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What's Up DOCumentation
Robelle Consulting Ltd.
8648 Armstrong Rd., R.R.#6
Langley, B.C. Canada V3A 4P9
Telephone: (604) 888-3666 Telex: 04-352848
Date: February 12, 1988
From: Robert M. Green, President
David J. Greer, Research & Development
Michael C. Shumko, Customer Support
To: Users of Robelle Software
Re: News of the HP 3000, 1988 #1
What You Will Find in This News Memo:
Spectrum Finally Leaves the Nest
News Tidbits
The Top Ten Earthquake Concerns of HP 3000 DP Managers
Technical Tips
About Robelle
Squeezing the Last Bit From Your HP 3000
Part Four: Use MR NOBUF Tools and Optimize Block Sizes
Robelle Products: Problems, Solutions, and Suggestions
Spectrum Finally Leaves the Nest
Hewlett-Packard has officially released the 930 and 950 Spectrum computers,
finally abandoning the protection of non-disclosure agreements. We have
heard from several sources that the 930 and 950 attained Manufacturing
Release during the month of January. This means that people who received
"Control Shipment" Spectrums can now put them into production and let
outsiders use them. You no longer need to sign any restrictive agreements to
get a 930/950. It also means that we users can now compare notes on what the
MPE XL systems are good for.
Interestingly, we didn't hear about the Manufacturing Release (MR) of the
Spectrum from Hewlett-Packard itself. As far as we can determine, HP kept
this event very quiet - no press conferences or splashes of publicity. Even
some HP people in Cupertino were not aware that MR had occurred. Just
because the 930 and 950 are released does not automatically guarantee that
you can get one. Given the huge backlog of orders that HP has, it can still
make "controlled shipments" for a while, picking sites whose expectations
match the state of the machines.
The first supported release of MPE XL is A.01.00. If you have a 930 or 950
and our SUPRTOOL, you might want to help fellow users get a better handle on
the capabilities of these new systems by running some performance
comparisons. We have outlined some interesting tests below. If you get a
chance, try them on your machines and send the results to us. We will
compile the performance figures and publish them in a future news memo.
Spectrum Performance Tests
Select a large IMAGE dataset from a database that you have on both a Classic
3000 and a new MPE XL 3000. Then use SUPRTOOL to execute two typical tasks
on this dataset. First on the Classic 3000, then on the MPE XL system, using
the standard SUPRTOOL (compatibility mode); then use a copy of SUPRTOOL that
has been translated by the OCT (object code translator). Try to perform the
six tests on an unloaded system.
:run suprtool
>set stat on {prints run-time statistics}
>base yourDB
>:comment Test #1: Typical Task With Sort
>get yourset
>extract field1,field2,field3
>if field1 > "xxxx" ...
>output xxxx1
>sort field1
>xeq
>:comment Test #2: Same Task Without Sort
>get yourset
>extract field1,field2,field3
>if field1 > "xxxx" ...
>output xxxx2
>xeq
Which Classic 3000 did you use (i.e., 68, 70, etc.)? __________
Which MPE XL machine did you use (i.e., 930 or 950)?__________
What was the MPE/V version number? __________
What was the MPE XL version number? __________
What was the SUPRTOOL version number? __________
How many on-line users have you run under MPE XL? __________
How would you describe the performance? _____________________
______________________________________________________
The SET STAT ON reports from SUPRTOOL will give you the elapsed and CPU times
for each test. Thanks in advance for your cooperation.
News Tidbits
Series 970 Dead? We have been hearing hints from HP over the last year about
a new Spectrum processor with twice the power of a 950. The December 1987
issue of Datamation carried the following rumor: "HP Pulls The Plug.
Hewlett-Packard, after telling its largest customers over a period of months
about a new, high-performance ECL-based version of its Spectrum minicomputer,
has pulled the plug on the development project, sources say. HP chief
operating officer Dean O. Morton, who announced the decision internally,
reportedly told the 100-member ECL development team that the project was
being killed to save on research and development expenses. Sources say the
company already has poured over $20 million into the project, which had been
run out of HP Labs in Palo Alto, had been under fire from rival developers at
HP's growing Cupertino systems group for some time. As previously reported
[in Datamation], that group plans to build follow-on Spectrum systems using
circuit technology that HP will get under a secret deal with IBM."
HP Plans. Hewlett-Packard managers fielded some interesting questions at the
recent Scottish users conference, including this one:
Q. The HP 3000 RISC systems are in the top range; when will HP develop its
low end?
A. "We intend to develop both the high and low ends in 1988. The 925 system
will replace the 52/58 as a mid-range machine that will span up to the Series
70 but not replace it. There will also be 950 field upgrades in `88 as well
as a new RISC-micro based on MPE V architecture." [??!!]
SUPRTOOL Success. In the Las Vegas proceedings, there is a good article by
Mark Tolbert who works for the Customer Escalation Center of Hewlett-Packard.
The following quote is from "Evolving Performance Guidelines - An '87
Update":
"For database batch processes, using products such as SUPRTOOL and ASK
can significantly reduce serial access times against large datasets. In
one case I worked on, a customer was able to reduce an 11 hour batch
report job that needed to run overnight, to 3 hours using SUPRTOOL."
Spectrum Quote from the SCRUG newsletter:
"The SPECTRUM has evolved from an abstract theoretical concept to an
L.A. commuter (they go real slow) to a nuclear submarine (they stay down for
months at a time) to a very nice high-end machine."
Alfredo to Speak to GLUG. Alfredo Rego will be presenting a new talk
entitled "Adager Internals" to the GLUG on March 8, 1988. He will discuss
the technology behind the performance improvements in the new version of
Adager. The meeting will be at the Beverly Hills Ramada Hotel (not at the
Russian Tearoom any more), includes dinner, and costs $20. For reservations,
call VESOFT at (213) 282-0420.
QEDIT and SUPRTOOL at the SEMC. Paul Houtz at Hewlett-Packard's SEMC
(Software Evaluation and Migration Center) recently wrote an application
system to keep track of controlled Spectrum shipments. The SEMC evaluated
each potential customer to see that they did not have any unreasonable
expectations and to make sure that they didn't want any software that is not
available on MPE XL 1.0. What's interesting is that Paul wrote the entire
application using QEDIT and SUPRTOOL!
Paul left lots of room for free-format text. When an engineer wants to
modify the notes on a customer, he uses a series of UDCs and /Use files that
extract the data, invoke QEDIT to modify the text, then invoke SUPRTOOL to
delete and replace the text. Paul wrote it as a prototype, but HP's CSY
division liked it so much that they took it away and started using it.
MPE XL Look-Alikes. The MPE XL command interface has some nice new features,
such as variables, that would be handy to have on MPE V. Eugene Volokh of
VESOFT reports that his newest version of MPEX supports the MPE XL command
interface, including variables, but is not plug-compatible with MPE XL
because of differences in error-handling. Another vendor, Taurus, has
announced a product called Chameleon that claims to provide a complete MPE XL
emulation. That is, you should be able to move an MPE XL job stream to MPE V
and execute everything without change. We would be interested to hear from
any users who have tried Chameleon. In June, Chameleon is projected to have
an intrinsic interface (hpicommand). VESOFT doesn't have this feature (and
neither does Chameleon yet). Chameleon will probably appeal to larger
companies worried about conversion to MPE XL. Chameleon sells for $5000 US;
contact Taurus at (415) 853-6893.
Beyond RISC. You can now buy copies of the new book "Beyond RISC" that looks
into the implementation and implications of the HP 930 and 950 computers.
The book was written by a highly qualified group of non-HP consultants who
have extensive contract experience with HP on the Spectrum project. Pricing
of 1-4 copies is $45 US each, 5-49 is $40, 50-99 is $35 and 100-999 is $30.
Send purchase order to Software Research Northwest at 17710 100th Avenue SW,
Vashon Island, WA 98070, telephone: (206) 463-3030.
The Top Ten Earthquake Concerns of HP 3000 DP Managers
People in Southern California worry about earthquakes. An example is this
excerpt from the SCRUG newsletter which gives a tongue-in-cheek list of
earthquake disaster worries at HP 3000 sites:
One: Disks will become fragmented -- physically.
Two: Location-sensitive tape management system will collapse when tapes fall
on floor.
Three: There will not be enough doorways in the computer room.
Four: The raised floor will break and the DP Manager will fall through and
will be strangled by wires.
Five: A blunt object will fall on the DP Manager's head and cause the loss of
the MANAGER.SYS password.
Six: The backup site in Santa Monica will fall into the ocean.
Seven: The only write ring in the shop will fall into a crack in the earth,
never to be found.
Eight: The Caps Lock key on the console keyboard will break, forcing the DP
Manager to use lower-case.
Nine: The tape drive will have to be cleaned again.
Ten: The uptime van is in the shop for a tune-up.
Technical Tips
Technical Oddity. Recently, Vladimir Volokh pointed out the following MPE
oddity. Enter these three MPE commands:
:build xa;rec=-3,,,ascii
:build xb;rec=-3,,,binary
:listf x?,2 {? means a single alpha-numeric}
ACCOUNT= GREEN GROUP= MIKE
FILENAME ----------LOGICAL RECORD----------- ----SPACE----
SIZE TYP EOF LIMIT R/B SECTORS X MX
XA 3B FA 0 1023 85 4 1 7
XB 2W FB 0 1023 64 3 1 6
There is a serious difference between the files -- what is it? As a result of
this difference, the files do not use the same amount of disc space. Can you
explain what is happening?
KLA/EXPRESS-3000. A company called KLA & Associates sells a product that
adjusts the dispatcher queues dynamically to make maximum use of all system
resources. We heard about it from Pete Hansen at Hughes via GLUG. He says
that everyone at Hughes who has tried it has reported amazing improvements in
performance. Another user who tried it said that it appeared to work well,
but that you have to tell it which processes should get top priority. This
was a problem because, of course, each user thought that his own application
was more important than the others', and that the tool should favor his over
the rest. They "solved" the dilemma by not getting KLA-EXPRESS. For more
information, contact KLA & Associates at (813) 784-5976.
More Fun With File Commands. Here's a little-known feature of the
CREATEPROCESS intrinsic, which is used by QEDIT's RUN command.
/:file x=listeq5.pub.sys
/:run *x
I still haven't figured out a practical use for this. Maybe in a UDC where
one program decides what the next program will be and sets the file command
accordingly.
A recent SuperGroup magazine described how this could be used to allow
COBEDIT to use QEDIT instead of EDITOR for changing copylib entries.
About Robelle
Rug Talks in March. On March 22, 1988 Robert Green will address the NEORUG
(Cleveland, Ohio); on March 23 he will address users in Detroit, Michigan;
and on March 24 he will speak in Indianapolis. Whew! Bob's topics will be
"How to Squeeze the Last Bit From Your HP 3000" and "The Unoffice, Part II,
More on Working at Home".
Robelle in Sweden. Robelle will be present in G╓teborg in force. The
meeting runs from May 30 to June 3 and promises to be exciting and
entertaining. This is the first international conference since HP lifted
non-disclosure on the Spectrum. Mike Shumko of Robelle will be present to
answer support questions in our booth and to present our talk "Squeezing the
Last Bit". Marie Froese will be "manning" our booth and is ready to field
any sales questions. Robert Green will be presenting two papers: "The
Spectrum Instruction Set" and "The Unoffice, Part II". We hope to meet as
many European users of Robelle software as we can, so please come forward and
introduce yourselves.
Squeezing the Last Bit From Your HP 3000
Part Four: Use MR NOBUF Tools and Optimize Block Sizes
We have done an informal survey of large HP shops to find out how the
successful ones avoid topping out the HP 3000 line. One of the most powerful
ideas mentioned was to:
Use MR NOBUF Tools and Optimum Block Size.
Problem. One of the most common destroyers of system performance is the
notorious serial scan. When you copy an enormous file, or reorganize a KSAM
file, or select 100 records to report with QUIZ by reading every entry in a
million-record dataset, you are bogging down the computer. The default
methods of doing a serial scan are extremely inefficient on the HP 3000.
Solution. One of the most impressive ways to speed up serial I/O is to use
MR NOBUF (multi-record non-buffered, not Mister Nobuf). You can write your
own code to take advantage of MR NOBUF access if you're careful, but you
don't need to - you can purchase tools that do it for you. Popular tools
using MR NOBUF access are HP's DSCOPY (you can use DSCOPY for copying files
to the same system), HP's COPYCAT for file copying and backup, MPEX's
FCOPY/FAST, and Tymlabs' COPYRITE for file copying and duplication (powerful
for KSAM users). Robelle's SUPRTOOL does MR NOBUF serial file access for
IMAGE datasets (and any other file type), and Running-Mate replaces serial
dataset reads in applications.
The Power of MR NOBUF
We got a call a while ago from a fellow who didn't even know he had SUPRTOOL
on his system, because it came bundled with another package he had bought.
He found it AND the documentation on his system, so he started using it. He
had a QUIZ job that normally took two hours to run, cruising through a huge
database. A total novice, he followed the instructions in the manual to get
SUPRTOOL to front-end his QUIZ report. The total time for this daily job
went from two hours down to 15 minutes.
One of the shops we interviewed still uses a service bureau for some big
accounting merges in IBM batch. They're considering using a Spectrum
instead, if it's big enough. They reduced the number of service bureaus they
needed from four to one by bringing jobs in-house with their own machines and
finding packages, such as mailing-list software, that they could front-end
with SUPRTOOL.
Turbo Resources use their HP 3000 to bill their credit card customers. At
month-end, they had a batch program that generated 1,000,000 disc I/Os
reading a 90-record control file. Sixty of the records were unnecessary;
after reblocking the file, they were able to read it in one disc I/O. They
now keep the control information in a table in memory, reducing one million
disc I/Os to one.
Block Sizes
The default blocking factors (number of records per physical disc block) is
usually wrong. For big batch disc files, the maximum block size is now about
14K words (REC=14,336), while the default is still the smallest block that
will fit. The bigger the block, the faster the programs will run. For IMAGE
databases, the default block size is 512 words, as it has been since 1974.
Many people we contacted in our survey were using 1024 words or more.
Robelle Products: Problems, Solutions, and Suggestions
SUPRTOOL Version 2.9 and 2.9.1
System Configuration for SUPRTOOL 3.0. When SUPRTOOL version 3.0 is released
later this year, it will require a larger maximum extra data segment size.
Previous versions required 8196 words, but this new version requires 16,384
words. Before installing SUPRTOOL, you should check your system
configuration with the :SYSDUMP command. The maximum extra data segment size
is found under "SEGMENT LIMIT CHANGES". If this value is less than 16,384,
you must create a new COLDLOAD tape with the limit increase, then restart
your HP 3000 with the COLDLOAD option.
QEDIT Version 3.6
MpexHooking QEDIT. Here are the instructions for MpexHooking QEDIT, for your
information:
:run hookprog.pub.vesoft;parm=1;info="qedit.pub.robelle"
HOOKPROG Version 0.1...02 (VESOFT, Inc. (C) 1987)
Allow % (Y/N)? y
Silent string (CR is good default)? q
Minimum input length to keep (default 1)? 10
Maximum input length to keep (default 32767)? 300
Patch READ (Y/N)? n
Patch READX (Y/N)? y
Patch FREAD and FOPEN (Y/N)? n
Patch LOADPROC (for VEMODIFY) (Y/N)? y
END OF PROGRAM
Tim Joseph at VESOFT tells us that the latest version of HOOKPROG recognizes
QEDIT and does the proper things without all this fooling around. Few people
have this new version yet.
QEDIT Installation. The QEDITJ1A job stream installs the HP compilers in the
Q.ROBELLE group (isolated method). Unfortunately, this job adjusts the
capabilities of the group incorrectly. The result is that some versions of
QEDIT and Fortran 77 will not run: "illegal capability". To correct the Q
group, use these commands:
:hello mgr.robelle
:altgroup q;cap=ia,ba,ph,ds,pm,mr
You should also change the job, so it will work properly the next time you
stream it.
Native-Mode Compilers on MPE XL. There are some problems using the NM
compilers from QEDIT 3.6. First, the UDCs that we provided in
Udcxl.Catalog.Robelle are now out of date, since HP has changed some program
and file names. Second, the QINPUT option of QEDIT's :RUN command, which
these UDCs depend heavily upon, has a serious bug: it doesn't write the
sequence numbers properly. This makes it impossible to use the NM COBOL
compiler without first doing a KEEP. This is fixed in QEDIT version 3.6.2.
Converting Files to QEDIT format. As with all things, there is a right way
and a wrong way to convert a group of files to QEDIT format. First, here is
a wrong way:
:run mpex.pub.vesoft
%qedit @.source,shut * {DON'T DO THIS!}
%exit
This command instructs MPEX to invoke QEDIT, and for each file in the group,
to SHUT it with the same name as TEXTed. Seems simple enough. But the flaw
is in the assumption that MPEX will generate a sequence of /text filename;
shut * commands. In fact, that is exactly what MPEX will do for any files
that are not already QEDIT files. But MPEX, trying hard to optimize its
performance, issues an OPEN instead of a TEXT when it encounters a file that
is already in QEDIT format. For QEDIT files, then, the command generated by
MPEX is /open filename; shut *. This has the undesirable effect of trying to
shut the file with whatever name was used the last time that file was TEXTed
or KEEPed. The last text/keep name is retained in the QEDIT user label from
one session to the next, and may be months or years old! This could attempt
to rename the file as something totally unpredictable, such as a file in
another group or account, if that's where this file originally came from. If
you're lucky, the shut will fail for some reason, such as attempting to
rename across accounts, or invalid group name. The file would then retain
its old name. It's also possible that the file has never been texted or
kept, in which case the SHUT * would surely fail. But if you're unlucky, the
SHUT * will actually work, renaming your file so that you won't be able to
find it, and possibly purging a perfectly good existing file in the process.
It's possible that a number of QEDIT files were all originally TEXTed from a
single file. In that case each one would be shut to its original name, one
after the other, until all you were left with was a single QEDIT file having
only the contents of the most recently SHUT file. Wow! These are a lot of
undesirable consequences for such an innocent-looking command.
I should point out that both MPEX and QEDIT are performing perfectly, doing
exactly what you asked them to do. The problem lies in not realizing exactly
what you're asking. The HP 3000 is not yet a do-what-I-meant computer,
unfortunately.
If you feel that you must use MPEX, here is a slightly better method:
%qedit @.source(code<>qedit),shut * {Still don't do this}
This command omits QEDIT files from the fileset, thus ensuring that QEDIT
files won't get renamed into oblivion. I say slightly better, because this
still has the effect of converting everything that's not QEDIT into QEDIT.
This includes program files, USL files, VPLUS forms files, etc. This is
still not good.
A better way of using MPEX is the following command:
%qedit @.source(code=0),shut * {Do this for SPL, Fortran, etc.}
%qedit @.source(code=edtct),shut * {and do this for COBOL}
This will convert only files that have no filecode or are COBOL source. This
is a lot closer to the desired effect. It's still possible to convert a file
that shouldn't be converted (e.g., a job stream or data file), but there's no
helping that.
By far the best method of converting files to QEDIT format is to use our
QCOPY program. It automatically skips over files that are already in QEDIT
format, and omits any files that shouldn't be converted, such as program
files, etc. The syntax is similar to FCOPY, and it accepts the at-sign
wildcard to indicate all files in a group. For example, to convert a group
of files to QEDIT format, leaving them with their same names:
:run qcopy.qlib.robelle
>from=@.source;qedit
>exit
Or, to convert them, making copies and leaving the originals untouched:
>from=@.source;to=@.qsource;qedit
Now you know the right way, and a whole bunch of wrong (or less right) ways.
Take your pick.
N.B. A new version of MPEX, expected to be released by summer '88, will
reportedly eliminate the problem by allowing you much more flexibility in
specifying the operations to be performed on the qualifying file. It will
also allow you to specify (code=0 or edtct) in one pass, an operation which
currently requires two MPEX passes.
SELECT Version B.07
Just released. New features: :MPE commands at SELECT command prompts; "Okay
to exit" question to prevent accidental exit.
QLIB Version 4.0
QueryCalc. Some of you who tried Equater! in our latest QLIB were intrigued
by the built-in "sales pitch" for QueryCalc. For your information, the price
of QueryCalc is $5500 US until February 15, 1988, $7000 US thereafter.
Contact AICS in New Mexico directly at (505) 526-6842.
TUNER. Version A.00.06 was dropped from the QLIB this month, as HP
distributes its own version A.00.10 of TUNER in TELESUP.