Other emulator: no sales, some commerce
August 22, 2013
The developer team that's working on a second HP 3000 emulator opened its horizons today with a message sent to the 3000-L mailing list. Piotr Glowacz was on the hunt for a copy of MPE/iX, as we noted yesterday. He'd really like copies of 6.5, 7.0 and 7.5.
One reader on the mailing list suggested this software was available from Client Systems. That company sells HP 3000s, as it has for more than five years by itself, and another 10 before that as the only North American distributor for HP's 3000 business.
The scope of this project led by Glowacz -- the group has yet to boot up a 3000 under any conditions, emulated or not -- clearly falls outside the range of sales. Today Glowacz said that there will no sales of the software once they finish. It's open source, after all. Noting that the project is not like the 3000 emulator now selling from Stromasys, Glowacz calls it a simulator.
Our simulator isn't going to be a commercial software. We want free, BSD-licensed, fully functional simulator for 3k architecture, for both private and commercial use.
There's another non-commercial aspect to this Simulator project. The group doesn't have a company behind it or enough resources to buy a bottom-end HP 3000 -- and get a copy of MPE/iX in the process.
Another option emerged as a suggestion, and we're following up on that, too. Jack Connor, a hardworking volunteer for the OpenMPE board in the past and a current tech wizard for Abtech, said he believes Client Systems could provide what Piotr needs, for a fee.
I know that you can get, I believe, 6.0, 6.5, 7.0, and 7.5 from Client Systems. There's a fee, but for bare bones MPE/iX without any of the major add-ons, I'd think price would be minimal.
These are legitimate licensed copies of MPE/iX, so all's above board as concerns HP.
I've reached out to Dan Cossey at Client Systems to check on the above, and see if this is the way it works there this year. The front page of their website they say they distinguish themselves by being
the only company authorized by Hewlett Packard in North America; that is allowed and capable of creating and loading a custom FPT (factory Pre load Tape) the exact same way it has been done at the HP factory for 30 years.
If they can do that tape for Piotr and his band of developers, then why not do it for everybody? And if that's true, it would change the prospects for any emulator, or simulator. It's been a given, up to now, that the only emulator customers will be companies which already own a valid 3000 license.