Bradmark tells about Year 2000 plans
Database tool provider Bradmark (713.621.2808, www.bradmark.com) announced that its DBGENERAL product will have a new set of date functions during in the third quarter of 1997. These functions will "facilitate a broad range of date format validations and conversions."
The DBGENERAL approach will provide a YR2000 mechanism for defining characteristics and components of date fields in HP 3000 environments. The facility will be able to define both source and target dates, according to Bradmark's officials. Bradmark says the design of its date handling features will "provide for the conversion of virtually any input date format to any output date format."
The enhancement to the product will define proprietary, integer, bit-packed and character date formats, as well as IMAGE zoned decimal (Z) and packed decimal (P) data types. The first list of proprietary formats includes those for MANMAN, Speedware, PowerHouse, MM/3000, Allbase/SQL, SRN's CHRONOS format, CALENDAR and HPCALENDAR intrinsics, Posix time stamp, DataExpress and AQ/3000. A conversion facility will recognize attributes of the Z and P storage types, including 33 different variations of Z and P date information formats.
Overloaded or special date types will be supported by the new facility, so a user can define special dates and how to handle them during conversion. Bradmark says that for a date conversion tool these types "are perhaps the biggest challenge." The software will also let administrators substitute their own value for invalid dates.
Bradmark won't address all date situations with the DBGENERAL enhancement. Character dates with months misspelled or fully spelled, dates packed in HP or IEEE Real data types, or language-specific ASCII field characteristics -- such as Pascal's leading byte count or a trailing NULL byte for C -- won't be handled in the initial release. DBGENERAL also won't support day of the week or week of the year formats, converting fiscal quarters to months, or HP's original CHRONOS intrinsic 48-bit date format. More details on the supported date conversion formats are on Bradmark's Web site.
The date enhancements will be provided to DBGENERAL users covered under support agreements, but customers need to have the Standard package with the structural module. Bradmark says this is because date conversion may also require changes to database structure.
Second MIME gateway for Desk emerges
E-Mail Inc. (818.836.4788, www.emailinc.com) announced that it's shipping a $999 gateway that permits HP Open DeskManager users to send and receive binary attachments in mail through the Internet. The gateway also works with other HP 3000 e mail systems, such as E-Mail's own One-Stop Mail. MIME capability gives Desk users the ability to send and receive attachments that open in compatible client programs. Version 2.0 of SMTP-X/3000 supports links between local area networks and the Open Desk clients that are included with HP's venerable mail software.
The package requires MPE/iX 5.5, and it includes an unlimited license for a master machine. E-Mail representatives say the software "is designed for endless run-time, with no hangs on either reads or writes, no thresholds and automatic rerouting of bad messages." The gateway supports any SMTP connection, including MS-Mail Exchange, cc:Mail or GroupWise. Support is available at $499 a year for basic phone and software updates or $899 for dial-up updating and 24-hour pager access.
HP 3000 e-mail users have had an existing choice for SMTP MIME from 3k Associates, and now the emergence of a second MIME gateway signals even more of an embrace of the 3000 as an Internet aware device. With at least two Internet gateways now available for Open DeskManager, perhaps HP's Roseville group will think harder about keeping enhancements flowing for the 3000 mail solution that once served all of Hewlett-Packard. You can get a 30-day evaluation copy of SMTP-X/3000 by contacting the numbers above, or sending e-mail to sales@e-mailinc.com.
OpenView DTC gets Win95 ability
After months of requests, HP is now delivering a new version of the OpenView DTC Manager that runs on the more stable Windows 95 platform. OpenView DTC Manager 14.4 has a new product number (D2355B) and includes a runtime copy of OpenView for Windows and FTP's PC/TCP(for use with Windows for Workgroups 3.11).
HP says the new product's minimum hardware requirements are an HP Vectra 486/Pentium3 with16Mb of RAM, VGA color monitor, floppy disk, LAN card and hard disk. In addition to Windows 95, you need HP OpenView for Windows version C.02.14 and Microsoft's TCP/IP stack. This will give HP 3000 customers who manage their networked systems with OpenView, but not Unix, a more reliable platform than the Windows 3.11 PCs that are currently on their critical network management path.
Net tools, Samba, Java 3000
available on FREEWARE tape
That collection of dynamite freeware to network and connect your HP 3000 with NT and the Internet is now available on a DAT cartridge for a nominal fee. Developers at this year's IPROF conference assembled new tools for the HP 3000 such as Samba (see article this issue), Java, two different Web servers, a C++ compiler and a free e-mail server. The collection is called the FREEWARE tape, and it's available to managers who don't want to tie up their Internet links with long downloads of these great, free tools.
The latest 0.6 version of the resource sharing tool Samba, the alpha version of the Java Developer's Kit and the NCSA and Apache Web Servers for MPE/iX are on the tape. 3k Associates includes FreeMail, its two-mailbox e-mail package, to send and receive Internet messages from your HP 3000. Perl, G++ and GNU tools and utilities are also included, as well as utilities from Allegro and Adager and the Python object oriented language.
The products, some of the newest and hottest in the HP 3000 environment, link the system to Internet and intranet resources, connect it with Windows NT environments and deliver object-oriented programming capabilities. Just $30 gets you a copy of the tape though Interex ($40 in Canada and Mexico, $55 in all other countries). Interex is only accepting pre-paid orders, but it's taking credit cards. Call Interex at 408.747.0227 and ask for the MPE Freeware tape, or write and send payment in full to: Interex, Attn: MPE Freeware Tape, PO Box 3439, Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3439. Include your shipping address and phone and fax numbers.