Keep 3000-Mac emulation up to date
April 24, 2009
Macs aren't in wide use as HP 3000 clients, but the popular publishing and Web design computers do work for a number of 3000 community sites. One such is the US Cat Fancier's Association (CFA), where manager Connie Sellitto needs an emulation program built for the Mac's modern-day OS X.
The most straightforward solution comes from Minisoft. Its MS92 software, a longtime competitive solution to WRQ's Reflection, is designed and maintained for Macintoshes. Sellitto says that MS92 "is what we're using on the newer Macs. Excellent product."
But Reflection's scripting is entrenched at CFA. That developer's Mac emulator long ago lost its development team, in the same way that the WRQ brand name has disappeared into its new owner, Attachmate.
WRQ was once the largest supplier of HP 3000-related software, if you counted individual licenses on PCs. The company was acquired by Attachmate in 2005. Reflection lives on in a Windows version. The company also pointed to a Web-based solution that requires an intermediate server to use it with Macs.
Melissa Liton, a PR rep for Attachmate, reports that "Reflection for HP is a Windows only product. However, Attachmate’s Reflection for the Web product — a Java-based “thin-client” that runs in the browser — does support Mac and is a great HP emulator."
The diagram at left shows the configuration needed to run Reflection for the Web. Adager's Alfredo Rego, one of the 3000+Mac advocates in the community, has also noted that running Reflection for HP is possible inside an emulator such as VMWare or Parallels. He's tested the latter, which recently proved to be more secured against a Windows malware exploit than its competitor. (That's right: Macs could get hit by a Windows virus with older versions of VMWare.)
No matter how you solve for giving Macs 3000 terminal access with Reflection, any in-between step adds complexity. When WRQ dropped Mac support late in the 1990s, the Mac was a niche solution in IT. Times have changed: A recent study showed that 68 percent of companies surveyed plan to add Macs to their IT mix. Minisoft has hung on long enough to see the world expand.