HP3000 to HP9000 conversion issue

[Susan_2]

We have a customer who has a HP3000 series 39 and would like to convert to a HP9000 box. Their programs are written in Basic. They want to know if there is a conversion program that will convert there basic program and data (data is ascii) to the HP9000. If so what is the cost. How much is a range for a HP9000. This customer is trying to decide if it makes sense to go to the HP9000 or move the ascii data to an access database on a windows NT server. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[paul courry · Accepted solution]

Series 39? That's a compatibility machine, created before the modern 3000's or 9000's ever existed! I know a museum.................

Seriously, has he considered a small HP3000 because he can move the programs and data straight across and it will work. There are even tools to evaluate his code and find problems in advance of the move. A used machine would be a *lot* less expensive than porting the data.

[Patrick Wallek]

The cost of an HP9000 depends on what type of machine you want, how much disk space, memory, how fast of a CPU, how many CPUs. There are some used machines that you can pick for a very reasonable price. Look for the 3rd party remarketers of the equipment. I believe www.hp3k.com has a pretty good list.

You should be able to move the ASCII data to the 9000 without any conversion. The question is, how are you going to move the data? The series 39 is undoubtedly running MPE/V so there is no posix functionality there, thus no FTP or anything.

Something you would probably need on the 3000 is the NS3000 software which gave some additional network functionality.

There used to be some software for HP-UX called NS9000. This software provided some integration between the 3000 and 9000. I don't know if this software still exists or not. If it does, then there is a command called DSCOPY that would let you go directly from the 3000 to the 9000 or vice versa.

Another option would be to use a PC with running something like WRQ's Reflection1 product (www.wrq.com). This product would allow you to connecto to the 3000, download the files to the PC, the use FTP to get the files from the PC to the 9000.

I don't know how you would convert the BASIC programs, but you could at least get the program files transferred to the 9000 the same way as the data files.

You will have some work ahead of you if you decide to go through with this conversion.