8 Jul
2004
8 Jul
'04
2:26 p.m.
"Mike Gemeny" <MGemeny(a)pgcps.org> wrote:
We would also like to ask if anyone knows the date of
release of the
last version of HP1000 RTE and also if anyone may know the date of
the End-Of-Life of the HP1000 product line. (Yes it would seem that
HP was threatening to end-of-life the HP1000 as early as the late
70's or early 80's but we're looking for the final end-of-life
date.)
Well, there's end of sales life and end of support life, and if you're
thinking about the latter, we're not there yet.
<http://www.hp.com/products1/rte/news/rtn199947.txt> suggests that HP
was thinking to keep RTE-A on the price list as late as 01 Oct 2000
and makes reference to a planned discontinuance of the 1000 product
line in 2000.
<http://www.hp.com/products1/rte/index.html> claims that HP1000
products were removed from the price list on 01 Nov 2000.
Click around a bit, you'll find that some of the A-series hardware
doesn't reach end of support until 01 Nov 2005.
Somewhere or other I have some binders of project plans where HP was
trying to get The Wollongong Group interested in doing a sort of Unix
emulation around RTE-A (I think), with the game plan being to
encourage the RTE users to migrate to a Unix API so HP could get them
to make a smooth transition to HP-UX. These things would be from the
early-mid-1980s I think.
Some people at HP are considering a recomendation for
a license to
software that is older than some age, and/or products that were at
end-of-life more than some number of years ago. (The desire seems to
be to exclude newer software such as HP3000 MPE from the license. The
license would include software such as HP2000 Access. Inclusion of
software such as HP1000 RTE is to-be-determined)
How about a license for software for something really obscure
from the late 1970s, the HP 300 "Amigo"?
Would HP consider such a license for MPE for some or all of the
"classic" 16-bit HP3000 architectures that were contemporary with
the HP2000's product life? How about for add-on products to
which HP has the right to license and distribute without requiring
any royalty payments?
A cutoff of release dates before 01 Jan 1986 could be very
interesting. That could permit the use of MPE IV and MPE V/R (2548),
and I think it may be in or close to the age range under consideration
as well as before the PA-RISC announcement.
HP may also remember that in late 1999 they made a Y2K-safe release of
MPE V/E (really two releases and a patch set) available to classic
3000 users without charge and without requiring an existing or even
previous software support agreement. It included a full Platform 3P
SUBSYS tape too, meaning it had all the add-on products that HP had
for the things. If HP could see their way to doing that with media
then, why not license paperwork now?
I for one will be very disappointed if HP continues to offer OpenVMS
hobbyist licenses while not offering licenses for classic-3000 MPE.
-Frank McConnell