Emulator to add personal freeware version
September 11, 2012
Reaching out for a way to let the 3000 community experience its emulator, Stromasys will be delivering a free, personal copy of the software as a download. The personal experience could be starting as early as this month.
The Charon HPA/3000 freeware will be fully functional but trimmed back in its horsepower. It's the same kind of model the company has used for many years in the Digital marketplace, where the Charon product has built its reputation. Charon is powering MANMAN sites in the world of DEC servers. Some IT managers there have testified during CAMUS meetings about the success of using an emulator.
Stromasys director Jean-Paul Bergmans invited the 3000 NewsWire to host these downloads, which would be the first program ever to come off a NewsWire web host. There is no competition in the world for a product built to emulate the HP 3000’s hardware.
"People will be able to play with it, test it out, and even run small archival solutions," said Stromasys director Jean-Paul Bergmans. The freeware emulator will have a 1 e3000 Performance Unit rating -- equivalent to a Series 918 -- and it will be limited in its number of users. Details were still being arranged about how to handle support questions arising from using the freeware . But Stromasys has already managed a similar program for the VAX and Alpha hardware emulators in the Digital community.
Bergmans also announced there will be "more granular price points" for HPA/3000 in the near future.
The company said it has too few models now, "which does not precisely match the performance requirements of our prospects," Bergmans said.
"There’s more granularity in the new pricing structure so we don’t overcharge people, or undercharge people. We’ll give more granularity on the number of CPUs," with details to come this month, Bergmans said.
Stromasys comes to its 3000 mission well-steeped in selling emulation. The company’s made its mark on the Digital enterprise space, emulating PDP and Vax systems, and finally the Alpha processor which HP stopped creating.
Late last year Stromasys updated a Personal Alpha version of its Digital product, calling it Personal Alpha Plus. The update to Personal Alpha — which Stromasys says was downloaded 10,000 times — "has twice the power of Personal Alpha." It runs at about 15 percent of the speed of the full AXP Stromasys emulator.