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WORKSTATION NEWS | | MacFair falters in expo race NEW YORK — The overheated exposition market had its first casu- alty this week: New York’s MacFair. Scheduled for Oct. 2-4 at New York's Jacob Javits Convention Center, the event was called off due to poor ven- dor commitment. “MacFair is withering. We're going to postpone it this year,” said Th set ari type standard Introduction at at Seybold Victor Harwood, president of Ameri- | can Expositions, the show’s organiz- | er, which is now putting its re- sources into an expanded October HyperExpo in Boston. Competition from Cambridge Marketing Inc. and its 1988 Macin- tosh Business Conference & Exposi- tion in Anaheim, Calif, Nov. 1-3 was Cited as a leading reason for Mac- See MACFAIR, Page 8 sna Peripheral Land ships fix for drives FREMONT, Calif. — A system fail- ure that caused several models of its drives to fail to boot was confirmed last week by Peripheral Land Inc. The drives and software affected include the Value Line series 30- Mbyte and 50-Mbyte; Turbo series 70-Mbyte, 90-Mbyte, 100-Mbyte and 144-Mbyte models; and the Infinity 40 removable hard disks that were shipped from PLI between Aug. 3 | and Aug. 11 PLI currently is shipping a fix for the affected drives. Users can con- tact the company at (800) 288-8754 or (415) 651-5948. C Borland lays off staff, reorganizes SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif, — In an attempt to pull its sagging profits into line with its booming sales, Bor- land International Inc. announced a , about 13 percent of its last week. The restructuring involved five major points, of which one is to heighten the company’s “focus on key successful products,” according to a written statement. No Macin- tosh products were mentioned. BY ( CUFF | LEHMAN HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. — As other typesetter manufacturers start to play serious catch up in the race to get PostScript and PostScript-compatible typesetters to market, Linotype Co. will introduce a new, more competi- tive machine in an attempt to maintain iits position as the industry pacesetter. = Linotronic Linot 1300 rd i $65,000 | 1,693 2540 Speed at 7.$°/min 14.17 /min 1270 og Thief nabbed in MacScam BY ALAN BRODY BOSTON — One customer who took desktop publishing to heart and plagued computer dealers up and down the East Coast with bad checks was finally arrested by the Boston police in conjunction with the U.S. Secret Service. Prior to his arrest, the suspect, Paul J, Sjiemfat, who used the aliases Paul Marques, Jack Kelly, David Peters and others had tried to pass a counterfeit bank check at New York's Microcomputer Publishing Center (see MacWE Aug. 30). With the trained eye of a print executive, Microcomputer President David Pin- cus had identified it as phoney. According to Tom McCarthy, assistant to the special agent in charge of the Secret Service, the ecks were very convincing. The ret Service was called in to make the Bank of Boston, which appeared See BAD CHECK, Page 9 the arrest with the Boston police by | According to David Dinin, president of the Hauppauge, N.Y., company, the Linotronic 200P is sched- uled to be intro- duced next week at the Seybold Desktop Publish ing Conference in Santa Clara, Calif. Shipments are scheduled to begin at the same time, The new typesetter, which will re- place the Linotronic 100 as the low end of Linotype’s typesetter family, will come in two configurations: One version has a 20-Mbyte hard disk and is tentatively priced at $28,950, the LETT TTT TTT TTT AIUTLUUANN Av ‘COURTESY UMOTTPE The Linotronic 200P jumps over the L100 with simpler technology borrowed from the high-end L300. other, with an 80-Mbyte hard disk, is expected to cost $34,950, according to Lou Tortora, director of marketing and product managment at Linotype. ‘The L100 was priced at $36,000. Both versions offer 635-, 846- and 1,270-dpi resolution modes. The 80- See LINOTRONIC, Page 8 Ventura Publisher coming to Mac PC page-layout leader to be ported BY CONNIE GUGLIELMO SAN DIEGO — A Macintosh ver- sion of Xerox Corp.’s best-selling Ventura Publisher desktop publish ing program for the PC is currently under development but will proba- bly not reach the market before the end of the year, said sources close to the company. The Mac version of the $895 MS- DOS program reportedly is being developed by Ventura Software Inc., the Salinas, Calif., company that three years ago created Ventura Publisher, Although it granted worldwide marketing rights for the PC pro- | gram to Xerox's San Diego-based Apple Apple prestiant Jean-Louis Gassée is a man of many facets, Page 19. Desktop Software Business Unit, Ventura retains responsibility for product development, including upgrades and new versions of the desktop publishing program. “We do development and they do market- ing,” said Don Heiskell, vice presi- dent of engineering for Ventura. Heiskell last week declined to comment on a possible Mac version of the program. “Our policy is to not comment on products that may or may not be under development,” he said. “We will not announce new pro- ducts unless we can ship them soon after we make the announcement.” Reportedly working on the Macintosh project for Ventura Soft- ware is indepe! dent programmer Richard Norling, author of Cricket Software's Pict-O- Graph and co-devel- $2.50 Vol. 2 No. 2 No. 38 Mac toolkit for TCP/IP networks BY JON SWARTZ SANTA CLARA, Calif Attempting to bring homogeneity to heterogeneous computer environ- ments, Apple will put its best proto- col forward next month with the introduction of software that links Macs to Transmission Control Pro- tocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP, networks. Apple is expected to make the announcement at the InterOp ‘88 TCP/IP Interoperability Conference and Exhibition, to be held Sept. 26- 30 in Santa Clara, Calif, according to sources at Apple. Apple officials declined to com- ment on the expected announce- ment, but sources said the product would be a toolkit that lets develop- ers create communications applica- tions on top of TCP/IP networking protocols. See TCP/IP, Page 9 oper of Cricket Graph, Norling declined to comment. Although Norling is not a Crick et employee, there was some specu- lation that the Malvern, Pa., compa- ny might be involved in the project. In March, Cricket and Xerox signed a joint-development agreement under which Cricket plans to devel- op graphics programs for the MS- DOS and OS/2 operating systems (see MacWEEK, March 8). However, Cricket CEO Barry Schuler last week quashed rumors See VENTURA, Page 8 A Mac version ot Xerox Corp.’s Ventura Publisher is expected in early 1989. Available for only $999 for the 20MB version and $699 for the JMB version, the Jasmine MegaDnive comes with the simplest, best documentation in the business and:a free “Hard Disk Encyclopedia ee I Meine and MegPipgy ax eateraa dari Fac ka Macinand & + npsionl end Dopmed pple Campden (<2 NEWS Een eee es a Ee Sun licenses SPARC to TI TI announces Cypress deal BY JONATHAN PERROW MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Hoping to leverage its SPARC tech- nology to the forefront of the RISC microprocessor arena, Sun Micro- systems has licensed the technology to manufacture the SPARC chip to Texas Instruments and agreed to co- develop the next generation of SPARC technology with TI, the two companies announced last week. Reinforcing its commitment to 32-bit SPARC, Texas Instruments of Dallas also announced a five year allernate-source agreement with Cypress Semiconductor of San Jose, Calif., maker of the 7C600 RISC microprocessor family, to meet the demand for SPARC chips. Cypress will hold the second- sourcing rights to the next-genera- tion SPARC processor being devel- oped jointly by TI and Sun. Scalable processor architecture, or SPARC, is a RISC (reduced instruction set computing) technolo- fy first introduced by Sun Microsys- tems of Mountain View, Calif. in 1987 and incorporated into the HGS IN THIS ISSUE @ NEWS 4 Pixelogic video color converter 40,000 Sun-4 workstations. Since then, SPARC has been licensed by Bipolar Integrated Technology, Cypress Semiconductor, Fujitsu Microelectronics, LSI Logic and Sol- bourn Computer Inc. By siding with Sun, TI is bolster- ing SPARC's position against Motoro- la's 88000 family of RISC processors announced in April. The subsequent formation of the 88000 consortium, a Coalition of companies including Tek- tronix Inc. of Wilsonville, Ore., that support Motorola's RISC chip set, in many ways mirrors the ‘TI/Sun/Cypress pact. The advantage of a scalable RISC processor, according to those who endorse SPARC, is the ease with which it can be integrated into a broad range of computer platforms, including embedded control. In addition, a range of software, such as text editors, assemblers, linkers and compilers, is already available for the SPARC platform, a claim that 88000 supporters cannot make. “We believe that RISC architec- ture and the SPARC road map will enhance our plan to apply advanced technologies such as Al to future commercial UNIX systems,” said Peter Van Cuylenburg, TI's vice president in charge of business. Texas Instruments plans to i OPINION 16 Editorial develop commercial UNIX System V systems using the SPARC chip with: in about two years, as well as to design, manufacture, market and distribute it worldwide. LSI Logic of Milpitas, Calif, the nation’s largest custom chip maker, last week introduced a low-cost SPARC chip that the company claims is priced at about $10 per micro instruction per second, approximate ly half that of RISC chips from other vendors, the company said. “We're pleased with the TI/Sun announcement,” said Brian Halla, vice president of LSI Logic’s micro- processor products group. “We want to get design momentum started around SPARC.” ATI spokeswoman said her com- pany’s announcement will have no effect on its relationship with Apple, and in the “very near future” TI will announce enhancements to the soft- ware for its microExplorer, an artifi- cial intelligence workstation based on the Mac II, that will allow applica- tion developers to take “full advan- tage of the Mac interface.” 0 $2,745 RISC'S share of 32-bit micro- processor market {in mitions) $885 Mrom DayStar speeds race for fastest accelerator BY JONATHAN PERROW FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga, — Pumping higher octane into the Mac II, DayStar Digital's latest entry in the unending race for the fastest Mac is a “replacement accelerator” with more than twice the clock speed of an off-the-shelf Mac IL Instead of plugging into one of the Mac Il’s six NuBus slots, the DayStar O thirty-three, announced at the Macworld Expo in Boston last month, will physically replace the 16-MHz 68020 on the Macintosh's motherboard with a 33-MHz 68020 and a Motorola 68882 math copro- cessor to accelerate floating-point calculations. 19 Fighting fire with Macs The Mac and CAMEO team up to fight hazardous chemical fires. The replacement operation requires a special tool to remove the old processor. The company said it is planning to leave the swapping procedure to its dealers. When the board ships in the fourth quarter of this year, it will offer a speed increase of between two and four times, according to Donna Boyd Smith, director of mar- keting for DayStar Digital. It will run both the Macintosh operating sys- tem and A/UX. A zero wait-state RAM cache is designed into the board so that the speedy processor won't have to wait for the 120-nanosecond DRAM that ‘comes with the Mac IJ. Users must swap their memory from the @ REVIEWS 38 Super 3D Mac motherboard onto the add-in DayStar board “Ours is the only 33-MHz board that has been announced,” Smith said, adding that DayStar also plans to release an accelerator based on Motorola’s latest 68030 processor, though no date has been set. No pricing is available for the board because Motorola hasn't released details about the availabili- ty of the 33-MHz version of its 68020 processor, Smith said. DayStar Digital manufactures the Novy Mac20MX accelerator for the Mac 512K, Plus and SE. DayStar Digital is located at 5556. Atlanta Highway, Flowery Branch, Ga. 30542; (404) 967-2077. 0 Converter transforms composite video Apple's latest reorganization holds | Silicon Beach's 3-D drawing program sources into the RGB color standard promise—'cs long 03 the Company GA is ideal for designing, used by the Mac. can avoid the perception of being ina Sec tethc, ‘ - state of perpetual change. 38 The week in reviews 5 Colossal-size PostScript output A word processing wish list from Controller outputs large-size 16 Letters bower Mac writers. PostScript graphics from plotters 16 Mac Soapbox 40 Mac-101 ADB Extended Keyboard 6 QuickDraw drivers for color printers Dana Adkins Heljeson laments the This extended keyboard has a famil- RGB Technology creates QuickDraw passing of the toaster Mac. iar look and some nice extras. drivers for Seiko's line of color ther- 15 Steve Rosenthal/Visible Results 42. HyperTools #1 and #2, Icon Factory, mal printers. Steve Rosenthal wonders why human scriptExpert 6 Motorola puts itself in front services organizations don't make bet- A look at four HyperCard tools for Benchmarks suggest Motorola ‘020, ter use of the Mac's capabilities. stack development. ‘030 outperform Intel "386. 15 Round Robin/The Arts A Macintosh on their palette, see li BUSINESS WATCH 8 Relax focuses on optical media Rodney Dangerfield isn't the only one Page 24. is testii who gets no respect. Artist Rick Barry ecu —— : The rast OTR RED eae comments on the poor image of the 24 Boldface 57. Views ou reorganization the optical-media storage waters. 10 MaclnTouch 12 Real-time parallel task processing Flavors’ FT-60 allows parallel pro- cessing of shared tasks between Mac IL and mini- and supercomputers. 12 Convert EPS files to PICT New version of EPS->PICT file converter released. 14 More SPICE for the Mac Electrical circuit simulation program Apple hopes that its realignment will give the company a marketing edge. 57 Cole Gilburne backs the Mac An investment fund with serious Mac leanings. artist who employs desktop technology | 62 Mac the Knife A bone to pick with small caps and other typographical tidbits. | 26 Mix and Mac Artist Marius Johnston uses a variety of media to create his effects. @ WINDOW ON 28 CAD The entry of AutoCAD adds legitima- cy fo. a mature Mac CAD market. 34 Spreadsheets i IN PROFILE 59 Custom Memory Systems to close Damages brought by Sun in lawsuit force drive maker out of business 60 Control Data has links to the Mac Control Data's Mac link has been on released. the market for more than 10 months. 15 TOPS support for Sun a Gane Liraenaton b pe prey 60 Calendar TOPS/VMS delayed as emphasis moves to Sun platform. standard. | 44 aD ele 15 StackWEEK Gassée on Gassbe, see Page 19, 36 Solutions/The User Connection | * repos a Vernon Keenan answers readers’ technical questions. ! Texas stack helps manage large text files and helps find words in a file zi 55 CAREER OPPORTUNITIES 6 September 1988/MacWEEK 3 | Translating video signals to RGB Mac psychedelia due to ship next month Intelligent Music to ship OvalTune Pixelogic to release converter BY CONNIE GUGLIELMO WOBURN, Mass. — Pixelogic Inc. plans to release in September a Video color converter that trans forms real-time composite video sig. nals into the RGB (red green, blue) Color standard used by the Mac Il The $595 converter works with Pixelogic’s ProViz Color Video Digi- {izer. Until now, owners of the $1,695 ProViz digitizer, a SCSI device released in May, have been able to Capture only gray-scale images from an NTSC video source. Color images Could be captured, but only from an RGB video source, such as an RGB camera, said Daniel Miller, technical Operations manager for the Woburn, Mass., company, The converter hooks to ProViz and to any video source conforming to NTSC or European (PAL) video standards, including video cameras and videocassette recorders. In realtime (one-thirtieth of a sec: ond), the converter will transform an NTSC composite color image into the Mac standard RGB image. Captured images can be saved in Encapsulated PostScript, TIFF, PICT, RIFF and HyperCard formats and then exported to graphics and desk top publishing programs. Pixelogic Inc. is at 800 W. Cum- mings Park, S 2900, Woburn. Mass. 01801; (617) IL BY CLAIR WHITMER CUPERTINO, Calif. — By popu lar demand, the Apple HyperCard User Group, or AHUG, is expanding from a local to a national organiza- tion. Originally organized before the official introduction of HyperCard as an inhouse group without a formal charter or business plan, AHUG is now looking to become a full fledged users group with members from all over the United States and Canada. AHUG has yet to get a full, func- tional staff but is operating under the guidance of Apple's technical librarian and with volunteers from Apple. The group's purpose is to gather comments, ideas and bug reports from HyperCard users and through the electronic networks and monthly meetings, and then cart them back to the HyperCard team. With its expanded influence, the group also will start providing ser- vices to users such as regional train- ing sessions, national meetings at large conferences and trade shows, an address on AppleLink and even- tually the AppleLink Personal Edi- tion system, and other plans that Apple is still keeping under wraps. “You're not going to see a major explosion of AHUG,” said President Bryan K. Carter, explaining that the plan is to work closely with other 4 MacWEEK/6 September 1988 Pixelogic’s video color converter transforms com- posite video sig- nals into the RGB standard used by the Mac Il. Both color and gray- scale images are Captured in real time. major regional users groups and to expand slowly. Membership is expected to grow from around 250 to 1,000 active members by Dec. 1 ‘The organization will continue to be about 75 percent funded by Apple, but as of September, official mem- bership will cost $10 a year. ‘The group will continue the main- tenance of STAKTrak, a public domain and shareware stack exchange program. AHUG maintains its library by contacting regional users groups and making sure that it has everything they have, AHUG then distributes this information in monthly stack-copying meetings. The group will also continue publishing Windoid, a bimonthly 10- page newsletter that includes tips, tricks and HyperCard news. The publication's 75,000 readers will be required after September to become AHUG members in order to contin- ue their subscriptions. A supplemen- tary two-page newsletter called Pat terns is released every month. San Francisco area users will continue to have their own localized outlet for HyperCard get-togethers with the upcoming formation of a HyperCard Developer's Group under the umbrella of the Software Entrepreneur's Forum of Palo Alto, Calif. Unlike AHUG, which wants “to blur the difference between the user and someone who develops stacks,” according to former President David Leffler, the SEF group is devoted to developers of commercial stacks, Bill Atkinson will appear at the kick-off meeting of the HyperCard Developer's Group. Scheduled for Sept. 8, Atkinson will talk about “serious HyperCard issues and how they relate to the development of products for sale,” said David Gewirtz, president of the HyperCard Developer's Group. Author Dan Shafer and Kristee Kreitman of Apple’s User Interface group are lined up for future meetings, which are normally free to SEF members but $7 to non-members. AHUG can be reached at 20525 Mariani Ave., MS. 27-AHUG, Cuper- tino, Calif. 95014; (408) 974-1707. Software Entrepreneur's Forum can be reached at PO. Box 61031, Palo Alto, Calif 94306; (415) 854-7219, BY CLAIR WHITMER Y. — Intelligent Music is getting ready to ship a new music/graphics program that may be a serious rival with HyperCard for the “program most difficult to describe” award, OvalTune, which was first shown, at last year's August Macworld Expo, “isn't a standard business applica- tion,” said the program's creator David Zicarelli with a chuckle at his understatement. So what does it do? OvalTune generates a random sequence of images such as ovals, squares, straight lines or complex drawings, and up to 16 reflections of the same image in response to movements of the mouse. If the mouse moves slowly, the generated images are small and get bigger the faster the the mouse moves, Through the keyboard, the user controls the image shape and, on a Mac ll, the color. Scanned images and Clipboard files of portions of the screen also can be used as graphic elements, which combine to create an effect that can best be described as kaleidoscopic. In addition to all this psychedelic abundance, the program generates random melodies of sampled sound, played through either the computer ora MIDI-connected synthesizer. The Program comes with 128 sampled sounds but also can play imported MIDI files. In any musical sequence, OvalTune supports up to eight simul- taneous voices, including a track for rhythm and accompaniment. The polyphony support is made possible by the SamplePlayer, a SOU agement tool that Intelligent license to other companies: z The intent of providing oe gram is to pioneer a ne software interactivity, WHERE the computer plays an active parl generation of artistic images: Toit “The computer has some Pat making decisions, either thro random elements or bY se processes,” Zicarelli said. But 60 the user determines the num! random elements that the nn controls, the graphics and na ae “controllable” to the exe ur sonal style can be imprinteds reggae to rock'n'roll to technoPery id Zicareli, He gave a live COP at Stanford University in Calif,, earlier in the summer 4 the program Images generated by can be saved as PICT files entire sequences including ? music. The company envisions Wi ly diverse uses of the $145 progtaitt from being a tool in live per oi mances to fabric pattern desig. the creation of a whole new genre “desktop MTV.” Beta testers of program have already created the- matic music and graphic sequences. such as “Air Force to the Rescue- Although Zicarelli admits that the program could be classified 45 vaporware for the past year, it 1S) now on a fairly firm schedule for. shipment in October. Intelligent Music is located at a | OvalTune or 33am | 116 North Lake Ave,, Albany, N.Ys bs 12206; (518) 434-4110. Data toolkits from Abraxas PORTLAND, Ore, — Abraxas Software Inc. recently announced the shipment of two program devel opment toolkits for the Macintosh. The Portland, Ore., company said it is shipping new toolkits that support the Structured Query Lan- guage and dBASE III Plus lan. guages, in addition to C++ and Smalltalk. The toolkits, which are targeted at programmers, are designed to make it possible to build syntax-directed editors, compilers, browsers and other programming tools for the database and object-ori- ented languages. Both toolkits are shipped with MACYACC, Abraxas’ $395 product query languages. The company offers PCYACC. : “These products are giving pro: grammers a pick, shovel and gold) | pan on their way to the hills object-oriented programmin; Abraxas President Patrick Con said. ; Abraxas Software is located 7083 S,W. Macad: P lam Ave., Po Ore. 97219, (503) 2445253.) Mac Al products hit their stride PostScript plotter controller enables colossal-size output Debuts at show excite viewers BY WILL /McCLATCHY ST. PAUL, Minn. — This is the season of artificial intelligence, and a variety of new products is ripe or nearly ripe for the picking. Most were demonstrated or announced at the recent American Association of Artificial Intelligence conference here. All generated excite- ment from show goers, although somewhat less than earlier announce- ments from Symbolics Inc. and Gold Hill Computers Inc., both of Cam- bridge, Mass., and Texas Instruments of Dallas (see MacWEEK, Aug. 30). Topping the list was Neuron Data Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif, which demonstrated Nextra, a knowledge acquisition tool for Nexpert Object, the company’s expert-systems development package. Developed at the University of Cal- gary in Alberta, Nextra provides graphical methods for describing small bodies of knowledge and allows them to be modeled in Nexpert Object, officials said. The product is available immediately for $4,000. Neuron Data also announced an agreement with Teknowledge Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif, to provide technical support to Nexpert users. Teknowl edge currently offers consulting ser- vices and high-end tools for expert- systems development. HyperCard has a friend in Cogni- tion Technology Corp. of Cam- bridge, Mass., which introduced a stack version of its MacSmarts expert- systems development tool. Called HyperSmarts, the new product brings hypertext functionali- ly to rule-based expert systems. By ling HyperCard through the soft- J nal functions (XFCNs), Smarts allows users to create a mized front end to their expert systems, search through large vol- nes of text, and embed decision- making functionality in standard HyperCard stacks, Cognition officials said. The $99.95 product is sched- uled for release this month. LISP programmers who have been plagued by the inability to access data across networks to feed expert systems may soon get relief with metaCourier, an object- oriented software environment for distributed and parallel processing applications from Symbiotics Inc. of Cambridge, Mass. The software allows users to define objects or portions of code written in high-level code. The code can then be propagated immediately \o other platforms, including person- al computers, DEC VAX and LISP machines from Symbolics Inc. and Tl. In addition, objects can inherit the behavior and attributes of other objects, simplifying the task of modi- fying software. A metaCourier development kit costs $1,695 and the run-time yer- sion costs $495. A version of the product that will support AppleTalk for the Tl-Apple microExplorer, Sym- ‘acquisition tool that first elicits con- ceptual knowledge and then provides a graphical representation of it. bolics’ Maclvory and the Mac II run- ning Coral Common LISP is expect- ed to ship in November. The compa- ny also plans to release a TCP/IP version of the product at a later date. Another high-end product based on the Mac II is -CAT, a diagnostics tool for use in conjunction with auto- matic test equipment from Automat- ed Reasoning Corp. of Roslyn, N.Y. The product allows users to enter the function block schematics that represent the inputs and out- puts of test equipment and devices under examination, as well as infor- mation about reliability and time required for test procedures. -CAT employs Al techniques to perform topology lysis, while taking into account reliability and time con- straints. It then chooses an optimal test strategy that company officials have said can save technicians hours or even days. FCAT can notify technicians of the test sequence visually or auto- matically direct test equipment. After each test result, the system updates its recommendations. The development version of the software costs $20,000, and the run- time version, approximately $5,000. While natural language inter- faces have traditionally taken a back seat to graphical and object-oriented user interfaces on the Mac, Natural Language Inc. of Berkeley, Calif., has ported to the Mac its two con- versational English products, NLI DataTalker and NL Connector, Running under A/UX, the two products allow novice computer users to access database software with full English expressions. DataTalker is a general-purpose nat- ural language interface to A/UX database-management systems, including Oracle from Oracle Corp. of Belmont, Calif, and Ingres from Relational Technology of Alameda, Calif. Connector is an interactive knowledge-based tool for teaching DataTalker additional commands. The programs, which also run on the DEC VAX, are available immediately. DataTalker is priced at $5,000 and Connector at $10,000. Neural network fans also have something to cheer about in Neural- Works Explorer, a neural network system under development by Neu- ralWare Inc. of Sewickley, Pa. Currently available on PCs, Neu- ralWorks Explorer will allow Mac users to model the behavior of com- plex real world systems, such as lab- oratory experiments or stock mar- ket results. The system applies the same formulas that correctly explain historical data to forecast data. The product quickly generates neural networks from default formu- las and comes with more than 280 pages of documentation to help users devise more advanced strate- gies, officials said. Priced at $199, NeuralWorks Explorer for the Mac is expected in the first quarter of next year and will run on the Mac Plus or higher. © Moniterm offers stack advice on buying the right monitor BY CLAIR WHITMER MINNETONKA — To promote its product line and offer a service to users, Moniterm Corp. is now offer- ing a stack called How to Buy the Right Monitor. Derived from the com- pany’s book with the same title, the stack attempts to answer questions ‘such as “What is a monitor” and “Do I need a big-screen monitor?” It also includes basic information on different types of monitors, such as color and gray-scale, and on such characteristics as refresh rates, dots per inch, resolution, clarity, phosphor and glare reduction. The stack also helps users perform on-screen tests that measure a monitor's clarity, read- ability, ghosting and other factors. Complete specifications for each monitor in the company's product line and phone numbers for regional Moniterm dealers are included, The stack is posted on CompuServe, GEnie, Delphi and Moniterm’s bul- letin board at (612) 935-9013. The stack is also available for $5 directly from the company, Moniterm is located at 5740 Green Circle Drive, Minnetonka, Minn, 55343; (612) 935-4151. 0 BY CLIFF LEHMAN MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — A small service bureau, big on ambi- tion, is pumping out monster-size, color PostScript hard copy from its plotters and plans to market the plot- ter controller that makes it possible. Colossal Graphics of Mountain View, Calif, has developed its awn PostScript clone controller to get large-format color PostScript graph- ics output from plotters. The company, which unsuccess- fully sought support for its develop- ment efforts from Adobe Systems Inc. of Mountain View, Calif. even- tually turned to Weitek Corp. of Sun- nyvale, Calif, for support. Colossal has adapted Weitek's HyperScript PostScript clone as well as one of its HyperScript RISC chips for printer controllers for use with a variety of plotters. Colossal also wrote color extensions to HyperScript that enable it to produce full color output up to 30 by 36 inches in size. In addition, Colossal has written its own color- separation software for both Macs and IBM PCs. According to Ron Jones, president and CEO of Colossal, the compa- ny’s controller is the only one of its kind. Colossal’s controller will be available sometime in October, Jones said The controller will work with plotters from Cal- Comp of Anaheim, Calif; the Versatec 2700 plotter line from Versatec Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif; and the Mitsubishi G650 plotter from Mitsubishi Electron- ics America Inc. of Tor- rance, Calif., as well as all large-for- mat CalComp- and Versatec-compati- ble plotters, Jones said. Colossal will concentrate on pro- viding its customers with the over- sized output, but the company also wants to be “a service bureau to ser- vice bureaus,” Jones said. The company will also offer a turnkey solution based on the Sun 386i workstation. Prices have not yet been set on the controller or the turnkey solution, Jones said. “Our long-term goal is to be the center of large-format digital output,” he said. “There are 250 service bureaus and our goal is to service them either doing the work or provid- ing them with the turnkey system.” Service bureaus, copy shops and lawyers have shown an interest in the turnkey solutions and owners of plotters have shown interest in the software and controller, Jones said. Colossal Graphics is located at 1117 Independence Ave., Mountain View, Calif. 94103; (415) 967-3656. Ron Jones, Colossal CEO, wants his company to be “a service bureau to service bureaus.” Think, DEC to develop InBox-VAX mail gateways BY EMILY BROWER BEDFORD, Mass. — Symantec's Think Technologies division this month announced a new develop- ment relationship with Digital Equipment Corp. that will accelerate the creation of gateways between the forthcoming Version 3.0 of InBox and electronic-mail systems running on VAX minicomputers and mainframes. Immediate development plans for Think's E-mail application include support for X.400, an inter- national protocol standard for file transfers, and a gateway to VAX mail systems’ message router, according to Ted Schlein, director of product marketing for Symantec. The com- pany plans to release these gate- ways sometime during the first half of 1989, he said. “Symantec and DEC are interest: ed in making it easy to send mail from InBox to a VMS mail system. We want to be sure that companies running E-mail products like [DEC’s] All-in-One can connect to smaller LANs running InBox,” Schlein said. Microsoft, so far Symantec's chief competition in the Mac E-mail market, announced similar develop- ment plans for Microsoft Mail last May. Pacer Software of La Jolla, Calif, and Alisa Systems of Pasade- na, Calif., the company’s strategic allies, will develop gateways from Microsoft Mail to VAX mail systems. Pacer and Alisa plan to go one step further than Symantec with VAX versions of the Microsoft Mail server in addition to gateways. Although Symantec hasn't an- nounced plans for a VAX version of InBox’s mail server, Schlein said a product like that “certainly would interest us.” However, he added that Symantec's interest was in the “immediate market need for interop- erability between mail systems.” “We want to make sure that peo ple know we've been working with DEC for along time,” he added. 6 September 1988/MacWEEK 5 IFWe Lact) NEW QuickDraw drivers for color printing RGB Technology offers Seiko drivers BY CLIFF LEHMAN McLEAN, Va. — A Virginia: based company has created a line of QuickDraw drivers to go with Seiko Inc.'s line of color thermal printers that will offer full color printing from the Mac. The first driver will be for the Seiko 5303, a 240-dpi color printer. It is slated to be shipped by the end of September, according to Jon Lang, President of RGB Technology of McLean, Va. The $5,995 package will include the printer, cards for the Mac II and the printer, as well as cables, he said. The RGB controller can produce up to 262,144 colors using eight-by- eight dithering and 4,096 colors with four-by-four dithering, Lang said. The Seiko printer will print on both paper and transparencies. The printer will be able to be net- worked later this year, but the controller also sports a multiplexer that allows up to four Macs to use the same printer without a net- work, Lang said. The controller is design- ed to be as generic as pos sible, and RGB has talked to other printer manufac. turers interested in the pos- sibility of using the driver. OEM and dealer pricing will be announced soon, Lang said RGB also is developing a driver for Seiko’s new 300-dpi color thermal print- ers (the 5500 series). The new driver will be ready when Seiko begins shipping the printers in quantity in December, according to Lang. The 5500 series will be able to provide output in up to 16 million colors, according to Seiko. The RGB driver combined with the Seiko printer “will be in the same market as the Tektronix ther- mal printer, but substantially cheap- er and better,” Lang said. Tektronix of Beaverton, Ore., markets the Tektronix Color Image Printer, a 300-dpi color thermal printer with a driver developed in- house for $8,495. RGB is implementing a set of bit- mapped fonts, including Times and Helvetica, but the company is inves- tigating the use of outline fonts in the future, Lang said is located at , McLean, Va. A sample of color output produced by RGB’s CB-3203 controller running Seiko's model 5303, 240 dpi engine. A library of animation from Desktop Video Animated clip art for VideoWorks II BY CONNIE GUGLIELMO EMERYVILLE, Calif, — Desktop Video Productions wants to help Macintosh business users produce animated, lively presentations. So the Emeryville, Calif, compa- ny has put together the first of what it hopes will be many volumes of clip animations for Mac users. Called Business Sampler, the $59.95 disk contains 60 animated black-and-white images for use with VideoWorks II, a $295 animation program developed by Chicago- based MacroMind Inc. By the end of the year, Desktop Video plans to release three new clip animation libraries: Sales & Marketing; Business & Industry; and Symbols & Borders. Priced at $59.95 each, each library will con tain 60 animated images. Although all the libraries will 6 MacWEEK/6 September 1988 work with VideoWorks II, the com pany hopes to support other Macin: tosh animation packages in the future. Color versions of the animations for the Macintosh II are under development and planned for release in the first quarter of 1989. “I see the technology of animat ed graphics in the microcomputer industry exploding,” said Eve Gre- gory, partner and co-founder of the 4-month-old company. “Animated clip art is just the beginning.” Desktop Video Productions also is looking at the market for interac- tive computer games and software and broadcast-quality video produc tions produced, in part, on a Macin- tosh system. Desktop Video Productions is located at 2000 Powell St., Suite 700, Emeryville, Calif. 94608; (415) 655-1022. ‘COURTESY SEO MOTOROLA 68020/68030 PERFORMANCE VS. 80386 } Puzzle Ackerman Towers Stanford Average 06 | Dhrystone Sieve Fibonacci Performance rated at same {requency. Ratings relative to an 80386 rating of 1.0. souce uous Motorola outperforms — Intel, Sun in benchmarks BYJONATHAN PERROW SCHAUMBURG, Ill. — Motorola has released a report intended to offer evidence that the company’s 68020 and 68030 microprocessors surpass the performance of Intel Corp.’s 80386 chip in a variety of benchmark tests. Besides the Intel chip, Motorola threw its two 32-bit microprocessors into the ring against Santa Clara, Calif.-based National Semiconduc- tor’s 32-bit 32532 and SPARC, a scal- According to Motorola's bench- mark testing, the 68030, soon to be incorporated in the Mac II, outper- formed the Intel 80386, a process used in high-performance MS-D\ machines “by 23 percent when both chips were tested at the same clock speed. “Clearly, while the 68020 and the 80386 are equivalent-class proces sors, the 68020 is superior and the 68030 is in a separate class altogeth- “Motorola has a great new opti- mizing compiler,” said Ursula Her- rick, public relations manager for the 80386 processor at Intel. “That's where they get their performance ins, The benchmark tests were com- piled in the C programming lan- guage using Motorola's MUCC4.1 compiler and a Green Hills 1.8.3 compiler for the 80386. “The [68030 and 80386] would have come out dead even in the Dhrystone benchmark if they had used the Metaware compiler,” said Bill Rash, Intel's marketing manager for 32-bit microprocessors, “Of course, most benchmarks can be geared toward whatever the manufacturer wants to convey,” said Brand Parks, a micro compo- nents analyst at Dataquest, a San Jose, Calif-based market research company. Although testing against the | SPARC chip was limited to the Dhrystone benchmark, Motorola's report claimed SPARC made a “rela- tively poor showing.” With no men- tion in the report of testing condi- tions, a 33-MHz 68030 “nearly equaled the Dhrystone rating” of a 16-MHz SPARC processor, the report said. ‘The integer benchmarks used to measure microprocessor perfor- mance in this most recent Motorola test included the popular Dhrystone benchmark, the Stanford Compos- ite, as well as Fibonacci, Forest Bas- kett’s Puzzle, the Sieve of Eratos- thenes, the Towers of Hanoi puzzle and Ackerman’s function. Each of these benchmarks is designed to measure a specific aspect of CPU performance, such as stacking operations, subroutine call and return efficiency, and array manipulation. ‘The Stanford Composite consists of nine small programs that test the integer math and control structure performance of a processor through such tasks as matrix multiplication and recursive, bubble and binary sorting. Two other programs, also part of the Stanford Composite, test floating-point capability but were not used since the research focused solely on integer computation. While the advantage of bench: marks lies in their standardization, both Parks and the Motorola report | cautioned that the downside of any benchmark is the fact that it is not a real-world application and that the true test of microprocessing power is the environment in which it will be used. In fact, Drew Peck, an anal New York-based Donal Lufatkin & Jenrette Securities, sai he had become a believer in the “irrevelance of benchmarking.” ava PUBLISHER /Micae Thing i {EDITOR/Dariel Ruby > MANAGING EDITOR/ cco Benner SECTION EDITORS Henry Norr News Rochelle Garner (Oein), Beraard Oa (Features), Ania Maeig (Wiedow OW Dennis Klatkia Reviews) EDITOR AT LARGE/Dsle Coleman | TECHNICAL EDITOR/Ri Fd (Boston) TECHMICAL ART DIRECTONLaso Veen | SEMOR WRITER ick LePage (Boston) ASSOCIATE EDITOR chard Rawles (Wind INFORMATION DIRECTOR Emly Brome STAFF REPORTERS Elinor Craig, Cone Curhelmo, Cif Lehman, Renee Malice Wil McClatchy Benton), Jonathan eT Jonathan Swart, Chie Whiter y ASSISTANT EDITOR Suzanne Weber COPY EDITORS/Shari Lynn son, Joh Be Charles Lent, Carolyn * EDITORIAL ASSISTANT/‘is Wal ConrminuTng eo1TORS Ei Arman try, Don Crabb, John Edvard Vera Keenan, Jonathan Littman, Lawrence MAGS Stove Michel, Steve Rosenthal, Ezra Shap [ART DIRECTOR/Eleanor Leishma0 ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR/Laura Sill PHOTO EDITOR/Jonaihan Hornstels GRAPHICS TECHRICIAN/Heori Frotes [STAFF ARTIST/Tarara Gansu ADVERTISING & PRODUCTION (COORDINATOR ‘Michelle Gareus ‘PRODUCTION COORDIMATORS/C2"<lY Beaham West, Crystal Stevenson [ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER (MANUFACTURING/Barri Kinga AassHee PUBLSWER Te ray Cre Jelena Ba Pk coe Acowwt ECTS Ca as oe Re rnb Jos ree Aovenrsve AOMIISTATON Mary SPP [SENIOR ADVERTISING COORDINATOR /L.s'u Pa enon GncouTion MANAGER ek prowaionDMEETOR Cy Ar IESUANON DREETON Golo Prowerion an MECN xy Seo ‘PROMOTION & RESEARCH ‘COORDINATOR Caroline Kok [BUSINESS MAMAGER/Karen Brannan [ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANTS ‘Elizabeth Carney, Chris Vyhnalek PRESIDENT /Kenneth H. Koppel VICE PRESIDENT/), Scott Briczs VICE PRESIDENT/Wiliam Lose y VICE PRESIDENT CONTROLLER/John Vinchos VICE PRESIDENT OPERATIONS Laird Davis TREASURER/William Philips 1 ‘SECRETARY/). Malcolm Morris MacWEBK. PO. Box 5806, Cherry Hil (8084 Second cass postage paid Sa <o.and additional mailing fees New! High : performance | | 80 mb SCSI 28 MS $1249.00 Introducing APPLEQCRATE. Our sub systems have been designed to provide quick and easy installation and are fully compatible with Apple Mac Plus, Mac SE and Mac II. These powerful systems include driver and utility software, an internal power supply, = as “USNR OP = a Oe 3 = APPLEQCRATE. & SP Seagate ..Quality Works 20 mb SCSI 65 MS $560 40 mb SCSI 40 MS $770 60 mb SCSI 40 MS 839% SS Seagate SCSI cabling, all necessary hardware and have been shock mounted for trouble-free transport. The Apple Crate comes with a 2 YEAR WARRANTY on parts and labor and a direct watts line to our “72 hour turnaround” service department. Complies with the limits for a Class B computing device pursuant to Subpart J of Part 15 of FCC rules. Patent pending. Apple, Apple Mac Plus, Mac SE, and Mac II are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. The Apple Crate provides: | © Additional SCSI port which allows daisy-chaining up to 7 SCSI devices © Convenient fuse holder © SCSI address select © Controls and cable controls— clearly marked and easy to operate. In Califomia. Nationwide 800-323-9994 800-543-5808 Call for same day orders or technical support =i = CRATE TECHNOLOGY 6850 Vineland Ave., Bldg. M., North Hollywood, CA 91605 (818) 766-4001 a NEV Relax targets optical-media market LINOTRONIC BY CLAIR WHITMER BOSTON — Attendees looking Carefully in the Relax Technology booth at last month's Macworld Expo would have noticed the begin- nings of an optical-media strategy from the mass-storage company. The Union City, Calif, company is planning to become a Mac-market, value-added reseller for two previ ously announced optical-storage Products, a CD-ROM drive from NEC Home Electronics and a WORM drive from Laserdrive Ltd The company will officially announce the still unnamed addi- tions to its product line within 30 to 60 days and will ship them in quanti- ty in the following quarter, said Mike Vincent, vice president of sales and marketing at Relax. Relax was approached by NEC to provide custom drivers, according to Vincent. To add value and avoid what Vincent called the tendency among hard disk vendors to be “notoriously generic,” Relax plans to provide a SCSI interface and cabling, a custom case, and a “power control center” that will include accessories for power filtering and power-surge protection. The drive, which will be priced at $995, supports Mac HFS and High Sierra format, can store up to 540 Mbytes of data and has an access time of 500 milliseconds. The aaa JENTURA VENTURA Continued from Page 1 about Cricket’s possible involvement, saying that his company is not work- ing on any project for Xerox involving the desktop publishing program. Ventura Publisher is considered by many industry analysts to be the leading desktop publishing package for the PC. “Ventura has had and continues to have a significant sales advantage over (Seattle-based Aldus’) PC Page- Maker,” said Craig Cline, associate editor of the Seybold Report on Desktop Publishing in Malibu, Calif. “Not only is it faster than PC Page- Maker, it can handle long docu- ments very well.” MACFAIR MACFAIR Continued from Page 1 Fair's cancellation. MacFair originally was sched. uled for November on the Hudson River Exposition Piers, but dates were moved forward to October in response to the Macintosh Business Conference in California. “Anaheim ended up being on the same dates and that was crippling,” Harwood said. “I was able to get Javits Con- vention Center, but the show just didn’t happen.” MacFair, which is sponsored by The Computer Factory, a New York- based retail chain, was first pro- duced in November 1987. It attract- ed about 80 vendors and between 8,000 and 10,000 people (see MacWEEK, Dec. 1). Brian O'Connell, The Computer Factory's director of corporate sales, who headed The Computer Factory's participation in the event, said they were “putting it aside this year.” He was unavailable for further comment. ‘ Sources close to the event said that The Computer Factory could not encourage the participation of enough vendors to make the show viable this year. Conflicts between the corporate sales division, which handled the event, and the retail division, which was likely to gain the most benefit from it, may have also undermined the show. The Sunday starting date and the local users- 8 MacWEEK/6 September 1988 Cline said he was not surprised that a Mac version of Ventura is being considered. “Although Xerox seems to be settled on the PC, it shouldn't be ruled out that it would seek out other platforms,” Cline said. “The days of people focusing on one platform are over. It makes a lot of sense for [Xerox] to go over to the Mac.” Xerox and Ventura this week are expected to introduce Ventura Pub- lisher 2.0 for the PC. The new ver- sion offers an improved user inter- face, better handling of long documents, support for color PostScript printers and the ability to produce four-color separations. Xerox Desktop Software Busi- ness Unit is located at 9745 Busi- ness Park Ave., San Diego, Calif. 92131; (619) 695-7700. group origins of the Mac- Fair name seemed to have marked it as a non-corpo- rate event. The vendors’ interest may also have been lackluster because of their increasing preoc- cupation with the busi- ness market. Undeterred, Harwood said he expects to return in 1989 with a bigger and stronger MacFair. In the meantime, American Expositions is anticipating a better response to its second HyperExpo at Boston's World Trade Center Oct 1516. Held June 11-12 in San Francisco, the first HyperExpo drew 2,000 enthusiastic atten- dees (see MacWEEK, June 21 and June 28). Harwood said that he expects to draw 4,000 people to the Boston event, which he said will be “much more important.” The show will not be dedicated to Apple or stackware. “This is not the HyperCard Expo,” said Har- wood, “It is the HyperExpo. This is more than Macintosh.” Harwood said he has commit- ments from Apollo, Sun and IBM for booth space at the Boston event. Each of these companies has been WORM drive is formatted to store up to 810 Mbytes of data and will be priced at $6,995. According to Vin cent, the drive includes an onboard chip that allows it to be recognized by the computer as if it were a stan- dard Winchester hard disk. Relax used the expo as an oppor- tunity to show the drive to dealers and to select customers, testing their reactions to this still relatively new technology. “Virtually everyone we talked to said, ‘Yes, there is a market here’,” Vincent said. “We tend to mimic Apple as much as possible. When it chooses to move in one direction, if we can follow suit, we will.” As for the WORM drive, Relax plans to push it as a powerful backup method. NEC still plans to ship its own version of the drive in September through its own chain of dealers under the name of the Intersect CD- ROM drive. Announced in May and originally scheduled to become available in July, the NEC drive will be priced at $999, but an interface kit required for using the unit with the Mac will cost an additional $199, the company said. Laserdrive Ltd., on the other hand, may in the future distribute the drive under its own name but plans to distribute it primarily through VARs for the next six months, according to Ian Turner, vice president of engineering at the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company. Relax Technology is located at 3101 Whipple Road, Suite 22, Union City, Calif. 94587; (415) 471-6112. Continued from Page 1 Mbyte version has a fourth mode of 1,693 dpi, Tortora said. In addition, a company represen- tative said that the new machine is 50 percent faster than the L100 when outputting text and approximately 60 percent the speed of the 1300, Lino- type’s high-end typesetter. “The 1200 is closer to the 1300 than the L100 was, but there is still a big difference. The L300 has higher dpi and has the accuracy required for color and halftones,” said Walter Ullrich, product manager. The company did not recom- mend producing halftones on the 100. According to Tortora, the 1200 achieves higher performance and precision than the L100 because the 1200 uses a simpler version of the page-scanning technology found in the L300, The 1300 uses a six-sided spinning mirror to reflect light from a stationary laser diode, and the 1200 uses a single-surface spinning mirror, he said. In contrast, the L100 used the Galvo method, in which light slides across the page. According to Torto- ra, that movement caused impreci- sions in L100 copy. “The change to using a spinning mirror gives us better cost, perfor- mance and accuracy,” said Ullrich. The 1200 is intended for the pro- duction of newspapers, low-end magazines, newsletters and other publications that do not require the higher-resolution halftones and the color-separation capabilities of the 1300, Tortora said. project; the University of Maryland; Xerox Palo Alto (Calif) Research Center (PARC); Texas Instruments; and AT&T's Basking Ridge, NJ., facility. ‘Asked how Apple would respond to losing its platform exclusivity at the expo, Harwood replied: “I think Apple is going to be thrilled seeing things open up like this. All they're saying is, ‘We are two steps ahead of the rest." According to Harwood, the catchword at Apple is not Hyper- Card, but hypermedia. Bill Atkinson, Apple's Hyper- Card creator, is expected to be a main speaker, as is Ted Nel- son, the author who coined the term hypertext. Apple's vice presi- dent for advanced technology and Xerox PARC alumnus Larry Tesler will also be there. Dan Winkler, 5 author of the HyperCard scripting Victor Harwood, American Expositions presi- dent: October's HyperExpo in Boston is “not Just Macintosh anymor working on hypertext environments of its own and will be showing prod- ucts integrating CD-ROM, video and sound. “This is multimedia,” said Har- wood, who added that Apollo, Sun and IBM's hypermedia projects reflect work taking place at the Mas- sachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab; Brown University’s Iris language HyperTalk, has not yet made a commitment to attending the show. Harwood has 75 speakers arranged for the seminars and said he expects to see an increase over the 65 vendors that took out booths in San Francisco, “The phone rings all day,” said Harwood. “This is happening on many levels at the same time, It's not just Macintosh anymore. It’s innovative products ranging in vision of what hypermedia is. No ‘one has brought it together before, I'm in the center of the activity." — By Alan Brody The 1200, like the L100, allows access only from Pt ie 4 ends. The 1300 can be used by frat ends using DENSY i prietary operating CORA (used by third party front ends 8 Ee as the Atex system) as well as PostScript, Tortora said. The 1200's Linotype based on the Atlas version Systems’ PostScript int uuses the Motorola 68020 “Linotype has had this mind for a long time. Our aim provide a better prices product in anticipation of th tition,” Ullrich said. “You're going to see at dors come out with Post sions of typesetters,” said Ct associate editor of the Seyb on Desktop Publishing i Calif. “Then it will come down has the smoothest motor © the fastest RIP, the fastest fil method and so on. s “It’s going to take the con tion a while to get on the Mie but each of the other (typesse companies] brings its own tomers and expertise to the tal Cline added. E Linotype’s closest competitor the PostScript typesetter are! appears to be Itek Graphix Corp. | Nashua, N.H. Itek introduce’ PostScript-compatible typesetter, © t 1GX 7000PS, last spring. 7000PS, scheduled to ship in Octo> ber, costs $39,995 and produces 1,600-dpi output. Monotype Inc. of Elk Grove lage, IIL, is expected to announce its) new PostScript equipped typesett at the Seybold Conference ni week. That typesetter is ex! ship in January 1989. And Varityper of East Hano NJ., is preparing to market RIP off 4300 typesetter. E. Linotype Co. is located at | Oser Ave., Hauppauge, N.Y. 11 (616) 434-2000.0 NORTH MIAMI BEACH, Bostonians may call the: the Hub, but a small Miami ¢ ny is selling an AppleTalk: hut 0 wn. Advanced Electronics products Inc. of North seach, Fla., is offeri Plus, a smal box o hub, that al up to five LocatTalk co printers to be connected to form an AppleTalk Network: CompuTalk Plus comes j for three connections ($180) connections ($210) and fiv tions ($250), Each kit inel connection box, cable extender/splice. CompuTalk Plus allows sion speeds of 230 Kbits per sec over distances of up to 1,000 { ‘The product allows up to 32 tions and has a built-in automatically te nected line. Products is located at 205th Terrace, North Fla. 33179; (305) TCP/IP Continued from Page 1 __In addition, the Apple software will run TCP/IP, User Datagram Protocol (UDP), a Peer-to-TCP protocol used by Sun Microsys- tems Inc.'s Network File System (NES). It will also support multiple applications concurrent: ly, sources said A spokesman for Ungermann-Bass Inc. hinted that the Santa Clara, Calif, LAN compa- ny has developed a TCP/IP driver for the Mac. Apple also has reportedly licensed TCP/IP technology from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. BAD CHECK Continued from Page 1 to have been the cheated of $20,000 in fraudu- ent Visa and MasterCard charges. The suspect, a six-foot-tall, 25-year-old male with a medium-to-dark complexion, dark eyes and medium build, is a native of the Caribbean land of Aruba. He carried a Dutch passport but had no noticeable accent. Sjiemfat had been the bane of computer stores in Massachusetts, Virginia, Maryland and New York since January 1987. Four hits in the Boston area alone amounted to thefts of between $70,000 and $80,000, and Boston slice are aware of six other local attempts. quipment was then sold locally, and are indications that he may have been shipping some of it back to Aruba. Sjiemfat's mode of operation was to nge purchases with stores, either by com- nto the stores dressed as a businessman. by telephoning and then sending in a deliv- man with a phoney cashier's check and brewed purchase order. His style was smooth — he is also being harged with impersonating a diplomat — but his knowledge was not flawless. Microcomput- er Publishing Center salesman Travis Rivers, who spoke to Sjiemfat over the phone, first registered suspicion when Sjiemfat remarked at one point that he had to go downstairs and “tweak the VAX.” According to police sources, at the time of arrest he was found with uncashed checks totaling more than $100,000, as well as Macin- toshes, peripherals, IBM PCs, a variety of phoney credit cards, false IDs, and a check printing machine. “He was a master forger,” said Boston police spokeswoman Jill Reilly. Sjiemfat is awaiting bail and is being charged with at least two U.S. Code Title 18 counts; each carries a penalty of 10 years. The Boston police and Secret Service are seeking evidence relating to Sjiemfat’s suc- cessful and attempted scams. Dealers in the Boston area with information should call the police at (617) 247-4328, Out-of-state dealers and credit-card victims should call Tom McCarthy at the Boston field office of the Secret Service at (617) 565-5640. FOR THE RECORD Saat In the Aug. 30 issue, two bars in a chart showing Scientific Micro Systems’ earnings over the past year were labeled incorrectly. The bar showing a Joss of $9.2 million should have been labeled April 1988 and the bar showing a loss of $24.5 million should have been labeled July 1988. In the Aug. 16 issue, the publisher of Instant-Expert was incorrectly indentified. Human Intellect Systems of San Mateo, Calif, the publisher, just released Version 2.0 of the $49.95 shell A credit for a photo of the Pointer Sisters in the Aug. 16 issue was inadvertantly omitted. The photo was courtesy Hybrid Arts of Los Angeles. Michigan's version of TCP/IP, called CITT- Mac-IP includes an NFS protocol implementa- tion. However, neither Apple nor Michigan officials would comment on Michigan's role in the Apple announcement. With its expected announcement, Apple will become the second computer giant in less than a year to introduce a TCP/IP product. Last December, IBM announced TCP/IP products for PS/2 and several other computers, as well as for the Token-Ring and PCnet networks. IBM also announced industry-standard Ethernet support for the protocol. TCP/IP is a set of networking protocols that links computers from different vendors. The protocol was developed in the 1970s and has since been adopted as a networking stan- dard by businesses, universities and govern- ment agencies. A pioneer in TCP/IP’s development said Apple's announcement will meet high demand among businesses, universities and govern- ment agencies to connect Macs to TCP/IP networks. “Apple's interest in TCP/IP will legit- imize the protocol in much the same man- ner that A/UX legitimized UNIX,” said Vint Cerf, vice president of the Cor- poration for National Research Initiatives, a non-profit information think tank based in Reston, Va. “It won't necessarily affect Apple sales now, but it will strengthen the market and result in business down the road,” he added. “It’s about time,” conference organizer Daniel C. Lynch said. “Open Systems Inter- connection (OSI, a suite of protocols for link- ing computers in multivendor environments) may be the long-term solution to heteroge- neous networks, but TCP/IP is something users can have now.” One interested user is Bruce Nagel, a mainframe expert for the U.S. Army’s ARDEC Info Systems Command in Picatinny, NJ. “Mixing and matching PCs, Macs and main- frames can be a pain,” he said. “We'll take any help we can get.” We wrote the award-winning | StatView 512+ | for the Macintosh. | Please dont buy it. StatView™ 512+ was popular from the day it was released. But now we’ve gone two better. Abacus Concepts presents StatView II for the Macintosh™ II and StatView SE+ Graphics for the Macintosh SE and Plus—the only complete statistics packages with presentation color graphics for the Macintosh. File Edit Text Groph Vars SaaS View of Engineering Date & Desc Comp View Tools = (=) Ly. 8 pb] 8 cutn felelo[ofo\ = Distribution of Engine Size for Foreign and Domestic Models 40 60 Percontilo Present your data in a virtually infinite number of styles, formats, and colors. Available Fall ’88... SY + Complete descriptive, comparative, and non-parametric statistics. + Fully interactive graphic interface and spreadsheet-like design allowing for fast, simple “what-if” analyses. (Try that on a mainframe sometime.) «A choice of scattergram, line, bar, error bars, comparative bar, box plot, pie, histogram, univariate, percentile, and comparison percentile charts. + Customize graphs with the text and drawing toolbox. Exploit the full color capabilities of your Macintosh to highlight your results. Circle key data points. Add legends and fancy type styles anywhere on your graph. Presentation and publication- quality charts are now just a mouse click away. + Prints on any Macintosh-driven printer, plotter, or slide maker. + Macintosh II owners: StatView Il directly accesses the 68881 co-processor to analyze your data at mainframe speeds. SuperANOVA: A complete yet easy-to-use implementation of General Linear Modeling, including ANOVA, ANCOVA, MANOVA, and Multiple Regression. ABACNS CAOUNEC.E P TS For more information, call (415) 540-1949 or write to us at 1984 Bonita Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94704 Apple and Maciotosh are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, nc. StatView is trademark of Abacus Concepts, Inc 6 September 1988/MacWEEK 9 GNEWS The latest for the big screen Max 3’s new tool for making films BY RICHARD P. GREENFIELD LOS ANGELES — Max 3 Inc, a Santa Monica, Calif, software devel- oper specializing in products for the entertainment industry, recently announced the release of a new ver- sion of Production Scheduler. EndNote end According to Benjamin Z. Cahan, who programmed the new Version 4.0 of Production Scheduler, changes and improvements include support for larger screens, color, and page reduction and page orientation options such as landscape mode Switching between functions has also been simplified, Cahan said. In addition, Version 4.0 handles multiple production boards without using more memory and allows boards to be subdivided into pieces. S the pain of creating footnotes EMILY BROWER EMERYVILLE, Calif. — Academ- ic software publisher Niles & Associ- ates of Emeryville, Calif., has intro- duced a combination desk accessory and application designed to take some of the pain out of academic publishing The new program, EndNote, automates the creation and format- ting of footnotes, a notoriously time consuming and difficult process for EndNote automates the chore of compi bibliographic citations and footnotes. academics and their secretaries. EndNote's application builds a database of reference materials that can be accessed from within a word processor using EndNote's desk accessory. These databases can hold up to 32,000 references each. “You can select references from the database and paste them into the word-processed document,” said Greg Sanborn, one of EndNote’s pro- grammers. EndNote creates citation markers each time a citation is past- ed into a document, he said. After a document is com- pleted, EndNote scans the file for these citation mark- ers and creates formatted footnotes or bibliographies from them. The result is a MacWrite, WriteNow or Microsoft Word document with in-text references, fol- lowed by footnotes or a bib- liography formatted accord- ing to the writer's spec- ifications. The $129 pro- gram also includes all major bibliographic styles. Niles & Associates is at 2200 Powell St, Suite 765, Emeryville, Calif. 94608- 1809; (415) 655-6666. iting A director could, for example, create a special subdivision for a second unit crew to separate it from the main production crew. Another feature, Cahan said, is | that the Day Out of Days, the pro- duction work schedule broken down either by character or actor, can now be viewed on the Mac screen. Earli- er versions required a printout before the schedule could be viewed. The new Scheduler, like Max 3's Budgeter program, is $695 Max 3 is located at 3021 Airport Ave., Suite 112, Santa Monica, Calif. 90405; (213) 3983771. Dolphin leaps into Mac arena SANTA ANA, Calif. — Making its debut in the Macintosh market, Dolphin Systems Technology, a mar- eter of storage devices for IBM PC- compatible systems, has introduced its first series of 3.5inch internal hard drives for the Mac Il Called the Dolphin AM40-Ili and AM80-Ili, with capacities of 40 Mbytes and 80 Mbytes, respectively, the drives use Quantum hardware and feature an average access time of 19 milliseconds. “The Mac is becoming a real fac- | tor in business computing and Apple itself is not providing the additional storage options business users need,” said Allen Taylor, vice presi- dent of marketing for Dolphin. To answer those needs, Taylor said Dol- phin plans to announce in the “com- ing weeks” an internal 40-Mbyte and 80-Mbyte drive for the Mac SE and several external subsystems for “the complete Mac spectrum.” The Dolphin AM40-IIi is priced at $1,395 and the AM80-Ili sells for $1,995, Dolphin Systems Technology is at 603-B E. Alton Ave., Santa Ana, Calif. 92705; (714) 546-6938. 0. Help for non-profit organizations BY JOHN BATTELLE NASHUA, N.H. — A successful fund-raising campaign can take a non-profit institution from just mak- ing it to making a difference. Hop- ing to provide the solution to the non-profit institution's fund-raising, communication and database needs, Campagne Associates has recently released the Community Contact System 2.0, an upgrade of its year- old fund-raising and database-man- agement software. “There really is no company offering a complete fund-raising sys- tem on the Mac,” said Craig Ahlquist, vice president of market- ing at Campagne. “CCS is a turnkey solution.” CCS is based on a site-tailored Macintosh hardware and software package. Commtact, its core database, was written with Omnis 3 Plus from Blyth Software of Foster 10 MacWEEK/6 September 1988 City, Calif, Commtact provides for maintenance of a detailed listing of members and donors involved with the non-profit institution. Included with the CCS package are Aldus PageMaker and Silicon Beach's SuperPaint for desktop publishing; Microsoft Excel with macro sheets for fund-raising analysis; and Microsoft Word, complete with shell letters for contact, solicitation, reminders and thank-you notes. Version 2.0 of the software addresses the “wish list” of beta testers and first version users, according to Ahlquist. Enhan ments include an automatic address update feature, user-defined database fields and a tightening of the program code for greater speed. With CCS and its Commtact ker- nel, non-profits can better organize their community database and elimi- nate multiple entries, Ahlquist said. “Commtact provides for a clean database that all of the institution’s arms — PR, marketing, fund raising — can access, “Most traditional [non-profit] systems are IBM. But only the Mac can create everything [non- profits] need in-house. And ease of use is crucial to non-profits,” Ahlquist said, Campagne, an Apple-certified VAR, does have plans to port its CCS solution to the MS-DOS world, but “that is contingent on Blyth port- ing Omnis,” Ahlquist said. The single-user Commtact database software costs $2,900. Net- worked multi-user packages are available. The complete software system, including Word, Excel, PageMaker and SuperPaint, costs $3,999. Multi-user and hardware options are also available. Campagne Associates Ltd. is located at 9 Goldfinch Lane, Nashua, N.H. 03062; (603) 891-2129, ( MacinTouch BY RIC FORD AND RICK LePAGE Issues & Trends Itis easy for Apple and those of us associated with the Mac 0 fe pretty good about the past year or so. The Mac is, by many indicat the hot machine of the moment and looks likely to stay that way for short term. While we don't want to sound like doom sayers, a few! problematic trends in the IBM sector should make us think about! long-term future of the Mac as we know it, especially with regard t machine architectures and system software. 3 We have talked at length about the problems that IBM and Mict are having with the development of their second-generation PC 0 system, OS/2, and its attendant interface, Presentation Manager. of the discussion arising from the Apple-Microsoft lawsuit center the legal action as a perceived assault on OS/2 by Apple. From the dis tance of a few months, it seems rather obvious that if that was Apple’ mary intention (and we don't think it was), IBM and Microsoft didn't need the help — they're already in trouble. ; The latest problems come from the reluctance of PC buyers to aces the advancements found in the PS/2 line. People we talk to on that of the fence seem to agree that the PS/2s are nice machines, and offer real advantages i performance and power” over their aging parent As with many thin; there is a hitch. In this case, the snag comes from the massive invest ment that companies ha made in the PC — invest ment arising from real costs like hardware and software and the hidden costs of associated items like training and connec- tivity. Many people would like tomove up tothe newer machines, but the problems of moving up are pretty big. The PS/2 uses not only a new operating tem, but also a propri- etary bus scheme, Micr Channel Architecture (MCA). IBM, after years of watching its share of the PC market erode, attempted to create a computer that would n _ buyers move back into the Big Blue camp once and for all. Unfortunatel ly, the confusion that ensued made a tough challenge tougher. iy Issues like the final look of Presentation Manager and OS/2are important to users, but questions of migration, the costs involved _ and who shoulders the burden are more important right now. Sure, some big companies with lots of money to throw around will bite the bul Jet and move on to the PS/2, but what are they going to run? MSDOS applications for at least the near future. And the range of expansion boards that are so plentiful in the PC world are just not there for MCA. because the board manufacturers are not willing to retool and move the new environment until there is sufficient demand for Micro Chan hardware. So now IBM is caught in the proverbial Catch-22 situation. Unable stimulate demand among the user and the developer communities, it} been forced to retrench and reconsider. It has already announced an version of dusty old MS-DOS, and reportedly it has a new machine in works that uses the Intel 80386 chip and the PC AT bus ectur instead of MCA. The hope is that by throwing these machines into the chasm between the PC and the PS/2, there will be a better bridge | between the two worlds. 4 LAANSONSYNTAK ig Blue vs. Old Red. Why has this happened? When nour the Mac Il, with its hopped-up Motorola 68020 lee and NuBus architecture, the lines to dealers formed almost immed Yet IBM announced machines that embodied similar advances over lier models — faster processor, enhanced bus, multitasking and 6 ed memory capabilities — and the PC community reacted with a: The differences are subtle, IBM did get an excited response fro many in the PC world after the PS/2 announcements, but it was to deliver quickly enough on the promise to capitalize on any: tum. Apple was able to get out of the starting gate better with by having the SE — a machine that sat between the existing Mac Plus and the Mac Il — available and ready immediately after the announcement, zh, The Mac line also had noticeable gaps within it that prevented Continued on NEWS eae | Continued from previous page acceptance of the machine before the introduc- tion of the Mac Il. Apple achieved a delicate balance between invention and compatability that allowed old users to incorporate the new machines into their environment with a mini- mum of difficulty. IBM basically came out with a machine that went beyond anything the com- pany had offered before, but that technological jump required a leap of faith on the part of users that those users were not ready to make. Companies like to throw around terms like capital expenditure and depreciation when dis- cussing purchasing, and one might be for- given for thinking that a PC is the corporate equivalent of a disposable lighter — use it for a while and throw it away. After all, the things are cheap enough. Don't believe that for a minute. Whether IBM likes it or not, the environment it created when it put out that first open box, the original PC, has grown past anything the company ever envisioned. Not only do the clone manu- facturers, Microsoft and developers have a say in the evolution of the PC, but users and pur- chasers have a vested interest as well. We watch all of this with an eye on Apple. Apple has been racking up impressive num- bers in the past 18 months, but it is also talk- ing about developing the future. John Sculley likes to jump on his hobby horse and tell us how the future is going to give us the Knowl- edge Navigator, but people are more con- cerned about how Apple will allow the Mac to mature and grow without forsaking what has been built in the past. Apple has a great number of customers who have bought not only the Mac, but its future as well. As Apple works on the next- generation Mac, we hope that it takes a look around to see just how far the Mac community 's willing to go. The days when a computer company could just throw any machine out to the masses are over. What is happening in the IBM world could happen here. Bugs & Tips In a letter to the editor of MacTutor maga- zine (MacTutor, September 1988), Dr. Ray Gaskins gives a summary of the Mac commu- nity’s experience with problems in the analog boards of Mac Plusses and earlier Macs. He goes on to discuss his own experience with “just over 100 Macs” and how effective various approaches were for resolving the problems. We have followed the “power supply prob- lem” over the years, and one factor has always remained a mystery. It seems that many peo- ple who have one analog board failure have repeated failures. The logic board doesn't seem to be the culprit. Gaskins’ letter sug- gests the answer: Some individual video tubes (CRTs) or their connectors may be responsi- ble for “eating up” analog boards, If you're experiencing this kind of a problem, replace the CRT. Don't settle for just another analog board replacement. MacTutor has covered the power supply issue in detail over the years, and we have standard recommendations based on infor- mation published there, One is to buy a fan for any Mac that doesn't already have one. We like Kensington’s quiet System Saver Mac (about $65 from MacConnection). ‘Another is to shut off your Mac when you're not home — there appears to be a very small chance that it could catch fire (like other household appliances). Finally, if your Mac analog board dies, and you don't have AppleCare insurance, there are alternatives to paying an Apple dealer to fix it. Computer Quick (which has published good information in MacTutor) sells replacement parts and does repairs at a discount, Pre- Owned Electronics and similar companies also sell replacement components at reasonable prices for people who know enough about electronics to do their own repairs. These businesses typically offer helpful advice, too, if you have problems with your Mac. Command-Shift-0. One good thing about System Tools 6.0 is that it apparently patches a problem that causes Mac bombs with System Tools 5.0. We were surprised to discover that press- ing Command-Shift-0 would crash a Mac SE or Macintosh II under System Tools 5.0 unless there is an external floppy drive attached to the Macintosh SE or some third-party FKEY 0. is installed in the System. If there is a disk in an‘external floppy drive, Command -Shift-0 ejects it, and that is apparently Apple's intend- ed purpose for the flaky key combination MORE and Comment. One of our readers reports an incompatibility between Version 1.1 1c of Symantec's MORE and Version 2.0 of Deneba Software’s Comment, which causes problems when editing text in MORE. The two companies are reportedly working on a fix. Reference as Computer Quick, 14928 Leffingwell Road, La Mirada, Calif. 90638; (213) 941-7951. MacTutor, PO. Box 400, Placentia, Calif. 92670; (714) 630-3730. Pre-Owned Electronics Inc., 30 Clematis Ave., Waltham, Mass, 02154; (617) 891-6851 or (800) 274-5343. We welcome your comments and questions on MaclnTouch at MacWEEK, One Kendall Square, Suite 326, Cambridge, Mass. 02139; (617) 577-1033, Electronic mail: MCI Mail: RICFORD, RLEPAGE, MACWEEKBOSTON; CIS: 75056,1225 (Ric Ford), 75016,350 (Rick LePage); Delphi/PAN; MACWEEK- BOS; AppleLink (address to the attention of “MaclnTouch” in Subject): XO702; MacNET: RICFORD, RICKLEPAGE; Internet: RIC- FORD@CUPPORTAL.COM; GEnie: MACWEEKBOS. How to shoot a moose with your Mac. aad When it comes to computers, scanning images isa different ani- mal. Until now! With Howtek color scanners and software, you can accurately scan four-color art- work directly into your computer. Images can be cropped, resized, | even color corrected. In fact, you should see what Howtek periph: erals can do. Color corrected image. Scan Flat Artor Film Photographs. 35mm film. ‘Transparencies, If you can see it, a Howtek scanner can scan it, The Scanmaster™ flat-bed scanner digi- tizes continuous tone and halftone Scan it with SCAN-IT™ ‘ t images up to 11x 17” in size, or film trans- parencies up to 8"x 10" The Scanmaster/35™ digitizes mounted or strip film in either posi- tive or negative format Software That Enhances Your Image With MacScan-It™ software, all scan: ner functions are at your fingertips. Simply select an image area to scan, z00M, Crop or resize with an easy-to- use menu. What's more, you can make global color and contrast cor- rections fora perfect tonal So any image can be scanned, enhanced, ina matter of minutes. Picture Perfect Quality Need more convincing? Just look at the color images to the left They were scanned ona Howtek scanner with picture-perfect quality. At Howtek. we're dedicated to the development of affordable, high-quality color peripherals. Now they're available to you, in living color. Stop hunting around, For more information on Howtek’s complete line of IBM PC and Macintosh products, including scanners and plain-paper color printers, call 603-882-5200. Orcon- tact us at 21 Park Avenue, Hudson, NH. 03051. Do it today. And put your com. pany head and antlers above the rest Howtek Scanmaster/35 and Scanmaster Howtek 603-882-5200 5 United Kingdom: (44) 1-991-0121 France: (33) 1-3-952-6253 West Germany: (49) 869-612-0010 Italy: (39) 2.612-8131 (a a egsared maceren fuera Berna Machen C Maa NEWS Parallel processing shared tasks FT-60 lets Mac II share memory of minicomputers BY WILL McCLATCHY AMHERST, N.H. — The average user may find standard networks sufficient for networking different machines, but not every user is average. Some users might want different computers to access the same data as they execute separate tasks in parallel. That's where Fla- vors Technology Inc. of Amherst, N.H., comes in. The company has developed the FT-60 Bus-Link, a system for real-time parallel processing of tasks shared between the Macintosh II and mini- and superminicomputers. ~~ BusLink allows the Macintosh II to share the physical memory of minicomputers and superminicom- puters. This eliminates the process- ing overhead associated with proto- col and data conversion in Message-passing network subsys- tems, according to Flavors officials. Giga Cell augments Data File series BYRENEE MATHEWS SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Giga Cell Systems Inc. recently added a 60-Mbyte and two 150-Mbyte ver- sions to its Data File series of streaming tape drives. The 60-Mbyte Data File 60TC, based on a 5.25-inch Teac tape drive, uses Teac CT600H data cassettes to store up to 60 Mbytes of data. The 150TC uses a 3.Sinch Teac drive and Teac CT600N data cassettes for 150 Mbytes of data storage. Giga Cell Systems has also intro- duced the Data File The systems are compatible with AppleShare, TOPS and MacServe networks, according to the company. They are bundled with SCSI cable, tape driver and Super Backup soft- ware that provides features such as incremental backup and password protection. Both the Data File 150TB and 150TC are priced at $1,985, while the 60TC sells for $1,235. Giga Cell Systems Inc. is 4201 Burton Drive, Santa Clara, Calif. 95054; (800) 832-8268; (408) 727- 1049 in California. 0 150TB, which incorpo- rates a Tandberg tape drive that stores up to 150 Mbytes on DC600XTD cartridges. The Data File systems will back up and verify data at a rate of 4 Mbytes per minute for file-by-file COURTESY Gig CHUL backup, and 5 Mbytes per The Data File 60TC, 150TB, and 150TC drives minute for image backups. ack up at 4 Mbytes per minute file-by-file. MacProducts offers removable cartridge system BY RENEE MATHEWS AUSTIN, Texas — MacProducts USA has joined the growing group of Mac vendors offering 45-Mbyte removable-cartridge storage systems. Based on a Syquest Technology drive unit, the $1,795 Magic45 is designed for use with any SCSI- equipped Mac system. It uses 5.25- inch removable data cartridges to store up to 45 Mbytes of data per car- APE to hold 1st meeting ‘The Apple Professional Exchange will hold its first national meeting Nov, 2 during the Macintosh Busi- ness Conference and Expo in Ana- heim, Calif All members who attend can par- ticipate in approving the by-laws of the user group and selecting chap ter presidents. For more information, contact Mike Bailey at (408) 745-0665 or at UG0110 on AppleLink. 12 MacWEEK/6 September 1988 tridge, which sell for $99 each. ‘The Magic45 features an integrat- ed SCSI interface and provides an average access time of 25 millisec- onds. The system comes with a vari- ety of software utilities, including for- matting, automatic head-parking, disk recovery and hard disk backup pro- grams, Also included is a Startup device (INIT) file that allows the car- tridge to act like a floppy disk so that file icons remain on the screen after the disk is ejected, the company said. MacProducts has also added a 30-Mbyte hard drive to its series of hard disk products for the Mac. The Magic30 is available in both external and internal versions. The Magic30, based on a Sea- gate drive, offers an average access time of 28 milliseconds. The drive is available immediately for a retail price of $599. MacProducts USA is located at 8303 Mopac Expressway, Suite 218, Austin, Texas 78759; (800) MAC- DISK; (512) 343-9441, The Bus-Link allows the Mac II to be integrated into complex sys- tems that need especially fast responses, such as process control, signal processing, expert systems execution and massive database retrieval. The product is especially useful for making the Mac II an intelligent front end to calculation- intensive superminicomputers, the officials said. “Bus-Link allows high-level data acquisition for expensive existing assets,” said Todd Leadbeater, direc- tor of Bus-Link products at Flavors. Instead of trying to emulate the Mac's ease of use with their mini- computer or superminicomputer, users can now make the Mac the interface for the larger computer's power. BusLink is composed of two bus interface boards connected by dual shielded cable and a programmer's toolkit with function libraries for integrating applications into the host computer. The system works between a Mac Il and any computer with a VMEbus, Multibus I, Unibus, Qbus, SelBus or Lbus architecture. This includes the DEC VAX 8XXX and 11/7XX line of minicomputers, the Gould Powernode and Concept- 32 superminicomputers, and the Symbolics 36XX and Texas Instru- ments Explorer II series of LISP workstations. The toolkit provides application programmers with a “non-intrusive,” high-level method of accessing memory to several operating sys- tems, including DEC’s VMS and UNIX. The toolkit includes pseudo- drivers to system kernels with mechanisms to lock physical memo- ry and perform other necessary functions. Scheduled for delivery by December, the FT-60 Bus-Link will be priced from $13,900 to $19,000 for the first Mac II connection, depending on the type of host com- puter. Additional Mac II connec- tions, currently limited to four on the same board, will cost from $7,000 to $8,000 each, Flavors is at 10 Northern Blvd., Amherst, N.H. 03031; (603) 882-3404. BY CONNIE BYCONNIEGUGUELMO PLANO, Texas — The company that invented Encapsulated Post- Script has released a new version of its utility that lets Macintosh users convert EPS files to PICT format. Developed by Altsys Corp., the EPS>PICT desk accessory makes it possible to paste screen representa- tions of PostScript illustrations into word processors and other pro- grams that are not capable of read: files. Although the leading yout programs for the Mac in already display EPS images, 3 of MacWrite, Microsoft Word, WriteNow, Trapeze and MacDraw previously had no way to include such graphics, according to Earl Allen, technical support manager for cle Mi ‘Council on National: Issues. Canadians, so shy is it thet posed ly made. Canad! € file Edit Phrase Search Pat 10 1Pg 58, Tct that was prepared as a special issue of Facts by the Public Enployees, and to page 102, vere Display _ sus thre. 13 a auth ‘a nanber of pesple in this 67 they garg om ere [MACHINISTS UNION f © AND ie [PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNION ae Sonar includes powerful Boolean search capabilities. Powerful new Sonar released at expo BY EMILY BYEMILYBROWER MIDLOTHIAN, Va. — Virginia Systems Software Services Inc, released Sonar Professional, a pow- erful new version of the company’s text-retrieval program, at last month’s Macworld Expo. The new $795 product provides Mac users with the tools to search and index the large text files created from automated text entry. The pro- gram can search 250,000 pages of information in one minute on a Mac Il, according to Philip Van Cleave, Virginia Systems’ president. In addition to straight text retrieval with Boolean operators — a capability offered in previous ver- sions of the program — Sonar Pro- fessional has a new feature called Automatic Hypertext. This function allows a user to follow related search strings while the program remem- bers the original search request. The program marks linked or related words and remembers the paths of the related information. It also generates “note cards” that show relationships among search strings and allow the user to add comments. ‘The Midlothian, Va., company's introduction was a perfect comple- ment to the eye-opening expo demonstrations of automated text entry on the Mac with Apple's scan- the Plano, Texas, company. EPS-+PICT is available for free from CompuServe'’s MacPro forum, GEnie and other electronic bulletin boards. A file format developed by Altsys President Jim Von Ehr and intro- duced in October 1986, EPS is a way to view images stored in PostScript files. Most programs that generate PostScript files use Quick- Draw, Apple's imaging technology, to display art on screen. When a plain (non-EPS) PostScript file is moved from the program in which it was created into another applica- tion, the QuickDraw code is left behind and the second program is unable to display the image on screen. However, when, the PostScript art is saved in EPS for- ner and OmniPage, the new: recognition” program from: Los Gatos, Calif. Van Cleave said he belie time is right for his program’ cess. “Over the past six months, # question has changed from ¥ text retrieval to what kind 01 tures we offer,” he said. “We almost shocked at the level 6 sophistication of our new users. ‘Judging from the Apple's inte1 in the program, Van Cleave is the only believer in Sonar Profe sional's timeliness. “We had every one from Apple’s CD-ROM division: to the legal division coming by te look at the program.” “From a lawyer's point of view this program is terrific,” said Ji Burger, Apple’s chief counsel ff government. ‘The original Sonar remains a able at $295, along with Round $49.95 text-retrieval desk Plans for a new version of Professional that will include greater hypertext capabil already on the drawing’ according to Van Cleave. any more difficult,” he said. ~ Virginia Systems Son re vices is at 5509 ® va sorte! file. Once an EPS im eh converted from EPS to PIC] the new Altsys desk acy can be imported into via the Clipboard, Ho said that in applica read EPS, “although the picture inside prints at original because the PostScr are set and cannot be: Altsys Corp, is lo Avenue F, Suite 109, ‘75074; (214) 424-4888, Connectivity vendors show products BY JON SWARTZ SAN FRANCISCO — Like other Macin- tosh developers, vendors of connectivity solu- tions took advantage of last month's Macworld Expo to unveil a host of enhancements and additions to their product lines. Tri-Data Systems Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., announced software enhancements to its $3,995 Netway 1000 LAN-to-mainframe gate- way that provide IBM 3287 printer emulation Mac users, as well as AppleTalk multiple- e Support for Mac and PC users. The printer-emulation feature is a free pgrade that lets Mac users print directly rom an IBM host application to any printer connected to an AppleTalk network. Multiple- zone support, priced at $395, allows users on ne AppleTalk network access across an Ap ‘alk bridge to a mainframe on another AppleTalk network. Both features will be avail- able Sept. 15, a Tri-Data spokeswoman said. Novell Inc. of Provo, Utah, jumped on the Oracle for Macintosh bandwagon with a vow of compatibility between its NetWare for Mac- intosh network operating system and Oracle Corp.'s database software for the Mac. Both products are due in the fourth quarter. 3 Novell also announced NetWare compati- iz Inc. of Trumbull, Conn., a pioneer in the field of PCto-Mac format conversion, said t is shipping MacLinkPlus/Translators, a $159 library of file translators. Based on the technolo- zy built into the company’s MacLinkPlus appli- cation, the new library adds more than 45 databridge combinations, covering most major PC-based business software packages, to the two translators provided by Apple for use with its free Apple File Exchange (AFE) utility. DataViz also announced an upgrade to its 195 MacLinkPlus product, which is capable of file transfers at 57.6 Kbaud. Version 3.0, due to ship Sept. 15, will add several new translators, including one for Xywrite, and will permit batch-file transfers. It will ship with both 3.5- n and 5.25-inch PC disks and cabling dapters that will work with all PC-compatible desktop and laptop machines, DataViz said. DataViz also announced a faster, higher- capacity version of its $395 MacLinkPlus/Wang databridge software and a new $495 Mac- LinkPlus/Wang OIS, a program that lets users exchange files between a Mac and a Wang: Office Information System. Traveling Software Inc. of Bothell, Wash., added a series of file translators to its $139.95 lapLink Mac filetransfer product. The new version, due this month, converts PC word processing files into MacWrite and Microsoft Word formats for the Mac. The LapLink Mac, which can link any IBM PC, XT, AT, PS/2, or compatible desktop or laptop with any Mac, comes with a 3.Sinch Mac disk, 3.5- and 5.25- inch PC disks and cable. Dynamic Microprocessor Associates Inc, of New York introduced an AppleTalk network version of PC MacTerm, its software that lets a Mac operate as a remote terminal of an IBM PC, Priced at $395, PC MacTerm/Net- work includes a pcANYWHERE III software license for one PC on the network and PC MacTerm licenses for Macs on the same net- work. The network version of PC MacTerm/ Network, however, does not support serial or modem connections. PC MacTerm is compati- ble with IBM programs, data file, hardware and peripherals. MegaGraphics unveils gray-scale video digitizer BY CONNIE GUGLIELMO BOSTON — MegaGraphics Inc. joined the growing pack of developers pursuing the emerg- ing video market for the Mac II with its recent introduction of a new gray-scale video digitizer. Called the MegaShot Greyscale Video Digi- tizer, the $1,495 card captures 640-by-480-pixel images in one-thirtieth of a second, or real time. MegaShot, scheduled to ship this fall, works with Apple's standard eight-bit graphics cards to offer a display of up to 256 gray levels, Mega- Graphics President Stanley E. Howard Jr. said. MegaShot accepts two input signals from any standard NTSC video source simultaneous- ly; each signal is displayed in a live, on-screen viewfinder. These images can then be combined into a signal image using the MegaShot software shipped with each digitizer. The software also contains image-enhancement controls that let users fine-tune contrast, focus and framing. The digitizer will be sold separately or as part of a $2,495 bundle including MegaGraph- ics’ NTSC Signal CCD Camera. The company also announced new ver- sions, available now, of its MegaScreen 2001 graphics interface card and MegaScreen 19.5- inch monochrome monitor for the Mac IL The $795 new interface card boasts a 69-Hz flicker-free refresh rate and support for video output such as NTSC and PAL, the European video standard. To provide a WYSIWYG display, the $1,495 monitor offers a Mac standard 72-dpi display with a resolution of 1,024 by 826 pixels. MegaGraphics is at 439 Calle San Pablo, Camarillo, Calif. 93010; (805) 484-3799. 0 Teach your Mac to perform unnatural acts. If youre losing your passion for running the carnal wont eal! wine "REA Preys wl play the corrent 3g REM (tha musie Is encoaee in noleArreyO) curmiotecenshcte (leghota(natearreylewrhete)) Tt-can even spit nickels same old programs on your Mac; add alittle excite- ment to the relationship. Start writing your own, with the new Microsoft® QuickBASIC for the Macintosh? BASIC is already the easiest language to learn on the Mac. And now, with new Micro- Microsoft QuickBASIC soft QuickBASIC, it’s even easier. Weve built the compiler and the inter- preter into one program. Which means you can compile and execute The consummate new Microsoft whateveryourheartde- @4eBASICior the Macintsh sires with a simple double click of the mouse. We've even added a complimentary personal finance program so you can practice. See any Microsoft dealer for a trial run. Youre going to have a lot of fun programming your own Mac, even when you're getting down to serious business. With new Microsoft QuickBASIC, you'll learn how to customize business applica- tions and programs so they meet your specific needs and work with existing applications. And don't be surprised at some of the inge- nious things you can create right off the bat. That's perfectly natural. Microsoft: 168 Scrat Corporation. All gh Nocmnch Corporation Microsoft nd the Microsc logo are gated trademark of roared E Nacibiah sod Mae are mgsterd ademas of Apple Computer, le ns of Miczoaft Quick BASIC kr the Macinton were developed snd are copyrighted by Abaot Corporation, Peri of Mic cS ewe ote Aaah ABASIC" capo Ag reed 6 September 1988/MacWEEK 13 Spicing up electric circuit simulation MacSPICE slated for fall release BY JONATHAN PERROW PALO ALTO, Calif. — Spicing up analog electrical circuit simulation on the Mac II, Deutsch Research and Capilano Computing are ready. ing a simulation program called MacSPICE for release this month. PSpice, another Mac II program from MicroSim Corp. of Irvine, Calif,, is currently the sole entry in the Mac SPICE market. MicroSim recently announced the addition of color capabilities for its Mac II prod: uct. The enhanced version is avail- able now, the company said. SPICE, which stands for simula- tion program with integrated circuit emphasis, is an application designed and first implemented at the Universi- ty of California, Berkeley, that allows engineers to simulate complex compu- tation-intensive analog circuit designs. Developed at Deutsch Research = fue (ant Commands Prete Bea, U2) it ae iba ne avy MacSPICE creates analog schematics and plots results of selected nodes. of Palo Alto, Calif,, and distributed by Capilano Computing of Vancou- ver, British Columbia, MacSPICE is a full implementation of SPICE3, the current version of the Berkeley pro- gram, according to Neil MacKenzie, Lip-synching talking heads materialize on the Mac ;ELLEVUE, Wash. — Some peo- ple would argue that the best thing about goldfish and computers is that they don't talk back. Thanks to Bright Star Technolo- gy Inc., you can scratch computers off the list. Putting its proprietary Real-time Animation and Vivification Engine (RAVE) scripting language and HyperAnimation technology to work, the Bellevue, Wash., company developed a software program that lets users bring animated, talking characters to life on the Macintosh. The $149.95 HyperAnimator package enables Mac users to create and control lip-synching talking heads or “actors” reminiscent of Max Headroom. Actors, or sound-syn- chronized images, saved as ASCII files can then be incorporated into Mac applications, including Hyper- Card, said William Correll, vice pres- ident of sales and marketing. The program comes with a cast of nine synthetic actors that can be easily modified. New characters can be created using the program’s paint tools and libraries of face clip art or by importing digitized images. Each actor may have up to 16 poses, complete with realistic facial expressions and lip positions. HyperAnimator marks the third in a line of animation tools released this year by Bright Star. In January, the company introduced Alphabet Blocks, an animated program that teaches children how to read. In April, the company released Talking Tiles, an $89.95 program that teaches pronun- ciation (see MacWEEK, April 5). Correll said the company also released HyperAnimator Sta five Hype HyperAnimator technology. program retails for $59.95. Bright Star is at 14450 N. Place, Suite 220, Bellevue, Wash. 98007; (206) 885-5446, Click to see expression O@Q0® BOO i Olfowle Onitt Odoe OMelwin Odon O Socko @MisterJones HELLO, MY NAME IS MISTER JONES, Sound-synchronized, ani