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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 Fax: (604) 888-7731 Date: May 17, 1989 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, 1989 #4 What You Will Find in This News Memo: News Tidbits QEDIT and SUPRTOOL Tutorials Technical Tips Need a Menu Program for Your Users? Notes From European Meeting in Brussels Better-Than-Ever SUPRTOOL About Robelle New Prices Robelle Products: Problems, Solutions, and Suggestions News Tidbits APPIC. Michel Kohon has left Tymlabs and is marketing the software he developed through a company named APPIC. One product, now named Magician, intercepts the MPE Break key to bring up a menu of choices. Another product, Windows/3000, provides PC-like windows on HP 3000s (amazing!). Telephone (512) 346-0962 in Texas or (33) 1-64 54 87 37 in France. Smoke and Fire. In a previous news memo, we reported on smoking 700 series terminals due to faulty capacitors used in manufacturing. Now we hear from John King of Cyanamid that one of his 700/92 terminals started smoking last fall. Quick calls to HP confirmed that they knew nothing about the problem. He had big hassles trying to get the faulty capacitors replaced. Since Cyanamid is a chemical manufacturer, "Where there's smoke there's fire" is their motto, the safety people were very concerned about the possibility of smoke re-occurring. HP sold many of these low-cost terminals to third-party vendors, and hence have no idea as to their whereabouts. Users should call HP and ask for the free fix. Only 700/92s manufactured prior to April 1988 have this problem. Tutorial Slide Packages. QEDIT and SUPRTOOL users should have received printed packages of training material in the last few months. We are very interested in hearing from anyone who has tried using these slides for training. Were they worthwhile? How could they be better? Call us at (604) 888-3666 and let us know. QEDIT & SUPRTOOL TUTORIALS Location: Four Seasons Hotel 791 West Georgia Street Vancouver, British Columbia Dates: Monday, June 19th: 9:00am - 5:00 pm QEDIT Tuesday, June 20th: 9:00am - 5:00 pm SUPRTOOL Lunch: Included with registration both days. Cost: $100/day US $125/day CDN Robelle is offering in-depth tutorials on the use of its QEDIT and SUPRTOOL products, each tutorial lasting a full day. Come to one or both. Your instructors will be Bob Green and David Greer, who created QEDIT and SUPRTOOL. The tutorials will be helpful for existing users and for people who are considering a purchase of the products (bring a friend). The day-long format provides time to cover advanced features and to answer user questions about specific problems. Each participant will receive reference manuals, plus copies of the training material (give the course yourself at home!). Advanced topics. Interfacing QEDIT to COBOL, MPEX, Powerhouse, Reflection, TDP, Command Files and UDCs. Selecting and extracting data from multiple files and datasets using SUPRTOOL's new SUPRLINK option and improved TABLE command. On-line editing of dataset entries and chains using SUPRTOOL's DBEDIT option. Turbocharging COBOL programs with the Speed Demon intrinsics. Class size is strictly limited, so call Robelle at (604) 888-3666 to reserve your seats. *c1950a1bP*c650b1aP*p+1950X*c650b1aP*p-1950x+650Y*c1950a1bP*p-650Y Registration For Company: *c1950a100b15g2P Attendee Name Telephone Qedit Fee Suprtool Fee Total Fee *c1950a1bP*c100b1aP*p+1950X*c100b1aP*p-1950x+100Y*c1950a1bP*p-100Y 1. 2. *c1950a1bP*c100b1aP*p+1950X*c100b1aP*p-1950x+100Y*c1950a1bP*p-100Y 3. 4. Deadline. Complete and return the registration form by June 14th, 1989. We require either payment with registration (in US or CDN$) or a purchase order number. Make checks payable to Robelle Consulting Ltd. If you have any questions, please call Marie at (604) 888-3666. For Out-Of-Towners. We have booked a block of rooms at the Four Seasons Hotel at a special conference rate. Call (604) 689-9333 to reserve a room, and remember to register under Robelle Consulting Ltd. to get the discounted room rate. The easiest way to get from Vancouver International Airport to the Four Seasons is by taxi. You probably won't need to rent a car, since the hotel is within walking distance of many Vancouver attractions. Technical Tips Reflection Exit Key. I am a big fan of Reflection from Walker Richer and Quinn. But there's one thing that's always bugged me: the ALT-X keystroke for exiting from Reflection back to DOS. It's too close to the ALT-D key which is used for deleting lines in QEDIT's VISUAL mode. Accidentally pressing ALT-X and shutting down Reflection in the middle of a VISUAL screen is pretty disastrous. WRQ has added a `remappable keyboard' in a recent version of Reflection which allows the user to specify what keys perform which functions. I changed the exit-to-dos function to be activated by a different, harder-to-type key sequence. First I built a DOS file called REMAP.KBM with the following lines: KEYBOARD-ID = ENHANCED TERM = HP alt x = null alt ctrl x = exit-to-dos Then I activated the changes by typing C:> KEYMAP REMAP.KBM R1.CFG at the DOS prompt. [Mike Shumko] Splash Timings. The Native-Mode SPL compiler for Spectrum keeps improving - latest timing test shows a 30% improvement in CPU time over the Object Code Translator. Good work, guys. For SPLASH information, phone (206) 463-3030. MPE XL Tidbits. One of our users, Dave Rochford, sent us the following notes: The measurement interface can only collect data on 639 processes, even though we have 1100-1200. Rumored to be fixed in 1.2' (prime). On our 950 system, no sessions or jobs can log on when we get above 750 spoolfiles. MPE XL limits are the same as MPE V and will not change until a new HP spooler is available. NBSPOOL from QUEST is terrific for saving jobs and spoolfiles on XL when doing START NORECOVERY. It also allows you to view open spoolfiles and waiting jobs. Couldn't do without it. TRANSACT/XL is filled with bugs. We can't even use it yet. It spends 25-30% of its time in CM when it does work. HELP!!! The latest version of QEDIT does terminal status requests when you run it, unless it thinks you are in batch mode. Unfortunately, if you create a REMOTE SESSION from a batch job on another machine, MPE will act as if you are a session, even though there is no terminal at the end of the DSLINE. QEDIT will eat the first two QEDIT commands from the batch job as unsuccessful responses to status requests. We have tried finding some MPE action that will act differently in this case, but most respond exactly the same whether there is a batch job or a true session on the other machine (this included checking the terminal speed, if you can believe that!). We thought we had one, FdeviceControl 192/28 (block mode status); it worked on MPE G.B3.04, but failed on G.A3.01. Any ideas? We're desperate. [Bob Green] Just for Laughs. If you have MPEX from VESOFT, try typing %!LISTF fileset,1701. It's especially funny if any files in the fileset are being accessed. Hint for Trekkers: 1701 is the registry number of the Enterprise. Notes From European Meeting in Brussels David Greer, Cub Reporter Series 955. Currently in Beta-test (two months ahead of schedule). The Series 955 is 50% faster than a Series 950, when both are using MPE XL Version 1.2. MPE XL 2.0. Scheduled for late 1989 or early 1990. Version 2.0 will include DTC switching and Turbo Store. MPE XL Performance. An OCT program is often 3-4 times faster than the equivalent CM program. The speed of an NM program depends on the system/user code ratio. The NM extra data segment intrinsics use mapped files. There are two types of procedure calls: inter-procedure and intra-procedure. Inter-procedure calls require three instructions; intra-procedure calls require twenty-four instructions. Use Linkedit to rearrange procedures to minimize intra-procedure calls. The Tune command can have a tremendous impact on MPE XL system performance. Start with the MPE V/E values, try playing with small changes to the Tune command (while continuously monitoring overall response time). HP doesn't have any guidelines, except to use trial-and-error. Better-Than-Ever SUPRTOOL SUPRTOOL is an HP 3000 utility for ultra-fast data extract from IMAGE, KSAM, or MPE files. SUPRTOOL lets you restructure and print fields, and provides convenient, interactive editing of databases. Robelle keeps making SUPRTOOL better every year. Some of the enhancements for SUPRTOOL Version 3.1: * SUPRLINK is a new program for high-speed, multiple-file linkage: Robelle's solution to the problem of multiple datasets. With SUPRLINK, your report program won't have to hunt all over the database to collect your data. Instead, you stay inside SUPRTOOL, and extract and link records from up to seven files, producing a composite record with all the data needed for your report program. SUPRLINK uses fast serial extracts plus efficient merges to give you multiple-file extracts with SUPRTOOL's legendary speed. * Vastly Improved Table Searching. SUPRTOOL provides table lookups for doing searches on long lists of values. With the Table command, you can use key-values from one dataset to select records from other datasets. For example, you could create a file of parts-numbers for a product, then match it against the datasets for inventory, parts-ordered, and back-orders. The size of your table is limited only by the size of your system. You can hold and re-use tables in several extract tasks. * Speed Demon is a set of intrinsics that you install in the System SL. You can make your own COBOL, FORTRAN, or Pascal programs run faster if you call Speed Demon for serial reads through large datasets. Speed Demon returns records to your programs five times faster than IMAGE, and doesn't consume large chunks of your stack space. New this year: Speed Demon supports partial field-lists. * Exporting Data to a PC. If you have tools (like AdvanceLink or Reflection) to send data down-line to your PC, perhaps SUPRTOOL can take care of some of the formatting details. SUPRTOOL's new Output option can convert your HP 3000 data into PRN-files that Lotus 1-2-3 can read. SUPRTOOL will remove double quotes, convert binary to ascii, insert commas between fields, and more, saving you a lot of data-twiddle. You will find a complete description of all of this year's new features in our change notice, or see the updated User Manual. You may print your own copies of the User Manual for any of our products. The change notice provides printing directions for lineprinter and LaserJet, or use SUPRTOOL's Help command (type "help manual"). Our on-line help file comprises the entire SUPRTOOL User Manual and Quick Reference Guide. This year, the update tape includes course materials for an Introduction to SUPRTOOL class. All users of SUPRTOOL covered by service will receive an update tape automatically. SUPRTOOL is fully supported on MPE XL, and there is no upgrade charge. For more information on SUPRTOOL, call Robelle at (604) 888-3666. Trial tapes are free. Need a Menu Program for Your Users? You Already Have One! YES! and the name is SELECT. Every user of QEDIT, SUPRTOOL, DBAUDIT, and XPRESS also receives SELECT, our menu front-end program for users. Many sites use SELECT to connect all their users to the appropriate applications and tools, without giving them access to MPE directly. Each menu choice can execute a series of MPE commands for the user including User-Defined Commands (UDCs) and Command Files, or pull up another list of menu choices, or display help text. SELECT has the same MPE simulator as QEDIT, so it can "Hold" programs suspended after you run them once (up to 20 programs). Once the users access and suspend their favorite menu choices, they can switch between them instantly: no waiting for the program to load, then open the databases and the forms file. SELECT will work on any type of CRT, but if you have HP terminals you get display enhancements and, optionally, function keys. And, in version 3.1 (just released), the users can press either RETURN or ENTER after selecting their menu choice -- important if your users are trained to press ENTER for VPLUS. Linking a user to his menu choices can be done by MPE user name, by user and account name, by account name, by SESSION name, or through the INFO= parameter. Configuration options control whether to display menu choices by default (for beginners) or wait for user request (experienced users soon memorize the choices), whether to clear display memory for each menu screen (actually, it just does a Home Down and Next Page, but it looks like the screen is cleared), whether to display relative numbers for menu choices (1,2,3,...) or hard-coded numbers (they never change, so users don't need to re-learn the menus each time you add or delete a choice!), whether to pause before returning from a menu choice to re-display the menu, whether to use system-defined UDCs or a specific UDC file, whether to display one or two columns of menu choices per screen, whether to allow MPE commands to the user, what title to display, and how many programs to hold. For a demonstration of SELECT, enter this command: :run select.pub.robelle,qlib SELECT has a special entry point that brings up menus to define, edit and test the user menus -- no need to write code or use QUERY. Other entry points list the menu details for any (or all) users, dump menu choices to a disc file, and load menu choices from a file. And the investment to acquire SELECT is reasonable: no extra charge for Robelle users. About Robelle Doing It Right With Electronic Mail. Marie Froese of Robelle is writing a paper on electronic mail. If anyone has had interesting experiences with E-mail on the HP 3000 (positive or negative), she would be interested to hear about them and work them into her paper. New Prices Robelle prices haven't been revised in years -- QEDIT hasn't changed since it was introduced in 1977 -- and it is finally time to adjust for inflation and changing markets. Prices will be changing on January 1, 1990. QEDIT. In the last ten years, the functionality of QEDIT has increased tremendously, but not the price. Now we are changing the License fee to $4000 US, the Right-to-Copy fee to $1000, and the yearly Maintenance fee to $800. Remember, the license fee includes the first year of maintenance. SUPRTOOL. This product now has the SUPRLINK module for linking multiple-datasets, DBEDIT for on-line database editing, and Speed Demon for enhancing 3GL programs. Accordingly, we are revising the prices as we did for QEDIT: License fee $4000, Right-to-Copy $1000, and Maintenance $800. DBAUDIT. This tool for reporting database transactions and extracting them into regular MPE files will have a new License fee of $3000 US, with a Right-to-Copy of $750 per cpu, and Maintenance at $600 per year. XPRESS. Version 2.6 of our electronic mail package, due to be released this year, will add a major new capability: transfer of MPE files with messages, including across multi-machine networks. The License fee will be $5000 US, Right-to-Copy fee will be $1250 per cpu, and Maintenance will be $1000 per year after the first year. Plenty of Time. We are giving you a six-month warning in case you were contemplating obtaining any of these tools and would like to do so at the lower price schedule. These changes are effective January 1, 1990, except that maintenance renewals will be at the old rates until July 1, 1990. That is, we are giving existing users a full year's notice of new maintenance fees, so they can work that into their budgets. Some things do not change. Maintenance for extra cpus is still free, as long as only one person calls from the customer central site and you want only one update tape. And machine size still doesn't matter: a Series 37 or a Series 950 uses our software for the same fee. *c1950a550b5g2P*p-50Y New US Prices New Canadian Prices License ExtraCpu Maint. License ExtraCpu Maint. DBAUDIT $3000 $750 $600 $3600 $900 $720 XPRESS $5000 $1250 $1000 $6000 $1500 $1200 SUPRTOOL $4000 $1000 $800 $4800 $1200 $960 QEDIT $4000 $1000 $800 $4800 $1200 $960 Robelle Products: Problems, Solutions, and Suggestions SUPRTOOL Version 3.1.1 Lotus Files. The PRN output option will often produce invalid output for display-type (Zoned) fields. All other data types work correctly. This will be fixed in the next beta-test version. QEDIT Version 3.7 and 3.7.1 STREAMX UDC. Here's a new STREAMX UDC which works inside QEDIT and from MPE. It gets around a problem in QEDIT's parameter parsing code: stream filename=$stdin, colonrepl=" ",sched=" ",questrepl="?" comment comment ***************************************************** comment this udc for streaming jobs. the file equate sets comment file to be streamed when streamx is run with parm=1. comment parameters are the same as in MPE. comment file strmfile=!filename run streamx.pub.security;parm=1;& info='!"colonrepl"!"questrepl"!"sched"' reset strmfile *** MPE XL 1.2 Typeahead. The newest release of MPE XL has typeahead, but you cannot use this with block-mode applications like QEDIT. We are working on a pre-release of QEDIT to automatically disable typeahead when you go into VISUAL and re-enable it when you leave, but just avoid it (type-ahead, not QEDIT) in the meantime. Typeahead only works up to a limit of 240 characters (one packet), and it provides a "convenience" double-echo that many users have found disruptive (Reflection and TypeAhead Engines only echo when the data is actually transferred to the application program, but MPE XL echoes as you type and again later). Here is a WARNING from the HP manual: No attempt should be made to use typeahead mode at a terminal that is running an application which has not been specifically coded for typeahead processing. For your information, here are the new FdeviceControl calls for typeahead: Function P1 P2 Buf Action Set Typeahead mode 192 51 0 Disables typeahead 1 Enables typeahead Flush typeahead buffer 192 60 0 Cancel request 1 Flush buffer on next FREAD Bypass typeahead buffer 192 61 0 Cancel request 1 Go direct to CRT on next FREAD These three options are both Read and Write. That is, Buf can pass in a new setting and/or read out the current setting. The Bypass function is useful when you want to do a terminal status request. Here is some more discussion from the HP documentation: "By allowing typeahead mode you can make it possible for the user of the application to enter data that the user knows will be required before the application actually requests the data. "Suppose, for example, that your program issues a series of questions designed to allow an interactive user with the proper access codes to gain entry to a database program. Without typeahead mode active, the program writes each question on the user's terminal screen and waits for a reply. Each replay may require some additional processing before the next question is written to the screen. In some cases the delay between questions may be quite noticeable. "If typeahead mode is on, however, a user who is familiar with the series of questions can type replies to all of the questions at once, without regard to processing delays. As long as the replies are entered in the required sequence for the application, and separated from each other by an EOR, they will be accepted as valid replies. "After all of the replies have been entered, the user will still have to wait for the application to process the replies before being granted access to the database. But now all of the waiting is at the end of the question sequence, and the user is free to perform some other task instead of having to wait for the next question. "When data is entered from a terminal with typeahead mode active, the data is staged in a special typeahead buffer before being sent through to the process requesting the data. Any read posted against a terminal with typeahead mode active will first access the typeahead buffer, rather than accepting data directly from the device. "The typeahead buffer is limited to 240 bytes; anything in excess of this limit will cause an XOFF to be sent. You should be sure that XON/XOFF transmission pacing is enabled for the terminal if typeahead mode is used. You should avoid using typeahead mode if you anticipate that reads will exceed 240 bytes, to avoid overflowing the typeahead buffer. "If typeahead is on but the terminal user has not typed ahead, the system will act in essentially the same way that it would if typeahead were not enabled. A DC1 read trigger will be sent to the terminal any time the system is ready to receive data, and there is no data in the typeahead buffer. If, however, the user has typed ahead, and there is data in the buffer, the system will simply accept the typed ahead data, and will not send a DC1 read trigger to the terminal. "When typeahead is in use the terminal user will, in most cases, see input echoes to the terminal twice. The first echo is a "convenience echo", which appears when the data is being typed. This echo allows the user to see the characters that are typed, and to make corrections, if necessary, before pressing enter. "The second echo appears at the time the data in the typeahead buffer is actually accepted by the system. This echo lets the user know that the read is being processed. "There are, however, certain cases in which the first echo will not be seen at the terminal. For example, if the terminal user types ahead while the system is displaying data (such as the output to a :LISTF command), the convenience echo will not appear. Also, a user whose terminal is in typeahead mode but who is not typing ahead will see the input echoed only once." Prose Version 2.7 You can use PROSE to print all our documentation on your LaserJet printer. For some font cartridges, your output will include boldface, italics, and proportional spacing. But this works on a LaserJet II only when your front panel is configured to FONT SOURCE=I and FONT NUMBER=00. This is the factory default setting, so you should be all right unless you've changed it. *c1950a400b5g2P*p-50Y Fortune Cookie of the Month. Question: How much should you pay for a painting? Answer: $2000. Proof: A picture is worth a thousand words; A word is 16 bits; A quarter is two bits, so a word is two dollars; Therefore, a picture is worth two thousand dollars. [Eugene]