HP-UX or BSD?

[Peter Schmid]

We have an HP 9000/370 workstation in our laboratory that we use to collect
data through HPIB and GPIO interfaces.  We then analyze the data and send 
commands through the HPIB back to the experiment for control.  The HPIB is
also connected to an HP2563 line printer and an HP9144 cartridge tape unit.
In addition to those tasks, the workstation also acts as a gateway to a
subnet of pc-s in the lab.  The computer was one of about 20 acquired in a
consortium with other researchers which is now breaking up.  The consortium 
collected fees from the members to purchase an HP-UX site license and acquire 
software and hardware support from HP.  The problem we are faced with is the 
site license for HP-UX may be dropped leaving us with two options.  Either we 
can come up with the big bucks and stay with HP-UX and thereby ensure that we
will be able to reliably carry out our experiments using the present HPIB/GPIO 
setup, or we can switch to Berkeley Unix (BSD) which will cost us close to 
nothing and can be supported by the campus computing organization.  I know a
port of BSD Unix has been made to the HP 9000/300 series of computers.  My
question is if the port includes routines that will use the HPIB and GPIO
interfaces like the DVIO routines built into the HP-UX kernel.  Does anyone
out there use BSD on an HP9000/370 and have interfaced to lab equipment
other than printers/plotters/tape drives?  Do BSD drivers for HPIB and 
GPIO interfaces exist?  Would it be difficult to take data and control an
experiment via HPIB using BSD?  Any help or pointers would be greatly
appreciated.  You may respond via e-mail or post if you think it may be of 
general interest.  Thanks in advance!  --  pete

		Peter Schmid  <schmid at plasma.Colorado.EDU>