HP surprised users at the HP World show by announcing that the HP 3000 will support Java applications in a future release. The announcement came as part of CSY General Manager Harry Sterling's address on the state of the HP 3000. HP's Mike Yawn developed a prototype of the Java Virtual Machine for MPE/iX, which he was demonstrating on the HP World conference show floor. A release date for the software wasn't specified.
The software will enable the HP 3000 to act as a middle tier in any three-tier client-server system, which should give companies more confidence about including the HP 3000 in long-range plans. The Java Virtual Machine executes code that can be passed from any Java applet on any Java-compliant platform. HP announced earlier this year that all of its systems will support Java at the operating-system level.
According to Sterling, "We've had a great customer response to our Internet efforts on the HP 3000. Our customers keep finding innovative ways of using their HP 3000s to take advantage of the Internet and the World Wide Web." HP said that "in the coming months" it will be working to prepare Java for the rigorous demands of HP 3000 business-critical environments.
HP began the porting project in June when Yawn downloaded raw source code to the Virtual Machine and went to work with the GNU C++ compiler and tools. Gavin Scott of Denkart and Mark Klein of ORBiT Software have been providing assitance during the port, Yawn said.
Yawn said that the Java compiler is now running on the HP 3000, and showed it executing from within the Posix shell. HP is resolving bugs including the fact that the compiler runs in interpreted mode. Runtime Java is fully functional, he said, "and there's a couple of missing runtime functions that we didn't have time to implement before the show."
Work on the compiler is key to using the class libraries written in Java. "Once the compiler and runtime are [working on the 3000], the thought is that those libraries come over effortlessly," Yawn said. Some graphics-related libraries may have system dependancies that could keep them from being ported to the HP 3000 version of Java.
"The windowing toolkit and the image libraries were never promised to be part of our Java implementation for the 3000, but they're designed to work with Motif, so we'll give them a try and see what happens," Yawn said. "For our user base, we don't think it's a big deal if we don't have them."
Sterling said the only way to keep the announcement a surprise for the show was to withhold the information from much of the CSY staff. "Our customers are so close to the division, and we to the customers, that if we had talked about it, everyone would have known."
Sterling's announcement drew sustained applause from customers at the show. HP plans to make the Virtual Machine available in the same way it did the HTTPD Web server and the C++ compiler, as a freeware download from its Jazz server at CSY. The HP 9000 division has apparently agreed to supply Java in its operating system releases, a move the HP 3000 group hasn't adopted yet. CSY didn't "ride along to with [the 9000 division] bundle it with all the systems," Yawn said. HP could include the software in a future release if contract extension requirements are met and customer demand prompts it.