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Stealing or Scrapping Older HP 3000s

Emulator makers add tweaks in final tests

Stromasys has mailed a final thank-you to the band of field testers who've been probing the features of the HPA/3000 model of the Charon emulator. The software project that will ship with certified Intel PCs and HPSUSAN numbers on a USB stick is on target for a first release by January 15, according to Chief Technology Officer Robert Boers.

Although some earlier reports of floating point performance were not inspirational, the company now told its testers that the PCU acceleration is stable. Floating point deficiencies may not matter much to a 3000 community not used to relying on FP.

PA-RISC CPU acceleration is now stable enough to be included. In this first version it provides already more than twice the CPU performance of the original field test release. The acceleration method is similar to that of one of our Alpha emulator products (CHARON-AXP/SMA). It is a proven design, and we know that we now can further improve the performance for the individual PA-RISC instruction groups, if there is a need for that.

The developer says it will provide a final update to field testers "with some bug fixes and CPU accelerator improvements" before Jan. 15, Boers said. "As I announced last September, product shipment of the first CHARON-HPA/3xxx version will start shortly after. We plan to introduce two additional models within a few months." There's been no announcement of pricing for the product.

The 0.4 release of the hardware virtualization product will include PDC boot console features, added to make operation more familiar to the HP 3000 community. The vendor has also completed the design of telnet connectivity to the console, expecting to implement the design in a week or two. The feature provides remote management of a virtual HP 3000 in a lights-out datacenter, in VMware, or in the cloud.

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