Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!wucs1!wuphys!hpuslma!hpfcse!hpunsca!chuck
From: chuck@hpunsca.HP.COM (Chuck Munro)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: HP9000 S500 Support (Was: hp9000 ser. 500 hpux)
Message-ID: <370018@hpunsca.HP.COM>
Date: 19 Mar 88 18:49:27 GMT
References: <1654@mhres.mh.nl>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Canada, Dartmouth, N.S.
Lines: 89


The comments I've read from Bo Thide, and the various responses to this
note string have got me to thinking about the issue of older-machine
obsolescence vs. new-machine development.   Many of the comments struck
a nerve with me, since I was a customer of HP for over 7 years before
I joined the company as an SE.

Bo's problem is certainly not unique -  I think we've all felt the rather
helpless sensation as technology marches on, and we all race to keep up.

From my perspective as a former customer, I still remember the frustration
when HP would announce a  newer/better/cheaper  replacement product, and
then proceed to give the new product all the goodies which I wanted to see
added to my older system.  The standard HP answer was  "you should upgrade
your system .. the cost is minimal".  That was ok for the rich guys,
but I worked in a hospital clinical engineering environment, and we never
had *any* upgrade money available!   So we put up with the old system, and
waited for 2 or 3 product cycles until we could afford the change.  But
wait -  the upgrade was now no longer available ...  too late!

I'd bet that universities are in the same financial situation as hospitals.

From the same perspective, I suppose the situation is actually getting a
bit more difficult, since product life-cycles tend to be getting very
short, no matter who the manufacturer is.


Well, I subsequently put on an HP hat (that was 9 years ago), and soon I
got to see the other side of the coin.   Lucky for all of us, HP began
to see the need for a unified system architecture, and elimination of
the many operating systems which we had, in favor of a smaller and more
closely-focused number of O/S's  (for multi-user systems, we're down to
RTE, MPE, and HP-UX, with really good migration paths from RTE and MPE to
HP-UX).   At one point, I was supporting six flavors of RTE at one time !
Believe me, it wasn't an easy thing to do !

Now, for the HP9000 'family' we saw the results of a rapid swing of the
technical community to UN*X-based systems, combined with a rather sudden
realization that we (HP) also had to curb the proliferation of CPU
architectures before things got too far out of hand.   The Series-500 was
a real engineering miracle when it was introduced, but if we stayed with
it, the competition would eventually eat us up.   Why ?   Because making
the FOCUS chip set faster and faster would become exponentially expensive,
largely due to its CISC design.

HP was at a crossroads, and a decision had to be made ...  even more new
architectures to suit every market, or a single, manageable machine design
(which had made DEC so successful).   So, we 'cut the cord' and spent many
millions on what has already proven to be a *great* new computer.

So, what about we Series-500 users? (I'm using one to write this note.)
Classical catch-22 !!   HP could easily upgrade HP-UX continually for the
s500, and add all those goodies which many of us really want ...  BUT ...
are you willing to pay for this service?   It costs real money to hire the
people to upgrade the O/S's for the new CPU's *and* all of the old ones
at the same time.   That money has to come from customers.  So it becomes
simply a question of economics.   If enough s500 customers indicate to HP
that they're willing to pay for continued upgrades and enhancements, then
I bet you'll get just that.   When you mention this to your local sales
rep, make sure you get him/her to pass your feelings on to the factory.

The biggest problem with the s500, from a selfish perspective, is that it's
just too damned reliable, so justification for replacement is more difficult!
I've *never* had a single hardware failure on this beast in two years.  It
runs 24 hours per day, on unfiltered AC power, and has even been used at
sea during rough-weather environmental tests for shipboard use.  However,
I'd be the first to admit that the O/S is getting a bit obsolescent.

The Series-300?   Well, don't hold your breath waiting for it to be replaced
with the s800 just yet.   It's got features (and more coming) which will
ensure that it'll be around for a few years more!   And already it can run
circles around my 2-cpu s500.  I suspect that Rocky-Mountain BASIC will keep
s300 sales cruising along for quite some time yet, even if HP-UX users all
convert to s800's.   And ...  it's a relatively inexpensive box.

Personally, I'm caught between two worlds when it comes to the philosophy
of continuous system upgrading ....  as a former customer, I remember the
constant battle for funds to achieve this ....  as an employee of HP, I
see the need for customers to modify the traditional policies of "use it
until it drops".   Technology is simply moving too fast!   It's tough to
please everyone when using finite resources.

The Series-800 should finally allow us (HP) to more easily retrofit software
upgrades to older HP-PA machines as time goes on.   You'll see HP-PA around
for a very, very long time.
 
Thanks for listening!     Customers :  keep sending us your thoughts, please!

Chuck Munro    hpunsca!chuck