%META:TOPICINFO{author="NewsWireRon" date="1166199928" format="1.1" version="1.2"}%
%META:TOPICPARENT{name="HP3000FAQ"}%
The Hewlett-Packard 3000 Series business computer. 

The HP 3000 was the first *minicomputer* — a type of business computer smaller and easier to manage than a mainframe — to include a database from some of its earliest versions onward. This distinction helped to set the stage for success for this system, which boasted 70,000 working systems at its peak in the late 1980s. The HP 3000 continues to work in major corporations and modest-sized companies today, more than 30 years after that database was included.

This database, IMAGE, sparked the creativity and enterprise of the computer customer who bought their system to gain more control of their business operations. Mainframe systems could only be changed through intensive programming, and a mainframe did its processing batch mode. The HP 3000, like other “minis” in its nascent years, let users interact directly with the computer’s data in IMAGE databases. This online processing, along with do-it-yourself mentality of IT in the period when the 3000 was breaking into the computing community, put the 3000 on the ground floor of business computing. Some applications written in this late-70s period are still working — updated many times — to this day.

The other element of the 3000’s success has been its operating environment, first called MPE, then MPE XL, and finally MPE/iX. While the early hardware has been completely overhauled, designs scrapped or its interfaces revised, MPE and its successors permit the 3000 customer use a program over and over, through newer generations of 3000 systems. This *backward compatibility* is essential to the value of owning an HP 3000; it keeps a customer from needing to revamp programs simply because they install newer 3000 models.

HP overhauled the architecture of the 3000 in 1987 when it introduced the first RISC-based processor for a business computer. PA-RISC expanded the space where a program could reside in the 3000. This change enables  the computer to use mapped memory to accomodate much larger applications and more far more data to and from those applications. HP’s revision of the 3000 introduced MPE XL at the same time. A modern wonder of the new XL version was its “Compatibility Mode,” which let customers skip extensive rewriting of those DIY, home-grown applications which ran their businesses.

These changes made the 3000 a solid choice from a technical and a business value perspective, but the computer did not fare well in HP’s plans for its future business products. A rival Unix offering from HP rose in preference at the corporation, costing the HP 3000 critical resources in R&D and partner outreach. By the middle 1990s, analysts and editors were predicting the imminent demise of the system, simply because it did not use Unix or Windows as its operating environment.

-- Main.NewsWireRon - 15 Dec 2006

Models range from desktop to mainframe class multiprocessors, all 100% source and object code compatible. With an operating system known for its robustness and capability for handling business-critical applications with very high throughput, the HP3000 has developed a loyal following of both users and software developers. Bundled with a powerful DBMS (Image/SQL) and batch job and spooling control software, HP3000s are cost effective and reliable computing platforms, whether in host-based computing or client-server applications. 

-- Main.ChrisBartram - 30 Nov 2006