Recent News and Tips
The Robelle Tech column from the most recent issue of the 3000 NewsWire magazine,
contains an introduction to the programming language Perl and information on
Ken Hirsch's Perl interface to Suprtool. Click the link above to read it and broaden your horizons.
1/31/2002
A testimonial from Barry Durand at Allegro Consultants:
I started using Qedit for
Windows because I had to learn how to use it to
support it. However, I have found that I am using
it more and more because I want to, not because I
have to.
The main advantage of Qwin is that it is a single editor
which can be used for multiple platforms. Qwin can be used
for MPE, local PC files (including those mounted on another
machine via Samba) and for HP-UX (no more vi!). It is simple
to learn and very powerful. It also offers all of the
advantages of windows-based software such as the
ability to copy and paste from one file to another even
if they are on different machines and different OS's.
No, you can't just do a SAVE AS to a different machine but
that is a *minor* drawback.
I have found that I like QW so much that I will soon be
installing it on my home PC for just editing my local files!
This email does not do justice to the how useful
Qwin is. I strongly recommend that everyone who uses
an editor on multiple machines at least take a look at
Qedit for Windows.
1/30/2002
"Syngistix, Inc. and Ecometry Corporation (Nasdaq:ECOM) announced today that Syngistix has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Ecometry, a provider of integrated software solutions for multi-channel commerce, for $2.90 per share in cash. Syngistix, a supplier of supply chain management software, specializes in developing low-risk migration paths to NT/SQL and UNIX/Oracle platforms for users of enterprise applications that run on legacy hardware and software."
For the complete press release, click the link above.
1/28/2002
We are building a list of consulting resources for our
customers - people who know Suprtool and Suprtool-based applications. We will
feature them on our home page as we discover them, and catalog them on
Consultants Corner page as well. Today we
are featuring Steven Jackson:
|
Company Name: |
SLS Systems |
|---|
| Specialty: | Ecometry |
|---|
| Description: | Full consulting, project management, development, and support services |
|---|
| Contact: | Steven Jackson |
|---|
| Email: | s_w_jackson@email.msn.com |
|---|
| Location: | Plympton, Massachusetts |
|---|
| Phone: | 781.585.3620 |
|---|
| Fax: | 781.585.9861 |
|---|
Suprtool
Experience: |
10 Years experience with Suprtool.
Have provided SuprTool training to several of my Ecometry clients.
|
|---|
Qedit
Experience: |
Have been using Qedit/Qedit for Windows for 8 years.
I always recommend these to my clients.
|
|---|
| References: |
Hickory Farms, Maumee, OH
Hallmark Cards, Kansas City, MO
Ultimate Office, Farmingdale, NJ
Sid Savage Auto Dealer Supply, Taylor, MI
US Mint, Washington, DC
Current Inc., Colorado Springs, CO
|
|---|
| Notes: |
Services include:
- Project management for Ecometry implementations
- Business systems analysis
- Technical training: SuprTool, TurboImage, COBOL, Quiz
- Custom development/enhancements
- Systems integration - development of interfaces between Ecometry and other systems/environments
- Day-to-day technical support and troubleshooting
- End user training
|
|---|
1/28/2002
We have had a lot of questions about HP-UX since HP's announcement of the "sunset" of MPE.
Click the link above for answers to many questions, information on HP-UX solutions with Qedit for Windows
and Suprtool/UX, plus links to many useful HP-UX web pages (some even written for MPE users!).
1/25/2002
Ecometry has changed the dates for their world conference from May 5-8 to August 18-21, 2002.
Location: Delray Beach Florida. For any questions about this change, contact Laurie Cohen,
telephone 561-454-4313, email lcohen@ecometry.com
1/25/2002
Robelle publishes 3000-related news items on this home page every working day of
the year. We also syndicate those news stories so that anyone with a web page can
put the Robelle headlines on their page!
We accomplish this using three web services, but one of them has stopped talking
to another. So we have changed the Javascript to cut out the middle service. Click the link
above for more details, but the new script to invoke the Robelle news is:
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE=JavaScript
SRC=http://www.wc.cc.va.us/services/news/channel.asp?
c=http://rss.blogspace.com/blogify?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.robelle.com>
</SCRIPT>
Note: the Script tag SRC= value should be entered as one long
line, not folded as shown above.
1/25/2002
Diane Amos (resume@amosassociates.com) writes:
The new "boothless" format was a big success last year. We will use the same
format for our upcoming conference - April 18th - 19th, in Williamsburg, Virginia.
For details and registration, you may go to our website at "www.marug.org".
Look forward to seeing you there!
1/24/2002
In the 3000 NewsWire,Shawn
Gordon explains his transition from the HP 3000 to LINUX:
In August of 1999, after 16 years of HP 3000 development, I founded a software company in the Linux market called theKompany.com. For me this was like joining a new band or getting remarried and having to get to know all new friends and relatives. In our HP 3000 space we mostly know the players and we are comfortable where we are. Jumping over to Linux required that I learn a lot about things I never cared about before — like the GPL, GNU, Linux, RMS, ESR, and other things that I will explain in a bit. One of the bits that has been floating around a lot on the various 3000 discussion lists is Linux.
Click the link above for the full article and learn about "distributions", installation of packages, and web sites
where you can become LINUX-literate.
1/23/2002
The January 2002 issue of Robelle's What's Up DOCumentation newletter
is now available. Some of the highlights from this issue:
* Listing of upcoming HPe3000 seminars and symposiums, including the HP e3000 Solutions Symposium in April.
* HP Tips: Foptions and Aoptions
Do you have trouble remembering all the bit definitions for Foptions
and Aoptions when opening a file on MPE/iX? You can find them on- line
at docs.hp.com but it takes quite a while. Robelle also has them on-line
in our Encyclopedia for HP Users.
* Suprtool Tips: Suprtool, CGI and the Web
You've got a Web server running on an HP-UX or MPE/iX machine. Your
users are clamoring to get their data and reports from their Intranet.
With a little bit of Perl and Suprtool, you can have your data
accessible on the web, dynamically!
* Suprtool Tips: Generate Random Passwords
This clever application note shows two methods for generating
passwords with Suprtool. The advantage of using a program to generate
new passwords is that no personal bias can slip into the password,
making it easier for an intruder to guess.
* Host-Based Qedit Tips: Inside Vesoft: Combining MPEX and Qedit
"I like to think of MPEX as an old friend. An even older friend is
Robelle’s Qedit. These two old friends can work together to make your
tasks complete faster and easier — and isn’t that what friends are for?
They qualify for the 'Plays Well with Others' award."
* Qedit for Windows Tips: MatchCharacter: a QWIN Script
The MatchCharacter script searches for matching left and right
characters like parentheses, square brackets or curly braces. It uses
the current selection to determine what to search for. If found, the
script selects the text between the two characters.
* Resources: Robelle Tech -- Unix Quickstart for MPE Users
This column is intended to relate the MPE commands and concepts that
you are familiar with to similar commands and concepts on HP-UX. It is
intended to assist the MPE user, programmer, and operator to navigate
and use commands on the HP-UX operating system.
These are just some of the informative articles in this issue. Read
the complete issue to learn more!
Browse the HTML issues at
www.robelle.com/library/newsletter/w2002-01.html
Download the PDF issues at
www.robelle.com/library/newsletter/w2002-01.pdf
Hope you enjoy this issue.
1/22/2002
An article from the 3000 NewsWire.
1/21/2002
Technical good news from Frank Golupski (frankg@jhc.com):
We have a new server we've set up here that is called a "Citrix server".
This thing manages thin client PC's on our network and remote access PC's
through the internet. I'd questioned the tech staff about a month ago,
asking if anybody knew if Qedit for Windows would work through a Citrix
server. Nobody knew if it would or not.
Well, it does. And quite well, I might add. No special requirements, it
installed and ran under a Citrix client just fine. They might want to take
note, should any other customers enquire.
1/18/2002
STExport is one of the many components of the Suprtool
product.
Using STExport,
you can export data from IMAGE SQL, Oracle or Allbase databases that reside on your
HP 3000 or 9000 to just about any other platform, all without having to write a
custom program.
First you select the data and write it to a self-describing file, then
you format the data from the self-describing file into almost any format you want,
from fixed-length fields to HTML tables.
You can control field delimiters, quotation marks, numeric and date formats
among other things.
The example below shows how to extract data from
an Allbase database on your HP 3000 and load it into an
Oracle database on your HP 9000.
:run Suprtool.pub.robelle
> {extract the data into a self-describing file}
>open allbase employee.db humres
>select * from humres.employees
>sort department_no
>output emp,link
>xeq
>export {invoke STExport}
$input emp
$output empfmt
$xeq
To see the rest of the process (importing the data into Oracle),
click the link above for the entire technical tip.
1/17/2002
It is the intent of the OpenMPE group "to carefully and calmly evaluate the viability of the MPE/iX Operating System moving to an alternative entity that would allow for its support and enhancements to continue beyond the scheduled December 31, 2006 end of support date from Hewlett-Packard."
The popular vote to select an initial Board of Directors for the OpenMPE
Corporation has been completed. The Board members are (in no particular
order)
Ted Ashton (Southern Adventist University)
Ken Sletten (SIG Image/SQL Chairman)
Jon Backus (Tech Group)
Christian Lheureux (APPIC)
John Marrah (COO and President of Ecometry)
Chris Miller (VP of Genesis Total Solutions)
Birket Foster (President of MB Foster and SIG SoftVend Chairman)
Mark Klein (DIS International)
The position of HP representative has been filled by Jeff Vance
(read an interview with Jeff in the 3000 NewsWire).
1/16/2002
From the 3000 NewsWire,
"changes to expect in moving to HP-UX" from comments by Chris Wong:
"I think the biggest difference for most MPE administrators is just the concepts of admin work. For example, there aren't roles in UNIX like there are in MPE. (Example, you have manager.sys, operator.sys, etc..). In UNIX you have all (root) or something else. In MPE you are used to having your operators be operators so that they can do backups, etc.. In UNIX there isn't a special class for this type of user, yet perhaps the operator needs root privileges to complete tasks. The administrator is left with the task of figuring out how to give the operator the permissions they need to do their job without giving permissions that could end up destroying the system."
1/15/2002
"Qedit for Windows just saved our bacon a few days ago. We had to look at
large files (largest one was 440,000 lines long) and edit them. With the HP
3000
connected to our PCs, we were able to modify and save back and forth with no
problems. I found that the "file saving" process was pretty quick (15
seconds) between HP and the PC. Even when I used the phone line to do work,
it was fairly
quick."
Nicholas Y. Foo
CIS Project Manager
Boeing
1/14/2002
At the invitation of SESUG, Bob Green of Robelle will provide Suprtool training
for this meeting at Founders Federal Credit Union in Charlotte, NC.
For more information, email Pat Waddell (pswaddell@gtefcu.org).
1/11/2002
The 6th Annual HP Performance Training Seminar is being held by FLORUG
in Orlando Florida, Feb 11-15, 2002. On Wednesday morning, February 13th, Bob
Green of Robelle is presenting a tutorial entitled "Image Internals and Performance".
Don't miss it. For program details and registration, click the link above.
1/11/2002
Ecometry has announced the following Suprtool training sessions dates:
Jan 31 - Feb 1, 2002
Apr 11-12, 2002
Jul 18-19, 2002
Oct 10-11, 2002
1/11/2002
2002 means e3000: the skills to migrate — or the skills to continue
to
improve your e3000 infrastructure today. Either way — HP e3000
Solutions Symposium is the place to be this April.
HP e3000 Solutions Symposium
April 3- 6, 2002
San Jose Hyatt - San Jose, CA
Click the link above to read all about this year's Symposium.
1/10/2002
The January issue of the 3000 NewsWire
contains an column by Bob Green about our Suprtool product on HP-UX.
We are prepared to support Suprtool on MPE/iX as long as customers demand it,
and we hope that is a long time. But we also have Suprtool on HP-UX and have had it
for many years. We are even doing research right now to improve it to make migrating
applications more convenient (news of that research in the weeks to come).
Suprtool from Robelle is already widely used to help integrate HP 3000 systems with HP-UX systems by sharing data. For example, one Robelle customer uses Suprtool/iX and Suprtool/UX to distribute their data from the 3000 to a nationwide network of HP-UX boxes, and then bring new data back to the 3000 for integration.
If you decide to migrate some apps to HP-UX, Suprtool/UX will be there for you.
Click the link above to read the entire column.
1/08/2002
Horner Consulting has updated their web site with
more free stuff to make your systems, and applications
programming easier. More MPEX, Netbase, Ecometry, and How to scripts. They
even have links to sites that offer other free applications.
And you might also look into their Logsendr program:
'Your system console can now talk to SYSLOG, which
is a program that sends messages to where ever you need them.
HP3000 system console messages can only be displayed on the console,
located near your HP3000 system. Until now, there has never been software
solution to the age old question. "How can I read my HP console messages
with out having to be at the system console?" LOGSENDR is your solution to
that question. LOGSENDR reads your HP3000's console log files and sends
them to SYSLOG. How can this help you, you ask. This is how.'
'For Ecometry users, console messages can be sent to a specific logon. This
way there is no need to allow someone access to, what could be dangerous
system commands.'
'For Nightwatch, from Hillary Software, users, console messages can be sent
to a server that is running Nightwatch. Nightwatch can then process the
messages and send alerts, accordingly.'
'For multi-system users, console messages can be sent to the corporate IT
center. This way you can monitor your off-site systems in the same way as
your on-site systems.
For users who audit their systems, console messages can be sent to files
for later examination.'
'LOGREADR translates your HP3000 console messages for SYSLOG. SYSLOG sends
the messages to where you want them to go. You can have LOGSENDR for the
non-budgetbreaking price of $500.00. By the way, did we forget to tell you
that this is an unlimited site license.'
1/07/2002
Do you have trouble remembering all the bit definitions for Foptions and Aoptions when opening
a file on MPE/iX? You can find them on-line at docs.hp.com but
it takes quite a while. Robelle also has them on-line in our Encyclopedia for HP Users - just
click the link above.
1/04/2002
Qedit/UX is our host-based programmer editor for the HP UNIX systems.
The user documentation for Qedit/UX is now available for download in new formats:
PDF format and
also HTML Help format.
1/03/2002
CAMUS 2002 will be held in Denver from May 19-22. This is a large conference for users
of manufacturing application software. Click the link above for more details.
1/02/2002
Archived News and Tips...
HP 3000 Book
HP 3000 Evolution:
Edited by
Bob Green of Robelle, from articles written by Robelle,
by The 3000 Newswire, and by other
experts in the HP 3000 field.
This 300-page book contains the latest information on three important
topics:
Homesteading
HP 3000 Tune Up
Migrating a 3000 application.
An essential reference for every desk!
Order your copy on-line for US$25.
