Officials at MiniSoft called to report the company began shipping its JDBC driver for HP 3000s in the second half of May. The software driver lets any HP 3000 programmer write applications in Java to access IMAGE and TurboIMAGE databases as well as MPE flat files and KSAM files using standard SQL statements. Developers can deploy one-, two-, or three-tier database access solutions. A one-tier solution allows a Java application written on a 3000 to access TurboIMAGE databases on that HP 3000 using standard SQL syntax. A two-tier approach delivers TurboIMAGE database access for applications written in Java, but running as an applet, servlet, or an application on another machine such as an HP 9000, PC or Mac. The three tier solution lets applets, servlets, or applications access databases on any HP 3000 from a central Web server. MiniSoft officials said the three-tier approach “provides a single entry point for your applets, servlets, or applications, without limiting access to databases that might reside on any number of HP 3000s.”

MiniSoft promised that the JDBC driver provides enhanced SQL parsing and optimization to make use of TurboIMAGE keys as well as third-party indexes. A demo copy is available at www.minisoft.com, and the product sells for between $1,995 and $4,995, priced identically to the ODBC/32 product. It will also be available for an extra $1,000 to customers already using the company’s ODBC/32 driver.