ftp.robelle3000.ai 2014/2014.06.ftp.robelle3000.ai.tar/ftp.robelle3000.ai/newsletter/1988/w1988-01.txt

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         What's Up DOCumentation



        Robelle Consulting Ltd.
        8648 Armstrong Rd., R.R.#6
        Langley, B.C.  Canada V3A 4P9
        Telephone: [phone]  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 [phone].

 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 [phone].

 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: [phone].


            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 [phone].

 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 [phone].

 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.