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Ron Seybold, Editor In Chief
Call us at 512-657-3264 if you have any questions about receiving the Online Extra. If you don't want us to e-mail you this file in the future -- because you prefer to read the Online Extra at the Always Online Web site -- just drop me a note at rseybold@zilker.net.
Ron Seybold
Editor In Chief
IN THIS MONTH'S EXTRA
Update on AppeerX: No Unix, Oracle support, but Web gateway emerges
HP readies TraceRT for HP 3000s
Look over Express 1 6.0 enhancements on Jazz
Chat habit starts at Yahoo!
New product traces IMAGE calls
Update on AppeerX: No Unix, Oracle support, but Web gateway emerges
Mike Gueterman of Easy Does It Technologies dropped us a note to help correct our February story about AppeerX, the spoolfile handler that works across networks. Gueterman said that “The AppeerX server currently runs under MPE/iX only, and does not access HP-UX in any way. It (in itself) is not a database tool, so the [article's] 'accesses Allbase/SQL, Oracle and Informix,' statement is also not true although it uses Allbase/SQL to store its configuration information on the Security Server."
The confusion came from information we picked up from the LeeTech Web site, which lists all the above properties as true for AppeerX. Gueterman bought the product from LeeTech early this year. Gueterman wanted to set the record straight before he began to market the product, which we profiled in our February issue. "Although LeeTech sold a 16 bit version, I do not believe it is actually being used by any of our existing customers. I'm still trying to verify this. If this is in fact the case, we will not offer it in the future and concentrate on the 32-bit version."
Gueterman is working on some new features for the product that rely on NT servers to tie Web-based users to the AppeerX capabilities. "We have completed an alpha version of the AppeerX Web Gateway, which utilizes an intermediate Windows NT Web server and the Cold Fusion Application server," he said. "This allows a user with a standard graphical Web Browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape's Navigator to view their HP3000 based spool files. I expect the pricing on it to be a flat $2,500, and will utilize the existing AppeerX Security Server interface just as the Windows Client. With a little luck, it will be ready in the June/July timeframe. Our preliminary testing shows it to be very fast, and probably will replace the 32 bit Windows Client for Internet use due to the uncertain nature of the Internet."
HP readies TraceRT for HP 3000s
As part of the technical discussions at the IPROF conference, attendees learned that a new trace tool for programmers is being tested in HP's labs for MPE/iX. It's really an old favorite with those using other open systems, and now HP's Bangalore, India MPE labs are beta testing the utility this month. Doug Werth of Beechglen Consulting said that "tracert is a great tool, and there are times that you must run the tracert from the machine you are having the problem on, not another node on the same network. Politically it helps by knocking out yet another brick in the mythical wall between MPE and other "open" operating systems. If I had a nickel for each time a network tech snidely said, "You mean your machine can't tracert?" While there are many answers to that statement, some less offensive than others, a simple "Sure it can tracert" is the best!" Look for the tool in a patch for NS services this month, perhaps to be included in the Express 1 release of MPE/iX 6.0 as well.
Look over Express 1's 6.0 enhancements on Jazz
CI expert Jeff Vance of the CSY labs has posted a paper on the Jazz Web site that outlines upcoming enhancements for the Express 1 release of MPE/iX 6.0. Vance reports, "I have updated the 6.0 Express 1 CI Enhancement paper on Jazz. There are 5 new CI variables: HPDOY -- day of current year, HPHHMMSSMMM -- hour, minute,second,millisecond, HPLEAPYEAR -- true if current year is a leap year, HPYMDHMSM -- year,month,date,hour,minute,second,millisecond, HPYYYYMMDD -- current date in year-month-day format." Users can download freeware versions of the new variables from Jazz, the method that HP introduces new MPE/iX features before fully supporting them.
The paper includes documentation on the newest JINFO enhancement
that's come from the CFE project. In addition to JINFO, there's also
JOBCNT, which returns the number of jobs or sessions that match
'job_match'. The matching job or session numbers can be returned in the CI
variable named by the 'joblist_var'. All jobs/sessions matching
"job_match" are counted, including those executing, waiting,
suspended and scheduled. There's also WORDCNT, which returns the number or
words (tokens) defined by "delims" in "string",
starting at "start". The default delimiters are the same as for
the WORD and DELIMPOS functions: a space, a comma, a semicolon, an equals
sign, left and right parentheses, left and right brackets, single quote,
double quote, and tab.
Chat
habit starts at Yahoo!
Several dedicated HP 3000 customers
got together in the MPE Chat room on Yahoo in early March to talk about the
IPROF conference discussions. Attendee John Dunlop reported from the UK
that "The
session was organized by Jon
Diercks and was designed as a post-IPROF briefing for any who could not
attend. It was also an experiment to determine if the chat medium could
work for a question and answer session. Unfortunately, of the panelists
invited, only Mark Bixby managed to attend. However, there were about eight
other attendees from various places including myself from the UK (although
it was 12:30 a.m.!).
The proceedings mainly dealt with positive movements on the HP 3000 with a view to the future of the HP3000 although it was difficult to vary the subject matter with only one panelist. Generally, the experiment seemed to be a success although I did experience some delays from my side of the pond."
Diercks said the Yahoo MPE chat room "was created several months ago and has not seen much use. The consensus seems to be that [the HP 3000-L Internet newsgroup/mailing list] meets most of our needs, but the one potentially useful feature offered by the Yahoo! club is the chat room. We would like to see period chat events scheduled for interested members of HP3000-L to gather and discuss some topic in real-time, rather than email-time."
Jon Cohen of the HP CSY labs MPE release team volunteered to attend future events. Diercks and crew will notify the world of future chats via that 3000 newsgroup. He's also installed and configured a demo of Volano's Java-based chat server on his Series 979/200. Future chats may take place there.
New product traces IMAGE calls
Beyond Y2K has announced Regression Analysis Tools (RAT), a new product to trace IMAGE calls. Steve Zink of the firm said the $3,000 product "will work with any Native Mode program, and Compatibility Mode programs can also work with the SL versions of RAT. You need not change a line of code in your program to use this trace, and it can run online or batch."
RAT can also record and playback VPlus screens, "which also can be run in batch for your stress testing and regression testing. RAT also allows customers to age or expand IMAGE databases for date variables, along with an MPE intrinsic trace and a VPlus intrinsic trace."
Zink provided a list of the
IMAGE intrinsics traced: DBOPEN, DBCLOSE, DBFIND, DBGET, DBPUT, DBDELETE,
DBUPDATE, DBLOCK,DBUNLOCK. When traced, these intrinsics display their
parameters, including the buffer after DBGETS, DBPUTS, and DBUPDATES; the
mode, database, dataset and other relevant parameters; the status of the
call; and a stack marker trace if you want a more complete trace. This
stack marker trace can be enabled or disabled, and allowed only for
non-zero status returns.
Zink said that "Silicon
Graphics and Hewlett-Packard have both used RAT in their application
debugging. It is completely safe and provides a new dimension to
debugging." RAT's price includes a half-day tutorial. A free 30-day
trial is available as an e-mail attachment or on a CD-ROM by sending e-mail
to beyondy2k@aol.com.