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MPE, MPE XL, MPE/iX
Developer Hewlett-Packard
Written inSystem Programming Language, HP Pascal, Assembly language
Working stateDiscontinued
Initial release1974; 50 years ago (1974)
Latest release7.5 / August 2002; 21 years ago (2002-08)
Platforms HP 3000
Default
user interface
Command-line interface
License Proprietary

MPE (Multi-Programming Executive) is a discontinued business-oriented mainframe computer real-time operating system developed by Hewlett-Packard for their HP 3000 computers. While the HP 3000s were initially mini-mainframes, the final high-end systems supported 12 CPUs and over 2000 simultaneous users.

Description

It runs on the HP 3000 family of computers, which originally used HP custom 16-bit stack architecture CISC CPUs and were later migrated to PA-RISC where the operating system was called MPE XL.

In 1983, the original version of MPE was written in a language called SPL ( System Programming Language). MPE XL was written primarily in Pascal, with some assembly language and some of the old SPL code.

In 1992, the OS name was changed to MPE/iX to indicate Unix interoperability with the addition of POSIX 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 still support both the hardware and software.

In 2002 HP released the last version MPE/iX 7.5. [1]

Commands

Among others, MPE/iX supports the following list of common commands and programs. [2]

References

External links