Hacking HP3000 Model Numbers

tmjva writes "A hardware hack reported last Wednesday on the HP3000-L list proved that a newer version of Hewlett Packards's MPE operating system can be loaded on HP's more venerable machines. Normally this is impossible according to HP (the installation message declares this.) This also brings up some important legal questions as convictions and lawsuits have been handed down before for converting HP3000 systems. Since the HP3000 is sold no more and support ends in 2008, HP may decide to show no interest. Then this hack may allow those who are clinging to old machines the ability to upgrade their OS. Those with newer models may also be able to upgrade their intentionally crippled HP3000 processors to equivalent HP9000 speeds as shown in this table."

Comments

Re:One moral of the story...

[dbatkins]

What's the problem? I work for a HP refurb shop and we sell MPE boxes for hot spares often. I'm sick of people saying propriatary hardware sucks. Bull. This stuff will work for a very long time if treated correctly (We still have stuff from the 70's in stock - working). People will still buy stuff running at 80 mhz because it runs 4ever. If anybody has played with the risc gear they know it's very well made. Seems no matter how hard HP tries to kill MPE it just doesn't die.

Re:One moral of the story...

[tmjva]

Actually our shop is still using an HP3000 in production and expects to be doing so for at least another 5 to 10 years. The thing just keeps on runnin'. A third party vendor has put a decent GUI front end on our main application and it links data seamlessly to other Windows applications. The main reason we hold back against converting to something else is our hardware is fully depreciated. As I agree HP has abandoned the HP3000 user community, I think it is also entirely appropriate HP no longer gets a dime from us. Why waste a few million on a new platforms and new software like SAP when we can keep our business running efficiently at minimal cost?