mac week v 4 n 28

| I L = CE 14 August 1990 Vol. 4 No. 28 Ww ° R K Ss Impact 2.0 | | Review, Page 44 Non-dedicated file servers See Comparative review, Page 38 L@ Gang of 4 cuts images fo size Mac in transition at expo Video compression By Connie Guglielmo ond John Webster Boston Demonstrations by Apple and SuperMac Technology last week singled out video from the multimedia medley as the next technology frontier for the Macintosh. At Siggraph “90 in Dallas Apple’s Advanced Technology Group showcased proprietary video-compression and decompres sion software that could be an extension to 32-bit QuickDraw Apple said the technology may: be incorporated into system software plays two shows as early as the end of 1991 story, Page 10 At Macworld Expo here, Super Mac demonstrated a board and software that compress 24-bit color images and video, as well as digital stereo audio, onto storage devices The optimum compression ratio will be 25-to-1 compression rates are possible. The er although hi board decompresses the video in real time (30 frames per second) for playback in a window on the Mae screen See Compression, Page 9 By MocWEEK staff Boston — Crowd- ing into hotels bunking in friends’ living rooms, chowing down at Bean town eateries and vying for cabs a somewhat-diminished pack of Macintosh fans swelled city coffers by $56 million and lined develop ers’ pockets with undetermined heaps of green during the four days of Macworld Expo here Although it packed less of a punch than it did in the hack- | Drizzles and muggy weather didn’t deter the from making their way from venue to venue. | fans boosted Boston coffers by $56 million. er days. the expo still had its weird and its wonderful, its wild and its wacky > Worst-kept secret. An envelope addressed to Radius Inc President Mike Boich and marked confidential” was out in plain view at the booth-registration desk, despite a well-intentioned Radius employee who tried to cover it up. The envelope read This package contains confiden- tial and privileged information about a private investment oppor- tunity. To be opened only by your board of directors.” Hmm. > Color me black and blue. A color box- ing match pitted SuperMac against Radius, as both compa nies now offer technol- ogy for ensuring color consistency between image display and out- put. No low blows were exchanged, but according to observers, SuperMac’s uppercut may be its scanner sup- port, while Radius counterpunch is more- complete Pantone color offerings | > Things that glow in the dark, Sigma Designs pulled a Flash Gordon imitation; its booth was fully equipped with electro- magnetic field-mea- See Notebook, Page 8 nak expo crowds Macintosh yes ~ really jumps out at you Users eager Te wasrealy a teplne = 5 ¥ said Robert Dat for new Macs tlio, director of the Dante Alighiere Cultural Center in Boston. “The emphasis was on buying and selling rather than excitement On its Hfth time around, the Boston show went off with fewer hitches than in previous years. The nearly 50,000 attendees and 430 exhibitors were old hands at navigating the 300,000 square feet of exhibit space in the Bayside Expo Cen: ter and World Trade € ter and at shuttling be tween the exhibits at the halls, the conferences at the Wang 32 show By MacWEEK staff Boston — It was wet and rather than hot and at Macworld Expo here last week. Apple CEO John Sculley showed some innovative new products in his keynote address, but by and large the atmospher« was restrained, with devel opers and users alike in a holding pattern until Apple releases its new low-end In his keynote address at Macworld Expo, Apple CEO John Sculley said the right-brained Mac is moving toward left-brain applications. hardware and high-end sys tem software Show goers seemed caught by the get to be the same,” said Jan Har nngton, president of Black Gryphon Center and their rooms at the Ltd. of Salt Point, N.Y sold-out official expo hotels nothing extraordinary and new that See Macworld Expo, Page 8 general mood of ennui. “I've been coming to these shows since they first started. Year after year, things There’s Industry leaders prescribe strong medicine By Daniel Farber mass in a broad spectrum of market Unsolidted advice (lft to right): Ponelists Bil Boston — In an unsolicited segments, said the officials from five Campbell, Paul Broinerd, Stewart Alsop, Gor- Open Letter to Apple Computer,” — of the biggest Mac developers don Eubanks, Heidi Roizen and Mike Maples. a high-powered panel of software “Right now, the Mac is niched as executives last week prescribed a graphics machine,” said Bill [% ee a strong medicine for Apple CEO Campbell, president of Claris | John Sculley. To thrive in the new Corp. “Multimedia as a market seg- | < decade, Apple needs to expand its _ ment must be put aside. = market share, price its products The panelists also expressed con- | 0 | more aggressively and create critical See Advice panel, Page 8 | o z | ° 5 ° ° Pillar plans financial package ) rh buil lal eV 4 ae he program, built around a FYPlan simplifies iinu2°Ststond database pre- | An pee AF} sents a flexible user interface |™ business modeling vvcavosmpuly the haa | planning process, according to Max | © By Doniel Farber Toy, president and CEO of the |~ Boston — Pillar Corp. last week _ Foster City, Calif.-based Pillar. Toy | previewed FYPlan, a high-end _ previously served as a senior execu- | financial modeling and forecasting tive with Commodore, IBM Corp. |> package for the Macintosh, at Mac- and Compaq Computer Corp by | world Expo here See Pillar, Page 8 |# | Mai It was designed fora p DayStar's Fast Cache Iici ““unleashes the full power of the Mac IIci's 25MHz processor. By storing application code in superfast 25 nanosecond memory, Fast Cache lIci lets the processor operate at zero wait-states, for maximum performance. That's why Apple® builds a special cache connector into every Mac Ilci they ship! Easy Installation If you've ever put in a NuBus™ card, you can put in our cache card. Our pictorial manual will guide you — installation is easy, and takes a matter of minutes. iC HCi, you didn’t get maximum performance. ug-in cache card... here it is! Work Faster and Better Whether it's graphics, CAD or database... you will benefit from Fast Cache IIci. Create time for changes that make the difference between work that is adequate, and work that is truly outstanding. Proven Compatibilit Shipping since October 1989, the Fast Cache IIci has a large installed base of satisfied users. Its rock solid design will greatly increase your productivity. Call 1-800-962-2077 today for more information and your nearest Authorized DayStar Dealer. DAYSTAR Available exclusively through dealers and value added resellers 5556 Atlanta Highway, Flowery Branch, GA 30542, (404) 967-2077 Other brands and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective bolders, Product specifications are subject to change without notice. ©1990 DayStar Digital, Inc. This ad designed and created exclusively on a Macintosh I with a DayStar 50/030 Accelerator Il ‘MocWEEK 14 August 1990 By Raines Cohen Boston — Apple last week announced E,T.O.; Essential Tools-Objects, a subscription CD- ROM full of its most popular devel- opment tools. Billed by Apple offi- cials as “the ultimate development environment,” the dise contains more than 560 Mbytes of ‘ars ming and reference materials for Macintosh and Apple I developers. “This dise is for high-end power developers who want all the tools and want to stay up to date,” said Jack Hodgson, eke manager: Developer Essentials, a major part of the package, is 280 Mbytes of tools, code, steriatonl versions of HyperCard and system software, technical notes, and a stack version HSD scanner zooms in on gray scale By Henry Norr Boston — HSD U.S. Inc., a pio- neer developer of gray-scale scan- ners for the NeXT workstation, last week released a Mac model capa- ble of resolutions up to 1,500 dpi Called Scan-X Professional for Macintosh, the unit distinguishes among 256 levels of gray and offers resolutions of 300 dpi for gray-scale images; the full 1,500-dpi resolu- tion is available only for line art. The Scan-X incorporates HSD's Gray Spectrum Enhancement technology, which lets users improve detail and definition in a scanned image by assigning all 256 available values to a designated portion of the gray qa Most competing eight-bit scanners, according to HSD, waste much of their potential for detail by spread- ing their 256 values across the full spectrum from white to black, regardless of the range of shades used within a particular image. The scanner is shipped with HSD's'Sean-X desk accessory, which allows scanning from within any application, and with Enhance, an image-analysis and -enhancement program from Micro Frontier Inc. of Des Moines, Iowa. The appli- cation, which has a retail price of $375, offers real-time gray-level manipulation, colorization, 80 real- time filters, scaling from 25 per- cent to 800 percent, rotating, brush- ing, and masking, among other advanced features, Scan-X Professional for Macin- tosh will retail for $1,995, but dur- ing the month of August is ayail- able directly from HSD for $1,495. Options available from the compa- ny include an automatic document feeder and a NeXT interface kit. HSD U.S. Ince. is located at 1350 Pear Ave., Suite C, Mountain View, Calif. 94043; (415) 964-1400, 0 _E.T.0.: Apple CD-ROM gives developers whole shebang of “Inside Macintosh." Developer Essentials is also available separately ‘on « CD-ROM bound into develop, Apple's technical journal The tools section of the E.T.O. dise includes the Macintosh Pro- grammer’s Workshop development environment; tools for program- ming in C, C++, Object Pascal and assembly under MPW; ResEdit; and MacsBug. Objects include MacApp and all support files for Rie heel Apple’s object-oriented program- | ming languages The disc contains not only final release versions of the products but also newer beta-test versions. Sub- scriptions include four quarterly updates, plus hard-copy versions of all final documentation and all revi- sions to the paper manuals. Prices for a one-year subscrip- tion range from $300 for customers who already own all the com- ponents to $995 for those who own none. 0 MacTerminal gets big rewrite By Henry Norr Boston — MacTerminal 3.0, a new and completely rewritten ver- sion of Apple's original Mac telecom- munications and host-access soft- | ware, will be released next month, the company said here last week, The program, first released in 1984, is now based on the Macin- tosh Communications Toolbox, a new system-software extension that gives ap lications access to an expandable set of standard commu- nications capabilities with a consis- tent Mac interface. Users can add or remove terminal-emulation and protocol functions by dropping “tools” into a folder when needed. In announcing MacTerminal 3.0, | Apple said the new program would serve as an example application of the new Toolbox, which it described as the company’s “strategic commu- nications architecture.” In addition to TTY and VT102 terminal emulation, MacTerminal Version 3.0 will support VT320 emulation and multiple connections. The product will be available through authorized Apple resellers for $125. Customers who pur- chased MacTerminal on or after May 1 can get the new version free by sending a dated sales receipt and their original program disk to Apple Computer, MacTerminal Software Upgrade, P.O. Box 16206, Denver, Colo 80216. Earlier buyers can get the new release by returning their original program disk with a check ‘or money order for $65, payable to Apple Computer Inc., to the same address. 0 cr} 23 %4 24 90 News Organizational Mac MicroNet matches fast Macs with 3.5-inch drives Aladdin opens Shortcut to managing, navigating files Mass Microsystems mounts Canon on fast new optical Paragon enhances virtues of Nisus with Version 3.0 Ssaa030) Hamill’s secret weapon: Armed with Mac project- =| 28 os management tools, the defense contractor rallies. 30 Tech Files Joe! West yy = HyperCord merits 0 place among in-house development tools eee — —— ProductWatch New colors for autumn: Due fo ship in October, Version 2.0 of SuperMac Technology's PixelPaint Professional will add new tricks, tools and textures fo the 32-bit color paint program. Ventura makes Mac foray with long-document DTP Claris polishes FileMaker for Windows; '91 release? Mac multimedia grabs center stage at Siggraph VideoLogic puts full-motion, 24-bit video on Mac VBS plots new course; ChartMaster replaces VB No.5 33 Trends: The Mac Is’ multiple NuBus slots give lexi- Photone color corrector, separator aimed at dailies bilty, but the SES one POS slot may be all you need. 3 i ing 34 MacinTouch NEC cuts in on lower-cost PS market with 6-ppm laser ates else etd ae ori Ricoh erasable optical marks new era for lomega Fa Capoarsor Foor ox dsdered fle sere Campagne endows non-profits with upgrade 3B Reviews in Brief: SuperCard 1.5 NoRad puts Shield between users, 19-inch displays 44 Review Full npoct 20 hos the mens 1 Excel Ice STESTeaUEMS sue seeu eRe evetES 44 Review: Seven DAs for seven functions in Zedcor Desk HyperGESCAN: Mac front end stacks DEC VAX data 52 Review: Despite rough takeoff, DoveFAX may fly Prograph 2.0: Stand-alone apps, ‘Inside Mac’ support 5A Help Desk Dovid Romsey Inman adopts Business Sense; cuts price, not support Virus busting: Its easy to break WDEF's grip on your desktop. New Media Steve Rosenthal — BusinessWatch Apple wants to be the stondarc-bearer as developers march foward multimedia, but it hasn't kept poce in providing stondords to follow. 85 Authorware training apps teach employees a lesson Two vendors launch cards fo bring Mac aboard ARCnet © 85 _Display makers monitored by media at VDT forum Opinion 88 MarketWEEK For MacWEEK readers, MocDraw sales draw ahead of competition. Editorials Lost week, the Moc market assembled for its annual checkup at the 58 Mail Order Boston expo. The prognosis is good: Products displayed there inject the Mac with new copobiies and boost its competitive power. 65 Ad Showcase Another Mac iaiblazer hongs up his spurs. 68 Ad Index Letters 69 Classified Mac the Knife 80 Career Opportunities MaxWEEK (SSH 08928118) pblshed week, withthe exception of on. 2, May 29, hy 3, hy 12, hay 24, ug. 28, Sept 4, No 27, Dec. 18 ord Dec. 25, by Conse Asacites FAblishng, LP, One Pak Ave, New York, 1.10016, Sag copy price inducing pstoge: $5. One-year substan rat: US, $75, Conndn/Manico U.S. $150, lotoatinat U.S. $300 (ral) Al orders must be prepaid. Dsectsubscipon ings Customer Seve Department, Mac WEEK, PO. Box S821, Chny Hil, NJ. 08034; (609) 426-5000. Changs of address feo that a new oplcaion be filed out completly end hd both new ond lakes. Allow 4 weeks for processing. Postmasiec Send aes changes to MacWEEK, PO. Bax 5806, Chem Hil, NJ. 08034. Second-dass postage pond at New York and additional maiing offices. MacWEEK s an independent faunal, rat cfficted with Apple Computer Inc. Apple end Macintosh are faders of Apple Compaen. Ene caren copyright 1990 Coastal Asacates LEAD nights served. Matalin his pblicofon may not be eroded in oy for wih cut parmeson. Request fr pesca shed be deed Yo Chantel Lovdan!, One Prt hve. New Yor, N.Y. 10016, MocWECK i rogsteed adem of Const Ascites Pbihing LP [le aaas News MicroNet 3.5-inch drives faster than SCSI By Henry Norr Boston — MicroNet Technology Inc. last week demonstrated a 3.5-inch, 426-Mbyte drive that the company said transfers data three times as fast as most competitors in the 3.5-inch category Due next month in intemal and external configurations, the new Ultra/426 is based on Shortcut simplifies file management, navigation By Heary Norr Boston — Aladdin Systems Inc. last week announced Shortcut 1.5, an enhanced version | of its disk-management and navigation utility The $79.95 Startup document (INIT) adds a pop-up menu to Open and Save dialogs that helps users find missing files; rename, delete and lock files; decompress archives created | with Aladdin’s Stuff; and jump quickly to reg. ularly visited locations in their folder hierar chies. Due next month, the new version will > Present Stuffit archives in dialog boxes list windows as if they were folders. Opening the pseudo-folder and double-clicking on a document will automatically decompress and open it - “Remember” recently opened files and folders, so users can return to them quickly by choosing them from a Shortcut menu > Have open, copy and print text and PICT docu. ments from within the dialog boxes of any application, even programs that don’t normally a View command that lets users open such documents. For example, Aladdin said, the feature will make it easier for users to paste PICT images into their word processing documents or text into drawings. Upgrades will be sent free to registered users, Aladdin said. is located at Deer Aptos, Calif Aladdin Systems Inc Park Center, Suite 23A-171 95003; (408) 685-9175. FoxBASE+/Mac gets faster over networks By Henry Norr Boston users 4 major improvement in execution Promising networked database speeds, Fox Software Inc. last week announced an upgrade to its FoxBASE+/Mac line The upgrade, which like the current release will be called Version 2.01, will be shipped free to registered users this month, the com pany said. The new FoxBASE+/Mac Multi User, which incorporates technology first veloped for FoxPro/LAN for IBM PC net works, performs some tasks 25 times faster than its predecessor, according to Fox, while all known bug: The new network release is designed espe the single-user update fixes cially to excel under heavy loads, “The more uses, the better its relative performance,” the company said FoxBASE+/Mac family are unchanged: $495 for the single-user version. $695 for the multi-user version, $300 for the single-user runtime module and $500 for the Prices for the multi-user runtime module Fox Software Inc. is located at 134 W South Boundary, Perrysburg, Ohio 4355] 419) 874-0162. a recently announced Seagate mechanism; it was developed at a facility that was part of Imprimis Technology Inc. until Seagate Tech- nology Inc. acquired that company last year With spindle speeds of 4,400 rpm, access times of 15 milliseconds and 60 Kbytes of segmented cache, the Ultra/426 drives are capable of sustained data transfers of 2.1 Mbytes per second and bursts of up to 5 Mbytes per second. According to MicroNet, they are the first 3.5-inch storage systems that exceed the 1.4-Mbyte-per-second capac- ity of current Macs’ SCSI ports and therefore the first that do not hold back Apple’s most recent and fastest Mac models. The internal Ultra/426i, priced at $3,695, will fit into the Mac S (0, Hex and Ici, as well as six-slot machines. The external 426e, at $3,795, measures 6.25 by 7.75 by inches. The drives, covered by a one: MocWEEK 14 August 1990 year warranty, carry an MTBF (mean time between failure) rating of 100,000 hours. For an additional $600, the Ultra/426 drives | | will be packaged with MicroNet’s NuPORT, a forthcoming NuBus card that adds an indepen- dent SCSI port capable of handling 12 Mbytes per second. The card, which supports direct memory access and the SCSI-2 standard, was also shown at last week's Macworld Expo and is now scheduled for release next month. | MicroNet Technology Mason, Irvine, Calif. 9 | The desktop Mac with more tha MocWEEK 14 August 1990 Mass Micro optical reads data faster By Henry Norr Sunnyvale, Calif, — Mass Microsystems Inc. last week became the second Mace stor age vendor to introduce a magneto-optical drive based on the new Canon mechanism Due next month at $4,349, Mass Micro’ OptiPak holds 488 Mbytes of data on remoy- able 5.25-inch cartridges, one of which is intosh included, Additional cartridges will be priced at $220 each. The Canon cartridges hold less data than the 594- and 650-Mbyte cartridges used by Sony and Ricoh erasable optical mecha- nisms, which are offered by a Jong list of Mac vendors, and the d or write cartridges in the other format Canon device cannot read none des Think oft as the office Mac What the new mechanism does offer, Mass Micro said, is better performance and reliabili ty. Primarily because it rotates the media at 3,000 rpm, compared with 2,400 in the Sony and Ricoh mechanisms, the OptiPak reads data much faster than the other systems. (Tahiti optical drives, marketed by Storage Dimen sions of San Jose, Calif,, use a MaxOptix mech: anism that also rotates at 3,000 rpm.) In addition, Mass Micro said, the Canon drive has a built-in dust-filtration system that reduces the danger of head contamination. for peopl you can take home withyou. Or the Mac for the home that's capable enough to use at the office. Either way, this is the gS that gives you the freedom to work 4 where youcan get the mostwork f/ done, The Macintosh Portable. The Portable is, first and foremost, a full-fledged, completely compatible Macintosh. Its got the standard Mac keyboard, and comes with a page-width screen. Itll run all the same programs youre currently using, at twice the speed of our best-selling Macintosh SE. And, just as impor- tant, it plugs into any Mac peripheral. Theres also the added benefit that since you'll always be using the same computer, your desktop and programs will always be set up just the way you like them. Complete with the most current version of all your work. For the name of the authorized Apple reseller nearest you, give us a call at 1-800-538-9696, ext. 725. And find out howto have the power tobe your best. No matter which desktop you happen to be at. Ul ‘The power to be your best” © 1960 ple Compaen Appl the pe ago, Mac and Macias ado, xd The acer be oar ets a radenar f ple Cp ned Optional replacement filters, a head-cleaning | cartridge and a disk-cleaning kit also will be offered. MicroNet Technology Inc Calif, last month ann similar Canon-base MacWEEK, July 31). Mass Micro tridges will be interchangeable between its OptiPak and ¢ icroNet unit Mass Microsys located at 810 W. Maude Ave., Sunny alif. 94086 408) 522-1200; (800) 522 of Irvine, | 1 its CMO-1, a d optical drive (see | said car | Feature-rich Nisus gets richer with 3.0 By Henry Norr Solana Beach, Calif Nisus 3.0, the lat est version of Paragon Concepts Inc.’s $395 an shipping last week word processor, A long li > New “Pl: a full-size or sca page from a new or exi Nisus 3.0 file. The im source nts includes Users ¢ locum stlinked to the is updated automatically when the original is edited. Double-clicking on the image opens the source file » Graphics enhancements. Documents now have graphics layers both in front of and behind the text layer, so users can put logos or text, such as “draft” or “copy,” in the back ground. In addition, a frechand drawing vertical rulers and a command that lets users control the offset between a graphic and text | wrapped around it have been added > New shortcuts. and listed in a “pop-down™ menu, and 125,531 tool. Rulers can be named ubinations are now available for custom rd equivalents. Style sheets now sup- port paragraph as well as character formatting, > Non-contiguous selection. Non contiguous sections of a document can be selected and modified globally. A Find All command added to the program’s already options all occurrences of the desired expres- feature-rich search-and-replace selects sion or style > A programming language. To supple ment the macro language built into earlier releases of Nisus, Version 3.0 comes with a BASIC-like programm nodule with which advanced users can ustom func tions to the program fee-based macro-writing service on now offers a Like earlier versions, Nisus 3.0 provides unlimited Undos, multiple clipboards, and a built-in thesaurus and spelling checker The new version can read and wnte files in Microsoft Word 3.0 and 4.0 formats unless t Save form Upgrades will be $65 or free to customers who purchased an earlier version after June 1 P. 1 Concepts Inc. is located at 990 Highland Drive, Suite 312, Solana Beach Calif. 92075; (619) 481-1477. they were saved in F ResEdit Reference available Boston — Apple and Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. last week announced ResEdit Reference, a 176-page guide to ResEdit Ver sion 2.0b2, the latest release of Apple's stan: dard utility for creating and editing such Mac | resources as menu yoxes and icons. | Available now for $12.95, the book will be distributed to developers through the Apple | Programmer's & Developer's Association and | to bookstores by Reading, Mass.-based Addi son-Wesley Publishing Co. Ventura taps Mac publishing market Program targets long documents By Corolyn Said Boston — Ventura Software Inc. last week made a bid for the Mac publishing market, betting on sev- eral aces in the hole: a huge IBM PC user base, mixed-network capabilities and powerful long- document features. Ventura Pub- lisher, Macintosh Edition, unveiled at Macworld Expo, is scheduled to ship by year-end for $795. “Ventura is excellent for technical writing and other types of business communication with large degrees of revision,” said beta-tester Harry A.B. Shapiro, systems manager at Warwick, Baker & Fiore, a New York-based advertising firm. Although Shapiro said he felt the program fully uses the Mac inter- face, it does have several shortcom- ings on the design end, including the inability to handle color other than spot color, lack of horizontal type scaling and poor graphics integra- tion, according to Shapiro and Jonathan Seybold, publisher of Mal- ibu, Calif -based Seybold Reports But it offers features to automate production of long, structured docu- ments, such as technical materials, proposals, books and manuals > Long-document features in- clude automatic cross-referencing, footnoting, global renumbering of linked documents, and table-of- contents and index generation. Welcome to tion of long, structured documents. Typographic features indude automatic drop cops and bullet characters. > Workgroup-publishing features include bidirectional live links between Ventura Publisher files and associated word processing and graphics documents, the capability to keep text and graphics files on a server, and full file compatibility with the MS-DOS and forthcoming Unix versions of the product > Technical-document features include a built-in table editor and equation generation. > Typographic features include sfileebeet control, tracking and kerning, automatic drop caps, and vertical justification. An Apply but- ton lets users preview changes made via dialog boxes. > Word processing features in- clude hyphenation, a spelling check- er and text-editing tools, but no search-and-replace feature. > Graphics features in- clude the capability to the Macintosh anchor graphics to text Edition of halftone screening for VENTURA PUBLISHER PostScript printers, and rotation of text and graphics in 90-degree increments All dialog boxes are movable so that users can easily preview the effects of formatting changes. Ventura Publisher, along with Frame Technology Corp.'s recently released $995 FrameMaker for the Mag, will establish the Mac as a legitimate platform for long documents, Seybold said. “Apple has never had a good Jong-document publishing program (before Ventura and Frame],” he said. Interleaf Inc.'s Interleaf Pub- lisher failed to claim that market because of its lack of a true Mac interface, he said. Ventura also will vie with Aldus PageMaker, the only other popular desktop publishing program that runs on both Macs and IBM PCs, for mixed Mac-PC networks, experts said. Observers say it is unlikely to encroach on the territory staked out by PageMaker, QuarkXPress and Letraset’s DesignStudio for design- rich DTP documents, however. Ventura Software Ine. is at 15175 Innovation Drive, San Diego, Calif. 92128; (619) 673-7524. 0 PixelPaint Pro adds array of editing, texture tools By Connie Guglielmo Boston — SuperMae Technology will ship in Ctther wey seaiioo of PixelPaint Professional that expands the 32-bit color program’s palette of color tools and painting capabilities. New features in Version 2.0, to be priced at $799, include: > Support for large and multiple documents. Incorporating a new virtual-memory screen, PixelPaint Professional lets users auto-scroll through images up to 4 Kbytes by 4 Kbytes and open as many documents as hard disk memory allows. > Eight-bit masking. Semitrans- parent masks can be created from any brush, tool or image. > Wet Paint, a feature that lets users create, edit and reposition text and objects before pasting them down into the paint layer. » Image-processing tools to adjust brightness, contrast and color. > Pressure-sensitive tools. Using graphics tablets from Wacom Ine. of Paramus, N.J., users can simulate pencil, brushes, airbrushes, water harcoal and other media. PixelPaint Professional is one of a PixelPaint Pro 2.0 now can dis- play multiple dox- uments. Other new features indude document controls, such os Ruler and Grid, nd o Wet Paint feature that lets the user edit ond growing number of graphics pro- grams that supports pressure- sensitive tools. Others include Adobe Systems Inc.'s Photoshop, Silicon Beach Software's Digital Darkroom 2.0, Creative Software's Easy Color Paint 2.0, Electronic Arts’ Studio/32 and Time Arts Inc.’s Oasis. controls, including Ruler, Grid, Coordinates and 16 levels of zoom. » A Gradient Editor for cre- ating color ramps with multiple, adjustable anchor points. The program also offers a feature called PixelPaper, backgrounds that work like textured canvases, It will ship with canvases that simulate char- coal paper, concrete, linen and slate, PhelPaint Professional requires a color-capable Mac II machine with System 6.0.5 or higher and 2 Mbytes of RAM. Users who purchase PixelPaint Professional 1,0 between Aug. 1 and Dec. 1 will be upgraded free, Regis- tered owners can upgrade for $125; PixelPaint owners can trade up to Version 2.0 for $299, SuperMac Technology is located at 485 Potrero Ave., Sunnyvale, Calif, 94086; (408) 245-2202. 0 FileMaker Pro for Windows 3.0 on the 1991 horizon By Doniel Farber Boston — Windows 3.0 develop- ment at Claris Corp. is alive and well, even though Apple has retak- en control of its software company. Claris officials declined to com- ment, but sources here said that the company will deliver a Windows 3.0 version of FileMaker Pro as early as the fourth quarter of 1991 In the seven weeks since Claris was reeled back into Apple, many industry observers pee ated that one of Apple’s motives for the sud- den move was to kill efforts to deliv- er Windows applications. But Claris officials have consistently said not to count out Windows development. “Database is a critical area for multiplatform development. File- Maker for Windows is certainly not out of the question,” said Claris Pres- ident Bill Campbell during a panel at Macworld Expo here last week According to the sources, the lack of a cross-platform database strategy has locked Apple out of key corpora- tions because customers with mixed networks are seeking consistent, flexible tools for data integration, not just file compatibility: Apple apparently believes that Windows versions of Mac databases are neces- sary for the Mac to make serious inroads in the critical database area FileMaker Pro, the Mac version of which is now scheduled for release next month, is the only current Claris application that will be ported to Windows, sources said. The pro- gram is an enhanced version of the most popular flat-file database on the Macintosh, with more than 50 percent market share in the category, according to a Mac WEEK survey. Claris also is expected to extend the capabilities of FileMaker Pro within the next two years by devel- oping a relational database engine compatible with the product. In addition, Claris is considering developing a runtime version of HyperCard for Windows, which would allow Mac-based stacks to run on IBM PCs and compatibles. Apple and Claris seem prepared to do battle with Microsoft as a sys- tem software vendor, 4 “The Mac has been isolated in certain areas,” said Dan McCai mon, general manager of the apphi- cations group at Claris. “Apple real- izes that Microsoft is the real com- penn and that we have a bigger ‘uture than the Mac Toolbox.” Analysts suggested said Claris and Apple are betting that, beyond System 7,0, a new processor- independent operating system, user interface and CPU architecture based on the Motorola 88000 RISC (reduced instruction set computing) processor will provide the firepower to battle Microsoft on the system software front in the mid-1990s, 6 MacWEEK 14 August 1990 Founder & Publisher. Michael Tehong EDITORIAL Editor Daniel Ruby Executive Editor Daniel Farber Managing Editor Brenda Benner News Group Group Editor Henry Norr Senior Editors. Rochelle Gamer, Connie Guglielmo Editor at Large Dale Coleman Senior Writers Carolyn Said, Margie Wylie Technical Andlyst Raines Cohen Staff Reporters Pamela Pfifiner, John Webster Technology Group Group Editor Anita Malnig Senior Editor/Reviews Becky Waring ‘Senior Technical Editor Ric Ford (Boston) Senior Writer Rick LePage (Boston) Associate Editor Cliff Lehman Assistent Editors Stephen Howard, Janice Maloney Information Specialist Nathalie Welch Copy Editors Cate Corcoran (Copy Chie!) ‘Anne Matera (DTP Chief), Marian Hansen, Matthew Rothenberg ing Editors Clay Andres, Don Crabb, Steve Hannaford, Vernon Keenan, Steve Michel, David Ramsey, Steve Rosenthal, Ezra Shapiro, Joel West ART AND PRODUCTION Assodate Publisher Barri Klingaman Art Director Eleanor Leishman Associate Art Director Laura Stoll Designer Gary Suen Photo Editor Jonathan Hornstein Infographic Specialist Nevin Berger Production Manager Carolyn Beaham West Technical Manager Henri Froissart Grophics Technician Rick Valdez AsdstetPredacn Menor Tamar argus Ad Supervisor Michelle Gargus ‘Ad Coordinator Christina Vyhnalek MARKETING Associate Publisher Ted Welch Advertis Nancy Carter, jell Cohen Gale Dass foo Fitzwilliam, cathy Kottenbach, Michael Lamattina, Michele Lipstein. ‘Account Executives Christina M. Dupre, Sam Faillace, Elizabeth Masog Joan Sturtridge, Deborah Tarantino Seles Development Manager Cynthia Koral Grcvlation Director Robert Smahl Grevlation Coordinator Chris Giarraputo Promotion Director Cynthia Ahart Research Director Griffin Dix Jennifer Ambrulevich Grovp Vice President, Macintosh Publications J, Samuel Huey COASTAL ASSOCIATES PUBLISHING Executive Vice President Eric Hippeau Senko Vice President J. Scott Briggs. Vice President Contraller John Vlachos Vice President Operations. Baird Davis Treasurer Willian Phillips Secretary J. Malcolm Morris Editorial ond advertising offices: 301 Howard St, 15th Floor, San Calif, 94105; (415) 243-3500. Boston editorial office: 4 Cambridge Center, Third Floor, Cambridge, Mass, 02142: (617) 497-2600. The Mac SQL Sequel The first SQL database for Macintosh has enhanced connectivity and a new graphical Query Tool. The first version of ORACLE for Macintosh was a big hit. Industry analysts gave it a thumbs up. Thousands of users gave it their support. And InfoWorld Magazine gave it Product of the Year. Now Oracle announces ORACLE for Macintosh Version 1.2, with enhancements for both end users and developers. Improved connectivity options make iteven easier to access corporate data on servers, minis and mainframes. Version 1.2 supports virtually any network. Including Async, Apple’s MacTCP, Novell’s TCPort, Alisa’s TSSnet, DCA’s MacIRMA 3270 and Tri-Data’s Netway. The new HyperCard-based Query Tool, with the enhanced Application Generator and System Stack, lets users point and click to query data and then automatically transfer it to their favorite programs such as Excel, Wingz or Word. All without knowing SQL or writing code. The Database Version includes the ORACLE database, Query Tool, Application Generator, System Stack, Hyper*SQL and Pro*C for $699, The Networkstation Version comes with everything but the database for only $299. And the Networking Option for Macintosh is just $299. ORACLE for Macintosh Version 1.2 is backed by the largest database consulting and support organization of any software company. Call 1-800-ORACLE1 Ext, 7792 and order today. And see a sequel that’s better than the original, ORACLE Compatibility « Portability Connectability ‘©1990 Oracle Corporation. ORACLE is a registered lrademark of Oracle Corporation. Allirade names referenced are the service mark, Vademark, or registored irademark of the respective manufacturer Call -600-ORACLEt for hardware and software requirements. Show-floor best sellers Part of the flavor of Macworld Expo comes from Mac resellers doing brisk business from booths on the show floor. An informal survey of three resellers the morning of Aug. 9 turned up this list of show favorites: News QuarkXPress 3.0 Wacom tablets SIMMs (all brands) Screen savers Pyro, After Dark ond FlowFazer NoRad screen filters > Correct Grammar from Lifetree Software Woyzata Technology CD-ROMs Disk Doubler from Salient Software MacTools Deluxe from Central Point Software > Sim Gty from Maxis Software From Page 1 Macworld Expo The keynotes appropriately encapsulated the character of the Mac, past and future. Out going Apple Products President Jean-Louis Gassée verbally frolicked with a crowd of Mac while Sculley sought to frame the Mac as a serious business machine for the ‘90s Although Sculley acknowledged that the Mac needs to transcend its reputation as a honchos and insiders. graphics machine, two-thirds of the products and technology he showcased were multime dia-related. They included SuperMac Tech nology’s real-time digital-video compression and decompression technology (see story Page 1); Apple's Advanced Technology Group's Apple Movie Scanner, a prototype user interface for manipulating digital video. MacroMind Inc.'s MediaMaker; Digital F/X’s Video F/X, a professional-quality video pro- duction system; ABC News InterActive's HyperCard 2.0-driven interactive videodisc about AIDS; and Beyond War's Earthquest, a HyperCard stack on the environment On the business side, Sculley’s list of the best and brightest included Pillar Corp.’s FYPlan. financial modeling software, shown for the first Group Tech nologies Inc.'s Aspects 1.0 network conferenc time in public (see story, Page 1 ing software; and Caere Corp.'s Typist, a hand. held optical character recognition scanner, As the Mac market becomes more corpo rate, users note changes in the expo atmo- sphere. “It seems to be lusher than ever Things are more sophisticated than ever, said Fernando Corbato, professor of comput er science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge Notebook From Page 1 | surement devices. The company’ big guns tried to lure the unwitting into wheeling the weapon around the floor to detect monitor emissions in other booths With all the scare about screen emissions, | some show goers suffered Chernobyl shock under the ultraviolet lights posted at the entrances. Invisible, glow-in-the-black-light strips adorned official badges to keep budget-minded *Maciacs” from desktop publishing their way into the show > Crimes and punishments. Lapis woke up Thursday morning to the tune of So Long, Macs, It's Been Good to Know Ya.” The company was feeling blue over the theft of several Mac Ils from its booth. The same night, BMUG had a dozen tie-dyed shirts stolen from its World Trade Genter booth. Apple offered hands-on previews with a simulation of HyperCard 2.0 as well as but- tons that read “I and “Smarter.” As of last week, HyperCard 3.0 had passed its 40th beta, but developers said it still lacks features. Jean-Louis Gassée called it “VaporCard,” > Far out. The real sensory orgy was tucked into a corner of the World Trade SuperMac Technology's ColorMatch color calibration ond matching system (right) is built cround TekColor software licensed from Tektronix, The Wang Center (below) was full of bright lights, scaf- folding and Macintosh enthusiasts eager to hear Gassée’s swan song and watch Sculley play with the latest Macin- tosh toys. ‘CAD users got the big picture at HP’s booth, where the company’s pen plotter was shown workiog with Palomar’s PLOTTERgeist driver. MoacWEEK 14 August 1990 Center: A slick, marblelike media cube by Swiss multimedia guru Dent-de-Lion du Midi, it ran on a Hex with 3-D, 24-bit real time video; 16-bit digital sound, laser and CD players; and a bi-amped titan sound system with its own eight-ehi digital mixer. The virtually virtual-res obelisk, with an all-too-realistic price tag of $50,000, comes custom designed for screen displays. A winner in the enticing company name The theme at the E-Machines booth was rock’n’roll to the tune of S.R.O. Show goers bopped around the floor, eye- ing the company’s 16-inch monitors showing 24-bit color, Advice panel cern about Apple’s seemingly unstable man- agement team and lack of innovation in the user-interface arena. Symantec CEO Gordon Eubanks character- ized Apple as a system-software company, not “an aluminum sheet-metal bender with parts inside.” The risk facing Apple, he said, is let ting Microsoft with Windows become a second for Mae system software. ke Maples, vice president of the applica tion software division at Microsoft, encouraged Apple to develop a multiplatform development system; Eubanks suggested that Apple support Mac developers doing Windows applications From Page 1 sou! It's a customer-driven mandate to have software work across platforms, and it helps if developers can reach the other 90 percent of the market,” Eubanks said. Sculley did not respond to the advice in his keynote address, but in an interview later he acknowledged that the panelists offered some good ideas. He added that Apple management is more stable than people realize, but allowed that Apple hasn't addressed the broad horizon. tal marketplace well ‘We kind of got adrift after 1987, homing in on graphics,” Sculley said. key to resolv ing the problem is lower-cost products. In 1991 it should be pretty clear to people whether we succeeded [in addressing the issues Pillar Targeted at companies with annual sales of $10 million and more, the program also pro vides integ user-definable search and sort criteria, and customizable reports A configuration and security system allows managers to control user access to budgets and reports, The program maintains a log of activities within the system From Page 1 cd financial statements, graphs said Peter lyst at Robertson, Stephens & neisco. “It should be yery successful, Rogers, ar Co. in San F “It’s a product that does something most people now try to accomplish with spread- sheets, which aren't really optimized for that purpose,” Rogers said ; FYPlan also received the endorsement of Apple CEO John Sculley during his keynote presentation at the expo. Apple also is a minority investor in the company Pillar officials said FYPlan will be released at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Pric- ing has not been set The company plans to sell FYPlan direct to customers through a nationwide semi- har series. Pillar Corp. is located at 950 Tower Lane. Suite 400, Foster City, Calif, 94404; (415) 349-6200; (800) 475-6226. MocWEEK 14 August 1990 category, Swamp Gas Software announced Black Hole, a new utility that can compress a 600-Mbyte hard disk into less than 2 cubic inches. Based on technology from one of the nation’s leading automobile recyclers, the less-than-$1,000 cruncher claims to- tal security. “Even the National Securi- ty Agency can’t get at it,” representative. For people who say the Mac is a toy, Joint Ventures Woodworking of Cambridge, Mass., had just the plaything: controls that let any- thing drawn on the Mac screen show up on the panel of an Etch-A-Sketch. John Good- man, its inventor, uses it to preview woodcuts. “Just a shake and it's gone,” he said. Apple's Chris Espinosa rated it best of the show. said a company > Not gone and not forgotten. Gassée’s final farewell tour continued full steam as he hosted his own version of The Tonight Show at Macworld Expo, grilling a lineup of Mac luminaries on topics both serious and frivolous. As slickly orchestrated as any of the i, product rollouts under his regime, the keynote opened with a video montage of Cassées years at Apple that included a brief, almost subliminal shot of Apple employees picketing to protest his departure. > Graft, goodies and gifts. Where has all the good graft gone? Water guns from Adobe and Day-Glo wrist packs from Sili- con Beach made a splash, but the Jack of other good gimmies kept shopping bags light. Some virgin show goers were wide- eyed with wonder about the giveaways. “It's like a circus, People are giving things away. You can’t stop for two seconds with- out getting stuff handed to you,” said a Boston-area first-time attendee Even the big guys got into the gift game: As one unem- ployed Mac head to another, Guy Kowasakl pre- sented Joan-Lovis Gassée with a final farewell gift: a Sony Walkman, “inspired” by Gassée’s design for the Macintosh Portable. Guy Kawasaki bestowed two final-farewell gifts on Gassée, A giant boombox was pur- postedly a new Sony Walkman inspired y the Mac Portable. An extra-special gag gift was a golden muzzle aimed to round out his golden-parachute and golden-handcuff collection. “If we had given this to you earlier, you might still have your job at Apple,” Kawasa- ki ee jesting that the muzzle was from Sculley. > Weather. Although the sun didn’t shine, the halls were still wiser packed with bodies and equipment. There was no air conditioning for the hapless crews moving in 1.5 million pounds of Macin- tosh stuff, > True Blue, after all? Both the inter- site message system and the high-tech, ad- filled video wall were controlled by IBM PGs. So much for the all-Mac trade show. > Games people play. File. Edit. View. Labels. San Jose. That was the answer at the Mac Jeopardy parody show before the Gassée keynote. The Mac-industry contes- tants were clueless. The question: Where is System 7.0? > Innocent bystanders. Even service providers struggling to keep the crowds happy were upbeat about the expo. “I always look forward to Macworld,” said Bill Fox Jr, president of Fox Tours, which han- dles the shuttle“buses. “No other convention has this flavor. You see people here in $500 suits and tie-dyed shirts, and they all look happy. I've never made it inside {the show halle but whatever they do in there, they must enjoy it.” Se Wr Three years ogo. in MacWEEK 18, 1987: “If the PostScript alternatives to Adobe's PostScript inter _proor are succesful much-hoped-for price reductions in PostScript language Benes mb seo - good news in anyone's language.” |_ In retrospect: PostScript clones and reduced licensing fees for the Adobe original have "indeed forced down printer prices. A new bate bhveen Adabe Type Monager and Apples } ‘Trvelype has complicated the picture, since PostScript often is no longer necessary to obtain | eared output. Compression From Page 1 Company officials said their goal is sym- metrical compression and decompression. meaning compression time will be the same as decompression time. SuperMac hopes to release the board which will ran with a modified version of the company’s Spectrum/24 PDQ accelerated 24-bit colbetisplay board, in the first half of next year for less than $2,000, according to Steve Edelman, founder and chief scientist of SuperMac. Developer kits will be avail- able this fall “We want to drive down the cost of show- ing video on the Mac,” Edelman said, “We've used custom silicon to make video a mass- market product. The software, SuperMac said, will con form to the Joint Photographic Experts Group JPEG standard, a still-image com- pression standard under development by two international standards groups. In its demo on the show floor, SuperMac decompressed video that had been stored on the company’s new $6,499 LaserFrame opti- cal storage device. The video takes up about 20 Mbytes per minute; LaserFrame car- tridges are capable of holding 30 minutes of data. The video was running in a fixed 512-pixel-by-304-pixel window on a sta dard Apple 13-inch monitor for the demo, but the company said that it plans to boost the resolution to 640 by 480 pixels and allow for resizable windows when the board is released. Users also should be able to cut, copy and paste live News video without any additional hardware, SuperMac President Mike McConne ell said the compression board will work with any storage device, either magnetic or optical. Real-time display, however, will not be possi- ble from current magnetic storage devices, he said, because their data transfer rates are insufficient While about 60 to 70 minutes’ worth of compressed video could be put on CD- ROMs, users would sacrifice play back speed and image resolution because of the limita- tions of CD-ROM technology. Apple and SuperMac are not the first companies in the Mac market to explore compression technology. Both C-Cube Microsystems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., and Micron Technology Inc. of Boise, Idaho, have introduced compression/decompression systems for the Mac Although designed for still images, C- Cube’s custom compression chip and JPEG- compliant software is fast enough to handle real-time video (see MacWEEK, Feb. 20) be hopes to market its technology on an OEM basis to vendors of scanners, printers and display boards Micron’s system, developed in collabora- | tion with Storm Technology, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based software developer, is limited to still images. The $2,000 board is sched. uled to ship in September (see MacWEEK Aug. 7) Edelman speculated that image-compres- sion chips, such as those available from C-Cube, may eventually be put on a $500 daughterboard that fits onto a SuperMac video graphics card. 3 M he bale tule OF level ETWORK BACKUP FOR GENIUSES The creative geniuses on your network are too busy creating to worry about backing up. And their hard disks are filling up fast You need a centralized backup and archiving system. A backup of every hard disk on the network. And a storage vault for inactive files. Retrospect Remote software tums any tape, cartridge, or optical drive into a network storage device. And it can be fully automated. So you and your network geniuses will be free to creale. Retrospect Remote: Automated backup and archiving for the geniuses on your network. he Coarer J me Cevmronite) Sve VideoLogic adapter displays 24-bit video, eight-bit graphics By Connie Guglielmo Boston — VideoLogic Inc., a 6- year-old video board maker for the IBM PC, switched on new Mac video and multimedia tools at Mac- world Expo here last week. The DVA-4000/Macintosh, due in October for $3,000, is a full- motion video adapter for the Mac II family. The digitizer, which is bundled with a dedicated eight-bit color display card, can capture a variety of video signals, includ- ing NTSC (National Television System Committee), PAL (a Euro- pean video standard), Super VHS and RGB (red, green, blue) com- ponent video. Video can be displayed in 24-bit color, in any size window, in real time (30 frames per second) on a standard Apple 13-inch color moni- tor, according to Kirke Curtis, gen- eral manager of North American operations for VideoLogic. The video window can be scaled down to any size, including a 40-by-40- pixel icon, while maintaining high- resolution quality, Curtis added. While Mac graphics are dis- played by the graphics card in eight-bit color, video is displayed in 24-bit color by the video adapter. “Since we treat video separately, we don't have to send it over the NuBus, and the whole process is a lot faster,” Curtis said. VideoLogic also will announce the M.I.C. (multimedia interac- tive control) System II, software with media device drivers that can be used to create multimedia pre- sentations. The software, which will be bundled with the DVA- 4000, is hardware-independent and runs on IBM PS/2, PC AT and PC XT systems VideoLogic Inc. is located at 245 First St., Cambridge, Mass. 02142; (617) 494-0530, 0 ChartMaster creates effects, 3D By Corolyn Seid Boston — Charting an altered course, Visual Business Systems Inc unveiled Chart Master, a new charting package, at Macworld Expo here last week. The program will replace the company’s Visual Business No. 5, a presentation package with extensive charting capabilities. Users can generate 2-D and 3-D charts and graphics with the pro- gram by entering or apane data into its spreadsheet. The program will import WKS, Excel 2.2, SYLK or ASCII files. ChartMaster includes a pic- togram editor that lets users import graphics objects to represent rela- tive quantities. It supports PICT, PostScript and Encapsulated PostScript formats. Special effects include back- drops merged with overlay charts, GhartMaster, o new charting packoge from Visval Busi- ness Systems, indodes w piclogram editor that lets users import any object and use it to represent graph elements. graduated backgrounds, full rota- tion of text and graphs, and gray- scale shading. ChartMaster will ship in October for about $295, VBS said. Visual Business No. 5 users will be able to upgrade for a not-yet-determined price. Visual Business Systems Ine. is located al interstate North, Suite 190, Atlanta, Ga. 30339; (404) 956-0325, 0 Video compression may be part of OS By Connie Guglielmo Dallas — Apple may have been relegated to a Booth in the far cor- ner, but the Mac was all over the map at Siggraph ‘90 here last week The annual mecea for computer- graphics developers, Sieh also gave Apple an opportunity to show- case new graphics technologies being developed by its Advanced Technology Group, including video- compression software that may be part of future operating systems. In its booth, Apple demonstrat- ed proprietary video-compression software that was shown playing digitized color video and audio from a hard disk in multiple, mov- able, resizable windows on the Mac screen. Although it is still just a technology being worked on by ATG and not a sanctioned project, Apple said the software is viewed as a possible extension to 32-bit QuickDraw that may be incor- peice into system software by late 1991 “Video compression is one of the Holy Grails of multimedia,” said Hugh Hempel, Apple market- ing manager for technical mar- kets. “We see it as one of the stra- tegic components of a multimedia computer and as an operating sys- tem issue.” That Apple is serious about incorporating multimedia tech- nologies — sound, video and advanced graphics handling — into the Macintosh system also is reflected in recent company ads seeking video, graphics, sound and imaging engineers (see Mac- WEEK, Aug, 7). Another ATG demonstration showcased radiosity, techniques for creating photo-realistic images Radiosity takes into account the way objects absorb and reflect light scene. Using a new technic called Incremental Radiosity, allows the computer to recalculate only areas of change rather than recreating a new scene every time an object is moved, Apple was able: to modify full-color, 3-D seen interactively and quickly. J On the show floor at the three- day conference, Macintoshes dot- ted Pixar's high-profile booth, where the company demonstrat three new Macintosh products that work with its MacRenderMan photo-realistic rendering software, including its Showplace picture- composition software (see Mac- WEEK, Aug. 7) Apple also had three entries in the nightly Film and Video The- ater, Mac-based multimedia pre- sentations, including a new educa- tional presentation about inverte- brate animals (see related story, this page), dominated the show's Hypermedia exhibit. 5 Highlights from Siggraph '90 New graphies products for the Mac covered the full spectrum — from rendering to new 3-D dis- lay technology — at Si; h “90, Aiveeeits oe > Dimension Technologies Inc. of Rochester, N.Y, is shipping an LCD display that uses patent- pending technology falled! “auto- stereoscopy” to show stereo 3-D. without 3-D glasses. The $7,500 DTI 100M supports a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels and 16 gray levels, which can be dithered to simulate 32 gray lev- els, Images are projected in 3-D, 8 to 10 inches off-screen. The DTI 100M ships with a 3-D. drawing program developed at North Carolina State Universit that lets users create and mates stereo 3-D objects using the display. It also ships with Dimension’s Developer's Stereo Toolkit 2.0, which includes a 3-D Application Interface Kit and FILEX file- exchange software for developers who want to adapt their 3-D appli- cations for stereo display. Also included is 3-D Stereo Cursor soft- ‘ware that turns any input device, in- cluding a mouse or keyboard, into a cursor that can move in 3-D space. A 512-color version of the LCD will be released later this year for about $10,000, according to Dimension. » Byte by Byte Corp. of Austin, Texas, announced two modules that work with its $1,500 Sculpt 3D modeling program: a texture- mapping editor will ship in Septem- S protectista YR (eS) = —S $495 educa © Desterastomia Oe] fenl C-ROM, (S)| called Metazoe: )| Vanishing King- ale @) 3 med O)) erate cS @&) (os ber for $1,000, while a $1,000 ani- mation module is due in October. » Eastman Kodak Co. of Rochester, N.Y,, is licensing a spe- cial version of its $179 Color- Squeeze compression and decom- pression software to Mac develop- ers, Colorsqueeze shrinks 24-bit color images at compression ratios of 5-to-1, 8-to-1 and 14-to-1 (see MacWEEK, April 10). The stand-alone, decompression- only version is available for a one- time licensing fee of $1,500. With it, developers can compress images to fit on floppy disks or CD-ROM. discs and distribute the decompres- sion software to users royalty-free, Kodak said. » Ithaca Software of Alameda, Calif,, announced a new ver- sion of its HOOPS Graphics Sys- tems 3-D graphics-development environment. ‘The new version can be called from Macintosh Programmer's Workshop © and G++ and is compatible with MacApp. HOOPS/MPW also. supports. Apple’s Display Card 8¢24GG, according to Ithaca. A single-user license of HOOPS is $1,250. > Lyon Lamb Video Animation Systems Inc. of Burbank, Calif., announced ProVAS, an external device for outputting Mae graphics and frame-accurate animations to videotape. It is due in the fourth quarter for less than $7,000. > Diaquest Inc. of Berkeley, Calif., introduced a network-based version of its DQ-Animaq video control board. Called the Diaquest ImageNode, it gives Mac users on an Ethernet network remote con- trol of videotape recorders for video input and output. Pricing has not been determined. > An interactive educational program about invertebrate ani- mals will be available in Septem: ber on a CD-ROM from Genda Systems of Melbourne, Fla Called Metazoa: Vanishing King- dom, the $495 presentation con- tains 80 Mbytes of sound, anima- tion, 3-D models and photographs of more than 30 phyla. ee The presentation should played from a hard disk to pres animation speed, said Metazoa ator Kerry Clark, a professor at Florida Institute of Technolo Clark is offering it to m universities for a $1,000 site eee FastTrack Schedule Dotions Align Font Siyle Color Activity ~_Fastivack Scheauir™ Upgrade Fiscal Year 1990 Waa Wonka Show Data Testers Piscal Year 1991 So much to schedule-—so little time. FastTrack Schedule™ has always allowed you to create and update Gantt Chart Schedules quickly and easily! Just draw activities right on screen, customize your bar types and add labels, graphics, text blocks and multi-level sub-activities. When you need to make changes to your schedule, updating isa SNAP! By selecting effected bars or milestones you make an automatic link between tasks; then simply drag the items to their appropriate start date. FastTrack Schedule™ has always offered you a behind- the-scenes database that keeps track of the dates that your bars represent, and can be accessed as ASCII and ported to other programs. It has also always been the best Gantt Chart generator that you could ever invest in! All of those date calculations that you've done in your spreadsheets, databases, and CPM programs can be poured directly into FastTrack Schedule™, and voila, you've just created a schedule worthy of presenting to your boss, clients, sales team, marketing staff, or anyone else who might benefit from a presentation schedule. But the really big news is that with version 1.5 you can also: * View Schedules in flexible fiscal year formats * Display start and finish dates and align them to bars however you like. * Add multiple activity columns. * Offset points to appear above, below, on top of, or next to bars. * Customize generic unit schedules. * Choose day that week ends on. ¢ Word-Wrap text in activity columns. * Type in dates to create and update bars. ¢ And more for only $235! You asked for these powerful features & we delivered...so keep on asking! “Provides the highest degree of functionality and the best on-screen and printed graphic ttt ee MacUser, October 1989. Please call us to order your new & improved free demo kit at (800) 346-9413 or (703) 450-1980. AEC MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, INC. ‘Another quality project-oriented productmity ool rom AEC Management Systems, Inc. | Generation X Cole t4gr40, Micron Teck Xeeed NBO rere cocuss Traerision, HR £6, 4M Not an unusual claim for a 4-star restaurant. But for a monitor, it’s quite a story With NEC’ multiple- Srequency technology, our monitors can accept all kinds of video cards Sor applications ranging from stan- dard desktop software to large- screen graphics design. And your NEC dealer has several different Macintosh-compatible MultiSync® monitors he’d be glad to show you. In fact, he might even take plastic, Ca compriers and Communcations Contrel Syatems ARTIST Macio RaslerOps® ColorReard e284 Micron Tech Xceed SE/s010.74 Apple Macintosh II Video Cart MultiSyne GS2A Superior gray- scale monitor, 14" flat-surface screen. Supports the Macintosh IT video card and compatibles, Ideal Sor desktop publishing. Trasriien NuViste? 2M, 2M, 6M RasterOpe® ColorBoard 264 Generation X Vi POPC CGCII/s All major MacSyne™ Series Designed exclu- sively for Macintosh II video card and compatibles. Available in both non-glare and new high-contrast 14" screens. MultiSyne 83D Supports Macintosh I card and compatibles. Advanced ‘microprocessor digital controls. 14" ‘ screen. Perfect for multimedia applications. eg, and Macinionh are mgutared iracersaia of Agpse Comeuter ne. Other brine and precuct ames gichared Keres a Fe Micron Theh Xeved SE/S08-46 Generation X V/90 X RasterOpa® ColurCard 238 SuperdMac Spectrum/8 Series IL MultiSyne 4D Resolution from stan- dard Macintosh II card, 800 x 600, up to 1024 x 768. Choose your own dpi on a 16" screen. Microprocessor digital controls. For literature call NEC al 1-800-826-2255. For details call 1-800-FONE-NEC. In Canada, cail 1-800-268-3997 RasterOpr® ColorBoard 194 + Balas Tih View It A017" Micron Tech Xeand NBIO-74 SuperMac Spectram/ts Series I MultiSyne 5D Resolution from Mac II card and compatibles up to 1280 x 1024 on a 20” screen for graphics design. Microprocessor digital controls. NEC News Hyphen software tailored for dailies By Corolyn Said | Boston — Photone Pre-Press, a program unveiled by Hyphen Inc | at Macworld Expo last week, offers high-level color correction and sep- aration features in a hurry Users “fingerprint” the software to their output devices and presses, adjusting for such press variables as variations in inks and dot gain. Once calibrations are built in, Photone automatically compensates for them. “It’s extremely sophisticated, but after you have it set up, you don’t | have to be an RIT [Rochester Insti- tute of Technology] grad to use it,” said Jim Bye, director of graphics | and electronic pre-press at the Evansville (Ind.) Courier. Bye used a beta version of Photone for a year to produce about 50 color pages per week for two daily newspapers. “You spend a lot less time fiddling with the photos,” he said. “For 90 percent of the photos, you can go in and do all the work in 10 minutes.” Intended for newspaper produc- tion, Photone was developed by three newspaper veterans. “You By Pamela Pliffner Boxborough, Mass. — NEC Technologies Inc,, which was among the first printer manufac- turers to license Adobe PostScript in 1987, made its bid for the low- cost PostScript market with the introduction last month of a model listing for less than $2,500. Due Sept. 1, NEC%s Silentwriter2 Model 90 is rated at 6 pages per minute and includes 35 Adobe fonts. Priced at $2,495, the printer is posi- tioned between 4-ppm printers like GCC Technologies Inc.'s new $2,399 Business LaserPrinter II, which also has 35 fonts, and the 6-ppm Texas Instruments $2,644 microLaser | PS17, which has 17 fonts. | NEC said the printer's low price | stems in part from more efficient manufacturing of its PostScript con- Photone adjusts to color presses could tell they knew what newspa- pers need,” Bye said. “Newspapers have to tailor all their pre-press, particularly color work, to their press. Othenwise, the pressmen go crazy trying to make it work.” Photone has controls for color cor: rection, cropping, sizing, bordering, unsharp masking, UCR (under color removal) and GCR (gray component replacement). It can map reproduc- tion tones in the shadow, quarter- tone, midtone, three-quarter-tone and highlight positions for cyan, magenta, yellow and black. It adjusts sereen angles, frequency and dot shapes to eliminate moiré effects The program does not offer many photo-retouching features, such as the capability to move objects NEC PostScript laser boasts 6-ppm engine at $2,495 which uses PostSeript Ver- The Silentwriter2 Model 90, based on a 16.67-MHz 68000 processor, ships with 2 Mbytes of RAM that can be expanded to 4 Mbytes for $995. Its Minolta engine is rated at 6,000 pages per month for a total of 180,000. The single-unit toner cartridge and photo conductor has a life span of 8,000 pages. The printer includes interfaces for AppleTalk and standard parallel, RS-232C and RS-422 serial ports. It also offers Hewlett-Packard Laser- Jet ITP emulation and 13 HP fonts NEC provides a support kit of screen fonts for the printer's resi- dent Adobe and HP fonts NEC Technologies Inc. is locat- ed at 1414 Massachusetts Ave. Boxborough, Mass. 01719; (508) 264-8000. Price of 6-ppm laser printers edging down Photone Pre- Press offers a variety of palettes for adjusting color values. The color correction and separation soft- ‘ware is designed for environments with quick torna- round times, such ‘as newspapers. around. “Newspapers shouldn't be [digitally manipulating content] anyway,” Bye said. “But it works really well with Adobe Photoshop if you need to alter photos.” Photone is due next month for about $5,000, Hyphen said Hyphen Ine. is located at 187 Ballardvale St., Wilmington, Mass. 01887; (508) 988-0880. 9 Sharp competes with compact PS printer By Pamela Pfiffner Boston — Sharp Electronics Corp. last week unveiled a com- pact, affordable PostScript printer that the company said is one of the smallest on the market Expected to be priced at less than $3,000, the JX-9500PS uses Sharp's 6-page-per-minute, 300-dpi print engine and the same PostScript con- troller used in Texas Instruments Inc's microLaser printers, The unit is scheduled to ship in October. The printer measures 13.4 inch- es wide by 14.2 inches deep by 10.5 inches high, taking up just 1,33 square feet of desktop real estate, It includes 35 Adobe fonts, 14 Hewlett-Pa fonts and slots for two additional Sharp font cards The JX-9500PS has several paper-handling options. It ships with a built-in 250-sheet letter-size cassette. A second bin with a feed- ing mechanism that fits under the printer can be added for $345. Additional 250-sheet input trays for letter, legal, invoice, A4, B5 and executive sheets are $69 each, as is a 40-envelope tray. In addition, envelopes, labels and other items requiring a straight paper path may be fed manually, The printer swith a pa interface. AppleTalk and RS and RS-432 serial interfaces may be ordered as options, but pricing has not yet been set. A front panel lets users choose emulations, paper trays and other options. The JX-9500PS ships with 1.5 Mbytes of RAM, which can be upgraded to 4.5 Mbytes. A 1-Mbyte expansion kit is $459; a 2.5-Mbyte kit is $1,149. Sharp Electronics Corp. can be natal Sharp Plaza, Box F, Mah- wali, N.J. 07430; (201) 529- 9600, a BRIE i & New BackFAX gives AppleFax users software to lean on — Wiliston, Vt. — Atleast one thir party developers making a specilofer 0 orphaned owners of AppleForx, the fox modem axed from Apple's produ line last ma Along with plans for a new version of its BackFAX for AppleFox software pa Solutions Inc. announced a rebate offer aimed at owners of the ilHfated Apple hat wore. Anyone buying the $245 program between July 26 and Nov. 1 will rec $25 rebate from Solutions. The $699 AppleFax come with software, but it did not support background s and receiving of fox messoges; users had to purchase BacKFAX to get such copa bi The Apple software will not be updated. a The new release of BackFAX, Version 1.5, allows creation of a single fax fro multiple documents, automatically restarts in whatever send ond user specifies, and supports manual dialing, among other enhance fe free to users who purchased BockFAX after May 26 ond $29 plus handling to others. Solutions Inc. can be reached ot 30 Commerce St., PO. Box 783, 05495; (802) 865-9220. National Semiconductor introduces EtherNODE cards for Santa Clora, Calif. — National Semiconductor Corp.’s Computer Enhancer Group lost week announced two new Mac Ethemet cards. Based on technology from Dove Computer Corp. of Wilmington, N.C., the new EtherNODE cords join the company’s existing line for IBMA PCs ond compatibles. The EtherNODE®32 SE/30, 0 32-bit cad for the Mac SE/30, costs $595 ond uses Notional’s DP83932 System-Oriented Network Interface Controller device. The controler uses direct memory access to help prevent bottlenecks at the machine, the company said, The $595 EthertVODE®1 6 NB works with Mac Ils ond is based on the company's own Ethemet chip set. Although shipped with their own drivers, the boards ore also compotible with Apple's EtherTolk drivers, the compony said, Both boards connect to thick ond thin Ethernet. On-board support for 0 TOBASE-T twisted:pair connector is sloted for next yeor. Both cards are available 30 days from order. National Semiconductor Corp. can be reached at 2900 Semiconductor Drive, PO. Box 58090, Sonta Claro, Colif. 95052-8090; (408) 721-5020. 7 DynaPerspective to support RenderMan format Boston — Joining a growing number of 3-0 grophics vendors, Dynaware Corp. onnounced last week that it will support Pixar's MocRenderMan in its $995 Dyna- Perspective 3-D visualization software. DynaPerspective files can be saved in RenderMan Interface Bytestreom (RIB) for mat for export to MacRendetMan, a $795 program for rendering photorealistic 3D imoges, developed by Pixor of Richmond, Coli. (see MacWEEK, Aug. 7). Within MocRenderMan, DynoPerspective images can be enhanced with surface textures, ight shadows, motion blur and other visual effects. Dynowore joins Mac graphics developers MacroMind Inc. ond Visual Information Development Inc. in supporting the RIB file format, : DynaPerspective with MocRenderMon support will be available in January. The = | program will require a color-copable Mac IHline machine with System 6.0.3 or higher, 32-bit QuickDraw, 4 Mbytes of RAM, a hard disk ond MultiFinder. Dynawore Corp. is located at 950 Tower Lone, Suite 1150, Foster City, Coli. 94404; (415) 349-5700; (800) 445-3962. a i} ) PassPr oof RESTRICTED AREA Your data is your data. And to keep it that way Kensington introduces PassProof™ — the first complete data protection system for the Macintosh* First, the hardware. Arugged cylindrical lock keeps your disk drive safe from intruders. Two sturdy metal plates with tamper-proof screws block both rear-floppy and SCSI ports. Next, the software. As the master user you assign yourself a master password. From then on, you use the password as your key to unlock the system. You can add or delete additional users whenever you want. And PassProof’s User Log keeps track of every attempt to use your Mac. Want to “lock up” ina hurry? Quick Cover™ is PassProof’s screen-locking program that lets you secure your Mac on command. Best of all PassProof is user friendly. Unless, of course, the user is unauthorized. Ask your dealer about other Kensington accessories including cable and lock systems for all Apple and Macintosh computers, including the Mac Portable and the LaserWriter® II. Or call fora free brochure at 800-535-4242. Outside the US., call 212-475-5200. KENSINGTON. PasaProof and Quick Cove are trademarks and Kensingtoo ia a reyatered trademark of Kenasngton Microware Limited. App, LaseWriter and Macintosh ace registered trademarks of Apple News lomega puts new twist in memory line: Ricoh optical By Henry Norr Roy, Utah — Iomega Corp. last week added a new medium to its line of removable- media storage devices, shipping a second generation erasable optical drive that it said delivers “up to twice the performance of con ventional magneto-optical products. Available now for $4,999, the new La Safe is lomega’s first drive that does not use the company-patented Bernoulli technology The system is based on a Ricoh mechanism that reads and writes the format adopted by the International Standards Organization and used in Ricoh- and Sony-based units from other vendors. Charlie Chang, Iomega’s Macintosh prod uct manager, said the introduction of the new New optical drives offer higher performance The announcement of lomega’s new LaserSafe magneto-optical drive reflects a growing desire on the part of vendors and sers for better performance than the first generation of rewriteable optical drives based on Sony and Ricoh mecha- nisms delivered. Early this year, Storage Dimensions of San Jose, Calif., be drives based on the higher-performance Tahiti mechanism developed by Maxtor Corp.'s MaxOptix subsidiary In April, MACsetra Technol Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, released its Gen esis 6000i, a new version of its Sony-based an shipping optical unit with software and firmware enhance ments that it said cat effective seck times from 95 milliseconds to 36 milliseconds. The $5,495 drive is optimized, according to MACsetra, especially for digital stereo recording with sound digitizers such as the Audiomedia board from Digidesign Inc. of Menlo Park, Calif In June, S$ Technology announced the a $6,499 Sony-based drive optimized for use with large graphics files, according to the co pany, And last month, Irvine, Calif.-based MicroNet Technology Inc., which already had a Sony optical drive in its lineup. added a new model with a different mechanism altogether. The mechanism is a Canon unit that departs from the Sony Ricoh format but promises much faster data transfer. — By Henry Norr erMac aserFrame MyTimeManager upgraded Mass. — MacShack Enterpris es is now shipping Version 3.0 of MyTime Cambridge Manager, its personal time-management soft see MacWEEK, June 19) The new version, which remains at $79.95, adds multi-user network features, improved date entry, file import and export, multipl day events, enhanced reminders, and a meet ing time li Regi rr those who purchased before July 15 must tered owners receive free uj pay $15 for the rewritten manual. MacShack Enterprises is located at 19 n Road, Cambridge, Mass, 02140; drive, which also works with OS/2 and will available for Windows and Novell marks the end of the one-product soon be systems one-technology era” for lomeg: Like most other current erasable optical drives, the LaserSafe can store 594 or 65 Mbytes of data per cartridge, depending sector size selected on What distinguishes its product, lomega said, is the way its driver takes advantage of 256-Kbyte cache on the drive controller ed write operations, Instead of making the Mac and its user wait while the drive completes the three passes needed to write data to magneto-optical media, the Laser- Safe uses an asynchronous write technique is what oe, sehisisw MocWEEK 14 August 1990 that lets the computer resume operations as soon as the data is transferred to the cache Like Sunnyvale, Calif.-based SuperMace Technology's recently announced Lase’ Frame, the Iomega driver also uses blind transfers to further improve performance | Tomega will offer cartridges for the drive for $299. The company’s software formats the cartridges, a task that can take up to 40 minutes, in the background Tomega Corp. is located at 1821 West 4000 South, Roy, Utah $4067; (800) 456-5522 MacWEEK 14 August 1990 Campagne upgrades Commtact /ELS Nashua, N.1 Ltd. recently upgraded its Commtact/ELS software designed for non-profit organiza. By John Webster Campagne Associates z list, member nt am, based on | Gons automating their maili Ager )5 prog ship and fund-raising Version 2.2 of the $' Blythe Software Inc.'s Omnis 5 relational database, features several enhancements These include extended field lengths; faster retrieval; improved sorting to handle names; and Lookup Buttons, which allow users to display lists of available codes for data entry The company also added a feature called Copy Master Record to the Clipboard. The feature copies a record's mailing informa tion, including salutation, into a word pro- cessing document complete with the cur rent date at the top of the page. Word processors can be opened directly from Commtact/ELS. Campagne Associates is offering a 60-day money-back guarantee. Users can purchase an annual support policy for $ Campagne Associates Ltd. is located at 491 Amherst St., Nashua, N.H, 03063; (603 595-8774 Its the best part. Which means if you want the most out of your laser printer, make sure it has | PostScript software from Adobe Systems inside it. Whether you depend on lines that rotate or lines that communicate, PostScript printers are a real treat. So call Adobe® at 1-800-952-6300, Dept. 157, for the complete list. Simply stated, they can’t be topped. | "The Bes Part Of A Las sdemarh of Adobe System iq | POSTSCRIPT” From Adobe Systems The Best Part Of A Laser Printer” a. Adobe. PostScript and th regutered nthe USA News Shield cuts radiation from 19-inch displays By John Webster Santa Monica, Calif Amid heated con. about possible VDT-related health effects, NoRad Corp. this week will duce a shield that cuts radiation, glare and reflection from 19-inch displa The $349 Supe rShield. h attaches to the monitor bezel with Velcro tabs, fits oF the Sony Model 1950 CRT used in 19-inch from SuperMae Technolo; color display Radius Inc., RasterOps Corp. ar ma Designs Inc The company claims the SuperShield eliminates more than 99.99 percent c radiation generated by the monitors, includ ing a portion of the extremely low freque ELF) emissions at the debate. Some studies have s ble link between prolonged exy emissions and miscarriages, skin other ailments Since electromagnetic emissions in with screen size and color capabilit the company said protection is especial important for users of large-screen color monitors The dark-tinted seree and reflection with a 230-thre mesh n eliminates glare Its conductive metal-coated surface Since attracts dust, nullifying its charge helps keep drains static to a ground wire static the monitor screen clear. NoRad Corp. is located at 1549 Lith St Santa Monica, Calif, 90401; (213) 395-0800: 800) 262-3260. Farallon’s Liaison 3.0: More-flexible routing By Margie Wylie Calif Hot on the hee acquiring most of Liaison Inc.’s people and products (see MacWEEK, June 26), Farallon Computing Inc. last week annou update to Liaison, Infosphere’s flagship Emeryville product Version 3.0 will ship in September for $395 as Farallon’s PhoneNET Liaison Upgrades are Liaison software allows Macs to connect to LocalTalk, EtherTalk, TokenTalk, ArcTalk BroadTalk or any other Apple-standard net work without special hardware The upgrade will add three main features to the multiple routing capabilities of Ver sion 2.0.6 > AppleTalk Phase 1 and 2 protocol net works can now share one copy of Liaison > Communication Control Language CCL) scripting supports modems and other devices like X.25 packet assember. disassemblers that don’t use the Hayes AT Command set > Up to live AppleTalk networks, including one modem connection, can use a single router In addition, Farallon said that next month it will ship Liaison Gateway 1.0.1, soft ware for routing Microsoft Mail mes sages over remote networks. The gateway bundled with PhoneNET Liaison 3.0 will cost $495. Farallon Computing Inc. is located at 2000 Powell St., Suite 600, Emeryville, Calif 94608; (415) 596-9100. is e ~ — Aword from the people who brought Our if:X technology takes on " “hat you MadnTax.” : ee ma other forms, val B j e@ Ih began with o great idea. Toke the world’s most. -—»=«=—_So.we decided fo foke everything that “at Fie = challenging forms, orgonize them in o way that “people” you loved about MaclnTax and apply it to some of those a P Bs gil can relate to, and the best selling forms product would other tasks that you also love to hate doing — lke filling Pes tel: ‘oppear — eliminating drudgery and bringing “joy” -—_out expense reports, home financing forms, or even t i forever. You might say that’s how MaclnTax came info applying for government work. Sound familiar? i being—wel ccs. To elp you with some ofthese ther eal fe forms, we You see MaclnTax really started with Softview’s original introduced if-X Business Expenses Reports, Home Loan. vision ofan intelligent forms technology we've ‘Assistant, Payrol Tax Assistant and Personal Tox Analyst ~ shortened that fo read if:X" for obvious reasons), We —ll based on the same great, easy-to-love technology learned very quickly that MoclnTax provided most that you first experienced with MaclnTax. peep rahvaph pth pra Designed for personal, business ond government use, 1 x Bc dry snk off ek ies pci porfoc i the ifX applications include easy to use forms — right on 5 "ready for their favorite Uncle. It no longer required on screen Print on demand forms — ready for submission A ; Quick updates — and recolculations — all possible 2. Ar abba de baer tah Ind” fos an fills vying ha : through the night — of Api 14th, yoU need fo simplify and automate your other tedious No, we didn’t eliminate taxes — just made the process a By is? P aeth W Boe | litle more enjoyable, less time consuming. f | ~~ MactnTax allows you to process all of your tox documents ~ picture perfect and ready for submission. i£X DOD Expense Reports i the eosy way to track Department of Defense expenditures. Each form adheres to rigorous government specifications. Expense Report HH reit aT T 1 t i Sa oF E eels mye fapaaleie i Busnes Expense Reports tkes the has Tas nia tut of expense report rocking and reporting MOOAY. Choose from a wide assortment of available : wre Pee forms to mee! your needs. With ifX Forms Designer you can make as many = = revisions as you like — Graphics Intelligence can eee handle any changes. me RAM ES EET i AR z NEW if:X products for government. Rs eee “Innovative technologies. A great family of products. - ha ea You already know us as the people who pont ot DOD Expense Reports ee : you MoclnTax. Sas a « GSA Expense Reports ‘Why wait? Order now. i 3 SF 171 Application Call Softview: va00-6n24829- for Federal Employment 0r vit your local Egghead Discount Software™ store! \ pose alr fa rin The X nome, logo Graphics Intligence ore ademarks of Softview Inc.All ober trdemarks ore Spy pale a ©1990 Softview inc. Al rights reserved. Oe Ot eve EW 20 Distributed DBMS runs on Macs, hosts By Carolyn Said Mountain View, Calif. — Cor porations with mountains of in- formation to store, digest and sort can add Verity Inc.'s Topic Docu- ment Retrieval System for the Mac- intosh to their arsenal of data- handling tools. Based on a distributed-processing model, Topic runs over Apple- Share, NJS and 3Com networks Individual workstations, including Macintoshes, IBM PCs, Suns and DEC VAXes, act as networked Topic Retrieval Clients, which field user requests, search the distributed database and quickly present results in relevance-ranked order. Mac clients use a graphical inter- | face and object-oriented query lan- | guage to perform searches. Similar graphical interfaces for IBM PCs and X Window platforms will be released this year. Verity assists new sites in creat- ing the core of the search architec- ture, a knowledge base of “topics.” Topic also uses a Database Builder, a suite of application utilities, to create, modify and maintain Topic databases, Topic offers HyperLink connec- | tions to images, annotations and | By John Webster Salt Lake City — Serius Corp. is making it easier for users to write different kinds of applications with | several new objects added to Ver- sion 2.0 of its Serius icon-based development system (see Mac- WEEK, April 24). Objects, or precompiled code, perform core functions within appli- cations, For example, users can con- News Images, documents Topic of retrieva With Verity’s Topic Document Retrieval Sys- | GJ es serwet dowrnat7/13790-7/10790 | TE] mat eet sowrnah-tocent tem, users con seorch large dotabases over networks. Organized by topic, the dis- 7m tributed database con Crises ernutt (laser) (eects) (Gomer) (Come) P= present query —_ eiiiaseeeaciete poms te Tries We titite Compas ow Set terion fe Ree results in order of relevance, documents; an application program- ming interface; and an optional SQL-Bridge interface to structured query language relational databases, such as Oracle and Sybase. Verity also offers Topic Real- Time, which connects to live data feeds from sources such as news wires and electronic mail. Topic Real-Time dynamically indexes and profiles incoming informa- tion and alerts the user when rele- vant news arrives. Verity also will be developing Topic Real-Time services for Dow Jones & Co.’s new DowVision on-line news and information service (see Mac- WEEK, June 5) Topic prices range from $695 for a Retrieval Client to $15,000 to $150,000 for network configura- Spreadsheet, Word Publisher objects ‘added to Serius application builder struct windows from a Serius Win- dow object, the company said. With Serius, objects also can be used as window items with buttons and menus, which in turn use func- tions such as “open window” or “delete database record” to help users create applications. New objects slated for Serius include a Spreadsheet and a Word Publisher. Both objects will be avail- able by mid-September for $75. The Spreadsheet ob- ject. which can work within Window objects offers spreadsheet fields, Serivs 2.0 will indude Spreadsheet and Word Publisher objects, precompiled code that gives users core functions for building spreadsheets or word processing programs. a macro language and background cell updates The Word Publisher also works as a field in Serius Window objects, provid- ing text-editing and for- matting options. Prices for the entire software package will remain at $295 for Serius Programmer and $495 for Serius Developer. Serius Corp, is located at 1981 East 4800 South, Salt Lake City, Utah 84117; (801) 272-7788. 0 tions. Pricing includes support and training from Verity. Mac clients will be available by the end of this year, Verity said. Verity Inc. is located at 1550 Ply- mouth, Mountain View, Calif. 94043-1230; (415) 960-7600. 5 queries to GESCAN By Raines Cohen ond Corolyn Said Research Triangle Park, N.C. — HyperGESCAN, a new connectivi- ty stack, will help Mac users quick- ly and easily search huge quantities of data stored on mainframes, according to the product's maker, GESCAN International Inc. The product adds a Mac user interface to the GESCAN full-text search system running on DEC VAX computers. Unlike many text sys- tems, GESCAN does not index information, The search engine looks at every word in the database to find what a user is looking for. Users enter queries and data via pop-up menus and object-oriented tools. HyperGESCAN transmits requests to and receives results from VAX hosts using an RS-232 serial connection or dial-up lines with a | Mac front end speeds, simplifies database on VAX modem. Results are displayed in a HyperCard window. Macs also can nun in VT-emulation mode to access the GESCAN VAX-based data. GESCAN is creating a front end to Dow Jones’ DowVision on-line news and information service that will search information as it comes off the wire. “If information matches your profile, it comes up on your screen within a second,” said Dave Mortis, GESCAN vice president for product planning and support HyperGESCAN costs $500 per copy; quantity discounts are avail- able. GESCAN for host systems costs $22,000 to $60,000, depend- ing on configuration. GESCAN International Inc. can be reached at P.O. Box 12599, Research Tangle Park, N.C. 277 (919) 460-3100; (S00) 982-2177. Third parties take Mail beyond pure messaging By Carolyn Said Redmond, Wash. — Hoping to prove that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” Microsoft Corp. is pointing to Microsoft Mail combined with third-party applica- tions that go beyond pure messaging, Status Mae from Pharos Tech- nologies Inc., Syzygy from Infor- mation Research Corp. and TFLX from Magnum Software Corp offer built-in workgroup features that run over Microsoft Mail, Mail's application programming interface lets software developers create applications that communicate with other applications or users on a network via Mail, Microsoft said. It also offers an “intelligent” forms capability that lets developers pro- gram code directly into Mail forms. In addition, a growing host of applications features Microsoft Mail integration, allowing users to share files, text, graphics and data across the network by directly sending Mail messages from within the applications. Informed Designer, Informed Mini-Manager and Informed Auto- form from Shana Corp.; Mac- GraphX from Bravo Technologies Inc; Stufflt Deluxe from Aladdin Systems Inc.; and Voice Link from Articulate Systems Inc. recently joined Aldus PageMaker and Microsoft Excel and Word as appli- cations that offer Mail commands within their menus. Microsoft Corp. is located at 1 Microsoft Way, Redmond, Wash. 98052-6399; (206) 882-8080, 5 M soft Mail mates PRODUCT PRICE AVAILABILITY COMPANY WHAT IT DOES ‘Applications that work with Microsoft Mail to provide workgroup solutions Status Mac $799.50 Wow Pharos Technologies Inc. Hlectronic network profiler: uses Mail to query Gncinnati, Ohio users and automatically mail information back {0 its database or network manager for analysis. Charlottesville, Va. automaticaly noify vers about changes to Workstation edition, $150 projects and tasks. ; TFLX $495 10 $2,995 Now ‘Magnum Software Corp, al-routing and messaging system: a Chatsworth, Calif, reads Mail messages to users over phone. | PogeMaker 95 Now Aids Corp. Desktop publshing software: ets users send, Seattle, Wosh, Informed Designer sms fall Shana Corp. Informed Mini-Manoger $99 fall Edmonton, Alberta Informed Autoform S149 MacGrophX $199. Sepl. Bravo Technologies Inc. With MocCak, $239 Berkeley, Calif, Microsoft Excel $395 Now Microsoft Corp. Redmond, Wash. Microsoft Word $395 Microsoft Corp. Redmond, Wash. Stuffit Deluxe $99.95 Now ‘Aladdin Systems Inc. Aptos, Calif, Voice Link $269 ‘Aug. Anticulate Systems MacWEEK 14 August 1990 The Gunkara Sun Systems adds compiler to Prograph package By Henry Norr Holifax, Nova Scotia — The Gunakara Sun Systems (TGS), developer of the acclaimed Prograph object-oriented graphical program ming language and development environment last week released a new version with a compil er on of creating full-fledged, double dickable commercial or in-house applications Progmph 2.0, priced at $395, also includes an enhanced version of the editor and inter preter first released last fall as Prograph 1.2 The package, according to TGS, now provides full support for all Mac features detailed in volumes 1-5 of Apple's Inside Macintosh handbook, including support for serial ports Sound Manager and Color QuickDraw Like the original release, Prograph Vides a point-and-click development environ ment. A senes of high-level editors (collectively called the Application Builder), which TGS compared to NeXT Inc's NextStep, helps the programmer create ready-to-run menus, win dows, dialogs and other interface components The application itself is created by constructing a data flow diagram that maps the operations to he performed on data Stand-alone programs created using Ver- sion 2.0's compiler ca as well as code written in Apple's Macintosh Programmer's Workshop © or Symantec Corp.'s THINK C. A Project Manager links Prograph object code, libraries, resource files and compiled THINK C and MPW C files. Beta testers said Prograph 2.0 will meet a wide range of programming needs, from special-purpose in-house programs to com mercial applications that support such fea tures as Interapplication Communications An MIS manager at a Fortune 500 compa ny, who asked not to be named, said he used Prograph to develop an easy point-and-click Finder substitute for users who “find the Mac interface a little overwhelming. *L looked at HyperCard and a whole lot of other ways to do it,” he said me had a low learning curve, but the performance was slow. Prograph is extremely easy to learn but also gives me good performance David Feldt, senior staff scientist at Inven- tion Software Corp. of Ann Arbor, Mich., said his software consulting and training company is incorporating Prograph — along: side THINK C and Apple's MacApp — into the object-oriented programming OOP courses it conducts for Apple and other clients. “The nice thing about it,” he said, “is that it shows that you can use OOP for more than just building an interface While Prograph offers most of the interface- building features of the Apple and THINK EDI colorizes MacToken Cupertino, Calif. — EDI Communications Corp. recently announced an upgrade to MacToken, its token-ring network diagnostic application. The new version can display net work events in color; capture, display and print a network-event log; and graph perfor mance on 802.5 token-ring networks using Apple's Token Talk NuBus card. MacToken remains priced at $1,350. EDI Communications Corp. is located at 20440 Town Center Lane, Suite 4E, Cuperti no, Calif. 95014; (408) 996-1343. 2.0 pro include Prograph files Prograph 2.0 > Compiler creates stand-alone applications > THINK C ond MPW C code can be included > Full support for features in “Inside Macintosh,” volumes 1-5 tools, Feldt said, it also lets developers “open up class libraries that do the things you need in your programs, which, after all, is one of the hopes and dreams of OOP. For advanced programming techniques. such as IAG and parallel processing, Feldt said that data flow diagramming offers inher ent advantages compared with the linear procedural approach used even in most OOP environments, In addition, he pointed to Prograph’s Synchro tool, which solves some critical program-coordination problems by letting developers enforce a particular execu tion order within the data flow The only reason we haven't been doing more with it is the lack of a compiler,” Feldt Now that they've taken care of that and done it in a way that will be easy for any one who knows THINK C to adjust to, we think it’s something professional program said mers should really consider using, Prograph 2.0 requires 2 Mbytes of RAM Prograph 1.2, the editor-interpreter version of the program, remains available at $195 No additional license fees are required for applications developed with Prograph. TGS is located at 1127 Barrington St Suite 19, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 2P8; (902) 429-5642; (800) 565-1975. Inman Software acquires rights to Business Sense Evanston, Wyo. Frustrated users of Business Sense — which has be narketed by Digital Etc., Monogram Software Inc. and again by Digital Etc company to turn to for support Inman Software, a newly formed partner ights grat ed accounting program and has lowered the price from $495 to $195. Users who bought extended support from either Monogram or Digital remaining on their contracts will receive free support. Inman also is selling a year’s support for $100, or $50 for three months. 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