3000 systems.

Don't all of you go applying at once now. Even though we're told the pool of 3000 IT pros is shrinking, we hear of many 3000 veterans who are at liberty, too.

What's in Orlando? The job listing is pretty detailed. It reports that ARGI, a subscription management and fulfillment application/outsourced service, leads the list:

This position will administer all aspects of HP 3000 minicomputers including the hardware and operating system. Applications include: ARGI subscription fulfillment, Maestro, 3000 Security, and Omnidex. Must be experienced in COBOL programming. Additional skills in Microsoft server, IIS and PC setup / support. Duties include developing and maintaining COBOL programs, develop and maintain visual basic programs, installing software patches & upgrades, maintaining nightly backups, and supporting PCs.

That's right, you read correctly: This job includes development in COBOL on a 3000, in the year 2009.

Read "HP 3000 work still surfaces, on contract" in full

Itanium: Failing HP-UX futures, or more?

We take it on faith today that Intel produces most of the world's popular processors. Even Apple, once a Motorola and IBM POWER stronghold, now uses Intel chips in Macs. But the HP 3000 never got a real chance at having Intel Inside. Now that 3000 emulators are in the works and testing soon, it looks like skipping over Intel's Itanium might be a good thing for MPE/iX users.

This might come as heresy to the 3000 advocates who lobbied HP long and hard for a shot at 64-bit processing, the Valhalla of the journey via Itanium. But look at what HP-UX customers got for their waiting -- including the 3000 sites that migrated sooner than later -- and you can wonder if the delays were worth it. The 3000, and MPE/iX apps, are now more likely to find a future on an mainstream Intel chip.

This matters now, in the gray time of HP's Unix system migration. PA-RISC is old tech, but it's running a large share of the migrated 3000 sites. The Itanium failure to dominate relegated HP-UX to a niche market, a place HP couldn't imagine setting up shop. The 3000 was supposed to be the small market, even if HP didn't say so while Itanium was so new it was called Merced.

Since Hewlett-Packard plowed its engineering into Itanium, HP's Unix customers cannot host their applications on a standard computer, something HP sells very well (think ProLiants, and Linux or Windows). These Industry Standard Servers, as HP calls them, are so strong that HP is thinking of folding its printer business into a combined PC-printer organization. This would offer little help to HP-UX customers. The merger is supposed to jump-start HP's printer sales.

Back in the 90s, HP trumpeted vast plans for the chip that now represents the Only Home for HP's Unix. Then the market had its say. One PC columnist, whose last name is the same as a failed keyboard layout, asserts that Itanium hobbled more than HP-UX options, since it failed to live up to its promise. John Dvorak says the chip killed the computer industry.

Read "Itanium: Failing HP-UX futures, or more?" in full

3000s continue to fly free: but how many?

At last month's e3000 Community Meet, Speedware's Chris Koppe shared an estimate. The company surveyed its customer base, then called or contacted other sites from lists of known 3000 locations. At most, Koppe said, Speedware believes there are 1,000 HP 3000 customers still running systems.

The size of the known 3000 universe is as tough to track as any other kind of expanding entity. By expanding, I mean accelerating away from HP. Everyone who's remaining on the system is moving away from the vendor in relationship to their 3000 use. These customers have been in free flight, out of formation and out of contact for many years now. HP never knew for sure how many 3000s were running, by its own admission. The vendor's estimates drifter further afield with every year that it relied on resellers, then didn't close the loop on support contract renewals. About the only thing HP can report on these days is the relative silence compared to years ago.

So when we heard today from Dave Wiseman, who helped bring ScreenJet into the 3000 world late in the 1990s, about a few 3000s he encountered in-flight, we wondered: Are a pair of US airports, both using 3000 systems in duty-free shops, on anyone's radar who's tracking the size of the universe?

Read "3000s continue to fly free: but how many?" in full

OpenMPE searches for source money

The OpenMPE advocacy group is looking for investors. This all-volunteer, not-for-profit organization has passed HP's examination for a source code license. Now it needs money to pay for this license, along with some administration funding to make the knowledge available to its members and its virtual lab.

Above, the group's director Matt Perdue explains the situation in a video of two minutes, recorded at last month's e3000 Community Meet. He's assisted at one point by OpenMPE chair Birket Foster (pan to the right), who explains some circumstances under which HP could terminate these licenses.

A terminated MPE/iX license hasn't ever happened to customers, because they weren't using source code. But the read-only MPE/iX source is for development of patches to the 3000. This is new territory here. No third party has ever asked a constituency in public for funding to open a lab. This is the new turf of volunteer, advocate-based development. OpenMPE at least wants to assemble an independent organization more extensive than a Web-based code forge, the vehicle most open source communities use.

But because HP's license prevents anyone from discussing the terms in public, the source license doesn't have the ironclad, tangible rules and policies you'd expect for an investment in a product.

Read "OpenMPE searches for source money" in full

3000s still under Boeing's wings

Large customers have been among the earliest and most active migration sites, but some companies with high-flying profiles, like Boeing, will use the 3000 beyond 2010.

The aircraft manufacturer is making efforts to leave the platform as soon as possible, but the timing of its migration isn't tied to any HP support schedule. Long-time NewsWire reader Ray Legault from Boeing checked in last week and reports that some key applications may take awhile to move. Third party support and outsourced services are in place to let Boeing's application owners work at their own migration schedule.

"There are just some Finance, QA and Manufacturing apps that are left," said the Boeing systems integrator. "They want the platform to disappear ASAP. It may take a while to migrate."

If finance, quality assurance and manufacturing sound like mission-critical apps, that might be mitigated by the app's reach into the Boeing operations. The company generated $60 billion in sales last year. It's long-anticipated Dreamliner 787 is scheduled to arrive in the market just as HP ends its 3000 support.

Read "3000s still under Boeing's wings" in full

Just A Minute: Eloquence Update at the Meet

Eloquence database creator Michael Marxmeier gives a presentation at the recent e3000 Community Meet in this video, shot handheld from the front row of the SF Airport Hyatt hotel meeting room. Presenters had to limit talks to 15 minutes or less; most were even briefer. We grabbed a minute of his talk for the camera.

Marxmeier's slides are not yet part of the Meet's archive page we reported on earlier today. In this video he has a slide up which describes the following overall technology enhancements for the latest release of Eloquence 8:

• Implements new thread model for Eloquence database server (improving on the default HP-UX threading)
• Provides base for future enhancements
• Aligns Eloquence technology to newer hardware and OS capabilities including multiple CPU cores, CPU core speed increases made more moderate, and larger memory sizes.

Read "Just A Minute: Eloquence Update at the Meet" in full

Community Meet slides go online

Speedware's Chris Koppe, president-elect of the HP Connect user group, announced this morning that the presentations from last week's e3000 Community Meet are available online.

The six sets of PowerPoint slides can be downloaded from www.hpmigrations.com/sfevent

The slide sets include Koppe's own, which detail the efforts the user group is making for the 3000 community, as well as a Speedware update on migration and homesteading issues. Speedware offers a service to manage 3000 applications for customers who are homesteading, as well as its migration tools and services.

Other slide sets online today are from Transoft, presenting migration and application upgrade information; an update from ScreenJet's Alan Yeo about its modernization tools; David Floyd of the Support Group, explaining sustainability options and services; and OpenMPE secretary Donna Hofmeister, presenting details on the group's campaign to fund an MPE/iX source license (as well as services coming online soon.)

We have video and audio from these talks we're working to edit and post here in the days to come.

Our 3000 reports move into a 15th year

The 3000 NewsWire celebrates its birthday today, tying a bow on 14 years of publishing which began in 1995. In the fall of that year my partner Abby and I began our delicious journey through your community, one that remains without an end in sight. While we move into our 15th year, I remember some in the community wondered how we'd find anything to publish in Issue 2.

The NewsWire's pages, both printed and those we flung onto the fledgling World Wide Web, had to prove the concept of a 3000-only publication. We promoted the platform by highlighting the changes to its solutions. HP was already calling the HP 3000 a "legacy" system during 1995, even while people in the 3000 division worked to bring the platform up to date.

In October of 1995, HP was just starting to embrace the idea of serving small customers with the 3000's fastest technology. We called the Series 9x9 servers Kittyhawks in our Page One article, using HP's code name. (Click on the image above to read that front page.) System configurations were a major part of a 3000 customer's duty in that day, so we reported HP was finally adding an 8-user MPE/iX license to the entry model of the 9x9 line. HP said you could get the latest generation 3000 at under $50,000, we reported with an asterisk,"before disks, console and networking cards are added." Most customers needed to add one or more of these elements, but HP was still trying to improve the image of the 3000's value.

Another kind of image was important in that first issue, the 3000 database of the same name. We launched our first at-deadline issue of the FlashPaper with a report on the new leader of the IMAGE/SQL lab, Tien-You Chen. The vendor community was pleased with the move, since it looked like the database group was getting a leader devoted to results rather than policy.

Chen has a can-do style. In a meeting with several partners over TurboStore integration, someone in the meeting suggested that “an HP file system engineer would really help us here.” Chen excused himself, got up and came back with the engineer.

Of course, much of what seemed novel and important 14 years ago has aged into history. We looked over the first issue's story lineup to see that top HP executives (like CEO Lew Platt) were still praising the platform in public, when pressed. HP could show a wrinkled side of its image to the 3000 faithful, too: 3000 division executives made a show of taking off their jackets en masse at an Interex conference roundtable. Although roundtables and HP executive comments on the 3000 have evaporated, our first issue carried news that resonates in today's community. A powerful object-oriented compiler was being launched, C++, "which promised better products sooner" for the 3000. It remains a key tool to keep the 3000's future smooth, no matter how long you've decided to remain on the computer's path.

Read "Our 3000 reports move into a 15th year" in full

Reading Potential in the 3000 Sector

NewsWire Q&A

Craig Lalley opens up prospects for HP 3000s to do more. The founder and owner of the EchoTech consulting and IT service, Lalley is a frequent contributor to the 3000 community through helpful postings to the 3000 newsgroup. He's made a detailed study of storage expansion for the system, a specialty that serves up the last technology to enhance the 3000 into configurations, some of which were first purchased long ago.

    Lalley has been active in the HP 3000 community for over 25 years, and he's worked on every model of the HP 3000 from the Series III to the largest N-Class servers. For more than a decade he was the senior technical support manager at Stone Container in Chicago, managing 60 HP 3000s around the country. When not busy reading memory dumps, he is busy chauffeuring his five children, who are not socially-deprived homeschoolers.

    Lalley also consults on performance enhancement for business systems that go beyond 3000 installations. He's managed migrations as an outsourced resource and even maintains a replacement system for a company that hired him to help move off its HP 3000.

    In his work as a veteran who both expands and replaces 3000s, Lalley sees the full scope of the transition choices your community faces today. We asked him to talk about the technology to extend homesteading as well as the realities of moving away from the 3000. We traded email for our interview in August, just after his return from a cross-country family vacation, during the week of the Twitter and Facebook outages.

Read "Reading Potential in the 3000 Sector" in full

Deciding Between COBOLs for Migration

[Editor's Note: Conversion and migration supplier Unicon Conversion Technologies sent us a white paper recently that outlines decisions to enable 3000 conversions to Windows. Unicon's Mike Howard attended the latest e3000 Community Meet, where I heard plenty of COBOL discussion. Here's Howard's take on COBOL choices if you're headed to Windows.]

By Mike Howard

When HP announced it was discontinuing the HP 3000, there were four main Windows COBOLs: RM COBOL, ACUCOBOL, Micro Focus COBOL and Fujitsu COBOL.

But in May 2007, Micro Focus acquired ACUCOBOL when they bought Acucorp. Shortly after they also acquired RM COBOL when they bought Liant. ACUCOBOL is very similar to RM COBOL but has more features and functions. Micro Focus immediately incorporated the RM COBOL product into ACUCOBOL and stopped selling RM COBOL. Micro Focus is now incorporating ACUCOBOL into the Micro Focus COBOL product.

So today, for new Windows COBOL customers there are two COBOLs -- Micro Focus and Fujitsu. In summary, Micro Focus is an all-embracing, all-platform COBOL with excellent support, but it is expensive. Fujitsu is a Windows product with limited support but an extremely attractive price. We have found that both products are very stable and very fast in production. Both charge the same for support, 20 percent per year. The differences lie in cost of ownership vs. response time of support.

Read "Deciding Between COBOLs for Migration" in full

Partners assemble at Community Meet

In another era we might have called them vendors, but the attendees at this month's e3000 Community Meet came together as partners. The 40 people who assembled at the San Francisco Airport Hyatt have been working together, or have that potential in the years to come when the terms users and vendors don't fit like they once did. Only three of the group could be called "users" in the old term. But those terms are "being deprecated," as old software like Java/iX has done. When HP steps out of the 3000 room in about 15 months, the phrase third-party won't even be accurate to describe the companies and experts who talked and listened all day on Sept. 23.

In a unique beginning, the master of ceremonies Alan Yeo invited everyone present at the start of the day to introduce themselves. We got almost everybody on our hand-held video camera to record the players who were taking the stage. We're introducing this video resource via a fresh 3000 NewsWire channel on YouTube, the world's steaming pile of entertainment, advertising, comedy, and frothing dissent. Of those four, only good humor was on tap in the e3000 meeting room. (There was dissent, but of the kind that doesn't end discussions or ruin chances to partner.)

Brian Duncombe started off the introductions, traveling out of his retirement to attend after he created performance and clustering software in the 1980s and '90s. Consultant Bruce Hobbs in his trademark beard was also on the front row, along with consultant Jim Snider. Then we caught up again with Michael Watson's introduction. Watson reported he's still developing in COBOL, as were several others on that front row.

Read "Partners assemble at Community Meet" in full

Social nets can narrow-cast to wide group

A healthy slug of video, audio and photos rode back in my laptop from this week's e3000 Community Meet. I also took away the warmth of connecting with friends I had not seen in years, people who made important contributions to the life and growth of the 3000. But one part of that rich day, unrecorded, was my own attempt at humor and inspiration, urging everyone to connect through social networks.

This talk began its life as writing on a screen, however, something you'd expect from a fellow who writes his way through life. I share it here and hope that it makes you smile and consider staying in touch until the next Meet via a social net of your choice. We track many major nets here at the NewsWire, using tools like the free TweetDeck console shown above. I hope to hear from you on the nets, or up here in our blog's comments.

Social Network Harm and Help: Advice & Wisecracks

Do you tweet? (All feathered creatures need not try to answer in English). Or share your life on Facebook? Or Digg your Web discoveries, or pile them up in a Delicious box? Do you have any idea what I'm talking about?

If not, you're in a big group. Maybe not the 70 million people rumored to be using one of these social networks. There's so many more, like the unique one that user group Connect operates, or the public Linked In site. Or Plaxo. Or something new, Cummerbund. (Sorry, just making that last one up.)

That fact about Cummerbund shows a little of the harm in this powerful new tool. You can make something up, and if it's not easily checked in a Google probe, it can get traction. The shorter the report, the easier it becomes to disguise or mistake. Take this tweet from Twitter, posted by @AngelaAtHP:

I witnessed a woman squeal and clap when she test-drove this new HP web-enabled printer at D23

Read "Social nets can narrow-cast to wide group" in full

Making Jazz a Third-Party Presentation

OpenMPE is working to put its own brand on the 3000 freeware and whitepapers once hosted by HP -- as well as the Invent3k server for public development access. Client Systems has donated a server to give OpenMPE the hardware to complete in its efforts on Invent3k. OpenMPE director Donna Hofmeister believes this donated Client Server system is the same one HP used when Hewlett-Packard hosted Invent3k.

Meanwhile, an N-Class server donated by Matt Perdue will host the Jazz contents from OpenMPE. Hofmeister outlined the work still to be completed.

"Just like Speedware did, we have to de-HP-ize all the HTML pages," she said. Webmaster Paul Raulerson is currently working on that.  So that's why it will take a bit longer before OpenMPE's Jazz is available." Client Systems brought out its version of Jazz this spring, while Speedware's made its debut this month.

 

HP shifts location of manuals

HP support engineer Cathlene McRae, who attended this week's e3000 Community Meet, reports that the HP 3000 and MPE/iX manuals have moved from the docs.hp.com location on HP's Web site. She said the new link is www.hp.com/bizsupport, a new HP Business Support Center Web site.

The HP 3000 manuals are among the first wave of documents to move off the old Web address, according to an HP notice.

The migration is being conducted in stages over the next year and the MPE/iX content has been migrated as part of the first phase. You will see a  redirection link under the MPE/iX section of the docs.hp.com homepage. It will take you to the landing page for the MPE/iX docs on the Business Support Center.

If you're plugging in a revised Web address for docs.hp.com for the 3000, it's www.hp.com/go/e3000-docs

Read "HP shifts location of manuals" in full

OpenMPE announces Jazz, Invent3k portals

The OpenMPE user advocacy group yesterday announced the availability of its hosts for documents and programs licensed from the HP Jazz Web server. The Invent3k free public development 3000, closed down by HP last November, is now also available according to OpenMPE, with both Jazz and Invent3k hosted on 3000s operated by board member Matt Perdue.

Perdue said at yesterday's e3000 Community Meet that the two services are available with a free account and now reside behind a firewall. OpenMPE will be the first organization to host the public access development services of Invent3k, a 3000 HP once operated for developers to test and create MPE/iX software. OpenMPE director Donna Hofmeister said that invent3k.openmpe.org will include the GNU development environment used to port open source software to MPE/iX.

Developers can request their free log-on account for Invent3k by e-mailing Hofmeister at donna@allegro.com

The resources the community is migrating from HP's Jazz Web server are still in a growth mode, Hofmeister added, just like those already online at Speedware. HP's licensing agreement restricted its software exchange to only the HP-created freeware off of Jazz, so freeware from third parties is being pursued for inclusion at the Jazz rehosting sites.

Read "OpenMPE announces Jazz, Invent3k portals" in full