Remote VPLUS

Remote VPLUS invocation facility is a quick and dirty prototype for intercepting calls to the VPLUS intrinsic API and redirecting them to an(other) MPE/iX session across a socket connection.

It can be useful when debugging a VPLUS program on an HP 3000, where the VPLUS screens can be sent to a separate terminal (which does not have to be a nailed DTC serial LDEV) so that they don't interfere with the debugger output.

It can also be useful when trying to migrate VPLUS based programs to another platform (like Unix) where no immediate replacement for the VPLUS user interface might be available. By redirecting VPLUS calls to an HP 3000 session, you can first focus on other migration issues before having to deal with the user interface.

You can download Remote VPLUS in three different flavours: one provides a pure source code package for the C and Java parts as well as the Pascal and Cobol example, the other two provide the source files as well as precompiled binaries for MPE/iX 7.0 or HP-UX 11.0 respectively. (Please note that the Java stuff is an optional part and does not yet provide a GUI replacement for VPLUS screens).

Note that the MPE/iX binaries have been compiled with STUB=stub.o and thus do not cover the VGETSAVEFIELD and VPUTSAVEFIELD intrinsics. This is appropriate for all systems that do not have these installed or installed properly (due to a "bad" VPLUS patch). If you also need those two intrinsics, you can "rm rvpserv" and "make mpeix" to relink without the stub.o routines. You won't need a C compiler for this.

Updated versions for MPE and HP-UX are available here...

Have fun with Remote VPLUS, but keep in mind: use at your own risk

Lars Appel, 21.apr.02 / 15.jun.03