Frank Knows his stuff was Re: What is this HP 9000/220? - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

2 Jan 1998

classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu, fmc(a)reanimators.org
Subj:	Re: Frank Knows his stuff   was Re: What is this HP 9000/220?

Frank McConnell wrote:

...
 I've been doing stuff with HPs for over 20 years
now (mostly with
3000s and HP PCs), and some of it stuck.  But I've never worked with
Series 200s so don't know that much about them, just what I've picked
up here and there.  And I still think I have a lot to learn.

Why do I know about Series 500s?  In 1989 I took a job at a little
company called The Wollongong Group, supporting a product for the HP
3000 called WIN/TCP for MPE/V.  Little did I know, they also had a
product for the HP 9000 Series 500s called, straightforwardly enough,
WIN/TCP for HP 9000 Series 500.  They expected me to support that too
-- after all it's all HP stuff, it's all weird/how different can it
be? (yep, that's how they thought) -- so I did.   
<snip>

...
 -Frank McConnell   "I want my MPE"
(w/apologies to Dire Straits)
 &lt;fmc(a)reanimators.org&gt; 
I am brimming with curiosity about the MPE OS: What is it like?

Having tried to glean some info from the HP web site I can only
surmise that the target market is mid to large businesses and 
might be comparable to IBM AS/400 or Mainframe type computing
environments.  Am I right?  If that is the case I am curious: does
MPE run with ASCII or EBCDIC character sets?  Does MPE support a
UNIX like environment - even as an option?  What is the shell like?
What is the C compiler like? Editors? In short - what is MPE like?
How long has it been on the market?

Sorry, but I have never personally known anyone/anyplace that runs
MPE, until I came across a UC campus with a web site that several
MPE freeware packages available.  However, from that (as well as 
any possible newsgroups) it is difficult to determine what the OS
is like for the user/admin/programmer and I would appreciate some
info.  

Thanks very much to anyone who can respond.

Peter Prymmer