Tz y/ts — • /f •/ Author —/ O x eir / J+gv+s Sag* / Jo/,/, l/*/*„ f /„ e Cn,oo '*&0/X^^k Jo/ >” Va/enj^^FT. ■MOM }pso/*\ noot/m A**,/ Afnt/too* 1 First MMX PC< >: Surprising Results 2 1 Be a Webcaster |L_ with Marimba 1 13 Very Sharp, Very Colorful Graphics Cards Comdex: The Hot List YOl JR E-J mailISH iyte.com A NEW MILLENNIA™ IS ON THE HORIZON (actually it's on the next page) WflW njn ^ H . ti.M, Hi (vi uni m llltm ,M.i i», MHITI *.t« 80. IMO Aix.ir.i IOTA In ur... dm IX • ■ uim « WOO ... 1*1 1IWO toxics' < r«*i r.*< us* *it 1 1 imiMm 1I»I> I'll) I » I* 11.1. Mil 11NNW Pi;i3 Mxiin I 'I I!. II' I OMMtn I9M« I i.iv.'iiN»ii pi aa the past two years, Micron Electronics 1 ” has won close to two hundred awards for product performance, reliability and customer service. ADVANCED DESKTOP SOLUTIONS ECONOMICAL DESKTOP SOLUTIONS Will. 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CD 1 • 5 year/3-year Micron Power' 4 * warranty 16MB EDO RAM • 2.5GB EIDE hard drive •15" Micron 15FGx, 28dp(13.7" display) • Microsoft Works 95 CD s 2,199 Business luavo S/S/nHHilh 7MB EDO RAM • 3.1GB EIDE hard drive > 1/ Micron 17FGx, 26dp {15.8" display) • Microsoft Office CDs s 2,699 Business leave $9?/monlh mlttcW Milk tint) IMNKt frrtun ftomux xilk MMX 1 Ml lid •512KB pipeline burst cache, flash BIOS • PCI 32 F. “ bit Ultra SCSI Fast-20 controller »12X SCSI CD-ROM drive, 3.5" floppy drive • 100MB Iomega Zip drive • Sound Blaster 32 Wavctciblc 3D stereo sound card with speakers • PCI 64-bit 3D video. MPEG, 4MB EDO RAM • Tool free minitower or desktop • Microsoft Mouse, 104-key keyboard • Microsoft Windows 95 & MS Plus! CD • MMX enabled software: Adobe Photo Deluxe, Pod, Eraser Blockbuster Entertainment & Billboard Music Guide • 5 year/3-year Micron Power warranty • 16MB EDO RAM • 2GB Ultra SCSI hard drive • 15" Micron 15FGx, 28dp (13.7" display) ► Microsoft Works 95 CD nl S100 s 2,899 Business leave $99/maalh • 32MB EDO RAM • 4GB Ultra SCSI hard drive »15" Micron ISFGx, 28dp (13.7" display) > Microsoft Office CDs s 3,399 Business leave $116/moalh ► 64MB EDO RAM • 9GB Fast SCSI 2 hard drive ► 17" Micron 17FGx, .26dp (15.8" disploy) »Microsoft Oflice CDs 5 4,999 Business lease $170/month Millennia" Pro2 400 Plus r Dual Intel 200MHz Pentium Pro processor ► 256KB internal cache, flash BIOS ► PCI 32-bit Ultra SCSI Fast 20 controller ► 12X SCSI CD-ROM drive, 3.5" floppy drive ► 16 bit stereo sound & speakers ► PCI 64-bit 3D video, MPEG, 4MB EDO RAM ► Tool free mini lower or desktop ► Microsoft Mouse, 104 key keyboard »Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 CD ► Microsoft Office CDs ► 5-year/3 year Micron Power warranty ► 32MB EDO RAM • 2GB Ultra SCSI hard drive ► 15" Micron 15FGx, 28dp(13.7" display) s 3,899 • 64MB EDO RA •17" Micron 17FG s 4,749 • 128MB EDOR •21" Micron 21FG s 6,999 Business lease SI 33/monlh > 64MB EDO RAM • 4GB Ultra SCSI hard drive ► 17" Micron l7FGx, 26dp (15.8" display) Business loaso $167/monrii • 128MB EDO RAM • 9G8 Fasl SCSI 2 hard drive *21" Micron 21FGx, 26dp (20.0" display) Business loaso $770/montti With Intel > uddSTOO • 512KB pipeline burst cache, flash BIOS • 12X EIDE CD-ROM drive, 3.5" floppy drive • PCI 64 bit 3D video, MPEG, 2MB EDO RAM • Tool free minitower or desktop •Microsoft Mouse, 104 key keyboard • Microsoft Windows 95 & MS Plus! 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International 40IS 1 By Michael Nadeau Internet-based messaging could make your current system outdated. Here’s help for surviving the transition^ Net mail technology. 4 ^ \'i m A *■ *\ml Irkfi V if EDITORIAL || INBOX || STATE OF THE ART Cadillacs or Chcrokces? 14 By Mark Sc black It’s wise not to confuse newness with appropriateness. 19 BYTK readers write about Copland, network computers, impolite robots—and users, and our 64-bit future. BITS Just How Fast Arc Those New MMX Chips? 26 Best of Comdex 27 The Networked House 28 Unhinged Notebooks 30 Bad News for Broken Portables 32 Internet Faxing 34 Better Backbones 36 Improbable Research 38 Lessons in Data Mining 40 CTI Matures 82 By Alan Joch Integrating computers and telephones is still tricky, but new hardware and development tools are making the job easier. CTI, Piece by Piece 85 By John Silling These basic building blocks can help you launch a successful CTI implementation. Tools for Telephony Apps 91 By Michael Nadeau Here’s how to find the right telephony development tool for your needs and skill level. SPECIAL REPORT APPLICATIONS SERVERS Share the Wealth 123 Which OS? 125 Suite and Sour 131 Power to the Server 133 4 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 EVAL LAB REPORT WHAT'S NEW On TV: The Set-Top Morphing PowerPC 40A By Peter Wayner Bandai Digital’s set-top box, a nice implementation of Apple’s Pippin technology, is a Mac- based Web browser. Delphi Does C++ 42 By Rick Grehan Borland’s popular RAD tool sheds its Pascal beginnings and gets a new name: C++Builder. 3-D Mighty Mite 47 By Robert L. Hummel Dynamic Pictures’ Oxygen 202 is a single-slot PCI card that can compete with 3-D graphics accelerators. Your PC’s Ringing-Answer It! 48 By Barry Nance With EtherPhone, you can turn your Ethernet LAN into a phone system easily and inexpensively. HARDWARE 13 Graphics Cards for Business 100 By Dorothy Hudson, Jim Kane , and John McDonough We test 13 high-end graphics WEB PROJECT NT Security 117 By Jon Udell I low to make Windows NT a secure Internet platform. COMPARISON All 12X CD-ROM Drives Are Not Equal 141 By Jacqueline Emigh A look at the first four 12X CD-ROM drives. CORE OPERATING SYSTEMS Fault Tolerance for Windows Applications 51 By Jodo Carreira, Diamantino (losta , and Jodo Gabriel Silva I lere’s a utility that provides fault tolerance so that mission- critical 32-bit Windows applications can run reliably and continuously. NETWORKS Building Bridges and Secure Connections 55 By Jeffrey Fritz A look at the Point-to-Point Protocol and bow it fits into the corporate network. CPUs The Mac Goes Multiprocessor 59 By Tom Thompson A new library and API enable preemptive multitasking and multiprocessing on Mac OS machines. PROGRAMMING Python Does Scripts and Objects 63 By Jeffrey P. Shell Python is a platform-indepen¬ dent OOP language with capabilities ranging from simple scripting to sophisticated object libraries. cards that can really speed up the Windows interface and even have some low-end 3-D features. SOFTWARE Present a Businesslike Slide Show 108 By David Seachrist Present your case more effectively with one of these five graphics packages. REVIEWS Eudorablc Web Mail 140 By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols Eudora has a new, 32-bit Windows client and enhanced filtering options. Tune In, Turn On the Web 145 By Pete Loshin Marimba’s Castanet aims to solve the Web’s bandwidth problems by “broadcasting” pages and applets over a distributed transmission system. up dlaabitd T MVtlllll P clovthux r • P Utla Canvas rlrwfoni Dialog 10 ,i| f? . tltucoloc □ CHAOS MANOR Of Bug-Hunting and a New Frontier 149 By Jerry Pournelle Jerry offers bis opinions on what’s best for the desktop in the new age of graphics. 182 Two things for the modern Jack Kerouac to take on the road: DeLorme’s Tripmate satellite navigator and Millenia’s Email Reader. CODE TALK Java’s RAD Route to Data Access 192 By Rick Grehan Developing distributed data access applications? Visual Cafe Pro can handle some of the ugliness for you. SERVICE Reader Service Inquiry Reply Cards 144A-B, 144C-D, 176A-B Index To Advertisers Alphabetical Order 176 Product Category 178 Editorial Index by Company 180 PROGRAM LISTINGS KI’P: ftp.byte.com From BIX: Join “listings/ frombytc97” and select the appropri¬ ate subarea (i.e., “fcb97”). THE BYTE WEB SITE and THE VIRTUAL PRESS ROOM http://www.byte.com BYTE (ISSN 0360 62B0) in publiahnd monthly by Tho McQrnw Hrfl Companion. Inc. U.S. nubneribor rato $20.06 pm your, In CunndA iiml Moxico, $34.06 pm ytNM Fornpoan nodann mnll nulwciiptionn $00, nir.ni.il $U6. Non Europonn nubneriptionn, $60 nurfaco mini or $85 4Mrmi.il. Al tnrniyn mibncriptiara urn (Miynbln in U.S. fundn Out! can bn drawn on n U.S. bank. ttmyln copimt $3.06 in tho U.S , $4.06 in Canada. Exaoutivn, EiMonul, Circulation, and Ad vm tunny Otlir.on: On« Phi mm* Mill Lann, Peterborough, NH 03466. Pnoodicaln pontnyo I mid at Fataifaorough, NH, and additional mailing oWionn, Poalago paid at Wmnipog, Manitoba. Canada Pont IntrtmntinrMO Publication* MaJ Product Solas Agraamanl No. 246402. Ragintwad Im QST na Thn McGraw-Hill Componmn, Inc., GST # 123076673 Postmaster: Sand nddmnn chongon nnd fuNillnwnt quaabona to BYTE Subacriptiona. P.O. Bom 662, Highltlown, NJ 08620. Printed in the United States of America. FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 5 CONTENTS BY PLATFORM INDEX WINDOWS Better in Fits and Starts 26 We test a new Pentium hopped up with Intel’s MMX. Delphi Does C++ .... 42 C+ + programmers now have the full power of Delphi in Bor¬ land’s C++Builder. 3-D Mighty Mite . . . . 47 Dynamic Pictures’ Oxygen 202 PCI hoard provides excellent 3-D graphics performance. Fault Tolerance for Windows Applications .51 A software utility provides a measure of fault tolerance for mission-critical applications. CTI, Piece by Piece ... 85 Wider applications support and open APIs are making more companies consider Win¬ dows NT for CTI systems. Which OS? .125 NT Server offers an ever-grow¬ ing base of applications that leverage the multiprocessing nature of the OS. Suite and Sour . . . .131 BackOffice slugs it out in the features war with IBM Soft¬ ware Servers. Power to the Server . .133 SMP and economical prices are turning NT and x86-bascd machines into decent applica¬ tions servers. Eudorahle Web Mail . .140 Eudora for Windows now has 32-bit code and improved sup¬ port for POP and MIMK. OS/2 Which OS? .125 Warp Server provides solid applications-server capabili¬ ties, file and print services, management tools, remote connectivity, and backup and recovery. Suite and Sour . . . .131 The nine server components within IBM Software Servers let you scale a client/server implementation to your partic¬ ular needs. MACINTOSH Better in Fits and Starts 26 MMX Pentium vs. Power Mac: See Bits for race results. On TV: The Set-Top Morphing PowerPC . . 40A Bandai Digital’s ©World Web- browsing machine could be the Macintosh for the surfing set. The Mac Goes Multiprocessor .59 Multiprocessor Mac OS systems can now run preemp¬ tive tasks on each processor. UNIX CTI, Piece by Piece . . . 85 The scalability and reliability of Unix make it the traditional choice for running CTI servers. Which OS? .125 Sun’s Solaris is easily customiz¬ able, which means you can create applications servers that are tuned to your particular needs. Power to the Server ..133 For performance and reliabili¬ ty, RISC servers running Unix excel as applications servers. NETWORKS Your PC’s Ringing- Answer It! .48 EtherPhone gives you a pseudo-PBX where LAN wires replace phone cords. Building Bridges and Secure Connections ... 55 PPP provides a seamless way to connect remote sites, thanks to its ability to encapsulate and move connectionless net work data packets t hrough serial connections. CTI, Piece by Piece ... 85 Setting communications stan¬ dards throughout an enterprise is one of the most fundamental yet contentious tasks in a CTI launch. Tools for Telephony Apps 91 Building CTI applications requires choosing among three classes of CTI development tools, which offer varying degrees of control and difficulty. INTERNET 57 Varieties of Internet Faxing .34 Now you can do it without a Net connection. Better Backbones to Shoulder Bigger Network Burden 36 New high-speed links and ser¬ vices are on the way. On TV: The Set-Top Morphing PowerPC . . 40A Bandai’s ©World is a Mac clone that brings the Net to your TV set. Your E-Mail Is Obsolete 66 The impact of the Internet on your proprietary e-mail sys¬ tem? It’s probably obsolete now. Here’s how to get hack up to speed. NT Security .117 Windows NT security isn’t per¬ fect. This month’s Web Project offers seven ways to make N'T safer. Eudorable Web Mail . .140 Better POP and MIME sup port, plus new filtering plug¬ ins, make the new Windows 95 version of Eudora well worth paying for. Tune In, Turn On the Web 145 (Castanet’s “broadcasting” system may solve Web hand- width problems, courtesy of Marimba. ActiveX . .63,91 Applications servers ... .123, 125,131,133 Applications suites .131 CD-ROM .38,141 Chips . Client/server ....63,123,192 Computer telephony ..48,82, 85,91 C++ . .42,91,192 Data mining . .40 E-mail . ....66,140,182 E-mail, junk . .38 Fault tolerance .51 GPS . .182 Graphics 26,47,100,108,149 Graphics accelerators 47,100 Image processing ... .26,149 Internet . .34,36,40A, 66, 117,140,145 ISDN . .55 Java . ..14,63,91,192 MMX. .26 Mobile computing 30,32,182 MPEG . .100 Multimedia . .26,100 Multiprocessing .59,133 Networks ... ...27,28,48,55, 117,125,123 OOP . .63 Operating systems ... .14,19, 51,59,125,133 PPP . .55 Programming ..34,42,60,63, 91,192 Research, improbable ... .38 RISC . .59,133 Security .... .117 Server suites . .131 Scripting ..., .63 Storage . .141 3-D . .47,100 Video. .100 Webcasting . . .145 World Wide Web .40A, 66,117,140,145 6 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 WE WANTED AN AD THAT POKED FUN AT THE COMPETITION. UNFORTUNATELY, THEBE IS NO COMPETITION. NOW SHIPPING! 800 . 553.7070 to order or for a dealer near you. WHEN YOU'RE SERIOUS ABOUT STORAGE. TEL 714.789.3000 • FAX 714.789.3150 • www.pinnaclemicro.com All prices based on MSRP The Pinnacle Micro logo is a roglstorod tradomark ol Pinnacle Micro Inc. All other trademarks aro trademarks of their rospoctlvo owners. Circle 146 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 147). TELEPHONY CONFERENCE EXPOSITION MARCH 4,5,6,1997 LOS ANGELES CONVENTION CENTER That One Fabulous Thing Why do we attend trade shows? To learn? To have fun? Nope. We go because we want to find that One Fabulous Thing.” That “thing” may solve our customer information requests with a simple dial-up touch-tone device. That “thing” may dramatically improve our help desk / call center with callerlD screen pops. That “thing” may be the perfect platform product for us as ISVs to add value to. That “thing” may be the perfect product for us as resellers and systems integrators to sell, to make us awesomely rich. One Fabulous Thing. You’ll find your “thing” at Computer Telephony Expo 97. There are 117* football fields of exhibitions — 47% larger than 1996. We have six seminar tracks featuring the world’s best computer telephony experts. We have over 973 new products being introduced. For “thing” seeking, CT Expo 97 is the place. CT Expo itself is unique. CT Expo 97 is the only computer show you’ll find booths from telecom makers — AT&T, Comdial, Ericsson, Harris Digital, Inter-Tel, Lucent, MCI, Mitel, NEC, Northern Telecom, Rockwell, Siemens Rolm, Sprint and Toshiba. CT Expo 97 is the only telecom show with booths from computer companies — Artisoft, Cirrus Logic, Corel, Crystal, Digital, HP, IBM, Lotus, Microsoft, NCR, Novell, QNX, Raima, Sun, Texas Instruments, Unisys and U.S. Robotics. CT Expo 97 is the only show you’ll find computer telephony companies — Active Voice, Applied Voice, Altigen, Amtelco, Apex, Bicom, Brooktrout, Dialogic, Diamond, Edify, Excel, Genoa, Geotel, InterVoice, Periphonics, Rhetorex, Summa Four, Tadiran, TRT, Voxware and Voysys. CT Expo 97 is your only chance in 1997 to see this exploding new industry and to meet all the industry’s experts — under one roof. Please join us. REGISTER 12 West 21 Street New York, NY 10010 • 212-691-8215 or 1-800-542-7279 J 50 ) www.ctexpo.com Why People Rave About CT Expo XPOSITION ^poter Industry^ Computer Computnr ,ii ip Inlegralou 10.7 Talephonu unit Telecom Manufacturers Users 40 TELEPHON 1. Computer Telephony Primer 2. Programmer and Integrator Tutorials 3. Employee Productivity Workshops 4. Call Center Tutorials 5. Intranet and Internet Integration 6. Money-Making Computer Telephony Apps from Microsoft to Dialogic, from IBM to Analog Devices, from Sun to Ring Zero, from Toshiba to Rhetorex, 11 book authors and 186 other experts $30,000 Nissan Pathfinder, v computer telephony boards, * software and other useful stud. $250,000 of Drawings: 5:00 PM Thurs, March 6, South Lobby EXHIBIT HALLS ARE OPEN 4PM—8:00 PM Tuesday March 4 10AM — 6:00 PM Wednesday March 5 10AM—4:30PM Thursday March 6 SEMINARS WILL BE HELD 9:00AM—4:00PM Tuesday March 4 7:30AM — 4:45PM Wednesday March 5 8:30AM — 4:45PM Thursday March 6 February 1997, vol. 22, no. 2 EDITOR IN CHIEF MarkSchlack Editor in Chief's Assistant .Linda Higgins EDITORIAL EXECUTIVE EDITORS lntcrnational:R\ch Friedman New Medio:ion Udell MANAGING EDITOR Jenny Donelan NEWS Peterborough: News Editors: David L. Andrews, Martha Hicks Frankfurt: Senior f cf/f or: Rainer Mauth REVIEWS Director: David Essex Senior TechnicalEditors:H\ck Grehan, Dave Rowell Technical Editors: R u ssc 11 Kay, Pete Loshin FEATURES Senior Editor/Features . Alan Joch Peterborough: Senior Technical Editor at Large: Tom Thompson Sun Mnteo: SeniorEditonlom Halfhill Lexington: Senior Technical Editor: Edmund X. DcJesus NEW MEDIA Production Associate:ioy-lyn S. Blake SENIOR RESEARCHER Rowland Aertkcr ASSOCIATE TECHNICAL EDITORS Dennis Barker, Cathy Kingcry, Warren Williamson SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jerry Pournellc CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Dick Pountain, Udo Flohr, Mark LaPedus CONSULTING EDITORS Stephen Apiki, Raymond GA C6ttf, Trevor Marshall, Stan Miastkowski, Barry Nance, Roberta Pournellc, Ellen Ullman, Peter Wayner EDITORIAL ASSISTANT June Sheldon DESIGN Design Director: Charles Dixon III Associate Design Director/Design & Photography: Sharon Price Associate Design Director/Oraphics: Joseph A. 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London, WClR 4EJ.U.K. BYTE £7 A Dnttton ■•/ Hu McGmie Hill ( jnnfnm\a Copyright 0 1997 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. BYTE and UVII are registered trade¬ marks of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc, Trademark registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. & Member Audit Bureau of Circulation 10 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Snap 1 4 ; Connect four hubs without unk 1 external cables. Connect 10Mbps to 100Mbps networks. Extend hub-to-hub connection to 100 meters. With new Compex MkroHub Plus 100 Series it's a snap! Available as the 16-port Fast Ethernet TX3216, or the 8-port TX3208, the new Compex MicroHub Plus 100 Series sets the pace with a combination of exclusive features that make it the most versatile Fast Ethernet hub you can buy. Only the new Compex MicroHub Plus 100 Series offers: ■ Standard SnapLink feature with docking pins connected directly to the backplane of the hub chassis that let you easily and securely stack up to four hubs (64 ports) without any complicated external cables. ■ 10/100 SuperLink option incorporates switching technology allowing you to automatically connect to both 10Mbps and 100Mbps networks. ■ SpaceLink option that hits you cascade hubs up to 100 meters apart. Conventional IX HUB 5 motors HUB ■ SNMP agent option makes network man¬ agement a snap for net¬ work man¬ agers and LAN administrators. Clearly, the new Compex MicroHub outruns the rest. And its a winner when it comes to cost, too. If you want to put your network on the fast track, contact Compex now! http://www. TX32I6 I 100 motors TX3216 SPACEUNN f W I m TX3216 10 to lOOMbps Connection 10Mbps HUB SUPfRlINK NotiAfare. id MK HOSOI I WINIX AVN (Umuiwj Networks that work USA. GERMANY SINGAPORE COMPEX, Inc. ReadyLINK Nelworktechnology GmbH COMPEX Systems Pte Lid 4051 E. La Palma , Anaheim, CA 92807 U.S.A. Albert-Einstein-StraOe 42, 63322 Rodermark 135 Joo Song Road, #08-01, Tel: (714) 630-7302 • Fax (714) 630-6521 Tel: (49) 6074 98017 • Fax: (49) 6074 90668 PM Industrial Building, Singapore 368363 Circle 701 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 702). fel: ^ 286 2086 * FaX ( 65 ) 280 9947 © 1996 Comptx, Inc. Comptx and the Compex logo art registered trademarks of Compex, Inc. All trademarks and copyright* are the property a/ their respective holders. We'll Tailor a Vetix Server for Your Growing Business. I low will the Vetix EL server fit your business? (lustom Software. Micron Flextronics" will ship your Vetix EL series server pro installed with vour choice of either Novell' Intranet Ware or Microsoft® Windows NT* Server -saving you time and money. ( ustom Hardware, llic Vetix FI. server offers a variety of hardware options fac¬ tory-direct and hacked hy Micron Electronics, a company with decades of experi¬ ence in the electronics industry. Well customize your new Vetix Id. server to lit your business. Custom Service ami Support. With your purchase of a Vetix EL server, you’ll enjoy the right level of service and support tailored to fit your networking needs, with every system we offer direct 24-hour telephone support and three network operating system incident resolutions. On-site service options are also available from industry-leading computer service provider Digital Equipment Corporation. These options include system setup and four-hour response support—as much or as little as you need. Custom Pricing. I lie Vetix EL server is the economical server solution. ( jII I -800-295-0543 to speak with a sales representative, or visit our Web site to create and price your own server solution online. MICRON VETIX™ EL SERVER SERIES Standard Features Intel 200MHz Pentium Pro processor Dual Pentium Pro ZIF sockets 756KB L2 cache, flash BIOS Memory upgradable to 512MB Slots: USA, 3 PCI, 1 shared PCI/ISA Adaptec PCI 32-bit Ultra SCSI Fasl-20 controller 12X SCSI 2 CD ROM drive 3,5" floppy drive 64 hit I MB ISA video 3Com' 3C905-TX Fast Etherlink PCI 10/100 Base TX NIC lull size tower with 10 drive bays 15" Micron 15FGx, .28dp(l3.7" display) Microsoft Mouse, 104-key keyboard NOS support (3 incident resolutions) 5 year/3 year Micron Power* warranty Vetix™ EL 1000N Server Standard Features • Dual Intel 200MHz Pentium Pro processors ► 256KB L2 cache, flash BIOS ►Memory upgradable to 512MB ►Slots: I ISA, 3 PCI, 1 shared PCI/ISA »Adaptec PCI 32-bit Ultra SCSI Fast-20 controller ►12X SCSI-2 CD-ROM drive ► 3.5" floppy drive ►64-bit 1MB ISA video ► 3Com 3C905-TX Fast EtherLink PCI 10/100 Base TX NIC ►Full-size tower with 10 drive bays ► 15" Micron 15FGx, ,28dp (13.7" display) ► Microsoft Mouse, 104-key keyboard ► NOS support (3 incident resolutions) ► 5-year/3-year Micron Power warranty PENTIUM PRO PROCESSOR • 32MB ECC EDO RAM •2GB Ultra SCSI hard drive •Novell IntranetWore*4.11 (5 user license) •64MB ECC EDO RAM • 4GB Ultra SCSI hard drive •Novell IntranelWare 4.11 (5 user license) tffjTfi') ft 1 ! 1 ) 'jkw.M * lusiness leoso SI39/ino«ith yFjfJf * Business lease St SVmonth Vetix™ EL 1000 Server fTJjLM looseSHt/monlti ' • 32MB ECC EDO RAM • 7Ut Ultra SCSI hard drive • Microsoft Windows NT 1 Server 4.0 (10 user license) Vetix™ E L 2000N Server •64MB ECC EDO RAM • 4GB Ultra SCSI hord drive • Novell IntranetWare 4.11 (S user license) ^Business lease $ 170/nx •128MB ECC EDO RAM • Two 4GB Ultra SCSI hard drives • Novell IntranetWare 4.11 (S user license) mth W Mr Business lease $204/monrfi Vetix™ f :L 2000 Server •64MB ECC EDO RAM • 4GB Ultra SCSI hard drive • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 (10 user license) •64MB ECC EDO RAM • 4GB Ultra SCSI hard drive • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 (10 user license) 41 Um‘Mi I » mu... .mil iimId immnry " M till. III. I (Mill Mil) *y*|i III n.HMIll, I Ml I VI .1 ll|lltllll|| Mil till MIVlll' tUMYIIIIIII till Mil Mil llf^lll|l ^SllHIV ••*»* "• I'M Mlimil «ii|<|ilinl vulin iii S«||I|MMI hu Miiiini itr%k• I,I 4 m,i JnM ... Business lease S163/month • With Sony 4/8GB SCSI DOS 2 OAT tooc backup drive.odd $999 • Wilh Seagate Backup Exec Backup Software.add $249 • 900 E. Hardier Road, Nampa, 10 83687 • Mon Fri 6am 10pm Sat /am Spin (Mil • Inlefflolional Solos Hoars: Mon fri 6am /pin (Ml) • Phono: 708 893 3434 • Fox: 708 893 3474 • Purchoso Order Fox: 708 893 8992 • lodmirol Support AvuitoM# 24 Hours A Doy 7 Days A Wook » Phone: 888 FIX MYPC • [ mail tochsuppoft.mektc^rmcron.com •128MB ECC EDO RAM • Two 4GB Ultra SCSI hard drives • Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 (10 user license) Business lease S?tO/monl!i NorNMjnj Tntlod <»*) A|>f MH RCXiCMT WIMHWSNI ki Mir ml«iN 1*1 liili nullmiil 1 .11 208-8VI-7S9) liillirf In liy All |Hmimr.11. inn miHih I In iivnhUKily fnr.im nnl ."" , M| " "■lM , * r M imH »WKllnu TO cUy inunny Ixtck poky dtmn mil link, mliiin linijiil mul imiyiml ih T **,j»iiii..liii(, rfuirgM, .niiilm, only to Mtoon 11 . 1 .... *'*l.. Al *' .. to Mmnm I ktonxnci. to-network-computer evolution. If Intel, Microsoft, and their partners re¬ spond to competitive pressures and take substantial amounts of difficulty out of managing the PC], that environment will evolve and remain viable for a long time. I hope these companies understand that failure to do so will ultimately consign them to niche status. On the Java side, we all have some tre¬ mendous opportunities to blaze new ground, and not just as the champion of Son of I lost Computing. For example, the growth of the Web and the Internet means that many developers work for non-ITcompanies that will be producing products and services that are essential¬ ly software; a package-tracking applica¬ tion is a good example. It’s the perfect test case for Java: Build an application that can run on any customer’s computer. And add to your company’s revenues. But weigh the risks. Java’s not yet ready for many big bet-your-business projects. And the Java industry has to prove that it can sustain broad interoperability with¬ out turning over the specification process for the language and the virtual machine to a standards body. For years, we’ve been comparing lux¬ ury-car desktop environments. Now we need to be concerned about these new sport/utility vehicles as well. We will need to master them both to navigate the information-technology terrain of the late 1990s. Mark Schlack, Editor in Chief mschlacka)bix.com The key decision is not which desktop OS to adopt, but whether to stick with the paradigm of the past 20 years. 14 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 it practically • uir b&w laser. Twice as fast any competitor color laser. f of award : winmng r expertise. Backed by 15 years ilni rld’s fastest workgroup col ' is now only $3,495. 'low the incredible speed and brilliant color of Tektronix are also matched in economy and price. The award-winning, multi-platform Phaser" 350 costs less lian any laser-class, network color printer. No wonder, at over $500 million in olor printing revenue, Tektronix sells more workgroup color printers than anyone. 'all 800/835-6100, Ext. 1358. http://www.tek.com/CPad71358 #77 9 Phaser 140 • m £' Phaser ?.40 Phaser 440 w Phaser 350 Phaser 550 Inc. All rights reserved Circle 1 63 on Inquiry Card. Do more with less. Most operating systems leave little room for important things. Like your application. With the QNX realtime OS you'll pack more functionality into less memory. Achieve more performance with less-expensive CPUs. And deliver better solutions at a lower price. Better yet, QNX supports more PC hardware than any other realtime OS. Whether it's PC/104 or PCMCIA, embedded X86 or the Pentium® Pro, QNX lets you use it right out of the box. Get to run time in less time! More scalable than ever! From low-end to high-end, QNX offers you the ultimate in scalability. Even your deeply embedded systems can boast a scalable POSIX RTOS, thanks to our new, exceptionally small Neutrino" microkernel. And if you need to add the capabilities of a high-end GUI to your low-end system, you can. Our award-winning Photon microGUr gives you a phenomenal front end, with enough memory left over for important things... like your application! www.qnx.com Call 1 800 676-0566 (ext. 1040) or email info@qnx.com The Leading Realtime OS for PCs QNX Software Systems Ltd., 175 Terence Matthews Crescent, Kanata. Ontario, Canada K2M 1W8 Voice: 613 591 0931 Fax 613 591 3579 Europe: 49 Dove Park, Chorleywood, Hertfordshiie. Voice: (44)<0) 1923 784800 Fax (44)(0)1923 285868 Email: QNXciiropcOqnx.com O ONX tnltw.i* Sytlnmt I HI IMS QNX it . l.gltl.i.d lr«< QNX VuM.iif Sytl.mt ltd All »IImm li.dnnirtlkt brlonti to Ih.l* t#t|>.<1lvo uwnrn Circle 149 on Inquiry Card. loppy drive, works like a floppy drive, loppy drive.) LS-120 technology. 120 Megabytes. 3.5" floppy compatible. Take a good look at the next PC you buy and faster and roomier. It's brought to you by a make sure its floppy drive has the LS-120 consortium of global leaders which includes advantage: hassle-free, high-capacity W Imation (a new company including the storage. Only the LS-1 20 drive can give \ former data storage business of 3M), you 120 MB of floppy capacity, higher j Compaq, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Maxell, performance, and the ability to read and j OR Technology, and Exabyte. It's the write to the 1.44MB and 720K floppies ' new standard. No matter how you look you use all the time. LS-120 is the same simple at it. Find out more at www.LS120.com. Hoppyj you already know how to use—just Or call us at 1-800-888-1889, ext. 4002. lliaxell ^MITSUBISHI Panasonic IMATION Horne of3Ni Innovation Looks like a floppy drive, feels like : (A 120 megabyti Circle-pyramid logo Is n trademark ol Imatlon © Imution 1996 COMPAQ. EXAffinm*^ OR. Technoogy OpenDoc Opens Up Funny you should review OpenDoc (“An Open Win¬ dow for OpenDoc,” Decem¬ ber 1996). I recently received two commercial document¬ processing products that use OpenDoc 1.1 on the Macin¬ tosh: Digital Harbor WAV 1.0 and Nisus Writer 5.0. I’ve been using Apple’s Cyber¬ dog and find it excellent for mixing and matching Inter- net-access items. OpenDoc seems to be good at combin¬ ing things on the same page—something I could never get any version of OLE to do. Nisus Writer 5.0 is great at Japanese word pro¬ cessing, and WAV 1.0 simply amazes me. I’ve never seen text runaround or column formatting work so nicely. I expect great things from ()pen I )oc-based software. ( urt Risor Bensalem, PA 26 77.36S0@cotttpuserve.cont CTorMRI? I enjoyed “How Microchips Shook the World” (Decem¬ ber 1996). However, the pic¬ ture you included with the text box “Computed tomography for Everyone” < m page 70 does not show a I T si .inner, but an MRI (magnetic resonance imag- 111 }’,) m .inner. While you could perhaps say that, in. the broadest sense, MRI isactu- 1 11 y ( I because it uses com¬ puters to construct tomo¬ graphic (i.e., slice) images of tin body,CTnormally refers to the modality that uses X rays to make these images. The points that the text box listed in regard to CT are also valid for MRI, however. Alan A. Hobson, R.T. ahobson@indy. net Memory Lane In the text box “Hardware Platforms with 64-bit Mus¬ cle” (November 1996 Special Report, page 144) you men¬ tioned that the Pentium uses 64-bit arithmetic operations and internal data paths. Rut don’t Pentiums also have a 64-bit path to main memory? In the article “The x86 Gets Faster with Age” in the same issue, Tom R. Halfhill states that the Cyrix 6x86 “handily beats a comparable Pen¬ tium” but that it can’t match the higher core speeds of the Pentium and lacks MMX. Why should Cyrix attempt to get the 6x86 to match the core speed of a Pentium when it has the abil¬ ity to outrun the Pentium at a lower clock speed? And right now, all proccesors lack MMX. In my opinion, the 6x86 is a better chip than the Pentium, and it’s less expen¬ sive, too. Chris Nightingale chrisnifvplanet. eon.net Yes, it's true that the Pentium has a 64-bit IK) interface to main memory . The same goes for all fifth- and sixth - generation x86 processors . Here's why it would be useful for Cyrix to make the 6x86 run at higher clock speeds: At ISO Ml lz, the 6x86 closely matches the perfor¬ mance of Intel's 200-MI lz Pentium, but it can't match the performance of the 200- MI lz Pentium Pro . If Cyrix chips could achieve higher clock speeds, they could compete directly with Intel's latest CPUs instead of Intel's last-generation CPUs. As / pointed out in my story, the 6x86's lack of MMX is not the main question — it's whether Cyrix can successfully design a CPU that's fully compatible with MMX. If Cyrix doesn't have access to the same intel¬ lectual property that Intel and AMI) do, it will he more difficult for the company to devise a compatible solu¬ tion.—Tom R. Half hill, senior editor BYTE on Copland As one who has been quick to criticize the media for bad reporting with respect to Apple in the past, let me con¬ gratulate you on “Copland, Revisited” (November 1996 Special Report). You covered the good and the bad—as facts, without editorializing. But while the comparison of Copland, Windows NT, and Unix in your Special Report contained an implicit assumption that they are dif¬ ferent beasts, I’m not sure all readers understand this. There seems to be an assumption circulating that a single OS can cover the entire desktop-to-server continuum, one I don’t believe is necessarily justi¬ fied. Given Apple’s strategy, one might easily compare an enterprise environment with Copland desktops and AIX servers against an NT Work¬ station/NT Server environ¬ ment. Instead, many people insist on comparing, for example, the Mac OS or Windows 95 against Unix. Joe Ragosta joe. ragosta ((Ddol. net ON THE WEB Visit The BYTE Site! Search our archives. Download articles. See industry press releases. Join on-line conferences with other BYTli readers! See http:!I www.hyte.com. BY FAX (603) 9 24-2330 HOW TO CONTACT US BY E MAIL Address letters to editnrsitt hix.com. To reach individual BYTli editors, see t he BYTE Site on the Web for a directory. Letters may he edited for publication. BY POST Editors, BY TE, ()ne Phoenix Mill Lane, Peterborough, Nl I 03438 SUBSCRIPTION CUSTOMER SERVICE U.S. only: (800) 232- 2983; international: (609) 416-7676: or see http:llwww.hyte.coml admin/mpcstsvc.htm. Tor advertising and other noneditorial contacts, see page 10 or click on the Information link on The BYTE Site. FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 19 nniTixi The Wrong Message In “G roup Wise Sends a Mes¬ sage” (November 1996) Steve Gillmor indicates that GroupWise 5 initially runs only on Windows NT Server. Correctly stated, GW5 actu¬ ally runs only on Novell 4.x servers, for the simple rea¬ son that GW5 requires N1)S to be installed. It’s definitely not an NT Server-only Ci roup Ware product. Phil Malay Novell Technical Services CrouftWare Support Department pwmaloyitvnovell.com Steve Cillmor*s original copy read: " The product will run on Windows NT servers when it ships , with Unix and OS/2 versions to follow. ” /during the editing process , this state¬ ment was inadvertently reworded to indicate that the initial release of GWS runs only on Windows NT, which is clearly incorrect. We apol¬ ogize for the error. — lids. Web Matters In “Web Surveys” (October 1996 Web Project), Jon Udell says that “if you’re in need of a lightweight Unix SQL engine to use in conjunction with these, try msql (http://www.hunyip.com/).” First, mSQL (note the correct capitalization) isn’t free; it’s shareware, and the author deserves all the help he can get to encourage people to pay for it. Your reference doesn’t do much to help him get the word out. Second, mSQI. is written and distrib¬ uted by David J. Hughes, not Bunyip. In the early days of mSQL’s development, Bun¬ yip made use of it as a back end in a product, and we offered to host the mSQI. mailing list, but there’s no longer any mention of mSQL on Bunyip’s home page. The correct uniform resource locator is lmp://www.hughcs .com.au/software/. Jeff Allen ieff{«:rtK.ibiMwi mny bn (ftwwd wiIIhhiI notoo. pton ://www.raidU‘c.cono I 7 H on Inquiry Card FibreArray " Subsystem • Single or dual Port Bypass Modules • Simplified cabling, no termination • Works with leading FC-AL controllers, including Raidtec FibreRAID™-PCI • 7 hot swap FC-AL drive bays, 3 hot swap fans, 3 hot swap n+1 power supplies • Rackable/stackable - up to 16 FibreArrays per configuration • Environment Array Manager • RAIDmanLITE management software FibreRAID' M -PCI 4000 I/Os per second •112 Drives-1 TERABYTE per controller • RAID 0,1,10,3,5,6 - definable parity Copper GLM Std, Fibre Optic Optional •8-128 MB Cache • Global, dedicated, pooled spares RaidMAN administration software RAIDWizard™ dynamic reconfiguration • Windows NT, Netware, UNIX, Mac OS Raidtec Corporation (USA) I0S-C Hembree Park Drive Roswell, (iA 30076 Tel. 770-664-6066 Fax. 770 664-6166 eMail: raidtec@raidtec.com Raidtec Corporation (Europe) (lien Mervyn House, (ilanmire Cork, Ireland Tel. 353-21-821454 Fax. 353-21-821654 eMail: raidtec@glenm.ie Perfect for high data availability applications, Including: video. Imaging, Inter/Intranet tiles, medical, & disaster avoidance hue your productivity gains .. MB/second data transfer m i loop (hat supports SCSI, RAID, ml multiple virtual concurrent •• • 'i\ s up to 30 meters apart! Ultih't Fibre Channel products tow Include FibreRAID™ nnhollcrs and FibreArray™ m !i imiivs. Ivasily configure them | ill v ims, racks or desktops. Call liildin , your logical next stop for: Millrl proof Fibre solutions, 100% lulu uplime and data availability oi up lo .i Terabyte data storage. visual Java development tool, and Bor¬ land’s C+ + Builder “Ebony,” a C++ RAD development tool. Play, Inc.’s (Rancho Cordova, CA, http://www.play.com/). Trinity PC-based video-production system for broadcast- quality production won for Rest Multi¬ media Hardware. Finalists were miro’s (Palo Alto, CA, http://www.miro.com) miroVideo DV100, which directly accepts digital camera output, and Ricoh’s (West Caldwell, NJ, http:// www.ricohcpg.com) RDC-2 digital camera, which sports an optional LCD viewer and records sound as well as video. In the Best Multimedia Software cate¬ gory, Apple’s Quick Draw 3D 1.5 won due to its cross-platform nature and ability to Tl's Extensa notebook packs many features into a 5.1 -pound package. support multiple renderings from the same 3-D model. Finalists were Voice Pi¬ le >t Ieclim>k>gies* (Miami, FI,, dslach 01 ibm .net) Voice Pilot for Windows 95 voice- command and dictation program and MCI Software’s (http://www.mgisoft .com) MCI VideoWave, a consumer-lev¬ el video-editing application. The* award in the Best Connectivity Hardware category went to Xircom’s (Thousand Oaks, CA, http://www.xircom .com) CardBus Ethernet 10/100 Adapter, a 32-bit CardBus 10-/I00-Mbps Ether¬ net adapter. Finalists were Cardinal Tech¬ nologies’ (Lancaster, PA, http://www .cardtech.com) 5210-Cardinal Upgrad¬ able Modem, which is ISDN- and 56- Kbps-ready, and CNF’s (Morgan Town, CA, http://www.cnfinc.com) Digitari Uni¬ versal Dockstation for Notebooks, which provides connectivity for notebook com¬ puters from a variety of vendors. Winner of the Best Connectivity Soft¬ ware award was IBM's (Armonk, NY, http://www.hursley.ibm.com) MQSeries commercial messaging middleware, Bug of the Month Unhinged A laptop's case hinges on two thin pieces— literally and, at times, figuratively. For in- stanee, my ThinkPad's hinges snapped when I tried to use it after a hiatus of six months; another BYTE reader's laptop broke three times in two years; and many palmtop users are complaining on Usenet. Jim Carroll of Computer Hut's service cen¬ ter in Nashua, New Hampshire, says broken hinges are a common problem in many ven¬ dors' portable computers. "It happens with all brands, including Compaq, IBM, and To¬ shiba," he explains. "The hinges are the first things to go." Carroll attributes the prob¬ lems to regular use, abuse, and sometimes even shoddy design. In normal use, accumulated dust can im¬ pede hinges to the point where the plastic casing breaks. Subsequently, tiny screws are free to rattle around and short out the elec¬ tronics. Carroll says that when major elec¬ trical components go on the fritz, it might actually be more practical to replace a lap¬ top than to repair it. Once you notice the hinges getting tight, seek service right away, he advises. A preventive lubrication now can prevent big headaches later. The hinges’ small size makes them partic¬ ularly vulnerable to damage from abuse or constant use. Things to avoid include clos¬ ing the laptop's lid on a writing utensil, over- Send yours to edeje&uss>bix.com! Access Manager, which enables net¬ work administrators to manage their In¬ ternet usage. Octopus Technologies’ (Yardley, PA, http://www.octopustech.com) Octopus for Windows NT, which offers real-time server and data protection, won for Best Utility. The finalists were Acceleration Software International’s (Seattle, WA, http://www.accelerationsw.com) Super- fassst Windows acceleration software and Trend Micro’s (Cupertino, CA, http:// www.antivirus.com) ScanMail antivirus program for Microsoft Exchange Server. Best Peripheral winner was Seagate’s (Scotts Valley, CA, http://www.seagate .com) fast Cheetah hard drive. Peripher¬ al finalists were ViewSonic’s (Walnut, CA, http ://www. viewsonic .com) PV140 View- Panel, a 14-inch active-matrix LCD mon¬ itor, and Delorme’s (Freeport, ME, http:// www.delorme.com)spiffyTripmateGPS receiver/st>ftware bundle. which provides reliable data transfer between distributed applications. Final¬ ists were Nterprise, from Exodus Tech¬ nologies (Bellevue, WA, lnrp://www .exodustech.com), which delivers NT and Unix applications on a Unix workstation, and Sequel Technologies’ (Bellevue, WA, http://www.sequeltech.com) Sequel Net Xircom's Ethernet 10/100 Adapter supports the 32-bit CardBus standard. zealously snapping the ease open and shut, carrying the laptop by the lid with the ease hanging open, and spilling a drink on the laptop. In addition to complaints about laptop hinges in general on Usenet, we found hingc- problem-rclatcd postings from Psion 3A and Siena laptop owners. But Psion representa- Broken hinges left this ThinkPad flat on its back. tives reckon that less than 1 percent of Psion repair jobs are for broken hinges. Rich Bran¬ ded, Psion operations supervisor, says that “many of those customers admit to having bent the hinges themselves." An IBM spokeswoman says the current ThinkPad hinges are problem free. In any ease, be nice to your portable’s hinges; like you, they're probably under a lot of stress. -Selinda Chiquoine 30 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 c O M P U T I N G WITHOUT I M I T S Jo Call It A “Lightweight” Would Be A Big Mistake. Kingston’s Data Express DE90. The Low-Cost Alternative For Reliable Removable Storage. |j Wh;it makes a storage subsystem tough? Is it the materials used? Superior design? 100% test ing? Sure, it’s all of that, and especially the company that stands behind it. Kingston* engineers took their same rugged, removable drive enclosures and gave them a metal-shielded plusiic housing. The result? The toughest little subsystem ever to Iv called a “lightweight 1 ! I he Data Express'" DE90 still provides the superior cooling and reliability you’ve come to expect from Kingston. Its cam-assisted, carrier-eject feature allows for the smooth removal and insertion of the carrier tens of thousands of times. Plus, it still mixes and matches beautifully with Kingston’s other rugged Data Silo'" external expansion chassis. And, since it’s Kingston made, it’s backed with the industry’s best service and support; including a generous 7-year warranty. Ask about the DE90 by calling a Kingston storage representative toll-free at (888) 435-5439. Because in the world of data storage, tough is a Kingston thing. I in more information call the Kingston at (HHH) 435-5439 or look for us on the net:http://wwiv.kingston.com/h.htm Circle 143 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 144). kiiwMim li'i linotiii;y (17600 Ncwlwpc Smti, huiituiiit Vullry,CA 70S l ISA, (714) 41$-2600. All ri|(hu reserved. Kini'sitm TvdutnkiKy is u lr.ult m.uk of Knn:«on Tcchnokwr l innpriny. All Tnnlciiuirk* innl ILyhirutl li.ulimuL nie tin* |wi unity vt tlu'ir trs|«cllvc Imkli’iv Pricey Portable Repairs to Stay Mobile computer users have always paid a premium for the convenience of note¬ book computers, trading the benefits of mobility for an expensive technology that’s usually one step behind the current generation of desktop computers in terms of features and performance. But many users don’t realize that they also pay a pre¬ mium for maintenance, with high costs for repairs and support. Supporting a mobile work force is gen¬ erally harder than supporting desktop workers, according to Dick Caro, senior consultant for Arthur D. Little. One rea¬ son is that mobile users often must oper¬ ate in three different modes: connected to a network while in the office, com¬ municating with the office from a hotel, and isolated in an airplane. “Those three environments need the right procedures and support files to allow for those dif¬ ferent modes of operation,” he explains. Furthermore, new generations of “cycle¬ eating software” accelerate notebook ob¬ solescence. Higher parts prices, more proprietary Parts Prices: Laptop vs. Desktop You’ll pay more for laptop parts. Notebook Screen Motherboard Hard Drive AcorNote Light 359 $1300 $900 $250 Compaq LTE 5250 $1400 $1300 $250 IBM ThinkPad 760ELD $1000 $1150 $250 Tl Extensa 570CD $1500 $1000 $250 Desktop PC $235 $350 $185 Laptop price source: Computer Services of America. Desktop parts prices shown are avoragod from a variety of vendors for a 14-inch monitor, a 120-MHz Pentium, and a 1.08-GB hard drive. AH prices are subject to change. parts, and a higher failure rate all com¬ bine to raise the overall maintenance costs for notebook computers. “You have more repair events for a laptop comput¬ er versus a desktop machine,” says Greg Longtine, vice president of Operations at Computer Services of America (Man¬ chester, NH), a service management com¬ pany that repairs portables. “The mean time between failure is about half that of desktop computers due to the mobil¬ ity issue. When you’re putting a notebook computer into a suitcase, that has a pro¬ found impact on repairs.” And when you need repairs, you’ll pay I Survey Reluctant and Leery of Filing Electronically T his month's survey indicates that although users like the efficiency, accuracy, and flexibility of tax-preparation software, they prefer to mail their returns the old-fashioned way instead of filing them via modem to an intermediary. Users offered numerous reasons for their reluctance to file taxes electronically, including concerns over lack of security and the $14.95 filing fee in the U.S. The vast majority of users who will file electronically said they do so to get their refund faster. Users who have to pay expressed no great desire to send that money to the government more quick¬ ly. More on this next month. Will You... ... use tax software again this year? ... file your taxes electronically? Most respondents who already use tax software will do so again in 1997. I I Yes ■ I No But most users are still reluctant to send their returns electronically. H No answer more. Longtine estimates that overall, parts for notebook computers cost 20 per¬ cent to 30 percent more per repair than parts for desktops. And that doesn’t in¬ clude the screen, which can cost $ 1100 or more to repair in an active-matrix design. Vendors also charge a premium for “gen¬ uine” replacement parts. The most common sites for notebook failures include the screen, hard drive, and main logic hoard, according to Long¬ tine; the motherboard is vulnerable due to constant device connection and dis¬ connection, which take their roll. Other failure points include the keyboard, flop¬ py drive, case hinges, pointing devices, modular drive bays, and PC Card slots. Notebook users tend to need fast turn¬ around, and your local reseller or service provider probably can’t handle notebook repairs. Because such repairs can take up to several weeks, Longtine recommends buying the vendor’s extended warranty when available. The better programs in¬ clude a loaner machine. Don’t expect these costs to change any¬ time soon. “Costs (to repair notebooks) will always be more expensive than for desktops,” says Longtine. “Prices will come down, but they’ll always be more than they are in the desktop market.” Nonetheless, notebook computers make good economic sense for people who require computing power on the road. So, if you need a notebook com¬ puter, what does a service expert recom¬ mend? Says Longtine: “I would buy an NF.c; [Versa] or IBM [ThinkPad].” An¬ other option: Ruggedized notebooks, offered by vendors such as Badger (Tam¬ pa, FI.), field Works (Kden Prairie, MN), Itronix (Spokane, WA), and others, can reduce failures due to accidents or care¬ less use. -Rob Mitchell 32 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 “They thought my new Multipath " Back-UPS® Office ” was just a big surge suppressor - then the lights went out/' place to plug everything: Multipath Back-UPS Office for workstations, PC’s and peripherals Multiple peripherals and data lines to and from your system are vital, Imt dangerous. Without them, you can't do your joh. I lowever, if a power sag makes your modem drop the line while you’re downloading from the Internet, or locks your keyboard More you’ve saved work, you lose time, money and spend another late night at the office •o M .4,i.kwti< M « r | to meet your deadline. iIn' darkness is hard, hut inevitable: Yon have li.iiKe of winning the lottery than of escaping problems: They're the ii pi'M cause of computer i uni hardware damage. '• 1 Mine provides reliable mu entile system, ns baiterv backup ensures •d opt ration of your CPU, . v , ,. fl I itn « mnaI storage device. ii ' supper ion and site-wiring Ion pn ids a true Multipath”' till i no remaining integrated Id. i itn sinus, printers, faxes i i ms It.u k l IPS Office also .. I' ■ k kSa!c'“ outlet tllldle all si/e plugs - even Multipath " Moans Total Power Protection ■NMI Awl fniiwi frrd) out i-nrrr it aurfutr* ifWrm iraifti|ilr |imM ry fWIWv. ditto ilitif Inn rtro if Mmij.uti'i AlC n funds tnl ihip - ill protection keeps hi data safe i pin Mir luir into your com- Back-UPS Office protects your entire system Until now, protection for your entire system required several devices, but multi- device protection can leave you vulnerable to line noise and unwanted data glitches cre¬ ated by the voltage differential between out¬ lets. Those glitches are prevented with the fiack-UIN ()ffice common voltage reference. Kack-UPS Office tlmibli yi mu vulnerability to power problems; add any peripheral, and it | § triples. Even if your AC power-line is shielded, when a surge bits an unprotect¬ ed peripheral, it can blaze down serial and data lines, lUh k UP* Offn r \ tofiifx* t cfrti|ff» . mtidfS r.i \*y an tk\kiuf>, fh\n itt toast yotlT mtNinri to mtu expensive PC. “ funftsftwi of Park Uttm (Jffkr™ ifhrAft your fir/ififlrnrfl - in amputtr from M fnitwr m rwry (M«k prorating (Iran, kifr l»mn (gtrtnl, Id putt tutor ipUrm means true Multipath”' prolix¬ in m, clean, Klfe power to every ix npher.il, anti instant battery lockup to keep your cutting ixlge system atkl (VS I mm crashing. It means protection lor kvs by intqpatipg the securi¬ ty of a surge suppressor with the power of a I ll*S, guaranteed up to $25,000. APC hot won more award • for reliability TVk k un Offkt /nj othoo in (nr il\t> unoAoflVWlmnii' oflkr MiirVitrlmi; inoikrt (null t.k.dt.• iii.^m< iu«. in Impaon* IUmiI.VWw KHi(tUMi.HI OWU USA Oopt. A2 I Circuit braoktr pmfdtt fmHn I tiori in f/ir i-rrvt of wi otrrhmrl iu I short circuit. no fine, no ho site. _ I STIR 57 Varieties of Internet Faxing The total expenditure by Fortune 500 com¬ panies on international faxing is around $ 15 million per year, which accounts for 41 percent of those companies* telephone hills, according to a 1996 Gallup/Pitney Bowes survey. Meanwhile, options for routing international faxes over the Inter¬ net rather than via more expensive phone lines continue to increase. The Logiphone Group (Ra’ananna, Israel, +972 9 914360) has won the race to announce the first global Internet fax service that doesn’t require users to have an Internet connection. Using PassaFax hardware developed by RadLinx (Tel Aviv, Israel, http://www.radlinx.rad.co .il), Logiphone is establishing a world¬ wide network that will eventually encom¬ pass 40 countries. PassaFax clients will pay $35 a month, plus local phone charges to connect to the Logiphone access num¬ ber, to send international faxes. Subscribers attach a PassaFax auto- dialer to their fax machine or computer and send faxes as usual. Local faxes are transmitted over regular telephone lines, but long-distance and international fax¬ es are automatically routed to a local In¬ ternet service provider (ISP). From there, PassaFax hardware sends the message over the Internet to the Pas- saFax-equipped remote ISP in the desti¬ nation city, where the data is converted back to a fax. The destination number is encapsulated in the header of the IP trans¬ mission. During the IP handshake be¬ tween the two PassaFaxes, the destina¬ tion number is transferred and analyzed to remove international dialing codes and turn the transmission into a local call. The fax is then forwarded over regular phone lines, for which the user is also billed. Logiphone’s rivals are allying with ISPs in many countries so they can offer Inter¬ net faxing to subscribers. I-Fax, launched in May by Arel (Yavne, Israel, http:// www.arel.co.il), and I P/Fax Router, from Brooktrout Technology (Needham, MA, http://www .brooktrout.com/), launched in June, both operate in a way similar to RadLinx’s PassaFax’s. I-Fax and IP/Fax- Router combine routing hardware with management software that monitors usage and—for ISPs—generates client¬ billing invoices. Arel has signed an agree- Book Reviews Peris of Wisdom A lthough Perl 5, the much-evolved ver¬ sion of the ubiquitous scripting lan¬ guage, has been available for over two years, books about it are scarce. Up to now, if you wanted to use Pori 5’s new advanced features, including compound structures, object-oriented abilities, dynamically linked modules and extensions, and improved vari¬ able scoping, you had to grovel through Perl 5's technical documentation with your Perl 4 book also open by your side. Two books that now help fill this void are Perl 5 Interactive Course , by Jon Orwant, and Programming Perl- Second Edition , by Wall, Christiansen, and Schwartz. These two books are radically dif¬ ferent in stylo. Each of the 14 chap¬ ters in Orwant’s book has eight “sessions,” each one ending in a four-question multiple- choice quiz and an exercise. Each chapter has its own quiz and exercises as well. This book is rigidly orga¬ nized. The author wrote it for the reader who prefers to learn in a classroom rath¬ er than in a lab or in the real world. He as¬ sumes the reader has little or no program¬ ming experience, yet he covers even the advanced features of dynamic linking, C functions and libraries as extensions to Perl, and Perl as an extension to C programs. Orwant knows his material: He uses Perl in his work at MIT’s Media Lab and is the editor of the Perl Journal. But the book’s weaknesses (i.e., the approach that favors classroom lessons over real-world ones) are due to the restrictions, planning, and editing inflicted by the publisher. Like other books by O'Reilly & Asso¬ ciates, Programming Perl-2nd Edition fea¬ tures an engraving of an animal on its cov¬ er. The definitive reference to the Perl 4 pro¬ gramming language is affectionately known as the “Camel Book.” The second edition, Pert 5 Interactive Course by Jon Orwant; Waite Group Proas; ISBN 1-57169*064-6; $49.99 although its content and list of authors are considerably expanded from the first edi¬ tion, still sports an image of a camel on the cover. The new edition includes revisions to the first one, plus it adds almost 200 pages that cover Perl 5. The new edition is reorganized appropriately for Perl 5, which is itself a total rewrite and reorganization of Perl 4 that maintains almost perfect backward com¬ patibility. The primary author of Programming Perl-2nd Edition is also the primary archi¬ tect and programmer of Perl, Larry Wall. His writing is loaded with a refreshing¬ ly wry humor and a sense of companionship with his readers. Wall's coauthor Tom Christiansen has been lecturing about and teaching Perl since its early days; when Perl 5 arrived, he was the bard of its new abil¬ ity to do compound structures and deref¬ erencing of variables. Randal L. Schwartz, who contributed much of the work in putting together the first edi¬ tion, also assisted with the editing and man¬ agement of this edition. The Perl 5 distribution comes with a con¬ siderable amount of documentation in the clever form of Perl Online Documentation (POD), a code-embeddable markup lan¬ guage that you can use to generate Hyper¬ text Markup Language (HTML), PostScript, and plain-text output. From now on, POD will be the definitive documentation for Perl, since it’s updated with new revisions and additions to Perl. The second-edition Camel Book merges these documents with the first-edition text and also adds a welcome dose of humor and organization, as well as examples. The only fault with this book is that the examples may be too clever for the average Perl programmer. Otherwise, the Camel Book reigns again as the definitive text on Perl. -Ben Smith Programming Perl-2nd Edition by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Randal L. Schwartz; O'Reilly & Associates; ISBN 1-56592-149-6; $39.95 34 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 e next generation of Java Development tools is here now! $x increase in Ibvnloper productivity It's as easy to use as drag-and-drop! Seamless Java and C/C++ interoperability Portability and performance Advanced debugging facilities I i ilr's incredible Flash •I'llfi lot** you see the "••It ode i lunges Ji,ur/y and “work at the i mu think". Forget about •It vmit train oftiiought Ing lor your application to No wonder programmers Itltlnovc i heir productivity p m 3 times in comparison "lliional “edit, load, run, ilrvrliipment environments! Why crank out endless lines of code when SuperCcdc can get tlie job done with just a mouse- click or two? As you’ll quickly discover, we put all kinth of RAD productivity at your fingertips. For example, our graphical Form Fditor lets you create your user interface using a drag-and-drop palette of standard Java controls while simultaneously generating all the Java application code. It’s that simple! With SuperCcdc, you can leverage your investment in existing C/C++ libraries. Other Java development environments require complex code and bridging algorithms to link C/C++libraries into your Java application. SuperCcdc is so simple that you just create your Java method and implement it in C++. It’s that easy. SuperCedc’s Flash Compiler generates your choice of either Java platform-independent applets or Wintel 32-bit machine code applications. The results? Standard Java applets that run cross platform or stand-alone Java applications that run at C++ levels of performance. (liable at leading retailers including: COMPUTER, SS 6H&D V^Aadut hist, Easy, RAO Jaw! '». 1 1 ( orpofalion. All Rryhls Rosorvml Asymolrix it a rogistorod trodomark and the Asymetrix logo, fk»sh Compiler, 1 tul<- him trademarks ol Asymolrix Corporation Asymetrix it registered in tho USA and in curtain olhor countries Java is I "I '■ "» Microsystems, Inc All other product and/or company nomos oro Iho properly o! their tospoclivo owners SUPERCEDE JAVA No other development environmment offers such a comprehensive and interactive debugger as SuperCcdc Java Edition. With .SuperCcdc, you can examine problems, modify source code, update your program, and then use the Back'Track feature to pop up the stack, and continue running — all without restarting the application. Now that’s cooler than RAD! 0 ASYMETRIX www.osymetrix.com North America: 800 448 6543; Dept. BT 206 462 0501 Circle 164 on Inquiry Card (DEVELOPERS: 165). _imaa merit with EUNet, one of the largest pan-European ISIS, and has installations in the U.S. and the U.K. Brooktrout is ini¬ tially focusing on intracompany faxing. For those who don't want—or need— to use a fax machine, several companies offer Windows-based software solutions to cut your phone hills. FaxStorm Desk¬ top, from NetCentric (Cambridge, MA, http://www.netcentric.com/), and Inter- Dataprc Report Better Backbones to Shoulder Bigger Network Burden D evelopments in the Internet service provider (ISP) marketplace will continue to unfold at a lightning pace over the next year. The activities of major service providers have centered around four areas: expanding the geographic reach of ISPs’ Internet backbones, upgrading backbone capacity, delivering enhanced levels of service performance, and adding new services, including Web-site design, Web hosting, and content creation. Better backbones are already needed. Meanwhile, demand for bandwidth might increase as on-line services, such as America Online, Prodigy, and Microsoft Network offer flat-pric¬ ing schemes (see the table below). A snapshot of activities in 1996 and proposed activities for 1997 highlight how the ma¬ jor ISPs are positioning themselves to offer value-added services for businesses: Concert. At first, this was an international joint venture between Washington, D.C.-basod MCI and London-based British Telecommunications (BT) to offer virtual network services. But MCI and BT will now merge and form a new company called Concert pic. Plans include expansion of the companies' Internet networks to include 20 Internet superhubs around the world. Concert will provide ISPs, telecommunications carriers, and businesses with Internet/intranet transport and access services on an international basis. Pacific Bell/IBM Global Network. IBM (Armonk, NY) will install high-speed links be¬ tween its international backbone and the network of Pacific Bell (San Francisco). Cable & Wireless. This Vienna, Virginia-based interoxchange carrier will add Web ser¬ vices, such as home-page design and hosting services, to NetWorth, the company's Internet product package, and expand its number of network-access points worldwide. Internet Thruway. Northern Telecom (Raleigh, NC) is working to transfer data and Internet connections of long duration from the traditional voice network to a packet-/cell-switched data network. Thruway consists of adjunct switches that work with a telephone central of¬ fice to alleviate the strain of Internet traffic on the public-switched telephone network. On-Line Service Charges Consumer time on-line should increase due to flat pricing schemes. Service Initial cost per month America Online $19.95 (unlimited) CompuServe Microsoft Network Prodigy $9.95 for 5 hours $24.95 for 20 hours $6.95 for 5 hours $19.95 (unlimited) $19.95 (unlimited) Additional hours Does not apply $2.95 per hour $1.95 per hour $2.50 per hour Does not apply Does not apply Free trial period 15 hours; $2.95 for additional hours 10 hours; $2.95 for additional hours 30 days First month Diamond.Net. The St. Louis-based Diamond.Not is constructing a private, managed fiber-optic and satellite network using asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and SONET/ SDH technology to accommodate the demands of a new generation of network services. MFS, UUNET, and the World. MFS (Omaha, NE) had barely finished announcing that it would acquire UUNET when it revealed plans to merge with WorldCom (Jackson, MS). The plan for M FS and U U N ET was to leverage M FS's extensive fiber facilities with U U N ET’s line of Internet products and services to offer businesses a range of Internet-access services. Now, with the addition of WorldCom, the combined company will offer local, long-distance, and Internet services. Michael Smith is lead analyst, network services, at the Datapro Information Services Group. For more information about the lull report, call (609) 764-0100 or contact http://www.datapro.com. net Fax Exchange, from NerXchange Communications (Migdal I la’Emeq, Israel, http://www.nrxc.cotn), were both launched in 1996. In October, Open Port (Chicago, II., http://www.openport.com) announced Harmony ISP. All three prod¬ ucts, which remain transparent to the user, allow corporations to exploit their Internet connections. NetCentric’s FaxStorm is based on the company’s POPware technology, soft¬ ware that runs at the point of presence (POP), where phone line meets Internet connection at the ISP’s operations center. From the desktop, FaxStorm compress¬ es, encrypts, and transmits faxes to a POP¬ ware server, which routes the fax over the Internet to the POPware server closest to its final destination. NetCentric has allied with Concentric Network Corp., a U.S.-based ISP cover¬ ing both the U.S. and Canada that has offered an Internet faxing service since last August. Similarly, NetXchange has developed a simple fax-transport protocol, called SFTP, that lets a company’s network serv¬ ers manage faxes by acting like switches. The company’s Internet Xchange for Fax software determines the most cost-effec¬ tive delivery route—via telephone lines, private LANs, or the Internet. The newest version, specifically tai¬ lored to the ISP, has already been acquired by ISPs and telecommunications firms in several countries. AimQuest, a consor¬ tium of worldwide ISPs and telecommu¬ nications companies covering the U.S., Europe, and the Far East, is to establish a global fax network for its members using NetXchange’s technology. Open Port’s I larmony also incorpo¬ rates a least-cost routing facility for cor¬ porate faxing, and the company offers I larmony ISP to ISPs. At press time, no in¬ formation was available as to how many ISPs were using Open Port’s technology, but a company spokesperson said to ex¬ pect an announcement this year. The success of these various solutions will depend in part on their ability to attract a large global network of ISPs so that users aren't limited in the number of destinations they can send faxes to. Choosing from among the various op¬ tions offered depends on your particu¬ lar circumstances, either as a business user or a home user. The good news is that a wealth of solutions are emerging to low¬ er your telephone bill. -Tania Horshman 36 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 WE FINALLY MADE A WORKSTATION finally made a workstation just eve ryo n graphics performance with breakthrough video and imaging capabilities. Why? Because 02 is the only work¬ station based on an innovative Unified Memory Architecture. 02 comes standard with the MIPS* R5000 ,M chip, and is also available with the much more powerful MIPS* R I ()()()()'“ CPU. Best of all, 02 is designed to be an extrovert. w w w . s g i e else’s. Every 02 machine comes standard with a full set of web-authoring tools as well as a personal web server. So as soon as you plug it in, you can communicate your ideas to anyone, anywhere, on any computer. If you want the performance of a workstation combined with the power of the web, look for 02. It isn’t hard to find. For more information, visit our Web site or call S00.636.8IS4 Dept. LS0055. c o m / O 2 t iifiw t y ilh one minor » practical, reliable, and affordable ' H,,e elsc ’ s - * 02 Desktop Workstation $7,495 MIPS RSOOO 180MHz processor 32-bit double-buffered graphics M, pi ion: it’s better. Hardware texture moping Image processing engine Video compression engine UlMiducing 02'*', The Web-integrated user environment 64MB ECC SDRAM 2GB SCSI system disk •nl\ workstation that )7 " monitor, mo.io.o I OOBascTX/l OBaseT Ethernet iii combine industry- — cd-rom - uling CPU and g SiUconGraphics * Computer Systems O IW4 Sthcott Graphici.Inc. All rljfha morwd. Siam Graphki and tho Silicon Gnybttt logo ara rtglat r ad tnd«wwfci t O»,ami S— wtwf poailblc art tradawwlu, o< SAton Graphkt. Inc, MS'S and the MS’S RISC Certified Pdwer logo »re rofpttored tradmarfct. and R10000 and K'iOOO .ip tndvnrkt.of MIPS letlmolojpet. Iix Circlo 151 on Inquiry Card. ■ • what's possible linn {improbable research} cd-rcm review Ode to a Grecian Disc Perseus 2.0, an industrial-strength inter active guide to ancient Greek culture- from its archaic period to the era of Al¬ exander the Great lives up to its title of Comprehensive Edition. The CD-ROM offers four discs, containing 25,000 im¬ ages of vases, sculpture, architecture, and sites. It also contains a hypertext chro¬ nological history, an encyclopedia of his¬ torical and mythological characters and placos, tho comploto works of 31 ancient Greek authors (displayed in both English and Grook), and other resources. By us¬ ing tho included maps, encyclopedia, and history references, you can completely im- morso yourself in the era. But while you shouldn't judge a CD solely by its interface, Perseus’s leaves you with a poor impression of the work. The encyclopedia, along with most of the navigational aids, collected texts, and cat¬ alogs, and are in black and white. Fortu¬ nately, other parts of the CD-ROM sup- IH.Llhl.L~ Perseus's interface combines black and white with color. port color, such as the scanned images of vasos and sculptures. However, Perseus also has tho annoy¬ ing habit of making windows disappear: Clicking on tho Tools and References icon makes the Gateway window (whose icons stoer you to toxts, maps, and other source material) vanish, making it difficult to pick up information from tho encyclo¬ pedia and uso it to locate a passage in tho text. PorsoBUS offers a treasure trove of information, but its clumsy interface makes you feel liko Indiana Jones on a dig, looking for clues among tho rubble. -Tom Thompson Porseus 2.0, Yalo University Proas, Now Havon, CT, (203) 432-0960; fax:(203)432-0940 Comprehensive Edition, $350; Conciso Edition, $150 Advances and Retreats in Computing The Security of Imaginary Numbers T he government's paranormal R&D efforts have resulted in a commercial spin-off. Get ready for a truly foolproof data-security protocol called PGP-Y, which stands for Pretty Good Parapsychology. The mechanism is simple. You imagine that you've transmitted data to someone; that person then imagines that he or she has received that data. Using PGP-Y, any type of information can be transmitted over the Inter- net with complete j A security. The key is that the IT data is transmitted high over the net- ^ M JL work-so high that it actually travels above u ^7 the network. The data is also transmitted telepathically. For those who mistrust electronic funds, there’s also a scheme for transmitting cash and gold plate telekinetically, but that won't be commercial¬ ized until sometime in the future. Net Abuse: Announcing Project Whacko O n some days, the surge of unsolic¬ ited junk mail inflicted on e-mail users everywhere seems to reach epic proportions. Some of it comes from banditos who use fake sending addresses that are difficult to trace. Inspired by such incidents, we announce the creation of Project Whacko, an ongoing research effort to induce electronic junk mailers to whack themselves out of existence. We will publish and disseminate the best tech¬ niques users come up with. Here are the principles of Project Whacko: 1) The goal of Project Whacko is to prune the population of indiscriminate junk-mailers. 2) Project Whacko schemes will use judo/jujitsu principles to redirect the evil actions of electronic-junk-mailers back to the putrid perpetrators. 3) Project Whacko schemes will themselves never involve the sending of indiscriminate electronic junk mail. Please send your responsible Project Whacko scheme to marca@improb.com. Coming: Superfast, Cheap Boxes P arallelized network computers based on obsolete hardware will change the way you compute while sav¬ ing you money. The genius of the Inter¬ net CheapBox is that it takes piles of obsolete computers-everything from 8088 machines to Mac Centrises-and, through the magic of parallel process¬ ing, converts them into attractive, inex¬ pensive, 5- by 5- by 5-foot jet-black Internet CheapBox cubes that run Java applets with 100 to 300 times the power of a Pentium PC. CheapBox inventor Jarrod Charron has left his nominal employer (AT&T) to form a consulting company, CheapBox Enterprises, that will license this tech¬ nology and assist Fortune 1000 compa¬ nies in building their own CheapBoxes. The company plans to sell its own Inter¬ net CheapBox for about $350 through CompUSA, Sears, and Staples. Tests of a preliminary beta version of the CheapBox 2000 show that the device lives up to its hype and is likely to signif¬ icantly crimp sales of the low-cost, stripped-down workstations that tradi¬ tional workstation vendors are current¬ ly planning. Plugged Professionals O ccasionally seen posted in news- groups: inquiries from computer profes¬ sionals who want to be "plugged into" the job market. The problem is a lack of standards. There are no generally accepted plug specifications or cabling standards. If your organization has found or developed a proven set of standards, please get in touch with me. Marc Abrahams is the editor of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can reach him at marca@improb.com. 38 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Access the Internet, CompuServe and AOL without installing a modem at every workstation. Modem Sharing f o r networks WINport WINport is the utility knife of modem sharing software for networks - secure, versatile and easy to use. Just run Netscape, WinCIM, AOL or any of your favorite Windows Communications applications; WINport automatically finds and connects to a shared modem. WINport creates a central access point for all your outbound connections. WINport extends the performance capabilities and versatility of your network without rattling your nerves or budget. WINport requires little maintenance or supervision. It's simple - that's the real attraction. WINport can be completely transparent to users, even allowing PPP and SLIP connections. WINport fits into your network environment. WINport includes redirectors for Windows NT (4.0 & 3.51), Windows 95 and Windows 3.1 x workstations. Share up to 32 modems on Windows NT, Windows 95 or Novell Servers using IPX, TCP and/or NetBIOS/NetBEUI network protocols. Included free with WINport is RASport - LANSource's RAS sharing utility for Windows NT. RASport lets RAS (Remote Access Services) connections be used by WINport for outbound dialing, making double use of normally inbound-only ports. We're so confident of WINport that we offer a 30-day, money back guarantee. It's licensed by the number of shared modems, with unlimited users. Call us for more information. LANSource Technologies Inc. LANSource UK Tel: I 800 677-2727 (416) 535-3555 Tel: 01954 782799 Fax: (416) 535-6225 Fax: 01954 782796 Mlin@lansource.com http://www.lansource.com sales@lansource.co.uk LANSource Deutschland Tel: 49 (0)5206 9124-0 Fax: 49 (0)5206 9124-24 sales@lansource.de Cnwnglit |Cj IOTA lANISourcn talwdugta lm: At ngtili (mmvmJ Wc*W*m1ii \ »AXpntt RASpwt, and lAMSowt* am u«l ANIiuucn T«clinc*igtoi Inc (Min- pndutf namm am id IhM Mitfwctwn oompnnln Circle 71 7 on Inquiry Card. I ill 33 (interview) Blasts from the Past Years ago in BYTE We reviewed the firs! multimedia PCs, hut MPC then referred mostly to CD-ROM and audio. But cooler things were on the way. In the same issue, we described Apple's new QuickTime, which ushered in the age of video to Macs and PCs. The U.S. and China were again feuding over intellectual prop¬ erty rights and software. Years ago in BYTE Four reviewed ink-jet printers, which ranged in price from $479 to $1795, could produce output in only seven colors. Their speed was measured in minutes per page. Compaq's Deskpro 386, with 1 MB of RAM, a floppy drive, and a 40-MB hard drive, cost $6499. The lightest portable reviewed in this issue weighed 10 pounds. Years ago in BYTE BYTE published several articles about using computers to do your taxes. Steve Ciareia's project of the month was on how to con¬ struct a computer¬ ized weatherstation. Ads for Commodore Computers featured William Shatner, of Star Trek fame. Years ago in BYTE BYTE offered articles about using digital cassettes for mass storage, build-it-your- self computer-navigation systems, and Fairchild Semiconductor's F8 processor. Lessons Learned in the Data Mine Alan Pallet ; director of research at the Data Warehousing Institute , tells how to avoid the pits in your data-spelunking adventure . BYTE: What are the most common prob¬ lems and solutions in a successful data - warehouse implementation ? Paller: One of the more difficult prob¬ lems, especially in a large data warehouse, is getting the various divisions of a cor¬ poration to arrive at a common set of def¬ initions for data—for objects such as sales, customers, and products. Take an insur¬ ance company, for example. It has a prop- erty-and-casualty division, and it proba¬ bly has a health-and-life division. Those divisions have completely different kinds of products. So the data it keeps for the products is completely different from one division to the other. Defining what exactly is the “custom¬ er” becomes difficult. Is the customer a company, or is the customer an indi¬ vidual? Or is the customer that piece of building you’re insuring? There are good reasons for the differences in definitions, and there’s no easy solution to how you create a corporate-wide common set of data definitions. The answer to the question of how you deal with that problem is not a fun one, but it’s the simplest one anyone has ever found: You agree to disagree, and you build separate data marts for each of the divisions. Then you find the few things that are common, like payables or re¬ ceivables—organizations that you owe money to or collect money from—and you make corporate-wide databases with those. You get an added bonus when you identify common suppliers: You can draw all your purchasing together to get one of the most important and profitable bene¬ fits of a data warehouse, which is being able to show your vendors all that you’re buying from them, which lets you get bet¬ ter discount rates. BYTE: What ’s another common gotcha, and how can you overcome it? Paller: One of my favorites is when a pair or group of vendors says, “Our prod¬ ucts will work well together.” It’s quite common to hear from a vendor that it has a strategic alliance with another vendor and that the products will work togeth¬ er. Well, many times they don’t. So, the only time you get a strategic alliance that’s viable is when it’s client- driven—when a customer says, “I’ll buy these two products only if they work well together and if and only if you agree to make the interface between the products part of your product.” but the customer has to be mighty big to persuade a com¬ pany to do this. You should also make the vendors prove that their products work well together and guarantee in writing that they’ll continue to work together for at least three years. BYTE: What are other caveats for cus¬ tomers who have already rolled out their data warehouses? Paller: As soon as data warehouses be¬ come worthwhile, important people de¬ pend on them. And so all the things that you have to do for a big business system become important. You have to have se¬ curity that’s real, scheduling to automat¬ ically update it and verify the update, and backup and recovery. The amount of mon¬ ey that people are spending on that part of data warehousing will grow proba¬ bly to 50 percent of all investment in data warehousing. Most people don’t budget for this, but they should. For more information on the Data Warehousing Institute, send e-mail to tdwi@aol.com. 40 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 c R N XTRA BYTE CITEX 96 Awards Recognizing the best Arabic products and technologies. Page 40IS 3 USB’s Slow Start Increased cost is a factor. Page 40IS 6 Manage Massive Web Sites Super Fast Editor makes the Internet a friendlier place. Page 40IS 6 In the Line of Fibre Fibre Channel products arrive. Page 40IS 11 Network Performance The cost-versus-performance conundrum. Page 40IS 17 FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 40IS1 * Increasing Your PC Systems Business PCXpress Systems can be delivered 1« all your worldwide markets under FIC’s Global Logistics Assistance Program. Initial barebone assembly is carried out in FIC’s ISO-9000 certified facilities in Taiwan or China, and then the systems are shipped to FIC’s local integration facilities in the US, the Netherlands, Australia, or Hong Kong for final configuration, from where they are delivered direct to you or your customers. PCXpress Systems deliver the ultimate in Quality - undergoing stringent functional, compatibility and reliability testing before being shipped from FIC’s ISO-WOO certified facilities. PCXpress Systems deliver the ultimate in Value - leveraging FIC’s highly-efficient manufacturing processes and global sourcing power to provide you with leading-edge systems at highly competitive PCXpress Systems deliver the ultimate in Choice - providing you with a complete range of Pentium* and Pentium* Pro processor-based systems in a selection of stylish desktop, mini-tower and mid-tower chassis that can be customized to your requirements. PCXpress Systems deliver the ultimate in Flexibility - giving you an almost unlimited selection of configuration options and peripherals that allow you to differentiate your products in the market. prices. PCXpress Systems deliver the ultimate One-Stop Sourcing Solution - providing you with the products you need for your markets without having to go through the trouble and extra expense of procurement from multiple vendors. march 13 - 19 , 1997 rf]CeBIT97 LJlJh a n n 0 v 1 r Hall 12, Stand E10 —.*£ - = ■ . camcKNMHauMu 6F, FORMOSA PLASTICS REAR BUILDING 201-24. TUNG HWA NORTH ROAD. IAIPLI,TAIWAN Tel:886-2-7174500 Fax:886-2-7182782 http://www.flc .com.tw E-mail :mkt«f>ssl .flc.com.tw First International Computer, Inc. FICUSA Tel: 1-510-2527777 Fax:1-510 2528808 FIC FRANCE FIC EUROPE B.V. Tel;31 73-6273300 Fax:31-73-6231412 FIC SPAIN FIC AUSTRALIA Tel61-2-7484566 Fax:61-2-7484633 FIC HK FIC CZECH REPUBLIC Tel:42-5-41241785 Fax:42-5-41241787 FIC JAPAN Tel:33-1-46810203 Tel:34-I-63736I3 Tel:852-2-3453599 Tel:8l-3-5461-2181 HfwidtlttilNMM tn i tuwqa wllhmit iwllon All WAifcwmMkn ummI Iwratt M *mi roumfcMod vi thaw inripncUwo umwmmh Circle 722 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 723). Fax:33-1-45739885 1 I ax:34 I 6373863 Fax:852-2-7972408 I Fax:81-3-5461-2345 INTERNATIONAL BYTE Middle East Announces Best of CITEX 96 Awards New Arabic technologies garner most of the prizes. UBAI—New Arabic tech¬ nologies, including innova¬ tive Arabic/English transla¬ tion products, were the stars of the show at G1TEX (The Gulf Infer (nation Technology Exhibition). More than 61,000 information technology busi¬ ness users attended this year, an 89 per¬ cent increase over last year, according to Nidal Abou Zaki of the Dubai World Trade Center. There were 400 exhibitors from 29 countries. BYTE Middle East, the Arabic edition of BYTE magazine, recognized the best Arabic technologies and products with its Best of GITEX 96 awards. The top show award for Best Arabic Technology went to two products: the Arabic Auto¬ matic Diacritiser, from Sakhr Software (Cairo, Egypt; +202 274 9929; fax: +202 274 0044, http://www.sakhr.com; sakhr(«) sakhr.rite.com), and theTransphere M 11 I- tilingual Machine Translation System, from Applications Technologies (McLean, VA,U.S. ; 4 I 7038215000; lax: + I 7037345703; myaghi @apptek.com). Written Arabic contains diacritical marks, and the meaning of a word differs greatly according to its diacritics. Sakhr’s product is the first Arabic automated dia¬ critiser; it provides the needed infra¬ structure to build a powerful syntax/ semantics analyzer, which is needed to produce an accurate Arabic/English, Eng- lish/Arabic translation product. The Transphere Multilingual Machine utilizes the knowledge of modern computation¬ al linguistics theories to translate Arabic into English and vice versa. The award for Best Innovative Arabic Technology went to Arabic Textware (Amman, Jordan; +9626 834606; fax: i 9626 836735; arabtcxt(u)go.com.jo) for its Arabic Pen. This technology enables the recognition of Arabic cursive hand¬ writing. The other winning technology is Arabic SX, from Arabic Digital Agen¬ cies (Yemen; +9671 267675; fax: +9671 267676; apple(u)y.nct.ye). Arabic SX does phonetic searches of bilingual Arabic/ English databases. The Voice Compression Utility, from Research 6c Development International (Cairo, Egypt; +202 3499378; rdi@rit- secl .com.eg), received the Best Interna¬ tional Arabic-Developed Technology award. This 1:50 voice-compression util¬ ity preserves voice quality and has been used to produce CDs that contain the full audio text of The Holy Quran. Best Arabic Internet Technology prize went to Al Bahith, from Sakhr. This is the first morphology-based Arabic search engine for the Internet, where the amount of Arabic content is growing. Al Bahith enables the building of Internet and intranet search engines. Sindbad, also from Sakhr Software, received the Best Arabic Internet Soft¬ ware award. This add-on lets different browsers, such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Explorer, handle brows¬ ing, e-mail, and chatting in Arabic, in addition to adding strong features such as spelling checking and dictionary-based translation of words in Web pages. The Best Arabicized Internet Appli¬ cation was Arabic IntcrOffice, from Ora¬ cle Middle East (Dubai, UAE.; +9714 313828; fax: +9714 313258; hdajani® ae.oracle.com). It is currently the only Arabic application that enables smart cor¬ porate data management on the Internet. There were two winners in the cate¬ gory of Best Native Arabic Software for Windows. The Dowlog Educational Soft¬ ware Series, from Dowlog Technology (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; +9661 4625566; fax: +96614623356; http://www.dowlog .com), excels in presenting learning mate¬ rials for young students. The other win¬ ner was Arabic for Non-Arabs, an instruc¬ tional CD-ROM from Sakhr Software. Best Native Macintosh Arabic Soft¬ ware was Alef, from Zeine Technological Applications (Amman, Jordan; +9626 618851; fax: +9626 618852; zeineops@go BEST ARABIC TECHNOLOGY im iMMfcto loch ti«*> mi Aii7r^iuinrti«i »» w«l imogtawt i and In On late*] O'jW ^ Jfl H whm Iw lNt«i wMno ml immIIihi 0 J| 1 1! 1 ! i ; ! i4& it* Pr.Mrtntif HmuB MriWNKti during • hi* mm arammitr pUn* ^ _ . Products from Sakhr Software (left) and Applications Technologies shared the Best Arabic Technology award. FEBRUARY 199/ BYTE 40IS 3 r n Newspad Makes El Periodico Interactive A group of readers of El Periddico de Catalunya, Barcelona’s largest nowspa- I per, can now browse, personalize, and struc- | ture thoir own newspaper on a tablet-like com- | putor called Newspad. The easy-to-use device j automatically updates nows content overnight i by encrypted broadcast transmissions such ! as Direct Vidoo Broadcast satellite. Newspad, developed by Acorn Rise Tech¬ nologies (Cambridge, U.K.), is built around Acorn’s 32 bit Arm7500 processor. It has no controls othor than an on/off switch. Thanks to a touchscreen overlay, users can browse con- | tents and navigate information paths with their | finger. Newspad can handle full-motion video I_ .com.jo). T his is a powerful, easy-to-use native multilingual word processor with the ability to read the Arabic Windows text format. The other winner in this category, Oryx, from Linotype-Hell (Nicosia, Cyprus; +572333842; fax: +572333845), is the first world-class Arabic desktop pub- Acorn's Newspad: The future of electronic newspapers? lishing package to hit the market. Best Arabicized Software awards were granted to Arabic Windows 95 and Arabic Office 95, from Microsoft (Dubai, U.A.E.; +9714513888; fax:+9714527444,ahmedc® microsoft.com). Other products awarded in this category were OS/2 Warp for the Ara- and 16-bit audio besides traditional newspa¬ per graphics and text. The principal applica¬ tions running on the device are Macromedia Director Player and Hypertext Markup Lan¬ guage (HTML) interpreters. Content can also bo transferred via the Internet, using a one-way protocol (in contrast to the bidirectional protocols HTTP, FTP, or Gopher). System designers from Acorn say that in future Newspad could also carry a small FM receiver to collect trickle-feed updates, such as traffic flashes, localized news, weath¬ er reports, and advertising. A personalized fil¬ ter downloads only the kinds of material that the user has specified. -Jim Nagel | _I bicUser4.0, from IBM (Cairo, Egypt; +202 3492533; fax: +2023601227; Direct(ci>eg .ibm.com), and Arabic Corel Draw 6.0, from Corel (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; + I 613 728 0826; fax: + 1 613 7619179; 74143.3424(a)compuse rve.com). -Khaldoon Tabaza C O s«***!^ PROTECTING SOFTWARE THE SAFE WAY SMARTKEY PLUS is the professional protection system against illicit duplication of software. The intelligent hardware key is plugged into the PC's parallel port: protected programs cannot be run without it. Unique personal code Memory up to 448 bytes Programmable algorithms Protection through linkable drivers or Protection ttirouqh linkable drivers or automatic .EXE files protection technology LAN license control High security ASIC technology Fully transparent to parallel port use for printers, pocket network adapters, SCSI adapters, etc. Daisy-chainable In compliance with EU 89/336 standard (EMC) EUTRON 24048 Treviolo Bergamo Italy - Via Gandhi, 12 Tel. +39-35-201003 Fax +39-35-201277 - e-mail eutron@mbox.vol.if ■ Belgium: Akkermans 03-2338826 ■ Bulgaria: Vilmal 02-764533 ■ Finland: Dalma 90-2711800 ■ France: Logidata 1-46454546 ■ Greece: Inter Engineering 041-531363 ■ Hungary: Montana-Kriptologia 1 2691191 b Poland: Gem Computers 022-261576 B Slovenia: Stubelj 06563215 a Sweden: JM Data 042-238444 B Spain: Larcu 91 -7952413 B The Netherlands: Akkermans 0464432424 Using programmable security codes, SMARTKEY PLUS protects software running under DOS, WINDOWS, WINDOWS95, WINDOWS/NT, OS/2, UNIX, AIX, LINUX. SMARTKEY PLUS comes in different models to protect any type of environment, from PC to LAN, whatever the application, from the simplest to the most sophisticated and demanding. 4 0 IS 4 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Circle 705 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 706). Smart Routes to Connectivity idowv3.ll he number of PC connectivity paths in your organization has grown. Your users want to connect their PCs to the Internet, to hosts SMARTERM CMARIgM PSSBHI AS/400; SmiT'/H' around the world, and to X clients. Mapping out these routes requires the best PC-to- host connectivity software available—SmarTerm®. indows 95/H^ “ Window 95/NT m' Tho most complole multilingual connectivity suite offering a PC X sorvor, Netscapo Navigator™, and mullivondor hoi) connectivity including TN5250, TN3270, VT420, and DG 0470. •Win vs 95/NT smarts SmarTerm crosses all the boundaries, taking Windows 95, Windows NT, and Windows 3.1 users to the information they need, no matter where it is. Whether valuable data is on their favorite web sites, X clients on their local UNIX host, a remote AS/400 host over¬ seas, an IBM mainframe in the corporate office, a Digital host at a regional branch, or a Data General host anywhere, your users can extend the reach of their PCs. SmarTerm makes efficient, reli¬ able and quick connections. It's designed specifically to reduce your training and support burden by including tools and utilities that automate common activities and integrate host and PC data. Plus SmarTerm is easy to learn and use, and the technical support is free! .Windows 95/NT^4% Windows 3.1 <9.6 Superior multilingual PC connectivity (or iho corporoto user who needs muhivondor host connectivity including TN5250, TN3270, VT420, and DG D470. Serial dim live multilingual nft livity solution for urn od toluol, FTP, and sonal |Mt for (Oiporoto users. Plot your connectivity course today! Call Persoft for a free evaluation copy of SmarTerm for Windows 3.1 or Windows 95/NT: 1-800-TCP-3130. lErsalf Persoft, Inc., 465 Science Dr., P.O. Box 44953, Madison, Wisconsin 53744 4953 U.S.A. Phone (608)273-6000, Fax (608)273-8227, 1 800 368 5283, or sales@persofl.com Wot Id Wido Wob www.porsofl.com, Faxback (608)273-6090 Persoft Inc, European Headquarters, Lower Woodend Barns, Fawley, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, RG9 6JF, United Kingdom, Phone +44 (0)1491 638090, Fax +44 (0)1491 638010 Smaflerm provides simultaneous access routes lo the information von need—whether it’s on the Internet, in X applications, or on UNIX, HIM, Digital, and Data General hosts. Copyright 1996 Persoll, Inc All Rights Rosorvod. SmarTorm and Porsolt aro regislerod Irodomailcs of Porsofl, Inc. Nolscapa Navigator is o Iradomark of Nolscopo Communications All othor Irodomarks aro properly of their respective ownors. Rov 8/96 Circle 714 on Inquiry Card. International Bits USB Trickles to Market The Universal Serial Bus (IJSB) is entering the mainstream PC market, albeit slowly. The new peripheral communications stan¬ dard was widely accepted late in 1995. Then Intel put its muscle behind the tech¬ nology with its current Pentium-level chip sets and peripheral chip. Now, a Taiwanese vendor is also offering a USB chip. VIA Technologies' PCI-to-USB con¬ troller, the VT83C572, is designed to be integrated onto either an add-on card or a non-USB-capable mainboard. Key fea¬ tures of the new controller include USB 1.0 compatibility as well as Universal Host Controller Interface (UHCI) compatibili¬ ty for a data transfer rate of 12 Mbps. Lega¬ cy support for keyboards and PS/2 mice is also provided. The product life of this chip is likely to be rather short since new Pen¬ tium and Pentium Pro core logic chip sets support USB. USB controllers for periph¬ eral devices are another story, however. Last February, Intel introduced its 82930A USB peripheral controller, the first USB peripheral chip. It complies with all the USB specifications except one, a very important one: According to an Intel spokesman, this first chip does not support the daisy chaining of peripherals. The abil¬ ity to hook up all of a PC’s peripherals to one bus is one of the main features of USB. This chip's price—$6 per unit in lots of 10,000—is also a barrier. VIA plans to release a USB peripheral chip in the second quarter. “There’s a mar¬ ket for USB peripheral controllers, but it seems to be developing slowly,’’ said VIA president Chen Wen-chi. VIA's USB con¬ troller will definitely support daisy-chain- 1 ing capabilities, Chen said. Most Taiwanese peripheral vendors state that they support USB but also men- j tion concerns regarding controller costs. For mice and keyboard manufacturers, I whose products retail for $5 to $20, a $6 component is an unlikely possibility. Mon- ] itor, scanner, and printer manufacturers have more leeway in absorbing an addi- ] tional $6 component cost. Monitor man- I ufacturers are, however, designing their USB products as end-use devices. This I means they are intended to be the last device on a USB chain and hence don’t need a hub controller chip. Some are ship- I ping their USB monitors without even USB I cabling, leaving that up to system integra- tors. Whether USB will take off this year could depend on getting controller costs down. -Mark Carroll 1 CD-ROM Near Speed Limit? There are limits to how fast CD-ROM dri- ves can get using the standard constant lin- I ear velocity (CLV) disk-reading technique. “Above 12x speed, there are problems with ' vibration and excessive heat,” said Fric Tseng of Acer. But “the new CAV [constant j angular velocity] system will allow man- I ufacturers to move to 16x and 20x speeds.” William Wang of Acer Peripheral con- I curs and adds that an additional concern j is the cost of such high-speed motors. Wang and Tseng agree, though, that in the first quarter of this year such drives will be the norm at the high end. As far as a final speed limit for later in 1997, the answer is unclear. “Our experts view that 20x is the limit to speed for CD-ROM drives due to I motor mechanical constraints,” said Eve Kwek of Wearnes Peripherals. After CD-ROM drives, digital videodisc j (DVD) drives could be huge market oppor¬ tunities for manufacturers in Taiwan and I W ithin most Web sites it is impossible to divine the path from one page to anoth¬ er several clicks away-especially if there are thousands of pages. What’s needed is a road map. HyperMed's I SuperFast (SF) Editor automatically creates a map of a whole site, organizing it into a hier¬ archical structure with¬ in which each section, page, and paragraph is precisely located for swift retrieval and manipulation. At all times, the site author or a visiting surfer knows whore they are in the hierarchy and has the option of backtracking or descending deeper into the site. The HyporMed pro¬ gram keeps an eye on all links and warns of removed pages or con¬ nections that should exist. It also copes with multiple parenting-when a page is linked to more than one location-without unnecessary duplication. Webmapping is the latest trend for hassle- free surfing, but finding this foaturo in an authoring tool is rare. Web editing software such as Microsoft’s FrontPage and Netscape Navigator Gold j offer some measure of map- l ping but do not structure the ji site hierarchically to the extent necessary for the building of ! massive sites. NetCarta’s CyberPilot will enter and map a specific site on the Web for the surfer, but CyberPilot is not an authoring tool. The closest rival to SF Editor is NetCarta’s WebMapper, a Web authoring tool that also 1 creates a hierarchical | map of a site. However, WebMapper is not a full authoring tool; it dis¬ plays a map of all links but shows only file names, so authors cannot automatically change the information within the site. SF Editor was not originally developed for Web design. Two years ago, HyperMed found no package suit¬ able for publishing its Pediatrics CD-ROM, which is composed of hundreds of thou¬ sands of pages and an average of 20 hyper¬ text links per page. So the company went ahead and developed its own authoring tool. When the time came to cre¬ ate a similar-size Web site, the further applica¬ tion of SF Editor became obvious. However, software that deals with a site in such minute detail is perhaps an unnecessar¬ ily sophisticated tool for designing most cur¬ rent sites, which tend to be 50 rather than 50,000 pages. Instead, as a site grows and spirals out of control, SF Editor may be employed as mapper and manager, helping to restore order to chaos. -Tania Hershman Super Fast Area HyperMed’s SuperFast Editor maps and watches links to a Web site. HyperMed Jerusalem, Israel 4 - 972 2 566 6489 fax: 4- 972 2 566 6042 cust»mcr (1)867 008 0300 MFH5T Software Security - Group HUUHlfl International Bits Singapore. Acer iscurrently sampling l )VI) drives; production volumes are expected for the second half of ’97. Wearncs is also set to begin DVD production. 44 by the end of Q1 '97 we will be sampling, with pro¬ duction by Q2 ’97," Kwek said. But other Taiwanese and Singapore manufacturers aren’t quite so sure about DVD. “The mar¬ ket demand is uncertain," said Tseng at Acer. ‘There are some basic marketing as well as cost problems with the product.” Lack of software may initially stifle cus¬ tomer demand, Tseng added. Software vendors (i.e., I lollywood) are hesitant to release the 1000 to 5000 titles necessary to drive demand until copyright problems are resolved. A DVD speed war is also a possibility. Richard Green, marketing manager of Adaptec, said, “DVD should not have x [speed] ratings. X rating is sort of seen as a cheap marketing trick without much end-user benefit or technology behind it." Felix Nemirovsky, engineering manager at Plextor, agrees. But when asked if DVD manufacturers will use speed as a market¬ ing tool, he said, “There’s no way in hell they will not.” -Mark Carroll “What makes Velocis the fastest database?” You do! Velocis IM Database Server offers more speed-enhancing features than any other DBMS. With architec¬ tural choices, Server Extensions, and multiple APIs, including SQL C-API, low-level C-API, and C++ class libraries, typical relational client/server database products just don’t compare. Velocis supports both relational and pointer-based network model databases in any combination, as well as processing on either side of the cl ien t/se rver eq nation. The choices of operating platforms, APIs, processing localities (client or server), and database models can be combined to satisfy the performance requirements of virtually any applica¬ tion, regardless of size or complexity. Call: 206-557-0200 Fax: 206-557-5200 If it's fast-it's RAIMA Velocis Hill of Materials Benchmark I S 10 IS 20 IS BulUli (D«Ub«w Sim) A. Microsoft SQL Server provides relational architecture and supports database querying from the client through ODBC7SQL. B. Velocis ODBC/SQL with Server Extensions allows application partitioning where application level code resides and executes at the database server. Kven relational model DBMSs benefit from server-side processing! CL Velocis low-level C-API with Server Extensions combined with the network model results in the fastest client/server database application performance possible. For more information on what makes Velocis the fastest database, call for a copy of the Velocis Hill of Materials Benchmark. Test drive Velocis Database Server today at www.raima.com. Raima Corporation, 1605 NW Sammamish Kd. #200, Issaquah, WA 08027 USA Inside the U.S.: 1-800-275-4724, Outside the U.S.: 1-206-557-0200 Fax:1-206-557-5200, Web: http://www.raima.com, Internet: salcs@raima.com Germany: 497022 925ft 10 Singapore:(»5 334 006I Italy: 39 49 720 577,394980 77 140 Argentina: 54 I 470 72 03 Spain: 34 3 225 39 95 Raima UK Ltd.: 44 I 273819292 Australia^! 24197177 Denmark:4544889900 Raima Benelux: 31 356944738 Colombiu:57 I 62 10070 France:33 1 446 10042 Sweden:46 13311 588 Baltic States: 372 631 4009 Finland: 358 9 8045 130 Russia: 7812 316 1965 r MHEG Complements Interactive TV n i i t i i i ■ I I Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Java, and the Web are taking the world of inter¬ active applications by storm. But there are areas where these technolo¬ gies fall short. A couple of international multimedia con¬ tent producers and set-top box manufac- turers-Philips Business Electronics, Sony, and Nokia among them-are currently eval¬ uating the new ISO standard 13522-5 for multimedia distribution. Called Multimedia and Hypermedia Information Coding Expert Group (MHEG), it is a self-contained hypermedia architecture that can run in environments with very small resources, such as set-top boxes where Java-enabled browsers are an overload. Although it was originally developed for broadcast appli¬ cations, MHEG has some substantial advantages for information and point-of- salos terminals as well as interactive TV. Testers report that, in contrast to HTML, MHEG relieves the server load because it transmits complete scene information only once to the client. It employs an object-ori¬ ented model, generic enough to format dif¬ ferent kinds of multimedia documents, and provides on any network the quality of ser¬ vice people expect from TV. In addition, it offers powerful models of spatial and tem¬ poral synchronization between different media, which are not provided for in other standards. For developers of interactive TV the quality of service that MHEG offers is the main issue. “Failure is not an option. Here you cannot tolerate GUI crashes or unre¬ solved references," said an engineer at Philips Business Electronics (Eindhoven, The Netherlands). Currently, there are two mature author¬ ing tools for MHEG-5. One, based on Asymetrix’s ToolBook, was developed by DeTeBerkom (Berlin) and Grundig Multi- media Solutions (Nuremberg, Germany). The other uses Macromedia’s Director and was designed by CCETT, France Tele¬ com’s R&D institute. Several companies and research insti¬ tutes have developed MHEG run-time engines. The Digital Audio Video Council (DAVIC) has chosen MHEG as the stan¬ dard exchange format for high-level appli¬ cations. In the DAVIC specification 1.1, MHEG coexists with Java and can be called from within an HTML document. -Valerie Thompson I_ 4 0IS 8 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Circle 71 5 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 716). CREAVISON professional color monitor series! g Great Vf v to III today's graphical computing environment, a high quality affordable monitor is essential in keeping up with the demands of 3D graphics, animation, and Internet browsing. GVC's new line of professional monitors offer you state of the art features such as On Screen Display (OSD) for easy adjustment. Our high-resolution, high-contrast screens bring you exceptionally vibrant colors and crystal clear images. More importantly, from our extensive experience as a wo rid-wide top tier OEM supplier, we are able to provide you with exceptional values! To find out more, please contact us at HE, SO, Sec. 2, An-Ho Road, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. Tel:SS6-2-701-2226 Eax:SS6-2-704-0338 E-Mail:monitor@gvc. com. tw I MARCH 13-19, 1997 rf1CeBIT r 97 LA-Jh a n n o v e r Hall 12, Stand All Model CRT type Horizontal Frequency Vertical Frequency Resolution (Max.) Front panel control Option M1448 1470.28 30-50KHZ 50-90HZ 1024x768 analog Ml 450 1470.28 30-50KHZ 50-90HZ 1024x768 digital spoakor Ml 558 1570.28 30-56KHZ 50-90HZ 1024x768 analog Ml 565 1570.28 30-69KHz 50-90HZ 1280x1024 digital speaker Ml 568 1570.28 30-69KHZ 50-90HZ 1280x1024 digital OSD M 1 764 1770.39 30-69KHZ 50-90HZ 1024x768 digital speaker Ml 765 1770.28 30-69KHZ 50-90HZ 1280x1024 digital OSD speaker Ml 785 1770.26 Diamondtron 24-85KHZ 40-IOOHz 1600x1200 digital OSD speaker GVC CORPORATION DISPLAY BUSINESS UNIT HP ESS SZ DHHS <$.<£)(£ GVC IS REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF GVC CORPORATION. OTHER BRANDS AND PRODUCT NAMES ARE TRADRMARKS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE HOLDERS Circle 728 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 729). Just Plug it in! With Accton it's that simple! I las your current Ethernet network got you pulling your hair out because it's too slow and troublesome to upgrade? Here's the answer! Aecton's Fast Ethernet and Switches give you high performance without the hassles. Upgrading is easy. Designed for plug and play installation, our products are fully compatible with existing Ethernet networks- protecting your current network investment. With Accton Fast Ethernet and Switches you can sec immediate performance gains with no additional infrastructure expense. For more information on Fast Ethernet and Switches call your local Accton distributor today. /IccTon Just right for workgroups Circle 734 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 735). http://WWW.aCCtOn.COIH. INTERNATIONAL In the Line of Fibre Mass storage and image processing demand high throughput. Fibre Channel technology delivers it. By Otto Lehner m inally, the first products that capitalize on the Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) architecture are on their way to market. At next month’s CeBIT in Hannover, Germany, you can expect to see new FC- Al peripherals from several manufacturers. For many of today’s data storage systems, SCSI—the standard lor fast and reliable data transmission for years—is no longer appropriate. The reasons are not just throughput bottlenecks but also cable distance limi- i.it ions of existing technolo¬ gies. For a high-end RAID level 5 server system, for example, you need a mini¬ mum of three independent channels with a cabling length of at least 5 meters. With SCSI, or even with Wide and Ultra SCSI’s maximum i able lengths of and 1.5 meters, respectively, this is hardly possible. The same problem is prevalent in the local net¬ working area. Ethernet pro¬ vides a reach of a few hun¬ dred meters. Above that limit, connections become I laky. The Fibre Channel architecture aims at elimi¬ nating throughput and dis¬ tance limitations for both peripherals and LAN infra¬ structures. The basic concept of a transparent high-end con¬ nection technology that encapsulates already estab¬ lished and proven transfer protocols has been around for several years (see “Fibre Channel: Fast and Flexible,” May 1996 BYTE). One of the most distinctive features of the Fibre (Channel is compatibility with existing software. Unlike SCSI and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), the Fibre Channel proto¬ col does not have its own command set, but simply manages the data transfer from port to port and thus interoperates with exist¬ ing upper- level protocols (ULPs). To achieve the very high transfer speeds of up to 1 Gbps and to avoid a time-consuming protocol management in software, Fibre Channel’s data flow control needs to be laid out in hard¬ ware. The serial standard transfer rate of 1 Gbps is 10 to 250 times higher than that of other connection technologies. R&D groups are investigating even higher transfer speeds (2 and 4 Gbps). At the same time Fibre Channel technology has a lower latency and allows for cable lengths of up to 10 kilometers. The high trans¬ fer speeds are an essential advantage for RAID applications that need fast and parallel access to multiple mass storage devices. Though the word sug¬ gests it, Fibre Channel tech¬ nology is not limited to fiber¬ optic media. (Different spellings help distinguish between the connection technology and the transfer media: fiber for the former, fibre for the latter.) Besides the transfer speed and protocol characteristics, topology plays an important role simply because it deter¬ mines the number of simul¬ taneous connections as well as the available bandwidth. The Fibre Channel supports three connection topologies with different complexities: Point-to-Point, Arbitrated Loop, and Cross-Switched Fabric. The three topologies can be combined, providing for easier upgrades of exist¬ ing systems. To connect two devices or to incorporate a single system into an existing con¬ figuration, the simplest topology is a Point-to-Point connection. In contrast to SCSI, Fibre Channel Point-to-Point configurations have no ter¬ mination problems. The Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) topology is capable of con¬ necting up to 126 participants in a closed loop. The address of an FC-AL device can be set by hardware, software, or automati¬ cally by its position in the loop. The system then transfers data and control commands simultaneously on both parts of the loop. The Cross-Switched Fabric (FC-XS) topology is based on a switched matrix architecture similar to a telephone network. It FEBRUARY 1 9 9 7 BYTE 401 S 11 International In the Line of Fibre Fibre Channel frames feature variable payload lengths. Are You Looking for the INTRANET Solution ? If Yes, the Best Choice is TAINET. or DSU TS-316 Terminal Server u C-288/C-288J demote User V.34+ Modem Security & Accounting Workstation y V.34+ dial-up modom with DTE/DCE speed monitoring for home user access to internet ^ High density V.34+ modom card and terminal server integrated with network management system for ISP/POP/Intranet network applications ^ V.34 Leased Line modem, 64/128Kbps NTU with LCD menu driven operation for banking/VAN/Carrier solutions ISGobi TAINET COMMUNICATION SYSTEM CORP. Tho Professional Partner Headquarters Beijing Branch :M . No Ii, Alloy 23 l.arw 01, Sac 1 Room 700. 1 HuiKNig, Ml* Yuan Ajwlmonl URI. http //WWW tainet com tw Nal-MuHd lalpm Imwmi HOC Awi»o G iinwti VAigo lloijing ClWia II l DOG 2 Gifl 3000 II I BO 10 M<1? HOI.. 1 HO 10 073*. 1760 -2 E-mail #satos@accmail tainet, com tw iax ** ,04M * M#n> 401S 12 BYTE FEBRUARY 199 7 Circle 726 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 727). is a connection-oriented architecture that allows several participants to utilize simul- i taneously the full bandwidth. In addition, it establishes a network that automati¬ cally bypasses failed nodes, thus provid¬ ing higher reliability. The 24-hit address- | ing system of a fabric supports more than 16 million network nodes, so address space is not a problem. The hardware and the Fibre Channel protocol handle the routing of the data packets as well as transfer errors, which eliminates extensive station management ] at the nodes. It is very easy to connect FC-XS peripheral devices to LANs. A Class of Its Own The Fibre Channel supports five different service classes either unidirectionally or bidirectionally. All devices are allowed to define the service classes, which isn’t I the case with other protocols. In addition, 1 it is possible to use different service classes I simultaneously. Class 1 establishes a dedicated cir- cuit-switched connection, granting full bandwidth for all participants. This ser- I vice class guarantees high data transfer I rates in combination with low latency, but it uses the connections exclusively and is I not able to free up bandwidth for other I connections. This method is useful if large ] amounts of data have to be transmitted from one point to another very quickly. Class 2 provides connectionless data I transfer with verification and acknowl¬ edgment services. It routes data packets I individually, as in an Ethernet or Token Ring I .AN, and lets packets share the same I bandwidth. Class 3 services are similar to class 2, hut they have no means of packet verifi- cat ion and acknowledgment. Because of its lower delays, class 3 is particularly suit- I able for audio and video applications. This I service class also applies if ULPs such as I SCSI perform data verification. It is also I possible to “intermix,” using temporarily I available bandwidth of a class 1 connec- I tion for class 2 and 3 data packets trans- I mission, improving the overall net throughput. Class 4 provides a simultaneous ex¬ change of data packets between two par¬ ticipants in a net work by ut ilizing several routes so that bandwidth is guaranteed. I This service class is particularly beneficial in a fabric where the load changes con¬ tinuously hut connections must have a minimum data transfer rate. 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No I Lane 159, Li Toh Rd., Poitou, Taipoi, Taiwan, R.O.C. Ini: 086 2 8965859 Fax: 886-2-8951294 Inlox: 16499 ELITEGO u *• a i lltogroup Computer Systems American, Inc. Tol: 1-510-2267333 Fax: 1-510-2267350 < imndii I litegroup Computer Sysloms Canada Ltd. Tol: I 905-7711602 Fax: 1-905-7711605 C€ Japan EMegroup Computer Systems Ju|>an Co., Lid Tol: 81-3-54207741 Fax: 81-3-54200758 Gormany Elitogroup Computer Systems GmbH Tol: h 49-211-415070 Fax:4 449-211-4150720 U.K. Elitogroup Computer Systems U.K. Lid. Tol: 44-181-847-3332 Fax 44-181-568-7761 For Marketing Inquiry: mkt tpcwccs.com.tw Singapore Elitogroup Compulor Sysloms Smguporo Pto, Ltd. Tol: 65-7418411 Fax: 65-7418007 Hong Kong Elitogroup Computer Systoms H.K. Co., Ltd. Tol: 852-23180153 Fax: 852-27598692 Philippines Elitogroup Computer Systems Philippines Inc. Tol: 63-47-2526158 Fax: 63-47-2526157 All Iraclnmaikn arn profxirty <>l thnir rotipactivo holdorH. Circle 747 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 748), International In the Line of Fibre the remaining bandwidth can be used by other applications. Class5 service allows for simultaneous (isochronous) data transfer to several par¬ ticipants and is especially applicable for audio and video servers in broadcast mode. Except for class I, all classes require a fabric network. Class 4 and 5 specifica¬ tions are not yet fully fleshed out. A Layered Architecture Encapsulation of the existing transfer pro¬ tocols, the so-called ULPs, and support of the different physical transfer media made it necessary to separate the Fibre Channel protocol into five layers, FC-0 to FC-4. FC-4 links the Fibre Channel architec¬ ture to the ULPs and maps ULP data pack¬ ets to a data buffer. The FC-2 layer then assigns these sequences to FC transfer packets (frames). This way, different ULPs can be transferred simultaneously. FC-4 specifications have been finalized for the peripheral protocols IIIPPI, I PI-3, SBCCS, and SCSI and the networking pro¬ tocols IP, IEEE 802 (Ethernet and Token King), and ATM. The number of sup¬ ported ULPs will grow in the near future and will soon include memory buses like VME or Fu tu rebus-K The frames assembled by FC-2 func¬ tions consist of an obligatory adminis¬ tration part and a variable-size payload area of 0 to 2112 bytes (see the figure on page 401S12). The frame headers contain routing and transfer information. The 4- byte cyclic redundancy check (CRC) code at the end of each frame helps detect trans¬ mission errors. Another substantial part of the FC-2 layer functions is data-flow control for both fabric- (class 1) and frame-controlled (class 2) data transfers. For class 2 services, the FC-2 layer reassembles the original transfer sequence, even if the frames are routed through different connections and arrive out of order. The FC-2 protocol also is responsible for acknowledgment and automatic reconnection of transfers. The F( -1 layer has not yet been specified com- pletely. It will define common service function for groups of networking par¬ ticipants (hunt groups). FC-1 controls and synchronizes serial data transfer. It uses an 8-/10-bit encoding scheme that combines 8 data bits with 2 additional bits so that the resulting 10 hits have, on average, as many high bits as low bits (50 percent signal balance). This off¬ set-free transmission assures a high signal quality. Even if fast transfer rates are com¬ bined with long distances, it guarantees a low bit-error rate. The trade-off is, of course, that 25 percent more data has to be transferred, which necessitates higher transfer rates. To avoid confusion about the real transfer rates, the Fibre Channel community uses Mbps for the net trans¬ fer rate and Mbps for the overall transfer rate. Thus, the Fibre Channel's standard net transfer rate of 100 MBps is equivalent to a total of 1 C»bps. The lowest protocol layer, FC-0, is the physical link module. It defines the phys¬ ical interface characteristics, including connectors, cables, speed, transmitters, and receivers. The Fibre Channel supports single-mode and multimode fiber optics and coaxial and twisted-pair cables. FC-AL Architecture Almost all the products coming up this year will use the FC-AL architecture for two reasons: The specification of the more complex fabric will not happen soon, and thegigabaud link modules (GLMs) that couple different FC-AL transmission media are still very expensive. These develop- WORLD'S FIRST! 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The Ingenious two-ln-one Imaging cartridge system not only cuts waste but also cost as the toner can be replaced separately while the drum cartridge lasts 7 times longer. /T\fter weighing up all the evidence you can only come KjJ to the one conclusion: To Invest In the latest PagePro technology at a price that is so competitive It's almost a crime /'Z'x or further Information Just complete and return the v / coupon or call us now on 0800 374461. MINOLTA Circle 710 on Inquiry Card. Minolta (UK) Ltd., Rooksley Park, Precedent Drive. Rookiley, GBMIllon Keynes MK 13 SHF Minolta Co.. Ltd , Osaka, Japan International In the Line of Fibre How Fibre Channel Compares A lthough IBM's Serial Storage Archi¬ tecture (SSA) aims only at data storage, it compares with the Fibre Channel- Arbitrated Loop (FC AL) in terms of topolo¬ gies, the maximum number of participants, and cable lengths. SSA’s transfer rates vary botwoen 20 and 80 MBps. As an uppor-lovol protocol (ULP), it uses almost exclusively the SCSI protocol. Comparod to the parallel SCSI bus, the Fibre Channel's advantages are higher transfer rates, higher cabling lengths, and lower costs. Parallel SCSI is currently limited to 40 MBps (16-bit Wido or Fast 20 SCSI). Although there are concepts to oxpand the SCSI bus to 32-bit (Wide 32) and to doublo the transfer spood to 40 MHz (Fast 40), resulting in a total 160-MBps transfer rate, it is still not clear whether it is technically feasible. However, since parallel SCSI is extromely popular and widespread, it will continue to play an important role. The use of SCSI as a ULP in other technologies is an indicator of its continuing importance. The local network technology FDDI was designed for multimedia data transmission via optical fiber similar to the FC-AL. Although its transfer rate of 12.5 MBps is lower than that of the FC-AL, it has proven to be sufficient for high-quality audio and video delivery on backbones. The big advantage of FDDI is its synchro¬ nous data transfer mode.The serial- bus standard IEEE-1394-Fire Wire also has a maximum transfer rate of 12.5 MBps but allows isochronous multi¬ media transfer. It is restricted in cable lengths. ATM’s transfer rate is 19.4 MBps (155 Mbps). Because of the relatively small size of the data packets (53 bytes) and the high portion of the administration and control infor¬ mation of up to 10 porcent in one cell, ATM is not appropriate for the connection of peripherals. Fibre Channel, howover, with its payload of up to 2112 bytos por frame is opti¬ mized for PC applications with typical block sizes of 512 bytes. mental limitations restrict Fibre Channel technology for now to high-performance connections between peripherals. For the same reasons, mass storage sys¬ tems in arbitrated loop topology that employ the SCSI protocol will play a pre¬ dominant role in the near term. For larg¬ er RAID systems, the use of multiport devices in parallel loops will prevail. Parallel FC-AL loops enhance redun¬ dancy as well as performance. If a RAID controller and a hard disk array connect in two parallel loops, two independent paths are available for data transfer, almost doubling data transfer rates. Fibre Channel has significant advan¬ tages such as high reliability, fault toler¬ ance, real-time transmission, and flexi¬ bility of services. The goal of the Fibre Channel communit y is a network of cor¬ porate servers, workstations, and periph¬ erals connected in one large chain. □ ()tto I jehner is a software engineer and firmware I specialist will) /(V Vortex Computersysteme I (Hein, ( Germany), Yon can reach him hy send- I ing e-mail to lehner^vortex.de. 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OS/2 Windows 95 WindowsNT 1 - 1 —- 1 —^ . jni Address D □ Phone Fax fl SOFTWA RE The database professionals. Alaska Software Cmldl • HaiipUimfie 71-79 • iMttfMI KM-ldioni/CrriiiuiiY • Tel.! 449/0196/9572-0 • l av: * !9/o|90/9;>72-22 * eMail: l(l() I:i0.i:i7. r )(a ( ompiixeive.rom , 4 0 IS 1 6 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Circle 736 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 737). NTERNATIONAL The Cost/Performance Network Shuffle Mixed 10-/100-Mbps hubs and switching hubs will be this year's big product area for Taiwan's network makers. By Mark Carroll all Street may be enamored of the latest technology from U.S. network companies, but is it wise to advise your boss to invest in an asynchronous trans- I fer mode (ATM) or 1-Gb network? The Taiwanese suggest that if you want to keep your job, perhaps you should focus your attention on the more tried and true technologies. I heyVe done very well by offering network equipment th.it, while not sexy or lead¬ ing edge, does offer proven, standardized technology that won’t break your budget and won’t become the network equivalent of the eight-track cassette player. The Taiwanese network¬ ing companies specialize in low-cost, mature products that conform to known stan¬ dards and have wide market acceptance. An example of how the Taiwanese wait until a new technology has been refined and standardized is l ast Ethernet hubs and switching hubs—technology that adds value, but at a price that’s mainstream. Fast Ethernet I ast Ethernet transfers data at 100 Mbps (or 100,000 bits per second), 10 times the rate of standard Ethernet. Until early 1996, there were two different competing Fast I a hernet technologies on the market, TX and VCi. While VCi is still available, primarily from Hewlett-Packard, I X is now recognized as the preferred standard. This is true even though VCi has some technology advantages over TX, namely, no collisions and no dropped packets. What is on the market, t hough, shows that TX has won out; even HP is now making TX products. The reason for I X’s success is twofold. One is that Fast Ethernet TX switches allow for flow control. According to I lenry Ngai, customer service vice president for network products man¬ ufacturer D-Link, flow control allows the switching hub to send data until told not to by the receiver. The hub then switches to the next node, thus eliminating collisions and lost packets. The other reason is a marketing one. VCi is a variation of the propri¬ etary Token King technology. Ken Lu, R&D vice president for the network company Acc- ton Technology, thinks that “VG is no good because nobody wants to follow a proprietary standard.” The network market, like the information-technology (IT*) market in general, is loath to support any kind of pro¬ prietary solution, for obvious reasons. io-/ioo-Mbps Hubs This year, mixed 10-/100- Mbps hubs and switching hubs will be the so-called cut¬ ting-edge product area for Taiwan’s network makers. Various Taiwanese manufac¬ turers have had Fast Ethernet hubs for more than two years, t hough sales have been limited. This year, though, all manufacturers agree that such products will have wide market acceptance because of the favorable cost/per¬ formance ratio they offer. It’s been widely written that Fast Ethernet provides 10 times the performance at only twice the price. If this were true, the buyer’s choice would be obvious. The 100-Mbps adapter cards run at about that cost differential but hubs and switches are still about six times the cost of a similar Ethernet product. On the high-end, high-bandwidth front, most Taiwanese net¬ work manufacturers now offer pure, multiport 100-Mbps Ether¬ net hubs and switching hubs. D-Link offers an eight-port design. CNetand Net work Peripherals, Inc. (NPI) both offer 12-port pure FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 4 0 I S 17 International The Cost/Performance Network Shuffle ATM’s Slow Acceptance 100-Mbps Ethernet hubs and switching hubs. These products are expensive, how¬ ever, and their popularity is limited to engineering workgroups or large LANs that have multiple enterprise servers. The Fast Ethernet hub services the enterprise servers and serves as their link to most of the network. It also acts as a dedicated 100-Mbps hub for heavy data users that need large throughput capability for activ¬ ities such as sharing graphics files. Mixed Speeds All the Taiwanese firms offer the mixed- speed feature in their 100-Mbps hubs and switching hubs. Commonly called N-way, this feature allows the controller to auto¬ sense what a node can handle and to send data at either 100 or 10 Mbps. Again, though, this is an expensive solution for addressing mixed-speed environments. As a result, the Taiwanese have a large array of mixed 10-/100-Mbps hubs and switching hubs. Few users need a total 100-Mbps network since most don’t regularly han¬ dle extremely large files. Most networks, however, can see a marked performance improvement with mixed 10-/100-Mbps hubs and switching hubs. Prices for these products will in fact soon reach the mag¬ ical “times-two” price of standard Eth¬ ernet. This makes these products espe¬ cially attractive in Europe, where running fiber-optic cable between build¬ ings is more common than in the U.S. For areas where fiber-optic cabling is not widespread, 100 Mbps could be a prob¬ lem. Fast Ethernet can support distances up to 2 kilometers if fiber-optic cabling is used. Without fiber, category 5 unshielded-twisted-pair (ItTP) cable is needed. This is also known as “data quality” cable. The effective distance between hubs using UTP is only 200 meters using duplex¬ ing. Duplexing in networks is analogous to that in standard phone lines. The effect for the user is a doubling of bandwidth. Reduced Chip Counts One reason why mixed 10/100 hubs are coming down in price is the appearance of reduced chip count solutions for these products from many vendors. Basic net¬ work hub chip design calls for three types of chips: a controller chip, transceiver chips, and a physical (PI IY) layer chip. Pre¬ vious designs from Taiwan used a variety of mixed-chip solutions. Some were even A lthough the Taiwanese believe that 1 -Gb technology will push back the accep¬ tance of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), they are cautiously beginning to offer ATM products. D-Link is not very interested in ATM, considering it an expensive WAN inter¬ face and more of a telecommunications prod¬ uct than a networking product. Ken Lu at Accton said that they will have a sample ATM backbone out at the end of the year. “For large customers, it is a good solu¬ tion as a WAN backbone,” he says. “ATM has some interoperability prob¬ lems, though. It will take us several months to test the compatibility of our new ATM product with those from Digital, Cisco, etc.” Network Peri¬ pherals is also working on an ATM product. Adam Horng, sales manager for Network Peripherals, says, "We will roll out a LAN/ WAN ATM product in Japan in the first quar¬ ter of 1997. It will have a 64K/155K speed that can run over standard phone lines.” CNet is the farthest along in developing and manufacturing ATM products. Since mid-1996 it has offered an ATM/ Ethernet hub. At that time, it provided this hub as an integral part of a pilot ATM project at the Hsinchu Science Based Industrial Park (SBIP), located outside Taipei. Over a dozen of these hubs are located at the phono company’s local switching office. About 100 companies at SBIP as well as Chiao Tung and Tsing Hua universities (two of Taiwan's top engineering schools) have nodes. The WAN is connected with a fiber-optic telephone cable link that has been installed in the park. Information travels across this link at 155 Mbps using an OC- 3 interface. (OC-3 stands for Optical Carrier; the ”3" denotes three times tho speed of the base 51.6-Mbps rate.) Tho CN9100 is an eight-port 10 Mbps- as costly as one transceiver and controller chip per port. Several of the larger Tai¬ wanese network manufacturers save mon¬ ey by having their own 10/100 hub and switching hub chips developed. D-I.ink’s Ngai says, “Well have a one- chip solution for a 2x 100-Mb/12x 10- Mb hub in the first quarter.” Dik McLel- lan, product marketing manager at CNet Technology,agrees. I le said, “In the first quarter, there will be single-chip solutions for mixed 10/100 hubs and switches.” A few Taiwanese 1C design houses also offer network chips, but they don’t agree that one-chip solutions will be coming to mar- to-ATM switching hub with a transparent asynchronous transceiver/roceiver interface (TAXI). Tho TAXI transfers data from the ATM interface to the Ethernet interface at 100 Mbps. The eight 10-Mbps ports provide a 10-Mbps switched Ethernet interface using 15-pin attachment unit interface (AUI) con¬ nectors. Each switched port creates a sep¬ arate network segment, guaranteeing dedi¬ cated bandwidth to attached devices. Contained within the chassis of the CN9100 are four modules: CPU, ATM, Ethernet master, and Ethernet slave. This modular design allows for easy troubleshooting and field ser¬ vice. The CPU module contains most of the hub intelligence and ser¬ ial, parallel, and configuration ports. Tho ATM modulo has the Management Integration Consortium (MIC) connector for the TAXI. Tho two Ethornot modules, master and slave, hold the eight Ethernet ports. Used as a LAN-WAN interface, tho CN9100 dedicates 10 Mbps to each Ether¬ net port, with local port-to-port switching per¬ formed at a wire speed of 14,880 packets per second. ATM is supported via a config¬ urable permanent virtual circuit (PVC) and a user network interface (UNI). Currently, CNet is marketing these hubs to two types of clients. Phone companies will use them in a way similar to that of the SBIP project. Tho phono company will buy tho backbones, and lease their use to com¬ panies that want high-speed WAN ATM access but don't need or can’t afford the cost of their own systems. The other mar¬ keting channol is made up of large organi¬ zations that have several LANs in place. These customers want to keop the LANs in touch while still having a convenient 100- Mbps "big pipe” available for videoconfer¬ encing or large database transfers. ket anytime soon, at least at the switch¬ ing-bub level. Mark I iuang, president of Tamarack Microelectronics, says that “UTP trans¬ ceiver chips still need to be done with a BiC:MOS process. CMOS process yields are still only around 20 percent. There is a learning curve, however, so eventually yields will get better.” Huang also said that Ethernet switching hub chips are a long way from moving to a single-chip from the present three-chip solution. He be¬ lieves it won’t happen until “wecan move to 0.35-micron process fabrication with increased yields. If someone did have a 4 0 I S 18 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 imiIow Mask M.r.k Pilch riiusplior Pattern I'liiisplior Alignment I unis i < pome trie Distortion (•iMpliir linage jW I,edibility CromaClear™ Conventional Slotted Mask Dot-Trio Matrix 0.25mm I7"~0.26 / 0.28 mm 15"-0.28 mm Stripe Round Vertically ('ontinuous Discrete Scatter 17"-Quadruple Dynamic I7 ,, »l)ynamic 15"-Single Dynamic 15' -Static Nearly eliminated Very common, especially in corners Improved color and sharpness Acceptable Improved clarity and sharpness Acceptable CROMACLEAR CRT Aperture-Grlllo CRT Kuo Feng Corporation PC WORLD > < 02,136,Jen-AI Rd.,Sec,3 Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. M i l(>2 754 8353 [ i 16 2 754 8498/700 0471 SYMBOL OF EXCELLENCE WINNER CA-2011 CromaClear" I* u Irmli-murk of NEC CA1516CL < OKI'OU VUON. Circlo 724 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 725). PRIME ELECTRONICS TRADING GMBH Brahmsstr. 30 • D-23556 Luebeck Tel//451/48408p • Fax -/451/475097 "PRIME time for electronics! Excellence is our title and even more our profession! Your profits with: SIMM CPU International Later This Year: i-Cb Ethernet Switches A n Ethernet network transferring data at 1 Gbps is the Ethernet vendor’s answer to ATM technology. Dik McLellan at CNet said, “Ethernet people don’t want ATM to happen, so 1 Gb is their move to keep ATM on the back burner." The 1 -Gb Ethernet products began to appear in the U.S. in late 1996, all using pro¬ prietary technologies. Wo should * s m see standard protocols for 1 -Gb JH networking equipment by midyear. |« If* As a result of the lack of a standard, I ja the Taiwanese are waiting to intro- UH duce I Gb switches, but most BhL- agree that 1 Gb has potential for late * this year, though volumes will be low. Some manufacturers see problems in commercially implementing 1-Gb products, notwith¬ standing 1 Gb's use of the same technolo¬ gy as Ethernet and Fast Ethernet. For tho Taiwanese, 1-Gb technology is mostly a fancy tweaking of standard Ethernet tech¬ nology. Mark Huang, of Tamarack Micro- Electronics, says, "Basically, 1 -Gb Ethernet uses tho same technology as 100-Mb, but at a higher frequency. This heightens tho problem of collisions. As a result, every node needs a switch. You can't use standard hub designs." Lu at Accton adds that the tech¬ nology “not only increases the signal fre¬ quency but also splits data into throe chan¬ nels from the one channel used by 10- or 100-Mb Ethernet.” Cabling is anothor poten¬ tial problem with 1 Gb. Current designs call for either the use of four-pair, category 5 unshielded twisted pair (UTP) or fiber-optic cabling. Kon Lu at Accton disagrees, how¬ ever, thinking that fiber-optic cable is the only way to go. The problem of increased cabling costs pales in comparison to basic flaws in 1 -Gb technology. Due to the high speed of packet transfer, collision detection greatly reduces the effective transfer distance of 1-Gb Ethernet. McLellan says that because of the need for collision control, 1 -Gb Ethernet is limited to a distance of 10 meters, or 20 single-chip solution, though, they would make a lot of money.” Switching Hubs Switching hubs are important for large networks for two reasons: They over¬ come TX\s problem with collisions, and they offer an advantage over standard 100-Mbps hubs by partitioning an over¬ meters duplexed. Henry Ngai at D-Link con¬ curs but sees a potential way around this dis¬ tance limit in a move back to VG technology. He says, "If you go to 1 Gb, VG technology begins to get attractive again. That's because you don’t need a switch and you can go far¬ ther than the 20-meter limit." Even if the distance barrier is overcome, - however, most Taiwanese doubt the basic need for 1 -Gb. Their question ^ / T v ' 8 one s y stom data flow. / ^ Officials at D-Link, CNet, Accton, / > and Tamarack all say that at 1 Gb —*** —- you got CPU and software bottle¬ necks in the total system. McLellan says, "Even at 100 Mb, tho network is not tho bottleneck. System constraints are. Current systems certainly can't match 1 -Gb-level bandwidth." Ngai concurs, pointing out that at 10 Mbps you get 1000 packets per sec¬ ond with interrupts. At 100 Mbps you have 10,000. At 1 Gb you have 100,000 packets per second with interrupts, which is more Speed and Reach Packets Effective per second distance 10Mb 1000 1 K 100 Mb 10,000 100m 1Gb 100,000 10m than any current or planned CPU or software can handle. Ngai doubts the mainstream need for 1 Gb. "Since most traffic in a net¬ work is intradepartmental,” ho says, “ 1 Gb is not really cost-effective. A better solution is a 12-port 100-Mb switching hub." Most Taiwanese agree that 1 Gb will not bo mainstream until 1998, but most still plan to offer some type of 1 -Gb product this year. Accton, in particular, will offor a mixed 100- Mb/1 -Gb switch at the end this year. As is usual in the PC market, though, the Taiwanese suggest caution when buying first-edition products. loaded network. When a packet is for¬ warded to another node in the same seg¬ ment, the switch confines traffic to that segment. If a packet is sent to a node in another segment, the switch will forward the packet only to that segment, isolat¬ ing traffic from other segments. This increases net work throughput and helps balance the network’s load. Also, as Ken Circlo 744 on Inquiry Card. I Min i iim i xpertise OEM/0DM <€&:.©<§ ®®©@@ utum* WIMIB 13.3” DISPLAY ISO 9002£ :wu MARCH 13*19, 1997 rf1CeBIT r 97 a n N 0 V [ R Hall 6, Stand F32(03) l*likony l liidonit s Co., Ud. 207 Kilting llw« St„ Tn-Chu Chung. Lu-Chu shiung. TmiyUttii. Taiwan. H. (). C, Tel:88(>-3*.123-472l l ax «K(» .T323-5877 (liUuny America, Inc. .S3 Parker, Irvine. (’A ‘>271H. U. S, A. Tel: 1-714 380*0928 J*Tix:l 714 380*9204 (Itkoiiv IdiTlnmlrs (• ml>lI lirncdcniMunxweg 17, 22453 llumhuig .(iennany Tcl:4‘M0-514400-0 lux:4 l > 40-5129.32 I! mail address: ( Ital ics llao<>> ('liieoiivlpc.liiiiel.net The largest Display in the World! Discover (he real executive power with our notebook computer, not just an elegant design but credibility and safety as well to satisfy today's working environment Conceived with a rationalized ergonomics design of smart bay Where the FDD, second battery and CD- ROM can Ik* inserted. A wide range size of LCD display up to 13.3" for a high contrast display and incorporates a good tracking performance through a 19mm pitch Win95 IM keyboard. Support Plug-und -Flay for video capture capability. Model: MP-975 ■Intel Pentium 1 Processor 120-200 MHz ■ i >MD I xpandnblo to BOMB l DC DRAM by SOMM ■: , >GKB Sync. 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The best protection against viruses on any platform. . % ) * I 0*5f o« pando R Pondo www.pandasoft.es MS U Multilingual Multiplatform ^ ^Awarded ,„i„ VI leader Anti-Virus^ Anti-Virus^ Anti-Virus^ Anti-Virus: ^ GfcatScrvicc ♦ Bundles for OEM & Integrators ♦ Distributor inquiries Wellcome ■a t*) Panda Tel: 34 1 301 30 15 * + _ c . ./«v FAX: 34 1 332 00 54 * Software International o— Avda.de la Democracla, 7 - PI. 3 n° 7 ^ > E-mail: info@pandasoft.es 28031 MADRID - SPAIN mrwpunauwm.M WinPhone® $ave Time and Money making Phonecall$ WinPhone® is the leading power-dialer: Integrated with MS- Offiee‘97 • fully TAPI compatible • Smart Agents: dial from your favorite application, internet browser and phonebook • Win3,Win95,Win NT 4 • ISDN, analog, GSM, mobile, DECT • multiple languages • Lcast-Cost-Routcr • call accounting with cost computation • single and multiuser version • Client/ Server • Internet telephony, application sharing, video-phone • speech recognition • Kid's phone • multiple languages* Callback and calling cards see us: CeBIT’97, Austrian Pavilion, Hall 5, Booth 1)56 McgaSoft GmbH, Hockegasse 17 ,a- 1180Wien,Austria E-Mail: info@megasoft.co.at, Fax +43 (1) 470 2022-77 Internet: www.mcgasoft.co.at/megasoft International Lit points out, “You have to add a switch if there are more than two hubs in a net¬ work.” With a much smaller forwarding delay than that of a bridge, you can con¬ nect as many hubs as needed. This over¬ comes the limitations of Fast Ethernet repeater hubs. The Taiwanese believe that, at a corporate level, mixed 10/100 hubs and switches will replace pure 10-Mbps products. They believe that it makes good planning sense to migrate to the higher performance mixed products. The 10-Mb switching hubs seem especially doomed to the technology graveyard. On the whole, however, the Taiwanese believe that 10 Mb will predominate in the net¬ work products sold this year because most of the world's companies are small and don't need the throughput of 100 Mbps. Technology Limits Fast Ethernet does not now support pri¬ ority sorting of data, hut Ngai at D-Link said that Fast Ethernet will soon have that capability. This is important for video- conferencing applications since the data flow of the videoconference must nor he WHERE TO FIND Accton Technolociy Corp. Hsinchu, Taiwan 1886 36 770 270 +886 35 783 839 http://www. accton .cnm.tw CNet Technology, Inc. Hsinchu, Taiwan +886 35 786 666 +886 35 783 525 http://www.cnct .com.tw D-Link Corp. Hsin-Ticn, Taipei, Taiwan +886 2 916 1600 +886 2 0146299 Network Peripherals Asia Taipei, Taiwan +886 2 999 8188 +886 2 999 8187 Tamarack Microelectronics Inc. Taipei, Taiwan 18862 772 7400 +886 2 776 0545 interrupted. Another limitation lies in the number of ports that can be supported, which is now 12. Lu at Accton believes that 24 ports will be available by midyear. The 100-Mbps switching hubs often out¬ perform the systems they are made to sup¬ port, which is something to consider when making purchase decisions. McLellan at CNet cites the example of customers buy¬ ing ISA 1 00-Mb Ethernet cards: Fast Ether¬ net transfers data at 12.5 MB but the ISA bus is running at only SMB. □ Mark Carroll is a BYTE contributing editor in Taipei. He can he reached at markur® transend.com.tw. 4 0 IS ) i BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Circle 751 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 752). BYTE Proudly Announces its Annual Awards Program to Recognize the Best Products at CeBIT... Best of CeBIT ’97 BYTE magazine will honor the BEST NEW PRODUCTS at CeB11"97. If your company plans to launch a new product that will he exhibited at CeBlT’97, you are encouraged to send product information to BYTE’s editors and enter the Best of CcBIT’97 awards competition. The judging will take place during the trade fair in Hannover, Germany (13-19 March). When evaluating eligible products, BYTE editors look for innovative new products that show potential influence on business computing worldwide, and have a strong impact on show attendees. To qualify for these awards, companies must announce their products within 30 days of CeBIT, and the products must be on display at the show.* BYTE's Team off Editors will be Evaluating New Products in the Following Categories: Best Portable Best Communication Software Best Communication Hardware Best Peripheral Best Multimedia Software Best Multimedia Hardware Best Internet Product Best System Best Application Best Development Software Best Technology If you’d like your product to he considered for these awards, please send us your product press releases (not products) by 28 February 1997. Be sure to include your stand number and exhibit hall. Send to: Rainer Mauth, BYTE European Editor The McGraw-Hill Companies BYTE Magazine Emil-von-Behring-Strasse 2, D-60439 Frankfurt, Germany Tel: + 49 69 5801 -123 Fax: + 49 69 5801-145 e-Mail: 76004.3460@compuserve.com Or submit your entry via the Internet at http://www.byte.com Click on the VPR icon for details. BYTE editors will view products personally at CeBIT and determine nominees for the awards. Winners will be notified in advance of the formal announcement which will be made at the show. ’BYTE editors reserve the right to determine the eligibility of any company ontering this competition. The Global Authority for Computing Technology A Division of Me McGraw-Hill Companies VISUAL IIASIC :i AI)D-()1\S Comma • Async Fax Plus lor Win £175 FaxMan SDK £390 Comma • Notwork Distinct TCP/IP Visual Inlornat £265 (IsSockal 1.25 Intro £65 Database? 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There are enough advanced features lo make il Interesting, and It lo nn essential purchase for DB2 users. Call us for more | details. Visual Cafe Tim Complete Java HAD Tool Will i a set ol high-level Iwo way tools. Symantec's now Visual CalC takes RAD to new heights: j! ■ Form Doslgner runs a Java VM lo render layouts A run dynamic Java components at design time « Full Synchronization between source code and visual tools “ Interaction Wizard lots you visually specify actions based on object and menu ovents ■ Componont Library contains an extensible repository ol forms, windows, and objects ■ Graphical Debugger lets you debug apps at the sourco level while supjjorliny expression watch. Value Tlpy, data browsing and multi¬ threaded debugging « Enhanced Compilers generate A run your code faster than ever This stunning tool can be yours lor just £146 + VAT Call us right now! Visual Cafe Pro The Best Gals Even Bettor I BEven before Visual CalrY started j shipping. Symantec have topped it with the Pro edition lor very rapid development ol database apps ■ Automatically Create Forms on top of existing database tables 1 Wizards easily create applots A apps that bind lo database tables, including master/dolail joins « Local Rolationnl Dntabnso Englno gets you darted writing database connoolod Java apps ■ Database Aware components aro building blocks lor yeur apps * dbANYWHERE Workgroup Sorver lots you develoj) true multi-platform, nujib tier, mulll-tfnlabuso Intornot apps that access corporate and private databases i Wo don't have UK pricing yet, but It d should be shipping in December, so call us il you waul tho very hostl 1206 /ch Circle 709 on Inquiry Card. NTERNATIONAL vi .Twa a m Hardware Dr. Neuhaus Telekommunikation Hamburg, Germany +49 40 553040 info@neuhaus.de http://www.nouhaus.de Personal Call Center for ISDN D r. Neuhaus's Triccy-PC provides simple but efficient com¬ puter telephony integration on ISDN. This analog ISDN ter¬ minal adapter (a/b adapter) lets you connect as many as six ana¬ log devices, phones, modems, or fax or answering machines to the ISDN network. This assures that you can use oxisting equip¬ ment while capitalizing on ISDN services. The product also pro¬ vides features such as direct extensions usually found only in more expensive branch exchanges. Evon more intriguing is Triccy-PC's Triccy-Soft telephony soft¬ ware that turns your Windows 95 machine into a sophisticated personal call center. It monitors and identifies all incoming calls by matching them against your MS Exchange address book. Additionally, you can link a documont or an application to any entry in the address book. So when you receive a call, Triccy-Soft automatically launches the corresponding application. If your PC has a sound card and a text-to-speoch API (e.g., MS Phone), the software reads the caller's name or telephone number to you. If you use a headset, Triccy-PC prompts you with icons to accept and terminate calls. The system not only lists all inbound and out¬ bound calls, it also sorts entries, aggregates expenses, and calls back people who tried to call you while your phone was busy or unattended.Triccy-PC comes in English, French, and German versions. -Rainer Mauth Triccy-PC Price: DM 349 Circle 1081 on Inquiry Card. Communications Multiple Point-to- Point Wireless Modem 3J Te chnology now of n rs a wireiess modem. The device utilizes direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) radio-frequency technology and operates in the 902- to 928-MHz ISM band. The unit can be config¬ ured as a DCE for connection to a PC or as a DTE for connection to an external modem or printer. Data transfer rates are 14.4 Kbps and above. One RF modem can establish a radio link with one oth¬ er modem in a virtually transpar¬ ent RS-232 link. As many as 10 channels are available, and a max¬ imum of 10 point-to-point links can be established at any one time. In master mode, the modem selects the clearest RF channel based on the average received sig¬ nal strength indicator (RSSI) val¬ ue of each channel. The synchro¬ nous half-duplex packet data rate is 85.33 Kbps. Price: Call company. 3] Tech Co.. Taipei, Taiwan, +886 2 500 6916; fax: + 8862S06 9 793 ; a3jtech(a)m$4. hinct . net; http:Hwww.a3j.coni.tw. Circle 1027 on Inquiry Card. Fax/Modem/LAN PC Card The corporate traveler will welcome an opportunity to have fax, modem, and LAN connectivity in one PC Card. Lightspecd Interna¬ tional is now offering this combi¬ nation in both a 14.4-Kbps (1414LAN-14) and a 28.8-Kbps (2880LAN-28) model. This is a Type II PC Card, supporting IEEE 802.3 lOBase-T and 10Base-2 Ethernet and fully compatible with the NE2000 Ethernet card standard. The fax is compatible with V.17, V.29, V.17ter, V.21 Channel 2,G III, and EIA Class 1 and Class 2. Major telecom approvals include Ger¬ many's BZT, the U.S.’s FCC, Aus¬ tralia’s Austel, The Netherlands’ PTT, New Zealand’s PIT, Sweden's Tclevcrket, Switzerland's BAKOM, and South Africa's SAPO. The card is also CE-compliant. Price: Call company. Lightspeed I ntcrnational , Taipei, Taiwan. +88635 231352; fax: +886 35 231353. Circle 1028 on Inquiry Card. ISDN PC Card for PowcrBooks Now Macintosh Powi rBook users have access to the ISDN network by using a standard Type II PC Card. Called ExpressSO PCMCIA, the lit¬ tle plug-in card uses PPP for Inter¬ ne t dial-up connections and comes with file transfer software and other ISDN tools. Price: Call company. SCii Telecom, Paris, Prance, +33 / 44174422; fax: +33 1 44174419; clarisse (a sciitelecom.com. Circle 1030 on Inquiry Card. FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 40IS25 International S cdized unction Tester Among the more specialized offerings in Archtek Telecom’s SmartLink range is the DS-500 protocol ana¬ lyzer, a rugged tester of data com¬ munications malfunctions. It fea¬ tures protocol monitoring, analysis, and simulation, bit error rate test¬ ing, and terminal emulation for all common protocols. Compact and lightweight, the DS-500 is ideal for portable field service and mainte¬ nance. There is a full ASCII keyboard, a large graphics display, softkey- driven menus, and an auto-con- figuration capability. A trigger pro¬ gramming language is available to help diagnose particularly elusive protocol problems. With an appli¬ cation disk, you can examine data, program, and configuration files and print them from a PC. Price: Call company. Archtek Telecom Corp., Taipei, Taiwan, +886 2 218 8730; fax:+886 2 914 6299; sales@archtek.com. tw; http:Hwww.archtek. com. tw. Circle 1029 on Inquiry Card. Establish Remote Presence via ISDN Offering various combinations of communications protocols, the TA+POS, TA+PPP, and TA+DAA ISDN terminal adapters support telephony, fax, and 33.6-Kbps modem applications. The devices use the protocols V. 110, X.75 PAD, and X.31 via D and B channels and thus integrate with a wide range of applications such as credit card readers and POS terminals. Price: Call company. Stollmann E+V GmbH, Hamburg, Germany, +49 40 890 88-0; fax: +49 40 890 88- 444; info@stollmann.de; Hardware http://www.stollmann.de. Circle 1031 on Inquiry Card. Add Serial Ports to Mobile Computer Integrating two high-speed serial ports into one dual-function PC Card, the new DoubleSerial (S2S) board brings greater flexibility to mobile computer users. Both seri¬ al ports utilize 16550 UARTs and have built-in data buffers, allow¬ ing Windows and OS/2 users to run modems at full speed without wasting bandwidth by retransmit¬ ting missed characters. Two DB-9 connectors are included to connect to serial peripherals such as label printers or bar code scanners. The serial ports install as standard COM ports and automatically use the next logical default address. Price: £137. Premier Electronics, Waltham Cross, U.K., +44 1992 634632; fax: +44 1992 634616; sales@ premierelect. co. uk. Circle 1032 on Inquiry Card. SSA Storage System for NT and NetWare Eliminating bottlenecks in cuent/serv- er NT and Novell networks, the FT3 disk subsystem offers up to 72 GB of storage space in one compact enclosure. The system comes with PCI and Serial Storage Architecture controllers and cables. The FT3 sup¬ ports several network topologies with a transfer rate of up to 80 MB per second. Price: Call company. Computer Design Group, Manchester, U.K., +44 161 8724277; fax: +44 161 8720792; 72004.2414® CompuServe, com. Circle 1033 on Inquiry Card. Craphics Tablet New Tablet and Pen for Windows PCs Tabby, a graphics tablet, consists of a 176mm by 165mm tablet area, a stylus, and a communications cable to connect to the serial port of a PC. It is ergonomically designed and feels more natural and easier to use than a mouse, which should pro¬ vide better cursor control. The sty¬ lus, about the size of a pen, has two integrated buttons similar to those of a mouse. Resolution is 2048 by 2048 pixels. Price: Starts at £69. Graftek, Watford, ILK., 4 44 1923 248222; fax: +44 1923 244041; http://www.graftek .co.uk. Circle 1035 on Inquiry Card. Keyboards Cherry USB Keyboard Cherry is offering a new Universal Serial Bus keyboard as part of the company’s MX3000 family. It comes in two versions: with and without "unpowered" USB hub functional¬ ity. Three connector jacks at the back of the keyboard are designed to accept low-speed (1.5-Mbps) or high-speed (12-Mbps) traffic. Price: DM 299. Cherry, Auerbach, Germany, +49 9643 180. Circle 1034 on Inquiry Card. Printers Printers Attach to Compaq Notebooks Hantz &: Partner's new PrintSystems fit into the back of the Compaq Contura Aero and other mobile computers, thus eliminating addi¬ tional power supplies and cables. These ink-jet printers provide 360- by 360-pixel resolution and include 25 scalable Bitstream TrueType fonts. Despite the printers’ physi¬ cally close connection to the eom- puter, other external jacks for mouse, keyboard, and monitor remain accessible. Price: DM 1198. Hantz & Partner, G unde Ifingen, Germany, +49 761 592100; 100431.2606@compuserve .com. Circle 1037 on Inquiry Card. Monitors Flat-Panel Monitor Microvitec’s new SuperVGA LCD mon- itor features a 30.7-cm TFT screen with a maximum resolution of 800 by 600 pixels and a 256K color depth. An on-screen display allows you to make adjustments easily from the front panel. The monitor complies with Energy Star and VESA DPMS standards. Price: About £1299. Microvitec, West Yorkshire, V.K., +44 1274 390011; fax: + 44 1274 734944. Circle 1036 on Inquiry Card. 401S 26 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 LWerMedia Bridging PC/MAC & Video terMedia has just the right products for the school, home and office! We offer a complete line of portable an converters that make your presentations a lot simplier and easier, as well as TV Tuner and Video Phone oducts that are great for business and entertainment. All at an affordable price! Check out our latest products. Ver TVPhone >/FM/lnternet Videophone AVer TVPhone consists of a PCI TV, FM '*or and Capture Board, a microphone, and Hware that allows you to do internet video nferoncing, watch TV on your PC monitor, •I listen to FM radio while you work. Remote Control Complies with PCI 2.1 AT OFFICE iupports VGA mode to 1024x768 fake Up Call IV scheduler |lii-Channel Preview ImageA/ideo Capture i Requires Camera and Sound Card VIDEO PHONE Tel (510)770-9899,1-800-863-2332 Fax (510)770-9901 Germany Tel (49)6108-77798 Fax (49)6108-81057 lada Tel (604)608-0747 _ Fax(604) 608 -0749 International Tel (886-2)226-3630 Fax(886-2)221-4538 AVerKey5 I he Ultimate PC/MAC-to-TV Presentation Tool AVerKey5 allows you to project computer presentations on TV or LCD projectors and record to videotape. What sets the AVerKey5 apart from previous scan converters is its extremely high quality output and 4 new powerful features : ■ Remote Mouse & ■ 3 Dynamic Zoom Functions : Remote Control in One * Zoom & Pan ■ Touch Button Control Panel * Area Zoom _ i Video Switcher Function Cursor-Position-Zoom AVer TVGenie Plug & Play TV Tuncr/Gamc Display Box With AVer TVGenie, you can now watch TV, your favorite videos, or play video games on a PC monitor without having to turn on the computer! ■ No Software ■ On Screen Driver Required Display Controls ■ Remote Control ■ Wake Up and ■ Full Screen Sleep functions TV Display AT SCHOOL v / V* IM7 AVWM..K. feefmotopov h*c AM >.**» N-uwwi > IV MferKoy* and AVw IVPWo .»» b.rtwnartt ot [fJCeBITW LzlJh annover 13. —If. $ 3 . If 97 Visit AVerMedia at Hall 8, D26 Bridging PC/MAC & Video Circle 745 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 746). http://www.aver.com [^©©D^DuD® TFoqOs fetp BduQ[£)©(3^]©(3 §ysS©QLfQS ©00(3 ®(°)§ RTKernel Professional, high-performance real- V* / ' mt V 7:; y time multitasking system for DOS and 16-bit Embedded Systems. &>.. J for Borland C/C + +. M.croiolt C/C + *. and Borland Paual ^ ' I (\gf[1^ Libraries: DM 800 Source Code: add DM 700 \ RTTarget-32 Cross Development System for 32-bit Embedded bystems. Support* Intel 186 and higher, at little at 16 k RAM/ROM For Borland C/C+ +,Mk rotoli C/C+ +.and Wauoin C/C+ +. Libraries: DM 2500 Source Code: add DM 1500 International Software SOFTWARE Mapping Visualize That Telecom Network DESIGNED 10 VISUM I/I MAPS AND GKMU- ies for planning, engineering, and supervising telecommunications, power plants, and transport net¬ works, NetGraph lets users create applications with a minimum of programming skills. NctGraph's tools include a development kit, a graphics kernel, and a dynamic data capture system. With its sophisti¬ cated layout algorithms, the sys¬ tem aecu ra tely com pu tes geocod- ed graphs, tree structures, and block diagrams. NetGraph applications run on Windows, Unix, and OS/2. Price: Call company. BINTI'A , Mont rogue, France, +33 / 41174171: fax: +33 / 473521OS. Circle 1043 on Inquiry Card. RTKernel-32 ^ Professional, high-performance real¬ time multitasking system for 32-bit Embedded Systems. Suppom Intel 186 and higher. For Borland C/C+ +. Hiaotofl C/C++. and Wauom C/C++. I ihi .iries: DM 2900 Source Code: add DM 2400 On Time Informatik GmbH Hofweg 49.22085 Hamburg, GERMANY Phone +49 40 22/9405 Fax +69 40-2279261 tmail 102212.1101 @(oaipoierv*(om On Time/ r REAl-llMf ANDSYSItMSOfTWAJ* HKroway |01) 4 Denmark HmnfcaL 4411 France lr DM nRTsrnrri [0.50 DM jJ Layermasa |?0u ♦ .ILj» j Update | Add j | Delete - 3 StarView Price: DM 500 per seat plus about DM 2000 for each platform Circle 1041 on Inquiry Card. Star Division GmbH Hamburg, Germany +49 40 23646810 fax:+49 40 23646550 svinfo@stardivision.de http://www.stardivision.de Multiplatform Development Library for Office Applications T he StarView C++ library helps software developers keep the face of an application identical under a multitude of different plat¬ forms. This object-oriented GUI library uses its own resource script format. It comes with a design editor and several resource compil¬ ers. The library includes language support for English, German, French, and other European languages, full printer support, endian- aware classes, a platform-independent file specification, and drag and drop. Star Division, the developer of StarView, uses the library to program its own office suite. Version 3.0 now comprises performance optimized element func¬ tions and multithreading for Windows 95/NT and OS/2 applica¬ tions. There are also new GUI components like progress bars, dock¬ able toolbars, and multipage dialogs. The 3.0 major redesign may produce incompatibilities with pre¬ vious versions. However, a converter program helps translate exist¬ ing StarView applications so they’ll work with the new version. I tested StarView 3.0 for Windows 95/NT with Microsoft’s Visual C++ 4.0 compiler and found it to be a comprehensive and well-bred function library. Star says the Windows 3.1, OS/2, Mac OS, and several Unix versions of the StarView C++ library should be released by the time you read this. -Bernhard Steppan 4 0IS 28 BYTE FEBRUARY 19 97 Circle 738 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 739). THE IDEAL MONITOR FOR ANY PC Tatung manufacture a full range of 14", 15", 17" and 20" colour monitors to satisfy the requirements of a diverse range of product markets. k Monitors specifically designed for entry level, home use, small business, multimedia, government, and for the professional CAD/CAM and DTP user are readily available. All Tatung monitors comply with world wide approvals for safety, EMC and Ergonomics including MPRII and TCO. Visual Display Business Unit. The Tatung Visual Display Business Unit can offer a full range of monitors, both on a branded or OEM basis. Tatung also guarantees:- • Continuity in quality and supply, as Tatung is one of the few manufacturers to use its own CDT plants, • Continuous innovation and development through world-wide R&D operations, • An exceptional after-sales service, including on-site repairs, within 48 hours, • Full local sales, marketing, purchasing and distribution facilities. Contact us now for further details ... CM 20 MVR [flfeBITW JlJ h annovkr HOOTH NO: HALL 008 1.0G E28 iMUNOCo YimmI Ifciftr, Ihruar* Ih* MClwyluiK KJ. MV. I Mftx. lava*. IMM. HOC. iii mo?,mji.?\m. ??«.?mi.moi I AX KMWin. \*24*M. W»l«» WWW hap on rw I vb.ikkf«a l M»|..*h. I I r np MMI can I* TATUNG VISUAL DISPLAY BUSINESS UNIT £tf m lAll'Nli (II K llkl in 44 I9H-2MIII FAX 44-I4Y?OWM lATUMiCs M IjfUN In. Aa n. IO V l-4>« IM. hrm II I I IMi JWI. IMV2.W I AX MMVim AmbMi Cl I«> TAWNIidtlAll ANI>»<».IM «WM-?V IAOH . Aa nn* m MS I*. Sm Natwa 101*0 IkaUal III M? M A?I I FAX**? .MS 1*20 AM Mi K V Wa« lAIIMUt* • JSM FI IYnM» Sard I IWak, ( A 40SIO. II X A ill i ?i)-mii». ii»«i? ?K» I AX I HO*W MM MO'S KMMMaUaU UntfaMaU III 44 ??W ?|40 FAX 44 22M-JI41IO IA11 Ml i I mmm 1 Mk«. R O K *«.— | |py (Hfc% ■ N» MI. I I»Ih Hub* Mapu Kw rau-w-mr. /ii»»r FAX ?-7tSIS» AMI ( A> Mi ( V Ym Ami WII IIh« Circle 749 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 750). FAniMi I kxOum I r* IM NMLMU|«|N. IFUVJFWXJIIW FAX FVMNM II XKJMV TAIIIMiS AMU* ( K Wjbv *3* Instrumentation Software News \ 1 1 s I / iijTl I LdbVIEW* 4.0 - Graphical Programming - High-powered productivity tools for fast development - Graphical compiler for optimized execution speed - flex VIEW user-configurable environment IxibWindows'/CVI 4.0 - Tools for C/C++ - Easy-to-use GUI editor, C program-generation tools - More than 600 GPIB and VXI instrument driven* - Works with Visual C++, Borland C++, WATCOM, and Symantec EBB Component Works - - ActiveX Controls for Visual Basic - OLE controls for analog and digital I/O - User interface OLE controls (graphs, knobs, meters, more) - Works with Visual Basic, Visual C++, and Delphi EBB VirtualBench - - Turnkey Virtual Instruments - Turnkey, PC-lxised virtual instruments - Oscilloscope, function generator, DSA, DMM, data logger - Runs on Windows 95/3.1 with our DAQ products ] Measure " - Direct Data Acquisition for Excel - Acquire data from DAQ Ixxirds or serial Instruments - Easy-to-use configuration panels - no programming - Data values placed directly into spreadsheet cells Call for your FREE evaluation copies of these software products on our Software Showcase CD. £7 NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS 77/e Software ts the Instrument • I uropeun Brunch Offices: Austria 0662 IS 79 90 0 • Belgium 02 757 00 20 Denmark AS 76 26 00 • I inland 90 527 2321 • I ranee I 48 M 24 24 Germany OK 1 ' Ml U «> • Italy QB 4 I «NI • Netherlands 0348 43346a Norway i2 84 84 00 • Spain 91 640 0085 • Sweden 08 730 49 70 Switzerland 056 200 51 51 • U K. 01635 523545 U.S. Corporate Headquarter* • Id: (512) 794-0100 • lax: (512) 794-8411 I'.-rnaU: infcrthxjtin.st.com • WWW: http://www.natinst.com International Software 32-bit Map Components for Windows MAI’Sl RVt R 3/32. A REUSABLE C0MP0- nent library for mapping and geo¬ graphic information systems, lets developers embed high-precision maps into customized applications developed in Visual C++, Borland C++, Delphi, or Visual Basic. It pro¬ vides vector and raster graphics with optimized display and good performance. Components include DLLs, C++ classes, OCXcs, and a visual component library. Price: £795. Geosoft, Leeds , U.K., +44 113 2344000; fax: ¥44 113 2465071. Circle 1042 on Inquiry Card. Development Tools Object-Oriented Image Processing IMAGE++ COMBINE S A GRAPHICAL DEVEL- opment environment with digital image processing under Windows 95 and NT. It can simultaneously present data flow diagrams and corresponding C++ source code. You can also incorporate existing external image operators and DLLs. Price: CUill company. Leutron Vision, Glattbrugg , Switzerland, ¥4118100676: fax: ¥4118109440: http:! I www.leutron.com. Circle 1044 on Inquiry Card. Real-Time System for Intel Processors A REAL-TIME MULTITASKING ENVIRONMENT for 32-bit embedded systems, the RTKernel-32 complies with Borland C++, Visual C++, and Watcom C++ compilers. It includes a portable kernel that iscompletely written in ANSI C. It supports 386,486, Pen¬ tium, Pentium Pro, and NS489SXF processors and contains drivers for memory management, floating point, and interrupts. Price: Call company. OnTime Informatik, Hamburg, Germany, -¥49 40 437472; fax: ¥4940435196; 101212.3101 ^CompuServe .com. Circle 1045 on Inquiry Card. OS Launcher Boot Manager Gives You OS Choice Multi-Boot is an interactive operat- ing system launcher that lets you switch easily between different operating systems by installing four primary partitions. At boot time you can select which of the primary par¬ titions you want to activate. The system launcher supports all major operating systems and automati¬ cally replaces other boot managers. Price: Call company. Tec- Advice, Vcvey, Switzerland , ¥41792102122; meister@tec -advice, com; http: II www.tec-advice.com. Circle 1046 on Inquiry Card. Engineering Comprehensive FEM Analysis Integrating automatic mesh genera- tion, iterative solvers, materials databases, and post processors, Argos Systemes' Systus+ is a com¬ prehensive finite element package. With its broad range of modules you can solve mechanical, thermal, and electromechanical problems and analyze production processes and coupled systems. Data can be exchanged with other software packages via IGES or STEP. The pro- gram runs on Unix workstations and supercomputers but results Circle 711 on Inquiry Card. Hannover, nunnuver, ~ r Germany # \\C^ tonfergji AS' .u . v AS' 15 March 1997 % / .£> he New Wave for Success Global Logistics is Changing the Way We Do Business, and is the Answer to Managing the Computer Component Supply Network. Sponsored by: EVTE IT'S VERY WELL MADE IN TAIWAN Saturday, 15 March, 1997 Auditorium 1B, TCM Conference Center at the Hannover Fairgrounds Luncheon sponsored by /V\llAC ^ To Register for this FREE Conference, please respond by February 19,1997 via FAX or the Internet U.S. BYTE Fax (603) 924-2602 BYTE Web site: http://www.byte.com Please register me for the FREE "Global Logistics" Conference at CeBIT 97 in Hannover, Germany! ton*_Tide_Company_ Wdress_ I (c unity _City. Postal (ode Phone Fax To Subscribe to BYTE magazine, or for Customer Service, contact your local BYTE Subscription Representative: Benelux Gerry Westerhof Phone: 31 72 509 1855 Fax: 31 72 509 1145 Bulgaria Daniel Christov Phone/Fax: 359 2 974 3557 France Eric Le Quinio Phone: 33 1 49 77 03 06 Fax: 33 1 43 76 74 29 Germany, Austria, Switzerland Wolfgang Brezina Phone: 49 89 525 847 Fax: 49 89 529 850 Greece Maria Hadjioannou Phone: 30 61 620384 Fax: 30 61 272072 Hungary Imre Szabo Phone: 36 76 488888 Fax: 36 76 488889 Ireland Ian Bangham Phone: 353 1 280 7133 Fax: 353 1 280 7157 Italy Enrico Campia Phone: 39 11 8127656 Fax: 39 11 8994422 Middle East Zafar Inamdar Phone: 971 4 666788 Fax: 971 4 621149 Poland Wlodek Bincyzk Phone/Fax: 48 2 625 2275 Portugal Manuel Neves Phone: 351 1 3479301 Fax: 351 1 3475127 Scandinavia Gunnar Sandbjerg Phone: 45 3314 2226 Fax: 45 3314 2218 or Lauge Dehn Phone: 45 86 223188 Fax: 45 86 228159 South Africa Cape Town: J Trisos Phone: 27 21 24 4094 Fax: 27 21 24 8681 Durban: T Tyson Tel: 27 31 2027303 Fax: 27 31 2027307 Johannesburg: M Kendrick Tel: 27 11 8804988 Fax: 27 11 4428327 Spain Barcelona: Javier Casellas Phone/Fax: 34 3 2380342 Madrid: Eduardo Montojo Phone/Fax: 34 1 5716685 or Henri Misrahi Phone: 34 1 7337346 Fax: 34 1 7338970 Turkey Cengiz Eren Phone: 90 216 345 3473 Fax: 90 216 346 2464 United Kingdom Peter Gregson Phone: 44 1 61 430 3423 Fax: 44 1 61 494 6976 or John Luker Phone: 44 1 258 821114 Fax: 44 I 258 821115 2/97 If there is no BYTE representative listed above for your country, please contact: BYTE Subscriber Services: PO Box 72, Galway, Ireland. Fax: +1 353 91 752793. Phone: +1 353 91 752792. tz A Division of 77k’ McGraw-Hill (xrmpatties Internation al Software can be imported in standard PC spreadsheets. Price: Call company. Argos Syst ernes, Les Ulis Cedcx B, France , +33169281052; fax: +33169283322. Circle 1047 on Inquiry Card. Data Mining DataEngine for 32-bit Windows The new 32-bii Windows version oe the DataEngine data analysis sys¬ tem can now import ASCII and Excel data. Version 2.0 supports additional data visualization tech¬ niques and lets users define their own data mining procedures. Price: Starts at DM S990.MTT, Aachen, Germany , +49 2408 94580; fax: +49 2408 94582; dataengine@mitgmbh.de; http: If www. mitgmbh. de Circle 1051 on Inquiry Card. The Web HTML Tool for Big Documents Designed for publishing iarge Docu¬ ments on the World Wide Web, the Intraweb HTML editor can auto¬ matically convert files that are hun¬ dreds or thousands of pages long. When combined with Virtual Media’s Hypertext Development Kit, Intraweb provides a fully inte¬ grated, large-scale, on-line pub¬ lishing solution across multiple platforms. Price: £399. Softklone, / oudwater ,; ILK., \ 44 l(^2s 819200; fax: +44 1628 810314; sales@softhlone. co. uk. Circle 1050 on Inquiry Card. Communications Remote Access to Telecoms WllH THE ARIANi III TEEECOMMUNICA- tions package you can connect directly to a customer’s telecom¬ munications system for real-time maintenance, troubleshooting, or system upgrades. The package operates over switched telephone networks or ISDN lines and handles interactive communications with PCs running under DOS, Unix, Win¬ dows, as well as Prologue and Twin Server. Price: Call company. Argos Syst ernes. Les Ulis Cedcx ll , France , +33 16928 1052; fax: +33 1692833 22. Circle 1048 on Inquiry Card. Presentation Tool for Intranets WlIM NETprfsfnter 3.0 AN ORGANI/A- tion can deliver customized news and information over the World Wide Web or a corporate intranet. An easy-to-use editor lets you cre¬ ate a presentation and then inte¬ grate it into HTML Users can view ^. TI Ydj 1 T^ n Qt^cTlc!/ 1 nrrioHHHaKiinBEE SM* |£olof» )l»xt j Image\&)*]'<*» |e* Sun Mon Tu* WetJ Thu Fn SjI the presentation using a Netscape plug-in. Authors can assign links to other information objects. Price: DM 749. Net presenter BV, Seek. The Netherlands, +31 464 370886; fax: +31 464 360188; netpresenter@eureha.nl; http: I I www. eureka, nil netpresenter. Circle 1049 on Inquiry Card. 401S 32 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 rol l Bandai Digital s ((' World Web-browsing system may the Mac network computer for corporations. By Pe On TV: The Set-Top Morphing PowerPC Web PC one day be ter Wayner 5>World $499 (with 66-MHz PowerPC 603,5 MB of RAM, quad- speed CD-ROM, 28.8- Kbps modem, cables, and browser software) Bandai Digital - Entertainment Corp. La Mirada, CA (310)404-1600 ■ fax:(310)404-1900 http://www.atworld.com/ Circle 1057 on Inquiry Card. Housed around a quad-speed CD-ROM drive, Bandai's @World Web PC runs modified Mae software. The keyboard is optional. Macintosh with only 5 MB of RAM and a 66-MHz PowerPC 60.1 processor hardly seems exciting. Set it on a TV with an Internet hookup, however, and a $499 Mac clone begins to make great sense. Based on Apple’s Pippin technology, Ban¬ dai Digital’s (« World runs software from its internal CD-ROM or the Internet. It's a well-implemented unit that should in¬ filtrate the set-top-box market and might even steal market share from games man¬ ufacturers, such as Nintendo. Portability is (ri World’s great strength. Stripped of multitasking code, its lean Mac OS fits in I MB of RAM. Yet all the standard Toolbox calls are available, in- 1 1 iding such p<»pular extensions as Quick - I’ime and QuickDraw, so Mac applica¬ tions run with few modifications. As a result, software for (a World should be isy to come by. The (a World unit itself comes with a slightly retooled version of the Spyglass Internet browser, and its flashy introductory CD was produced Porting Mac Applications If you’re a Mac programmer with a CD- iRecordable (CD-R) device, you can port a Mac application to an ©World CD-ROM in about 15 minutes. But you’ll probably want to modify it first to use more than the controller's trackball and ‘’mouse” buttons. An ©World CD-ROM carries a version of System 7.5.2. A stripped-down Pippin program replaces Finder, but you can add extensions to the CD-ROM. The system re¬ boots each time you insert a new CD. You’ll also need a license and a dongle. The ©World unit authenticates each disk it runs, looking for a digital signature that only the dongle can produce. Bandai is planning to make the licensing costs en¬ couragingly low. with Macromedia and Quick lime, two well-understood multimedia tools. The unit’s Mac compatibility extends to hardware. You can connect standard Apple ink-jet printers, keyboards, and mice to (o World, although Apple Desk¬ top Bus (ADB) devices require an adapter. The (jti World unit is also networkable, running Apple Talk through its serial port. The graphics subsystem, however, dif¬ fers from that of a basic Mac. The unit spits out a video signal in standard NTSC, S-video, or standard V( iA. The display on NTSC TV has fewer pixels than on a col¬ or monitor, but antialiasing hardware keeps the image readably crisp. The game-like interface controller has a trackball for manipulating the mouse pointer and a four-position button for standard video action. Nine other bur¬ tons must be programmed for a partic¬ ular application. An optional $69 key¬ board lets you type e-mail or enter Web addresses. Without it, you have to “type” on a screen keyboard using the trackball. The @World unit comes with a 2X.X- Kbps Motorola modem and cables for setting up a Web browser. As an option, Bandai provides its own Internet service (AtWorld.Net), which costs $19.95 per RATINGS TECHNOLOGY ★ ★ ★ IMPLEMENTATION ★ ★ * ★ ★ month. I had the browser up and running within 20 minutes. Bandai is targeting the retail set-top market for starters, but the company also has plans for the corporate desktop. With a VCiA monitor and the optional keyboard, (ri World would make a perfect $750 net¬ work-computer workstation sitting on an Apple Talk network. □ Veter Wiiyuer is 852-2811-9173. quote PHILIPS PHILIPS li( v. I help turn your ideas into products Iter \dd our support for major PIC and < orating systems, such as Microsoft’s •vV )dows CE*. as well as our related Ihrv ogies - GPS, wireless communica¬ nt md you can imagine the possibilities, let :he future today at www.semicon- »to philips.com. Because together we i g< in touch with tomorrow. Circle 753 on Inquiry Card. Not all ^ irus Detection software is created equal. Most aren’t even close. You want the best virus detection software for your computers. Just look at the facts. In study after study, test after test, one virus detection soft* ware wins out against the rest - Dr Solomon’s. The fact is, Dr Solomon's anti-vims scan¬ ners give you superior detec¬ tion and repair of all varieties of viruses - polymorphic, “in the wild,” lxx>t sector, stealth and others. The numbers prove it, again and again. The Anti-Vims Tixdkit is available on all platforms including: Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows 3.x, DOS, NetWare, Macintosh, OS/2 and SCO UNIX. l> Solomon's Software, Inc. USA - I 800 590 1194 l> Solomons St>ftware Ltd., U.K. - *44 1296 318 700 7 Anti-VjriK VSS l> Solomon's Software, Germany, GmbH - +49 40 25 19 540 s rfl Make sure you know the facts about anti-virus software. Because when it comes to choosing the best, the decision isn’t even close. IT Secure, India - +91 22 64* 1233/1246 Priority Data System - +353 1 284 5600 Memory Masters, Kenya - +254 2 751 916/743934/223543 ! 5 392 4155 « I Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit is the international leader in virus detection, with over 3 million users worldwide. For free evaluation please visit our web site at: www.drsolomon.com Data Alert International 13V, Netherlands - + 31 70 307 7111 13ysu|>port South America - +56 2231 0308 D R SOLOMON'! Information Security AB, Sweden - +46 8580 100 02 The international leader in virus protecti CSS Computer Services, Zimbabwe • +263 4 304 822 nplete list wide distributors: please fax your its: plcai request»<* 17 .’71-7474 Dr Solomon's Software One New England Executive Park Burlington, MA 0180 1 (800) 590-1194 Circle 192 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 193). The Oxygen 202 delivers top-notch 3-D graphics performance in less space. By Robert L. Hutntttel 3-D Mighty Mite hile high-performance 3-D graphics-accelerator cards aren’t yet commodities, the era of proprietary graphics adapters is nearly over. The latest entry into this burgeoning field is Dynamic Pic¬ tures’ new Oxygen 202, a S2795 single¬ slot PCI card that delivers competitive performance. The 202 accelerates 3-D graphics func¬ tions, and it includes 24-bit z-buffering and perspective-correct texture mapping. As a slim three-quarter-length card, it’s smaller than competing cards. Equipped with two of Dynamic Pictures’ scalable Oxygen processors running in parallel and 16 MB of synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), the 202 is a more powerful version of the single-chip, 8-MB Oxygen 102 ($1495). Dynamic Pictures has also announced the four-chip, 32-MB Oxygen 402 ($4995). The 202 supports a wide range of vid¬ eo resolutions and refresh rates. At a 32- bit pixel depth, the 202 resolves 1280 by 1024 pixels at a 75-Hz refresh rate. Drop¬ ping the pixel depth to 15 bits (32,000 col¬ ors) boosts the resolution to 1600 by 1200 (60-Hz refresh). Dynamic Pictures provides OpenGL 3-0 Graphics Performance 5 § } 0 5 10 15 Vrewpetf score (weighted geometric men) Iht* Oiyflen and AcaH carts were tested in a 200 MH/ Tn Star Suftaoon SMP Pentium Pro system The Intense 30 was tested to a i omparaMy equipped Intergrapfi ID 410. H* Oxygen 202 nudged ahead ol Mergraph’s Intense 30 card when tested with Parametric Technology's CORS CAD new set, but«fed bach to Glint speed with IBM's Wsuah/ation Data Explorer (DX 3.0) view set The Oxygen 202 is part of Dynamic Pictures’ scalable 3-D graphics- accelerator family. The 202 uses two Oxygen chips in parallel. and Heidi drivers for Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0, and it promises Windows 95 driv¬ ers for early this year. The 202 contains its own VGA subsystem, but you can still use a separate card for two-monitor oper¬ ation if you change a jumper on the 202 card. The card also has a connector that supports stereoscopic viewing equipment. To gauge the Oxygen 202’s perfor¬ mance, we ran Viewperf 5.0 with the DX 3.0 and CDRS 3.0 view sets in true-color mode at 1024- by 768-pixel resolution. (This industry-standard OpenGL graph¬ ics-performance benchmark is available from http://www.specbench.org/.) We tested under the same conditions we recently used to compare 3-D graph¬ ics workstations (see “Affordable 3-D Workstations,” December 1996 BYTE). The host system was a Tri-Star dual 200- MHz Pentium Pro system with 128 MB of memory running NT 3.51. With the DX view set, the Oxygen 202 left Glint 500TX-bascd cards in the dust, and it was tied with a similarly priced 16-MB Inter¬ graph Intense 3D card. With the CDRS view set, the 202 beat several Glint cards, but it lagged about 10 percent behind Ac¬ cel’s Glint card and about 15 percent be¬ hind the Intense 3D. The Oxygen 202 doesn’t break new price/performance ground among 3-D RATINGS TECHNOLOGY ★ ★ ★ * * IMPLEMENTATION ★ ★ * * * PERFORMANCE ★ ★ + * graphics accelerators. But it provides ex¬ cellent performance at a price compara¬ ble to that of other high-end offerings— and in a compact form factor. □ Rol>ert L Hummel (Sullivan, NH) is an elec¬ trical engineer ,; programmer, and consultant. You can reach him at rhummel@monad.net. ***** < kilHlunding * * * * Very Good *** Good ** Faw * Poor FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 47 Network Telephony With EtherPhone, a telephone plugged into your PC instantly gets call transfer, conferencing, and other PBX functions. By Barry Nance Your PC’s Ringing—Answer It! W \\fpF4 \v ' EtherPhone i.x price not announced (requires Windows 95 or NT) Phonet Communications Herzlia, Israel +972 9 502134 fax: +972 9 567432 phonet@shani.net http://www.phonet.co.il Circle 1055 on Inquiry Card. Administering EtherPhone is as simple as assigning people IP addresses and phone extensions. D here’s been a lot of noise about making phone calls over the Internet, though in fact the Internet’s usefulness for that purpose is limited. On a smaller scale, however, it makes a lot of sense to use your LAN to make internal phone calls. If the organization isn’t too big, you might even be able to forgo an expensive, single-purpose PBX telephone system. That’s the idea behind EtherPhone, which adds telephony to an existing Ethernet LAN. An EtherPhone-based LAN offers Windows 95 users these PBX- type features: voice mail, an automated phone attendant, internal and external calls, call transfer, call hold, conference calling, and even music-on-hold. Ether¬ Phone supports Telephony API (TAPI), and you can log calls in a database, such as Microsoft Access. EtherPhone con¬ verts the digitized voice signals toTCP/IP data packets (see the Tech Focus). You replace the standard Ethernet net¬ work interface card (NIC!) in each PC with Phonet’s ISA-bus l()Base-T network TECH FOCUS Speech as LAN Data The key concept behind EtherPhone is LAN telephony integration (LTI). Unlike com¬ puter telephony integration (CTI), LTI inter¬ leaves voice packets with file-sharing packets through the LAN wire. The biggest drawback to sending voice signals as data packets on an Ethernet LAN is the potential for time lags on a busy net¬ work, something a more expensive asyn¬ chronous transfer mode (ATM) LAN would not encounter. Phonet engineers circum¬ vent the problem by using faster, digital signal processor-based (DSP) hardware— with an Analog Devices ADSP-2105—and algorithms designed specifically for voice- as-LAN-data. adapter card and add Windows 95 client software. Each EtherPhone card has RJ- 45 (network), RJ-11 (phoneline),speaker, and microphone ports. The client soft¬ ware allows users to dial, answer, hold, transfer, and otherwise manage phone calls. You need a separate Windows 95 PC running EtherPhone server software to distribute calls to the clients. This server has from one to four cards, each taking up to four outside phone lines. With the maximum 16 concurrent calls, the IAN’s bandwidth is pretty well maxed out. I set up a 133-MHz Pentium PC as an EtherPhone server, connected it to the public telephone network, and plugged a standard phone into each EtherPhone client PC. The server kept up with voice- as-LAN-data, even when the client PC was busy running various Windows pro¬ grams. But, with just one outside and two inside calls under way, the server needed to be dedicated to telephony. Similarly, a 4X6 client PC had a hard time keeping up while running other Windows programs. I was generally pleased by Phonet’s marriage of Ethernet and telephony tech¬ nologies. Many functions have noon-line RATINGS TECHNOLOGY ★ * ★ ★ IMPLEMENTATION ★ ★ A help, and the software occasionally burped and had to be restarted. But the drivers were reliable: I didn’t lose a sin¬ gle phone call to software hugs. Despite skimpy documentation, occa¬ sional glitches, and a narrow platform focus, EtherPhone is a good choice if you can’t afford a PBX for your small office and you want to present a professional image to customers over the phone. □ Barry Nance is a BYTE consulting editor. You can reach him by sending e-mail to barryn 0bix.com. 48 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 ***** Outstanding * * * * Vory Good * * * Good * * Fair * Poor Our new Smart-UPS ensures the web hits I you want...and prevents those you don't Web-enabled PowerChute' plus now ships with every Smart-UPS rag|t Having your server go down due to r a power hit is like hanging a "Come Back Later" sign on your store's j front door. Some customers will come back, but others never will. Whether you’re using the Web to sell, to lupport. or to surf, once you make the InvMfcment in a home page you've made a commitment to your customers. A commit¬ ment to be there when they need you for prBuct info, technical support, or sales. Protect your investment in ,ho web with the po„ FREE award-winning PowerChute' plus software with its WebAgent" plug-in, so you can manage and configure your UPS via Internet or Intranet PowerChute plus also notifies web users of power problems via their browser, and shuts down your Web server safely whether you’re there or not. With Smart-UPS you get SmartBoost" automatic voltage regulation, CellGuard " intelligent battery management (for maximum battery life), hot-swappable. user-replaceable batter- SmartSlot * custom configuration / and management. Check out our web JrrflH solutions today. After all. V there's one kind of "big ‘‘ ^ hlt ' on y° ur we b site - you II want tc nide '"or KBBPP your "...inherent flexibility and excellent software. Don't be caught without one ” A PC's award-winning Smart-UPS units an available in convenient rack-mount models. The Smart-UPS XL series is ncommended for long runtime applications. For maximum protection, ask about our new NctSheltcr", premium rack enclosuns for all server and internetworking equipment sales. AMERICAN POWER CONVERSION 888-289-APCC x8074 http://www.apcc.com/8074.htm 401 -788 2797 fax • Worldwide: (♦ I )401 -789-0204 800-347-FAXX PowerFax Literature 132 Fairgrounds Rd.,W. Kingston Rl 02892 USA Circle 133 on Inquiry Card. MastcrSwiteh ' les Web/SNMP- teable, independent )/ of power to You Don’t Have To Use Brute Force To SEE globetrot* oftware. FLEXIm for Window: offer FLEXIm® The Elegant Solution You don’t have to use the brute force of a baseball bat - or dongles for that matter - to make sure only licensed, paying users have access to your software. There’s a much more elegant and cost-effective solution: FLEX/w from GLOBE trotter. The De Facto Standard FLEX/w is bundled in over $ 15 billion of installed UNIX' and Windows* software products, making it the de facto standard in license management. And in 1995 alone, FLEX/w was used to ship over $3 billion in software licenses over the Internet. That makes it the de facto standard in electronic commerce for software, too. Floating licenses - allowing licenses to be shared over a network, while fairly compen¬ sating the vendor with a higher price per license. Key Features: With FLEXIm you ciin: Limit software use to licensed users • License softWi in new ways j Even Works With Dongles If you still want to use dongles, FLEX/w significantly reduces the number you need at a customer site by allowing low-cost dongles to be used as “network dongles,” and by sharing dongles across different products. Fully functional evaluation software while the vendor knows the software will stop after a specific date. Built-in license compliance - customers don’t need to buy expensive license metering utilities to verify they comply with vendor license terms. Installing software where it is most appropriate from a hardware or administration perspective, while protecting your software. to gain new markets and customers Leverage the Internet and CD-ROK to increiise sales while reducing selli and manufacturing expenses Reduce tlye cost of product evaluatio programs Significantly reduce the use of expensive dongles Windows , UNIX and Java If your company develops products on multiple platforms, you should know FLEX/w runs on Windows, UNIX and Java. Ask about our white papei Electronic Commerce For Software GLOBE trotter Your Customers Will Like It In an independent survey, users preferred FLEX/w eighteen-to-one over other license managers. And all of us know customers really don’t care for dongles. With FLEX/w, your customers benefit from: For More Information Call us at 408-370-2800, email us at info@globetrotter.com or visit our website at http://www.globetrotter.com. We’ll be happy to arrange a demo and show you how to make sure all your users are licensed. Circle 188 on Inquiry Card. Electronic (lotmnerce For Software " http://www.globctrottcT.com Email: info (a globctrottcr.com Telephone: 408-370-2800 Fax: 408-370*2884 H.FX/jm ts a registered trademark and "Klectrtmic Commerce For Software" is a trademark of (d.OBKfojMrr Software. All other trademark* arc the property of their respective owners. Operating Systems A library offers reliable operation for Windows 95 applications. By Jodo Carreira, Diamantino Costa, and Jodo Gabriel Silva Fault Tolerance for Windows Applications I n increasing number of busi¬ ness-critical applications are being targeted for the low- end PC market and general- purpose OSes, such as Windows 95 and NT. This class of programs includes on¬ line transaction processing (OLTP) and data-warehousing applications, control systems, and other business-critical solu¬ tions for the finance, telecommunica¬ tions, retail, and health-care markets. But moving to such systems poses a problem. How can the PC guarantee the continuous availability and data consis¬ tency required for these mission-critical applications? Despite the desktop PC’s lower costs, running such applications without any fault-tolerance support can be risky—even dangerous. It is possible, however, to use software to implement a certain level of fault tol¬ erance for desktop PCs. A special library that we’ve written, called WinFT, pro¬ vides fault-tolerance support for Win- 52 applications. WinFT performs auto¬ matic detection and restarting of failed processes; diagnosis and rebooting of a malfunctioning or strangled OS; check¬ pointing and recovery of critical volatile data; and preventive actions, such as soft¬ ware rejuvenation (i.e., when an appli¬ cation or OS is restarted to get a clean in¬ ternal state). WinFT Parts WinFT is a library of functions that pro¬ vides fault-tolerance support for Win¬ dows applications that must run for long periods of time or nonstop applica¬ tions, such as database servers and con¬ trol systems. WinFT was implemented as a set of objects developed with version 5.0 of the Borland C++ compiler. It uses the Win 95 subset of the Win M API and is available as both a static and a dynam¬ ic link library (DLL). The modules and related functions that make up the Win¬ FT library are shown in the table M WinFT Functions” on page 52. The checkpointing modules set up and keep track of critical data structures that the programmer declares. They also keep track of the declared data structures and manage the task of saving this data to disk. In addition, the modules recover the data FT exception-handling module provides a simple API for your use. WinFT Setup A TChkp object, which manages data checkpointing, is used throughout an application. You create this object with the TChkp( ) function. The function’s Watchdog and Application Messages O On normal launch, WinFT creates a daemon watchdog process. 0 Watchdog starts target application. 0 Application sends messages and gets launch status from watchdog. Hard drive O If the watchdog fails to get periodic messages, K kills the application and relaunches it 0 The rejuvenated application restores volatile data from files saved on disk. 0 In severe cases, the watchdog can order the system to be rebooted. A message-passing seheme tells the watehdog if the process is hung up or is experiencing problems. when the program restarts after a crash. The watchdog modules set up process- es that monitor the activity of other pro¬ cesses to check for execution problems. A mission-critical application uses Win- FT’s message-passing functions to indi¬ rectly signal the watchdog process if it’s caught in a loop or stalled waiting on an OS call. If you don’t want to bother with the task of writing exception-handling code within your applications, the Win- first parameter lets you specify a direc¬ tory path and the name of the checkpoint file that stores the critical data. If you want to save a copy of the checkpoint file on a remote system, you specify this path in TChkp()’ssecond parameter. This lets you restart the application from a back¬ up PC in case of a serious crash. The three checkpointing methods CrlticaK ), Checkpoint(),and Re¬ cover ) should be used according to FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 51 Core Operating Systems WinFT Functions Checkpointing TChkp::TChkp(char *name, char *apath, int mode, int amode. BOOL *error) Create checkpointing object, assign backup data files BOOL TChkp::Checkpoint() Declare critical data structures BOOL TChkp::Critical (void *data, int size) Save data to disk BOOL TChkp::Recover() Restore data after a system crash Watchdog functions TWDClient * Ini tWatchD(uint idle_cnt2_rejuv. uint errors_2_restart. uint time_ref. uint restarts_2_reboot) Create watchdog process void CloseWatchD() Terminate watchdog monitoring BOOL TWDC1ient::ImA1ive(void) Send periodic "I’m Alive" messages to watchdog process BOOL TWDC1ient::Error(Int err_code) Send error messages to watchdog process BOOL TWDC1ient::Idle(void) Send idle messages to watchdog process BOOL TWDC1ient::SetImAliveTimeout (uint timeout) Assign time-out interval to detect hung processes int TWDClient::GetStartMode(void) Determine cause of application start and perform recovery if necessary Exception handling BOOL InitXceptionHandling() Exception-handling function and macros some rules that are intuitive hut should be clearly stated. The first step is to de¬ clare the critical data structures using Cri tical (). You invoke this method as many times as necessary, providing the function with a pointer to the critical data structure and its size in bytes. You call C heck point () to save all crit¬ ical data structures on disk and use Re - cover () to refill these data structures using data from the file. After an appli¬ cation starts and all the critical structures are declared, you must determine wheth¬ er the application should recover data from the disk. This is in case the applica¬ tion is restarted due to an error. A Get - StartMode() method, described later, fetches this information from a TWD Client object that’s managed by a watch¬ dog process. Let Loose the Watchdog The watchdog can be a separate process, with a graphical interface that lets you set up all the parameters interactively, or a hidden process launched through Init- WatchDC). Ini tWatchO() creates the TWDC1 i en t object and a daemon-style process that monitors the health of a spe¬ cific application. When the application is first launched, Ini tWatchD() checks to see if it was launched directly by the user. If so, InitWatchDO never returns, but instead launches another instance of the application. The parent process then turns itself into a watchdog process that monitors the newly launched application. When the second instance of the application calls Ini tWatchD(), it detects that the application was launched by the watch¬ dog. In this case, Ini tWatchD() returns, and real application code executes. Within the application, you use Win- FT’s watchdog methods I mA 1 i ve ( ), E r r o r (), and I d 1 e () to send messages to the watchdog process. These messages can be *Tm Alives” (also called heart¬ beats), error messages, or idle notifica¬ tions, and the watchdog daemon handles them in different ways. Periodic heart¬ beat messages tell the watchdog that the application is active. Error notifications cover those situations where the appli¬ cation is still active but is detecting errors and having problems getting a job done. Finally, if the application is idle—due to user inactivity or the absence of client requests (if it’s a server application)—it should send idle messages to the watch¬ dog so that it can initiate maintenance or preventive actions, such as software rejuvenation. The figure 44 Watchdog and Application Messages” on page 51 depicts the interaction between a Windows ap¬ plication and the watchdog process and between the watchdog and the OS. The application uses Get St a rt Model) to see why the watchdog started it and decides if recovery actions, such as reading the checkpoint files into memory, should be performed. Recovery Routes The watchdog takes two actions, based on data received from the user applica¬ tion. The first is a simple relaunch of the application when a specified threshold of successive error messages is reached or because the “I’m Alive” time-out expires (i.e., the application is hung up). The other, more drastic, action is to re¬ boot the machine when successive appli¬ cation restarts fail to clear the problem. This typically occurs when an application keeps reporting OS errors and rejuvena¬ tion of the OS is a likely solution. To guar¬ antee that the application launches nor¬ mally after a system reboot, you should place the application’s executable file in the Windows Startup Folder. Win FT was used successfully in the field as a support library for an industri¬ al-control application running under Win 95. The application’s availability was in¬ creased, and it was able to provide non¬ stop real-time service. WinFT seems to be a promising solu¬ tion for the increasing number of appli¬ cations that need to run perpetually, such as control systems and servers in client/ server applications. It is publicly available from the BYTE Web site (http://www.byte .com/art/down!oad/download.htm),and the latest updates are available from the Dependable Systems Group Web page (http://dsg.dei.uc.pt). □ Jodo Carreira, Diamantino Costa, ami Jodo Gabriel Silva work at the Dependable Sys¬ tems Group in the Department of Informatics Engineering at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. Jodo Carreira can be contacted at jcar@eden.dei.uc.pt. 52 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 TECHNICAL DESIGNERS, ENGINEERS 6 STUDENTS i EXTRACA1) III for Windows 95 is a drawing and design environment that is highly productive, flexible and versatile. I he Windows 95 interface makes it easy to learn with drop-down menus, dialogue boxes, icons and buttons enabling you to perform even complex operations simply by clicking the mouse button. 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TITLE QTY PRICE TOTAL ExtraCad III for Windows‘95 $79.00 Digital Electronic library $19.00 Analog Electronic library $19.00 Interior Design library $19.00 Postage and packing $5.00 Name Address Town/City Post Code Country Tel Card Holder Name (if different) I enclose a cheque . Please debit my VISA credit card Visa Switch Mastercard BTE0297 Card Issue no. Card No. Card Expiry Date c a Circle 1 72 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 1 73). Introducing Mega Monitor I with 250 MHz video input bandwidth, ■■■■■■■■■ 1 800 x 1 440 @ 76Hz and a 3 0 115 K H ?. imri/nntal sc a n r a ti g e, : *’ -'.'--8 1 what else could you call it? AnnouncingtlieViewSonic 1*8IS 21" (20 M viewable) I monitor. It’s the latest innovation from ViewSonic*, I tlie recognized leader in color monitor technology. And its a mega hit. More power to you. Talk about unbelievable numbers: Resolutions up to 1800 x 1440 at a 76Hz refresh rate. A whopping 250MHz video input bandwidth. A horizontal scan rate up] to 1 ISKHz. And a 0.25mm dot pitch. All high water marks in the industry. It’s the new standard for high-end CAI). document imaging and other precision-oriented applications. The text is the sharpest available today. Tlie images are flicker-free, virtually eliminating eye strain. It displays more I information faster than any monitor you’ve seen More and with BNC and V(iJ connectors you can easily switch between two separate systems. Compared to other monitors there is no co mparison. After winning the Byte Spring ’% "Best I of Comdex” and “lies! of PC Kxpo” awards, the performance is obviously rated tlie highest in the industry, hut the I price is not-it is a real mega value. It comes with ARAC" anti-reflection, anti- ViewSonic ViewSonic Professional Series Model P815 PT813 P810 PT775 17PS CRT Size/Viewable 21-/200" 21720.0' 21720.0* 17716.0* 17716.0" Oot/Aperture Grille Pitch 0.25mm 0.28mm* 0.25mm 0.25mm* 0.25mm Horizontal Frequency 30 115 KHz 30-107 kHz 30-95 kHz 30-96 kHz 30-86 kHz Video Input Bandwidth 250 MHz 230 MHz 200 MHz 200 MHz 135 MHz Maximum Resolution 1800x1440 1600x 1280 1600x1280 1600x 1280 1600x 1280 Optimal 1800x 1440 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 1280x 1024 Resolution «76Hz W 85Hz & 76Hz ©77Hz <*80Hz ICO Certified Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes MSRP"" $2,195 $1,895 $1,745 $999 $799 •Aperture Grille glare screen coating, a limited 3 year warranty on CRT, parts and labor (the lies! in the business), and an optional express exchange * Service program that insures 48 hour replacements. If all this doesn’t convince you that the ViewSonic P8I5 Ls tndy a "mega monitor,” then seeing it certainly will. 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Mouse lower 300 Won Power '6513 Alpha 433MHz Available About Our Name Saint Anttony Guide ELECTRONICS More Server Power, (or less Circle 171 on Inquiry Card. 1 . 800 . 989.3471 SAG Electrics • tilAWower Street-mm AMicr. MA OIKS Sffl 01 m fa SMttSlin Mmi I Mm- 19*m Hornby frMay ES GSA Schedule *GS 35F 31030 http://sagelec.COa CPUs A new library and API enable preemptive multitasking and multiprocessing on Mac OS systems. By Tom Thompson The Mac Coes Multiprocessor oday, desktop computer designs are flirting with clock speeds of .*00 MHz, unheard of just a year ago. However, to keep a computer’s design both simple and affordable, its system bus—where the memory and certain peripherals hang out—typically dawdles along at a frac¬ tion of the processor's speed. Because of the design and cost constraints, it’s going to be difficult for even faster systems to realize significant gains in performance. There’s an alternative design that can achieve large performance boosts in spite of the slower bus. This is multiprocess¬ ing (MP), where the system has two or more processors that improve through¬ put by working in concert to divide and conquer a job. Of course, there’s a catch: Some hardware modifications are neces¬ sary so the processors can properly share the system bus and the peripherals. Also, the OS software requires changes so it can operate the multiple processors. Fur¬ thermore, it may be necessary to modify the application software so it divvies a task into sections for use by the various processors. Technical Issues Solved MP’s cost and performance advantages led Mac OS vendors to tackle these hard¬ ware and software issues. In May of 1995, Apple Computer and DayStar Digital (a Mac OS licensee and hardware design¬ er) announced the joint development of an API, the Apple MP API, that resolved the software situation. In October 1995, DayStar addressed the hardware situa¬ tion by shipping a four-processor Mac- compatible, called the Genesis MP, fol¬ lowed by two-processor systems in June 1996. This was followed by Apple’s two- processor Power Mac 9500/MP in August. Another Mac OS vendor, UMAX, has begun shipping multiprocessor systems, too. Both Apple and UMAX have licensed MP hardware designs from DayStar. It’s worth examining how DayStar and Apple dealt with some of the technical difficulties in implementing MP on a Mac OS system. For the hardware, changes to the existing system architecture to add MP support were rather small. Most of the PowerPC processor family has on- chip support for an //-processor MP archi¬ tecture. Surprisingly, the ASICs used in the original Power Mac 9500 (introduced in 1995) had bus arbitration support for a two-processor MP design built in. Four- processor designs such as DayStar's Gen¬ esis MP require extra glue logic. The hardware model the Apple MP API uses assumes that the processors share the same block of memory. This simplifies the software design because it makes it easy to share data and code libraries. The API also assumes a cache-coherent model, which relieves the programmer of the chore of updating the processor caches. The model assumes that only one pro¬ cessor needs access to I/O devices, timers, and external interrupts (although each processor can interrupt one another). While this design’s shared memory sounds like symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), it isn’t. An SMP architecture assumes that everything is shared, includ¬ ing the I/O devices, which isn’t the case with the Apple MP API. Another differ¬ ence is that in an SMP system, portions of Multiprocessing tasks execute preemptively, even on a single-processor machine. FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 59 Core CPUs » File Edit Control Data Window PowerFranPPC (MPTosk 0 h*19E260) PowerFronPI BStack [S Variables B Stack MPlibrary 0x4887B0 (PPC) finished: urotgne. 0 MPUbrery 0x488760 (PPC) fTwk me wage long 2 fTesk > paTajkDate* > theParameter: vo.. OxOOOOC 0x006B1 0 > RSource: Crush :MP stuffiPovarFrax Testources :HFMultipr< R Source: Crush:MP stuff Poverf rax * /♦ The following statement is executed once, it p • (sTaskOataPtr >theParameter; finished ■ false; •hil«< (finished > < MPUait0n0ueue< p->appToTask, taesj swi tch< message ) ( case kTnCreate: break; case kTMRun: p->«orkFunction< p->params >; break; cose kTMQuit: finished ■ true; - * MPUait0nQueue< p sm itch< message case kThCrea brook; case kTMRun: p->»orkF break; cose kTHQuit finished break; ) MPMotifgQueue< p return < notrr >; ) | Source ▼ i E — | Source Mctrowerks CodeWarrior provides source-level debugging on MP tasks. the OS can migrate to other processors to balance the load. This isn’t possible in a Mac OS Ml* design because much of the OS code is nonreentrant. The Apple MP API overcomes these problems by restrict¬ ing what code certain processors call. The Apple MP API The Apple MP API consists of a shared library that implements the API functions and a hardware abstraction layer (HAL) that manages the low-level MP hardware for both the programmer and the API itself. When an MP-aware application uses MP services, the Mac OS Code Frag¬ ment Manager automatically connects it to the MP library. The MP library next locates the appropriate HAL for the giv¬ en hardware configuration. The proces¬ sor that’s already executing code at this point is anointed as the main processor, while the other processors are designat¬ ed attached processors. The main pro¬ cessor runs the 6H()x() emulator and the Mac OS and manages device I/O. The MP API uses the HAL to bootstrap the oth¬ er processors and install a lightweight preemptive scheduler on all the proces¬ sors (as shown in the figure “Mac OS MP Architecture” on page 59). The MP API provides kernel services that implement MP task coordination and messaging. Note that the MP kernel isn’t an execut¬ ing task like a daemon; it is simply a set of service calls. The Apple MP API provides calls that query the system for the number of processors, create/terminate MP tasks, allocate memory, and manage task syn¬ chronization. When an application cre¬ ates an MP task, the MP kernel assigns it to a global task queue. When a currently executing task gets rescheduled, the pro¬ cessor’s scheduler checks this queue and runs the next pending MP task for a max¬ imum interval of 10 milliseconds. This permits the kernel to perform load-bal¬ ancing for M P tasks. Task coordination is accomplished through supplied queue, WHERE TO FIND Apple Computer Cupertino, CA (408)996-1010 http://www.applc.com/ DayStar Digital Flowery Branch, GA (770)967-2077 mpftfdaystar.com http://www.daystar.com/ semaphore, and critical region API calls. You should use these calls, since they help the kernel schedule and control MP tasks. Because the main processor also runs a scheduler and executes MP tasks, the Apple MP API performs symmetric pro¬ cessing even if the OS doesn’t. MP Limits When writing a Mac application to use MP tasks, keep in mind the Apple MP API’s limitations. First, an MP task can’t exe¬ cute 680x0 processor code. That’s because the 680x0 emulator runs only on the main processor. Also, an MP task can’t make direct calls to the Mac OS or Tool¬ box because of the nonreentrant code problem and because some of these func¬ tions consist of 680x0 code. This also explains why the main processor handles all the I/O: The File Manager and certain low-level I/O code use 680x0 code. From these restrictions, it becomes obvious that MP tasks are most suitable for PowerPC compute-intensive code. Fortunately, a lot of work, such as image editing, digital video effects, 3-D model¬ ing, and simulation, fit into this catego¬ ry. Furthermore, an MP-aware applica¬ tion isn’t locked out of using the OS. The application’s main task executes on the main processor and can avail itself of OS services. The MP tasks executing on the attached processors would use the syn¬ chronization calls to notify the main task when data should, say, be spooled to disk or placed on the screen. It’s up to you to determine how to best partition the job so that MP tasks make the best use of system resources. Ideally, you want each MP task accessing memo¬ ry at different times to make the most effi¬ cient use of the system bus. To help in this area, version 11 of Metrowerks Code- Warrior provides source-level debugging of MP tasks (as shown in the screen- shot). While this involves some extra work on your part, the results can make the effort worthwhile: On a four-pro¬ cessor system, the performance of MP applications can be boosted by 2.5 to 3.5 times. Despite the formidable limits placed upon the MP architecture by the Mac OS, the Apple MP API offers a prac¬ tical MP solution. It’s important to know that Apple plans to carry over the MP API into future versions of the Mac oper¬ ating system. This will preserve your MP coding efforts and will provide better per¬ formance because these future releases will offer OS-level support for symmet¬ ric multiprocessing. □ The author thanks David Sowell, Chris Cook¬ sey , and David Methven of DayStar Digital for their help with this article. Tom Thompson is a HYIli senior technical edi¬ tor at large. You can reach him try sending e- rnail to tom thompson@bix.com. 60 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 lets you do fJIQf 0 ^ "better, "'""less! Announcing the AutoView Commander; | the keyboard/video/mouse switch with all y the right stuff! More ways to select attached servers with convenient on-screen menus, ' traditional Cybex push-buttons or a quick keyboard sequence. Better design for easy reconfiguration without powering down the switch or attached servers. And best of all... it costs less than many comparable switches. Now that's good stuff. One Company. One Solution. Cybex. 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Shell Python Does Scripts and Objects python \lpi | th3n\ n (1836) 1 : a large constricting snake 2 cap : short for the British comedy troupe “Monty Python’s Flying Circus" 3 cap : a pow erful modern object-oriented- programming (OOP) language I ython, the third definition in the fictional dictionary entry, is an ideal language for many of today’s computing tasks. It’s been used to build client/server data¬ bases and Unix system administration tools, create Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts, embed objects, and facili¬ tate rapid applications prototyping. Its dynamic range and variety of hooks make it suitable across many boundaries where one programming language halts and another is needed. Incidentally, the name Python derives from the second dictio¬ nary definition, not the constricting snake of definition one—although as a pro¬ gramming language. Python is able to coil itself around a variety of platforms. I hat’s because, like many of the new pro¬ gramming languages today. Python com¬ piles to neutral byte code. Unlike Java, however, this compilation happens on the fly, as modules are imported into the Python interpreter. I he interpreter performs automatic ver- sion checks against the source code file’s modification date and fetches the most recently generated byte-code file. The version-control process is almost invisi¬ ble to the programmer and is evident only when a triggered compilation slows the launching of a program. Python offers strong interplatform operability. A majority of Python pro¬ grams written on one platform can run effortlessly on another. Python imple¬ mentations exist for almost all flavors of Unix, as well as for the Mac OS; Windows 3.1, 95, and NT; OS/2; the BeOS; and NextStep. Even though you can write Python programs specifically to features of each GUI, Tkinter has been adopted as the language’s standard GUI. Tkinter (for Tk interface) in turn uses Tk, which is Sun Microsystems’ graphics toolkit. Tk is typically operated by Sun’s Tool Com¬ mand Language (TCL) but is in fact usable by other scripting languages such as Python and Perl. Python Features Python got its start through its powerful scripting features. It is often presented as shell scripts or simple function-based pro¬ grams. They can also be full-blown object-oriented applications handling large jobs. This tremendous scalability allows Python to be adapted to any num¬ ber of tasks where you would normally use two or three languages to craft a solu¬ tion. Because Python’s capabilities range from the simple to the sophisticated, what might start out as a simple Python script can blossom into a large-scale module of object classes, while maintaining the same code simplicity. Despite its power and range, Python is an easy language to use. One of the major influences on Python’s appearance is a Python uses Sun's standard Tkinter GUI so that programs can execute on many platforms. a bridge between Unix shell program¬ ming and C programming. That is, Py¬ thon is ideal for projects that are too com¬ plex for the normal shell tools to handle, but not so complex that they are worth writing in C or C++. Because Python is a very high-level language, it provides the programmer with complex data types unavailable in shell scripts or program¬ ming languages, such as dictionaries (associative arrays). System-administra¬ tion scripts, mailing-list automation, and other sophisticated tasks can often be written using relatively little code. Another of Python’s strengths is that it is scalable. Python programs can be short smaller language called ABC. ABC was designed as a more modern BASIC, pro¬ viding some high-level data types in a small, robust language. Like BASIC, ABC was constructed as a teaching language and has many nice touches for program¬ ming simplicity. These same features appear in Python. For example, Python has no begi n and end statements or braces. Code grouping is done through indentation, and the Newline character acts as a command separator. A command can sprawl over many lines if necessary, or multiple commands can fit on one line. This format practically forces good pro¬ gramming style, which in turn produces FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 63 Core neat, maintainable code while conserv¬ ing space. Most seasoned programmers converting to l*ython are surprised by this at first, but they soon grow used to the freedom it brings. See “Operator Over¬ loading in Python” for an example. Python is an easily extendable lan¬ guage. The core of Python is written in C!, and the source code is freely available, along with a complete API for extending the language. This lets you boost the speed of a commonly used function or hook Python byte-code files to large, already-made binaries such as imaging libraries or to platform-specific APIs like Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) or the Mac OS Toolbox. Having grown up in the age of the Internet, Python comes standard with many modules that implement objects for use with most TCP protocols. These Internet-savvy modules enable Python to implement easy Web-site maintenance and administration programs, and they allow you to write smart agents and implement many other server tasks. Python can be both server and client. On the server side. Python can process HTTP requests, filter incoming mes¬ sages and mail, access large databases, perform as a CGI script, be embedded in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) if the server allows it, or serve up its own objects. On the client side (especially through use of Tkinter), Python can be a client for any TCP format, including HTML. It can also transmit objects over the network to other Python servers/ clients or exist as a platform-neutral data¬ base front end, which makes it a great intranet asset. Because of its scriptlike nature. Python is a natural as an embedded language Python at a Glance • Cross-platform: It uses Sun’s Tkinter as the GUI and generates machine- indepedent byte code. • Scalable: It can implement simple shell scripts or build complex object-oriented libraries. • Extendable: It can hook directly into other binaries such as the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) library or the Mac OS Toolbox. • Embeddable: Because of its script¬ like nature, it can be embedded in HTML, groupware environments, and databases. Programming inside large compiled programs such as databases, multimedia applications, groupware environments, virtual worlds (both text and 3-D), and FITMl. documents. In terms of security and today’s con¬ cern with distributed Internet applica¬ tions, Java definitely excels. Because Py¬ thon is more of a scripting language, it can have lots of freedom with the local file system, which creates security risks. Furthermore, Python allows many ways to dynamically invoke commands read from any file type, even a TCP socket. Python does have a restricted mode that “fakes” many of the standard functions and modules but actually uses only those deemed “safe.” If an attempt is made by the code to access restricted material, an error is raised and the user is alerted. For a programming language. Python is flexible. Classes and method references in Python are treated as first-class objects. That is, new methods and member vari¬ ables can be added to a class at any time, and all existing and future instances of classes are affected by these changes. This way, a scheduled event on a server pro¬ gram can change a variable in the class definition that defines each user’s privi¬ leges. Thus, when standard office hours end, access could be broadened auto¬ matically to certain users with a single line of code such as userClass . restric- t i ons-3. All existing and future in¬ stances of userCI ass are updated and use this new value until the class variable is changed again. A programmer main¬ taining the code for the server could log in and be allowed to add or update classes and methods without having to take the server down. Python is also a language of “nothing but hooks.” A programmer has hooks into almost every aspect of the sys¬ tem and can read or overload these attri¬ butes to further customize their code. Ready to Slither The standard distributions of Python have over 120 ready-made modules, in¬ cluding Internet libraries, cryptography, various DBM implementations, regular expression and string handling, text for¬ matting, math, file handling (including full Posix file handling), code profiling and debugging, object persistence and storing, and Tkinter. Often included in these distributions are many demonstra¬ tions of Python’s use for client/server applications, Web serving, and embed¬ ding. Also available are free modules for Operator Overloading in Python import string class addSquare: def_init_(sel f. val ue-1): self.value - value def_add_(sel f.other): if type(other) — type("abc M ): other - string.atof(other) return sel f. val ue**2 + other**2 _radd_-_add_ A simple class with operator overloading example in Python, add (self,other) overloads the + symbol when an instance of addSquare is on the left, radd _ overloads the + symbol when the instance is on the right. The add method checks the other object being added, and if it’s a string, it converts it to a floating point. The class adds the squares of the two objects, (the 41 denotes special methods). use with SQL and other databases, and an extended version of Python called Numerical Python, which allows for fast, high-level math constructs. The Mac OS version includes support for the Mac Toolbox and Apple Events. It can create AppleScript-style applets on CFM-capa- ble and PowerPC machines. The Win¬ dows version allows use of MFC and has a Netscape plug-in to run Python applets. An ActiveX/Hxplorer interface and an OpenDoc container are currently in the works. Support for Silicon Graphics’ GL and Sun’s Audio Device is also standard, making Python ready to use right out of the box. Python is available completely as freeware, made possible by contributions to the Python Software Activity (PSA), a legitimate organization whose proceeds support Python financially. A growing fleet of volunteers and special-interest groups (SIGs) help in maintaining Python code and extending it into new platforms and fields, making Python a nearly uni¬ versal solution to most programming problems. You can access the Internet at http://www.python.org and comp.lang .python for complete information about Python. □ Jeffrey I*. Shell is in charge of object technolo¬ gies ami l*ytlfon programming at Cynapses. I le can he reached at jeff@cynapses.com. 64 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 fc V™ can N0W ' y° u can excel - Superpertorm and meet all your client’s needs or your very own in a flash. Power on Ml I Au s workstation ’TD6600N’ with an Intel Pentium* Pro processor and delve into the thrill of speed and superpower. l tunning at 200MHz, and supporting upto 256MB of DRAM, the TD6600N is the ideal workstation for memory-hungry and p»'i i-starved operations such as CAD, intense DTP, graphics, design and other heavy-duty 32-bit applications. I upandability. Supporting both the USB and ATX protocols, as well as 4 PCI and 4 ISA slots, MITAC’s TD6600N offers more function integration, multiple connections on a single bus, and great flexibility. The TD6600N also supports upto 3 hard disks • nncurrently, giving you more than 6GB in one desktop machine! lb crown its claim of the ultimate workstation, MITAC’s TD6600N also comes with rysta! audio CODEC [optional], 16-bit stereo, Soundblaster-compatible full duplex audio as well as 3D S3 Virqe qraphics lapabifmes and supports fax-IrDA and Consumer Infrared interfaces. MITAC's brawny workstation is shipped preloaded with the powerful Windows NT ready to run. I low reliability. MITAC's TD6600N not only supports error check- ofl and correction [ECC] but you can rest assured of the MITAC /nlue added quality, reliability and stability that many in the PC ndustry have come to rely on for so many years now. onging for real power, speed and hyperformance? Ask for your 4ITAC TD6600N today. MtTAC MARCH 13-19, 1997 [?1CeBIT97 LJlJh a N N 0 V E R Hall 12, Stand A23 MIIAf INTERNATIONAL CORP. L*i Kuo Office Td 806(3)3289000 Fax 886(3)3?809?8 I mm -.uukctWsmtpAnk mccom tw ■ (URL): hnpy/mrfac me com.lw _ ln,d l "'* dc **«»«*• IVmiun. arc rrgmefed trademark and the Pentium Pnxcnor la^. and ihc IVmium Pm l>nKi-»n la W , Circle 720 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 721). arv irj*lcnMik\ol Inul (.«H|N>raiion. Your E-Mail Is OBSOLETE Internet-based messaging promises new cures for enterprise e-mail blues, but is it ready for your business? By Michael Nadeau I -mail has grown from a mere convenience to a mission-critical application. It’s the backbone for collecting and disseminating corporate informa- I tion and for crucial communications both within and outside a company. For many businesses, it’s also a mess. Some companies have as many as five or six different e- mail systems, each with its own proprietary protocols and formats. This can be an expensive administrative nightmare, but, more important, it is an enormous barrier to exchanging, archiving, and retrieving vital corporate information. Salvation may be within reach, thanks to e-mail systems based on Internet standards. The core Internet protocols provide a lowest-common-denominator environment for sending key messaging functions across different e-mail architectures while opening the door to communicating with the outside world. Right from the start, the Internet was built for large-scale implementations. Its proven family of protocols lets you send and receive e-mail to or from anyone with an IP connection. SMTP has proven its messaging reliability over almost two decades. Post Office Protocol (POP) and Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) both handle message retrieval, and the latest version of IMAP lets you review messages and attach¬ ments before downloading them. You can leave entire mes¬ sages, or parts of messages, on the server for easier archiving and sharing of messages. Application Configuration Access Protocol (ACAP), an evolving standard, will let you create address books, user options, and other data for universal access. Finally, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) pro¬ vides a structure for small, fast, and easy-to-implement clients. The result? If you use e-mail only for messaging, the bene¬ fits of Internet e-mail are ready for you to use today. Even more important in the long run, Internet e-mail will be the basis for new types of collaborative applications. However, there are trade-offs if you commit to Internet e- O Poor Intercompany Communications Your e-mail server probably sends messages in a proprietary format that the rest of the world doesn’t speak. It also may not handle standard POP3 communications. © Destructive Gateways Your gateways may strip useful formatting from incoming messages. The result is corrupted or undeliverable files. 66 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Four Ways Proprietary E-Mail Stumbles O Server Overload To maintain good performance in a growing company, you may be continually adding newer and faster servers. ©High Costs Proprietary e-mail systems can be resource-intensive, with constant demands for new software and administrative support. FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 67 Cover Story Your E-Mail Is Obsolete Internet vs. Proprietary Messaging Who Has the Edge? Internet Proprietary Scalability The Internet was designed for very-large- scale implementation. Varies from product to product, but generally requires additional server and administrative support. Features While possible to imple¬ ment features commonly found on proprietary systems, standards are not complete. Key features, such as group scheduling, are field proven and highly integrated into the messaging environment. Administration tools Solid tools just beginning to appear. Competition and years of revisions make for robust options. Reliability No control over route of message or means of verifying delivery. Provides notification of delivery and guaranteed delivery time. Choice of clients Uses any POP3 client. Some, but not all, allow choice of POP3 - compliant clients. Cost to own Requires less server and administrative support. Requires more servers and administrative support, but varies from product to produc Provon track record Key standards and prod¬ ucts are new to market. Years of in-thc-ficld use. External communications Can send and receive e-mail to or from anyone with an IP connection. Key vendors have either partially or fully implemented ability to send and receive messages over an IP connection. Message integrity* Attachments and commonly used formats arrive intact. Attachments must be converted at a gateway server-a potential point of failure. Performance Variable delivery time. Can guarantee delivery (or notify failures) within a matter of seconds. Security Standards not yet finished. *The ability to retain message formatting and structure. Relatively high level of security within the network. mail today. Key features of proprietary mail systems, such as group scheduling and calendaring, are still unproven. Also, Inter¬ net e-mail doesn’t tell you when or if a mes¬ sage is delivered or provide a guaranteed delivery time. If you rely on these capa¬ bilities, Internet e-mail will probably dis¬ appoint you. Whether you’re willing to make the plunge to Internet e-mail today or you’re making plans for the future, here are some key considerations for making the transi¬ tion as smooth as possible. Integrated Messaging Messaging is at the heart of any enterprise network, and the Internet, with its ubiq¬ uitous presence and common standards, can be the obvious messaging solution, especially for unifying and reducing the number of disparate systems you operate. Furthermore, Internet messaging opens up communication with business contacts outside the enterprise. Some companies, mostly small busi¬ nesses with few legacy systems, are adopt¬ ing a pure Internet solution. Most busi¬ nesses, however, can’t just throw out their old messaging systems. Their features, plus the investments in equipment, training, and other resources, ensure the continued use of legacy messaging systems for the foreseeable future. The trick, then, is to integrate Internet messaging with the pro¬ prietary systems in a way that maximizes the benefits of both. (See the figures on page 69 for a comparison of the different architectures; see the text box “Managing Multiple Messengers” on page 76 for an example.) Indeed, Internet support may be avail¬ able even if companies aren’t looking for it. Companies that want to stick with soft¬ ware they have today will be able to do so, because even if they buy a solution from a proprietary system vendor, the protocol support and administration tools, includ¬ ing directory synchronization, will likely be there. Some vendors do not yet support the latest Internet protocols, such as IMAP4, but virtually all are expected to by the end of this quarter. (See the text box “Internet Standards’* on page 72.) Therefore, companies that want to move slowly into an Internet messaging system can do so through their current suppliers. Those that want to be more aggressive can buy a pure Internet system and maintain interoperability for basic functions with legacy systems. As companies rush to build intranets, they themselves provide TCP/IP connec¬ tivity to their networks and to their employees’ desktops. But changing infra¬ structure takes time. Assuming the infra¬ structure is in place, however, three key issues emerge for adopting an Internet- based e-mail system: standards, cost, and flexibility. The Standards Every system, on both the server and client side, must have a common language for data transmission and retrieval, popular file formats, directory services, security, and certain added features. Here, the Inter¬ net is strong because its standards are wide¬ ly available and in some case have been used longer than proprietary standards. Asa result, the leading proprietary mes¬ saging systems, such as Lotus’s Notes and Microsoft Exchange, already have inte¬ grated the basic Internet protocols into their products or will do so shortly. No¬ vell, with Groupwise 5, has adopted Inter¬ net standards as the native platform. (On the other hand, pure Internet messaging products, likeSoftware.com’s Post.Office and Netscape Communications’ Suite- Spot, work with proprietary systems because they also natively support estab¬ lished interoperability standards such as X.400 and MAPI.) Vendors either implement Internet G 8 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Your E-Mail Is Obsolete Cover Story Although the structures appear similar, proprietary mail architectures must use gateways to convert messages to their own formats. standards natively, as Novell does, or by conversion through a gateway, in the manner of Microsoft or Lotus. In both cases, the commitment is strong. “[Sup¬ port of Internet standards] is a core com¬ ponent of cc:Mail moving forward,” according to Mike Maier, a cc: Mail prod¬ uct manager at Lotus. The Costs The cost of Internet e-mail is closely tied to scalability. As the number of users and locations with e-mail implementations increases, what happens to your hardware and software costs? Will you need more servers and more people to administer your system? Here again, the Internet crowd claims an advantage that propri¬ etary-systems vendors refute. In a typical proprietary system, a serv¬ er can support a given number of people and features. Internet messaging is much more scalable. “The Internet is already larger than what anyone’s enterprise has to deal with,” notes Kevin Carosso, vice president of engineering at e-mail and fax- software vendor Innosoft (West Covina, CA). This scalability especially pays off when a company extends messaging ser¬ vices to a remote location. Often, an IP connection is all that’s required at the remote end; the headquarters server can handle the internal management. Proprietary vendors argue that to pro¬ vide equivalent functionality—schedul¬ ing, for instance—Internet systems would require extra servers, too. However, Inter¬ net messaging is more flexible about where a company places its servers. Cost was the main reason that consult¬ ing firm Pyramid Solutions (Troy, Ml) chose Ipswitch’s IMail Server over Microsoft Exchange. This small company started out with Microsoft Mail. As employees con¬ nected to the Internet, “switching to a pure Internet system made more sense for us,” says senior systems engineer Jerry Palardy. Pyramid has 50 employees in two offices and in several customer loca¬ tions. The Microsoft solution would have required servers at the remote locations and cost about $7000. The Internet mail server cost $700 and was installed on hardware already in place. Palardy says the company is happy with the system, but acknowledges that Exchange might have made more sense if Pyramid were a larg¬ er company. The administrative overhead generally is less with an Internet system because pro¬ prietary systems must duplicate some of the services that are already in the Inter¬ net infrastructure. Tasks associated with maintaining a message store in a propri¬ etary system, such as archiving and com¬ pressing the data, are not necessary in an Internet environment. On the other hand, in environments with multiple messaging systems, adding administration tools for each to a propri¬ etary system is somewhat more com¬ plex. Vendors of proprietary systems have a well-developed arsenal of tools to ease the administrative tasks, while only recently has there been any reasonably good software to manage Internet mes- saging. Still, Internet messaging shows real promise that it can reduce a compa¬ ny’s messaging overhead costs. One Size Doesn't Fit All Vendors of messaging products have to consider two different constituencies with¬ in an organization: the users and the peo¬ ple who manage the system. Both want choices in the products they use, and the solutions for both must be in sync. A company might standardize on one or two messaging architectures, but it would be impractical, if not impossible, to require all employees to use the same mes- saging client. People work in different environments, depending on their jobs. A salesperson, for example, might spend FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 69 INTRODUCING A FLIGHT OF THE IMAGINATION. STUNNING 12.1-DISPLAY Combine a brilliant 12. V. 800 x 600 display with Zoomed Video technology. 16-bit sound and full-motion video lor sensational presentations. SUPERIOR 133MHz PRODUCTIVITY Offering a 133MHz Pentium processor. PCI architecture and an enormous 2GB hard drive, this is a powerful tool. BUILT-IN 28.8Kbps MODEM With a voice/fax modem you can stay in touch with the world quickly and efficiently. Other features include a speakerphone and answering machine. 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Inc AI sptofcciifcons and ava*ab*»y wo -ujt*Kt to dwnga *10X mtwmqti sp—dAlprofrcta nAcaled by trademarii *y*rtocte COMPLETE WITH LANDING GEAR. ItCRA 510CDT AND S10CDS • 133MHz (2.9»r) PenmifW processor. 256KB12 cadw • I2.f5 N. Deerwood Drive / Brown Deer. W1 53223 USA FAX: 414 354 8559 BBS: 414 354 8670 Emal: infof*|ioaic names and trademarks Maud herein aiv |impem of tluir rapaim- cnnip.ink> SjtxlficaUoth sublet to dunpe without noticr C NWSonic Corporation 1‘J96, IW7. All rights turned Cover Sto ■7 Your E-Mail Is Obsolete Managing Multiple Messengers D errick Ho, a manager of corporate network planning at NECis Systems Advanced Engineering department (Mountain View, CA), recently faced inte¬ grating Internet messaging with proprietary systems to maximize the benefits of both. NEC had already standardized on cc:Mail- not an ideal solution for Ho’s 100-person department, many of whom depend on VMS systems. Besides, some people wanted to use Eudora to read their mail from Japan. But most worrisome to Ho was requiring two full¬ time people to manage the mail servers. “That is ridiculous," he says. Ho moved his department’s messaging to Innosoft’s PMDF. This allowed him to get rid of separate servers for each system the department uses. Instead, PMDF provides a channel for each system. (See the figure below.) It further eases administration by sim plifying modifications. Particularly trouble some was making changes to VMS’s send mail, through the obscure sendmail.cf file “You have to be very good at hacking send mail.cf to modify your system to your liking," says Ho. “Not very many people are able to do that." Why didn’t Ho just wait for similar capa¬ bilities from Lotus or Microsoft? "We’re not going to deal with [the Lotus and Microsoft solutions) until they come out," he says. "They have to be better than PMDF." PMDF: Handling Messaging Babel Proprietary e-mail and messaging systems: • LotusNotes • MS-Mail • cc:Mail • Groupwise • Novell MHS * DaVinci • Futums • Notework * Beyond Mail Others: • Unix Mail • Pagers • Others Digital MailBus: • TeamLinks • Mail Works • All-In-One Add-on modules I Other services: • Fax servers • Directory services • Web browser • X.400 PMDF-MTA SMTP/MIME: • POP client/server • IMAP client/server • VMS Mail • Pathworks Mail IBM: •PROFS • SNADS • OV/400 • OV/MVS • DEC Windows Mail • Gold Mail • X.500 • PMDF Mail PMDF is one product that tries to handle multi-platform messaging, cither directly through SMTP/MIME or through platform-specific add-on modules. suites of administration tools. Also, tools designed to handle disparate messaging systems, such as Lotus’s SoftSwitch or Hewlett-Packard’s OpenVision, now ac¬ commodate Internet protocols. Messaging’s Missing Links While the Internet fulf ills the basic require¬ ments for enterprise messaging today, companies are beginning to demand fea¬ tures that it cannot yet deliver easily. The most significant are scheduling (the abili¬ ty to access calendars and plan schedules on-line) and calendaring (the ability only to view a calendar). Mainframe and Unix- based messaging systems, such as IBM’s ()ff ice Vision and Digital Equipment’s All¬ in-One, have offered group scheduling and calendaring for over a decade. Busi¬ nesses have come to depend on this capa¬ bility and are loath to give it up. Ultimate¬ ly, Internet messaging must not only provide group scheduling and calendar¬ ing, but provide backward compatibility with legacy systems. You can’t just strand millions of users who may lack any other migration path. Vendors of both Internet and propri¬ etary systems are now providing this com¬ patibility, but on an ad hoc basis. Notable examples include Novell’s Groupwise, Lotus Notes, and Microsoft Exchange. Versit is a standards-setting organization founded by Apple, AT&T, IBM, and Siemens to promote systems interoper¬ ability. The widely adopted Versit vCal- endar and vCard open standards, which provide a common way to view a calendar and an address book, respectively, usual¬ ly support these efforts. They do not pro¬ vide a means to actually schedule meetings or other events. Similarly, group schedul¬ ing is now an integrated part of applica¬ tion suites, such as Microsoft Office 97 and Lotus’s SmartSuite 96. They now provide integration points to the Internet and oth¬ er messaging systems by way of APIs. (See the text box “I lave Your Calendar Call My Calendar” on page 74.) Coming Attractions Other desired features include e-mail- based faxing, paging, and voice. The goal for sending fax over an IP connection is not just to save the cost of the call, but also to make it a desktop function—to make it as simple as sending an e-mail message. Paging can perform two functions: to alert someone to an important message or to notify system administrators of a problem. Voice could be in the form of an audio attachment, like VocalTec’s Internet Voice Mail 3.0, or making real-time voice con¬ tact over an IP connection through the desktop interface. All these functions are currently available for Internet messaging systems, usually as third-party add-ons. However, no formal standards exist. As a result, the recipient needs compatible functionality, or the mes¬ sage must carry some kind of run-time mod¬ ule, the method that VocalTec uses. Committees within the Internet Engi¬ neering Task Force (IETF) are working on specifications, likely as extensions of the Multipurpose Internet Mail F'xtensions (MIME) format, for all these features. The table “The Internet Standards Pic¬ ture” on page 72 provides estimated dates for completion. When wide-scale imple¬ mentation of those standards will take effect is anyone’s guess. When these features are available, you will likely access them through a univer¬ sal mailbox. Already available with a num¬ ber of products, a universal mailbox looks a lot like an ordinary mailbox with files and folders. The difference is it can man¬ age multiple message types. In Novell Groupwise 5, for example, users can per¬ form document-management tasks, send a fax, schedule appointments, maintain a task list, or perform other functions through the mailbox. (See the screen on page 74.) Folders can be public or private and are accessible to people who are trav- 76 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Serial Port Artistry The Windows NT Collection scsiTerminal Servers'" • Fast serial ports via SCSI • 2-32 ports per SCSI ID EtherLite Port Servers • Native COM ports via Ethernet • 8-32 ports per TCP/IP session PCI Serial Cards • Low-cost ports tor PCI bus Al Central Data, serial communication is not a side business. It's our only business. For over fifteen years, we’ve been designing innovative, rock-solid serial ports for UNIX”* * systems. Now we’re excited to announce a full line of solutions specifically optimized for Windows NT." 1 Our NT Collection provides you with three interface options: Ethernet. SCSI, or the PCI bus. 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This makes EtherLite less expensive, much easier to configure, and very efficient even at high baud rates. To read our white paper use http://www.cd.com/etherwht.html. w Email: c-inlo^pcd.com • http://www.cd.conv • 1602 Newton Drive Champaign. IL 61821-1098 • 217-359-8010 • 800-482-0397 • Fax 217-359-6904 OI9W Cmntut (AMa Corpurakun Al mjltfv (wimivwn! C««*al I AM.i iMKkrl iwi w M iMtftimafcft <4 Crwtfc.il Data Corpnrahuri WncfcM* NT ft a fcarfct*vvk .4 MckhoX Ccm|kw.*kwi Otw* fc.nlttn.irk-. fcw fMtifMtry <4 fct.tr tmiwcfcvr hofcfcts Circle 160 on Inquiry Card. Cover Story Your E-Mail Is Obsolete Security: Who’s Got the Key? C ompanies must communicate with the outside world by e-mail. Yet the thought of moving company data freely to and from a company network is fright¬ ening to information technology (IT) man¬ agers. In a typical intranet, valuable company data is shielded from the outside by a firewall, which sits between the network and an externally accessible server. Nothing gets through-except e-mail. Existing encryption schemes, such as RSA, can ensure secure transmission of data. In fact, an extension for encryption to the MIME for¬ mat, S/MIME, is based on RSA and has broad industry support, but there’s a catch. Encryption requires two keys, public and private. The pri¬ vate key encodes the message, and the pub¬ lic key decodes it. The recipient must have access to tho public key to understand the mes¬ sage. (See the figure below.) The problem is how to make those keys available to only the people you want using them. Some trusted entity must hold those keys in escrow and assign certificates that act as a digital signature, identifying users of those keys. That entity is as yet undetermined. It could be a government body, such as the U.S. Post Office, or an independent organization set up explicitly for the purpose. Verisign (Mountain View, CA) is a commercial enter¬ prise that handles certificates. Some mes¬ saging products, such as Netscape’s Suite- Spot 3.0, come with a certificate server for internal use. Third-party products, such as Nortel’s Entrust, also allow companies to build internal certificate-management appli¬ cations. To ensure compatibility from one cer¬ tification scheme to another, companies will likely cross-certify, according to Ron Rosen¬ thal, director of new initiatives at Harbinger Enterprise Solutions (Atlanta, GA), a ven¬ dor of electronic-commerce products and services. The dilemma: Companies can build and manage internal certificate systems-which gives them control, but at the cost of added administrative overhead-or they can off-load that chore to a third party but lose the secu¬ rity of controlling the distribution of certifi¬ cates. For many companies, neither choice is satisfactory. Messaging Security o Message encryption at the desktop © Encryption for transmission This simplified diagram shows the basics of a secure messaging system. O When a message is sent, it is encrypted at the desktop using a public-key scheme, such as RSA. 0 The sender checks with a local or remote certificate server to get the recipient’s public encryption key. @ Server decrypts Authentication server srtvn 0 At the sender’s messaging server, the message is encrypted again using, say, the RSA-based S/MIME protocol. O At the same time, a copy of the message goes to an authentication server, which might reside at the sender’s or at a third-party location. 0 The recipient’s messaging server decrypts the S/MIME encryption and 0 checks with the authentication server to ensure that the message has not changed during transit. G Finally, the message is decoded at the desktop using the recipient’s public key. Recipient decrypts via public key ding or working from a remote location. Another area that is generating interest in some quarters is Electronic Data Inter¬ change (EDI). This is a common way for businesses to perform purchasing trans¬ actions and is usually done over a secure, dedicated link. The ability to carry on EDI transactions through Internet mes¬ saging and the Web could dramatically reduce the required overhead. Instead of conducting on-line transactions with just the most important suppliers and cus¬ tomers, a company could do so with most of them. Some companies are now accom¬ plishing EDI over the Internet using pro¬ prietary software from vendors such as I-iarbinger. A standard specification is due from the IET F sometime this year. but lack of a standard protocol is not the major barrier to Internet-based EDI. because of the sensitive data and large size of transactions, security must be tight. The technology exists for encrypting data and authenticating people, but practical issues, such as managing certificates (to verify identities) and encryption keys (to decrypt messages), are unresolved. (See the text box above, “Security: Who’s Got the Key?”) What to Do? Describing the move to intranets and Internet-standards-based messaging as a mad rush would be only slightly hyper¬ bolic. The benefits of lower overhead and universal communications, not to men¬ tion the greater choice of products, are quite compelling. However, most businesses are not quite ready to embrace Internet messag¬ ing. Reluctance to give up something that they know works for something with a relatively short track record is part of the reason. The greater hurdle remains the lack of standards for mission-critical applications, such as scheduling/calen¬ daring or document management. Stan¬ dards for most of these features should be in place by the end of the year, but 78 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Everything you're Looking FOr in an ISDN Router is Here. 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ZyXEL Accessing Internets Intranet WORLDWIDE: NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA Tfcl: 886.35.783942 Tfel: (714) 693-0808 Fax: 886.35.782439 Fax: (714) 693-8811 E-mail: salcszyxel.hinet.net E-mail: sales@feyxel.com The Prestige 28641 with V.34 capability allows remote modem users on the road to access the corporate network using analog modems. •'V.34 Connectivity 1 * IP/IPX Routing and Bridging 'Optional AppleTalk •'Single-User Account (SUA) •'PAP/CHAP ^ Analog Port(s)' ^ S/T or U Interface •'Unlimited# of Users •'PPP/MP •'BACP/BAP/CCP •'Telnet and SNMP * Hi/fn~ LZS' (Stac)' Compression xi:l Availabifjn Prctiqf28641_Jy.po mftHliyIM:owp«U>wi.yJ864I " yub^Uo^ny w ilb^rtnouT Ins* with NofVSfcrc is a registered .rad.mw.rk of ZyXEL Communications Corp. Other trademarks and registered trademarks are the properly ,d .h« companies with which tin y are -- __Circle 166 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 167). Cover Sto ry Your E-Mail Is Obsolete Gateway Hell E -mail isn’t just text. Attachments such as images, application-specific files, or even videos are common. Proprietary mail systems have their own ways to accom¬ modate common file types and provide a means to build compatibility with other types, through Mail Application Programming Interface (MAPI). MAPI in itself, however, is not a protocol standard. That, and the fact that it is controlled by a single company, Microsoft, makes some companies nervous. “MAPI is being downplayed to a tremendous extent," says John McFarlane, Software.com CEO. By contrast, the Internet has Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME), a standard way to represent document formats so that all Internet clients, including both browsers and mail readers, can recognize them. Each MIME type is identified by its extension, such as .txt for text or .html for Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). MIME currently covers a wide range of formats, or Internet Media Types, including Microsoft Word, Unix tar, QuickTime, ZIP, PostScript, RealAudio, and Macintosh PICT. Proprietary messaging systems can and do support MIME. However, the MIME at¬ tachments must go through a conversion process at a server gateway, and this is a con¬ troversial point between Internet and pro¬ prietary messaging advocates. “Gateways are designed to lose information," says Paul Hoffman, director of the Internet Mail Con¬ sortium. The proprietary side claims that gateways are relatively sound-as long as they are “properly configured." Barbarians at the Gate When a MIM E attachment hits a gateway, the gateway determines its type and automatically Formatted text, before gateway nmi/ t'i/t t jtt.it trti. {(J ''jfttnc/tittrNi-i Jittr/t a4 iutftt/t i. ttpft/irtt/ittH -iftrri/ir /t/r.i. or rt*rtt Text, after gateway E -mail isn't just text. Attachments such as ^ Images, application speci fic fi les, or even 4 When items must pass through a gateway, the gateway may strip out formatting from the original. converts the document to the appropriate equivalent format. The conversion also strips out data deemed unnecessary. If the gateway makes a mistake, however, the recipient of that document has no way of recovering that mes¬ sage, other than to ask the sender to deliver it by some other means. Even if the attachment converts properly, it could lose its structure. For instance, you might send a snazzy-look- ing Word document with handsome fonts and a carefully planned format as an attachment, only to have the recipient see it as a block of regular text. “Structure is information, too," says Hoffman. Hoffman admits that a well-designed gate¬ way will lose only unimportant data. Howev¬ er, you still have to depend on gateway integri¬ ty with proprietary systems. This potential point of failure does not exist with pure Inter¬ net messaging. But sending attachments by an all-Inter¬ net route is not bulletproof, either. Because of the Internet’s distributed nature, each mes¬ sage travels through a number of different servers before reaching its destination. Nei¬ ther the sender nor the receiver has control over those servers, any of which is capable of introducing errors or losing data. The Inter¬ net architecture also makes it difficult to guar¬ antee a maximum time for a message to reach its destination-a necessity for some com¬ panies. "Guaranteed delivery is the most fun¬ damental thing an e-mail system must do," says Scott Welch, president of e-mail ven¬ dor SoftArc. Legacy Roadblocks Mainframe-based legacy systems, such as IBM’s OfficeVision, are more problematic in the way they handle attachments. They usu¬ ally treat attachments as disconnected routable files that require recipients to manu¬ ally seek and retrieve them. Companies such as Lotus, Digital Equipment, and Innosoft offer gateway products from systems such as PROFS or VMS Mail, but that adds complex¬ ity. Converting addresses from, say, Digital’s limited two-part format to an Internet equiva¬ lent can be tricky. It is conceivable that attachments could become irrelevant. Using Java or ActiveX scripts, it is possible to embed special data types within the body of a mail message. In fact, this feature is available now in Co¬ ordinate.corn’s BeyondMail 3.0. It allows you to send multimedia elements as ActiveX scripts. For now, however, this capability itself is proprietary. Netscape is talking up the benefits of sending Java applets by mail. And last November, Lotus demonstrated a cc:Mail prototype written entirely in Java. It was just a “proof of concept," but Mark McHarry, press- relations manager at Lotus Development, says “that is the future for us." widespread implementation will take longer. What should you do today? Small com¬ panies with little legacy overhead are free to choose any path that meets their cost, feature, and scalability needs. As long as these companies require only basic mes¬ saging capabilities, Internet e-mail maybe the best choice, by year’s end, there will likely be standards that address missing elements in Internet messaging. Managers for departments or divisions within larger companies should he aware of corporate-messaging planning. Choos¬ ing a compatible path could save effort, money, and headaches. For larger companies, the issue is large¬ ly one of pulling together disparate sys¬ tems and providing e-mail access to the outside world with minimal upheaval for users and administrators alike. Fortu¬ nately, this is doable now. Building from either proprietary or standards-based backbones, companies can ensure uni¬ versal e-mail access and choice in both client software and administrative tools. What is not possible at this time is to duplicate the reliability, performance, and feature sets of established proprietary messaging systems in an all-native-Inter¬ net environment. In any implementation where reliabili¬ ty or security is of the utmost concern, pro¬ prietary systems that use a standard dedi¬ cated phone connection rather than the distributed Internet infrastructure are still the safest bet. Internet messaging will eventually catch up to proprietary systems’ reliability and security, but parity is at least a year away. Still, the day when all enterprise mes¬ saging is based on Internet standards seems inevitable. “I would be surprised if by the turn of the century both Lotus and Microsoft weren’t [natively) SMTP- based,” says the IMC’s Hoffman. Those two companies say that they’ll do what their customers want. What those cus¬ tomers are saying is clear: Moving to Internet messaging is not a question of if— it’s a question of when. □ Michael Nadeau, a former HYIli senior editor and author o/Thc BYTE Guide to CD-ROM (second edition, Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 199S), writes extensively about the Internet. You can reach him at m nadeau(a)conknet.com. 80 BYTE EbBKUARY 199/ 4 Books For Only $4— 5" 1 * when you join the Computer Professionals ' Book Society® plus 1 book FREE upon prepayment 1575472 $27.95 enough rope to Shoot Yourself in THE ;& foot Rules for C and C++ Programming ALLEN I. HOLUB 0296898 $24.95 0203466-XX $45.00 lludcover/Counls as 2 8819695 $27.95 91 0989-XX $69.95 M.irdcover/Counts as 2 8821428 $29.95 A< a member of the Computer Pi ifessionals’ Book Society... you’ll er oy receiving Society bulletins every 3- 4 eeks containing exciting offers on the lat st books in the field at savings of up to 5( o off of regular publishers' prices. If yo i want the Main Selection, do nothing an J it will be shipped automatically. If you w. nt another book, or no book at all, sim- pl return the reply form to us by the date Sf reified. You’ll have at least 10 days to NSUrJANT wwfw.iwmsr jgUWgfiEfKEB Counts as 2 . :— C++ n 0464618 $49.50 0514879 $34.95 0576173 $30.00 Hardcover 88X0751 $24.95 ^ '/V 4 V'.S*’ \'j JJLmp.. ■t «k x ;V ;V* 9119549 $39.95 UPGRADING AND REPAIRING NETWORKS 8820812 $29.95 O nuts ■BOLTS Itpciiriunl Programmer 8820901 $27.95 8821495 XX $29.95 9117864 $45.00 Counts as 2 Hardcover Hi COMPUTER Hardware DIAGNOSTICS FOR ENGINEERS 5070339 $40.00 Hardcover w C+ + The Complete . A Reference Quids 0305617 $55.00 8821231 $34.95 9120628 $39.95 5872757 $49.99 0055602 $50.00 8821991 $27.95 The McGraw-Hill Internetworking Command Reference 0633010 $60.00 9121101 $44.95 Computer Professionals’ Book Society A Division of The McGraw-Hill Companies P.O. Box 549, Blacklick, OH 43004-9918 □YES! Rush me the books indicated below for just $4.95 (plus shipping/handling & sales tax). Enroll me as a member of the Computer Professionals’ Book Society according to the terms outlined in this ad. If not satisfied, I may return the books within 10 days for a full refund and my membership will be cancelled. I agree to purchase just 3 more selections at regular Society prices during the next 2 years and may resign anytime therafter. Code f’t of my books for $4.95 If you order a book that counts as 2 choices, writo the book number in one box and XX In the next. □ BILL ME (FREE book not availablo with this payment option ) Charge my: J MC JAm.Exp. JVISA □ Discover J Check or Money Order enclosed made payabfo to The McGraw-Hill Companies SPECIAL OFFER 1 Prepay you ordor by check, money order, or credit card and receive a 6th book FREE. J YES! I want the FREE BOOK indicated to the right, my introductory payment of $4.95 cool # of my FREE book plus $4.95 S&H and appfecabio salos tax is enclosed. Name Address/Apt. * City Zip_ State Phone CPBS mo shipped 40, Clmu Boo* Pb* Canada musl romM m U S funds drown on CwWdn "■ ,OCCt ™ ****** wdwi "9 malrucSons A charge A solos tax wfi bo nddod k> (S 3 ° ° m 10 5 00 pm IST Mood0Y frt<,0 » • Rut: 1 614-759 3749 (24 horn ■ Soy. 7 days a week) BYP297C HFinTilBiiTiViTIi CTI Matures The “integration" component of CTI still istt 7 easy, but there's more help than ever for getting computers and telephones to work together efficiently. omputers and telephones arc two fundamentally dif¬ ferent technologies, yet they have something in com¬ mon: When they work together, we work more effi¬ ciently in applications that hinge on customer service and timely information. Unfortunately, integrating computers and telephones can seem about as easy as herding butterflies. For this reason, some companies are only beginning to take advantage of computer telephony integration (CTI). Tradition¬ ally, call-center operators have benefited most from merging com¬ puters and telephones. However, CTI also makes possible fax- back systems, interactive voice-response implementations, and a number of specialized vertical applications. Fortunately, the hardware, software, and integration tech¬ niques for CTI are maturing. For example, special-purpose add¬ in boards let you add PBX services inside a CTI server. The con¬ solidation of call-switching and network-server functions makes the implementation and maintenance of CTI applications easi¬ er. In some cases, including large-scale call centers, you may need a more elaborate architecture with a stand-alone CTI server connected to a PBX and a database on a mainframe or distributed across a number of servers. More mature hardware and connec¬ tion standards help these implementations, too. We asked a vet¬ eran CTI systems integrator to outline the basic components of a CTI implementation and explain how to make the right choic¬ es. His report, “CTI, Piece by Piece,” begins on page 85. Once you have the hardware in place, you'll need to develop end-user applications. Depending on the programming talents of your development team and the project’s deadline, procedural languages, graphical applications-development environments, telephony components, and visual-programming tools should give you the power you need. “Tools for Telephony Apps," on page 91, describes where each of these alternatives shines or runs out of steam. We also asked two developers of CTI systems—one who chose to program in C+ + ; the other who used visual-pro¬ gramming tools—to tell us how they made their development decisions. Their perspectives can help you focus your choices when it’s time to develop your CTI application. With new hardware and a wealth of development tools, CTI is easier, but still one of the trickiest integration tasks we face. At least the butterflies are now fluttering in the same direction. -Alan Jocti CTI, Piece by Piece... 85 Stitching together a basic CTI system is still tricky. Here's help around the rough spots. 82 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Closer Ties Traditional telephones, with caller ID, are still an essential component of computer telephony integration (CTI), but a new class of telephone/computers that include the Java run-time environment will be launched in CTI applications this year. Public telephone networks aren’t the only platforms for communications. The Internet will play a larger role in CTI if the new generation of smart phones becomes widely used. Telephone-switching functions between PBXes and LAN servers are becoming more tightly integrated. In some cases, companies can centralize both functions within a single server. CTI applications are becoming more varied, ranging from large- scale call centers to interactive voice-response implementations, fax-back services, and systems that use e-mail to send data to customers across the Internet. A wide range of development tools now support these efforts. Smart Telephone Tools for Telephony Apps ... 91 Fhere's a telephony development tool for almost any need or skill level. FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 83 MORE DEVELOPERS PROTECT. HASP Packs More Into Less. Based on a full-custom ASIC utilizing 2500-gate, 1.5-micron K 2 technology, HASP packs the most advanced protection into the smallest key in the world. NSTL Study Rates HASP No.1! A recent test conducted by the National Software Testing Labs, the world’s foremost independent kib, compared the flagship products of leading software protection vendors * The result? HASP was rated the clear overall winner - and number one in all the major comparison categories. PROTECTS MORE. These days, mom* and more develop are chtxKing to protect their software again piracy. They’re protecting more products, on more platforms, with better protectk - and selling more as a result. And more of these developers are protecting with I IASI*. Why? Because IIASP offers more security, more reliability and more features than any other product on the market. NSTL TEST RESULTS, OCTOBER 1995 t - -- ■ - - - ■-- - - ■ ■ Scoring Category Aladdin HASP Rainbow Sentinel Security 9.3 6.3 Case of teaming 91 7.1 Case of Use 8.3 7.2 Versatility/Features 10 8.7 Compatibility 6.7 6.5 Speed of API Calls 0.9 1.2 Final Score 8.5 6.5 •For a full copy of the NSTL report, contact yxir local HASP drtntxilor HASP supports the most advanced platforms, including all Windows 32/l6-bit environments, OS/2, DOS, Mac, Power Mac, NKC, UNIX and lANs. To leant more about how you can protect better - and sell more - call now to order your HASP Developer’s Kit. Grow With Aladdin! The fastest growing company in the industry, with over 4 million keys sold to 20 thousand develo|iers worldwide, Aladdin is setting the standard for software security today. Mac OS Circle 130 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS 1 - 800 - 223-427 www.aks.co North America Aladdin Knowledge Systems Inc. Td (H00> 223 4277,212 564 5678, Fax: 212 564 3377. K mail hasp.sak-s^iisaiccaxn Int’l Office Aladdin Knowledge Systems Ltd. Td >972-3-656 2222, Fax: +972-3-537 5796. K mail: !tasp.saks^alo.cotn Germany FAST Software Security AG IH: +49 8989 42 21-37. Fax: +49 89 89 12 21 40. K mail info«"fx9 agile United Kingdom Aladdin Knowledge Systems UK Ltd. Td +44 1753 622266. Fax +44 1753 622262. K mall: saksGPaldn.cn uk Japan Aladdin Japan Co., Ltd. Td: +81 426 60 7191. Fax: +81 426-60 7194. K mail aksMadinjoafp Benelux Aladdin Software Security Benelux B.V. Td: +31 24 641 9777. Fax: +31 24 645 m. K mail IOOS26 135(>4^a«iinHisenvcnm ALADDII' The Professional's Cho\ • Aixklin ftimu 086 9730688 ■ Australia Ox** 03 98906686 ■ CMl Mui*»p j lit? 7360041 IH 07 I 643//87B 8 CmR A*» 07 /66O0*> R Ornnrt BrnnJun 039 5//3II R (qjfd 0? 360463? ■ IwUnd I) Systems 0 8/09570 ■ France 1 40859BB6 ■ I Utfum 01 6/56320 R Horn) Kong itHtap 0? 5484629 R Wl 011 ,'UIW R EMy Parian Ikito 07 2614/3*1 ■ Keren IX» A W MMWI ■ Metico SSoR 5 708/4/7 ■ New Zealand ham) CM 6666014 R Poland SysRwm 061 4807/3 ■ Portugal fuMnudu 01 41| ■ Romania Ho Mnactm 064 140283 a Singapore HR 066 5686/88 ■ Soalli Africa (He Row 011 8864/CM a Spain PC Itwtawe 03 4893193 8 Switzerland nwj 061 /!«??? ■ Tama lm> a? 56696/6 a Tinker U+i.Arti «3I? 46/063;, a Yapmlwia Hep 071 t| min im vr* u?«RNKP**4W WSeamtlU Manwhctu nlMAevHcOOiww eewmM tennen wBlulil ii 1 Stitching together a basic CTI system is still tricky. Here's help around the rough spots. By John Silling CTI, Piece by Piece I f you hear computer tele¬ phony integration (CTI) and killer application in the same sentence, you’ll probably think of call centers. The ability to have an incoming phone call and an associated data file arrive almost simultaneously at someone’s desk can improve customer service. And if you implement the system correctly, it also can reduce communica¬ tions costs for your company. However, call centers are only the tip of the CTI iceberg. The merging of com¬ puters and communications means you can fax follow-up information to a cus¬ tomer, schedule call-back times, send sales quotes via the Internet, and transfer calls—voice connection and data screen—to someone else in your com¬ pany. CTI also underlies many ingenious vertical-market applications, like a health-care system where cardiac patients can hold a telephone to their chests and relay electrocardiogram data to distant telephony servers (see the text box “Vi¬ sual Tools to the Rescue” on page 92). Unfortunately, launching a CTI imple¬ mentation still isn’t easy. For example, most of the savings in communications costs derived from CTI can be found at the beginning of the call, during the call setup. However, the setup also is the point where many companies face their first CTI disappointment. A poorly de¬ signed implementation can actually increase the time it takes to answer and process incoming calls. Complications arise because CTI still requires you to integrate fundamentally different types of computer and com¬ munications systems and technologies. Some integration help comes as APIs such as Telephony Server API (TSAPI), Tele¬ phony API (TAPI), and Java Telephony API (JTAPI) evolve. Also, automatic call dis¬ tributor (ACD) and PBX vendors are opening up their system architectures to development tools that support industry standards. But to achieve the promise of reduced costs and to embrace advanced The CTI server is typically the linchpin that coordinates sending phone calls and data files to a target desktop. CTI capabilities, you need to understand the basic structure of a CTI implementa¬ tion. Here’s an overview. The Basics I he first step in developing a basic CTI application is to add automatic number identification (ANI) service to incoming calls from your telephone company. ANI attaches caller ID with the voice call as it’s being sent to your ACD or PBX. Phone companies typically charge you for the basic ANI service, then add an additional cost for each call. Note that the launch of a CTI project is a great time for you to review your relationship with your tele¬ phone company. At the least, make sure that yours bills each call in 15-second increments. Some customers are still being billed in 1-minute increments, which adds to the cost of the CTI appli¬ cation and other telephone activities. When the call arrives at your company, your ACD or PBX strips off the ANI data, combines it with an internal phone exten¬ sion, and sends the caller information to a CTI server. The CTI server compares the caller ID and phone extension with its database to find the right PC. Next, the CTI server generates a data record and sends it to a customer database that may reside within the CTI server, on another computer at the same location, or even on a mainframe host system in another geographical area. This data record requests that the customer information associated with the caller’s number goes to a specific PC in the company—a tele¬ marketing representative’s, for example. CTI servers—the traffic cops that direct voice and data to the right desktops—tra¬ ditionally have been Unix boxes because FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 85 of that platform’s scalability and relia¬ bility. However, a new generation of Win¬ dows NT servers is gaining ground thanks to economical hardware costs and steady increases in the number of CTI applica¬ tions that are being developed or ported to that platform. The next version of Microsoft’s TAPI may provide better co¬ ordination between Windows NT and TAPI clients (see the text box “Building Bridges with TAPI and TSAPI” below). You can team a CTI server with an ACD or PBX. In this way, you preserve your investment in existing telecomniunica- CTI, Piece by Piece tions hardware, while adding the CTI capabilities you need. Alternatively, you can install multifunction servers in place of PBXes, thanks to chips from compa¬ nies such as Dialogic and Mitel that can perform ACD/PBX-like switching tasks— sending incoming calls to an interactive voice-response (1VR) board or to a per¬ son’s desktop, for example. You will need to install the proper telephony-interface cards to connect the CTI server to the phone network and to the internal phone system. The CTI server’s plug-in boards handle such chores as IVR, voice mail, and fax on demand. Board vendors also are merging switching functions and tele¬ phony capabilities, such as I VR, onto sin¬ gle boards, thereby reducing the number of add-in boards and integration woes that CTI engineers need to contend with. Another alternative is to use an ACD in lieu of a CTI server. Aspect Telecommu¬ nications, for example, can support CTI functionality directly in its ACD. The ACD acts like a transaction link server, where the ACD system itself takes on the role of the CTI server and provides routing infor¬ mation to a host system. This offers a Building Bridges with TAPI and TSAPI Y our computer network and your phone net¬ work were not designed to work togeth¬ er. You can link the two systems at the applica¬ tion level, but first you need a common interface with which to build the applications. The two most significant of these interfaces are Tele¬ phony API (TAPI) and Telephony Server API (TSAPI). Both perform essentially the same function-they enable the construction of PC- based telephony applications that operate inde¬ pendently of the telephone network. Both are independent of the method of connection- direct serial link, add-in board, voice server, or switch-to-host link-between computer and phone system. (See the table for a comparison of features.) They attain that independence by abstract¬ ing the hardware layer, thus sidestepping the need to write code specific to each proprietary switch (and there are many) while taking advan¬ tage of each system's unique capabilities. This pleases developers, but it also allows cus¬ tomers to keep their existing equipment. And both provide a means for extending the speci¬ fication. Beyond these points, however, each takes a different approach. TAPI Microsoft and Intel were the primary develop¬ ers of the originally client-based TAPI. TAPI 2.0, however, is built into both the Windows NT Server 4.0 and the Windows NT Workstation 4.0, which allows the OS to function as either a telephony client or server. (Windows 95 cur¬ rently has built-in support for TAP11.4 applica¬ tions, which are compatible with TAPI 2.0.) In practice, TAPI 2.0 is focused on the desk- top-a PC and a phone. That is, TAPI assumes the desktop to be one end point of each call. It preserves the ability to do third-party call con¬ trol (calling from one desktop on behalf of an¬ other). The specification allows for several tele¬ phony applications to run simultaneously-over either a single or multiple phone lines-on a client or server PC. It provides a means to dis¬ tinguish different media streams (data, voice, fax) and route calls to the appropriate applica¬ tion or device. Incoming faxes, for example, go to the fax application or machine. TAPI is part of the Windows Open Services Architecture (WOSA). Like other WOSA ser¬ vices, such as those for printing or display, TAPI has two interfaces. The first is the API for devel¬ opers writing the software. The second is the service provider interface, which provides a means of connection to a specific device-in TAPI's case, the telephone network. With TAPI 2.0, you can build applications for Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), ISDN, PBX, and IP networks. Want your applica¬ tions to reach out over the Internet? TAPI can handle that, too. It essentially sees the Internet as just another service provider. Other TAPI fea¬ tures include support for Unicode, ActiveX con¬ trols, and Intel's universal serial bus (USB), a 1 2-Mbps port that can connect up to 127 devices to a single PC. Microsoft has announced several planned enhancements for TAPI 2.0. They include a remote-service provider, intended to speed development of client/server telephony appli¬ cations; remote administrative tools to aid with client/server configuration issues and reports; and Windows Telephony Service extensions for client access. (The company expects these features to appear in the next beta version of Memphis. At about the same time, Windows 95 will gain TAPI 2.0 support.) TAPI is closed: TAPI vs. TSAPI TAPI 2.0 TSAPI Server- or client-based Both Server Required server Windows NT NetWare Supported OSes Windows NT, Windows (all), Windows 95 1 Unix, Mac, OS/2 32-bit support ✓ ✓ 16-bit support ✓ Call-center support ✓ ✓ High-speed bus support USB N/A 3 Third-party call support ✓ ✓ Media stream routing ✓ Connection types supported ISDN, PBX, PSTN, IP PBX, Centrex Extensible ✓ ✓ 1 Release to coincide with next beta release of Memphis. 2 Applications must bo based on Win 16 and be fully TAR 1 3-com pliant. 3 Because TSAPI uses only the sorver model, bus support on the desktop is irrelevant. ✓ -yes 86 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 cost-effective way to generate a basic screen-pop CTI application. However, a transaction-link server works only if the CTI application does not need a front end to the host system data¬ base. A CTI server can program front-end information to rectify shortcomings in a host system’s database. This front-end service is a benefit if a customer’s calling- from number is missing from the host sys¬ tem’s database or in a cellular operation where the customer may be calling from a number of different phones. A front- end CTI server database can correct these shortcomings in the host system with¬ out your having to rewrite the host sys¬ tem’s application. In addition, if your CTI application needs to access a number of host systems to supply the first data screen, preload¬ ing the CTI server database will provide a single GUI even if your CTI application connects to a variety of hosts, such as a 3270,5250, or telnet-supporting system. Anyway you look at it, front-end load¬ ing the CTI server is a much better alter¬ native than either rewriting the host sys¬ tem’s database or trying to synchronize several host systems. Additionally, you can modify the front-end database in the CTI server with simple additions, modifications, and deletions as changes to the host system take effect. What’s Inside The processing power you need for your CTI server depends on the size of your application. Some companies can fulfill their server needs with inexpensive 486-based systems (sec “When C+ + Is Right” on page 93). Whatever processor you choose, take advantage of today’s Microsoft controls it, which makes developers of telephony products nervous. Microsoft claims that since many other companies (more than 40) have contributed to the TAPI specifi cation, it is effectively industry-defined and, therefore, open. However, where independent or ganizations define and approve other indus¬ try standards, Microsoft remains the final arbiter of what TAPI is. TSAPI S( i ver-based TSAPI, developed by Novell and AT&T, is designed to integrate PBX or Centrex phone systems with Netware networks. The only physical link in the system is between the NetWare file server and the phone network. Applications built with TSAPI have a logical link between the PC and the desktop phone. You can control calls through the applications from either end of the connection or hand off that control to a third party. A server telephony model also eliminates the need for additional hardware to connect desktop PC to phone. This can save a lot of money in a large organi¬ zation, but there is a trade-off. Because there’s no physical connection between the PC and the phone, TSAPI applications cannot identify different media streams as TAPI can. Thus, with TSAR, you cannot automatically route a fax to a fax application, for example. The TSAPI specification has wide industry support, especially among PBX and Centrex vendors, virtually all of which offer NetWare driv¬ ers for their systems. Just as important, TSAPI supports all the major OSes, including Win¬ dows (all versions), the Mac OS, OS/2, and Unix. This, obviously, appeals to companies f >i nlding cross-platform telephony applications. TAPI, the Mediator Applications • PIM address book • Call control • Integrated messaging • Desktop conferencing API I TAPI (Telephony application programming interface) (Service Phone services TAPI provides hooks into applications and communications systems. Unlike Microsoft with TAPI, Novell and AT&T have handed over the TSAPI specification to the European Computer Manufacturers Asso¬ ciation (ECMA), which developed the Com¬ puter-Supported Telecommunication Applica- tions (CSTA) standard on which TSAPI is based. ECMA is currently working on Phase II of the CSTA specification, due to roll out some¬ time this spring. Slated improvements to TSAPI include access to voice services, so that you can perform all functions of your phone system (e.g., play or record a message) from within a TSAPI application. Phase II will also allow TSAPI applications to transfer data with calls, so that, for example, help-desk personnel can take information from a customer and transfer that data and customer to another person. In addition, Novell is working with Sun Microsys¬ tems to support its initiative for JTAPI, the API for building Java-based telephony applications. Pros and Cons TAPI is by far the more popular interface for tele¬ phony applications. For many companies, its tight integration with Windows is a plus, but more important is the fact that both client and server components come bundled with the OS. Novell charges $26,995 for a 250-seat TSAPI implementation (including a NetWare run-time module). For businesses with NT-based net¬ works, TAPI is a no-brainer for a server-based telephony model. It also makes sense for small companies that tend to use a direct connection between the PC and phone. Thanks to its multiplatform support, TSAPI is better suited for more diverse environments run¬ ning on a NetWare backbone. And despite its cost, TSAPI actually is cheaper to implement in non-Windows NT environments. The alternative there is client-based TAPI 1.3, which requires an add-in board on each PC. Michael Nadeau is a freelance author who writes extensively about communications, the Internet, and storage technologies. You can contact him at m_nadeau@conknet.com. editors@bix.com. FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 87 CTI Pieces Link PCs to Phone Networks Y ou can connect a PC to a phone system in one of four basic ways. The phone-cen¬ tric model requires an external adapter or tele¬ phone that is connected through the PC’s ser¬ ial port. It is easy to configure, but could be limited in terms of how much information and control it supports from the PC. In the PC-cen¬ tric model, the phone line terminates on a card in the PC or on the motherboard itself. This model maximizes the information and control delivered to the PC. The switch-to-host model establishes a logical connection via the LAN between the PC and phone (see the figure on page 85). The voice-server model uses ordinary lines between the server and the PBX or key system. This model allows the routing of infor¬ mation to the server via the LAN and then trans¬ mission over the phone network. -M.N. low costs for RAM and disk-storage capacity, especially if the CTI server will act as a front end to a host system. The rule of thumb is to install the maximum amount of RAM the system can handle and buy at least a 5-GB hard drive. The last thing you want is to take down a CTI server to upgrade RAM and storage capac¬ ity when each is so cheap to install at the beginning. For reliability, many CTI appli¬ cations require a RAID subsystem or a redundant CTI server that can automat¬ ically step in if the primary server fails. Several methods are available to con¬ nect your CTI server to your ACD or PBX. Some ACD and PBX vendors provide a direct connection between ACD or PBX and the CTI server, but this is typically with proprietary systems. Others prefer that you connect the ACD or PBX to the CTI server using a LAN and TCP/IP. In either case the ACD or PBX vendor will supply the interface card to its product. TCP/IP is becoming the de facto standard for connecting PCs to CTI servers and CTI servers to the ACD or PBX. X.25 was prevalent when terminals outnumberd PCs on the desktop. Unfortunately, serial interfaces between PCs and the CTI server still exist, but no one should consider doing this today. CTI projects often force companies to establish interface and connectivity stan¬ dards for the way CTI components com¬ municate. This is an area where the infor¬ mation systems and telecommunications departments may clash. If your company is like most, you’re using the communi¬ cations stacks provided by the network OS (NOS). However, the connectivity interface of the ACD/PBX will be limited and may force the CTI application to use an interface protocol that is not sup¬ ported by the current information sys¬ tems’ network plan. A CTI launch should be a catalyst for setting a company wide standard if one does not exist. If you already have not done so, this will be the most costly part of the CTI application and may require you to purchase new hardware and soft¬ ware. In addition, you should design, configure, and deploy the data trans¬ port protocol (such as TCP/IP) in con¬ junction with your physical cabling plant. This is no simple task, so plan accordingly. Mistakes and lack of communication and understanding between the information systems and communications groups, as Does CTIPay? H ow do you determine if the computer telephony integration (CTI) project you're con¬ sidering is cost-effective? The first step is to determine your current call setup time. Here’s how we did that calculation from one recent customer. First we timed how long it took the customer’s operators to recite a canned greeting. Typ¬ ically, that greeting took 7 to 10 seconds to say-plenty of time for even a slow network to query a host system and return the proper screen. We then tested the host system's response time and determined that the first data screen to come up during a peak incoming calling hour was an average of four seconds. Not bad, considering this was a call center of about 400 operators, and the host systems were in another state. Using this example, it would take 24 seconds to set up the call: 8 seconds to greet the customer, 12 seconds to gather the customer’s home phone number, and 4 seconds to query the host system for the first data screen. This 24 seconds was the actual setup time of the incoming call and the time that a CTI application must reduce to achieve any return on investment. Using this information, we estimated that by capturing the customer’s automatic num¬ ber identification (ANI), and prompting the host system for information during the time the operator is greeting the customer, we could reduce the setup time of each call by 16 sec¬ onds. We calculated that our customer could take approximately 164 more calls per day before adding more staff (based on the fact that the average call was 7 minutes long and each operator took an average of 55 calls a day). 88 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 TA 1 1 STIC A (automatically configures ilsdf for nimbus ‘)VXT |l<>ng file miwv tie. | or .VI) ■ A complete dam analysis svstnn with thousands of on- •mii . iMonii/ahlr. presentation quality graphs fullv integrated with all nntet- Mri ■ ComprvfaeiHhe nimbus support, OLK (diem and serwr). DOE cus- h*M al»l, AutoTttsIt toolbars. pop-up menus ■ Multiple data . results and graph with Attn ^rufth links ■ Hie largest selection of statistics ami graphs in a kl< s nu*iii; comprehensive implementations of: Exploratory tediniqu.-s with k ion ,1 brushing; multiway tables with batmen (presentation quality reports); *i|Mi.imetrics; distribution Pitting; multiple regression; general nonlinear esti- _ C3E3 -- lick STATISTIC A (for Windows) ■ A suhvi of STAT/STICi; •hi 1 selection of basic statistics and the full anabtic ami prescntaiii h * s« apahttties olSTA nSTIC i ■ Price $495 ATI TICA Industrial System (rvquires S7AT1STKA fA/A. n ■ Tile largest seleilion of industrial statistics in a single lb control charts (real time data acquisition options), process i ish. KAK, sampling plans, and an extremely comprehensive sef ilmental design (IK>M) methods ■ Hi iohs4 s and reports (hid 'turn key" $ blares) ■ Price $895. AT! TICA/Mac (for adntosh) Pri n “ pubkc ’ 0mm *- <*>•<>•. ......~~ * su** Circle 152 on Inquiry Card. well as poor project management, can lead to improper specification of tech¬ nologies, which could haunt your CT1 application for years. Accuracy Counts The main job of the CTI server is to man¬ age the routing table information—the ACD or PBX phone extensions and the network LAN and WAN addresses of each PC. It is important that you program a detailed and precise routing table into the CTI database. You need only check and double-check the work of the person who CTI, Piece by Piece entered the addressing data. Neverthe¬ less, accurate routing-table input can be one of the most time-consuming parts of the CTI development and deployment cycle. Errors in routing tables can lead to disaster because a single mistake can take down two CTI positions at a time as a phone call and a data screen travel their separate ways through your company. Once all the preceding items have been addressed, your next critical decision will be what CTI software development tools you’ll use to create custom applications. If you have unlimited information sys- Arc You a Pru dent Person? Then invest in DTK networking solutions with Pentium' Pro processors! We couldn't beat these reviews if we'( a lf you need a high-speed, easily configured and expandable system at a good price, the DTK APRI- 31M system is an excellent value." —Windows NT Magazine, Feb. 1997 “The APRI s all-SCSI peripherals, AMI BIOS. Intel 440FX chipset and proprietary motherboard written them ourselves! (We didn't!) combined to garner the highest overall score and to outpace the field in two of the five applications tests. It finished...a close second in the remaining three individual tests " “The DTK APRI-31M/P200 is a price/performance leader, and an excellent value..." — Computer Reseller News. 9/2/96 Now, DTK’s APRI-32 has DUAL Pentium® Pro processors! 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APRI-32 • DUAL Intel 200MHz Pentium* Pro processors W/256KB internal cache • Up to 384MB EDO RAM on board • 3COM Network Card • AMI Flash BIOS • 6X SCSI CD-ROM drive • 2GB/4GB/9GB SCSI-2 or Wide SCSI Seagate Hard Drive • PCI 64-bit Graphics Accelerator with 2MB or 4MB RAM • 3.5-inch Floppy Disk Drive • MS Mouse and MS Keyboard • MS Windows NT Workstation v. 4.0 2-Yr. Ltd. Warranty (On Site Option) j BIB DTK Computer Nationwide (800)289-2385 ♦ www.dtkcomputer.com The Intel Inside Logo and Pentium lie regnteied trademarks and the Pentium Pio Processor Logo is a trademark ol Inlet Corporation The DTK monitor logo is a registered trademark ol OTK Computer Inc Ail other product names and company names used herein are lor identihcalton purposes only and are the property ol Iheu respective owners ©1997 OTK Computer Inc terns resources and a talented coding team, you may choose Visual Basic, Del¬ phi, PowerBuilder, C, or C+ + . Or you may choose canned development GUI tools (see “Tools for Telephony Apps”on page 91). Before you start any GUI development effort, you should sit down with your operators to get a detailed understand¬ ing of just how incoming calls flow and how the operators interface with cus¬ tomers. This may sound basic, but we’ve been involved in a number of CTI fixes where thousands of dollars were spent on the best equipment only to have the CTI project fail because no one asked the operators how the calls flowed once they answered the phone. Plan for the Future Once you’ve established the fundamen¬ tal building blocks of a CTI application, customer-service improvements and cost savings can be just one more application away. For example, we recently expanded WHERE Aspect Telecommunications Corp. San Jose, CA (800)541-7799 (408)325-2200 fax: (408) 325-2260 http://www.aspect .com Dialogic Corp. Parsippany. NJ (201)993-3000 fax:(201)993-3093 h tt p:// w w w.d ia log ic .com Microsoft Corp. Redmond. WA O F I N D (800) 426-9400 (206)882-8080 fax:(206)936-7329 http://www.microsoft .com Mitel Corp. Kanata. Ontario, Canada (613)592-2122 fax: (613) 592-4784 http://www.mitcl.com Novell, Inc. Orem, UT (801) 222-6000 fax: (800) 668-5329 http://www.novcll.com a basic CTI application into a system called computer and interactive voice response (CIVR). CIVR prompts the customer for specific information prior to the opera¬ tor receiving the call. This can result in cost savings greater than the traditional CTI application because some callers may not need to speak to a person to get the information they want. If a caller needs a live operator, a simple key press will cor¬ rectly route the call and II) information. The best CTI project targets present needs while building for the future. Don’t fall into the short-vision trap. □ John Silling is a consultant for call-center devel¬ opment at Ixygica, a systems integrator. You can reach him cjo editors@bix.com. 90 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Circle 222 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 223). tfgiCTix.rrviTii There's a telephony development tool for almost any need or skill level. By Michael Nadeau Tools for Telephony Apps I he days of creating telephony applications using the Hayes AT command set are long I gone. Today, you have just as many choices of telephony development tools as for any other type of application programming. At the lowest levels, you can use a procedural language such as C to write code that speaks directly to the telephony hardware. Or you can work in a graphical development environment and avoid actual coding altogether. Com¬ ponent software and visual programming tools let you build telephony applications by linking ready-made modules. Choosing the right tool from this mix of approaches, however, isn’t always easy. In this article we’ll discuss how the major types of programming tools for CTI com¬ pare. We’ll also look at two companies that chose different approaches—low- level procedural programming versus visual toolkits—for CTI development. Block by Block Inevitably, your choice of development tool will represent a trade-off between power and ease of use. Writing your soft¬ ware in C, for example, puts you in full control of all the telephony hardware’s capabilities but requires a high level of skill (see “When C+ + Is Right” on page 93). C is generally the language of choice for OEMs developing applications for resale. At the other end of the spectrum, visual programming tools offer drag-and- drop application construction but little hardware control (see “Visual Tools to the Rescue” on page 92). Fortunately, component software offers a middle ground for developing telephony applications. Several compa¬ nies, such as Pronexus, Artisoft, and Tech¬ nically Speaking, sell telephony-specific ActiveX components. Microsoft has tightly integrated ActiveX controls with its Telephony API (TAPI) spec. Compo¬ nent software presents a graphical devel¬ opment environment and allows pro¬ grammers to avoid having to code much Component-based CTI, with telephony APIs like Sun's JTAPI, is easier than writing C code but more robust than drag-and-drop tools. of an application’s internal plumbing. With software components, you can cre¬ ate larger applications by combining smaller, more specialized programs. This leaves programmers having to code only those functions unique to their programs, using the component soft¬ ware’s native language or a variety of oth¬ er tools. The benefit of using components can be rapid development with a high lev¬ el of customization. Component building blocks are becoming widely available. Microsoft boasts that over 1000 ActiveX controls are now available. The company recent¬ ly turned over control of the ActiveX spec to The Open Group (http://www.open- group.org), an industry standards-setting consortium. It, in turn, has set up the ActiveX Working Group (http://www .activex.org/), which is entrusted to develop the ActiveX standards. As an open standard, ActiveX should see broad industry support. Java Telephony ActiveX has competition on the horizon in the form of JTAPI, the Java Telephony API proposed by Sun Microsystems, which developed the spec with a handful FEBRUARY 1 99 7 BYTE 9 1 Tools for Telephony Apps of companies, including Intel, Lucent Technologies, Nortel (Northern Tele¬ com), and Novell. It is essentially a set of reusable telephone call-control objects. Java-based telephony applications will run on any computer with a Java virtual machine and a JTAPI telephony subsys¬ tem. Because they are based on Java, JTAPI objects are independent of any operating system and hardware platform and are therefore portable from one plat¬ form to another (see the figure “Internet Telephony'" on page 91). JTAPI defines a set of class libraries con¬ sisting of a core group of telephony capa¬ bilities and a set of extensions that devel¬ opers can use as needed for individual applications. For example, one set of extensions handles tasks such as call rout¬ ing and setting up conferences among groups of callers. One of the more promising applica¬ tions of JTAPI will be a new generation of hybrid phones that combine tradi¬ tional telephone service with a Web- capable device you can use for browsing and e-mail. Sun says it is developing, along with Nortel, an Internet telecom¬ munications device that uses JTAPI to link to other phones, desktop comput¬ ers, and network computers via the Internet. JTAPI works with other tele¬ phony APIs, such as TAPI and Novell’s Visual Tools to the Rescue S ome CTI systems only seem like lifesavers. For thousands of car¬ diac patients, CTI actually is an essential tool for keeping them alive. The Paceart Associates transtelephonic electrocardiogram (ECG) and arrhythmia monitoring systems let patients send heart- monitor information to their doctors over the telephone by holding the receiver to their chests. Paceart’s add-on to the Paceart System, called CardioVoice, com¬ bines interactive voice response (IVR), voice mail, fax-on-demand, and outbound messaging into a comprehensive patient support sys¬ tem. CardioVoice was written in Microsoft Visual Basic and uses Artisoft’s (formerly Stylus’s) Visu¬ al Voice Pro telephony toolkit and Microsoft Access database. Visual Voice provides a high-lev¬ el interface to standard telepho¬ ny and fax features. The toolkit contains custom controls (VBX, OLE Control, and DLL versions) and a graphical Voice Work¬ bench. Visual Voice supports a variety of telephony equipment, including TAPI-compliant hard¬ ware, multiline voice- response boards, and single-line fax/ modem/voice boards. The devel¬ opers used assembly language to code the portion of the system that does real-time collection of the ECG data. “Visual Voice gave us a simple yet powerful toolkit to leverage our expertise in Access Basic and develop quickly,” according to Dr. Michael Bergelson, Car- dioVoice's chief designer. CardioVoice has two major components: proprietary CardioVoice Phone clients and an unattended "receiving station” telephony server, which is normally located in the physician’s office. The pro¬ prietary CardioVoice phonos (desktop, portable, or cellular) are actu¬ ally pacemaker and ECG transmitters. By attaching special elec¬ trodes to the phone handset and either holding them with both hands or pressing them to their bare chest, patients can easily transmit fre¬ quency-modulated heartbeat data to a receiving station. The receiv¬ ing station converts the analog data to digital form and transmits the patient's name, phone number, and heart rate to the attending physician’s alphanumeric pager. The physician can then dial into the receiving station and have the patient's ECG plot faxed back to them. The basic Paceart system runs on a Windows PC. Receiving sta¬ tions are typically a Pentium-class PC with 16 MB of RAM running Windows 95. The Dialogic Proline/2V telephony card that's used in the system can handle two analog lines simultaneously. The 16-bit Dialogic cards support such features as caller ID, global dial-pulse detection (optional), TAPI, and WAV audio. The setup generally uses only one or two lines. This allows the developers to deploy the system on an inexpensive Windows 3.11 or Windows 95 PC. For reliabil¬ ity, the designers use redundant phone lines and often connect two telephony servers that work in tandem to minimize downtime if the PC or telephony card fails. Currently, more than 450 pacemaker and arrhythmia cen¬ ters are using the Paceart sys¬ tem to monitor about 75,000 patients every day. The system’s primary users are people who wear pacemakers and others who are considered at-risk and require intermittent cardiac monitoring. Each patient has a unique voice-mail box that enables patients and physicians to communicate efficiently. Car¬ dioVoice can also make sched¬ uled calls to subsets of the patient database to confirm appointments, send medication reminders, and relay test results. Dr. Jay Erlebacher of Cardi¬ ology Consultants is an enthu¬ siastic user of CardioVoice pri¬ marily because it is convenient for physicians and patients. “In the past we had to rely on a service bureau to distribute the loop recorders to the patients, attend the phone uploads of the data, and deliver the results to us. This whole process would often take sev¬ eral days. With CardioVoice and our own Paceart loop monitors we can be monitoring a patient and receiving results in a day or less without being at the mercy of an unresponsive and expensive ser¬ vice bureau." Joe Tartaglia is the vice president of High Caliber Systems (New York City), a developer of custom computer telephony systems. You can reach him at JoeT@HighCaliber.com. 92 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 PHOTOGRAPHS KELUE WALSH Cl 9«7 Telephony Services API (TSAPI), to invoke telephony capabilities. Drag-and-Drop Apps Although telephony components are gaining ground, many companies also opt for an application toolkit when devel¬ oping internal telephony programs. These products are sometimes called application generators, though that term is more accurately associated with their text- or forms-based predecessors. Appli¬ cation toolkits are highly graphical envi¬ ronments that let you build software by linking telephony functions. These tool¬ kits, which often use a flowchart meta¬ phor, let you select common functions— such as “pick up receiver” or “send fax”—that are represented as icons or menu choices. You drag and drop these choices into place. No programming skill is required, but you do need to under¬ stand syntax and logic—how all the pieces of your application interact. It is possible to create complete appli¬ cations in this manner. But what happens when some feature or customization you need can’t be done with a toolkit? You can extend the toolkit’s capabilities in a num¬ ber of ways, depending on the specific product. In most cases, you can incor¬ porate C or Visual Basic routines into the application that the toolkit creates. In When C++ Is Right D r. Quiz makes house calls. Or more accurately, office visits to Pfizer, Time Inc., Coach Leathcrware, and other large compa¬ nies. The good doctor is actually a custom-built interactive voice response (IVR) system used by Professional Motivation Technolo¬ gies (PMT), which provides training services. Graduates of the company’s program call a special number to take a quiz that rein¬ forces and measures the caller's understanding of training materials. The responses help managers measure the effectiveness of their instruction efforts and improve their return on their training investment. Few Tools JABS Technologies, the system’s designer and developer, built Dr. Quiz from the ground up with¬ out using any of the various CTI toolkits or application generators on the market. “When work on Dr. Quiz began over three years ago, there weren’t many tools avail¬ able for the Windows NT plat¬ form," says Jorge Balmaseda, JABS president. So JABS and codeveloper High Caliber Sys¬ tems, a New York City-based sys¬ tems integrator, wrote the soft¬ ware using Microsoft Visual C++ 4.2 and Dialogic's software development kit. Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 stores responses and other data. Multithreaded Balmaseda says the development environment gave him complete control over system availability, scalability, and extensibility. Windows NT provides a stable platform with sophisticated event-logging and performance monitoring. It allowed JABS to build a multithreaded application as a service that runs in the background whenever the PC is running. (Dr. Quiz runs on a 486/66 PC with 32 MB of RAM and NT Workstation version 4. A Dialogic 121 /B telephony card can handle up to 12 analog lines simultaneously, although the software was designed to handle at least 10 times that number, according to Balmaseda.) For high availability, call processing can be manually switched over (locally or remotely) to a standby PC if the primary PC happens to go down. The manual switch-over is accomplished using NT’s Ser¬ vice API. A remote watchdog PC automatically monitors the main system through NT’s remote procedure calls. This standby PC can take over operations if the main system goes down. Line counts can be increased by increasing tele¬ phony card densities in the PC or by adding more PCs. One of the biggest problems the developers faced when building the system was the lack of multithreading in the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) Open Database Con¬ nectivity (ODBC) classes. The programmers ended up drop¬ ping MFC in favor of directly using the ODBC API for all data¬ base access. Plugging Leaks Memory leaks that occurred only after hundreds of calls had been made also stalled the develop¬ ment process. What are Bal- maseda's primary words of wis¬ dom to those people starting to develop their own CTI applica¬ tions? “Test, test, test. And then test again." In the end, however, the inter¬ active voice-response system has saved the company hundreds of worker hours. When PMT started out four years ago, students received and returned quizzes by fax, but as business grew, faxing thousands of tests each month and grading them by hand became a time- and resource-consuming nightmare. Quizzes now are grad¬ ed on-the-fly, scores are automatically entered in the database, and PMT can feed analytical reports back to clients in a matter of hours instead of weeks. _ j oe Tartaglia For CTI applications, test, test, test. And test again." -Jorge Balmaseda JABS Technologies FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 93 Tools for Telephony Apps other cases, customization requires you to use the toolkit’s own proprietary scripting language. There are two basic kinds of toolkits. The classic application toolkit takes a pro¬ prietary approach; to change the code the toolkit produces, you either must know the proprietary language or go hack to the drawing board and reconstruct the program. Having a proprietary language can be an advantage because it is designed strictly for telephony applications. Some are similar to more popular languages such as C. Examples of proprietary-lan¬ guage toolkits include MediaSoft Tele¬ com’s I VS Builder Pro and Apex Voice Communications’s OmniVox. 1VS Builder Pro is particularly interesting in that it allows you to generate Unix appli¬ cations using the Windows GUI environ¬ ment. Anyone who has built applications using development software such as PowerBuilder or Gupta will likely he comfortable using this type of toolkit. The other category of toolkit is often referred to as visual telephony. These products are usually based on a version of Microsoft’s Visual Basic (Pronexus’s VB Voice 32 uses Visual C++) enhanced with telephony-specific extensions. You can modify applications created with visual telephony toolkits by modifying the Visual Basic code it outputs or by using prepackaged routines, or reusable objects, available from a number of ven¬ dors—really just another form of com¬ ponent software. Visual telephony has obvious appeal to any developer already familiar with Visual Basic. Artisoft’s Visual Voice (see screen on page 96) and Voysys’s VoysAccess are examples of visu¬ al telephony environments. Easier Still A new breed of telephony application builder is emerging. These products are actually closer to shrink-wrapped appli¬ cations than to more traditional devel¬ opment environments. You install them much as you would any common Win¬ dows program. Pull-down menus and dialog boxes let you customize the appli¬ cation. Examples include Iconics’s Alarm WorX+ and Algo Communications’s Phone Kits (see screens at right). These products package basic tele¬ phony functions into a single application. You could use such a package as is, cus¬ tomize the look and feel, or write your own controls and functions. Alarm AlarmWorX+ lets you build an event-monitoring and notification application by filling in templates. With PhoneKits, you can build telephony applications by dragging and dropping icons that represent different phone functions. WorX+ is a Windows-based multimedia alarm-management system that monitors events and notifies, through a Dialogic telephony board, the appropriate people by phone or fax. You modify the program by filling in templates, clicking on selec¬ tion boxes, typing in data at prompts, or choosing items from a drop-down list. Early this year. Iconics expects to make available ActiveX controls that provide 94 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 *! 1 1 I ’M l -/ e. Primitive design chooses to house a tiny microprocessor inside a bulky case. With desk space being commodity these days, why put up with such stone-age packaging? Cut the clutter with the Keyboard Network Station (KNS) from Advanced Interlink Corporation. We’re changing the shape of computing by packing technologically advanced components inside a keyboard! This logical evolution of the PC doesn’t sacrifice performance for size. The KNS is a compact powerhouse that houses a 80486DX microprocessor \ up to 32 megabytes of RAM, super VGA adapter, 2.5” hard drive, built in 3.5” floppy drive, optional on-board Ethernet, two serial ports, one parallel port, standard 16 bit expansion slot, optional barcode reader and external — f impressive list of features ■ and advanced engineering makes the KNS your missing link to performance computing. On-board Ethernet connectors with a choice S of thin coax or twisted-pair cables and a data transfer rate of 10Mbps makes the KNS a smart i addition to any new or existing network. The KNS I is fully tested and compatible with Novell Netware’’, Windows* and DOS T environments, To find out more about the KNS (Keyboard Network Station), give us a call and let us show you how we have taken computer design out of the stone-age>yQg^gL|MgpggfMMg^ *Cyrix, AMD and Intel processors supported yes If runj wijh NeMfce Microsoft We’re Changing the Shape of Computing IS181 SPRINGDALE STREET • HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA 92649 • PHONE (714) 894-I67S • FAX (714) 89J-1546 1995 ADVANCED INTERLINK CORPORATION, Design and specification, subject to change without notice.Trademark, are the property of their respective companle,. Circle 196 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 197). Tools for Telephony Apps The TAPI Examiner lets you analyze a hardware device to determine which Visual Voice features it supports. the individual functions of Alarm WorX+ in componentized form. PhoneKits, also Windows-based, is intended primarily for OEMs or VARs. Compaq, for example, used it to create the telephony applications bundled with the Presario 7100 series PCs. The product is essentially a packaging of generic tele¬ phony features. PhoneKits is designed to help OEMs or VARs avoid having to rein¬ vent the wheel when developing their applications; they can instead focus their efforts on value-added features and build¬ ing a unique user interface. Developers must create those features using what Algo calls Phone Object Controls, which are standard DLLs. Last fall, Algo pre¬ viewed another Windows telephony product called Workgroup Attendant. It lets you set up voice menus that allow callers to, for example, connect to the appropriate person to retrieve specific information. Workgroup Attendant lets you build the CT1 application by simply dragging devices into an outline. Testing CTI Apps Once you’ve built your CTI application, be prepared for a testing cycle that can be an order of magnitude more difficult than testing traditional desktop programs. Here are some things to keep in mind when testing CTI applications: First, consider an outside service to help you evaluate a system beyond the unit-testing phase. For example, some, like Interactive Quality Services, will develop a test suite for you and then flood your application with thousands of calls. The company will then fax you detailed statistics on port availability, response time, failures, and other critical factors. Services like these are great for final inte¬ gration and regression testing. This lev¬ el of stress-testing will also help you find memory leaks that reveal themselves only after thousands of cycles. Second, make sure your test environ¬ ment matches your production environ¬ ment. This goes for hardware (comput¬ er and telephony), operating systems, and application software. Third, use testers with a variety of skill Killer Apps, Today and Tomorrow Electronic administrative assistants A new class of products including Wildfire, from Wildfire Communications, manage all aspects of daily telephone communications. Using speech recognition, these programs help you quickly connect with key contacts and increase your overall availability for important communications. During a single call into the system, for example, Wildfire can screen, route, and announco incoming calls, "voice-dial" outgoing calls, schedule and remind you of action items, and create on- the-fly conference calls from any phone. Unified messaging Single desktop application combines all your messages-voice, fax, e-mail (private network and lnternet)-into a common inbox. Users can respond to messages more efficiently. Hybrid PCs/telephoncs The telephone won’t disappear, but CTI applications will begin to replace “dumb" handsets. These devices will give us Internet access and let us control inbound and out¬ bound messages using GUIs instead of arcane key combinations. AT&T, InfGear, Nortel, Sun Microsystems, and others have announced Internet communications devices, which should ship in the first half of this year and sell for about $500. Distributed call centers Companies can save money by creating vir¬ tual call centers that route calls to idle agents all around the country as if they were in one place. The virtual centers will replace tradi¬ tional centralized call centers with hundreds of telemarketing agents waiting to take incoming customer calls. Merging voice and data networks Five years from now, communicating via a Web browser and a URL will become more prevalent than making a phone call. Howev¬ er, if after browsing a Web site you need to contact a sales representative, you’d only click a button to speak-and see-someone. This will become possible only when high- bandwidth networks that blend voice, video, and data become common. 96 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 The Server That HP, Dell And Compaq Will Introduce Next. insrc But Why Wait? CSS Labs is delivering what the other guys can't. Because other companies simply offer dual processors in their systems. But PENTIUM.PRO CSS MaxPRO Series servers feature multiple Pentium Pro Processor power and customized passive backplanes for true computer redundancy. The competition can't say that. In addition, MaxPRO servers offer 100% fault tolerance, and hot-swappability. Which adds up to zero downtime, another distinction the competition would like to claim. Let's also not forget how easily MaxPRO servers fit into your network. Thanks to our open architecture, there are no restrictions on network configuration, and MaxPRO servers are certifiec compatible with today's most popular network operating systems. That's one more statement nol all our competitors can make. And when you consider that we offer world-class service and support for hardware, software, and compatibility issues, there's no reason to wait for those other guys to duplicate our servers. After all, why wait for a copy when you can own the original? Call CSS Labs at 800-852-2680 to configure your next-generation server. ECC Memory 100% Fault Tolerant Segmented Passive Backplanes Up to 4 Pentium Pro systems on one 20-slot backplane css Fault-Alarm Monitor System Dual Redundant Power Supplies Hot-swappable Hot-Swap Drive Trays CSS Powered Cooling System See us at Networks Expo, Boston, Feb. 18-20, and at CEBIT, Hanover, Germany, March 13-19 Microsoft. Windows m (Ompatibi*: Key Code BYT0297 LABORATORIES, INC. 800 852-2680 Where technology is ahead of its time.™ 1641 McGaw Ave. • Irvine, CA 92614 Phone (714) 852-8161 • Fax (714) 852-0410 Internet: http://www.csslabs.com MaxPRO is a trademark of CSS i" b ° r "‘° r ' e ‘ ' n J: •«* Pentium Pr ° «'• «cc d * markt ol ,n '• , Corp AM 0,h0 ' »"«"ulaeturer. brand or product names aro trademarks of thoir respective owners. ©1997 CSS Laboratories. Inc. All rights resorved Circle 137 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 138) riaii A Tools for Telephony Apps APPLICATION TOOLKITS EASE 4.2 Expert Systems Atlanta, GA (770) 642-7575 fax: (770) 587-5547 http://www.EASEy.com/ IVS Builder Pro 2.6 MediaSoft Telecom Montreal, Quebec (514)731-3838 fax:(514)731-3833 http://www.mediasoft.ca/ MastcrVox Mastermind Technologies Arlington, VA (703)276-9300 fax:(703)276-9301 http://www.mastermind- tcch.com/ OmniVox 2.0 Apex Voice Communications Sherman Oaks. CA (818)379-8400 fax:(818)379-8410 http://www.apexvoice.com/ Show N Tel Technically Speaking WHERE TO FIND Southbomugh, MA (508)229-7777 fax:(508)229-8777 http://www.techspk.com/ VISUAL TELEPHONY TOOLKITS VBVoice 32 Proncxus Carp, Ontario, Canada (613)838-0033 fax:(613)839-0039 http://www.pronexus.com/ Visual Voice 3.0 Artisoft Tucson. AZ (520)670-7100 fax:(520)670-7101 http://www.artisoft.com V0S5 Parity Software Development Sausalito, CA (415)332-5656 http://www.paritysw.eom/ VoysAcccss 1.2 Voysys Fremont, CA (510)252-1100 http://www.voysys.com/ COMPONENT SOFTWARE ActiveX Microsoft Redmond, WA (206)882-8080 fax: (206) 93-MSFAX http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ ic3/aet ivcx.htm JTAPI Sun Microsystems (JavaSoft Division) Mountain View. CA (415)960-1300 http://java.sun.com CTI HARDWARE Dialogic Parsippany, NJ (201)993-3000 fax:(201)993-3093 http://www.dialogic.com Wildfire Communications Lexington, MA (617)674-1500 fax:(617)674-1501 http://www.wildfire.com levels and a variety of phone and fax equipment. Novice users will alert you to confusing elements of the user interface and will make mistakes you never dreamed of. Together these mixed-skill groups may uncover problems that would otherwise probably go undetect¬ ed in more formal tests. Finally, watch out for those “extra ser¬ vices” on your phone lines. Call waiting, call answering, and even caller II) can cause problems with your CTI applica¬ tions. Make sure the lines you are using are as vanilla as possible. The good news is that no matter what kind of development environment you use, and no matter what degree of pro¬ gramming and testing muscle you can devote to application development, you’ll likely find the right tool for gener¬ ating telephony programs. El Michael Nadeau is a writer ami a former BYTE editor who covers communications technolo¬ gy and the Internet. You can reach him at m nadeau@conknet.com or fry sending e- mail to editors@bix.com. Distinct NFS 95 Easiest way to Share Files, Programs and Printers A „ I Highlights: • Integrates seamlessly into Windows 95 Mounts NFS drives from Explorer or Network Neighborhood | IK)*** | CMMVIlbMi [' ' . • twN w. wy>w< »UMWlNl«,MlKVi rO»» Tz VMM FiT3 n CM* • IM, N»*« rftMM . fSTTD 1 nr-} c~JI * Supports file and record locking > Allows central authentication with a single server running PCNFSD for all NFS connectivity ► Prints to NFS or LPD print servers > Allows login to all systems with a single login name and password or different login names for each system * Allows single-operation logout of all systems Ithi . accessed through Network Neighborhood { Free Evaluation Copy Available at distinct > Fine tunes performance parameters for each server you access 408 . 366.8933 h!tp://www.distinct.com Fax: 408.366.0153 E-mail: 6yteMstinct.com Fastfacts: 408.366.2101 Circle 1 74 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 1 75). Highlights: • TN3270 Emulation-Models 2.3.4 and 5 (for IBM Mainframes) •3179G Vector Graphics &3279S3G • TN5250 (24x80.27x132) (for AS/400) • VT52. VT100. VT220. VT320 & VT420 emulation (for DEC and UNIX Systems) Customizable keyboard layouts, poppads and session profiles VBA’“ Advanced Scripting Language • DOE. HLLAPI. EHLLAPI. WinHLLAPI and Visual Basic"* f Free -< Evaluation Copy Available at • < W distinct • Available for Windows 3.11. Windows 95 and Windows NT 408 . 366.8933 ►WWW: httpy/www.distinc t.ca Fax: 408.366.011 E-mail: bylemag@distinct.co Fastfacts: 408.366.211 Circle 176 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 1 77). 98 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Hull-featured SCSI RAID Kit for $ 1 , 099 *! i verything You Need Now there is a way for to you get everything you need—data protection, increased performance, and a great price. DPT introduces the RAIDstation3 kit, a new cost-effective RAID kit io secure data and increase performance for entry-level servers, or workstations running important, storage-hungry and performance- nianding applications like video editing, CAD or electronic pre-press. You get all the features normally found in expensive, high-end RAID •aibsystems, all for an estimated street price of $1,099*! Just add your SI disk drives and you're ready for RAID. You don't need to be a RAID expert to set up your system. With I'PTs free RAID installation software. Storage Manager'", simply answer t lew questions, click on the drives you want included in the disk array, •iid you're in business. Nothing could be easier! Call us today and ask about our one-time-try-it-youTl-like-it Ultimate Deal" offer on the new RAIDstation3 kit, or ask for the DPT cseller nearest you. Full Featured RAID Kit INCLUDES: • PCI Ultra SCSI RAID adapter with up to 20MB/s data transfers for superior performance • Hardware RAID 0, 1 and 5 • 4MB of memory included, with room for up to 64MB of hardware cache • Hot swap support for failed disk drives - - Automatic detection of failed drive - Remove failed drive without system interruption - Automatic spin-up of new drive - Automatic rebuild of the disk array • Heavy duty metal cabinet construction • Three lockable, hot-swap carriers that will accept any half¬ height 3.5" Narrow or Ultra Narrow SCSI drive • LED power and disk activity indicator lights on the cabinet • Capability for two RAIDstation3 towers to be daisy-chained together for easy expansion • Temperature monitoring of storage subsystem • Three year warranty • Unlimited free technical support I DPT 1 -800-860-4589 "iirtH/icd Processing Technology ■t-S'dia* street price. Price does not include drik drives. 40 (.mdace Drive, Maitland, FL 32751 • Tel: 407-830-5522 Ml 407-260-6690 • sales@dpt.com • http://www.dpt.com Other outstanding SCSI products from DPT Circle 141 on Inquiry Card. Hardware 13 Graphics Cards for Business Professional-level 2-D graphics cards grow increasingly sophisticated. Most now have low-end 3-D features. By Dorotlry Hudson, Jim Kane, and John McDonough I f there is one system compo¬ nent that makes the speed of the Windows interface bear- I able, it is the 2-D graphics accelerator card. We all take it for grant¬ ed and expect vendors to keep cutting prices, improving performance, and adding new features such as hardware- enhanced video playback and 3-D accel¬ eration. As a result, today’s graphics cards not only accelerate Windows applica¬ tions, they let you view video clips and even play 3-D games. For mainstream professional use, however, it is resolution, color depth, and straight 2-D perfor¬ mance that still matter most. Coupled with one of the 17- or 21- inch monitors we tested last month (see “Big Screens for Big Jobs,” January BYTE), a new graphics accelerator can enhance work efficiency as well as view¬ ing pleasure by increasing the amount of data you can put on one screen. Besides increased performance at high resolu¬ tion, you get enhanced video playback for multimedia applications and 3-D game acceleration. Having just tested 13 PCI graphics accelerator cards, we can tell you some¬ thing about the current state of 2-D graph¬ ics performance. All our test cards sup¬ port 24-hit color at 1024- by 768-pixel resolution or above and with high refresh rates. (This typically requires 4 MB of card memory.) With this in common, there is still much to differentiate the boards in terms of their video and 3-D capabilities. Some also have special features like TV display and support for multiple moni¬ tors. The best news is that you don’t have to spend much money these days to get a good card. In fact, our Best Overall choice, the CirafixStar 450 from VideoLogic, costs only S149 when loaded up with 4 MB of memory. The GrafixStar 450 and other BYTE BEST GRAPHICS AC C E L E R A T 0 R S VideoLogic GrafixStar 450 Provided the best 2-D performance of any card we tested-and also had the lowest price ($149 with 4 MB of EDO DRAM). The card uses S3’s 64-bit Virge accelerator chip. low-cost cards like the $159 Hercules Dynamite 128 both provide excellent 2- D performance. At the other end of the price spectrum is the 8-MB Integrated Micro Solutions (IMS) Twin Turbo 128 P8, which provides 24-bit color at 1600- by 1200-dpi resolution for $599. Performance Factors The biggest factor in graphics card per¬ formance is the accelerator chip set. In our tests, the best performers use S3’s new Virge chip set, which accounted for the three top 2-D performance spots. Not all Virge cards did well: STB’s Velocity 3D hung at the back of the pack. Matrox’s Millennium, a former champ, still does well with Matrox’s MGA-2064W accel¬ erator, and Hercules’ Dynamite 128/ Video took fifth place using another new chip set, Tseng Labs’ ET6000. Architec¬ tural bus width—as in 64 bits versus 128 bits—appears not to matter. A card’s graphics accelerator chip plays a hig part in its performance, but so does the Windows driver software. Driver code most likely accounts for the STB Velocity 3D*s slower performance compared to other Virge-based cards. The top-notch performers jockey for position from month to month as vendors come out with new driver software. Having more graphics memory increases capabilities and performance. The type of memory is important, but less so than it used to be. Whereas dual- ported VRAM always provided better per¬ formance for higher resolutions and color depths than DRAM, there are new¬ er and less expensive alternatives such as extended data out (EDO) DRAM, multi¬ bank DRAM (MDRAM), and synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) that do nearly as well. 3 -D and Video Capabilities The latest graphics cards have on-board 3-D accelerators that mainly aid gaming performance. While development of low-end 3-D graphics accelerators has been driven by the computer games mar¬ ket, the games themselves illustrate how far 3-D graphics has come. As is happen¬ ing with multimedia, 3-D imaging tech¬ niques may eventually turn up in main¬ stream applications. 3-D acceleration on the graphics card helps the system’s CPU turn a mathemat¬ ical model of a 3-D object into a 2-D rep¬ resentation. Quickly shading, applying texture, and accurately representing object depth affect the speed at which still images are rendered, but these kinds of 100 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 EXPANSION CONNECTOR Some cards have connectors for adding things such as a hardware MPEG decoder. Some connectors are propri¬ etary, so you should check out the expan¬ sion options before you buy the card.^ MONITOR INTERFACE 1 Most graphics adapters provide a single connection to monitors based on the standard D-shell, 15-pin VGA connector. The Matrox cards have a connector for a cable with BNC couplings for the monitor. Illustration based on ELSA’s Winner 3000-L GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR 1 This chip (or chip set) does most of the work, providing hardware acceleration for execution of low-level graphics operations. As with CPUs, higher clock speeds and wider data buses improve performance. Newer chip sets often include hardware assistance for displaying 3-D data and video streams. /VIDEO MEMORY f More memory means higher resolution and more colors. It can also mean somewhat better performance. Memory perfor¬ mance matters most at the high resolutions and color depths; dual-ported memory chips such as VRAM or Window RAM are best. VIDEO BIOS At start up, your system looks to the video BIOS firmware on this chip for identification and con¬ figuration information. The BIOS provides a known set of low-level graphics interfaces for DOS-based software. Windows programs interlace through the software drivers each vendor provides for its graphics card. BUS INTERFACE The main benefit to a system with a PCI bus is faster graphics performance. PCI has largely displaced VESA VL and ISA cards, but you can still buy them for older systems. operations also affect the smoothness of animated 3-D sequences, particularly at greater resolutions and color depths. For the games market, Microsoft’s Direct3D (D3D) API for Windows 95 promises to be important because it pro¬ vides games developers with a common API that is more or less independent of any graphics chip. All the cards we tested were D3D-capable. The cards that do best on our D3D Tunnel tests, such as the ATI 3D Xpression, the Matrox Mystique, and the Matrox Millennium, are excellent choic¬ es for game-type environments. Microsoft also supports the OpenGL M) API in Windows 95 and NT. Current boards have some OpenGL hardware acceleration capabilities but they still have a long way to go compared to high-end 3- I) cards. Our testing for OpenGL showed that some of the cards are faster than oth¬ ers, but there’s not much spread. If you use video clips in multimedia presentations, you should check out a graphics accelerator with MPEG hardware acceleration. It will speed up and smooth out playback by efficiently compressing and decompressing graphics and sound data. The Matrox and Number Nine adapters, and the Virge VX-equipped adapters (STB Systems Velocity 31), Dia¬ mond Stealth 3D 3000, ELSA America Win¬ ner 3000-L) have integrated video com¬ ponents, and some others have MPEG options or at least software MPEG players. The cards with hardware MPEG help attain the full-screen playback rate of 30 frames per second, which provides the appearance of full-motion video. While current MPEG hardware decompression is imperfect, overall it’s still better than software-based video playback. Current software MPEG decoders are just on the edge, with performance that’s perhaps adequate for short video clips in reference works, such as a CD-ROM encyclopedia. With the availability of TV-tuner daugh- tercards on some graphics boards, it seems that the sky’s the limit for viewing video on your PC screen. While performance is the primary factor to consider when buying a graphics card, bundled software can make a card easier to configure and use. Most of today’s adapters have utilities for installing drivers, changing resolutions on-the-fly, zooming in and panning around the desk¬ top, and even creating virtual desktops larger than the screen. Contributors Dorothy Hudson, project managcr/NSTL Jim Kane, project manager/NSTL John McDonough, technical writer/NSTL Dave Rowell, senior technical editor/BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 101 he 13 cards we tested in this Lib Report offer a wide range of capabilities to accelerate your system into the world of multimedia or high-resolution 2-D CAD applications. For our Best Overall ratings, we looked only at the mainstream 2-D performance of the cards. Though many of these cards tout 3-D capabilities, our roundup does not include some of the best low-end Direct3D cards because they Will Direct3D Conquer All? If you follow Internet newsgroups such as comp.graphics.api.opengl, you may have noticed the intense and ongoing debate concerning the relative merits of Microsoft OpcnGL, Microsoft Dircct3D, and Silicon Graphics' Cosmo OpcnGL. The debate, between the principals of the Microsoft OpcnGL and SGI Cosmo OpcnGL camps but also including other knowledgeable parties, has been intense. The two OpcnGL implementations have very different target audiences. Microsoft maintains that its rendition suits all per¬ formance levels, from simple Windows 95 VGA systems to high-performance NT workstations. The software giant offers ven¬ dors several approaches to create optimized OpcnGL libraries that yield fairly impres¬ sive performance. SGI, on the other hand, has targeted Windows 95 systems lacking 3-D graphics accelerators in particular, as an adjunct to its Web applications. Cosmo is a software-only solution that SGI believes can surpass software-only Dircct3D imple¬ mentations. It is also cross-platform, enabling a greater degree of integration among Web applications based on the Cosmo line of products. Despite differences in their views on OpcnGL's future, both parties agree that OpcnGL has multiple advantages over Dircct3D, and that Dircct3D has no lock on the future of any PC 3-D market. Despite its high-end history, OpcnGL need not sac¬ rifice good performance for rendering don’t support 24-bit color at 1024 by 768 resolution. Neither does this report include professional-level 3-D accelera¬ tors costing $2000 and up. However, we did measure 3-D performance for both the Direct3D and OpenGL APIs. With that in mind, we chose Video- Logic’s GrafixStar 450 as the Best Over¬ all graphics accelerator. The GrafixStar 450 costs only $149 (as configured for testing with 4 MB of EDO memory). Bet- accuracy. For example, OpenGL implemen¬ tations don't have to provide subpixel accu¬ racy, and OpenGL applications don't have to use it. Like game APIs such as Direct3D, OpenGL can obtain high performance by sacrificing details that aren’t necessary in a real-time video environment. Programs running under Cosmo OpenGL have provid¬ ed performance similar to that of unaccel¬ erated Direct3D. We can hypothesize that accelerated solutions would also be com¬ parable. Programmers find OpenGL code easier to write and debug. OpenGL presents a completely abstract environment; the pro¬ grammer can assume that an appropriate screen exists and that OpenGL will make a program's graphics requests fit that screen. Dircct3D presents to the program (and pro¬ grammer) all the hardware details; a pro¬ gram must examine them all and fit itself to that set of features. In OpenGL. all opti¬ mizations are in the device driver; any OpenGL program will run on any hardware at any resolution. In Dircct3D, you can tune a program to particular screen resolutions, but a particular graphics adapter might not support those resolutions. OpenGL is not dead in the high-perfor¬ mance games arena, and Dircct3D is not necessarily the API of choice for future pro¬ grammers. What remains to be seen is where each group will take its approach to 3-D graphics and how users will react. -Stove Platt, manager of electronic publications, NSTL ter than that, the GrafixStar 450 easily performed the best running NSTL’s Inter- Mark benchmarks, which measure the 2- D graphics performance you’ll get with Windows business applications. The GrafixStar 450 is based on the 64- bit S3 Virge accelerator chip found on sev¬ eral other cards in this review. VideoLogic credits its fast performance to its well- optimized graphics drivers. Though it doesn’t use the video-enabled VX version of the Virge chip, the VideoLogic card can smooth video with the addition of optional hardware-assisted MPEG video via a Scenic/LPB connector (uses S3*s pro¬ prietary Scenic Highway bus, a high- bandwidth connection that increases per¬ formance by keeping the video playback stream off the system bus). The Grafix¬ Star 450 also shines in our features and usability ratings. VideoLogic’s Smart- Tools utility lets you configure your dis¬ play, set a virtual desktop, and build your own toolbars. Next in the Best Overall pecking order, and in InterMark performance, is ELSA’s Winner 3000-L. It supports 16 million colors at 1280 by 1024 resolution with an 83-Hz vertical refresh rate. The Winner 3000-L gets our highest usabili¬ ty score because it was easy to install and has a complete, well-written user man¬ ual. Given that ELSA designs and mar¬ kets capable 3-D cards, it’s no surprise that the Winner 3000-L did well in our OpenGL 3-D testing. Designed for CAD and desktop publishing professionals, it uses an S3 Virge VX 64-bit graphics processor and came loaded up with 8 MB of RAM, which helps to justify its $527 price. The card’s 3-D capabilities accel¬ erated Gouraud shading, texture map¬ ping in 24-bit color, and accelerated z- buffering. The Winner 3000-L supports the Direct3D, HEIDI (used in some Autodesk applications), and OpenGL3- D APIs. The Hercules Dynamite 128 has the second lowest price ($159) and provides good performance for Windows appli¬ cations. The card uses a 128-bit Tseng Labs ET6000 accelerator chip with 4 MB TECH FOCUS 3-D APIs 102 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 LAB APHICS accelerator ratings BEST OVERALL VideoLogic CrafixStar 450 There are many affordable 64-bit graphics accelerators, but few can match the GrafixStar 450’s combination of Windows graphics acceleration and low price. Put simply: This is the lowest-priced card we tested and it still has the best performance numbers running NSTL’s InterMark benchmark. The GrafixStar 450 uses the 64-bit S3 Virge accelerator chip with a built-in 3-D engine, and it supports up to 4 MB of EDO DRAM. It also supports Microsoft’s Direct3D API. VideoLogic backs the GrafixStar 450 with a five-year warranty and a technical support hotline. PRICE VideoLogic GrafixStar 450 $149 ELSA Winner 3000-L $527 Hercules Dynamite 128/Video $ 159 Diamond Stealth 3D 3000XL $299 Matrox Millennium $499 Number Nine Imagine 128 Series 2e $349 ATI 3D Xpression-f PC2TV $219 STB Velocity 3D $299 Matrox Mystique $229 Koutech KW-546 $259 IMS Twin Turbo 128P4 $399 Number Nine Imagine 128 Series 2 $499 IMS Twin Turbo 128P8 $599 TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATION PERFORMANCE ★ ★★★★ ***** it it it if ★ ★★★ ★ ★★★* ititirit ★ ★** *★*★ ★ ★★★ ★ ★* ★ ★*★ **★* ititit itit itit ★ ★★★ ititit itititit **** iritHit ititit **★★ ititit it ititit ★ ★*★ *★★★ ititit ★ *★★ ititit Hit it ★ ★★★ itir ★ **★ **** ititit ★ *★ ★ ★★★ itit ★ ★★★ FEATURES USABILITY OVERALL RATING ★ ★★★ itititit ***** ★ *★★ ***** ★ ★** itititit **★ ***★ ★ *★★ ★★* *★** ★ ★★★ *★ ★ ★** *★★ **★ ★ *★ ★ ★★★ ★ ** ★ ★★ *★★* **** *** **★★ ★★★★* *** *★* ★ *★ *★★ ★ * ★★ ★ ★★ ★ ★* *** ★ ** *★ itit ★ ★* ***** Outstanding * * * * Very Good * * * Good * * Fas * Poor of MDRAM. The Dynamite also surprised us with good OpenGL performance, giv¬ en that Hercules doesn’t supply acceler¬ ated drivers for OpenGL. The Diamond Stealth 3D 3000XL gen¬ erated impressive numbers in our Inter- Mark and OpenGL tests. The Stealth 3D *000 pumps it out with S3’s Virge VX accel¬ erator chip and 4 MB of VRAM. Matrox’s Millennium also provided good 2-D graphics performance. Direct 3 D Performance If you need a good 2-D accelerator that also kicks on games, the Matrox Mystique 1 ($229) provided the best D3D performance in this roundup. Matrox highlights the 64- bit card’s fast frame rates for 3-D texture- mapped games, but the Mystique does well enough in 2-D applications. Our test card came with 4 MB of synchronous graphics RAM (SGRAM), which is single- ported memory with graphics-specific fea¬ tures such as block writes and dual bank support. Its dual-bank feature opens two pages of memory at the same time, which accelerates operations such as screen bits, double buffering, 3-D rendering, and video playback. Matrox also offers option¬ al add-ins for hardware MPEG, live video in, NTSC/PAL output, and a TV tuner. ATI Technologies’ 3D Xpression ($219) and Matrox’s pricier Millennium ($499) are also strong D3D accelerators. The more affordable 3D Xpression uses All’s 3D Rage II chip, which accelerates Microsoft’s D3D API for fast game action. The 3D Xpression can be fitted with add¬ ins such as a TV tuner or a hardware MPEG decoder. With its older graphics chip, the Millennium didn’t score as high as the Mystique in the D3D tests, but the older card uses 8 MB of Window RAM to prove it can move 3-D frames faster than most cards on the market. With 8 MB of WRAM, you can work in true color at a high reso¬ lution of 1600 by 1200 pixels. Like the Mystique, the Millennium has many optional multimedia add-ins and comes with the helpful PowerDesk utility for easy installation. Under OpenGL OpenGL is becoming the prevalent API for professional 3-D applications such as CAD and visualization. Both Windows 95 and NT provide built-in OpenGL support. There wasn’t much spread in our View- perf OpenGL test results, but some cards did better than others. The ELSA Winner 3000-L had the top numbers, but the STB Systems Velocity 3D also did well. The Velocity 3D ($299) uses an S3 Virge VX chip and comes with 4 MB of dual- ported EDO VRAM that can be upgraded to 8 MB with a 4-MB DRAM module. We tested an 8-MB Velocity 3D. With its fast 220-MHz DAC, the Velocity 3D can sup¬ port resolutions of up to 1600 by 1200 with respectable refresh rates. This is one of the best cards for NT 4.0 users running OpenGL applications. FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 103 IETCT1F High-Res True Color M any of the cards we tested support resolutions up to 1600 by 1200 pix¬ els, some with visually comfortable high refresh rates. Integrated Micro Solutions’ Twin Turbo 128P8 (shown below; note the array of memory chips) and Matrox’s Millennium have the memory (8 MB) and logic to support that high resolution with 24-bit color (for a palette of over 16 mil¬ lion colors). What's on Tonight? Tl’s 3D Xpression* PC2TV has both composite video and S-Video outputs, so you can display software on a large- screen TV-a nice demo setup for a confer¬ ence room because you can use the same display for both computer and VCR sources. To compensate for the lower reso¬ lution on a TV, the card uses antialiasing to keep the image sharp. With the card’s PC2TV feature you can also record computer graphics output to a VCR. This provides an inexpensive and con¬ venient way to distribute multimedia pre¬ sentations and training materials. TV Junkie Alert F or information junkies, the ability to surf TV channels while working at a PC can be invaluable. While you won’t see TV tuners as a regular system component any time soon, you can buy expansion cards that pro¬ vide this capability. One that we tested and liked is ATI Technologies' ATI-7V, which we tried in conjunction with ATI's 3D Xpression graphics card. ATI-TV is an ISA-bus card that connects by ribbon cable to a proprietary connector found on Video Xpression and 3D Xpression graphics cards. The card holds a TV tuner (it's well shielded), a video decoder chip, and a teletext decoder chip. The ATI-TV card has external CATV, composite video, and S- Video inputs. ATI provides Video Player soft¬ ware on a CD-ROM. This capable program supplies a varied suite of functions and appears on-screen as a window that you can fully maximize. With the card and its software, you can zoom in on video and capture images or movie clips to disk. The card can display closed captioning (NTSC), but it can also store the text, so you can scroll through it later. Also, it can read the captions in the background and pop up the TV image when a caption includes keywords you've speci¬ fied. The ATI-TV can scan through all avail¬ able channels and display thumbnails of each program in an array of windows; you click on one to watch in full-screen mode. You can use the card's video capture fea¬ ture to grab still or moving images from VCRs, camcorders, and laser discs for mul¬ timedia presentations. Your system won't take a performance hit when displaying TV programs because frame rate viewing is achieved with no CPU loading. However, the streaming video capture frame rate will depend on CPU speed, availability of sys¬ tem memory, and hard disk performance. ATI-TV $129 ATI Technologies Thornhill, Ontario, Canada (905) 882-2600 http://www.atitech Circle 1099 on Inquiry Card. 104 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 n rating graphics cards, we put strong emphasis on per¬ formance. In this roundup, that emphasis is on the kind of 2-D graphics performance that matters with Windows business and profession¬ al applications. Because hardware accel¬ eration of 3-D operations is fast becom¬ ing a standard feature on 2-D graphics cards, we also tested 3-D performance. We don’t yet factor that performance into our ratings process because of Direct3D’s debatable worth for business applications and because OpenGL applications are typically high-end. However, you may want a good 2-D card that also works with a program that uses the Direct3D or OpenGL APIs, so we provide the results from our 3-D testing. We ran the NSTL InterMark test suite to measure the mainstream 2-D perfor¬ mance of the cards. The InterMark tests use images from applications like Corel Draw, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word for Windows, displaying a variety of Win¬ dows-based images ranging from straight text to 2-D and 3-D bar charts to complex full-color drawings. We used the Inter¬ Mark results as the weighted perfor¬ mance portion of our Overall Rating. We used the OpenGL Performance Characterization committee’s Viewperf to test OpenGL performance, which is important for visualization systems, CAD, and advanced image generation. View¬ perf is a freely distributed benchmark with a growing set of application-derived viewing scripts. Viewperf runs the scripts in each data set, or viewset, and measures output in frames per second. Each viewset is rendered in several modes: wireframe, flat surface, smooth surface, and texture mapped. A weighted geo¬ metric mean represents how fast the card can render the variety of scenes. Microsoft’s Direct3D Tunnel tests how well a card with Direct3D drivers performs in a game-like environment. We ran it at four different resolutions com¬ mon for Direct3D systems: 640 by 480 pixels with 256 colors, 640 by 480 with 65,000 colors, 1024 by 768 with 256 col¬ ors, and 1024 by 768 in full color. Not all the boards could run all the tests. Features and Usability Our ratings include scores for features and usability. Features we value include high resolution and color depth, high ver¬ tical refresh rates, and utility software. We gave high usability scores for excep¬ tionally clear and complete documenta¬ tion and easy-to-use installation software. A card received a good rating if we deemed the average person could install it without referring to the manual. Evaluations in this report represent the judg¬ ment of BYI'F editors, based on tests con¬ ducted Iry NSTL, Inc., as documented in a recent issue of their monthly PC Digest. To purchase a copy of the full report, contact NS II. at 625 Ridge Pike, Conshohocken, PA 19428; (610) 941-9600; editors@nstl.com. Fora subscription, call (800) 2S7-9402. BY1F Magazine and NSI1. are both operating units of fhe McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 105 FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE GRAPHICS ACCELERATORS FEATURES ATI Technologies Diamond Multimedia ELSA Hercules IMS IMS 3D Xpression-t- Stealth 3D 3000XL Winner 3000-L Dynamite Twin Turbo TWin Turbo PC2TV 128/Video 128P4 128P8 1 *fH o ah configured (US$) $219 $299 $527 $159 $399 $599 Overall Rating ★ ★★ ★ ★★★ ★ ★★★ ★ ★★★ ★ ** ★ ★★ SPECIFICATIONS Accelerator chip set ATI Rage II S3VirgeVX S3V.rgeVX Tseng Labs ET 6000 Twin Turbo 128 Twin Turbo 128 Graphics BIOS author and version ATI Diamond Multimedia VI .0 ELSA 5.02.00 Hercules A3J IMASv.2107 IMS v. 2107 Video playback chip or chip set S3 ViRGEVX Integrated Integrated N/A N/A Auto bus sensing ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Standard RAM/as tested/maximum RAM (MB) 2/4/4 4/4/4 6/6/6 4/4/4 4/4/4 8/8/8 RAM typo (VRAM/DRAM)/speed (ns) SDRAM/35 VRAM/60 VRAM/50; DRAM/40 MDRAM/10 VRAM/60 VRAM/60 Board height x length (inches) 2.5x6 6.875x4.2 4.125x6.875 3.75x7.25 5x5 7.5x9 GRAPHICS CONNECTOR BNC Supports multiple adapters ✓ ✓ Maximum horizontal frequency 120.6 160 300 100 96 96 Supports DirectDraw (accelerated drivers) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Supports Direct3D (accelerated drivers) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Supports OpenGL (accelerated drivers) ✓ ✓ 3-D ACCELERATOR FUNCTIONS Interpolated (Gouraud) shading ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Texture mapping ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Mipmapping ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Z-buffering ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ UTILITY SOFTWARE Video mode selection ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Zoom utility ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Board diagnostics ✓ ✓ Adjustable vertical scan ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Adjustable center screen ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Windows utility for changing resolution ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ VESA BIOS ✓ ✓ BIOS ✓ ✓ ✓ WINDOWS DRIVERS SUPPORT 16-bit DIB format ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 32-bit DIB format ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Transparent bit maps ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Font caching ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Supported pixel per inch options ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Supported DIB compression ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ RLE 4 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ RLE 8 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ JPEG ✓ MONITOR SUPPORT Digital ✓ Multisync ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Analog ✓ ✓ ✓ Multifrcquoncy ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Fixod-froquoncy ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ GRAPHICS MODES SUPPORTED (ALL NONINTERLACED) 640 x 480 colors/vertical rofresh 16.7 million/200 16.7 million/160 16.7 million/354 16.7 million/120 16.7 rn.ll.on/120 16.7 million/120 800 x 600 colors/vertical refresh 16.7 million/200 16.7 million/160 16.7 million/227 16.7 million/120 16.7 million/120 16.7 million/120 1024 x 768 colors/vortical refresh 16.7 million/120 16.7 million/120 16.7 million/138 16.7 million/75 16.7 million/100 16.7 miHion/100 1152 x 882 colors/vortical refresh 16.7 million/100 16.7 million/85 16.7 million/109 N/A 16.7 million/100 16.7 million/100 1280 x 1024 colors/vertical refresh 16.7 million/85 16.7 million/85 16.7miHion/83 65K/60 16.7 million/50 16.7 million/90 1600 x 1200 colors/vertical rofresh 64K/58 65K/80 64K/85 N/A 65K/75 16.7 million/75 APPLICATION DRIVERS (HIGHEST RESOLUTIONS SUPPORTED) AutoCAD 1280x1024 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 Microsoft Windows NT 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 1280x1024 1600x1200 1600 x1200 IBM OS/2 Warp 1280x1024 1600x1200 1600x1200 1280x1024 1600x1200 1600x1200 SCO Open Systems X Window 1600x1200 N/A Optional N/A N/A N/A CUSTOMER SUPPORT Warranty length (years)/coverage 5/P, L, F, R 5/P, L, R 3/P,L,R 5/P, L, R 5/P, L, R 5/P, L, R Toll-free phone N/A (800)468 5846 (800)272-3572 (800)532 0600 (888)467-8282 (888)467 8281 Phone (905)882-2600 (408)325 7000 (408)935 0350 (510)623-6030 (408)369-8282 (408)369-828! On-line address http://www.atitech.ca http://www.diamondmm http://www.elsa.com http://www http://www http://www .com .hercules.com .mtegratedmicro.com .mtegratedmicnj Inquiry number 1064 1066 1067 1068 1069 1070 [771 ' ✓ -yes; Warranty: P- ' ports; L - labor; ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Outstanding ★ ★★Good ★ Poor N/A - nol applicable. F ■ freight to repair center; R - return to customor. if irk it Vory Good ★ ★Fair 106 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 rsomecn systems KW-546 Matrox Graphics Millennium Matrox Graphics Mystique Number Nine Imagine 128 Series 2 Number Nine Imagine 128 Series 2e STB Systems Velocity 3D VideoLogic GrafixStar r— 450 1 »i' $259 $499 ★ ★★★ $229 ★ ★★ $499 $349 ★ ★★ $299 ★ ★★ $149 Tseng Labs ET6000 Tsong Labs 0.16 integrated 225/4/4.5 M DRAM/36 2.9375 x 7375 MGA2064W Matrox Graphics Flash BIOS Integrated ✓ 4/8/8 WRAM/60 3.75x7 MGA-1064SG Matrox Graphics Flash BIOS Integrated ✓ 4/4/4 SG RAM/70 3.75x7 Imagine 128 Series 2 Number Nine 3.02.01 Integrated ✓ 4/4/4 EDO VRAM/60 4.25x6.875 Imagine 128 Series 2 Number Nine 3.00.04 Integrated ✓ 4/4/4 EDO DRAM/60 4.25x6.875 S3 VirgeVX STB 1.01 Integrated ✓ 4/8/8 VRAM and DRAM/60 3.875x8.75 S3 Virgo S3 2.3 N/A ✓ 2/4/4 EDO DRAM/35 4.2158x6.30 ✓ ✓ — 80 ✓ ✓ 110 ✓ ✓ 110 ✓ ✓ ✓ 135 ✓ ✓ 85 ✓ 81.7 ✓ ✓ 81.9 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ / ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 16 7 million/90 18 7 rmllion/90 16 7 million/70 N/A MK/60 N/A 65K/200 65K/200 65K/120 65K/120 65K/110 65K/85 65K/200 65K/160 65K/120 65K/100 65K/75 256/60 16.7 mallion/l 50 16.7 million/150 16.7 million/150 16.7 million/150 65K/118 65K/83 16.7 million/150 16.7 million/150 16.7 million/150 65K/140 65K/110 256/83 16.7 million/160 16.7m.Mwn/147 16.7 million/120 16.7 m.llion/85 16.7 million/85 65K/80 16.7miwn/150 16.7nxlhon/120 65K/100 65K/90 256/75 256/60 1280x1024 1280x1024 1280x1024 N/A 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 N/A 1600x1200 1600x1200 N/A 1600x1200 1600x1200 1600x1200 N/A 1600x1200 N/A 1600x1200 N/A 3/P, L. R N/A (110)699*5340 Mlp //www tdi.com 1071 3/P, L, R (800)361*1408 (514)969*6320 http://www.matrox. com/mga 1072 3/P, L, R (800)361*1408 (514)969*6320 http://www.matrox com/mga 1073 5/P.L (800)438 6463 (617)674-0009 http://www.mne.com 1074 5/P.L (800)438*6463 (617)674-0009 http://www.nine.com 1075 Lifetime/P, L,R (888) 234*8750 (972) 234-8750 http://www.stb.com 1076 5/P.L.F.R (800)578-5644 (415)875*0606 http7/www. videologic.com 1077 FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 107 Software Present a Businesslike SlideShow Today's graphics tools help you present your arguments and data with polish and professionalism. By David Seachrist e used to call them business- graphics programs. People used them primarily to cre¬ ate individual, data-driven charts. Over time, these packages shifted their focus to cohesive, multiple-slide presentations organized via outlines and slide sorters. GUIs, especially Win¬ dows, were an enormous step forward in producing more elaborate and effective graphics, which enhanced and focused spoken presentations. For the November 1996 BYTK, NSTL tested a group of multimedia authoring tools that allow the integration of video, sound, and Internet links into presenta¬ tions. But most presentations don’t re¬ quire that much apparatus, nor the time needed to create it. Thus, there’s a firm place for these mainstream presentation- graphics programs: Adobe Persuasion 3.0.2, Corel Presentations 7.0, Software Publishing’s Harvard Graphics 4.0, Lotus Development’s Freelance Graphics 96 Fdition for Windows 95, and Microsoft’s PowerPoint 95 7.0. For this review, we chose programs that offer an individual slide-editing en¬ vironment, a slide sorter, an outlining en¬ vironment, extensive charting (including organizational charts), drawing capabil¬ ities, and automated slide-show func¬ tions. We didn’t include programs better- suited for multimedia applications, such as Astound’s (Palo Alto, CA) Astound for Windows, or programs designed for more intensive authoring, such as SFD’s (San Bruno, CA) Quovis line. By the time this review sees print, Adobe, Lotus, and Microsoft will have released new updates. Final versions of these packages were unavailable when we did our testing, but we discuss what’s coming in these new versions. Using the Software With presentation graphics now standard in office suites, it’s reaching a more di¬ verse group of end users, and thus creat¬ ing a demand for still more features and greater ease of use. Therefore, despite all the bells and whistles in these products. NSTL’s test scenario is based on an inter- BYTE BEST PRESENTATI0 N GRAPHICS Corel Presentations 7.0 This package offers state-of-the-art features, Internet functions, the images and graphics tools that made Corel famous, and usability that’s among the best. And, with a price tag under $100, it's a bargain, too. mediate user who only occasionally cre¬ ates and gives short presentations—slide shows that include bulleted text charts, data charts, organizational charts, and clip art. Some users are most comfortable working with words to organize their thoughts, while others like to organize the slides with a graphical interface. All five reviewed programs help both types of users by offering a word-based out¬ line view as well as a slide-sorter view of a presentation. All five slide-editing environments provide easy access to pro¬ gram commands via screen icons and menu structures. Presenting on the Web The ability to save presentations in Hy¬ pertext Markup language (H TML) and publish them to the Web has considerable potential. All software vendors are scram¬ bling to build in Web compatibility, but there’s still plenty of room for improve¬ ment in every program. Harvard Graph¬ ics and Adobe Persuasion currently offer no Web-publishing features. Corel Presentations, Freelance Graph¬ ics, and PowerPoint 95 all save to HT ML files, but none offers a streamlined meth¬ od of saving to a Web server. PowerPoint 95 requires an add-in: either the Power¬ Point Internet Assistant or the Power- point Animation Publisher and Player, both offered free on Microsoft’s Web site (http://www.microsoft.com). Corel Presentations 7.0 Corel Presentations offers state-of-the- art features, Internet functionality, a host of graphics tools, and usability that’s eclipsed only slightly by two of the oth¬ er programs. With a price tag under $100, Presentations is clearly the bargain of the bunch. Presentations certainly shows its Cor¬ el heritage with its extra graphics and drawing features (e.g., the ability to in¬ terface directly with TWAIN-compatible image scanners), an automatic bit-map tracing feature, the broadest graphics im¬ port/export capabilities, and 10,000 clip¬ art images. Presentations is the only pro¬ gram of the five that allows pixel editing of bit maps. Corel performs screen updates faster than any other program in this group, and it’s especially impressive with a com- 10B BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 / Corel Presentations gives you an / overview of the slide structure and helps / VOU Dick out stvios nrvH clirin tunnc Step 1 • Select« Mastet ftom the GeAety Gives you side show « consistent look Step 2 • Select e Template iMaChjrtj 8 Gives you fust tMe a specific layout and background Each slide it made up of layers: Background—F > Lotus Freelance * Graphics has the best charting tools of any of these products, present¬ ing options in a way that makes them fast and easy to choose. l* fpm* look WWSom U«t> D|gjJaleL?.i i M *MjI giai AM 1ul v wirgl lots you preview slide formats and designs. ^ PowerPoint's unique Meeting Minder feature com¬ bines a displayed agenda and a note¬ taking module for recording meeting minutes. ■•••MI <* SelectedAutoTrapUi* C NoAutoTe^t. Open tn C QuUne view <* SLfcde vtow Au4oTempl*(oi • Ap«3N*utctM^ Fi»eo«M: Adobe Persuasion s is a complete \ package, but its GUI is somewhat behind the times. LIU Mm •< 1mm P J JIHJ V T #«m$how Mi c*opi# vt on# loc#bon t#« «t C i##n show b#*io »un n «wth#r Th# pm ton i#ndng ih# p#«#nt*hon thoukt c#l you to dicuii howyouwii#tuptorlh# TetmShotv U*n youl i»od to provide the rww ol yoi comptf* You cen laid n n • Windows 95 SImI Menu. Settings Control Penol Network ■ lriimMin.itmn Section d "3 * Freelance's TeamShow simplifies the process of making a remote pre¬ sentation over a LAN or via modem. All these packages offer extensive help in preparing a slide presentation, including style and content templates and wizards, graphics and charting tools, and clip art. plex Windows Metafile graphic. In print speed, Corel is second only to PowerPoint in returning control to the user. The templates that come with the pro¬ gram are good, hut there isn’t the diversi¬ ty of slide layouts that the other packages offer. Presentations is the only tested pro¬ gram that doesn’t allow you to paste in charts and have them take on a template’s color scheme automatically. Presentations lets you break a pie-chart slice into a column chart, which is helpful when you want to show the individual items that make up a slice. The program currently supports chart builds, in which individual chart elements (e.g., the bars in i bar graph) appear in successive slides. Of all the programs tested, Corel Pre¬ sentations is the most Internet-ready. It comes with HTML saving capabilities out of the box, and it supports HTML frames, which lets you access individual slides from a page that has both the table of contents and the slide. Adobe Persuasion 3.0.2 Persuasion has been in this market since the late 1980s, but it’s the only program here not designed for Win 95. This hurt it in virtually every scoring criterion. For example, although Persuasion’s on-line help is quite complete, the help system’s context-sensitivity isn’t as intuitive as that of products that are designed specifically for Win 95. Also, unlike the rest of the group, Per¬ suasion doesn’t distribute content outlines, and it doesn’t let you browse through clip¬ art previews to find an image. However, it does have floating text and object tool palettes that allow you to edit while the tools remain on-screen, and it supports chart builds. By the time this review sees print, Ado¬ be should have unwrapped version 4.0, which will still be targeted mainly at peo¬ ple who make presentations on a regular basis. The new version will be the first major upgrade since Adobe acquired Aldus in 1995. Version 4.0’s most significant features are more distribution options, including more Web presentation functions. But in¬ stead of HTML, Adobe will use its own FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 109 Software Lab Report Presentation Graphics portable document format (.pdf files) for viewing with Adobe Acrobat. Persuasion’s interface will move closer to that of other Adobe graphics products, such as Photo¬ shop. And even though the new product will support some Win 95 features, such as long filenames, it still won’t be a 32-bit application. Lotus Freelance Graphics 96 Freelance Graphics 96 is a major upgrade from version 2.1, which NSTL evaluat¬ ed for BYTE’s last report on presentation graphics (in the January 1995 issue). Boosts in charting and collaborative-computing features, as well as interface enhance¬ ments, such as live slide thumbnail preview in the outline view, make this a comfort¬ able, feature-rich environment for novice presenters. The package comes with a wide selec¬ tion of slide layouts and backgrounds that look beautiful when displayed in 16-bit (64,000 colors) mode. Freelance Graphics offers easy application of slide transitions, but you can’t preview the effects. NSTL.’s usability testers liked doing live editing with floating tool palettes, which are used in several of these programs, but they found Freelance’s Infobox, a floating property dialogue, to be the best interface of the bunch. Because it’s context-sensi¬ tive, only those commands that apply to the selected object are available to the user. And because you can alter object and text properties in real time, you can see changes happen. Freelance has a nice selection of spe¬ cialized diagramming tools. You can cre¬ ate process and conceptual diagrams with the other programs, but Freelance Graph¬ ics does most of the work for you. The program allows point-to-point connection (for two remote computers only) via either modem or a LAN connec¬ tion, and multipoint capability is planned for the next release of the program. A wiz¬ ard-like interface made establishing a pre¬ sentation conference easier than with the other programs. Freelance Graphics 96 was a major up¬ grade, and the new features going into the next release aren’t spectacular. Freelance Graphics 97 supports HTML frames, and it has a File Save interface for saving HTML files to a Web server. Uniform resource locator (URL) links to Web sites can be ac¬ cessed directly from a presentation. Lotus adds 14 new SmartMasters to the current 120, and Lotus Notes users will like the enhanced presentation library and review database. The new version continues sup¬ port for the electronic filing cabinet and now supports Notes 4.0’s Team Review feature. Harvard Graphics 4.0 Harvard Graphics was the versatility win¬ ner in our previous tests, but it has not kept up with the others on the Internet front, and its performance is only slightly above average. In general, we found Harvard Graphics a little less helpful, and its op¬ erations required a few more steps, than the other programs. On-line help is com¬ plete and well designed, but it lacks a nat¬ ural-language search engine. Harvard Graphics’ templates are quite good, but there are fewer backgrounds. This is the only product that doesn’t al¬ low you to animate bullet items during the build process—for example, to have them bounce onto the screen from the left. Clip art generally has to be ungrouped and the background object made transparent if you want it to take on the background color of the slide, a cumbersome process. On the plus side. Harvard Graphics comes with Harvard F/X tools, which al¬ lows special effects, such as shaping text to curves and extruding and blending graphical objects. Harvard Graphics was the fastest of the bunch, and background color reproduction in the NSTL. quality test file was superb. Color text is more impres¬ sive in the other four programs, however. Microsoft PowerPoint 95 7.0 PowerPoint has been a key player in de¬ fining and developing presentation graph¬ ics since its first appearance in 1987 as a Macintosh application that had no chart¬ ing or outlining capabilities. But the pro¬ gram introduced the world to WYSIWYG slide formatting and, more important, it promoted the concept of combining many slides into a single file as a coherent presen¬ tation. Many of the features and tools that we now take for granted originated with PowerPoint. PowerPoint 95 is a business communi¬ cations tool, not just an authoring pack¬ age, and it’s useful for meetings of many kinds. It’s currently the only program of this group that allows multiple remote users to view a presentation via a TCP/IP connection with the presenter and audi¬ ence running the full version of the pro¬ gram. (Unfortunately, the presentation conference feature doesn’t work via TCP/ IP if your network also has NetWare IPX drivers installed.) And although Power¬ Point offers a wizard to set up the presen¬ tation conference, users can’t browse for computer names. The program goes far beyond the oth¬ ers in one area of meeting use. You can display your meeting agenda as a bulleted list and type minutes directly into Power¬ Point’s Meeting Minder. The program also PRESENTAT ION G R A P H 1 C S BEST OVERALL L ) Content Corel Presentations 7.0 An extensive feature set, great graphics tools, and good [Positive Audience Negative Audience Perfect Expert ■ Doubling Audience 1 usability make this a winner. 1 Neutral Audience RETAIL/UP GRADE PRICE TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATION PERFORMANCE EASE OF LEARNING EASE OF USE OVERALL RATING Corel Presentations 7.0 $95 / N/A **** itHitit itititit ★ ★★★ Lotus Freelance Graphics 96 Edition $355/$105 it it if it ***★ ★ ★★ itititirit Harvard Graphics 4.0 $289/$99 ★ ★★ ★ ★★ ★ ★ ★ itititit ★ ★★★ Adobe F^ersuasion 3.0.2 $395/$129 *★★ itirit itititit it it it Microsoft PowerPoint 95 7.0 $339/$109 it it it it itititit ★ ★★ it itititit ★ ★★★★ itititit ***** Outstanding **★* Very Good ★** Good ** Fair * Poor N/A - not applicable. I 10 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Software Lab Report Presentation Graphics features DESIGN AND CONTENT Design and content automation No. slide templates: topics/backgrounds/layouts Edit slides globally/individually No. clip-art images/sound clips/video, animation clips OUTLINER Import text Outline expand/collapse Number of outline levels Preview slide from outliner ELECTRONIC PRESENTATIONS Number of transition effects Set transition speed Preview transition effects Presentation rehearsal Bullet building/dimming Chart builds Animate objects Adobe Persuasion Corel Presentations Harvard Graphics Lotus Freelance Graphics Microsoft PowerPoint 95 Design only ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 42/0/16 ✓ 11 /12(213CD)/6 ✓ 12/31/15 ✓ 30/120/12 ✓ 19/85/24 500/139/32 10.000/471/0 500/0/0 >700/17/79 >1100/137/4 RTF RTF ASCII ASCII RTF ✓ ✓ ✓ / 256 8 4 6 5 ✓ 97 15 97 ✓ 53 ✓ ✓ 13 ✓ 27 49 ✓ ✓ Addon ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 97 ✓ inicnnci rcAlUMtb Open and save to HTML Save to Internet server Support for HTML frames Create linked table of contents Include transitions Link URLs to slides Browser plug-in available Multipoint presentations using TCP/IP PH A DTI UP 97 97 97 97 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Limited On LAN ✓ 97 97 ✓ 97 97 97 97 Free add-in 97 97 Free add-in Free add-in 97 ✓ ✓ vilAK I INIs Number of data-driven chart types Breakout pie/column chart Chart assimilates slide master attributes Graph noncontiguous ranges Sort pie slices Include chart data as table 11 ✓ ✓ ✓ 10 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 7 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 10 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 9 97 ✓ ✓ ✓ DRAWING Number of drawing tools (/ shapes) Use shapes with text Manipulate anchor/control points Image control of bit maps Rotate objects to any angle Mirror or flip selected shapes 8 Anchor 90* increments ✓ 15 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 10 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 9/37 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 5/22 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ COLORS/FILLS Choice of fill patterns, gradations, blend styles Gradient text and graphics fill Bit-map text and graphics fill ✓ Graphics Graphics in background ✓ ✓ Graphics ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Graphics ✓ Graphics 97 PRINT OPTIONS Print outline Layout, print speaker notes, handouts Cl 1 C Ifl a Al A ^ pair*aiv ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ PILE MANAGEMENT OLE client, DDE OLE server Set OLE 2.0 Object options Add OLE Controls (OCXes) Preview clip-art symbols Open multiple presentations Automatic file backup File details/descriptions, search Compress show for transport ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ 97 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ MO 97 ✓ ✓ 97 ✓ ✓ IMPORT/EXPORT CAPABILITY Number of presentation-import filters Number of text-import filters for outliner Number of data-import filters for charting Number of graphics-import filters in |/p DAI inril n n AN r\*r 97 7 5 18 3 49 5 29 2 1 3 13 3 1 5 18 3 1 3 17 WORKGROUP SUPPORT Automatic routing Revision management Share files between PC and Mac Simultaneous viewing on LAN Lotus Notes support •\HI c Z'r* i a * ii r* /■n i i o ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ MISCELLANEOUS Number of undo levels Global search and replace Macro record and playback 1 ✓ 10 ✓ ✓ 10 ✓ 10 ✓ 150 ✓ 97 ✓ - yen; 97 - planned for noxt version; MO - users can choose to open or edit objects in place. FEBRUARY 1 997 BYTE 1 1 1 Software Lab Report Presentation Graphics PRODUCT INFORMATION Freelance Graphics 96 $355 Lotus Development Corp. Cambridge. MA (800)343-5414 fax: (617) 693-0968 http://vyww.lotus.eom Circle 976 on Inquiry Card. Harvard Graphics 4.0 $289 Software Publishing Corp. San Jose, CA (800)336-8360 fax: (800) 582-6000 http://www.spco.com Circle 977 on Inquiry Card. Persuasion 3.0.2 $395 Adobe Systems. Inc. San Jose. CA (408)536-6000 fax: (408) 537-6000 http://www.adobe.com Circle 978 on Inquiry Card. PowerPoint 95 7.0 $339 Microsoft Corp. Redmond. WA (206)882-8080 fax:(206)936-7329 http://www4niiTosoft.nim Circle 979 on Inquiry Card. Presentations 7.0 $95 Corel Corp. Ottawa. Ontario. Canada (613)728-8200 fax:(613)761-9176 http://www .wordperfect.com Circle 980 on Inquiry Card. has an Action Items function that creates another bulleted list to remind meeting participants of assigned tasks. PowerPoint’s performance is inconsis¬ tent. It's sluggish at performing certain screen updates, but its print spooler is the fastest of all the reviewed programs. With the new PowerPoint 97, Microsoft is making PowerPoint easier to learn and use while meeting the needs of even more types of users. The Office Assistant is an animated program guru that lets you know if you’re performing a task inefficiently and suggests a different method. Experienced users can turn off the Office Assistant. PowerPoint 97*s new and improved organizational tools include an Expand Slide feature that flows bulleted text onto the next slide when one slide becomes too crowded. Also, slide miniatures can now be displayed in the outline view. The draw¬ ing tools are beefed up substantially. Auto- Shapes include five new forms, and the program connects two AutoShapes with a line. Move one shape, and the line auto¬ matically stretches and remains connect¬ ed to the other. In addition, the Meeting Minder has been enhanced to send action items to the Microsoft Office scheduling program. Finally, the Internet functionality, which now requires add-in programs, is inte¬ grated directly into PowerPoint 97. Good Tools, Every One Our tests show that an intermediate-level computer user can create stunning pre¬ sentations quickly and easily with any of TECH FOCUS TEMPLATES Anatomy of a Template Creating your first presentation is a daunting task: There are so many choices, and you're not sure how to proceed. Today's presentation-graphics programs offer considerable assis¬ tance, in the form of design templates and content outlines, that help you create good-look¬ ing and effective slide shows. For the design-challenged user, ready-made templates designed by graphic artists pro¬ vide a fast jump-start. Prior NSTL evaluations of this type of software have shown that testers prefer programs that ease or eliminate design decisions. Step-by-step dialog boxes and au¬ tomation tools, along with complete, on-line help, assist the user in making such decisions. Whether they’re using Corel's PcrfectExpcrt, Freelance Graphics' SmartMastcrs, Harvard Graphics' Quick Presentations, or PowerPoint's AutoContent Wizard, self-prompting tools give casual business users a much-needed hand in making design decisions. dBLH I lrloLd ..JLU A i U U jriAlfltf g ■ .Jgl- - '."St*}**- r* ffl Template files generally have two tiers, or — i —— PRESENTATION TITLE omcnvi PRESENT SITUATION D«»enb« cwrttf ptobWim. Support *1 ntHt f* (frr SOLUTION Litf bmtfa of yew Mt H«E> bfttMrt wuofcxa the « jeJQ Corel's content outliner guides you through a presentation. layers: a background or bottom layer, and a slide-layout layer. Both layers have an effect on the text and graphics that appear on the slide (i.e., topmost) layer. The background lay- er can contain a graduated or colored fill, a company logo, or other graphics, but its main function is simply to repeat whatever is placed on it on every slide in the presentation. The slide-layout layer determines where to posi¬ tion blocks of text and graphical placeholders on the slide, as well as what text font, size, and style attributes to use. For the "idea" side of the presentation—adding the content to the design—help was pre¬ viously limited to providing some organizational tools, such as an outliner. Now most pro¬ grams also offer professional help in creating and structuring the content of a presentation for specific purposes, such as a sales pitch, a budget proposal, a benefits explanation, and so on. (See the sample slide above.) The programs accomplish this feat by including content outlines for these topies and by using the program's text-placeholder function. Freelance Graphics and PowerPoint 95 offer the best selection of content outlines, followed by Harvard Graphics and Corel Presentations. Adobe Persuasion offers none. these five products. Lotus’s Freelance Graphics and Microsoft PowerPoint 95 are better for novices, while Corel Presenta¬ tions and Harvard Graphics offer better tools for those with some graphic-design experience. Corel Presentations, Lotus Freelance Graphics, and Microsoft PowerPoint are all highly capable programs. These three competitors have been leapfrogging one another’s feature sets for several years. Each boasts superiority over the others in certain feature categories, but NSTL rates Corel Presentations 7.0 as the features champion. Harvard Graphics and Adobe Persua¬ sion currently lack the Web-publishing fea¬ tures of the other programs. In the end, there’s nothing in any of these packages that would make us suggest that you switch from one to another. But if you’re a first- time buyer looking for a presentation- graphics program, Corel Presentations’ power, usability, and price make it the pick of the lot. □ David Seachrist has tested all major categories of general business software at NSTL for 10 years , concentrating on desktop publishing and graphics. You can reach him \ry sending e- mail to dseachrist@prodigy.com. 1.valuations in this report represent the judgment of HY'ITl editors. Ihised in part on extensive tests conducted try NS11„ Inc., as documented in a re¬ cent issue of its monthly Software Digest. To pur¬ chase a copy of that report, with NSTUs oivn eval¬ uations anddiUa, contact NS'IT. at 625 Ridge Pike, Conshohocken. PA I942S; (610) 941-9600; fax (610) 941-9950; on the Internet, edit ors(nnst l .com. Lora subscription, call (S00) 257-9402. 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Microway Alpha, Ojh’nVMS .uni Digital UNIX TM I NT.Exoalaod WotdTM Mkni Screamer, NI>P hirtran ami Microway TM Micron Technology You Can Count On Corporate Headquarters: Research Park, Box 79, Kingston, MA 02364 USA • TEL 508-746-7341 • FAX 508-746-4678 www.microway.com, info@microway.com • France 33 146229988 • Germany 49 6997650001 • India 91 806637770 Italy 39 27490749 • Japan 81 64593113 • Korea 82 25981623 • Poland 48 22487172 • United Kingdom 44 1815415466 NT Security Seven practical recommendations for securing Internet-connected Windows NT systems. n my August 1995 column, I mentioned that Satan, the Internet security scanner, had probed a Windows NT serv¬ er on The BYTE Site and found no vul¬ nerabilities. But as I pointed out then, no scanner can find holes that it doesn’t know how to look for. Satan tests for well-known weaknesses in Unix installa¬ tions, but it was clueless when it came to I hiding security holes in my Internet-con- netted NT system. In this case. I’d purposely left a Net¬ BIOS share wide open. Anyone who was running Windows 95 and knew a little about Windows networking over TCP/IP could have typed NET USE 0: WSERVER- iAMEVSHARENAME and gained full ac¬ cess across the Internet—to the serv¬ er’s boot partition. Does that make NT less secure than Unix? Today the answer is yes, but not because NT is inherently less securable than Unix. Administrators of Unix sys¬ tems have learned over decades how to configure Unix to survive in the hostile environment of the open Internet. As N'T increasingly finds itself operating in that same hostile environment, its administra¬ tors have to master the same techniques. I lere, then, are some ways to make an N'T site less vulnerable. i. Use NTFS, Not FAT N'T bile System (NTFS) volumes can apply access-control lists (ACLs) to files and directories; these controls work in con- junction with permissions on shared directories. A file allocation table (FAT) volume supports only the latter, share- level form of security. For safety’s sake, it s always the best thing to layer multi¬ ple defenses whenever they’re available, so you should always use NTFS on Inter¬ net-connected Windows NT machines. If NTFS ACLs give a network user full access to a partition but share-level per¬ missions grant only read access, then the effective access is read only. Windows N'T takes the intersection of NTFS ACLs and share permissions. ate for a IAN workgroup, but it’s disas¬ trous for an Internet server. What if you’re already running FAT? On x86 (but not RISC) NT systems, you can upgrade a boot volume to NTFS— in place—using the CONVKRT utility. It’s scary, but when I tested CONVKRT Audit Policy Computei: BYTE O Do Not Audit Audit These Events:- Logon and Logoff File and Object Access Use of User Rights User and Group Management Security Policy Changes Restart, Shutdown, and System Process Tracking By default, NT audits nothing. Be sure to audit all failed operations, as well as low-frequeney successes. OK Cancel Success Failure El El □ El □ El m El § El El El □ R] Help Should you even allow shares to exist on a public machine? Ideally nor, but in practice you need some way to move files to and from your server. NTFS-level secu¬ rity can help make that practice less dan¬ gerous. If you create new shares, though, be sure to alter the default permissions assigned by N'T. If you forget, group “Ev¬ eryone” will have full control of all that’s visible through the share. This behavior is one of the reasons why NI gets a bad rap in the security com¬ munity. It tends to default to a friendly configuration rather than to a paranoid one. I hat philosophy may be appropri- on a development server to verify that it works, all went well. 2. Rename the Administrative Account To foil brute-force password-guessing attacks, you should use NT’s User Man¬ ager to set an account-lockout policy. For example, the policy might specify that NT will lock out an account after five failed log-on attempts. Unfortunately, the most dangerous account—the administra- tor>s —is exempt from this policy. Even if you transfer administrative rights to your own account and use only that ac- FEBRUARY 1 997 BYTE I 17 Web Project NT Secur ity count for NT administration, the built-in administrative account remains available (because it can’t be deleted or disabled) and vulnerable to brute-force password attacks (because it can’t be locked out). Many NT experts recommend that you rename the administrative account some¬ thing obscure (e.g., 789Az0qPPaGzwer79) rather than the default name Adminis¬ trator. That way, a password-guesser must first guess the account’s name. The renaming function is not available from User Manager’s User Properties dia¬ log box, an omission that confused not only me but also a Microsoft product man- both the success and failure of various op¬ erations. Failures occur less often than suc¬ cesses, and they’re usually more interest¬ ing from a security perspective, so I always capture all these events (see the screen on page 117). 1 also capture successes for infre¬ quent operations—such as Security Poli¬ cy Changes and Restart—that might re¬ flect unauthorized activity. NT permits you to track other success¬ ful operations—File Access, Use of User Rights, and Process Tracking—but you'll need massive storage to capture this data, and incredible diligence to analyze it. However you decide to audit your sys- Network Bindings Show Bindings for: |< Ail Components > <- Upper Bindings Lower Bindings --> KJ NetBIOS Interface •> WINS Clienl(TCP/IP) •> 3Com Elhertnk III Adapter Oliver •> (1) 3Com Etherlmk II NetBIOS Interface •> NetBEUI Protocol •> 3Com Etherink III Adapter Driver •> (1) Xom Elheiknk III A< Server •> WINS Qient(TCP/IP) •> 3Com Etherink III Adapter Driver •> HI Xom Etherink III Adapter Server •> NetBEUI Protocol •> Xom Etherink III Adapter Driver •> [1 ] 3Com Etherink III Adapter TCP/IP Protocol ♦> Xom Etherink III Adapter Driver *> (1) Xom Etherink III Adapter Workstation •> WINS CSentpCP/IP) •> 3Com Etherink III Adapter Driver •> [1) Xom Etherink III Ada* Workstation > NetBEUI Protocol > Xom Etherink III Adapter Driver •> (11 Xom Etherink III Adapter OK Cancel | Enable | Oisoble | Help □ □ Disconnecting NetBIOS, Server, and Workstation from the TCP/IP stack guards against many NBT-based over-the-lnternet attacks. ager I interviewed. To rename the admin¬ istrative account, select the Uscr->Re¬ name menu choice in User Manager. While you’re at it, disable the Guest ac¬ count and remove or restrict all other user accounts. A machine dedicated to provid¬ ing public Internet services does not need, and should not have, user accounts other than those required for its administration. Finally, if you’re running NT 4.0, you can use a utility provided in the Resource Kit to activate lockout for the built-in ad¬ ministrator’s account. It’s effective only for over-the-network log-ons; if it’s trig¬ gered by an attack, you can still log on lo¬ cally to reset the lockout. 3. Turn On Auditing How do you know if you’ve been attacked or broken into? NT's event-auditing sys¬ tem can help, hut only if it’s enabled—and by default it is not. In User Manager, the Policies-> Audit menu choice leads to a screen that controls auditable events. The trick here is to collect enough infor¬ mation, but not too much. You can audit tern, it’s crucial to review the event logs to understand what records NT writes un¬ der normal conditions. That baseline will help you spot changes that spell trouble. Experts also recommend that you guard the audit logs, because hackers typically try to cover their tracks after a break-in. You could schedule a periodic backup of the log files, but if the backups remain on-line, then they, too, are vulnerable. A better solution would he to echo the au¬ dited events to a printer, or even e-mail them to yourself, to create an irrevocable audit trail. How? NT Perl comes with a (slightly buggy) module that you can use to read the event log. (See http://www.byte .com/art/download/evt.pl for a sample program that lists recent event-log entries.) V Disable NetBIOS- over-TCP/IP An Internet-connected NTbox will, by de¬ fault, support Windows networking over two transport protocols: NetBEUI and TCP/ IP. What's Windows networking? All the operations that require syntax of the form WNAMK. These operations include direc¬ tory and printer sharing, NctDDE, and re¬ mote administration. Connecting to a drive or editing a registry across the Inter¬ net requires only a mapping, in the local LMHOSTS file, between the remote ma¬ chine’s NetBIOS name and its IP address. For instance, you can use Win 95 versions of Event Viewer and User Manager (these come with the NT Resource Kit) to man¬ age NT servers across the Internet. This setup is very convenient for administra¬ tors—and also for hackers. The good news is that NT enables pre¬ cise control over your use of NetBIOS- over-TCP/IP (NBT). You can go to the Bind¬ ings dialog box in the Networks control panel and disable any or all of the follow- 1 ing bindings between NetBIOS-based ser¬ vices and TCP/IP (see the screen at left). On several machines. I've disabled all three. On one machine, though, I’ve al- I lowed the Workstation->TCP/IP bind- I ing to remain, because its job requires it to connect locally to a Linux server that I shares directories using Samba. Because NT networking services run promiscuously over multiple transports, my machines can still talk to each other using Server, Workstation, and other ser¬ vices. But these conversations occur only on the NetBEUI channel, which does not go across the Internet. The had news? Hackers can’t try to re¬ mote-mount drives or remote-edit regis¬ tries—but neither can I. 5. Block Nonessential Inbound TCP/IP Ports Suppose* an attacker did break in somehow and gain administrative control. I leorshe | might then find a way to reenable the NBT bindings you’d so carefully disabled. So, I it’s a good idea to enlist your router as an- I other line of defense. I'm assuming here that your NT server I is highly exposed—outside your firewall if you have one—and that its mission is I to offer public services, such as Web and FTP. If that’s the case, only two inbound I paths need to exist from the router to the server: 11 I I P on port 80, and FTP on port 21. The router can, and probably should, block all other inbound traffic. You may or may not have the access I and/or the authority to adjust your rout- I cr's packet-filtering rules. If you can do so, you might he tempted to create a back door for yourself. You could, for example, reject all non-Web and non-FTP inbound I 18 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 The Definitive Reference Source! UlBaaCD- Seven Years of BYTE — 1990-1996 Plus, Quarterly Updates PLUS: Instant Access To More Than 80 Issues of On CD-ROM J 990-1996 _ Years B Product Reviews & Core Technologies BYTELah/NSTL Reports Benchmarks Cover Stories & Pent ores Complete Index to Articles & Full Text Database IoKjmmAmOVO f SEARCH FIND ^ ELECTRIC MONEY •How to Use It -Mow to Mint Your Own ms Call 1-800-924-6621 It’s all at your fingertips — emerging trends, comprehensive world-wide industry analysis, multiplatform coverage of all the technologies, in-depth testing and product evaluations, advice, tips, expert opinions, and much more! It’s a deal for anyone who’s evaluating the significance of new technologies...doing research...making complex multi platform purchasing decisions...developing the next generation hardware or software products...preparing corporate plans. ► EXPORT ► LOCATE ► SCAN OrderToday! 1 - 800 - 924 - 6621 ^ It’s Comprehensive... Time Saving...and Easy to Use! It’s all in BYTE on CD-ROM. )rder Now! •i free international Numbers: ••U'Um 080071635 •♦many 0130826112 0800973017 i»V 167876155 "'<* 0800916068 ■flHliluids 060222146 Hl/erland 1557257 mmatk 80017728 «Nln- 020791136 fun • 091-752792 • /( iiiada 1-800-924-6621 K 609-426-5434 0197 YES! I want the power and convenience of BYTE on CD-ROM ^“ 1 ■ 1990 M BVTE ® "OM ««« «lull lent U Send me BYTE on CD-ROM! Full text from 1990-1996 issues of BYTE-more than 80 issues for only $39 95 Charge my: U Master Card UVISA UAmex U Check enclosed (Payable lo BYTE magazine. US lunds orty) C * d *- -- -Signature_ Name____ Address City _ E mail Address . State/Province/Country Zip/Postal Code. Mail to: BYTE on CO-ROM, P.O. BOX 526, Hightstown, NJ 08530 AI hrwai of I hr MrfrfwrJ hU< & Web Project NT Secur ity traffic, except NUT traffic on ports 137, 138, and 139 coming from the II* address that you use for remote administration. In theory, only you could then remote¬ ly operate the server. In practice, a hacker who discovered the connection between you and that II* address could also try to exploit the inbound path. Mow might someone learn the II* ad¬ dress of your home system and exploit it? An acquaintance outlined his MO as fol¬ lows: I) research the target server’s admin¬ istrator, 2) create a phony Web page tai¬ lored to the administrator’s interests, 3) send an e-mail invitation to visit that page, 4) capture the II* address of the home sys¬ tem, and 5) infiltrate that system using JavaScript or ActiveX. A back door that depends on the ano¬ nymity of an II* address is frighteningly vulnerable to a patient, systematic attack. That’s why security experts recommend that you disallow all nonessential inbound paths. Bob Lord, Netscape’s chief secu¬ rity consultant, wryly laments this evil necessity: “Rather than telnet in at 3 a.m. from my den while sipping a hot cup of coffee, I have to drive to work and sit in the cold room...but I’m not bitter.” 6. Revoke the "Access from Network” Privilege There’s another line of defense available in NT. By default, NT grants to group Ev- eryone the right to Access from Network. You can revoke this right—thus blocking all Windows networking services—yet still support Web service. An NT Web server, for example, runs either as SYSTEM or as a local user; in either case, there’s no no¬ tion of a remote user in the NT sense. The FTP server that comes with NT will fail in this situation, because it requires TOOLWATCH SafeSuite Web-security scanner $495 Firewall scanner $1495 Intranet scanner $1495 Internet Security Systems http://www.iss.net/ A powerful Internet security scanner that does much of what Satan does, plus it probes for NT-specific vulnerabilities. users to perform network-style log-ons. But other FTP servers, including the one in Microsoft’s Internet Information Serv¬ er (IIS), perform local log-ons and so are unaffected by revocation of the Access from Network right. Unfortunately, unlike the NBT method, this technique cannot select which proto¬ cols to allow or deny. So, if you run Web and FTP service with Access from Network revoked, you’ll block file-sharing not only across the Internet but also locally over NetBEUI. Here’s a compromise solution: Grant only your personal administrative account the Access from Network right. 7. Don't Blithely Divulge Information “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re running Windows NT,” say NT partisans. Unfortunately, the curious can easily find out. For example, the built-in FTP service announces connections thusly: ftp> open ftp.myhost.com Connected to ftp.myhost.com 220 ftp Windows NT FTP Server (Version 3.51). B 00 KN 0 TE World Wide Web Journal volume 1, issue 4 edited by Rohit Khare O'Reilly and Associates http://www.ora.eom/ A eolleetion of techni¬ cal papers from mem¬ bers of the World Wide Web Consortium and other prime movers of the Web. This issue of the quarterly journal focuses on HTTP/1.1, state management, and PICS. Legitimate users have absolutely no need for such information. Hackers, how¬ ever, gladly use it to disqualify fruitless modes of attack and zero in on effective, OS-specific ones. The IIS FTP service has an equally distinctive signature: Connected to ftp.myhost.com. 220 ftp Microsoft FTP Service (Version 2.0). In either case, it’s a snap to find out that you’ve connected to an NT box and to discover which version of NT it’s run¬ ning. Contrast this with my Unix hosts, which announce the following: Connected to ftp.myhost.com. 220 ftp FTP server Version wu-2.4(2) It’s not obvious whether you’ve con¬ nected to my Linux server or to my BSD/ OS server. Even this approach isn’t perfect, because there are attacks specific to the wu FTP server. The point: Don’t giveaway any information that you don’t have to give away. Although you can customize a greeting message in NT’s built-in FTP serv¬ er and the IIS FTP service. I’m not aware of a straightforward way to suppress or al¬ ter the connection banner. If you’ve fig¬ ured that out, please let me know. Give NT Paranoia Most of the defenses I’ve outlined here are simple, but they all require some effort. Out of the box, NT configures itself for a trusting environment. When you locate an NT server on the Internet, the governing principle must be paranoia, not trust. It’s not hard to do the kinds of things I’ve outlined here. What is hard is to dis¬ cover these methods in the first place and then apply them rigorously. But isn’t that just what computers do well? I’d like to make a simple choice—trust or paranoia—when installing or config¬ uring NT. If I choose paranoia, the NT in¬ staller should omit all unnecessary net¬ work services, protocols, and bindings; revoke all network-based rights and per¬ missions; and audit itself aggressively. On an upgrade, features not consistent with the paranoid mode should be removed so that attackers cannot reenable them. The burden should be on me to selectively in¬ stall and enable essential capabilities. A basic tenet of computer security states that whatever is not explicitly allowed should be denied. NT gets this principle mostly backward today, but it shouldn’t be hard to implement a “paranoid toggle.” Such an option would make public deploy¬ ment of NT a whole lot less risky. How about it, Microsoft? B Editor’s Note: Thanks to the security con¬ sultants who helped with this article: Steve Eurcich (independent) and Andy Baron (Midwest Commerce Systems, Inc., http:// www.omna.com/). See also http://www .somarsoft.com/. Jon Udell is BYTE's executive editor for new media. You can reach him try sending e-mail to jon u@dev5.byte.com. 120 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Applications Servers BYTE SPECIAL Choose the right software and hardware for your middle tier. Share the Wealth Fast, efficient, economical: Applications servers promise to deliver all three benefits. Page 123 Which OS? Nothing will determine how your pi server performs more than the OS it runs. Here’s how to find the best one for your enterprise. Page 125 Suite and Sour Before you try to integrate disparate applications, consider the pros and cons of server suites. Page 131 LUSf fMtoA Power to the Server Boost its CPU power, increase its I/O performance, and raise its reliability. Page 133 WHAT DO LOCKHEED Al* HAVE IN HE WEATHER MMON? THEY USE THE HIGHEST PERFORMING MULTIPORT COMMUNICATIONS BOARD-IN THE INDUSTRY When these companies were looking for speed, reliability, affordability, and ease of use for remote access and peripheral control, they chose a Comtrol serial communications board. Using this technology, internet access speed can be increased 16x from 28.8 Kbps to 460 Kbps full duplex across all ports. ComtroTs RocketPort is the industry’s fastest controller. Twice the speed of Digi’s Acceleport. This breakthrough performance is achieved by putting eight ports and a RISC processor onto one chip. (• Port CimrMKtoro) Comtrol’s software drivers and technical support make it easy to switch. We provide drivers for Novell Netware Connect, Multiprotocol Routing, Windows NT RAS, UNIX, OS/2, and Linux. If you are already using one of these drive all you need to do is install your RocketPort card. 1/ mapping eliminates memory conflicts and allows plug a play compatibility. RocketPort also gives you 30 times fas! processing! This host CPU efficiency allows you to a more ports or free up valuable CPU time. For your additional needs, our techm experts are just a phone call away to c you step-by-step instructions. See for yourself! Call 1-800-926-6876, e-n us at info@comtrol.com, or look us up our website: http://www.comtrol.co Comtrol provides a 5 year limited warra and a 30 day risk free trial for all products. Get the best board at half the cost and personalized support from the company that created the multip< industry in 1982 — the only company with 14 years of experience...Comtrol. NetWare Tested and Approved MausqFT i\ i WINXMSNT COMRMIBLE COMTROL !\ni'erful Choices jkxmpm MultiPort # Serial Humid • ©Comtrol Corporation, 1996 Circle 135 on Inquiry Card rj Share the Wealth Spreading C.PU power around with applications servers makes more sense than ever. By Robert L. Hummel □ arge corporations are downsizing from mainframes while demanding the same or better level of perfor¬ mance. Workgroups are upsizing while demanding an increasing level of service. Making these changes possible in many enterprises are applications servers, which promise improved performance, cost control, reduced drain on the network, and easier expansion and manageability. IS departments are embracing dedicated applications servers as never before. This comput¬ ing model is a far cry from the host-based systems that were pervasive 30 years ago. It’s also distinct from the strict desktop client model cen¬ tered around personal com¬ puters. It is, instead, a net¬ work-centric model based on specific, dedicated servers and oriented toward global deployment of applications. Applications servers are often the glue that holds a distributed environment together. But choosing the correct server for your par- i icular needs demands equal parts analysis and vision. Bet¬ ter performance is always a goal when reengineering a network. But other factors figure high on any applica- t ions server checklist: reduc¬ ing implementation cost, case of development, and integration into the existing network environment. No single solution is a perfect fit for every compa¬ ny, and legacy systems mean (hat few IS managers have the luxury of launching applications servers from a clean slate. Choosing the right solution for any particular operation still requires you to sift through confusing .md often contradictory information. In this report, we’ll exam¬ ine the spectrum of applications server solutions from x86-based 1’C.sto high-end RISC systems and from server operating systems to applications server suites. What, exactly, is an applications server? The definition often depends more on who’s doing the defining than on the under¬ lying technology. Vendors of mainframe and midrange com¬ puters define their systems as applications servers because these systems run core business programs such as billing, inventory control, sales analysis, general ledger, and payroll. Vendors of increasingly powerful PC servers also define their systems as applications servers. After all, these systems now incor¬ porate many high-end management and development features and can also run core business applications. But unlike their high- end cousins, PC system ven¬ dors tend to be more egali¬ tarian in their definition of an applications server: They broaden the category to in¬ clude, in addition to tradi¬ tional business applications, productivity tools such as Lotus Notes. So who’s right? Both can be right. And both can be wrong. Applications servers sit somewhere between the data, which resides in a repos¬ itory like a database, and the client, which is on the user’s desk. In other words, appli¬ cations servers are part of a client/server architecture. Not every activity per¬ formed by a server can be called an application. And not every distributed appli¬ cation can be called client/ server. A file server, for exam¬ ple, doesn’t qualify because the client isn’t aware the serv¬ er’s there. The client talks to a redirector that sends client requests to the file server. Client/server operation is a logical concept and doesn’t depend on physical topology. In a true client/server system, significant processing occurs in both the client and the server processes—regardless of where those processes are executing. Interaction between client and server is cooperative, typically, a client sends a request to a server. The server, in turn, responds to that request. Both the client and the server portions of a distributed application are aware of each other and communicate as peers. Unlike the case with a file serv¬ er, neither portion of a distributed application performs useful FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 123 Special Report Share the Wealth work without the other. The client and the server typically implement a cooper¬ ative balance of work that trades off the computing power available on each plat¬ form against network traffic. In a two-tier architecture, desktop clients connect to a server on a LAN. Such an architecture enables users to access one set of data. There’s a prob¬ lem, though: The server is responsible for retrieving data and often for applying business rules on that data. For example, a client requests some data, and the data¬ base server is responsible for retrieving the data as well as making sure that the user is authorized to see it. Add too many clients and the server gets overwhelmed. A three-tier applications server mod¬ el logically (not necessarily physically) separates the user interface, application logic, and data management components. This model removes the responsibility for retrieving and processing data from a sin¬ gle server. As the number of clients grows. you can add second-tier servers to main¬ tain response time. You can even split large databases across multiple servers to fur¬ ther balance third-tier network traffic and service requests. Fistful of Benefits Deploying servers in these ways can improve performance and manageability at all levels of the enterprise. Here are some potential benefits. • An applications server can off-load all or parts of a mainframe’s applications to departmental servers, improving per- formance without requiring costly I upgrades to the mainframe. The lighter I load may also extend the productive life I of the mainframe and preserve the I development investment it represents. I • The improved balance between local and I remote processing chores can lower the I required communications bandwidth. I • Enterprise-wide distributed computing I and advanced database applications I become generally available to network I users. The improved access can increase I productivity. • Users see improved or more consistent I response time. Local servers can cache I frequently used data when appropriate. I • Corporate headquarters can synchro- I nize data architectures at remote sites I with replication products. • Multiprocessor, multitasking servers I support scalability at a lower incremen- I tal expense. • Independence between client and serv- I er components ensures that modifica- I tion of one need not affect the other. • Administration can be centralized at the I workgroup or enterprise level as appro- I priate for each application. Applications servers make a lot of I sense. They’re a logical bridge between I the highly centralized, secure mainframe I environment and the decentralized Ij\N I environment, combining the best of both. I The remainder of this Special Report I will give you guidelines for evaluating and I choosing the operating system and hard- I ware platform that will best suit the needs I of your applications server. □ Rolfert /.. / lutnmel is an electrical engineer, pro - I grammer, and consultant . You can reach him at I rhummel@monad.net. Apps Servers Today Mention applications servers and it's likely the application that springs to mind will be data* base access. But the office does not function by databases alone. More often than not, communication across the room or across the world depends on a suite of productivity servers. • Electronic mail. Although not always a critical lino-of-business application, e*mail is currently the most widely used network application. Messaging, a superset of e-mail, enables users to participate in collaborative computing applications such as scheduling, notifying, conferencing, and forms routing. Examples include Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange, and Netscape Mail Server. • Internet access. Whether to support controlled access to the Net, establish a cor¬ porate presence, or support roving users, a connection server is becoming a mandatory part of any network system. The connection server passes on requests from client browsers, acting as a proxy to remote servers, possibly caching often-accessed pages to improve per¬ formance. And clients outside the enterprise can easily access documents. Examples include Netscape Proxy Server, Trusted Information Systems’ Gauntlet Internet Firewall, and Microsoft Internet Information Server. • Communications. Homogeneous networks are rare. To enable servers to communi¬ cate and share resources across a variety of hardware and software platforms, regardless of protocol, some sites use a communications server. Routing is a critical component that ties users, servers, networks, and sites into a single, coherent network. • Network management. Along with enhanced capability comes increased complex¬ ity. Network management systems are designed to collect information about the network and its components and display that infon nation where managers can manipulate it. An ide¬ al system gives IS personnel the ability to manage the network from any workstation, remote connection, or Internet terminal. File Servers and Applications Servers SPEC I A L REPORT I Which OS? Seven key criteria can help you choose the best OS for your applications server. By Robert L. Hummel ach OS has something to rec¬ ommend its place in your server closet. To maintain order, how¬ ever, you must limit the total num¬ ber of OSes you run. Let’s look at how to ( hoose an OS for your applications servers, with particular attention to NetWare, OS/2, OS/400, Unix, and Windows NT. Applications Availability Key questions: Will the OS run the appli- cations you run today? How many newappli- c ations are being developed for it now? How much will you pay for the applications you want to run? Applications availability isn't a numbers game. For all you know, those 11,000 appli¬ cations that a particular OS supports are all games. Make sure that the applications you need are available. Also make sure that the applications and their support contracts won’t be more expensive than the server was-a legacy of the days of the mainframe. Also look for the OS to support applica¬ tions interaction in a standard way. For exam¬ ple, NT lets applications pass information among each other using OLE. Platform Support Key questions: Does it support your exist¬ ing clients? How does it support mobile users? Do clients require any special soft¬ ware to access the server? Interoperability exists on several levels. At the lowest level, systems may define and use divergent network protocols. NetWare networks use IPX, while most Unix net¬ works and the Internet use TCP/IP. By default, NT uses NetBEUI. All these OSes can sup¬ port other protocols, but they usually work best running their core protocol. At a higher level, even if a client supports a server’s low-level protocol, it still may not be able to connect. A classic example is that you can run AppleTalk on a NetWare 4.11 server, but a Mac that tries to log on without first loading the NetWare client for Macin¬ tosh will receive an error telling it that the serv- SunSoft Solaris Solaris runs on x86 systems and the Sun line of RISC-based SPARC platforms. Among Unix vendors, only Sun offersa product for multiple platforms. This putsSun in a unique position as the Unix vendor that can match Microsoft’s multiplatform strategy. Applications There are 10,000 native Solaris applications available from ISVs covering a range from accounting to Z-mail. Desktop productivity tools such as pre¬ sentation software tend to be a bit limited, but Sun’s Windows Application Binary Interface (Wabi) technology lets many Windows productivity applications run on SPARC/UItraSPARC. Platform Support Sun’s flagship line of SPARC/UItraSPARC CPUs is where you’re most likely to find Solaris running, but you can bring it up on any x86 (486 or high¬ er) CPU. Solaris’s connectivity resources are formidable, ranging from the enter¬ prise-capable NIS+ directory service, LDAP, and a host of IP networking services (e.g., I* IP, DHCP, I I TI P, and NFS). If your goal is to connect PCs and Macs to a Solaris server, you’re either going to have to install a good TCP/IP client package on each client or install third-party extensions to Solaris. Connectivity to mainframes is another third-party extension. Performance Solaris running on SPARC is a high-performance hardware/soft¬ ware combination available on everything from laptops to servers with up to 64 processors. The Solaris kernel is incredibly tunable, letting you create a server that is particularly good at a specific task. In fact, you pretty much must tune the kernel to get the best performance from Solaris on applications such as Web serving. Performance on x86 systems generally lags behind the SPARC systems. Management Whether server or at a VI'100 that’s more system. The Solaris product comes with its own graphical tools for the administration of nearly all its services. Many of these graphical tools are making their way to Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), so you’ll soon be able to administer Solaris from any Web browser. However, that doesn’t mean that Unix’s command-line administration tools have gone away. Development SunSoft Work- Shop provides visual tools, dri¬ vers, and libraries for applica¬ tions development. Sun empha- :r you re sitting at the graphics-enabled console of your than 3000 miles away, you can administer a Solaris Solaris 2.x Architecture Solaris API Desktop OpenWindows, CDE Imaging and graphics XI1, DPS. XIL.XGL. OpenGL Network computing ONO/WebNFS, TCP/IP Base operating system SunOS, Java VM Solaris SPI At each level of the OS. Solaris isolates applications from each other. FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 125 Special Report Which OS? er doesn’t have a recognizable log-on sequence. NT's AppleTalk implementation, on the other hand, appears as a standard Mac server. Look for integration with particular types of directory services. The idea is for users to be able to log on once and to be able to access any applications residing on your applications servers. For example, Unix sys¬ tems tend to rely on the Domain Naming Sys¬ tem (DNS) and the Network Information Ser¬ vice (NIS). NetWare 4.11 uses the NetWare Directory Service (NDS). NT 4.0 also uses a domain system. None of these work well with each other, but some, such as NDS, can accept many OSes into their structure. The Web may make some of these points moot by standardizing on communications protocols such as HTTP and TCP/IP. For now, however, the best solution for cross-platform integration is either for a server OS to sup¬ port all the protocols you run in your organi¬ zation or for you to standardize on a protocol (probably TCP/IP). NT seems to be adept at running multiple protocols, including TCP/IP, NetBEUI, IPX/SPX, and AppleTalk (not to mention a few others), but you can usually find extensions to any OS to bring this level of functionality to your server. Performance Key questions: How many users can you support with a single system? Does the OS support symmetric multiprocessing (SMP)? Does it let you balance loads across multiple systems? You can read all the benchmark results you want, but how an OS performs for you will depend on how you use it. Performance is applications-dependent. Some bench¬ marks, such as the Transaction Processing Council’s TPC-C, indicate system perfor¬ mance in a database environment. Others, such as the BYTEmark, show the perfor¬ mance of specific system components. Some aspects of OS design indicate what kind of performance characteristics you can expect. Multithreading, for example, can reduce the number of context switches your applications have to do, thereby boost¬ ing performance. Preemptive multitasking will let applications cut each other off, deliv¬ ering more egalitarian performance. NT, OS/2, OS/400, and SunSoft Solaris are both. NetWare is neither. Next, look at scalability, specifically SMP. All the major OSes-Unix, NT, NetWare SMP, OS/2, and OS/400-support SMP. The question is: How many CPUs can the OS han¬ dle? For example, NT’s end-user license sizes Java development. Source code compatibility enables Intel-SPARC cross-plat¬ form development. Reliability Solaris’s protected-memory architecture makes it a fairly difficult OS to crash completely, and the journaled File system means that crash recovery is smooth. With add-ons, Solaris will support RAIDO, 1, and 5, and two-way clustering. Third- party solutions provide data replication and hardware failure detection. Security C2 compliance is at the top of Solaris’s security laurels. In addition, the administrator can set disk-storage limits, expire and lock accounts, force password changes, and lock user log-on times. Unix as a whole, however, has some serious security holes, such as the sendniail daemon. Patches exist to many of the known holes, but it’s up to the administrator to apply them. Microsoft Windows NT Server Regardless of the current makeup of your network infrastructure or your inclination, it’s nearly certain that NT Server will be a part of your future plans—it does too many things too well for you to ignore it. Expect it to make inroads as a replacement for NetWare and as a low-end and midrange applications server. Applications A large number of Windows applications are available, with an increasing number that leverage the 32-bit or multiprocessing nature of NT. High- I end business-critical applications (e.g., CICS) are somewhat underrepresented, but I Microsoft’s BackOffice suite provides good integration of many server applications, including systems management and a database. Platform Support NT is available for x86 (486 or higher). Digital Alpha, and i PowerPC processors. (R4x()0 support has been discontinued.) It includes support for most common clients except Unix, which requires a third-party add-on. It uses trust- I ed domains for its directory services, which provide only limited scalability and are incompatible with such standards as X.500 and LDAP. Performance You can get NT running on some of the fastest processors around, but there are some caveats to NT’s multiprocessing. For example, N'T can support j up to 32 processors, but you’ll find the license for the shrink-wrapped version of NT is limited to four. Beyond that, porting is vendor-dependent. Management The collection of Windows-based management tools is also easy to use, but they lack some of the integration you’ll find in a product such as NetWare 4.11. For example. Disk Admin¬ istrator and User Administrator are separate tools. Also, you manage Macintosh file services not through the Disk Admin¬ istrator or Windows NT Ex¬ plorer, but through File Man¬ ager. Remote system manage¬ ment support needs improve¬ ment, but it can be accomplished with tools such as Symantec’s Norton PCAnywhere32. Development Consistency is the catchphrase when develop¬ ing for NT. You can develop applications in a single environ¬ ment that’s produced and con¬ trolled by a single vendor. NT’s momentum translates directly into an abundance of develop- applications from the hardware. 126 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 r Which OS? Special Report limits it to four. OS/2 can address up to 64, as can some Unix implementations. Remem¬ ber, though, that you often need to tune soft¬ ware to run on SMP systems. Management Key questions: Can you control multiple servers from a single point? Can you gain remote-administration access to a server? Does the server integrate with your existing administration system? Systems management means different things to different people. For many, backup is a key part of systems management. All server OSes have some kind of backup util¬ ity built in. Unfortunately, they’re not always the most sophisticated packages, and they all have different interfaces. If your goal is to back up your disparate servers from a cen¬ tral console and you’ve already selected soft¬ ware such as Arcada’s Backup Exec, make sure it supports the new OSes. As you plan for your network’s growth, be sure that the OSes you choose fit in with your management scheme. If the network will nev¬ er be large, you may be able to rely on Unix’s < ommand-line interface. If, however, you're responsible for a server farm with several dozen boxes, you need some way to get an at-a-glance summary of the farm’s status. Software such as Intel’s LANdesk Man¬ ager and Symantec's Norton Administrator for Networks can give you a sense of what’s going on with your servers. However, they don't have great support for OSes such as Unix and OS/400. Alternately, standard SNMP consoles such as Hewlett-Packard’s OpenView can give you information about the flow of information around your network, but they often can’t get you component-lev- <1 information about particular systems. The basic rule with management is to make sure that whatever OS you choose fits in with your existing management strat¬ egy, or that you're willing to modify your strat¬ egy to accommodate the new OS. Applications Development Key questions: Are the development tools you use available for this platform? Does the OS vendor extend support to users or only t< > independent software vendors (ISVs)? Are the APIs open and well documented? Off-the-shelf productivity is an enticing < oncept, but it’s one that translates poorly into reality. Except at the simplest level of operation, every network will require some customization. An OS must have standard OS services and industry-standard inter¬ faces to support development. Virtual pro- ment tools, languages, and development systems all geared to producing Windows applications. Reliability NTs fault tolerance runs from integrated RAH) 0,1, and 5 to automatic restart after a crash. Clustering is available from companies such as Digital and Tandem. Microsoft is working on a clustering API (called Wolfpack), but initially it will support only clusters of two systems. Security NT implements most of the common security features, including password restrictions, account expiration, and audit logs. NT 3.51 has C2 certification for stand¬ alone systems, but not for networked systems, and NT 4.0 has no C2 certification. Novell NetWare Novell is the first to admit that NetWare might look somewhat threadbare as a client/server applications-server platform compared to other offerings. Its capacity to provide comprehensive transaction processing is thin. Until the addition of sup¬ port for SMP for multithreaded applications last year, it offered limited scalability. IntranetWare, a new offering from Novell, is essentially an upgraded version of Net¬ Ware 4.11. It adds a Java virtual machine, a TCP/IP-IPX gateway, and an integrated multiprotocol router for WAN and Internet connections. Applications About 6000 applications are available for NetWare, including pop¬ ular network-centric and workgroup productivity applications. That said, the nature of the NetWare loadable module (NLM) architecture means third-party applications tend to be complete solutions, offering integration within themselves, but integra¬ tion with each other and the OS is poor. Platform Support NetWare runs only on x86-based (386 or higher) systems. Client connectivity is good, with built-in support for DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, NT, Mac OS, and OS/2. You will have to configure the server to support long filenames* however, and you II have to train Mac users how to log on to the NetWare NDS tree. Performance Single-server performance is limited by the fastest x86 processor you can buy, because NetWare SMP does not automatically make its SMP capabili¬ ties available to all applications. Management fhe NetWare administrator runs under Windows 3.1, NT, Windows 95 and OS/2. It makes user, group, and directory tree management as well as volume administration simple. To shut down the server, however, you need to be at the console or using the DOS-based remote- console utility included with the OS. Development NetWare is not a great development platform. In particular, the lack of an open- interface model and shortage of development tools and docu¬ mentation have hampered devel¬ opment, although companies such as Oracle and Lotus have designed their products as NLMs. The NetBasic scripting language enables building server-based log¬ ic. Novell’s IntranetWare initia¬ tive emphasizes Java as the devel¬ opment environment and may provide some improvements. Reliability NetWire file servers have a well-earned reputation NetWare Architecture an opcn-intcrface model. FEBRUARY 1 997 BYTE 12 7 Special Report Which OS? tected memory, multitasking, preemptive scheduling, and advanced features (e.g., threads ,md asynchronous I/O) are essen¬ tial to many high-end development efforts. To make productive use of an OS’s cus¬ tomizability, you’ll need a robust suite of development tools, documentation, and- most important-support from the OS ven¬ dor for in-house development. At the very least, developers should expect compilers, debuggers, project management utilities, and visual-programming tools. If you choose a server OS whose vendor caters only to large ISVs, you’re unlikely to find a large pool of experienced developers. Support from third-party vendors is important as well. Tools, programming envi¬ ronments, and complete applications are often available across multiple NOS plat¬ forms. By working with familiar tools, devel¬ opers can leverage their knowledge at all lev¬ els throughout the enterprise. Reliability Key questions: Does it support RAID or clustering? Is the file system journaled? Can you hot-swap components? Protected-memory architectures and OS- provided device drivers are hallmarks of reli¬ able OSes like NT, OS/2, OS/400, and Unix. NetWare, on the other hand, runs its appli¬ cations in a shared memory space, and appli¬ cations could run in protected mode-ring 0 of the CPU-where they could interfere with the machinations of the OS. More of the fault tolerance takes place at the hardware level. RAID, whether it's imple¬ mented in software or hardware, is common. The advantage of a software implementation such as NT is mainly price. Much of the other fault tolerance-including redundant power supplies, network cards, and cooling fans-depends on the server you buy. OS/400 and Solaris also have advanced clustering solutions. IBM is working on porting the OS/400 clustering (code-named Phoenix) to OS/2. Microsoft is working on a set of APIs (called Wolfpack) for clustering two NT machines. Digital already has a sys¬ tem to enable NT clusters. By default, clus¬ tering is an option to each of these OSes- but often an expensive one, costing thousands of dollars per CPU. Security Key questions: Can the administrator enforce password restrictions? Does the OS support access-control lists? On-the-fly encryption? How about Orange Book C2- level security? continued as being highly reliable. Server mirroring systems such as Novell’s System Fault Tolerance (SFT) and Novell’s new Intranet Ware servers can self-diagnose and report hardware and software problems, and then engage automatic recovery. However, NetWare relies on running applications in ringO for performance, enabling applica¬ tions (NLMs) access to each other’s memory spaces. In theory, anyway, a rampant NLM could crash an entire server. Security As a file server, NetWare’s security is good, with features such as log-on time restrictions, account locking, and the ability to restrict log-on by workstation pro¬ tocol. But as you layer applications on top of NetWire, you are at the mercy of the developer’s security implementation. It is possible, for example, that a backup NLM could give any user access to tapes in your tape drive. Novell is working on a net¬ work-level C2 certification for IntranetWare. IBM OS /2 Warp Server The marriage of OS/2’s 32-bit, multitasking, multithreaded core to IBM’s LAN Serv¬ er 4.0 server OS produced Warp Server. The resulting product provides solid appli- cations-server capabilities, along with file and print services, as well as good man¬ agement tools, remote connectivity, and backup and recovery services. Applications Although OS/2 Warp Server lacks broad-based applications support, major products and applications categories are represented, especially business appli¬ cations such as accounting and even CICS. There is, however, no cohesive, consis¬ tently implemented integration strategy: Users must integrate third-party solutions. Platform Support OS/2 runs on any x86 (486 or higher) processor, making it, like NetWare, limited to one architecture. That said, IBM has placed considerable emphasis on integration with other platforms. You’ll find clients for DOS; Windows 3.x, N'T, and 95; OS/2; AIX; and Mac OS. Performance As with NetWare, the performance of OS/2 is limited to the fastest x86 processor you can buy. However, Warp Server 4.0 includes SMP that will work with a system with up to 64 CPUs. The SMP feature can provide a boost to existing 16-bit DOS, Windows, and OS/2 applications that aren’t SMP-aware. By letting these virtual-mode applications run across multiple processors, rather than on a single processor, the reduc¬ tion in task-switching overhead should produce an increase in performance. Management OS/2, like NT, supports hardware discovery and supplements that with alerts when hardware is failing. Like N'T, however, you need to use multiple applications to perform system administration. The user interface supports drag- and-drop object-based administration, including network-based software distribu¬ tion and support for SNMP and DMI management systems. Development ibm provides a selection of visual-program¬ ming environments, Software Development Kits (SDKs), and other development tools, including its excellent Visual Age products. That said, the OS includes only token third-par¬ ty support for native OS/2 envi¬ ronments. Reliability raido and l (but not 5) are built in to OS/2, as are backup services and utilities for bad drive sector remapping. OS/2 borrows the clustering architecture of IBM’s high-end interface for applications and hardware. Virtual device drivers offer a direct 28 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 That’s what you’ll do if j%u buy a proprietary sernr RAID system. For The Life Of Your Data wStor Corporation, Inc 450 Technology Park I^akc Maiy, FL 32746 www.nstor.com 800*724*3511 Before you decide on a proprietary server RAID system consider this: The life of your data is much longer than the life cycle of your server. VV hicli means you II take a hath when you upgrade your server. A RAID solution from //Stor (formerly Conner Storage Systems) is a mission-critical buy. nStor’s server-independent RAID systems are unmatched for ease of use, low life-cycle cost and high availability. In fact, our systems can actually increase read/write performance. As you’d expect from a company that co-authored the SAF-TK* standard with Intel, uStor systems are compat¬ ible with all PCI-based servers and SAF-TE compliant systems. All key components arc user serviceable and hot swappable. And our user friendly management software provides RAID management, performance monitoring and failure notification at a glance. For more information about RAID solu¬ tions designed for the life of your data visit our web site at www.nstor.com or call 1-800-RAID511. Because a proprietary solution is no bundle of joy. * SCSI Accessed Fault-Tolerant Enclosure. Circle 216 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 217). Special Report Which OS? Security is a tough subject. There are many buzzwords but little uniform interpre¬ tation of them. The short of it is that any OS can be compromised if it’s not installed and maintained using a strict security policy. You have to enforce alphanumeric passwords, change passwords frequently, and even con¬ sider encrypting vital information. All that said, an OS can make it easier to enforce security. File and directory permis¬ sions are a place to start. Each OS imple¬ ments them a little differently, from the incred¬ ibly cryptic (Unix) to the fairly straightforward (NetWare). Again, it's up to a person to make sure they’re set up and enforced correctly. Auditing can let you see who did what when. The logs it generates can become large, but the information can be invaluable when you’re trying to trace the last modifi¬ cation of a file. NT comes with a good audit¬ ing system that’s notably easy to use. Unix has come under attack for its secu¬ rity. Designed originally to be open, Unix has found itself the object of many attackers’ desires. If you choose Unix as your applica- tions-server OS, you should immediately look to your vendor for the latest security patches. You also need to implement a non- sendmail-based mailing system, TCP wrap¬ pers, the Washington University FTP dae¬ mon, and a regular run of the SATAN security package. There’s much bluster about C2-level security, but that’s what most of it is-blus- ter. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, a C2 rating applies only to the exact ver¬ sion of an OS tested-NT 3.51, for example, has one, but not version 4.0. Also, a Red Book C2 rating (which means the OS is net¬ work-secure) means not only exactly the same OS version, but the same hardware. Sorting It Out When you put any OS through all these ques¬ tions, you’ll get a good idea of how well it's going to behave as an applications server. NT, Solaris, OS/2, NetWare, and OS/400 are all strong applications-server OSes. And that's as far as these questions can take you. Once you’ve made a preliminary decision, you have to bring the OSes in-house and try developing an application on your final choic¬ es. Yes, it will take time, and it will probably be expensive. But is it really more expensive than making the wrong decision? Robert L. Hummel is an electrical engineer, programmer, and consultant. You can reach him at rhummel@monad.net systems and provides detection of both node and applications failures. In this type of system, if a server or application running on a server fails, that server’s work load immediately goes over to an operational server. The system manager can insert the failed server into the cluster after its recovery. Security OS/2’s security includes setting disk-storage limits for individual users, expiring accounts, and forcing password changes. IBM OS /400 There’s no doubt that IBM’s AS/400 philosophy represents a highly integrated, pow¬ erful, and scalable approach to applications serving across the spectrum from depart¬ ment to enterprise level. However, for IAN managers coming from the workgroup arena, the IBM-only upgrade model of the AS/400 represents a drastic step. Applications OS/400 has over 25,000 applications available, including the I)B2 relational database, decision-support systems, fax systems, and wireless IAN. It comes with the ability to serve its applications up to Web browsers. Platform Support OS/400 runs only on the proprietary AS/400 hardware, which ranges from $10,000 departmental servers up to enterprise systems. It can run Net Wire on an optional plug-in server board, and a similar N'T Server solution is being devel¬ oped. To support PC connectivity, the AS/400 provides middleware for Windows, DOS, OS/2, Unix, and Mac clients. OS/400 supports IPX/SPX, TCP/IP, NetBIOS, and AppleTalk, as well as high-level APIs such as Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), DAL, and MAPI. Its Internet Connection for AS/400 supports HTML drivers, letting a business serve any AS/400 application over the Internet. Internet users can download files or software as well as access the AS/400 database. Performance The AS/400’s architecture may be proprietary, but it is not limited. The AS/400 Advanced Portable P03/10S is an $8000 portable server. At the other end of the scale is the AS/400 Advanced 9406-53S 2156—a 101 -MFLOPS, $ 100,000 system. The same OS and applications run on the entire AS/400. Management OS/400 has centralized management tools for its integrated sys¬ tems. OS/400 version 3 release 7 includes support for management from N'T, Unix, and Macintosh clients. You can manage some functions from Windows clients with a drag-and-drop interface. OS/400, like Unix, has a control language that makes it easy for OS/400 to support batch processing. Development Tools such as IBM VisualGen for OS/400 are high-level development tools. C+ 4-, Smalltalk, and other com¬ pilers are also available. Reliability OS/400’s fault tol¬ erance is primarily the result of third-party mirroring and repli¬ cation products. IBM’s Opti- Connect, an expensive 220-Mbps fiber-optic link, lets you cluster up to 32 processors. Security OS/400 provides the standard gamut of security fea¬ tures, including password aging, limits to the number of concurrent users, and forced periodic pass- 0S/4Q() js Qnc of thc first , BM 0S cs with word changes. It also has access- control lists and auditing features. an integrated Java virtual machine. 130 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 SPECIAL Suite and Sour Applications-server suites fall short of their promises hut still ease some integration headaches. By Robert L. Hummel □ ike their desktop counterparts, applications suites for servers give you 90 percent of the capabilities you would expect from a custom application for a frac¬ tion of the cost. And they integrate well with each other. Suites make sense. I he availability of an applications server suite may not yet be the pivotal factor in choosing a server OS, but suites are chang¬ ing the way we evaluate OSes. A major server OS without a suite looks threadbare. However, a comprehensive suite, even if it contains only serviceable applications, can help appli¬ cations-server end users be¬ come satisfied customers. Many vendors, including Oracle, SCO, and SunSoft, offer applications-server suites. Here’s a look at two leading packages, Micro¬ soft’s BackOffice and IBM’s Software Servers. Microsoft BackOffice BackOffice is a set of appli¬ cations that are designed for—and execute exclusive¬ ly on—NT Server. The suite includes software for Web services, a database, an e- mail system, and a system management module. In fact, Microsoft considers NT Server itself to be a part of BackOffice. Choosing BackOffice locks you into using NT Serv¬ er as your OS. But you can still select Intel or RISC hard¬ ware, single-processor or symmetric multiprocessing (SMB) ma¬ chines, and a range of third-party server and desktop applica¬ tions. The wide array of supported industry-standard APIs lets you create interfaces between BackOffice and other platforms. Microsoft is releasing new and upgraded applications servers at a frenetic pace. The current release of BackOffice, version 2.5, contains 10 applications by Microsoft’s count. Fully halfof these directly address Microsoft’s Internet strategy, while the remain¬ der serve more traditional applications. Internet Information Server (IIS) supports Web, gopher, and FTP publishing on the Internet or on a corporate intranet. Dis¬ tributed management is enabled, as well as the 1SAPI interface for development. System Management Server provides a framework for managing corporate-intranet desktops. The new Personalization System works with IIS to allow you to implement customized customer interactions. Also new is Merchant Server, which is hilled as software for selling products over the Internet. Designed for collabora¬ tive work environments, FrontPage supports author¬ ing, scripting, and Web-site management. The new Proxy Server provides secure Inter¬ net access to desktops with¬ in an organization. And the Content Replication System offersa way to move bulk data securely across the Web. Kxchange Server estab¬ lishes the basic infrastructure for BackOffice messaging, collaboration, scheduling, and groupware applications. To support X.400, SMTP, Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIMP:), and MAPI, the current version adds POP3, HTTP, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), NNI P, LIMP, and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Knd- user features, such as rules, filtering, and off-line synchro- nization, are also enabled. Conference Server, a server for real-time communica¬ tions, supports shared white¬ board, chat, and IP telephone applications. Of course, the traditional server applications are not neglect¬ ed. Microsoft’s SQL Server runs as a multiuser client/server re¬ lational database. For connection to IBM mainframes and AS/ 400 systems, Systems Network Architecture (SNA) Server has an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) driver for access to Dis¬ tributed Relational Database Architecture (DRDA) databases. It also includes an FTP/APTP gateway. Also included is the Sys¬ tems Management Server. continued FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 131 Special Report Suite and Sour Legacy Links L uis Colon is a microsystems specialist at Communications Data Services (CDS), a company in Des Moines, Iowa, that ana¬ lyzes people's buying habits in order to build marketing models and targeted mailing lists. Because CDS was previously a NetWare shop, Colon says he has evaluated both Microsoft’s BackOffice and IBM’s Software Servers. In his company’s transaction-heavy environment, he says that performance and integration with a legacy database were his key evaluation criteria. “We run DB2 under MVS, AS/400, and AIX," says Colon. “Although you can get (BackOffice] SQL Server connected to it, the cost of integrating and maintaining an NT serv¬ er was high enough to eliminate it from con¬ sideration." Colon also says that some of the IBM products were more mature and scaled bet¬ ter than their Microsoft equivalents. He se¬ lected IBM’s Communications Server for a Systems Network Architecture (SNA) appli¬ cation based on its performance. Colon says his testing showed that improving NT's per¬ formance was more dependent on all the pieces being Microsoft products. Commu¬ nications Server, being somewhat stand¬ alone, was a better solution. Colon views suites as a nice concept, but he’s not completely sold. “Having it all in one box is great, but once you get past the instal¬ lation, the benefits of bundling start to dwin¬ dle," he explains. He admits that suites have an advantage as far as licensing, price, and bug fixes are concerned. But he wouldn’t use a mediocre application just because it was part of a suite. Colon believes that neither IBM nor Mi¬ crosoft has got applications-server suites right yet. If Microsoft is going to make headway in the medium-to-large enterprise, BackOffice has to be available on something besides NT Server, he says. As for IBM, Colon has some advice: “If you're going to do integration, you should work on integrating the user interface to cut training costs." Each, it seems, could learn something from the other. IBM Software Servers In the strictest sense of the word, IBM’s Software Servers are not a suite. Although they’re designed to work together, they are individual members of a modular fam¬ ily of seven client/server application-en¬ abling products. Each server includes in¬ stallation software for various clients as well as software development kits for developing or tailoring applications for each server. Because they’re installed sep¬ arately, you can select the particular appli¬ cations you need to fit a specific server without loading unnecessary software. Later, if your needs change, you can add other Software Servers. IBM chose this modular approach in an attempt to appeal to large and small network installations alike. For big infor¬ mation technology (IT) organizations that have large legacy systems, an applications server might function as an organization’s back-end tool on which to build its cus¬ tom application. In-house integration of dissimilar tools is taken for granted, so the number of related products in the box is unimpor¬ tant. Rather than being forced into pur¬ chasing a closed suite in which the com¬ ponents work only with each other, many large IT groups prefer to have new prod¬ ucts that support open interface stan¬ dards. Conversely, small companies might think that integration is key, and to them, an applications-server suite doesn’t mean tools—it means end-user applications. Lotus Notes, with its messaging and groupware capabilities, is a part of this server collection, as is Database Server, a relational database management system (RDBMS) that enables you to create, up¬ date, and control databases using SQL. Internet Connection Server acts as a re¬ pository for HTML documents and gives access to existing applications on CICS, DB2, and Notes. It also provides for secure access and acts as a proxy server. Communications Server enables appli¬ cations to communicate with other work¬ stations and with host computer sys- tems.Transaction Server is based on CICS. It enables three-tier, on-line transaction processing (OLTP) applications. Directory & Security Server is based on the Open Software Foundation’s Distributed Com¬ puting Environment (DCE) standard. Fi¬ nally, the Systems Management Server ad¬ dresses network management, disaster recovery, security, and the ability to re¬ spond to change. All seven products are available for the AIX and OS/2 server platforms. The Notes, Database, and Internet Connection serv¬ ers are available for Windows NT as well. Communications Server for NT is now in beta. The Transaction, Directory 6c Se¬ curity, and Systems Management servers are scheduled for early-1997 delivery. □ Robert /.. Hummel (Sullivan, NH) is an elec¬ trical engineer ; programmer, ami consultant. You can reach him at rhummel@monad.net. Help for Integration Woes F or Whit Gregg, server suites may not be perfect, but they are strong medicine for integration headaches. “Having gone through a decade of open systems, where we were integrating everything, preintegra¬ tion of products represents a real benefit," he explains. Gregg is director of MIS at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. (New York, NY), an invest¬ ment research and management firm. Part of the network he oversees hosts a sophis¬ ticated document system that generates unique customer reports via 60 Windows NT-based servers running throughout the firm. Microsoft’s BackOffice is a key com¬ ponent in that system. As reports are requested, they’re assem¬ bled with customer-specific information, opinions, and market data. Gregg deploys pieces of BackOffice as required, and he’s integrating more into the system. The data that feeds into the reports currently comes from a Sybase database, but it's being moved to SQL Server. His company chose BackOffice partly be¬ cause of Microsoft’s size. Although his firm has occasionally dropped products and changed directions, Gregg isn’t worried about it possibly happening again. "If I end up on the wrong side of a technology, I want to be with the majority in making that same mistake," he reasons. “The same logic that had us buying IBM in the 1970s has us buy¬ ing Microsoft in the 1990s," he adds. 132 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 Power to the Server Getting the best performance from your applications server depends on three key components. By Robert L. Hummel couple complex SQL queries can bring the fastest serv¬ er to its knees. So can compiling a large application. Or rendering a 3-D image. And when these CPU¬ intensive tasks bring work to a standstill, your first reaction may be, “I need a faster processor.” I lowever, even l/O-bound applications can draw CPI I time by processing interrupts and page faults. The fact is, proces¬ sor speed is only one of three essential components you need to consider when you’re designing your server. In addition to considering how CPU-intensive your applica¬ tion is, you need to ask: How I/O intensive is it? I hen ask: How reliable do I need the system to be? RISC chips like Digital Equipment’s Alpha and IBM s R10000 have been holding the high-perfor¬ mance end of the applica¬ tions server market. In Unix shops, x86-based systems have generally been con¬ signed to file, print, and light- duty applications service. Bur today, the widespread avail¬ ability of symmetric multi¬ processing (SMP) systems that are built around Intel’s Pentium Pro chip is changing how x86 systems are de¬ ployed for running central¬ ized applications. SMP is hardly a new tech¬ nology. What is new are low- cost SMP systems from com¬ panies like Compaq, Dell, and ALR that marry Win¬ dows NT with the top members of Intel’s CPU family. To a performance increase, however, both the server OS and the application must support SMP. Even then, performance does not typically scale linearly with the number of processors added (seethe figure “Scalability by Number of CPUs”). Depend¬ ing on the application and the OS, a two-CPU x86 server will improve from about 70 to 80 percent over a single-CPU system Upgrading from two to four CPUs produces about the same enhancement. RISC-based Unix systems often offer more linear scaling up to six or eight CPUs. After that the system’s perfor¬ mance starts leveling off. RISC-based Unix systems may deliver more raw horsepow¬ er-more CPUs, more RAM—than x86-based systems. The hard¬ ware is usually more expensive, however. If you need outright speed, consider a RlSC/Unix combo. If you need to keep an eye on the budget, x86 servers look a lot better. Adding processors seems like an easy way to gain performance. But as with most fixes, it shifts the spotlight to other bottle¬ necks. Additional processors increase performance only until the number of proces¬ sors contending for memory access and bus space creates bottlenecks. Beyond four processors, for example, the memory throughput of a typ- ical Intel-based server becomes the limiting factor for scalability. 1 he most common con¬ figuration for SMP applica¬ tions servers employs a sep¬ arate L2 cache for each processor. This distinguish¬ es them from multiple-CPU desktop systems that use a shared cache design. The Pentium Pro’s internal non- blocking 1.2 cache makes it significantly faster than an equivalent external-cache system, such as the Pentium. The Pentium Pro with the 512-KB cache performs bet¬ ter in benchmark tests than the 256-KB cache version. At a primitive level, scal¬ ability also means the ability to add components to a server sys- torn, and that means counting buses and open slots. A Silicon (.rapines Challenge S, for example, has three SCSI buses, but two of them arc differential SCSI—which adds significantly to the cost of the peripherals you’ll buy. lor multiprocessor x86 applications servers, the PCI bus is now the high-performance standard and has replaced the KISA bus. Bur electrical limitations keep the number of slots that a PCI ms can support to four or fewer. To increase the number of PCI FEBRUARY 1997 BYTE 133 Special Report Power to the Server Scalability by Number of CPUs 25,000 - | 20,000 c 1 i. 15,000 ^ | 10,000 c 1 5,000 Sun Ultra Enterprise 6000 24 CPUs ProLiant 5000 # % 4 CPUs Proliant 2500 / 2 CPUs / ProLiant 2500/' # / # . Sun Ultra Enterprise 4000 1 CPU / * 6 CPUs •' •. Sun Ultra Enterprise 3000 2 CPUs ' Sun Ultra Enterprise 5000 12 CPUs Source: Transaction Processing Council TPC C benchmarks 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 Number of CPUs A Sun SPARC system offers more linear scaling than a Compaq ProLiant for small numbers of CPUs. adapter slots, system designers are adding PCI bridges—circuits that connect distinct buses. Using a bridge, a second PCI bus can be added to the system. How the bridge is connected can have a significant impact on the performance of the server. For example, in a cascade or hierarchical con- figuration, the second PCI bus is con¬ nected (via a PCI-to-PCI bridge) to the first PCI bus. In addition to its own load, the first PCI bus must also transfer the data load for the second bus. The effect is to share the 132-MBps system bandwidth of the first bus between both buses. The PCI bus may be bridged to an FJSA bus in a sim¬ ilar fashion, further limiting throughput. Peer bus design uses an alternative approach, bridging the first and second PCI buses individually to the system bus. Because data can flow independently to either bus, total system I/O can go as high as 264 MBps. This is the better alterna¬ tive for high-performance servers. Reliability and Availability Downtime. It’s the bane of every IT man¬ ager’s existence. Fault-tolerant solutions generally fall into two categories depend¬ ing on their level of protection. Server reli¬ ability solutions focus on making any sin¬ gle server as fault-tolerant as possible, using approaches such as redundant pow¬ er supplies and RAID technology. High-availability solutions address reliability at the server level. Failover, one aspect of clustering, ensures that if the pri¬ mary server is lost, a standby server takes over. After the problem server is repaired, the system should provide a simple way to bring it back into the network. Fault-tolerant solutions should satisfy several criteria. They must work in real time to minimize the period when services are not delivered to users. Better systems such as IBM’s AS/400 will make the switch transparently, allowing users to continue work without losing network connec¬ tions. Any system that duplicates data between the primary and the standby serv¬ er should be transaction-based. Any data committed to disk at the time of the crash should be available on the standby server. Failover must be automatic and work without requiring manual moni¬ toring or intervention. It should not require that the servers be identical. You can set up your standby server to act as a passive backup machine only. It would monitor your primary server and receive data continuously but perform no other functions on your network. A more cost-effective approach would be to cast the backup server in the role of utility serv¬ er, where it could run printer, database, or communications services while in its standby mode. In the event of a failure, the standby server would automatically take over the functions of the primary server in addition to the utility services. The final measure of any system is ven¬ dor support. Keeping your server operat¬ ing may be crucial. But is it as important to your supplier? Be sure you can get ser¬ vice and support at the level you require around the clock or around the world. Which system provides the best per¬ formance and resilience? Right now, the scales tip toward RISC/Unix systems and the AS/400 with their better-developed clustering and SMP technologies. An x86- based SMP system running Windows NT provides solid performance at a relative¬ ly reasonable price, but there are few SMP systems that have more than four CPUs, and the third-party clustering technolo¬ gy is still an unknown. Before you purchase your hardware, you should buy or rent a test system and assess the performance of your application running on it—how much RAM it needs, how well it scales across multiple CPUs, and so on. Then you’II be able to make an informed decision about how to balance price and performance. □ Robert /.. Hummel is an electrical engineer, pro¬ grammer, and consultant. You can reach him at rhummel@monad.net. Reliability vs. Downtime S 10 Downtime per year (Days) 90 percent reliability means you’re down four days a month; 99.99 percent reliability means you’re down four minutes a month. 134 BYTE FEBRUARY 1997 C protecting the world with E-TECH $11 .HX^ V 33 6k bps modem wilh 14.4k bps fax Supports ITU-T V.34bis, V.34, V.32bis. V 32, V.22bis. V 23, V.22.V.21, Bell 212 & 103 standards DTE 115,200bps,DCE 33.600bps Mth V.42bis, MNP5 Data compression 33 Fax Compatible 14,400 bps *?nd and receive )ata / Fax / Voice Function Vorldwide PTT Approvals Supports windows 95 ISDN TERMINAL ADAPTER Advanced Features: •Basic Rate ISDN Access • Two Analog Ports Supported • High Speed V.24 Data Port up to 115,200bps • Asynchronous-to-Synchronous PPP Conversion • V. 120 and V. 110 Rate Adaptation • X25 on D Packet Data Appfccation • Multiple Subscriber Numbermg(MSN) • Calling Line Identification Security • Easy-to-Configure AP Supported Gain H-PIPE Subscriber Line Digital Multiplexer Advanced Features: • Optional Network Management System •Low Power Consumption • No Remote Battery Needed •Flexible Alarm System • High Voice Transmission Quality • Fax and Modem Channel Quality • Easy Maintenance • Freely Mix HI, H3 and H7 in COT HDSL Transport Sqstei Advanced Features: • Low Cost, HDSL Transmission Technolc • Repeaterless El / T1 Service, Connects < Distances Up To 6 KM (E1) / 7.2KM (T1). • Modiar Design, Easy Instalabon and Mantenan • Fiber Optic Quafcy Over Existng Copper Cable Multiple Interface Options. • Network Management System for Remote Monitoring. Circle 718 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 719). 115/ ’ *0 LEO Status Indication MARC H 13-19, 1997 rn ^--s __ MARCH 13-19, 1997 & & (£ Hall 15, Stand F64 ▲ E-TECH, INC- \ X ™ R&D ROad 2 ‘ SdenceBased IrKJustral Park, Hsin-Chu,Taiwan. ROC irr ^ ( „ ! E y L f* 35 ™ 991 *886-35-777751 internet htkV/wwwe-tech com.tw — l L E-Mail:service© ml.e-tech.com. tw Diagnose any PC’s prohlems last with ^Universal Diagnostic TOOLKIT^ * Get the best, most accurate full-system diagnostics package lor all your problem PCs. * Loui-Leuel Formats all hard driues including IDEs. Allows relocation of Track 0. * works with any PC regardless of O/S: DOS. Windows 95 & NT. 0/S2. unik. Novell, etc. Loop-back Plugs— 9-pin serial, 25-pin serial and 25-pin parallel plugs, used for external I/O port testing. 2 Micro-Scope floppy disks— containing the best PC diagnostic tools on the market. Comes with both 3.5 and 5.25** disks to work with any PC. Micro-Scone 6.1 dfe V\^ UNIVERSAL DIAGNOSTIC SOFTWARE Fully 0/s independent diagnostic software... Callfor upgrade pricing & complete new features list! M ICRO-SCOPE Universal Computer Diagnostics was developed to satisfy the expanding need for accurate system diagnosis in the rapidly growing desktop computer market Patterned after super-mini and mainframe diagnostic routines. MICRO-SCOPE runs independently of any standard operating system, and is therefore at home on any machine in the Intel world. Speed, ease-of-use, and razor sharp ACCURACY are a few of the advantages that arise from this system independence. Jerry Pouriielle awarded MICRO-SGOPE & POST-PROBE the User’s Choice Award in the May 1994 issue of Byte Magazine, saying: “You name it, this tests it. If you maintain PCs you’ll love it.” ♦ LOW-LEVEL FORMAT —Performs low-level format on all hard drives including IDE drives. ♦TRUE HARDWARE DIAGNOSTICS—Accurate testing of CPU, IRQ’s, DMA s, memory, hard drives, floppy drives, video cards, etc. ♦ RELOCATES TRACK 0 on hard drives that support relocation. ♦ IRQ CHECK —Talks directly to hardware and shows I/O address and IRQ of devices that respond. ♦ O/S INDEPENDENT —Does not rely on O/S for diagnostics. Talks to PC at hardware level. All tests are full function regardless of O/S (i.e. Windows, Novell, UNIX, 0/S2). ♦ IRQ DISPLAY— Show hits enabled in IRQ chip for finding cards that are software driven (Network, Sound Card, etc.). ♦ MEMORY DISPLAY —Displays any physical bit of memory under I MB. Very' useful for determining memory conflicts and available memory space. ♦ AND MUCH MORE... We don’t have enough space here for everything this software can do! Govt. 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ISA/EISA/MCA. ♦ Compatible with Micro Channel computers. ♦ Dip switch allows easy selec¬ tion of I/O ports to read. ♦ Includes TRI-STATE LOGIC PROBE to determine actual chip failures. ♦ Manual includes chip layouts and detailed POST proce¬ dures for all major BIOSs. ♦ AND MUCH MORE. . .call for more details Govt. Orders: NSN-7025-01 -421 -6467 Hllcn 2000, IRC. Makers of Professional PC Diagnostic Tends 1100 East Broadway, Suite 301, Glendale, California, USA 91205 Toll Free: 800/864-8008 • Phone: 818/547-0125 • Fax: 818/547-0397 Web Site: http://www.micro2000.com International Orders please call: Micro 2000 Australia.61-42-574-144 Micro 2000 (IK.44-1462-483-483 Micro 2000 Amsterdam.31-206-384-433 Micro 2000 Germany.49-69-420-8278 Cwn* <) m M». iooo. tar Ml fctt,, Itanw, Circle 219 on Inquiry Card. 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