MPE is a business-oriented minicomputer

Minicomputer

A minicomputer is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems and the smallest single-user systems...

 operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

 made by Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...

.

It runs the HP 3000

HP 3000

The HP 3000 series is a family of minicomputers released by Hewlett-Packard in 1973. It was designed to be the first minicomputer delivered with a full featured operating system with time-sharing. The first models were withdrawn from the market until speed improvements could be made. It ultimately...

 family of computers, which originally used HP custom 16 bit stack architecture CISC

Complex instruction set computer

A complex instruction set computer , is a computer where single instructions can execute several low-level operations and/or are capable of multi-step operations or addressing modes within single instructions...

 CPUs

Central processing unit

The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...

 and were later migrated to PA-RISC

PA-RISC

PA-RISC is an instruction set architecture developed by Hewlett-Packard. As the name implies, it is a reduced instruction set computer architecture, where the PA stands for Precision Architecture...

 where the operating system was called MPE/XL. The original version of MPE was written in a language called SPL (System Programming Language); later the name of the OS was changed to MPE/iX to indicate Unix

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

 interoperability with the addition of POSIX

POSIX

POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...

compatibility. The discontinuance of the product line was announced in late 2001 with support from HP terminating at the end of 2010. A number of 3rd party companies have announced plans to support both the hardware and software beyond this date for customers unable or unwilling to migrate to alternative platforms.

External links

• Allegro Consultants, Inc. Free HP 3000 Software, MPE Software Support
• Beechglen Development Inc. MPE Software Support
• HP MPE/iX homepage
• HP MPE/iX Command reference
• openMPE Advocates of continued MPE and IMAGE source code access beyond 2010