[comp.emacs] Information

cire@CLASH.CISCO.COM (06/14/88)

>> Date: Mon, 13 Jun 88 05:44:30 MDT
>> From: John R. Pliler <JPLILER@simtel20.arpa>
>> Subject: Information
>> To: info-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu
>> 
>> I was wondering if you are going to port GNU software (Emacs in
>> particular) to the HP3000's with the MPE operating system in the
>> future.
>> 
>> John Pliler
>> White Sands Missile Range
>> -------

I used to work at HP at the Computer Systems Division (they make the HP3000)
and later in ITG (they make the Spectrum machines).  I was also involved
with the port of GNU Emacs to HP's HP9000 series 800 machines.  These are
HP Spectrum machines running HP-UX, as SYS5 + Berkeley Unix derivative.

Gnu Emacs runs just fine on the HP9000s800.  As far as 3000's are concerned
don't expect it soon.  First there are two major flavors of 3000's these
days, old and new.  New 3000's are based on HP's Spectrum machines while
old 3000's are the old 3000 native architecture.  It would be very
difficult to port GnuEmacs to the old 3000s because of the architecture.
Porting to new 3000s is much more feasiable but will still probably be
difficult.  GnuEmacs is written assuming Unix like system calls.  Someone
would have to make MPE's system calls look like this or write a GnuEmacs
interface layer that will all GnuEmacs to run.  Both of these would
involve a reasonable amount of effort.  You can tell if you have a
new 3000 if it is running MPE XL.

If you want to do this good luck.  It would probably be simpler to
buy a Unix machine.

-c