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It wus not my intention to do a thorough comparison. The graphics resolution, ports, and cartridge slot were all mentioned in the article or the text box. Since all this infor- mation was gone over in great detail in the Atari I040ST Product Preview (March 1986 BYTE), I thought there wus no need to repeat it in the review. When I wrote the review, only about 20 percent of the software available made use of menus, icons, and windows. I am happy to report that this figure has been climbing steadily since then. The specific software products you mention either don 't use menus and windows or simply weren 't available at the time. —Dave Menconi 53 Dot-Matrix Printers I just had to write to express my apprecia- tion for the review entitled "State of the Art in Dot-Matrix Impact Printers" by Jane Morrill Tazelaar and George A. Stewart (April). What a thorough analy- sis! This one review was worth the price of a year's subscription and is a great ser- vice to customers and vendors. But I can't for the life of me figure out where you got the figures for sound levels in the graphics mode. Does the Depart- ment of Defense know about Radio Shack's DMP 130? A level of 583 dB is about 7 on the Richter scale. Walter Clark Fullerton, CA Playing the Odds Mr. Carlisle's letter in the March issue reminded me of another speed-up method I came up with while exploring the Man- delbrot set. The idea is to exploit the area-coher- ence of the drawing— namely, the fact that it consists of large areas of constant color. If, for example, a pixel is painted red, then its immediate neighbors are likely to be red, too. The algorithm regards the pixels of the drawing area as two interleaved groups (A and B), analogous to the black and white squares on a chessboard. Note that each pixel in group B is surrounded by four pixels from group A. Phase 1 of the algorithm paints each pixel in group A using the regular itera- tions loop. Phase 2 paints each pixel in group B according to the colors of its four surrounding neighbors. If all four neigh- bors are of the same color, then the pixel receives that color. Otherwise, the pixel's color is determined the hard way— by the regular iteration loop. Recurring trials with various parts of the Mandelbrot set indicate close to 50 percent reduction in run time. This im- 20 B YTE • JUNE 1987 provement is due to the fact that very few pixels in group B lie close to the border between two colors. Consequently, the iterations loop has to be entered very few times during the second phase. The price to be paid for increased speed is decreased accuracy. During phase 2, a pixel might receive the wrong color. Such errors, however, are hardly noticeable, because they can only occur in areas of the drawing where feature size is in the order of magnitude of two pixels or less; and even in these areas, the prob- ability of a given pixel being painted in- correctly is only (n - 1)/« 4 , where n is the number of distinct colors used in the drawing. On my microcomputer, using 16 colors, this is less than 0.03 percent. If the pixels in group B are processed in raster order, then each pixel in its turn has six painted neighbors. The colors of all six may be compared, to reduce the chances of error even further. Ofer Faigon Tel Aviv, Israel The check for repeating values that Mr. Carlisle mentioned in the March issue will indeed speed up calculations for points that lie within the Mandelbrot set. However, it adds some overhead to each iteration, whether or not the point is in the set. This overhead is not worth it for most plots, because people tend to want to see areas that are dominated with points that do not lie in the set. Mr. Chi's point on the magnitude of the cutoff (also in the March Letters sec- tion) requires some clarification. We agree that there is no magic cutoff, and 256 will work for initial explorations at low magnifications. However, at higher magnifications a larger number is often necessary. We have seen plots where a cutoff of 6000 or more significantly im- proves the picture. Regarding speeding up the calcula- tions: If you have the 8087 chip, we sug- gest that you program in assembler, use all eight registers, and go back to mem- ory only when necessary. Also, 16 bits will not be enough for serious explora- tion—we suggest 32 bits or more. Mr. Chi's comment regarding fixed-point math is otherwise excellent. Mark W. Bolme Bellevue, WA Perspective Check In Kenneth Perry's article "Abstract Mathematical Art" (BYTE, December 1986), the following sentence caught my attention: "These one-dimensional automata are 'mathematically irreducible'— there is no shortcut to determine whether a given continued Inquiry 334 — * "It outperforms the competition at a price that is simply the best deal on the market" "Wells Americans A* Star II stands out from the crowd. . . This reviewer found the [keyboard] touch to be very good.... [The documentation] is well written and easy to understand and all the illustrations are clear and accurate. We find the A*Star II to be a very attractive AT-compatible computer.' — Compatibles Report "If you're looking for a bargain-priced AT type computer - and there are many to consider these days - A*Star is that seems well worth the price." Personal Computing —Patrick Honan "This computer is a whale of a buy.... In- side the case it is neat and well designed. It just looks like quality!... I would find it hard to believe that you could outgrow the A*Star anytime in the near future. ..If I were buying a computer now it would be this offering from Wells." Computer Shopper — Lon Andrews Wells American The A*Star ^tttAJW vaili5AiA, "All in all, [the A*Star] is a superior PC/AT compatible unit. . . When one considers price, performance, upgradability, manufac- turer support and assembly within the USA, it is a definite winner" — Jake Epstein "It is as compatible as the best units tested. . . .Its money-back guarantee is commendable.... [the A*Star] has the potential to be a low cost whiz" —Jon Pepper "What the world needs is an AT which is sig- nificantly cheaper than all the others, while provid- ing a higher level of per- formance than most, with a high degree of compat- ibility and good quality. And that's exactly what the A*Star II is." P «/UJ* tllCW Australian PC — Ian Davies — -"""""Graphics screens that take 10 and 20 seconds to redraw at 6MHz, now appear in three or four seconds. If it doesn't run at 12MHz, in 5 seconds you can switch to a lower speed. We were very favorably impressed." DataPro Research Corporation Unsurpassed quality. Unbeatable performance. Exceptional manufacturer support. The experts agree! There are no other IBM PC/AT compatibles quite like our A*Staf microcomputers. With prices starting at only $1095 for a 12MHz unit, it's no wonder so many of our customers are saying goodbye to IBM in favor of a "good buy" from Wells American. Call or write us today about our 31-day trial offer. ^ Wells American Corporate Headquarters: 3243 Sunset Boulevard • West Columbia, South Carolina 29169 • 803/796-7800 - TWX 510-601-2645 LETTERS automaton with a given rule and a given initial state will lead to a cyclic structure of long period, a finite structure of long life, or some other possibility. Therefore, the approach taken by this program is not naive. We are not playing a trivial game whose outcome could be more easily pre- dicted by a more sophisticated mathemat- ical approach." I just wondered about the foundations for such a definitive statement. When I wrote to Mr. Perry about it, he kindly sent me a copy of Stephen Wolfram's arti- cle "Computer Software in Science and Mathematics" in the September 1984 Scientific American, Here are two ex- cerpts from this reference: "Universal computation has been proved for a simple two-dimensional cel- lular automaton. ... It is strongly sus- pected that several one-dimensional au- tomata are also universal computers"— that is, admit no mathematical shortcuts to decide their future behavior. "It is not yet known how widespread the phenomenon of computational irre- ducibility is among cellular automata or among physical systems in general" (my MINUTE. 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The first concerns elementary logic: The negation of the statement "All automata are re- ducible" is not "All automata are irre- ducible," but 'There is at least one irre- ducible automaton." The second mistake i s perhaps not just a mistake, but (in my humble opinion) a mistaken attitude toward computers and their role in the process of scientific de- velopment. It is true that many physical problems presently escape our compre- hension. It is also true that computer sim- ulation greatly enhances our inside view of these problems. But please, don't con- fuse ignorance with impossibility; don't confuse computer simulation with theo- retical thinking and research; and most important of all, don't deny from the out- set the possibilities of good old-fashioned brainwork. Maybe, after -all, what these last years of our century lack is not better mainframes, but better brains. Maybe after all we are now playing a trivial game. Ricardo Slutzki Buenos Aires, Argentina Fantasy Not Needed I have ambivalent feelings about the arti- cle "The Potential for Interactive Tech^ nology" by Alfred Bork (February BYTE). I agree totally with his feeling that our schools need tremendous im- provement and that we must be willing to spend money to get that improvement. Education is an investment in national security, and conservatives are dreadful- ly inconsistent when they oppose ade- quate funding for education. I have ob- served in some of my acquaintances the lack of respect for teachers that Mr. Bork mentions. However, Mr. Bork lost my sympathy when he brought in the science fiction concept of computers monitoring stu- dents' brain waves to ascertain their level of understanding. He might as well have brought in the equally fantastic notion of computers directly manipulating stu- dents' brain waves so as to impart learn- ing without effort on the students' part! These concepts have no place in a serious discussion of how to improve our educa- tional system. Computers are a part of society, and will become more so as they become more powerful and less expensive. They have a place in schools, both as a learning aid and because students can no longer be considered truly 1 iterate without at least a basic understanding of computers. But I have a big quarrel with anyone continued 22 B YTE • JUNE 1987 Inquiry 219 d$n/Accountii& \m- IX Enter A New Age In Accounting Software. 'jH EDITOR'S 'CHOICE 1985 PRODUCT OF THE YEAR M Dac-Easy Version 2.0, The Most Amazing Combination Of Speed, Power, Flexibility, Ease Of Use And Value Ever Offered. We proudly announce Dac-Easy Accounting, the next generation. It will set new standards of performance and value. Version 2.0 is a dramatic im- provement over our revolution- ary, best selling origi- nal package that won Info- World's 1985 overall "Best Software Value" and PC World's 1986 World Class Award. 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TO ORDER CALL TOLL FREE 1-800-992-7779 IN TEXAS CALL 1-214-458-0038 xBdac software, inc. rV% GENERAL: •Multi-company, multi-depart- mental •Password protected ^Extensive 430 page manual with accounting primer «On-linc context-sensitive help »Fast-Start installation •Point- of-sale •Menu-driven •Over700 different reports •Billing module for services »Frec phone support* available •Batch & on-line processing GENERAL LEDGER: .Modifiable pre-designed Chart of Ac- counts & Financial Statements »3 Year account histoiy »Pcncil & pen feature for corrections •Unlimited journals •Unlimited accounts •Automatic budgeting ^Financial ratios and more ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE: .Open invoice or balance forward •Flexible aging •On-line automatic posting • Departmentalization by customer •Customized text on statements »Cash flow analysis ^Mailing labels •Flexible invoice allocations »3 Year history •Automatic finance charges •Notepad window ©Supports partial payments »Salcs analysis and sales budgeting and more ACCOUNTS PAYABLE: .Check printing from multiple bank accounts •Automatic allocation of available cash •Vendor directories and labels ©Flexible aging »On-linc posting toother modules •Flexible invoice allocations •Automatic reprinting of checks •Notepad window •Purchase forecasting •Unlimited allocations per invoice *l Invoices per check »Browsc invoice and more BILLING: ^Invoicing on plain or pre-printed forms ^Special service billing routine «Salcs journals »Invoicc remarks •On-line posting to other modules •Credit memos ^Revenue & cost allocation ^Packing lists •Point-of-sale invoicing and more INVENTORY (PRODUCT OR SERVICE): .Supports 3 most popular costing methods ^Physical inventory routine with count sheets .Accepts any measure of units »Spccial services flic • Automatic changing of costing methods «3 Year history for all products and services with automatic forecasting •Automatic pricing assignments »Alert & activity reports •On-line posting and more PURCHASE ORDER: «99 Items per P.O.. per line and total discounts in $ or % •Full back-order control •Purchase journal •P.O. status report •On-line processing and more FORECASTING: •Forecasts budgets for all principal tiles using 3 different calculation methods •Powerful forecasting reports with tri-dimcnsional totals Minimum Hardware Requirements: All Dac-Easy products run on IB M PC or compatibles, 2 diskd rives, MS- DOS or PC- DOS 2.0 or later, 80 column printerable to print 132 columns in compressed mode, color or monochrome monitor, 256K memory (Mate requires 384KJ. IBM & PC-DOS trademarks of Internationa! Business Machines, Inc. MS-DOS trademark of Microsoft Corp. Dac-Easy trademark of Dae Software, Inc. Dallas TX 75244. roilF 810 Version 2.0 Is also unbelievably easy to install. To set up your files, Inquiry 84 30 Day Money-Back Guarantee Dae offers 30 day unconditional guarantee on all products bought directly from Dae Software (less shipping charges). There is a $ 1 restocking fee if the disk envelope is opened. *FREE SUPPORT NOW AVAILABLE Registered users receive 10 minutes within 60 days free support on eveiy Dac-Easy software product (docs not include upgrades). JUNE 1987 'BYTE 23 1 W7W1 jJmi All across America the word about a new force is spreading, A force that has put American design, technology and manufacturing back on top. Be apart of it! System 1800 Features: • 6/8/IOMHz Selectable with 10MHz 80286 CPU Chip • Fulh compatible IBM A T™ A MI BIOS with built in SET-UP UTILYTY • 47 drive type table • 48 hour burn-in • 512K RAM standard expandable to 1MB • 200 pages of documentation • Clock /Calendar with battery backup • Hard disk/ Floppy Controller • UL/CSA approved 195 Watt power supply • Made in U.S.A. • I Year Warranty System 1800 Models WAIT STATE MODEL NUMBER I System 1800-0 (8MHz) I System 1800-A (10MHz) System 1800-B (IQMHz) Over 30,000 units installed MAJOR OEM CLUB AT INC. 800-415-8889 QIC RESEA RCH INC. 800-843-0806 EL TECH (408)943-1764 S.F. MICRO 800-237-5631 COMPUTER LIBRARY (415) 659-8784 KELLECO 1-312-887-0330 SERVEX (416)827-7807 MICRO CENTER (614)481-8041 PRIDE (604) 273-0707 UNITED SOLUTIONS 1-800-922-9025 24 BYTE- JUNE 1987 SCSI 1-800-237-7274 SPEAR TECHNOLOGY INC. (312)480-7300 TECH POWER (714)979-1330 TECH POWER II 818-882-6300 IBM is a registered trademark for International Business Machine Corporation. Inquiry 104 for End-Users. Inquiry 105 for DEALERS ONLY. i System An OEM Product ofEverex Systems Inc. JUNE 1987 -BYTE 25 LETTERS who thinks that computers can replace teachers.. There is a lot of talk about "in- teractive" educational software. The computer asks a question, the student at- tempts to answer it, and that answer de- termines the computer's next move: per- haps another question, perhaps more instruction. At its worst, it is an elec- tronic "flash card"— an inappropriate use of a still-expensive technology. At its best, it is a useful study aid. But perhaps the most important part of education is intelligent criticism. This may come from parents or peers, but in the school it is the particular job of the teacher. The best math teacher I ever had was the one who stressed that the method you used to approach a problem was as important as the answer. Application of method is easily learned by rote (this is an appropriate place for the computer), but before you can apply method you must have some method to apply. The assessment of how a student is ap- proaching a problem is a task that re- quires intelligence. Directing the student from his present incomplete understand- ing toward a more comprehensive under- standing is also a task that requires intelli- gence. I leave it to Mr. Bork's futurists to speculate about intelligent computers 20 years from now. Today we have very so- phisticated expert systems, but nothing that can remotely be called artificial intel- ligence or even the germ of artificial in- telligence. And with no sort of real artifi- cial intelligence yet, and none on the horizon, I think it is irresponsible to base our plans for education on concepts re- quiring artificial intelligence. A computer can tell whether you have given the right answer, but it cannot tell whether your wrong answer was due to careless arithmetic or to use of the wrong formula. A computer cannot grade an es- say on Hegel's dialectics. I fear that inap- propriate use of computers may lead us away from significant areas of thought ("What is the significance of Dostoevsky to Russian literature?") and toward trivial ones ("When did Dostoevsky write The ldiofl"). A computer cannot grade your response to the first question, but it can grade your response to the second. We are in danger of letting the limitations of the computer determine the direction of our educational system. However, there are programs that are truly interactive. They let students see the results of their logic and require them to work through their mistakes. Students must try to understand why their mistakes do not work. In the process of completing their task, they gain insight into the na- ture of the task. It is of this type of insight that real intelligence is made. The "educational programs" I am speaking of here are programming lan- guages. I assert that the most efficient use of the computer in school is to allow stu- dents to write their own programs. Pro- gramming allows students to pick their level of difficulty. The severely retarded student can learn to write a "Hello world!" program. The brilliant student can write a relational database program. The rest of us can write something in be- tween. Programming at any level requires you to think, not just to answer questions, and that is what real education requires. Dan Schechter Amenia, North Dakota Export Controls The discussion of U.S. export controls for personal computers (November 1986 BYTE and Letters in the February issue) missed one point: This sort of interfer- ence is not restricted to Soviet bloc coun- tries. 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PC-MOS/386™ comes in single, five & 25-user versions starting at $195. PC-MOS/386 J MODULAR OPERATING SYSTEM ^ THE SOFTWARE LINK CALL: 800/451-LINK In Georgia: 404/448-LINK OEM/Int'l Sales: 404/263-1006 Resellers/VARs: 404/448-5465 iy^jMfWB W WWiBWB I THE SOFTWARE LINK/CANADA ( Bed Doors. Inquiry 371 for End-Users. Inquiry 372 for DEALERS ONLY. TRADEMARK ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: MultiLink®is a registered trademark of The Software Link. PC-MOS/386; M MultiLink* Advanced, and LANLink™ are trademarks of The Software Link. Lotus 1-2-3, WordStar, dBASE 111, & WordPerfect are trademarks of Lotus Development Corp., MicroPro, AshtonTate, & WordPerfect Corp., respectively. Prices and technical specifications subject to change. LETTERS through a U.S. mail-order firm and ar- ranged to have it shipped to me. Imagine my surprise when I learned that it had been seized by U.S. Customs, who held it for more than a month while trying to de- termine whether exporting it would be a violation of U.S. law protecting high technology. I was also advised that, should the de- cision go against me, I would face fines and possible criminal prosecution. The final straw came when the computer was stolen, from a bonded U.S. Customs warehouse. I received an insurance check several months later, and in the meantime I bought the same Zenith from a local deal- er, for the same price, with an RGB monitor thrown in for good measure. Ap- parently large companies export under blanket licenses, however, individuals are forced to prove that their particular machine poses no national security threat. The Customs Service has more impor- tant things to do than investigate off-the- shelf personal computers that are avail- able around the world and whose MIRROR H the Crosstalk SuperKlone You can pay more for Crosstalk" XVI and get less, or you can pay less for MIRROR II and get more. K Crosstalk* XVI J| $i95.oo ~*y The Industry Standard For IBM PC Data Communications Software 7 \ / - When You Weigh the Evidence, The Decision is Clear! BYTE, Apr|tl986, Ezra Shapiro "I've deleted my Crosstalk files and plugged in Mirror, and I'm notthe sort of person who throws out trusted software without good cause. I've got to have proof, and here it is." Government Computer News, July 18, 1986, P. L. Olympia "It is o singular pleasure to review a product such as this. • All PC users who need to communicate with another computer should buy it." PC Products, August 1986, Michael D. Millilcin [Mirror] "A Crosstalk twin that is complemented by a lower price tog, better documentation, and o respect for hard disks." MIRROR II $69.95 As if the low price and 100,% Crosstalk" XVI compatibility weren't enough, we tip the scales with extra features you're going to appreciate: • Background Communications • Auto-Learn Mode • Crosstalk* XVI Script Extensions • More Informative Online Help • Integrated Full-Screen Text Editor • Additional File Transfer Protocols: XModem Multi-File, Hayes Smartcom II and YModem • Additional Terminal Emulations • Site Licensing To order call: (.904) 878-8564 |vi5a|[mc |[cod| Shipping/Handling *5.00 (CODodd J 3.00J Overseas Orders * 18.00 Florida Residents add 5% SalesTax $ 69.95 MIRRORIL 60-DAY MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE r##e1@Lsfy&c&h MIRROR II is available lor the IBM PC/XT/AT and 100% Compatibles ond requires MS-DOS 2.0 or Higher. Ciosstalfc is a registered trademark of Digitol Commi'-iicotions Associates Inc. / Hayes is a registered trodemork of Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc./MIRROR II, ■ SoftKlone and SuperKlone ore trademarks of SoftKlone Distributing Corporation. l3360fficePlozoDr. Tallahassee, FL 32301 • (904) 878-8564 Telex; 6714280 KLON components were very likely not even manufactured in the U.S. Fred Swartzendruger Alexandria, VA Calculating Areas Since I have just recently been involved in providing assistance in calculating areas, I read with interest the article "Calculat- ing the Area of an Irregular Shape," by Stolk and Ettershank (February BYTE). Readers interested in this subject might find the following analysis useful. To adapt my application solutions to those of Stolk and Ettershank for continuity, add two more coordinates (E and F) to figure 2a in the Stolk and Ettershank article. O(0,0) C(x 2 ,0) D(x v 0) This method may provide a more gen- eral solution analysis than the Stolk and Ettershank approach, because it doesn't necessarily involve overlapping areas. The revised figure shows that Area(jQr4B) may now be described as follows: Area(04£) = Area(OEFD) - Area(0££) - Area(JM54)-Area(04D) = x x y 2 -x 2 y 2 /2-(x x -x 2 )(y 2 -y x )/2 -x x y x l2 = x x y 2 -x 2 y 2 \2 - (x x y 2 -x x y x -x 2 y 2 +x 2 y x )l2-x x y x l2 = (pc x y 1 -x 2 y x )l2. Richard L. Messeder San Clement e, CA No Easy Answers I am a computer store manager in Phila- delphia (so much for your theory that computer store managers don't read BYTE), and I really take offense at the prevailing attitude toward the retail com- puter business. Let me tell you what a typical day is like. First the phone rings with a question about software errors. The caller has no idea what software package she's using, and she purchased the hardware and soft- ware from another vendor. Then some- one walks in who has no idea about com- puter equipment, and we spend an hour educating him only to find that he can't continued 28 BYTE* JUNE 1987 Inquiry 283 PRESENTING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FAST COMPILING AND FAST PROGRAMMING. For compiling speed, you can't do better than Let's C. But to really speed up programming you can't do without the powerful source level debugger, csd If you want the power, portability and flex- ibility of C, start with the complete compiler, Let's C. For utilities, editor, compil- ing speed and fast, dense code, Let's C has it all. But to get your pro- grams up and running you need more. Because even the fastest compiler can't outrun bugs. You need the revolutionary C Source Debugger, csd. CUT DEVELOPMENT TIME IN HALF WLTEcsd r^.fc REVIEWERS ARE RAVING ABOUT LETS C AND csd LIMITED TIME OFFER FREE csd WITH LET'S C! csd lets you bypass the time consuming frus- trations of debugging-like long dumps and clunky assembler. WithcsJ, you actually debug in C. You learn faster because you watch your program run in C. You finish faster because csd combines the speed of a compiler with the interactive advantages of an interpreter. The end result? Development time is sliced in half. LETS C AND csd FEATURES ■%& m: Let's C: • Now compiles twice as last • Integrated edit-compile cycle: edi- tor automatically points to errors • Includes both small and large memory model • Integrated environment or command line interface • 8087 sensing and support • Documentation features new lexicon format • MS-DOS object compatible • New make utility • Fast compact code plus register variables • Full Kernighan & Ritchie C and extensions • Full UNIX compatibility and complete libraries • Many powerful utilities including make, assembler, archiver, cc one- step compiling, egrep, pr, tail, wc • MicroEMACS full screen editor with source included • Supported by dozens of third party libraries • For the IBM-PC and Compatibles • Not copy protected Sieve Benchmark (Compile time in seconds) Lets C: 2.8 (On 512K 6Mhz IBM-AT) Turbo C: 3.89 (As advertised) csd: • Large and small memory model • Debug in C source code, not assembler • Monitor variables while tracing program • Does not change program speed or size • Provides separate source, eval- uation, program and history windows • On-line help screens • Can interactively evaluate any C expression • Can execute any C function in your program • Trace back function • Ability to set trace points • Not copy protected U/ "Let's C is an inex- pensive, high-quality programming package. . . with all the tools you will need to create applications." -William G. Wong, BYTE, August 1986. "The performance and documentation of the $75 Let's C compiler rival those ofC compilers for the PC currently being sold for $500. . . highly recommended. . . " -Marty Franz, PC TECH JOURNAL, August 1986. "csd is close to the ideal debugging environ- ment. . . a definite aid to learning C and an indispensable tool for program development. " -William G. Wong, BYTE, August 1986. 'This is a powerful and sophisticated debugger built on a well-designed, 'serious' compiler:" -Jonathon Sachs, Micro/Systems Journal, April, 1986 START TO FINISH, THERE'S NO BETTER ENVIRONMENT. Get started with the right C compiler and you'll have everything you need for development-including source level debugging. On top of it all, Let's C and csd are today' s best values in professional C programming tools. And most reliable: Mark Williams C compilers have been sold with DEC, Intel and Wang computers since 1981. 60 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE Mark Williams gives you a full 60 days to find out just how good Let's C and csd really are-or your money back. So if you want more than a fast compiler-if you want your programs up and running fast, ask for Let's C and csd. You'll find them at your software dealer's, in the soft- ware department of your favorite bookstore, through the Express Program at over 5500 Radio Shacks or you can order now by calling 1-800-MWC-1700.* *In Illinois call, 1-312-472-6659. ^^ Mark Williams Company 1430 West Wrightwood, Chicago, Illinois 60614 © 1987 Mark Williams Company Let's C is a registered trademark of the Mark Williams Company. UNIX is a trademark of Bell Libs. MARK WILLIAMS LET'S C AND csd.0NLY $75 EACR Inquiry 176 JUNE 1987 -BYTE 29 LETTERS spend more than $300. We also have to contend with questions about hardware and software bought through mail order. I use computers; I know what Unix and Xenix are. I have been told that I am hon- est and know what I am doing in regard to computers. But those very same people who tell me how important it is for them to buy from a knowledgeable source will buy from another vendor because his prices are $25 cheaper. There are no easy answers, but one thing is certain: As margins get smaller and smaller, and as retailers must con- tinue to discount to stay in business, we will have less and less money to pay expe- rienced computer salespeople. Lee Nelson Philadelphia , PA FIXES Option Update We stated in the December 1986 What's New section (page 29) that NEC's Multi- ^Does your cross compiler or assembler have limitations? ^Does it run out of symbols? ^Does it have trouble with large functions or files? ^Rise above those limitations and select a product that offers you NO limitations: 68020 + 68881 C Cross Compiler: Powerful one-pass optimizing com- piler that easily compiles functions and files of any size. Strong type- checking and excellent diagnostics help you meet your deadlines. from $995 180 % 8051, 680X0 Macro Assemblers: Extra long symbol names, unlimited number of symbols and powerful macro facilities are just some of the features you'll receive, and these are just a few of the chips we support; call for others! (mm $295 UniWare is a complete, fully-integrated package offering you a powerful linker, librarian, and many utilities. Available NOW under MS-DOS, XENIX and UNIX We are so confident of UniWare's capabilities that we will let you use UniWare on your job without risk for 30 days. You must be satisfied. If not, return it for a full refund. Call Today. (312) 971-8170 UniWare is a trademark of Software Development Systems, Inc. MS-DOS and XENIX are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T Bell Labs Developed and Supported by: Software Development Systems, Inc. 3110 Woodcreek Drive Downers Grove, Illinois 60515 USA Speed portable computer has as options two external 5 Va -inch disk drives. NEC informs us that this is incorrect. The ma- chine "does not need 5*4 -inch options because it has a floppy disk transfer port which allows f or . . . file transfer from desktop to MultiSpeed and vice versa," NEC says. We apologize for the mistake. Washington, as in Seattle Thanks for including notice of our sym- posium in the Letters section of the March issue. There is, however, an error to be corrected. The letter stated that the symposium will be held in Washington, D.C. Actually, it will take place in Seat- tle, Washington, on July 12, 1987, the day before the AAAI conference. Douglas Schuler Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility Seattle, WA PAL Fixes Robert Freedman writes to inform us that his article "A PAL Programmer" (Janu- ary BYTE) requires these corrections: page 266, Parts List: Sprague parts are UCN-, not UNC- as shown. page 271, Figure 3: UCN5895A pin 6 should be labeled P13,notP3. TREFF goes to common pin of 1.0K SIP. + 5V goes to pin 2. page 273, Figure 5: Upper right: 5. UK resistor is labeled 10 REF on both ends. Lower end should be labeled 10V REF. Lower right: LS138 should be LS251. 2.5V REF goes to LM339 pin 10. 10V REF goes to LM339 pin 8. TEST goes to LM339 pins 9 and 1 1 . Top LS273, pin 1 & /RESET should not be grounded. page 2 74, Figure 6: LS259, data input, pin 13, should go to DO. LS390 pin 14 /CLR should be con- nected to GND. Bubble missing on 7406 pin 4. Pin 1 1 of PAL-2 (16R8) must be con- nected to GND. page 2 76, Listing 1 : Equation for SHD2 was omitted: SHD2 = SD2&!SD0&!SD1. Table 2: 109H: output /ENAB is missing. page 278, Listing 3: In pin list, EVCC should be active high— that is, remove ! from !EVCC. Compatibility Resolved According to the manufacturer, the GTX- 100R 1200-bps security modem from A-0 Electronics is not Hayes-compat- ible, as reported in March (page 32). ■ 30 BYTE- JUNE 1987 Inquiry 287 INTRODUCING FAST FORWARD: NOW ANY SOFTWARE CAN RUN UP TO 10 TIMES FASTER. No more doodling while your database goes digging. Or lollygagging while your spreadsheet loads. Or taking five while your word processing program takes forever With Fast Forward, any software runs 2 to 10 times faster CAN SOFTWARE REALLY DO THAT TO SOFTWARE? Fast Forward can. Normally, your com- puter is constantly going to your disk and wading through massive amounts of data. But with Fast Forward, data is retained in your computer's internal memory. Which is incredibly fast. Much faster than hard disks. Hundreds of times faster than floppies. FAST FORWARD PERFORMANCE D With Fast Forward H Without Fast Forward dBase III 3.15 minutes 29.6 minutes WordStar 3.3 1 2 seconds 40 seconds Lotus 1-2-3 21 seconds 51 seconds (Test: Add and delete 225 records) (Test: Move cursor to end of 46 page document) (Test: Load spreadsheet, 8 columns by 962 rows) All tests done on 640K IBM PC, 20 megabyte hard disk and floppy drive. 320K RAM allocated to Fast Forward. THE MORE YOU USE IT, THE FASTER YOU GO. Once installed, Fast Forward works invisi- bly. As you use data, it's automatically stored in your computer's memory-and instantly available the next time you need it. Programs requiring frequent disk access (like dBase III) will show amazing improvements. And adding extended memory gives Fast Forward more room to work. So software runs even faster PERFORMANCE HAS A NEW PRICE: $69.95. You can buy a faster computer Or an expensive accelerator board. But if you're ready to turn on the speed without turning over a bun- dle of money, ask for Fast Forward. It's from the Mark Williams Company, makers of quality software tools since 1976. And it's available at your software dealer In the software depart- ment of your favorite bookstore. Or by calling 1-800-MWC-1700.* And hurry. Because i *In Illinois: (312) 472-6659 Mark Williams Company 1430 West Wrightwood Chicago, Illinois 60614 Fast Forward runs onlBM-PCsand 100% compatibles. Not copy protected. © 1987, Mark Williams Company Inquiry 177 JUNE 1987 -BYTE 31 Inquiry 183 MicroCom Systems OUTSTANDING SOFTWARE For IBM PCs and Compatibles $000 per W DISK $350 PER DISK SMALL QUANTITIES FOR TEN OR MORE SI OFF 5 DISKS Ofl MORE WITH THIS COUPON □ BUSINESS 1 — EZ-Forms business form genera- tion, completion and printing program. □ CAD 1— Altamira, a 4 color object oriented draw- ing program. Color required. E CDMM 4a,b,c,d,e-(5 disks) Latest RBBS Bulletin Board System 14. 1D. m DATABASE 1a,b— (2 disks) File Express menu driven general purpose database mngr. □ EDUCATION 1 -Interactive DOS tutorial for new PC users. Makes learning DOS painless. □ GAMES 1— 3-D PacMan, Kong, SpaceWar, JanitJoe, and more. Color required. D GAMES 2— Qubert, Pango, Centipede, Monopoly, Zoarre, and more. Color required. D GAMES 3— Blackjack (you set rules), Arm Chair QB, and Empire (War Game). □ GAMES 4— Castle, StarTrek, and the original Colossal Caves Adventure. □ GAMES 5— The Hack adventure game from the universities. Like Rogue, only more complex. □ GAMES 6 — Pinball. Othello, Dragons, Sopwith (fly one), and more. Color required. INFO 1a, b— (2 disks) Cooking recipes database with keyword/ingredient retrieval. D LANGUAGE 5— Turbo Pascal interactive debug- ger, pop-up help, formatters, et cetera. □ LANGUAGE 7— Complete Pascal inter- preter/compiler. Great for learning Pascal! □ ORGANIZER 1-DeskMate, a Sidekick clone, and the Judy calendar program. □ PINUP 2— Provocative high res digitized £ graphics pinups. Graphics required. s □ PRINTER 1 — Font and sideways utilities, i spoolers, banner makers, and more. D UTILITIES 1— A collection of invaluable general purpose DOS utilities. A must! D UTILITIES 2-More invaluable DOS utilities. Too many to list here! □ UTILITIES 3— A comprehensive set of debug- ging and diagnostic utilities. NEW RELEASES/UPDATES CAD 2a,b-(2 disks) An advanced 2D/3D draft- ing prog. 640k and color required. [2] COMM 1a,b— (2 disks) Version 2.4 of the ever- popular Qmodem comm. program. E COMM 2a,b— (2 disks) Procomm 2.42. an ex- cellent modem program with terminal emulation. D EDUCATION 2- Learn the Presidents, States (and capitals) and more. Color required. G EDUCATION 5— Learn Origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. Color required. FINANCES 3a,b-(2 disks) Express Calc 3.12, a powerful spreadsheet program. □ GAMES 8 — Striker helicopter attack, and Risk, world domination. Color required. □ GAMES 9— EGARisk, the game of world domina- tion in very high resolution. EGA required. □ GAMES 10 — Solitaire, Teed-Off golfing, and Sail- ing in the Bermuda triangle. Color required. □ GAMES 12-MyChess (9 levels), Backgammon, and Wheel of Fortune. Color not required. □ GRAPHICS-1— Record and play back screen images! Excellent for demo, etc. Color required. INFO 2a,b-(2 disks) Zip-Phone, national areacode/ prefix to zip-code cross reference. LANGUAGE 3a,b-(2 disks) The A86 2.18 macro assembler and debugger. □ SHELL 4— Automenu menu facility, and HOM II 4.04 hard disk menus. D UTILITIES 5— Utilities for formatting, parking, and optimizing hard disk drives. D UTILITIES 6— Advanced utilities including Dpath, Esc, Hotdos, Resident program utilities. □ UTILITIES 7— More Advanced utilities including MasterKey (undeletes files from hard disks). m WORD 1a,b— (2 disks) PC Write 2.7, a powerful word processing system, w/spell checker. Catalog available, add $2. 3.5" format add 51/disk. Cost of Items CA Res 7% Tax Ship/Handling Total Enclosed Domestic $1. /Foreign $5. il Enclosed ■ ™g" MicroCom Systems I ^"» (415)325-6500 j P.O. Box 51657, Palo Alto, CA 94303 M CHAOS MANOR MAIL Conducted by Jerry Pournelle Amiga Defense Redux [Editor's note: In the March Chaos Manor Mail, Jerry responded to a letter from Warren Block that defended the Amiga as a programming environment and blamed software problems on devel- opers. Mr. Block had included a selec- tion of public domain programs on an Amiga disk that refused to work. ] Dear Jerry, Here we go again! I had finished put- ting that disk together at about 3 a.m., and I forgot to include a note telling you to disconnect any external drive before using it. Unplug your external drive and try the disk again. I think you'll like some of those programs a lot. The problem was that one program (the Mandelbrot program) expects two disk drives. Since I wasn't sure that you had two drives, I used the Assign com- mand to make the Amiga look in a direc- tory on the disk instead of an external drive (called "df 1:" by the system). I don't have an external drive and didn't know this wouldn't work on a two- drive Amiga. As a result, the system gave an error message and quit. (As for ease of use, would MS-DOS handle an error in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file any better?) So, I am guilty of the same error as those programmers I accused of being lazy or careless. Ouch. I do have an ex- cuse, though: I didn't have any way to test that disk on a two-drive computer. As for your point that the Amiga may be harder to program than the Atari, I can't say for sure— I don't have an ST. But keep in mind that programmers have been using the ST for a while longer than the Amiga (I'm told it was released in Eu- rope a year earlier than in the U.S.), and it has a less sophisticated operating sys- tem—no multitasking, printer support is left up to the individual program, etc. In such a system, programmers can more easily get away with "antisocial activi- ties" that a more advanced OS would choke on. In other words, the Amiga has not yet had a chance to reach the same de- velopmental stage as the ST. In the meantime, version 1.2 of the Amiga operating system is out. This re- lease fixes the problems of 1 . 1 , and third- party software has begun to appear with real speed. Warren Block Chadron, NE I pretty well agree on all points; and now that the Amiga 2000, with a PC bus and 8086 chip, is out, I expect to see even more attention paid to the Amiga. I confess I had figured out what hap- pened before I had your letter printed, but it seemed to illustrate my point rather well— that the Amiga doesn't generally recover gracefully from a lot of errors. With MS-DOS, you can interrupt the execution of the AUTOEXEC.BAT pro- gram, and often it merely ignores errors anyway. Of course, it doesn *t do all the Amiga does. —Jerry Sold on CP/M Dear Jerry, Thank you very much for the addresses for CP/M software in the December 1986 Chaos Manor Mail. Regarding the letter from R. Scott Truesdell, I'm glad to see another one has learned the benefits of the SB 180. I've been running one almost since Ciarcia's articles appeared. It's a wonderful little beast, with two 5 Va -inch drives, two 8-inch drives, and a 40-mega- byte hard disk drive on it. I fully agree with you that nothing is truly backed up until it's on 8-inch disks. I have several clients running CP/M on S-100 systems, and I've converted a cou- ple of them to ZDOS. I've also converted a couple from IBM to the SB 180. Let's face it, the IBM PC is far too slow, and PC-DOS is a nightmare for any serious or time-consuming work. I guess the reason so many go the IBM route is that it takes little intelligence to plug in a box. Like Truesdell, I have too much in- vested (approximately $60,000) in CP/M and SB 180 software to even think of go- ing with IBM , even if I could afford the waste of time caused by its slow operating system. Any time I have to use an IBM PC at a client's office, I nearly go nuts waiting for it to catch up to me. If you haven't switched to ZDOS, may I seri- ously suggest you do? It's a whole new world from CP/M: faster, more efficient, and far more labor-saving. JohnT. Linnell Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada Well, thanks. I have used ZDOS on the Z-100, and I agree, it 's fast; and of course the Z-100 has 8-inch drives. I continued 32 BYTE- JUNE 1987 riaht back'. t^^^^___ ■ • •^mmmmw C Promises, Promises. Everybody promises, but nobody delivers a real- time, emulator-based C-debug environment like Arium's ECHO. 16-bit, true multitasking and UNIX-based, ECHO gives you more power, speed and menu-driven features to handle the 68000 and other /ttPs better than the HP 64000, or anything else. Just words, you say, promises like all the rest? Prove it to yourself. Read the screens below. Then ask any other development system— standalone or host control— to match them. We'll wait. Now you know a few reasons (and there are plenty more) why ECHO should be your emulation tool for today's increasingly complicated software debugging. ■ i Target: =',;;•: >Ki. VW>A -GC13 int recur ; -GB13 -CG13 ( -DO 13 CtC 168 static int il -mzmm int -mm -CC-I3 666168 nrecur = C; -9m miit if (recur > 0) c CCCf 72 nrecur = recur - l\ CC617C nrecur = IdleOtrecui ECO ISC ) eoeiec u ■ i: EWH*, u = 2; Nunc u /= ii CCCI82 ret urn (n ) DEL Set delay E Evaluate 1 6 P- STfllE PC I -CCS8 short idled -DM8 int recur j -C0*B -WW ( -DG48 CCOlfiB stal -MM EEDJ68 I it I CLR.L rtrecui I (recur ) 6) t IST.L recur MOur.L recu SUBG.L MM .iE6 sfarrayEBJ.c mmtt starragtH.i peeeeiEC slarragm.str tmnn starragtlD.c iJilJ'lMjEfflii'iiti spetifq inner mtm Mt sele ct seevMce . __«— ^ MM»l»lLiii MbiUMWI-M ' T^EUBUIfllE VwHEJlE H I pECRBSfflSsBRt^^SBu^^HBI^ EOTD I BBSE I Code Preview™ lets you see where your code is going. You can follow calls and branches (to 99 levels) on the screen, to select the source line on which to trigger, then set and break in one keystroke! The highlighted trace display (in source) and stack trace window show the path your program took. For a demonstration call 800/862-7486 (CA 714/978-9531) Stack-Relative Trigger lets you trigger on the addresses and values of stack-relative variables— a "must" for effective C-debug where the address of an automatic variable is different each time the function is called and is determined at execution. Here, a read of the local variable "nrecur" is included in the trigger sequence. TimeStamp™ and variable display are two further features that are a must for real-time C-debug. Note the display of two instances of a structure in array "starray " The contents of these structures, as for any C variable, can be changed right on the screen. /iRium ^CORPORATION 1931 Wright Circle, Anaheim, CA 92806 Inquiry 25 for End-Users. Inquiry 26 for DEALERS ONLY. CHAOS MANOR MAIL think that if I didn 't do this column, and thus have some need for playing about with a lot of stuff] I could have been happy with my Z-100 with CP/M and ZDOS, from the time I got the machine until now. Indeed, we have some upgrade kits for the Z-100 thatVm about to install. CP/M isn V dead. It isn V growing as fast as the other systems, but that could change now that Concurrent DOS 5. is shipping. —Jerry Dear Jerry, In previous columns you have men- tioned "The Pournelle User's Guide Series. " My local bookstores do not have any of the books in this series, and after trying for three months they have still been unable to get them. (Maybe being in the wilds of New Mexico has something to do with this.) This morning I called Simon and Schuster, at (800) 223-2348, and ordered the series. (They knew all about the books.) Maybe this will help other read- ers who are having trouble finding these excellent books. I have long thought about getting a por- NOW, GET GREAT LETTERS and Great Numbers. ONLY $299! ROYAL OfficeMaster 2000 Daisywheel Printer • Shadow print, underline, sub, super script printing • Bi-directional printing at 20cps (Shannon Text) • Super quiet operation ( < 57db) 1 year limited parts warranty/90 day parts and labor warranty! For $299, you used to have to settle for a dot matrix. But right now you can get the impeccable letter quality of the Royal 2000 daisywheel printer. The true quality needed for correspondence, presentations, proposals and legal documents. Previously selling as high as $595, now if s an incredibly low $299! Precision-built in Germany, the Royal name means it's a hardworking, easy-to-use, reliable printer. The Complete Electronics name means it's supported with service and backed with a great warranty. So, don't settle for less. Check the list of performance and convenience features. And order now! • Compatible with virtually all popular systems • Full Diablo™ 630 compatibility • 1.5K print buffer built-in • Graphics plotting • Centronics parallel interface • Variable line and character spacing • Proportional spacing • 10/12/15 pitch ROYAL SAVINGS ON ACCESSORIES. TOO! • Cut Sheet Feeder - Was $329 - Now $199! • Tractor Feed- Was $179 - Now $99! • Printwheels $19.95! • Ribbons $5.95! • Cable $19.95 SPECIAL PRICES LIMITED TO STOCK ON HAND. ORDER NOW! 1-714-458-0130 Please have computer make and model information handy. MasterCard • Visa • American Express Diablo is a registered trademark of Xerox. Royal is a registered trademark of Royal Business Machines, Inc. Complete Electronic Peripherals, Inc. Sales complete with support. 9272 Jeronimo, Building 116, Irvine, CA 92718 • (714)458-0130 table laptop but could not justify the cost (including the necessary accessories) of the available systems. I finally purchased an Epson Geneva PX-8 system (including the Epson P-80 portable thermal printer) for $430. The Geneva weighs 8 pounds. With the Multi-Unit (64K-byte RAM disk and 300-baud auto-answer, auto-dial modem) and MicroPro Portable WordStar in ROM, it makes a fine portable word-pro- cessing system. The Geneva also comes with MicroPro Portable Calc Spread- sheet, Portable Scheduler, Microsoft BASIC, and (to me the best feature) CP/M, all in ROM. Most of the public domain CP/M pro- grams run as is or have been rewritten to run on the Geneva's 8-line by 80-charac- ter screen (reasonably legible even in poor light). I still need the 12 pounds of documentation, excellent by the way, that came with the system until I learn the pro- grams and CP/M. The built-in microcassette drive will save files up to 50K bytes, but it takes for- ever. The addition of Epson's PF-10 3 l A- inch disk drive, Traveling Software's Traveler's Pak (appointment, expense, and time manager) from DAK Industries Inc., and Wordpak (Spellguard, Foot- note, Documate, and Grammatick) makes the Geneva a very powerful and complete portable system. I can now appreciate your love of a lap- top and the utility of the CP/M system. I don't believe I have seen FOG (First Osborne Group, P.O. Box 3474, Daly City, CA 94015, (415) 755-2000) men- tioned in your column. This group pub- lishes the FOGHORN, a monthly CP/M newsletter supporting Osborne and most other CP/M computers. Readers using CP/M may find it helpful . CP/M is still very much alive. WebbV. TbmerJr. Las Cruces, NM P.S. There is only a serial printer port on the PX-8, and my NEC printer is parallel only. I have now purchased an MPI-99 printer (because of your recommendation and the super close-out price from Heath) to connect to the serial printer port of the PX-8: It is a strange and wonderful printer! Things flow in micro land. I haven 't written about MP I printers in a long time. They have lots of good features but have to some extent been overtaken by many others. Still, if you can get one cheap, Id grab it. We still use our Sprinter for travel. Glad to hear about the Epson Geneva. I've never actually seen one, strange to say.— Jerry ■ 34 B YTE • JUNE 1987 Inquiry 59 Introducing 1-2-3, dBASE AND 21,398 OTHER PROGRAMS FORUNDC *"*•' w . Now you can run DOS on your AT or compatible while others use UNIX from their terminals. With DOSMERGE,™ the pro- gram that lets you chart profits with Lotus 1-2-3 while they enter sales and check inventory under UNIX. Even use the best programming utilities from DOS and UNIX on the same files without refor- matting or partition- ing your hard disk. So you can compile a UNIX program and run a UNIX utility while edit ing text under DOS. DOSMERGE makes virtually all the 20,000+ DOS applications instantly available to the UNIX world. With no formatting fuss or transporting trouble. You get the advantages of a double standard. Without doubling the price. *A real Unix System, System V/AT $199 (2 user); Software Development System $249; Text Processing System $199; Complete System $549; Call for System V 386 and 386 DOSMERGE pricing. Unix is a trademark of AT&T. System V/AT and DOSMERGE are trademarks of Microport Systems, Inc. Other brands and products are trademarks of their respective holders. ^51-2-3 That's the kind of thinkng you've come to expect from Microport, the company that brings you a real UNIX System V for only $199. Including 24-hour support. Microport is the leader in logically priced UNIX and UNIX applica- tions like Informix, Unify, W RM-COBOL,R-Officeetc. And, we're first to the future with real UNIX and DOSMERGE for 386-based PCs. Available right now. Honest to AT&T UNIX for $199. And DOSMERGE for an additional $149 . Order today on our 30-day, money-back guarantee. Or just ask for our free informa- tion pack. But hurry, the first 400 callers mentioning this ad receive a special UNIX discount coupon. Run run run to your phone. You'll be running DOS under UNIX faster than you can say 1-2-3. F toS£ M Unix; $199. (800)822-UNIX inCA Microport Systems, Inc. 10 Victor Square ■ Scotts Valley, CA 95066 (408)438-8649 Telex: 249554 MICR UR FAX: (408)438-2511 Inquiry 185 OF THE See us at booth #406 >€MPIM7Spriiig f 87 June 1-4, 1987 Georgia World Congress Center Atlanta, GA ONLYECCELL- THEECC-PROTECTED MEMORY CARD- CAN KEEP YOU FROM BECOMING THEIR NEXTVKTIM. If you're a serious AT user, you live in constant fear of seeing this memory error message: PARITY CHECK 2 That's your friendly ATs way of saying, "All your long hours of hard work just went down the tubes!' About then you start suspecting gremlins in your ATs memory. The fact is, these errors can be caused by ^single bad RAM bit out of a pos- sible 256 million* The odds are against you. Whatever the cause, these memory crashes become more common when you add a lot of AT memory or leave your system on day and night— like you do for network file servers, bulletin boards or host emulation. *Based on 16 megabytes of RAM. Now the good news. One memory card offers a solution to this potentially disastrous prob- lem: Orchid's ECCELL: And only ECCELL. KEEPWORKINGWHEN THE CHIPS ARE DOWN. With ECCELL, you're protected against losing all your valuable work due to AT memory crashes. Only ECCELL uses an ECC (Error Correction Code) mechanism to continuously check for errors— and actually correct them before they can do any harm. No other AT memory card does this. ECC protection has been available on main- frames and minicomputers for years. Now ECCELL brings this sophisticated technology to the AT user. HANDLE DOS, PROTECTED MEMORY AND EMS. ECCELL gives you conventional DOS memory up to 640K. Extended memory that supports protected mode DOS. And expanded memory conforming to the Lotus'/Intel/ Microsoft* EMS standard. Plus ECCELL can be her AT memory expansion cards. DON'T PAY EXTRA FOR I/O PORTS YOU DON'T NEED. If you need to connect more peripherals, ECCELL offers optional serial/ parallel or dual serial ports. Unlike other cards, if you don't need them, you don't pay for them. ADD 3 MEGABYTES OF RAM PER CARD. Using multiple ECCELL cards, you can install up to 12 Megabytes of ECC-protected RAM. Installation takes only minutes, guided by an intelligent set-up program. So don't become the next victim of the AT memory gremlins. Protect yourself with ECCELL. Call (415) 490-8586 today. Or contact VOUr lOCal dealer. KCELL'soinidemarlcof OrchidTechnology.Allo»rier J ' prod ud namesore trademarks of fheirmonufoduieis. ECCELL ORCHID TECHNOLOGY 45365 NORTHPORT LOOP WEST FREMONtCA 94538 (415) 490-6586; TIX 709289. ORCHID (EUROPE) LTD.. UNIT9A, INTEC-2. WADE ROAD, BASINGSTOKE. HANTS, RG24 ONE. GREAT BRITAIN; TEL 0256-479898; remW2 4 3350 Inquiry 214 for End-Users. Inquiry 215 for DEALERS ONLY. ORCHID MICROBYTES Staff-written highlights of developments in technology and the microcomputer industry. Planar Prototypes Multicolor EL Displays Planar Systems (Beaverton, OR) has developed prototypes of 5-inch, 320- by 240-pixel, multicolor electrolumines- cent (EL) displays. Planar engineering manager Brian Dolinar told Micro- bytes that although the full-color subsys- tems will be used in environmentally harsh military applications as early as 1990, commercial displays won't be available until at least 1994. The proto- types provide full RGB video and can produce displays with pattern red, green, and blue phosphor dots or in a stacked color dot structure; they can also support from four to eight gray levels, Planar said. In general, EL displays, which are made by applying thin films of phosphor onto glass substrates, are character- ized by their thin profile, high shock re- sistance, high contrast and resolu- tion, and low power requirements. Additionally, EL displays interface much like raster CRT displays, enabling hardware designers to use standard display controllers. Power requirements for EL units are typically about 2 watts for the display itself and 14 W for electronic overhead. According to Dolinar, Planar' s goal is to have total power requirements for the multi- color EL unit down to a maximum of 10 W. EL displays used in jet fighters routinely operate in temperature ranges from -55 degrees Celsius to + 125 degrees C and withstand shocks and vibrations in the hundreds of Gs. Monochrome EL displays are cur- rently used in portable PCs (Data General's, for example) as well as in industrial control and military settings. Planar previously fabricated two- color (red and green) EL displays for military applications. Berkeley Unix Going Through Changes Significant changes to Berkeley Unix are underway, say computer scientists at the University of California's Berke- ley campus, but it will probably be a couple of years before users see those changes fully implemented. Marshall McKusick, a scientist with UCB's Computer Systems Research Group, told Microbytes that three major areas of Unix 4.3 BSD are undergoing develop- ment: the virtual memory system, the file system interface, and the protocol layering interface. According to McKusick, "the file system is pretty much operational now," and, because the work is being com- pleted "serially," modifications will be released incrementally. This file sys- tem interface uses the 4.3 BSD name- lookup calling convention, but other- wise resembles Sun Microsystems' Virtual File System (VFS) interface. Future versions of Berkeley Unix, said McKusick, who is working with Michael Karels on the project, will "support virtual memory space at least as great as the sum of sizes of physi- cal memory plus swap space. " Addition- ally, processes will probably be allowed to map files and device memory into their address spaces and to share memory with other processes. The protocol layering interface McKusick and Karels are working on will be based on the simple stackable- line discipline of the Eighth Edition Unix rather than the Streams imple- mentation of System V, release 3. McKusick and Karels plan to imple- ment a socket interface rather than a character device interface, and proto- cols in the kernel will handle the demultiplexing. McKusick added that "a major change we have made is that we are basing our releases on hardware made by Computer Consoles Inc. We did that be- cause DEC [4.3 BSD is based on Digi- tal Equipment Coip. hardware] was get- ting to the point where they felt they were competing with us. It was getting difficult to get documentation and so on. Our next beta release will likely be based on CCI." McKusick said that "we are making it [Unix] more portable by doing this. ... By going to com- pletely different hardware, we've had to face a number of issues that man- ufacturers have had to face all along." continued Nanobytes Notables and quotables from the West Coast Computer Faire: While Intel was telling Faire- goers that software for its 80386 is on the way, Motorola was claiming its 68020 is the superior processor, partially because of its binary upward compatibility. "The Intel compatibility prob- lem is a nightmare," said Motorola's Kevin Meyer. Someone from Apple Computer said the linear address space of the 68000 series is better suited to bit-mapped graphics and mem- ory-mapped I/O than is the seg- mented address space offered by Intel . . . Philip Gill, contrib- uting editor for Information- week, told a session on Unix that some users of Xenix on 386- based machines are claiming per- formance twice as fast, and half as costly, as that of a mini- computer. Brian Boyle, direc- tor of research at the Novon Re- search Group, said Unix on 386 machines will be like an auto- mobile's electrical system: You know it's there, but you have little interaction with it . . . Dan Bricklin of VisiCalc fame said the development of 16-megabit RAM chips could usher in an era of diskless computers; drives will be junked because of their slowness. . . . At one session, panelists agreed that, for good or bad, Pascal programmers will turn increasingly to other lan- guages, primarily Modula-2, to build more powerful applica- tions. They said Pascal has re- mained an educational tool and has not moved into program- ming environments dominated by C. . . . And if you've been waiting for a solution to all those RAM-resident conflicts, well, you've got some more waiting ahead. Without standards, pan- elists said, software houses can do little to keep their pop-ups continued . JUNE 1987 •BYTE 37 MICROBYTES from clashing. The panel mem- bers also concurred that RAM- resident software is very tough to implement in multitasking en- vironments because the status of RAM is always changing, which leaves open the question of how these programs will fit in with the new multitasking operat- ing systems. ... At its spring- time developers' conference, Apple Computer (Cupertino, CA) officials said it is interested in these types of products from third-party designers: lab instru- mentation boards, industrial cards for process control, commu- nication cards, sound and music peripherals, 68020 acceler- ator boards, graphics copro- cessor cards, expansion cages, and multifunction cards. . . . Information Storage (Colorado Springs, CO) says it will bring out in the fourth quarter a WORM drive that stores between 480 and 550 megabytes on each side. . . . Falcon Technology (Glendale, CA) has brought out an instrument that measures five system parameters of 8088- and 8086-based machines. The Mipster ($495) consists of a probe that plugs into the micropro- cessor socket of the system being checked (and into which the system's processor is reinserted) and a seven-digit LED readout that displays the parameters. It measures machine speed, clock frequency, memory accesses, I/O accesses, and number of times the instruction stream queue is flushed. Probes for the 80286 and 80386 will be available later this year, a company executive said. ... At the National Com- puter Graphics Association's annual show, Cricket Software (Philadelphia) was running a prototype of its Cricket Draw graphics package in color on a Macintosh II. The final release of the new version will support 256 simultaneous colors from a palette of 16 million, the com- pany said, and will sell for $395. . . . Commodore (West Chester, PA) was showing its newest Amigas, the 2000 and the 500, at the NCGA conference; but the machines were adorned with little notes indicating that be- cause they had not yet passed continued Programmers Debate Languages, "Corporate" Programming Some of the micro industry's best- known programmers gathered recently in San Jose, CA, to talk about how they do what they do. Although the panel— consisting of Bob Carr, Andy Hertzfeld, Scott Kim, Charles Simonyi, Jar on Lanier, John Page, Jef Raskin, Peter Roizen, and John Warnock— did not discuss projects they are currently working on, they did discuss the future of programming languages and how programmers can survive in a corporate environment. Hertzfeld (developer of the Macin- tosh operating system) and Carr (chief scientist for Framework-maker Ash- tonTate) said they prefer programming in assembly language. Roizen (devel- oper of T/Maker) and Lanier (former Atari video game programmer) work with Pascal. But Simonyi (from the Microsoft group that has produced Multiplan, Word, and Excel) generally spoke for the group when he said that C is probably the only general-purpose language for most software develop- ment. "At Microsoft, we program only in C," he said. "C now and C for- ever." Raskin, one of the creators of the Macintosh, pointed out, however, that certain programming tasks often re- quire certain languages. This view was seconded by Carr, who said that the software marketplace will probably be- come fragmented, making it more ex- citing than the "homogeneous software environment we've seen over the past couple of years." That environment, he said, will have specialized vertical programs that may be written in special- ized languages, perhaps even macro languages that are part of applications programs themselves. The programmers debated the vir- tues of single-person programming ver- sus "corporate" programming (in which a team of programmers produces a product). Hertzfeld bluntly stated, and Roizen and Kim (author of the book Inversions) concurred, that the best programs are written by a single person. Page (of Software Publishing and PFS fame) disagreed, however, saying it just isn't realistic for a large company to expect an individual to produce enough code to get a big product out in a timely fashion. Carr agreed, saying that the hundreds of worker-years it takes to build a program such as dBASE or Framework makes it impossible for a company to afford the luxury of "one programmer, one program." War- nock said Adobe has found that a three- person programming team is the most effective. "Two people isn't enough and four is too many. That third person in the group adds balance, " the developer of PostScript said. The panelists also disagreed about the increasing tendency among program- mers to use third-party subroutine li- braries. Both Carr and Page said they feel that off-the-shelf routines can save programmers both time and money. Hertzfeld countered by asking, "How can you care about your program if you use someone else's code?" He con- tinued, "I consider myself an artist. If I were another kind of artist, a writer for instance, would it be right for me to go out and buy a paragraph here, a chapter there, and include them in my book? Would it still be mine?" Kim added that it usually takes him longer to read and understand another person's code than i t does to write i t himself in the first place. All the programmer panelists, however, said that over the years they had put together their own subroutine libraries, which they regular- ly use. Optical Head Combines Could Mean Lower-Cost An optical disk head combining holography and lasers has been devel- oped by researchers at Pencom Inter- national (Santa Clara, CA). According to its inventor, Dr. Wai-Hon Lee, the technology could eliminate as many as nine common components (beam- shaping lens, toroidal lenses, wave plates, mirrors, etc.) from standard L-shaped optical heads, resulting in higher performance and lower costs for optical drive manufacturers and, ulti- Hologram and Lasers; Optical Drives mately, users. Lee explained that the reduced weight (6 grams, as compared to a standard of about 400 grams) of such a head will speed up disk access time by factors of 5 to 10. Key to the design of the Pencom head, Lee said, is a hologram that serves as both the beam splitter and the focusing optic. Equally important, he said, is the combining of the focus detector and the laser in a single pack- continued 38 BYTE- JUNE 1987 . ■ '_^ ,— - - ^H [B3i ^ 1 _^*>±4&&P: S3M i^ :i'VV-- we re unaing mat some very ; Turtle Souped Nantucket. Real programmers don't use dBASE. Or do they? We're finding that some very swift programmers are using it to write some very fast applications, and are completing their projects much more quickly But they cheat. They use our Clipper™ compiler to combine dBASE™ with C and assembler. With dBASE used like pseudo-code, they can then quickly create prototypes that actually run. Then, with dBASE doing the high-level database functions, they use our Clipper compiler to link in C or assembly language modules from their own bag of tricks. And they're finding that they're linking in less than they expected because Clipper compiled code runs so fast and because of Clipper's built-in enhancements. Clipper includes easy networking that provides file and record locking the way it should be done. Fast screens that can be treated as memory variables and eliminate the need for direct screen writes and all that tortuous heap management code. Box commands that make windowing a breeze. And more. So if you'd like to use your time more productively check us out: Nantucket Corporation, 12555 W Jefferson Boulevard, Los Angeles, C A 90066. Or if you're on deadline, call (213) 3907923 today Clipper could get you out of the soup. © Nantucket Corporation 1987 Clipper is a trademark of Nantucket Corporation: dBASE isn't. In Europe: Nantucket Corporation (Europe) 2 Biuecoats Avenue. Fore Street, Hertf oid, Herts SG14 1 PB Telephone 0992 554621. Inquiry 203 for End-Users. Inquiry 204 for DEALERS ONLY. JUNE 1987 -BYTE 39 MICROBYTES FCC certification tests, they were not for sale. . . . The Associa- tion of Electronic Cottagers (Davis, CA) says the top 10 ways for making money at home with a computer are consult- ing, typesetting, bookkeeping, writing, entering and process- ing data, researching, word pro- cessing, custom programming, desktop publishing, and providing mailing lists . . . .At the "re- quest" of the National Security Agency, Versitron (both of Washington, DC) canceled its "How Computer Security Can Be Compromised" seminar at the Interface '87 conference. Ver- sitron was going to demonstrate how data can be stolen from a computer using passive listening techniques. . . .At that same conference, Dataradio Corp. (Atlanta) introduced a wireless modem capable of transmitting data over radio channels at as much as 9600 bits per second. The Dataradio Series 9600 is designed to replace leased phone lines or provide data circuits where dedicated lines are not available. . . . You won't be seeing this at your local video shop: The Boston Computer Society has produced a series of videotapes on creating soft- ware. "There are 14 seminars in the series," the BCS says. "Many are by 'gurus' of the in- dustry who took time out from doing in order to teach and share code." The series sells for $350. Contact the BCS Software Engineering Forum, 59 Morse- land Ave., Newton, MA 02159; or phone (617) 738-8230. . . . When asked at the West Coast Computer Faire to assess the impact of superconductors on new products at Apple, Steve Sakaman of that company said, "It took us a long time to put a fan in the Mac, so it might be a while before we put a refrigera- tor in it." age. In Pencom's system, the laser beam passes on a straight line through a single collimating lens and then the hologram before focusing on the media. When the beam returns from the media, the hologram refracts the beam slightly, returning it to the tracking detector. In general terms, a hologram is an interference pattern between two light beams. The pattern Lee developed is calculated and generated by a computer, then transferred to a semiconductor- like mask before being replicated onto a glass lens. Currently, several companies are evaluating the Pencom head. Lee said he thinks optical drives that make use of the holographic-laser head may begin appearing in about six months. Active-Matrix LCD Called the Display of the Future Active-matrix liquid crystal displays will be the "the next evolutionary step" in display technology, said panelists at the West Coast Computer Faire re- cently. According to David Mentley, a display research analyst with DEM As- sociates (El Cerrito, CA), active-ma- trix LCDs have already been accepted by makers of small-screen, personal TVs and will be a driving force in developing the technology for computer displays. Mentley predicted that within the next year or so, we may even see "person- al portable computers" that have the same 3-inch full-color screens now available for televisions. Active-matrix technology is based on positioning a transistor and capacitor at each pixel on the screen. This en- ables full color at high resolution. It also eliminates commonly encountered multiplexing problems, because an en- tire line on the display can be turned on or off in less than 6 microseconds. The biggest development problem with active-matrix panels is that engi- neers cannot yet build ICs that are large enough to power the displays. This explains why the 3-inch diagonal screens are the most commonly found: The IC must be the same size as the screen. The largest active-matrix proto- type he has seen, said Mentley, is a 14-inch diagonal screen, although the largest acceptable screen is only 6 inches in diagonal. Recent advances in thin-film transistor technology, how- ever, indicate that larger acceptable screens may be possible in the near future. Mentley reported that several com- panies, including General Electric, Hitachi, IBM, Matsushita, NEC, Sharp, Toshiba, and Xerox, have very large active-matrix programs under- way. Current manufacturing costs for ac- tive-matrix panels is about $10, Mentley said, with OEM prices around $85; he noted that the price of active- matrix LCD televisions has dropped to as low as $125. Mentley concluded by saying that costs of software drivers will be a factor in determining the eventual costs for PCs because active- matrix drivers cost more to develop than traditional LCD panels. Device Controls Execution of Programs Rainbow Technologies (Irvine, CA) has a new hardware key that developers can use to control access to as many as 10 software programs. The Software Sentinel-M has a clock/calendar that lets developers set individual time-outs; the internal counter can be set to monitor a certain number of program ex- ecutions and then deinstall the pro- gram, which can be handy for applica- tions such as software rental and trial usage. Company president Walter Straub said developers can "marry software to the hardware key" as an alternative to traditional copy protection. The key hooks to the parallel port of IBM PCs and compatibles and runs under MS-DOS. Straub claimed the Sentinel-M' s algorithm technique offers more security than designs based on serial number, fixed response, or re- turned-pulse methods. The Sentinel- M sells for $50 in quantities of 500 to 1000. According to the company, a model that plugs into a serial port is in the works. TECHNOLOGY NEWS WANTED. The news staff at BYTE is always interested in hearing about new technological and scientific developments that might have an impact on microcomputers and the people who use them. We also want to keep track of innovative uses of that technology. If you know of advances or projects that involve research relemnt to microcomputing and want to share that information, please contact us. Call the Microbytes staff at (603) 924-9281, send mail on BIX to Micro- bytes, or write to us at One Phoenix Mill Lane, Peterborough, NH 03458. 40 BYTE- JUNE 1987 It takes four of theirs to display the same spreadsheet as one Amdek 1280. Now, Lotus 1-2-3 and Symphony can be even easier and quicker to run. Because Amdek's 1280 graphics subsystem displays up to four times more spreadsheet than a standard IBM monochrome or compatible monitor. For incredibly vivid resolution, the Amdek system puts 1280 X 800 pixels on a big 15" white phospher CRT. There are a total of 11 modes. What's more, the 1280 provides complete monochrome and color graphics compatibility. Price? The Amdek 1280 monitor and video board cost only $999. So, if you work with Lotus, CAD or desktop publishing, Amdek's 1280 graphics subsystem is clearly your best buy. The Amdek 1280 provides 1280(H) X 800 (V) resolution with these software packages: GENERAL PC SOFTWARE Lotus 1-2-3 Symphony PC-Paintbrush DESKTOP PUBLISHING Advanlfex Ventura Publisher PageMaker/PC Frontpage DeskSet Pagemaster Rim Systems Compound Document Processor Display Ad Make-up System COMPUTER-AIDED DESIGN AutoCAD Cadvance Drafix 1 In-A-Vision Generic CADD VersaCAD ADVANCED Workview Procad PC P-CAD System GRAPHICS SYSTEM TOOLS MS-Windows GEM MetaWindows HALO KEEPC IBM Is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corp. Clearly the finest in monitors. 1901 Zanker Road, San Jose, CA 95112 Phone: 408/43 6-8570 FAX: 408/4 36-8187 ( — -\ B a » am ffl wo< ! | HI wwwiiwinis Fmmcit TWayf 1 1 ;■'/ .fry v ■) J Inquiry 16 Howto386 It's simple. With Intel's Inboard™ 386/AT. It fits right into your IBM*AT or compatible, and gives you all the per- formance of a 386 system. Without having to buy a 386 sys- tem. (Which, if you've priced one lately is about three times as expensive) Inboard 386 is based on the revo- lutionary 32-bit, 16 MHz 80386 chip we invented. So it'll work with all the software you've got sitting on your desk. As well as any add-in boards you may have hiding in your computer- like, just for instance, the Above™ Board.Which we also invented. Inboard 386 lets you whiz through recalcs with Lotus*l-2-3!And it makes your network server serve you even faster. In fact, it'll make any program serve you faster. And with 386 control software, Inboard and Above are trademarks and Intel a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corp. Lotus and 42 BYTE* JUNE 1987 »oo®ooo *^< i Q © © © © © \h oak ! ©■©.! -% ^®! ai OOI IK ©©!-. R, ©O: | ;©GQG©3 ' ,-J ««**- m «* «»-ft» '• ft »- * ca :;, F< |. . - m ft- ft» ft. ftj. - ,«U« „«ft mm _m ..mm .--: ^-T ?" ^^^7 ftrl - L. ; _ .. -. iltfijli • « - _ • »n >ooo©ooo";f l OV]* 1 .:*^'* J,:*:: o©o©oo©o QOOOOQ© : IIIIIIIKIIIII L C If * 3 ■■H ^^— • Qy* E : ! ! ; 1 . ! •P.,1 % ft. m «. M M fe ; * '!--<•._•.• ft. T h s I r mm — — — *•'■» Zm-'mm iipi&" you can take advantage of exceptional multitasking capabilities. Like put- ting together a presentation while your computer is downloading data. (A slightly more efficient way of doing business) Don't forget our five-year warranty. Or toll-free technical support line. 1-2-3 are registered trademarks of Lotus Development Corp. © 1986 Intel Corporation Inquiry 139 To find out more, check with ; I your favorite computer dealer or call us at (800) 538-3373. And see why Inboard 386 beats the system. intJ JUNE 1987 -BYTE 43 MAXIMIZE YOUR MULTISYNC Lots of EGA boards will take you this far. A few will take you to here . But now you can maximize your MultiSync— with Genoa's SuperEGA". . . andSuperEGAHiRes. both with AutoSync™! 15.75 KHz I 18.75 KHz 21 .8 KHz I 30.0 KHz 31 .5 KHz I 35.0 KHz I CGA 320x200 MDA (Hercules) 720x348 i EGA 640x350 1056x352 132 col. x 44 I PGA resolution 640x480 Drivers for: Lotus 1-2-3, AutoCAD, GEM, Windows, and Desktop Publishing CGA DoubleScan: 320x400 640x400 I CAD/CAM 800x600 Drivers for: AutoCAD, Windows, GEM, and Desktop Publishing Now you can maximize your MultiSync monitor — with a SuperEGA card from Genoa. SuperEGA givesyou CGA (including double-scan!), MDA (Hercules), EGA, and PGA resolution — and 132 columns. Or you can get the SuperEGA HiRes card for your advanced CAD/CAM and desktop publishing applications. Both SuperEGA cards feature AutoSync; they automatically synchronize with all MultiSync speeds, from 1575 up to 35 KHz. The SuperEGA HiRes is the only EGA board with 800 x 600 resolution, and it comes with the drivers you need for CAD/CAM and desktop publishing. For all your graphic applications, you can count on SuperEGA. We've maximized the MultiSync! Call or write: Genoa Systems Corporation, 73 E. Trimble Road, San Jose, CA 95131; Telephone: 408-432-9090, FAX: 408- 434-0997, TELEX: 172319 Genoa SYSTEMS CORPORATION © 1987 Genoa Systems Corporation. SuperEGA, SuperEGA HiRes and AutoSync are trademarks of Genoa Systems Corporation. MultiSync is a trademark of NEC Home Electronics. Lotus 1-2-3— Lotus Development Corporation; Hercules— Hercules Computer Technology; Windows— Microsoft; GEM— Digital Research; AutoCAD-AutoDcsk, Inc. 44 BYTE- JUNE 1987 Inquiry U9 WHAT'S NEW Information from this month's most interesting press releases. *. Shock-Proof Removable Hard Disk Tandon's Personal Data Pac is a removable hard disk drive designed for easy transport and durability. De- signed for the IBM PC and compatibles, the Pac is a 3 Vi- inch dual-platter 30-mega- byte hard disk drive in a hard plastic enclosure about the size of a full-height floppy disk drive. You can easily attach it to an external adapter that contains two slots for the new drives and a caching disk controller. The Data Pac's drive heads are locked away from the media when not in use. Each pack weighs about 2 . 6 pounds and measures 2 Vi by 4% by 7 inches, for easy transport in a briefcase. Tandon says that tests have shown that Pacs can with- stand up to 300 Gs offeree, (or a drop of 30 inches onto concrete) without losing data or breaking the plastic case. The data transfer rate for Pacs is 7.5 megabits per second with a maximum access time of 50 milliseconds and average seek length of 100 ms. Each Personal Data Pac can be password-protected by using a special utility. Price: $400; Ad-PAC 2 sub- system (holds two Data Pacs), $500. Contact: Tandon Corp., 405 Science Dr. , Moorpark, CA 93021, (805) 523-0340. Inquiry 576. Q&A for the 386 The database and word- processing program Q&A is now available for 80386- based systems. The 386 version takes advantage of the Ijotus/Microsoft/Intel Ex- panded Memory System Tandon 's 30-megabyte Personal Data Pac. (LMI/EMS), letting you access memory above the DOS limit of 640K bytes. Symantec reports that the instruction set increases speed by 10 per- cent to 40 percent, and that the code size has decreased by about 20 percent. The origi- nal 8086 version of Q&A will run on 386-based systems, but without the increased speed and memory advantages of the 386 version. Q&A requires an Intel 80386 microprocessor, 512K bytes of RAM, and MS- DOS version 3.0 or higher. Price: $349. Contact: Symantec Corp., 10201 Torre Ave., Cupertino, CA 95014, (408) 253-9600. Inquiry 577. Hand-Held Scanning The Handscan is a mouse-like data-entry de- vice that lets you enter por- tions of printed or typewritten documents directly into an applications program such as Lotus 1-2-3, dBASE III, Microsoft Word, Rrbase 5000, WordStar, or any program that accepts ASCII data. Work- ing with proprietary mem- ory-resident optical-character- recognition software, the Handscan recognizes more than 200 computer-gener- ated or typewritten fonts. When you enter the font name into the computer, the Handscan displays the name of the recognized font on the screen. The unit has five push- buttons: one for reading data, and four for cursor move- ment that let you move around an applications program screen without having to use the keyboard cursor keys. The unit is programmable so that pressing combinations of two or three keys performs special operations unique to the application. You can also program a substitution table that will automatically enter a discrete character into the application when another spec- ified character is read by the Handscan. This lets you per- form functions such as re- moving commas from numbers or eliminating proportional spacing from text. The manufacturer claims that the Handscan' s error rate is less than one error for every 1300 characters scanned. The Handscan package con- sists of the scanner, a full- length interface card, and software. It runs on IBM PCs, ATs, and compatibles. A hard disk and 640K bytes of RAM are recommended. Price: $649.95. Contact: Saba Technol- ogies Inc., 9300 Southwest Gemini Dr. , Beaverton, OR 97005, (503) 222-7050. Inquiry 578. Ultra-Parallel 68020 Board Systolic System's Model 481 is a VME-bus-com- patible parallel numeric processor that's capable of full IEEE-P754 standard 32-bit, 64-bit, and 80-bit floating point computations. The board contains a single 68020 proces- sor, four 68881 numeric co- processors, and 256K bytes of 70-nanosecond RAM. Using a 25-MHz system clock, the system executes 1 .29 million 80-bit floating-point JUNE 1987 -BYTE 45 WHAT'S NEW orations per second. Multi- ple 481 boards can be in- stalled in VME-bus-compati- ble computers (such as the Macintosh II) for additional performance gains. The Model 481 board performs nonlinear, transcen- dental, and trigonometric functions, and is well-suited for running simulations. A scientific software library of more than 400 commonly used subroutines is available in both FORTRAN and C. Price: $4995. Contact: Systolic Systems Inc., 1065 East Brokaw Rd., San Jose, CA 95 13 1,(408) 286-0421. Inquiry 579. Ryan-McFarland's Development Tools RM/Screens and RM/Forte are two new productivity tools from Ryan-McFarland that are de- signed to enhance program development. RM/Forte is a file man- ager, compiler, linker, and de- bugger that is now packaged with version 2.4 of RM/FOR- TRAN, an ANSI-77 opti- mizing FORTRAN. Other en- hancements to version 2.4 include a syntax-checking ca- pability, a faster math-co- processor library, and im- proved interlanguage communications. Its 8087/80287 emulator exe- cutes programs five times faster than earlier versions. It lets you handle mainframe- type floating-point arithme- tic without installing an 8087/80287 coprocessor chip, but will take advantage of the chip, if you install one. RM/Forte manages your program files, integrates sever- al development tools into one operating environment, and simplifies the testing process. The project manager maintains information about all files in an RM/FORTRAN application, letting you track projects through all stages of development. The Application screen generated by RM/Screens. screen's project-status line shows you the number of files in a project, tells you whether an executable pro- gram exists, and reports what development task should occur next. From the screen you can select source files to edit, and you can edit them without having to refer to a printed copy of the listing. The listing file display shows the source code and the compiler diagnostic messages, in- cluding leading line numbers, embedded diagnostics, op- tional allocation maps and cross references, and com- pilation summaries. When your files are ready for compilation, RM/Forte invokes the RM/FORTRAN compiler at your request. You can tell it to compile only those files modified since the previous compilations, and you can specify the compiler op- tions for each file. RM/Forte sets up a link- control file before invoking the linker. The file contains all the commands needed to link the program, and you can modify the link-control file as needed. You can also use linkers other than the one sup- plied with RM/Forte. RM/Forte lets you exe- cute a program with or without the debug option. During debug sessions, RM/Forte lets you move between program output, the interactive debug- ger, and source-code edit- ing with keystroke commands. RM/Screens, the screen generator, works with the RM/COBOL-85 compiler, generating COBOL code. It also generates code for the validation checks that ensure that your data meets each field's criteria. RM/Screens can reduce the time you spend producing screens by up to 40 percent. RM/Screens includes a subsystem that defines screens, letting you design or recall previously stored screens for use in the applications. You can define up to 250 fields per screen and select from a palette of 16 colors. Editing functions are available, as are features for writing and masking literals. You also have a selection of what-you- see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) screen-painting functions that simplify drawing, filling, and moving boxes, and drawing line graphics. Built-in primitives, such as window-like small screens and screen shifting, also simplify and speed the design process. Another subsystem lets you define fields, field-entry sequences, and a range of field-validation criteria. Using the field directory, you can recall any field definition, in- cluding its validation logic, and use them in other screens. A screen generator pro- duces error-free RM/COBOL- 85 source code for your screens and validation logic, after you have formatted, tested, and edited the screens. With additional utilities, you can test your screens be- fore you generate and com- pile COBOL code. A cross-ref- erencing capability lets you manage the use of screens throughout an application by comparing listings of all fields within a screen or listing all screens containing a particular field. Price: RM/Screens, $400; RM/FORTRAN 2.4 with RM/Forte, $595. Contact: Ryan-McFarland Corp., 609 Deep Valley Dr., Rolling Hills Estates, CA 90274,(213)541-4828. Inquiry 580. Tl Professional Goes Compatible The CSTI Compatibility System is a full-length add-in card that adds IBM compatibility to the TI Profes- sional and TI Portable Pro- fessional computers. Contain- ing a video controller and floppy controller, the CSTI System makes use of the TI monitor (monochrome or RGB), keyboard, system memory, and both floppy and hard disk drives. It also supports an 8087 math co- processor. The CSTI System in- cludes a disk with software driver routines for the con- trollers, as well as routines that translate between the IBM PC applications and the TI Professional hardware. The manufacturer claims that the system is compatible with over 95 percent of IBM PC programs. The system also supports IBM PC-compatible serial ports. The system re- quires MS-DOS or PC-DOS, versions 2.1 to 3.2. Price: $595. Contact: Compatible Sys- tems Corp., 2111 30th St., Suite M 1033, Boulder, CO 80301,(303)444-9532. Inquiry 581. continued 46 BYTE- JUNE 1987 © 1987 MalhSoft, Inc. All rights reserved. J J *2U - JHH - . S ./ >??/ 2^ \/(& =r 3.?c£~ "J/z/^^r =7. 2ZC -**/.&?/ m i ?mu &>*#*#** 9i #4* fZj. /^L- fc— ^L_.£U- ^__^ £—-' MathCAD" turnsyour PC into an electronic scratchpad. "MathCAD is a real gem of a software package . . . a program that breaks new ground. . . the starter of a new software category. " The New York Times It's the first numeric software that works like a word processor. The first software of its kind that's not a programming language. Think of it as the first WYSIWYG calculator. For the first time ever, MathCAD lets you do calculations on your PC in real math notation, as simply as on a scratchpad. "MathCAD is likely to be a trendsetter. Its combi- nation of mathematic power and what-you-see- is-what-you-get interface makes it an excellent tool..." PC Week MathCAD lets you combine equations, graph- ics and text just like you do on paper. You can input formulas directly and edit equations interactively right on the screen. Just place the cursor anywhere and start typing. MathCAD not only formats your -rV-- ^^ 1 l»WW,«S:J ■m|i> ,;■ If* 2 3 P. 1 LS mm |j EEfid -(h?.« * ? J» l i i i 1 9 S r «i r it ] 3iv k.»— |- »J5— « I.W-M - [ to] 1 »ti] * equations as they're typed, it instantly calculates the results. Sounds simple? It is. In fact, IEEE Software writes, "It's fun, and it's much easier to use MathCAD than anything you've ever used before." "// has a free form style that lets you just sit down in front of the PC and do the work you probably bought the computer for in the first place. ' ' PC Magazine MathCAD is much faster and easier than doing calculations by hand or writing programs. And unlike a calculator, MathCAD lets you see and record every step You can add text anywhere to support your work. And print or save your entire calculation as an integrated document that anyone can understand. "It's hard to do justice to this software in any re- view. You feel like you 'vejust discovered the power of a computer for the first time. ' ' IEEE Software What kind of calculations can you do with MathCAD? Anything you have a formula for. As IEEE Software writes, "Its versatility seems unlim- ited." With its wide range of built-in functions, MathCAD can handle everything from simple Requires IBM PC" or compatible. 512KB RAM, graphics card. IBM PC®lnternalional Business Machines Corporation. MathCAD™ MalhSoft, Inc. <3/C^\ P Inquiry 1*78 math to your most sophisticated problems. Use MathCAD to calculate your mortgage payments, to solve a heat trans- fer problem, or to model electrical circuit parameters. if I dealt frequently with numbers, I wouldn't wait. . . to get my copy. " The New York Times Why spend another minute doing calcula- tions by hand or writing and debugging programs? Put MathCAD to work for you and find out why PC Magazine writes, "Warning: it could prove addictive." Once you've tried MathCAD, it's hard to imagine how you ever got along without it. To order MathCAD at just $249, call us today at: 1-800-MathCAD (In Massachusetts: 617-577-1017) MathCAD MathSoft, Inc., I Kendall Sq., Cambridge, MA 02139 JUNE 1987 -BYTE 47 WHAT'S NEW Windows Drawing The technical-drawing program Instinct runs in the Microsoft Windows en- vironment and offers color ca- pabilities and unlimited drawing size, rotation, scaling, zooming, and panning. You can merge the graphics you create with other programs to develop publications and overhead projections. You can select and ma- nipulate graphics, text, and menu commands with a mouse. A status window shows you what command you just invoked and what to do next. A WYSIWYG screen dis- play lets you create multiple drawings in separate win- dows and scrolls vertically or horizontally. Layout tools include met- ric and English units of mea- surement. A built-in text editor lets you manipulate multiple lines of text and of- fers you a palette of text faces, sizes, and styles. Instinct runs on the IBM PC, XT, AT, and compatibles that run Microsoft Win- dows. You need at least 320K bytes of RAM with two floppy disk drives. Display de- vices recommended include the IBM Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA), the Hercu- les Graphics Card, and other Windows-compatible de- vices. A copy of Microsoft Windows is also required. Price: $99.95. Contact: Cadlogic Systems Corp., 2635 North First St., Suite 202, San Jose, CA 95134, (408) 943-9696; in CA, (800) 962-0660. Inquiry 582. Turbo View Speeds Up AutoCAD TurboView converts AutoCAD drawings into high-speed assembly lan- guage format and lets you view and animate them in both orthographic and true-perspec- tive modes. lurboView dis- plays your drawings up to 40 times faster than AutoCAD Graphics capabilities of Instinct used to create perspective view. AutoCAD drawing viewed and animated with TurboView. without the math coprocessor and up to 7 l A times faster than AutoCAD with the coprocessor. TurboView also lets you manipulate up to 256 blocks in a drawing and save object- animation sequences at up to 30 frames per second. The program works with the IBM Color Graphics Adapter (CGA), Enhanced Graphics Adapter, and Sub- Logic's X-l Graphics Boards. Price: $495. Contact: SubLogic Corp., 713 Edgebrook Dr., Champaign, IL 61820, (217) 398-4469. Inquiry 583. 3-Ounce Modem Gets Serial Power Weighing three ounces and about the size of an audiocassette, the Novation Parrot is a full-featured direct- connect 300/1200-bps modem. For even greater por- tability, the Parrot has a microprocessor-controlled power management system that takes power directly from the RS-232C serial port. You need neither batteries nor an external AC supply. The unit only draws power from the port when needed, remain- ing on standby until its circuit- ry detects activity. Novation claims that the Parrot is fully compatible with the Hayes AT command set. It has built-in automatic self- test, analog loop-back, and local and remote digital loop- back testing. It dials using both tone and pulse systems, it is configurable for auto- matic answer, and detects dial tone, busy signals, ring- back, and MCI/Sprint com- puter tones. The Parrot's exact mea- surements are % by 4 l A by 2% inches. It has a built-in speaker with volume control, and four LED indicators: normal, off hook, carrier, and data. RS-232C cables and communications software are optional. Starter kits are available for IBM PCs and compatibles, the Mac- intosh, and Commodore computers. Price: $119. Contact: Novation, Inc., 21345 Lassen St., Chatsworth, CA 91311, (818) 998-5060. Inquiry 584. IBM/Toshiba/Zenith Laptop Expander The CTC Expander from Cypher Technology is an expansion chassis that's de- signed to provide full IBM- compatible expansion capa- bilities for owners of the Zenith Z-171, the Toshiba Tl 100 orT3100,andtheIBMPC Convertible. Each CTC Expander pro- vides four full-length and three half-length expansion slots that can be used for any IBM- compatible expansion board. There's also a slot for the custom laptop interface card, which is shipped with the chassis and connects to the laptop via a three-foot cable. The CTC Expanders have received FCC Class B ap- proval, and come with a 1 35-watt power supply. Price: $995; with 20-mega- byte hard disk, $1595. Contact: Cypher Technol- ogy Corp., 14003 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, CA 91423,(818)905-8161. Inquiry 585. continued 48 BYTE* JUNE 1987 C I T I I. E N i - ■ ™4MjmM**fMMift i«wi» r J , tSIHHIW r j__. -p^3 You're lopkingat all the printer you'll, ever need, For any \ ;; £*. application ypu^ : : - ; ^ TTie Citiz:en TM TBBut^ M : 224; A 24 : piri^t matrix sdifotion of- fering superb word processing spreadsheet data pro- cessing appHcations; At a price you'll firitj ;:stirpns|ngiy affordable, h [ ; The Tribute 224 delivers true letter-quality printing at 66 ;^s ; correspondence-^ 1 (atlO cpi). In standardor proportional spacing. And optional - ^ easily expanded. You also get highTresolution graphics. A bimt^in ; push- f eed ; variable- wd^ tractor and automatic paper loading sys-/ ■ tem3oth^jM compatibility Front p^el access tx?h^ compatibility with virtually every ft^jqis^^ i All this ; and it's backed by our nationwide service ; excel-; ^ lentdocum For more information call l-800-55d-1234 ; Extension 34. InGMifor^ ; i T^ ■ _ lliere is no higher tribute to , : 24-pin printing..- ; : - " ~> .fii^i^^^b^i'^^riMsgi e Printers that run like dodcwork. ICITIZiM Inquiry 52 WHAT'S NEW 3Com's Workstation Goes Diskless 3 Station is a diskless workstation designed espe- cially for local-area net- working. Based around an 80286 processor running at 8 MHz, the 3Station's single circuit board includes monochrome, Hercules Graph- ics Adapter, CGA, and EGA, 1 megabyte of RAM (up- gradable to 4 megabytes), and a built-in Ethernet adapter. Because it has no expan- sion slots, the 3Station mea- sures just 3 inches high and has a 14-inch-square footprint. The system draws just 25 watts of power, and does not need a cooling fan. A single parallel printer port, two serial ports, and a BNC connector for network connection are in- cluded. The 3Station comes with an IBM 101-style key- board. A monitor is not included. The 3Station's processor has direct access to the onboard graphics and the integrated network connection; and the system's memory mapping takes advantage of the freed-up memory area that's used for expansion slots in most IBM PC compatibles. The 3Sta- tion uses this memory area as RAM to hold the 3 + soft- ware, leaving 570K bytes of working memory available for DOS and applications. Price: $1895. Contact: 3Com Corp., 1365 Shorebird Way, Mountain View, CA 94043, (415) 961-9602. Inquiry 586. Polaroid's Higher-Resolution Image Recorder The PalettePlus Re- corder is Polaroid's high- er-end version of its Palette system for generating instant prints, slides, and overhead transparencies from computer graphics. When connected to an IBM PC-compatible sys- tem with an EGA and a graphics software package that has a PalettePlus driver, the 3-Com's diskless workstation. PalettePlus can produce hard- copy with a resolution of 640 by 700 pixels. (The soft- ware without a PalettePlus Driver will produce a resolu- tion of 640 by 350 pixels.) When used with a CGA and software using a Palette driver, the system will pro- duce a resolution of 640 by 400 pixels; 320 by 200 pixels without a Palette Driver. The Recorder includes software that automatically configures the system for seven generally available EGA and CGA boards. The sys- tem includes auto-luminance circuitry, which senses and compensates for variations in the incoming video signal. There's also an electronic zoom control that fine-tunes the image plus or minus 4 percent. Along with the exposure unit and software, the Palette- Plus system includes a Polaroid 3 l A- by 4 l A -inch film back, an autowind 35mm camera back, a 35mm film processor, slide mounter, and cables. An optional motor- ized 35mm camera back is also available. Price: $2999. Contact: Polaroid Corp., 575 Technology Square-9P, Cambridge, MA 02139, (617) 577-2630. Inquiry 587. A Portable 386 As the name implies, the Noble 386 Portable is a fully portable 16-MHz 80386-based computer. Mea- suring 17 by l x h by 19 inches and weighing under 35 pounds, the system is com- patible with the IBM PC, XT, and AT, and comes stan- dard with 5 12K bytes of RAM , which you can expand to 4 megabytes with two 2-mega- byte add-on boards. Other standard features of the Noble 386 include a 20- megabyte hard disk drive, a 360K byte floppy disk drive, and a 9-inch monochrome monitor supported by a Her- cules graphics board. The system has six slots, including one for an 80387 math co- processor. It has a Phoenix BIOS, and runs under MS- DOS or PC-DOS 3 . 1 and high- er (not included with the basic system.) The Noble 386 runs with one wait state, and you can tog- gle the clock speed from 16 MHz down to 8 MHz. The standard 20-megabyte hard disk drive has an average ac- cess time of 40 millisec- onds, and a transfer speed of 5 megabits per second. System options include a half -height 40-megabyte hard disk drive, a 1.2-megabyte floppy disk drive, and a 2- megabyte RAM board that fits into a 32-bit slot. Price: $2999; 40-megabyte hard disk drive, $400; 1 .2- megabyte floppy disk drive, $140; 2-megabyte RAM board, $700. Contact: PC Discount, 2 100 Travis, Suite 630, Houston, TX 77002, (713) 655-9047. Inquiry 588. AutoCAD Plotter Management ACS Telecom's 10-Plotis f\ plotter manager for Auto- CAD that offers spool, queue, store, copy, archive, and plot capabilities. The program lets you spool draw- ings to a plotter or laser printer and return to AutoCAD without waiting for the plot- ter to finish the drawing. 10- Plot manages drawings in a single queue and plots them in order. You can archive drawing files and plot addition- al copies, without vector processing delays. Spooling and queuing functions are performed from within AutoCAD, so you don't have to exit to DOS. 10-Plot requires an IBM PC, XT, AT, or compatible with MS-DOS or PC-DOS 3.0 or higher, AutoCAD 2.0, and at least 640 K bytes of RAM. Price: $249. Contact: ACS Telecom, 25825 Eshelman Ave., Lomita, CA 90717, (213)325-3055. Inquiry 589. Stripper Tears Perfs The Stripper is a manual tool that removes the per- forated edges of computer paper and forms. To use it, you insert the perforated edge of up to 20 sheets into the unit, press down, and pull away. Price: $14.95. Contact: Ra-Lo Inc., East 23301 Mission, Liberty Lake, WA 99019, (800) 334- 5447, (509) 928-4139. Inquiry 590. continued 50 BYTE • JUNE 1987 \ferbatim, 2S/2D-MO 550-0 1 DataLife^ ' 1W4VvtM0raCofp.j „0* *VH Problem: Mysterious Data Loss Solution: New Verbatim DataHold Protects when Static Strikes. Static Danger is Everywhere. Your data is vulnerable to loss from an unseen enemy— static electricity! Even small static charges could cause sudden mysterious data loss from your diskette. And static lurks every where. Just walk across a carpeted floor and you build up a static charge of up to 1,500 volts- enough to ZAP your data. It's DataHold or Data Loss. DataHold is Verbatim's ingenious diskette liner that disperses damaging static charges instantly. Compare DataLife to other popular brands which retain static charges up to four minutes and your choice should be obvious. DataHold, available exclusively from Verbatim DataLife, for unsurpassed data protection. After all, it's your choice, DataHold or data loss. \ferbatim« Verbatim • 1200 W.T. Harris Blvd. • Charlotte, N.C. 28213 • 800-538-1793 Inquiry 324 A Kodak Company JUNE 1987 -BYTE 51 WHAT'S NEW SYSTEMS Low-End Amiga Commodore's new low- end member of the Amiga family is the 500. Sporting the general look of the Com- modore 128, the Amiga 500 comes standard with 5 12K bytes of RAM, expandable to 1 megabyte internally using the optional A501 RAM ex- pansion cartridge, which also adds a real-time clock. With a 68000 processor running at 7. 14 MHz, Commo- dore claims the system is fully compatible with software written for version 1 .2 of Amiga 1000 systems' software. The 500 has an 1814- by 12%-inch footprint, and weighs 7Vi pounds. The external power supply weighs five pounds and has the system's power switch. The new computer's key- board has 94 keys arranged similarly to the IBM 101 layout. A single 3 l A -inch flop- py disk drive is built in, as is an 86-pin expansion bus con- nector. There's also a two- button optomechanical mouse. Price: $649. Contact: Commodore/ Amiga, 1200 Wilson Dr., West Chester, PA 19380, (215) 431-9100. Inquiry 591. Zenith Z-159 Desktop Computer The Zenith Z-159 is an enhanced, lower-priced version of the company's desktop personal computer. The Z-159 is available with either an EGA or Hercules- compatible monochrome board. The Z-159 also accepts LMI/EMS upgrade chips, which lets you install up to 1 .25 megabytes of RAM without using an expansion slot. With three additional LMI/EMS memory cards, the system will accommodate up to 5 megabytes of RAM. With an 8088 processor switchable between 4.77 and 8 MHz, the Z-159 comes The $649 Amiga 500. standard with 256K bytes of no- wait-state memory, serial and parallel ports, and MS-DOS version 3.2. Price: From $1749 to $2799. Contact: Zenith Data Sys- tems, 1000 Milwaukee Ave., Glenview,IL 60025, (800) 842-9000. Inquiry 592. C.ltoh's Multiuser Micro TheCIES/286byCIE Systems (a subsidiary of printer-maker C.Itoh) is an 80286-based multiuser system that operates at 6, 8, or 10 MHz. The CIES/286 system is available in two-user, six-user, and nine-user configura- tions. The basic two-user sys- tem includes 5 12K bytes of RAM (expandable to 12 mega- bytes), a 40-megabyte hard disk drive (with average 28- millisecond track-to-track access), no-wait-state architec- ture, a 1 .2-megabyte floppy disk drive, four open expansion slots, an RS-232C serial port, a parallel port, a 101-key keyboard, and a mono- chrome monitor. An EGA- compatible 14-inch color monitor is optional. A multi-mode graphics adapter is included to support monochrome, CGA, EGA, and Hercules graphics. The system measures 9 14 by 16V£ by 6 14 inches. The system uses a Phoe- nix BIOS and comes with MS- DOS 3.2. Other options in- clude a 70-megabyte hard disk drive and a cartridge tape backup unit. An optional 68000-based coprocessor board provides compatibility with PICK, RM/COS, and Unix operating systems. Price: Two-user, $5960; six-user, $8085; nine-user, $9800. Contact: CIE Systems Inc., 2515 McCabe Way, Irvine, CA 92714,(714)660-1800. Inquiry 593. Kaypro's Complete Publishing System Extra! Extra! is an everything-you-need desk- top publishing system from Kaypro. The system hardware is based on the Kaypro 286i, an AT-compatible with 640K bytes of RAM, a 30- megabyte hard disk, an EGA color board, an EGA-com- patible monochrome board, and a three-button mouse. The printer is the Kaypro Page Printer n, an eight-page- per-minute laser unit with 300 dots per inch resolution. In- cluded are Hewlett-Packard B fonts, an assortment of downloadable fonts, and ca- bling needed to hook the system together. Extra! Extra !'s software includes the Ventura desktop publishing package, Word- Star 4.0 with MailMerge and Corrects tar, paint and form-generation software, MS- DOS 3.2 and GW-BASIC. Extra! Extra! can combine text from several other word processors, ASCII text, and graphics into master documents. Price: $8495. Contact: Kaypro Corp. , 533 Stevens Ave., Solana Beach, CA 92075, (619) 481-4300. Inquiry 594. A Low-Cost 68000 SBC With the HT-68K TinyGiant single-board computer, all you need to get a fully operating computer is to add a terminal, a disk drive, and a power supply. This complete 68000-based system runs at 8 MHz and has 12 8 K bytes of no- wait-state RAM (expandable to 512K bytes on the board). Two on-board EPROMs can contain up to 64K. The system's built-in WD1770 floppy disk controller can control up to four 5 l A - inch or 3 V^-inch floppy disk drives. A parallel printer port and two RS-232C serial ports are also included. Measuring 5 % by 8 inches, the TinyGiant is not only the same size and shape as a floppy disk drive, but also has holes in the same pattern so the board can be mounted directly. The board requires the same voltage levels and uses the same type of power connectors as a 5 Va -inch drive. The HT-68K comes with the K-OS One single-user, sin- gle-tasking operating sys- tem that reads and writes MS- DOS-formatted disks. Price: $395. Contact: Hawthorne Tech- nology, 8836 Southeast Stark, Portland, OR 97216, (503) 254-2005. Inquiry 595. continued 52 BYTE • JUNE 1987 ^HuPs?£^fl ill n S^S l^-^r ^^^^^H Introducing CADKEY 3 REAL WORLD DESIGN Tools, Not Toys. CADKEY quickly became the world's leading PC- based mechanical engineering system, with more than 25,000 installations, by pioneering the concept of a fully-integrated 2D-Drafting and 3D-Design system. We gave engineers real design tools, not toys. After all, the real world is three dimensional, not flat. Real-World Solutions. Now CADKEY 3 brings more real-world solutions to the PC by integrating all of the useful functions of surface-modeling, programmability, macro and tab- let customization, and much more... CADKEY 3 is a design toolbox stuffed with features: • A Fully Programmable 3D Design Language (CADL3.0) • Wireframe and Surface Modeling and Editing • User-Definable Macros and On-Line Calculator Customizable-Tablet Templates ANSI and ISO Drafting with Ordinate-Dimensioning A 3-D IGES Translator FEA and Multi-Axis NC Integration Family-of -Parts Creation Bill-of -Materials Generation Technical Publishing Links Compatibility with All Popular Hardware A Complete Training and Support Network World-Wide Dealer Coverage . . . And that's just for starters ... so how about bringing us your real world problem today! Call us now at 203-647-0220. CADKEY 3 Power. . . Performance. . . Price CADKEY A division of Micro Control Systems, 27 Hartford Turnpike, Vernon, CT 06066 [203] 647-0220 TELEX: 5106007223 CADKEY is a registered trademark of Micro Control Systems, Inc. Inquiry 182 JUNE 1987 -BYTE 53 WHAT'S NEW PERIPHERALS Big-Screen MultiSync Monitor Auto-Sync is a 19-inch color monitor from Microvitec that automatical- ly locks onto any scan frequen- cy from 15 to 36 kHz. Be- cause specially-developed analog circuitry synchro- nizes both the horizontal and vertical scan frequencies, the company claims there's none of the picture-height variation found in some other multi-sync monitors. The Auto-Sync supports graphics resolutions of up to 1024 by 580 pixels, and is available with either regular or long-persistence phosphors. It accepts both TTL and analog inputs. Price: $2195. Contact: Microvitec Inc., 1943 Providence Court, Air- port Perimeter Business Center, College Park, GA 30337,(404)991-2246. Inquiry 596. Ultra High- Resolution Slide Maker The Rascol II Personal Film Recorder from Lasergraphics produces color slides with either 2000- or 4000-line resolution. The heart of the system is a full-length plug-in card that's compatible with IBM PCs and ATs. The card con- tains a 68000 processor and operates as a fully indepen- dent coprocessor, performing all the intensive operations of rasterizing the image into millions of color dots. The system is compatible with virtually all graphics soft- ware available for the IBM PC and accepts graphics in either the Lasergraphics Language or the Hewlett-Pack- ard Graphics Language (HP-GL).Inthe4000-line- resolution mode, the system can produce up to 30 slides per hour; 60 in the 2000-line- resolution mode. The Microvitec automatically locks onto any scan frequency. Rascol II gives you 2000- or 4000-line slides from your PC or AT. Price: $4995. Contact: Lasergraphics Inc., 17671 Cowan Ave., Irvine, CA 92714, (714) 660-9497. Inquiry 597. Enhanced Printers: High and Low End TheP351CModel2 from Toshiba is an en- hanced version of its 3-in-l dot-matrix printer designed to produce color text and graphics as well as 24-pin letter quality. Graphics resolution is 180 by 180 or 180 by 360 dpi in up to seven colors. It will print at 300 characters per inch in draft mode, 250 cps in the condensed printing mode, and 100 cps in near-letter- quality mode. Toshiba has redesigned and augmented the LED front- panel display so you can select print quality, font, pitch, paper motion, or the new "quiet" mode at the touch of a button. Also, the DIP switches are now located di- rectly behind the front panel for easy access. The printer can handle paper sizes from 4 to 15 inches in friction-feed mode. In addition to a bottom-feed pro- vision that handles multi- part forms, other standard fea- tures are three resident type fonts (prestige elite, courier, and high-speed draft), and the ability to accept a wide va- riety of type fonts from op- tional disks or cartridges. The Model 2 can emulate the Qume Sprint 11, IBM Graph- ics Printer, and IBM Color Printer. Increased software support is now provided with most of the popular packages. Optional paper-handling accessories include a dual-bin sheetfeeder, unidirectional and bidirectional tractors. Price: $1749. Contact: Toshiba America Inc., Information Systems Division, 2441 Michelle Dr., Tustin, CA 92680, (714) 730-5000. Inquiry 598. The "Plus" version is C.Itoh's enhanced Pro- Writer Jr. The unit prints 160 cps in draft mode, a 33 percent improvement over the original. Throughput on the Plus has been increased from 48 to 61 lines per minute, and the size of the printer buffer has been enlarged to 8K bytes. The Pro Writer Jr. Plus has a 30-cps near-letter-quality mode and a built-in printer stand that lets your paper feed from underneath the unit. Another new feature allows you to insert single sheets or en- velopes into the Plus without having to remove the trac- tor-feed paper that's already there. Besides fully emulating the Epson FX-80 Plus, the Pro- Writer Jr. Plus also has built-in IBM-compatible char- acter sets. Price: $369. Contact: C.Itoh Digital Products Inc., 19750 South Vermont Ave., Suite 220, Torrance, CA 90502, (800) 423-0300,(213)327-2110. Inquiry 599. continued 54 BYTE- JUNE 1987 The SmaiTerna Theory of Software Evolution What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs? 7 hey were replaced with advanced new species. After you've tried SmarTerm terminal emulation software, you'll think other PC-to-minicomputer communica- tions links are as advanced as . . . dinosaurs. SmarTerm gives your PC exact feature-for-feature terminal emula- tion, error free data transfer and programmable softkeys. SmarTerm already is known world- wide as the leader in advanced DEC*, Data General* and Tektronix* terminal emulation software. Now Persoft soars to greater heights with these new product introductions: NEW! SmarTerm 240 Version 2.0 features precise DEC VT241* color graphics terminal emulation for full-screen, four-color display of ReGIS* graphics pictures! NEW! SmarTerm 2392 emulates the popular Hewlett-Packard HP2392* text terminal! NEW! SmartMOVE combines power, ease-of-use, error-free file transfer and exact DEC VT100 emulation in one "smart" communications software buy! SmarTerm and SmartMOVE are avail- able through your local dealer. If you would like more information about SmarTerm or SmartMOVE, circle the appropriate reader service number below. Or contact: Persoft, Inc. 465 Science Drive Madison, WI U.S.A. 53711 Phone (608) 273-6000 Fax (608) 273-8227 Telex 759491 persafr SmarTerm Terminal Emulation Software . . The Natural Selection VISIT BOOTH 3244 WEST HALL COMDEX/ATLANTA •SmarTerm. SmartMOVE and Person are registered trademarks of Persoft. Inc. DEC. VT. and ReGIS are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation. Data General is a trademark of Data General Corporation. Tektronix is a registered trademark of Tektronix. Inc. HP is a trademark of Hewlett-Packard Company. OPersofl. Inc. 1987. All Rights Reserved. Inquiry 351 for DEC Emulation. Inquiry 352 for DG Emulation. Inquiry 353 for HP Emulation. JUNE 1987 -BYTE 55 When you want to talk computers.. ATARI COMPUTERS COMMODORE COMPUTERS MS/DOS SYSTEMS Atari Computers 800 XL 64K Computer $63.99 65XE 64K Computer 94.99 130XE 132K Computer 129.00 520ST Monochrome System 519.00 520ST Color System 749.00 Atari 1040 * rt _~ Color System $ 879 Includes: 1040ST, 1 mb RAM with 3Vi" drive built-in, 192K ROM with TOS, Basic, Logo, ST language, power supply and color monitor. ATARI SOFTWARE Access Leaderboard Golf 26.99 Accolade Fight Night 19.99 Activision Music Studio 34.99 Antic Cad 3-D 32.99 Batteries Included Paperclip w/Spellpack 39.99 Degas Elite 48.99 Epyx World Karate Championship 24.99 Infocom Zork Trilogy 44.99 Microprose Top Gunner 19.99 F-15 Strike Eagle 24.99 Origin Systems Ultima 4 39.99 Paradox Wanderer (3-D) 27.99 Psygnosis Deep Space 34.99 Timeworks Wordwriter ST 51.99 VIP Professional (GEM) 144.00 COMMODORE SOFTWARE Amiga 2000 System Includes: A2000, 1Mb RAM, 3 1 /2" Floppy, A 1080 Monitor, Mouse, DOS, A2088, Bridge Board $1 QQQ Commodore-64C 64K Computer 179.00 Commodore-64C Sys. W/1802C.519.00 Commodore- 128 128K Computer249.00 Commodore-128 System Pkg.... 739.00 Amiga 1000 Computer 899.00 Amiga 500 Call for pricing Activision Hacker 32.99 Broderbund The Print Shop 29.99 The Toy Shop 39.99 Commodore Textcraft w/Graphic Craft 59.99 Assembler 79.99 Enhancer DOS 1.2 14.99 Discovery Software Marauder Back-up 32.99 Electronic Arts Deluxe Paint 69.99 Deluxe Print 74.99 Instant Music 34.99 Deluxe Video 69.99 infocom Hitchhiker's Guide 31.99 Micro Illusions Dynamic-Cad 349.00 Mindscape Halley Project 31.99 Deja Vu 34.99 Micro Systems Analyze Version 2.0 119.00 Scribble 64.99 On-Line/Comm 49.99 Subiogic Flight Simulator 37.99 V.I.P. V.I. P. Professional 139.00 AT&T 6300 from $1299.00 Compaq from 1699.0 IBM-XT from 1099.00 IBM-AT from 2499.00 Leading Edge from 999.00 NEC Multispeed from 1499.00 Panasonic Business Partnerfrom 799.00 Toshiba 1100 Plus from 1699.00 PC-TOO 20 Meg .^^ XT-Compatible $ 999 MULTIFUNCTION CARDS AST Six Pak Plus PC/XT 169.00 Hercules Color Card 159.00 Graphics Card Plus 209.00 Fifth Generation Logical Connection 256K 329.00 Quadram Expanded Quadboard 119.00 Video 7 EGA Video Deluxe 389.00 Zuckerboard Color Card w/Parallel 89.99 Ashton-Tate d-Base III + 399.00 5th Generation Fastback Utility 89.99 IMSI Optimouse w/Dr. Halo 99.99 Lotus Lotus 1-2-3 329.00 MicroPro Professional 4.0 w/GL Demo 239.00 Microstuf Crosstalk XVI 89.99 P.F.S. First Choice 119.00 Word Perfect Corp. Word Perfect 4.2 209.00 MS/DOS SOFTWARE COMPUTER MAIL ORDER 56 BYTE* JUNE 1987 When you want to talk price. MODEMS Anchor 6480 C64/128 1200 Baud $119.00 VM520 ST520/1040 1200 Baud. 129.00 Atari XM301 300 Baud 44.99 Commodore Amiga 1680-1200 BPS 169.00 CBM 1670 &C-128) 99.99 Everex Evercom 1200 Baud Internal 109.00 Hayes Smartmodem 300 External 139.00 Smartmodem 1200 External 389.00 Practical Peripherals 1200 BPS External 159.00 Quadram Quadmodem II 1200 Baud 299.00 Supra MPP-1064 AD/AA C64 69.99 1200AT 1200 Baud Atari 139.00 MONITORS U.S. Robotics 1200 Baud.* 109.00 2400 Baud Internal $189.00 Amdek 410 12" TTL Monitor 149.00 Video 310A Amber TTL 139.00 Commodore Commodore 1902 299.00 Amiga 1080 Hi-Res Color 269.00 Magnavox 8505 RGB/Composite 199.00 515 RGB/Composite 289.00 NEC 12" TTL Green or Amber 109.00 JC-1401P3A Multi-Sync 579.00 Princeton Graphics MAX-12 12" Amber TTL 169.00 Taxan Model 124 12" Amber 119.00 Zenith ZVM 1220/1230 (ea.) 99.99 DRIVES Atari 1050 SS/DD (XL/XE) $139.00 AA354 SS/DD Disk (ST) $119.00 SHD204 20 Meg ST Hard Drive579.00 Allied Technology Apple Half-Heights 109.00 Commodore Amiga 1010 3V 2 " 219.00 Amiga 1020 5V4" 189.00 1541C 179.00 1571 239.00 CSI 10 mb (64-128) 1099.00 Indus GT Disk Drive 179.00 Microbotics 20 mb Hard Drive (Amiga) 1299.00 DISKETTES Racore Jr. ******, Expansion *299 Seagate 20 MB ST-225 Hard Drive Kit.... 379.00 Supra 30 Meg Hard Drive (ST) 799.00 20 Meg Hard Drive (ST) 569.00 Xebec 20 mb (Amiga) 899.00 Maxell MD1-M SS/DD 5V4" $9.99 MD2-DM DS/DD 5V 4 " 10.99 MF1-DDM SS/DD 3 1 / 2 " 12.99 MF2-DDM DS/DD 3Vfe" 21.99 Sony MD1D SS/DD 5V4" 8.99 MD2D DS/DD 5Va" 10.99 MFD-100 SS/DD 3Vfe" 13.99 MFD-200 DS/DD 3Vfe" 20.99 Hewlett-Packard Calculators 28C Scientific Pro 199.99 18C Business Consultant 139.95 12C Slim Financial 74.99 PRINTERS Atari 1020 XL/XE Plotter $30.99 1025 XL/XE Dot Matrix 129.00 XDM121 Letter Quality 209.00 XMM801 XL/XE Dot Matrix 199.00 XMM804ST Dot Matrix 189.00 Brother M-1109 100 cps, 9 pin 209.00 Citizen MSP-10 160 cps, 80-Column 299.00 Premier 35 cps Daisywheel 499.00 Cltoh 8510-SP 180 cps, 80-Column Call Epson FX-86E 240 cps Dot Matrix $ 349 Epson LX-86 120 cps, Dot Matrix 199.00 FX-286E 240 cps, 132-column Call EX-800 300 cps, 80-column 429.00 LQ-800 180 cps, 24-Wire Head Call Hewlett Packard Thinkjet 399.00 Juki 6300 40 cps Daisywheel 659.00 6100 10 cps Daisywheel 389.00 551 0C Color Dot Matrix 349.00 NEC Pinwriter 660 24 Wire 489.00 Pinwriter 760 24 Wire 689.00 Okldata Okimate 20 Color Printer 129.00 ML-182 120 cps, 80-column 239.00 ML-192 + 200 cps, 80-column...369.00 Panasonic KX-1080i 120 cps, 80-column. ...219.00 KX-1091i 180 cps, 80-column. ...299.00 KX-1592 180 cps, 132-column...439.00 Star Mlcronlcs NX-10 120 cps, 80-column 209.00 NX-10C 120 cps, C64 lnterface.219.00 NX-15 120 cps, 132-column 369.00 Toshiba P321 216 cps, 24-Pin Head 479.00 In the U.S.A. and in Canada Call toll-free: 1-800-233-8950. Outside the U.S.A. call 717-327-9575 Telex 5106017898 Educational, Governmental and Corporate Organizations call toll-free 1-800-221-4283 CMO. 477 East Third Street, Dept. A106, Williamsport, PA 17701 ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED. POLICY: Add 3% (minimum $7.00) shipping and handling. Larger shipments may require additional charges. Personal and company checks require 3 weeks to clear. For faster delivery use your credit card or send cashier's check or bank money order. Pennsylvania residents add 6% sales tax. All prices are U.S.A. prices and are subject to change and all items are subject to availability. Defective software will be replaced with the same item only. Hardware will be replaced or repaired at our discretion within the terms and limits of the manufacturer's warranty. We cannot guarantee compatibility. All sales are final and returned shipments are subject to a restocking fee. Inquiry 68 JUNE 1987 • B Y T E 57 WHAT'S NEW A D D - I N S PC Building Blocks from DataBlocks PC Link is the PC ver- sion of DataBlocks' pro- cess control/robotics system that lets you interface a virtual- ly unlimited number of the company's Altair-II (A-II) pro- cess control blocks to a PC or compatible while using just one expansion slot. The PC Link interface card provides complete buffer- ing on and off the PC bus, and only loads the bus with a single CMOS load to pre- vent degradation. The board is designed to operate at full system speed with no wait states. All IBM PC-compatible I/O commands are converted to A-II commands by the board. The A-II blocks consist of a wide variety of low-cost control modules, with some 37 currently available. In- cluded are A/D and D/A con- verters, relay blocks, voice synthesis and recognition, a master/slave system, DC switches, timing blocks, a PROM programmer, PROM and RAM disk systems, and others. Price: $187; blocks range from $49 to $566. Contact: DataBlocks Inc., 579 Snowhill Rd., Glenwood, GA 30428, (800) 652-1336; inGA, (912) 568-7101. Inquiry 600. Jumbo Memory for 286/386 Systems The Elite 16 memory- expansion board adds up to 16 megabytes of EMS/ EEMS-compatible high-speed 16-bit memory to 80286 or 80386-based systems using a single full-length expansion slot. The board works with no wait states at 6- and 8-MHz clock speeds; with one wait state at 10 and 12 MHz. 256K-byte by 9-bit RAM modules are standard, and are directly interchangeable Data Block 's system building blocks. with 1 -megabit modules. A single RS-232C serial port along with a parallel printer port are standard, and a sec- ond serial port is optional. No switch or jumper set- tings are needed to install the board. Elite 16 comes with AutoRAM software that pro- vides automatic installation by automatically determining the amount of conventional and extended memory that is already in the system, deter- mining how much memory is installed on the Elite 16, and allocating conventional, extended, and expanded memory. You can change the default values via software, and the installation software also automatically locks out malfunctioning memory locations. Price: $695 (with 5 12K). Contact: Profit Systems Inc., 30150 Telegraph Rd., Birmingham, MI 48010, (313)647-5010. Inquiry 601. HAL Controls the (Real) World Designed as an aid to the handicapped, Home Automation Link (HAL) lets you control your computer by voice, and link voice commands to the operation of home appliances. You can use voice commands to either bypass or augment key- board input. The system includes the Intro Voice V voice-recognition board (a half card for IBM ATs, XTs, and compatibles), a headset microphone (Shure SM10 A), and a half-length cir- cuit board for voice control of a speaker phone and remote TV tuner (a half card). The software consists of HAL envi- ronmental software (which runs in background memory and uses 80K bytes of RAM), Multiple Choice and AutoMenu software (which runs in foreground memory for menu-driven task selection and uses 36K bytes of RAM), and voice-recognition soft- ware (which uses 64K bytes of RAM). Options include Radio Shack's speaker phone and a Teknika remote-controlled TV tuner, among others. The system runs on MS- DOS-based IBM PC ATs, XTs, and compatibles and re- quires 512K bytes of RAM and a 20-megabyte hard disk. To use the system to control lamps and appliances, you also need the optional BSR Unit. Price: $995 for the HAL system; $149 for BSR Unit; $75 for Radio Shack's Duo- Phone; $295 for Teknika's 6510 TV tuner. Contact: The Voice Con- nection, 17835 Sky Park Cir- cle, Suite C, Irvine, CA 92714,(714)261-2366. Inquiry 602. Fileserver Expansion for the Compaq 386 The 10-Disk/386 Expan- sion Kit from ACS Tele- com increases the storage capacity and speed of the Com- paq Deskpro 386. It's spe- cifically designed to turn the Deskpro 386 into a high- powered fileserver for local area networks, and works with ACS Telecom's 10-CAD, Fox Research's 10-Net, 3Com, IBM's Token Ring Net- work, and ARCnet. The 10-Disk/386addsas much as 630 megabytes of hard disk storage to the Deskpro 386 models 40, 70, or 130. Using a 10-megabit-per- second data-transfer rate, 1 : 1 interleave, and low access time, the system increases Deskpro 386 throughput by more than 60 percent. The system uses up to 8 megabytes of high-speed, 32- bit RAM to cache most disk-read requests using an in- telligent, most-frequently- used algorithm. The 10- Disk/386 is completely compatible with the Compaq 386 built-in disk controller for a combined storage capaci- ty of up to 760 megabytes. Price: starting at $5595. Contact: ACS Telecom, 25825 Eshelman Ave., Lomita, CA 90717, (213) 325-3055. Inquiry 603. continued 58 BYTE- JUNE 1987 THE WORLD'S SMARTEST ANSWERING MACHINE PERSONAL VOICE MAIL "Hello. I'm not available right now. Please wait for the tone and leave a detailed message. Touch the star to listen to what you've recorded'.' PERSONAL MESSAGES FOR FREQUENT CALLERS "Hello, I'm not ...E... Dad! I'm not here, but my computer knows exactly where I am and will pass your message on to me immediately. Wait for the tone and tell me where you are. I'll call you right back'.' REALLY PERSONAL MESSAGES FOR FREQUENT CALLERS "Hello, I'm not aval ...H... Tess! Sweetheart! I'm in the car, picking up your flowers. My car phone number is 993-1234 if you need me. Otherwise, see you at seven. Kiss-kiss-kiss!" MESSAGE FORWARDING "Hello. This is your answering machine calling. . .0. . . Three new messages. Message one was received at 3:52PM today" Answering machines are irritating because they are so dumb. Even the best of them. For only $349, we'll give you personal voice mail for your PC, and turn it into the world's smartest answering machine. All without disturbing whatever else you've been doing on the PC. How smart is "smartest?" The examples above . . . uh . . . speak for themselves. Sure, your PC can answer the phone in your voice, and let you retrieve messages remotely from any touch-tone phone. And it can call you to deliver your messages. But give your friends and associates their own voice mailboxes. The ability to interrupt your greeting and start recording immediately. To deliver messages to each other as well as to you. The ability to transfer to other extensions. Even let them change their minds and their messages. Give them Inquiry 60 MULTIPLE VOICE MAIL BOXES "Hi. This is the operating systems group. We' re out to lunch, but you can leave a private message by dialing II for Chip, 12 for Morris, 13 for Joel and 14 for Bob. Or you can wait for the tone to leave a message for our secretary'.' INCREASED SECRETARIAL PRODUCTIVITY "This is Gor die's voice mailbox. Please wait for the tone and leave a message. My computer knows where I am a all times and will call me immediately with your message. If you need to speak to someone right away, touch zero to transfer to my secretary" DON'T FORGET MOM! 'This is Chip. Please ...0... Hi, Mom. I've been waiting for your call. How's Europe? Thanks for remembering my birthday. Sorry I missed you, but I had to run Some errands. See you Thursday at the airport'.' OUTGOING MESSAGES 'This is Joel's computer calling. Just a reminder for Lynne and Bonnie — We have a budget review tomorrow morning at 8:00 o'clock. See you there'.' all this and you'll never again have to apologize for making people talk to a machine. In your business, it will relieve your secretary of the burden of taking routine messages. And relieve you of the burden of transposed telephone numbers. In business or in personal use, it works 24 hours a day. Without irritating your callers like mere answering machines do. All while you're running your spreadsheet, word processor or just about anything else. We call the world's smartest answering machine "CAM!' For Complete Answering Machine. We call ourselves The Complete PC. And CAM is just the beginning of a whole line of smart products designed to help you get more from your personal computer. You should call (800) 634-5558 today for the name of the CAM dealer nearest you. So tomorrow, you can give your old answering machine to someone who doesn't mind annoying people. IIECOMPLIsTEPC More from your personal computer 521 Cottonwood Drive • Milpitas, California 95035 800 634-5558 • 408 434-0145 • FAX 408 434-1048 © 1987 by The Complete PC, Inc. Complete Answering Machiner CAM™ fie trademarks of Ihe Complete PC. Ads by TRBA JUNE 1987 -BYTE 59 WHAT'S NEW SOFTWARE • PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES AND AIDS QuickBASIC 3.0 Microsoft has upgraded QuickBASIC to version 3.0 with a faster compiler, improved debugging, and in- line support for the 8087 and 80287 math coprocessors. The enhanced debugger is based on the CodeView debug- gers offered with the Micro- soft C Compiler. It lets you be- gin debugging while a program is running by pressing Control-Break. You can find errors by stepping through the source code while it is executing, using animate, trace, or single-step modes. You can see the contents of variables while the program is running, and you can set, ex- amine, and clear dynamic breakpoints to stop a program during execution. Another feature lets you divide the screen into windows and view the source code, variable contents, and program out- put simultaneously while the program is running. The coprocessor support added to QuickBASIC 3.0 lets you generate faster code if you have a coprocessor, or it will automatically switch to 8087 software emulation rou- tines that offer the same 80- bit IEEE math accuracy, ac- cording to Microsoft. Other programming fea- tures include support for local and global variables, block If . . . Then . . . Else state- ments, the ability to use alphanumeric line labels in- stead of line numbers, and separate compilation, which lets you divide your pro- grams into modules and com- pile each independently. You can keep the modules in li- braries and link them into other programs without recompiling. Microsoft has also added an error-tracking feature to the 3.0 compiler. It keeps track of all errors found during a compilation, so you don't have to correct each error and recompile. At the end of each compilation, the compiler places the cursor on the first error it found. The QuickBASIC inte- grated editor supports both in- sert and overstrike modes and it's compatible with Super- Key, ProKey, and Side- Kick. QuickBASIC 3.0 offers BASIC compatibility and supports graphics statements, sound statements, and EGA extended graphics modes. QuickBASIC 3.0 requires an IBM PC or compatible with 320K bytes of RAM, MS- DOS or PC-DOS 2.0 or higher and supports 5 l A~ and 3 Vi- inch disk formats. Price: $99. Contact: Microsoft Corp., P.O. Box 97017, Redmond, WA 98073-9717, (800) 426-9400; in WA or AK, (206) 882-8080. Inquiry 604. Turbo Pascal Source Code Debugger Turbosmith runs as an invisible shell around Turbo Pascal and is dis- played as a menu item on Turbo Pascal's main menu. Turbosmith was designed around a portion of Visual Age's symbolic debugger, CodeSmith-86. When you start up Turbo- smith, 14 lines of your source code are displayed in an upper window, and 10 lines of local variables are displayed in a lower window. The next statement to execute is highlighted. The program features four interactive window types that you can select for vari- ous views of your Turbo Pascal code. A Variable View win- dow lets you view or change variables at the time the source code statements are be- ing executed. The multi- window displays are based on a worksheet-type visual interface. A single keystroke can switch you from one window to another, if the variables you need are in a nested calling procedure rather than the procedure you're tracing. The variable your cursor is on is highlighted, and you can over- strike variables, if necessary. You can stack windows up to eight deep. Some of the windows include a ma- chine-language disassembler window, synchronized source- and machine-code win- dows, and a Hex/ ASCII memory-dump window. Turbosmith also lets you create and debug on the same monitor and features dual- monitor debugging. A Screen Save mode prevents you from destroying your program when you create and debug on the same monitor. The program is written in assembly language and runs on IBM PCs, XTs, ATs, and compatibles with MS-DOS or PC-DOS. Visual Age rec- ommends 5 12K bytes of RAM to run Turbosmith and Turbo Pascal. A copy of Turbo Pascal 3.0 or higher is also required. Price: $69. Contact: Visual Age, 642 North Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004, (800) 732-2345; in C A, (213) 534-4202. Inquiry 605. Pascal Helper Pascal Helper from Modular Software assists you in designing and creat- ing programs with T\irbo, IBM, or Microsoft Pascal. You write the Pascal module, and Pascal Helper does the rest. In creating screens, the program defines your variables and develops the main pro- gram and the language-depen- dent low-level procedures. The main program, the Run- time. Mod, and your calcu- lation procedure, complete the program. The Runtime .Mod source-code module, consist- ing of 121 procedures logi- cally grouped into modules, is included with Pascal Helper. You can remove or re- place some of the modules to modify your applications. It also includes an editor with character, line, and block commands along with com- mands for duplicating lines and drawing lines, boxes, and logos. The editor also has three help screens. To run Pascal Helper you need an IBM PC, XT, PCjr, AT, or compatible with at least 128K bytes of RAM. A floppy or a hard disk drive is required along with MS- DOS or PC-DOS 2.0 or higher. You also need a com- posite, monochrome, or color display and a Turbo, IBM, or Microsoft Pascal compiler to compile and run your applications. To use the color capabilities of Pascal Helper, you must have a color adapter. The program is not copy-protected. Price: $79.95. Contact: Modular Software Inc., 329 Hope St., Stamford, CT 60906, (800) 227-1032; in CT, (203) 854-8806. Inquiry 606. Edit with ME Magma Software's text editor, ME, features a macro language that lets you create new editor com- mands and configure your programming environment. Other features include multiple windows, regular ex- pressions, line marking, column mode, and one-key- stroke macros. ME runs on IBM PCs and compatibles and supports the Enhanced Graphics Adapter. Price: $35 for the editor; $85 for editor and source code. Contact: Magma Software Systems, 138-23 Hoover Ave. , Jamaica, NY 11435, (718) 793-5670. Inquiry 607. continued 60 BYTE • JUNE 1987 WHY LOGITECH MODULA-2 IS MORE POWERFUL THANmSCALORC APPRENTICE PACKAGE $99 Separate Compilation w/inter-module typechecking Native Code Generation Large Memory Model Support Most Powerful Runtime Debugger Comprehensive Module Library Maintainability Translator from Turbo and ANSI Pascal WIN A FREE TRIP TO Switzerland HOMELAND OF MODULA-2 Return your Modula-2 Registration Card or a reasonable facsimilef postmarked between March 1, 1987 and May 31, 1987 to be included in a once-only drawing! Grand Prize: One week excursion for 2 in Zurich, Switzerland including a guided tour of ETH , the Univeisity where Modula-2 was created by Niklaus Wirth. European custom- ers may substitute a trip to Silicon Valley, California. Second and Third Prizes: LOGITECH C7 Mouse or LOGITECH Bus Mouse with Paint & Draw software— a $219 value, absolutely free 1 . •Write to Logitech, Inc. for a registration card APPRENTICE PACKAGE $99 Everything you need to begin producing reliable maintainable Modula-2 code. Includes the Compiler with 8087 support, integrated Editor, Linker, and BCD Module. We're also including FREE our Turbo Pascal to Modula-2 Translator! ggll WIZARDS' PACKAGE $199 This package contains our Plus Compiler— for professional programmers or for those who just want the best. The Plus Compiler with Integrated Editor requires 512K and takes advantage of the larger memory to increase compilation speed by 50%. Our Turbo Pascal to Modula-2 Translator is also includ- ed at no extra charge. SS&] MAGIC TOOLKIT $99 We've put our most powerful development tools into one amazing Toolkit for use with either the Apprentice or Wizards packages. Highlighted by our Runtime Debugger, the finest debugging tool avail- able anywhere, the Toolkit also includes our Post Mortem Debugger, Disassembler, Cross Reference utility and Version which keeps track of different versions of one program. Our MAKE Utility figures out module dependencies and automatically selects those affected by code changes to minimize reconv pilation and relinking. We also provide source code of our major library modules for you to customize— or just play with. WINDOW PACKAGE $49 Now you can build true windowing into your Modula-2 code. Features virtual screens, color sup- port, overlapping windows and a variety of borders. ROM PACKAGE AND CROSS RUN TIME DEBUGGER $299 For those who want to produce rommable code. You can even debug code running in ROM from your PC Turbo Pascal is a registered trademark of Borland International. WIZARDS' BVCKAGE $]99 Call for information about our VAX/ VMS version, Site License, University Discounts, Dealer & Distributor pricing. To place an order call toll-free: 800-231-7717 In California: 800-552-8885 \7T7 C! ? * want tne s P e Ubinding power X ILoI of LOGITECH Modula-2! □ Apprentice Package $99 □ Wizards' Package $199 □ Magic Toolkit $99 □ Window Package $49 □ ROM Pkg/Cross RTD $299 Add 56.50 for shipping and handling. Calif, residents add applicable sales tax. Prices valid in U.S. only. Total Enclosed $, □ VISA □ MasterCard □ Check Enclosed Card Number Expiration Date Signature Name Address City State Zip LOGITECH LOGITECH, Inc. 805 Veterans Blvd. Redwood City, CA 94063 Tel: 415-365-9852 In Europe: LOGITECH S A, Switzerland Tel: 41-21-879656 • Telex 458 217 Tech Ch In Italy: Tel: 39-2-215-5622 Inquiry 167 for End-Users. Inquiry 168 for DEALERS ONLY. JUNE 1987 -BYTE 61 WHAT'S NEW SOFTWARE BUSINESS AND OTHER Printed Circuit Board Design on the Macintosh Douglas CAD/CAM lets you create layouts of printed circuit boards on the Apple Macintosh. During lay- out, the software creates a database used in the board manufacturing process. The software accommo- dates a variety of grids, pads, holes, and trace widths, and provides a layout area of 32 by 32 inches. All parts are user-definable. Input is by a mouse and you can output to printers and pen plotters, or you can output the system's Gerber-formatted data to tape drives for photoplotting. Price: $95; $395 with drivers for the Apple Image- writer and LaserWriter printers; $525 with drivers for the printers and various pen plotters. Contact: Douglas Electron- ics Inc., 718 Marina Blvd., San Leandro, CA 94577, (415) 483-8770. Inquiry 608. Active Filter Design The Active Filter Design program is a menu-driven utility that helps you synthe- size active filter circuits. An error-checking feature pre- vents you from entering incom- patible data. Screen win- dows show the currently activated portion of the pro- gram as well as the nesting level of the current menu. Preformatted filter pa- rameters are included, and you can also create your own parameters and store them on disk. Lars Olsson Engineering says that it takes about 10 min- utes to design moderately complex filters of any class. The program runs on the IBM PC, XT, AT, and compat- Circuit layout created with Douglas CAD /CAM. ibles with at least 128K bytes of RAM and an IBM Color Graphics Adapter. You can plot on IBM graphics- compatible printers. Price: $799. Contact: Lars Olsson Engi- neering, 561 Pine St., Edmonds, WA 98020, (206) 778-9480. Inquiry 609. Scientific Subroutines Mathpac from Systolic Systems is a scientific subroutine program opti- mized for IBM PC XTs and ATs equipped with 8087 math coprocessors. The pro- gram is available in Micro- soft FORTRAN, IBM Profes- sional FORTRAN, Ryan- McFarland FORTRAN, Microsoft C, Lattice C, and Computer Innovations C86. The program has a li- brary of over 400 FORTRAN math routines, which you can link with your own applica- tion code. It includes ma- trix/vector routines, linear equation solvers, numerical integration methods, simula- tion tools, optimization algorithms, and eigenvalue analyses. It also contains a signal-processing library for fast Fourier transforms, digital filtering, correlation, convolution, and spectrum analysis. Other libraries in- clude real- and complex- vector operations, real- and complex-matrix operations, image processing, simulation and integration methods, numerical optimization, con- trol system analysis and de- sign, and a computer graphics library. You can display the data on monochrome and color dis- plays with up to 16 vari- ables plotted on the same graph. You can graph X and Y plots, log-log plots, and bar and pie charts. Price: $495. Contact: Systolic Systems Inc., 2440 North First St., San Jose, CA 95131-2310, (408)435-1760. Inquiry 610. Finite-Element Analysis Added to CAD A DCAD2 version 2.0 lets you link programs with MSC/Pal 2 for finite- element analysis, and then transfer the results back to the CAD program. MacNeal- Schwendler says that any CAD program that uses DXF file-transfer can use ADCAD2 2.0. To use ADCAD2, you must mesh the structure by breaking it into beams, tri- angles, and quadrilaterals from within the CAD program. Then you answer a series of questions about the draw- ing, including its filename, the file format, and the type of material used in the design (only one type of material can be used in each drawing). ADCAD2 then translates the drawing into MSC/Pal 2 format, where it is analyzed and MSC/Pal 2 creates a ver- sion of the drawing that ex- poses the drawing's structural weaknesses. Then ADCAD2 transfers the altered drawing back to the CAD program (as a DXF file) and displays it as an overlay on the original. You need an IBM PC or compatible with MS-DOS or PC-DOS 2.1 or higher, 512K bytes of RAM, an IBM Color Graphics Adapter or compatible graphics display, and a math coprocessor. You can print the MSC/Pal 2 drawings on plotters sup- ported by the CAD program. Price: $95. Contact: MacNeal- Schwendler Corp., 815 Colo- rado Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90041, (213) 259-3875. Inquiry 611. continued 62 BYTE- JUNE 1987 our Mouse k LOGITECH C7 MOUSE $99 .To sum up my feelings about this mouse and menu generating system: this is the one I want!' Phil Wis well PC Magazine, Jan 27, 1987 At LOGITECH we've spent years perfecting our high-quality mouse hardware and software. And every LOGITECH Mouse reflects the engi- neering we've devoted to it. MAXIMUM COMPATIBILITY The programmable LOGITECH Mouse works with virtually ALL hardware and application software. BEST MOUSE TECHNOLOGY The opto-mechanical LOGITECH Mouse offers the best of all worlds. Mechanical tracking (a ball) and optical decoding (precise,reliable optical encoders). Every major computer manufac- turer, including Apple, IBM and DEC, has chosen opto-mechanical mouse technology. LOGITECH offers the only opto-mechanical mouse on the retail market. BEST MOUSE FOR GRAPHICS & CAD High (200 dot per inch) resolution, precise tracking, and a 3-button design are essential for graphics and CAD. BEST MOUSE FOR DESKTOP PUBLISHING Ergonomic styling is a must for all mouse- intensive desktop publishing applications. High resolution is essential for high-resolution screens. BEST MOUSE FOR SPREADSHEETS & WORD PROCESSING The smooth-tracking LOGITECH mouse is a productivity tool for all types of data entry and editing. We've even created a special mouse inter- face for 1-2-3 which makes 1-2-3 users up to 30% more productive! BEST MOUSE SOFTWARE "Logitech's Plus Package adds an excellent menu builder (with useful examples), a fast windowing text editor, and an outstanding Lotus 1-2-3 interface." Ezra Shapiro Byte, Dec. '86, pg. 324 Our Plus Software also includes our Microsoft- compatible drivers,and CLICK which sets the mouse automatically for any application . BEST DEALS We offer either our C7 or Bus mouse, with Plus software, packaged with some of the most exciting applications on the market, at very exciting prices. LOGIPAINT Special Offer! $149 The LOGITECH Mouse with PC Paintbrush is the most advanced paint set available for the PC It offers 1 1 type fonts, a pallet of 16 colors, and the ability to import and embellish files from other applications. LOGIC ADD $189 The LjOGITECH Mouse packaged with Generic C ADD and Dot Plot turns your PC into a complete C ADD workstation. Generic C ADD offers the features and performance of high priced C ADD at an unbelievably low price. DotPlot is the add on utility that enables you to produce crisp , high resolution drawings from your dot matrix printer. LOGIP AINT-&-DRAW $219 The LOGITECH Mouse packaged with LOGIPAINT and LOG1CADD. Together they are the complete graphics toolkit for com- bining freehand and technical drawings. | ^ LOGITECH BUS MOUSE $149 with LogiPaint 100% Microsoft Bus Mouse Compatible! It has all the features of the LOGITECH C7 MOUSE, plus it leaves the serial port on your computer free for other peripherals. It comes standard with our-top-of-the-line Plus Software and LogiPaint. i • • • • • •-# • • • » • • • *•••*•• * • « \7TT C I * want tne opto-mechanical XlLoi LOGITECH Mouse! D LOGITECH C7 Mouse w/Drivers $99 D LOGITECH C7 Mouse w/Plus Software $119 □ LOGITECH BUS Mouse w/Plus Software and LogiPaint $149 Additional Software (with C7 and Plus or Bus Mouse and Plus.) D LOGIPAINT $149 □ LOGICADD $189 D LOGIPAINT-&-DRAW $219 Add $6.50 for shipping and handling. Calif, residents add applicable sales tax. Prices valid in U.S. only. Total Enclosed 5 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee/3-Year Warranty To place a credit card order call our special toll-free number: 800-231-7717 Call toll-free in California: 800-552-8885 □ VISA D MasterCard D Check Enclosed Card Number Expiration Date Signature Name Address City State Lotus ami 1-2-3 are trademarks of Lotus Development Corp. Generic CADD is a trademark of Generic Software, Inc. PC Paintbrush is a registered trademark of ZSoft Corp. Inquiry 169 for End-Users. Inquiry 170 for DEALERS ONLY. Zip Phone DEALER INQUIRIES WELCOME LOGITECH LOGITECH, Inc. 805 Veterans Blvd. Redwood City, C A 94063 Tel: 415-365-9852 In Europe: LOGITECH SA, Switzerland Tel: 41-21-879656 -Telex 458 217 Tech Ch In Italy: Tel: 41-21-879656 JUNE 1987 • BYTE 63 WHAT'S NEW SOFTWARE • BUSINESS AND OTHER Information Tracking DayFlo's Tracker is a database with word-pro- cessing features that lets you keep track of everything. You can enter data using the standard forms that come with the system or develop your own by following a menu-di- rected procedure that re- quires no programming. You can enter up to 65,000 records per database and print using any of the system's 45 standard reports. An Application Pack is offered as an option, and it pro- vides ready-to-use applica- tion templates for contact records, article-abstract records, task records, and DOS file records. When entering informa- tion into Tracker's records, the length of each field grows to accommodate your text. You can incorporate keywords into each record, so that later on you can recall all the in- formation relating to a particu- lar keyword. After retriev- ing information, you can use the report-writing capability to produce reports that contain text and tables. You can output to a printer, display, or to DOS files. Other features include text and number for- matting with calculations including derived columns, totals, averages, counts, and subcalcs. DayFlo reports that calculations are accurate to 15 digits. A menu-driven mass- mailing capability is also offered, and you can use pre- printed forms. You also have the ability to import files from other word-processing programs. To run Tracker, you need an IBM PC AT, XT, or com- patible with MS-DOS or PC-DOS 2.0 or higher, at least 1 megabyte of hard disk space, 384K bytes of RAM, and a monochrome, CGA, or EGA monitor. A graphics adapter is not required. Price: $149.95; Applica- tion Pack, $39.95. Contact: DayFlo Software, reiSourcefrom The Source. 17701 Mitchell Ave. N, Irvine, CA 92714, (714) 474-1364. Inquiry 612. re:Source The communications program re: Source is an interface between your IBM PC and on-line services like The Source. You can auto- mate frequent command se- quences, integrate database information, and customize your own on-line scripts be- fore you get on line. The price of the program includes membership in The Source's information network. Price: $89. Contact: The Source, 1616 Anderson Rd., McLean, VA 22102, (703) 734-7500. Inquiry 613. Harvard Graphics Harvard Graphics, a new version of Harvard Presentation Graphics, of- fers new chart types and op- tions, built-in drawing capa- bility, production tools, and a desktop slide-show feature. New graph types include histograms, logarithmic charts, paired bars, dual v-axis graphs, and proportional pie charts. Mathematical and statistical calculations include 19 keyword formulas such as sum, average, moving aver- age, and regression. Har- vard Graphics offers you three- dimensional options for producing bar, line, and area charts, and you have the ability to place multiple charts on a page, 240 data points per graph, and 60 characters per line in text charts. A user-definable palette of 16 colors is also available. Drawing tools such as circles, ellipses, polygons, and polylines offer fill, outline color, and outline pattern op- tions. You can group and ungroup drawings for moving and resizing. Preformatted charts are available, or you can create your own. Templates let you select chart attributes once and reuse your selec- tion. You can group charts into SEND US YOUR NEW PRODUCT RELEASE If you want us to consider your product for publication, send usfidl information about it, including its price, ship date, and an address and telephone number where readers can get further information. Send to New Products Editor, BYTE, One Phoenix Mill Lane, Peterborough, NH 03458. Because of the volume of submissions we must sort through every month, the items we publish are based on vendors ' statements and are not individually verified. chartbooks, and an Auto- matic DataLink lets you link a Lotus 1-2-3 worksheet to a chart template, loading the data automatically when you re- trieve a template. The Screenshow feature lets you create slide presenta- tions at your desktop. You can control the motion by mov- ing backward, forward, pausing, and restarting slides. Harvard Graphics runs on IBM PCs with at least 512K bytes of RAM . You can use most output devices and most high-resolution video boards, according to Software Publishing. Price: $395. Contact: Software Publish- ing Corp., P.O. Box 7210, Mountain View, C A 94039- 7210, (415) 962-8910. Inquiry 614. Music Construction Set for the Apple IIGS Music Construction Set is now available for the Apple IIGS. The music pro- gram features 15 digitized in- struments and supports mu- sical instrument digital interface ouput to MIDI- compatible keyboards and in- struments as well as to the SuperSonic stereo card from MDIdeas Inc. Music Construction Set takes advantage of the mouse and windows interface of the IIGS. High-resolution graphics is used on-screen, and the program can print in standard sheet-music for- mat. Other features include cut-and-paste editing and a library of musical notation items, including thirty-sec- ond notes, rests, slurs, quintu- plets, double sharps and flats, and octave raisers. Price: $49. Contact: Electronic Arts, 1820 Gateway Dr., San Mateo, CA 94404, (415) 571-7171. Inquiry 615. 64 BYTE* JUNE 1987 TEKTRONIX NEW Ji -Air t .V.. I .4;..*". *: rti....Ai 1 _r rn BECAUSE IT WORKS TOGETHER. Introducing Tek Advanced PC Graphics: a fully integrated system of high-performance graphics, easy sys- tem connectivity, and unparalleled application software for your PC. Tek Advanced PC Graphics starts with a flexible mul- tiple-rate color graph- ics monitor that provides 640x480 Tektronix-style graphics as well as EGA and CGA software compatibility. Driving your monitor to a whole new level of graphics speed is Tek's PC4100 graph- ics coprocessor board. It features Texas Instruments" powerful TMS 34010 32-bit Graphics System Processor for ultra-fast throughput of your design applications. Add to that Tek's PC-05 or PC-07 ter- minal emulation software, and you're ready for stand-alone computing or access to a world of mainframe graphics. To bring those applications to life, you can connect a Tek color ink-jet printer. And start producing high-resolution, vibrant hardcopy output on either paper or transparencies. Couple all that with Tektronix worldwide support and ser- vice, and your PC can gain the same produc- tive advantages that host-based systems in 'scientific and engineering environments have had for close to two decades. Tek's PC4100 graphics coprocessor board deliv- ers serious graphics on a stand-alone basis. Built around the Texas Instru- ments Graph- ics System Processor(GSP);" the graphics coprocessor board achieves a combination of sophisticated graphics and fast throughput your PC just couldn't deliver before. The GSP assumes the complete graphics processing workload, freeing your PC pro- cessor for other requirements. refresh rate. So you can use advanced packages like AutoCAD; Zenographic's Mirage™ and VersaCAD! Then, to move from GSP graphics to emulation of the IBM* Enhanced Graphics Adapter(EGA) mode, you sim- ply soft-switch. And you're New companion monitor brings together fine detail and maximum flexibility. You'll view your applications on Tek's new multiple-rate monitor. In true Tek tradition, it provides ideally balanced, 640x480 addressability and a 60 Hz non-interlaced ready to run the popular PC packages you probably already use in CGA/EGA mode — standards like Lotus* 1-2-3! Microsoft" WORD* and Microsoft" Windows? to name just a few. Last, but not least, Tek's PC4100 links you to a world of mainframe graphics. All you do is load Tek PC-05/PC-07. Tek PC-05/PC-07 terminal emulation software gives you mainframe accessibility with the local processing power of your PC. Because Tek PC-05 and PC-07 terminal emulation software runs under MS-DOS* 2.0 and higher, you can run your mainframe-based Copyright © 1987, Tektronix, Inc. All rights reserved. DlSSPLA and TELL-A-GRAF, ANVIL-5000, SAS/GRAPH, Di-3000. ANSYS and NASTRAN are registered trademarks of ISSCO, MCS. SAS Institute Inc., Precision Visuals, Swanson Analysis Systems and MacNeal-Schwendler respectively. IBM, Texas Instruments and GSP. Lotus and Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft, MS-DOS and Microsoft WORD and Windows, VersaCAD, AutoCAD and Mirage are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., Texas Instruments, Inc.. Lotus Development Corp.. Microsoft Corporation, VersaCAD Corp., Autodesk, Inc. and Zenographics respectively. VPT 102 11W-7050 AND SETS YOU APART. applications software on your PC as if it were a Tek 4105 or 4107 terminal. Which means you can quickly access the power of Tek graphics — includ- ing 4107 segments, true zoom and pan, rubber- banding, definition of up to 64 viewports and more. You can use these highly productive features with a wide range of well-known designer software pack- ages such as ISSCO's DISSPLA and TELL-A-GRAR* MCS's ANVIL-5000'/ SAS Institute Inc.'s SAS/GRAPH, Precision Visuals' DI-3000? Swanson Analysis Systems' ANSYS® and McNeal-Schwendler's NASTRAN. In addition, you can utilize software development tool sets like Tektronix PLOT 10®GKS, IGL, TCS and STI software as well as numerous driver sup- port packages created for the 4105 and 4107. Completing the picture: per- fect color output with Tek's reliable ink-jet printers. At the push of a button, the Tek 4696 lets you produce exacting color repro- ductions of TELECOMMUNICATIONS your on-screen display on either paper or transparencies. Because of its 120 dots per inch addressability in both horizontal and vertical direc- tions, you can achieve resolu- tion of up to 1280 points x 960 points per TV' size image. All the key tools for software development, right from the outset. The new Tektronix Graphics Interface™ (TGI) for the PC provides the basics of Tek graphics functionality to application programs running under MS-DOS. What's more, in-circuit emulator, C-compiler, assembler and linker are all available from Texas Instruments to help soft- ware developers write applications packages for the PC4100 graphics coprocessor board. To enable sufficient workspace for custom interfaces or specific application programs, the PC4100 graphics coprocessor board comes standard with a full megabyte of program memory. Put yourself on the sure path of Tek graphics evolution. Whether you choose Tek PC stand-alone graphics, Tek's high-resolution monitor, Tek terminal emulation or all three, you can be assured Tek will keep you current with the best and most productive graphics. Because like all our products, Tek Advanced PC Graphics features a smooth built-in path- way to higher-level graphics. For more information about how Tek lets you stand alone and work together, contact your local Tek rep- resentative about Tek Advanced PC Graphics. Or call, 1-800-225-5434. In Oregon, 1-235-7202. TEK GRAPHICS PROCESSING SYSTEMS Ttektronix COMMITTED TO EXCEU-ENCE . VPT102 11W-705O EVENTS AND CLUBS June 1987 EVENTS COMDEX/Spring, Atlanta, GA. The Interface Group Inc., 300 First Ave. , Need- ham, MA 02194, (617) 449-6600. June 1-4 Real-Time Factory Control, Detroit, MI. Dianne Leverton, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, One SME Dr., P.O. Box 930, Dearborn, MI 48121, (313) 271-1500, ex- tension 383. June 2-4 Third International Expert Systems Con- ference and Exhibition, London, England. Learned Information Ltd., Woodside, Hinksey Hill, Oxford OX1 5AU, England, 0865-730275. June 2-4 Troubleshooting Microprocessor-based Equipment and Digital Devices, Dallas, TX, and other locations in the U.S. Janet McHenry, Micro Systems Institute, Gar- nett, KS 66032, (913) 898-4695. June 2-4 Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Computer Technology Conference and Exhibition/Europa, Frankfurt, West Ger- many. TCM Expositions Ltd., 331 West Wesley St., Wheaton, IL 60187, (312) 668- 8100. June 3-5 ROBEXS '87, Pittsburgh, PA. Instrument Society of America, 67 Alexander Dr., P.O. Box 12277, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, (919) 549-841 1 . June 4-5 Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the MUMPS Users' Group, Atlanta, GA. MUMPS Users' Group, 4321 Hartwick Rd., Suite 510, College Park, MD 20740, (301) 779-6555. June 8-12 USENIX Summer Conference and Exhi- bition, Phoenix, AZ. USENIX Conference Office, P.O. Box 385, Sunset Beach, CA 90742, (213) 592-1381. June 8-12 Computex Taipei '87, Taiwan, R.O.C. Taipei World Trade Center, 201 Tunhwa North Rd., Taipei 10591, Taiwan, Republic of China, (02) 715-1515. June 8-14 ESD/SMI Expert Systems for Advanced Manufacturing Technology Conference and Exposition, Dearborn, MI. Marion L. Weber, Conference Administrator, Engi- neering Society of Detroit, 100 Farnsworth, Detroit, MI 48202, (313) 832-5400. June 9-11 Thirty-fifth Annual Technical Writers' Institute, Troy, NY. Office of Continuing Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180, (518)266-6442. June 9-12 Advanced Printed Circuit Board Design Techniques, Milwaukee, WI. Peter L. Tocups, Program Director, Center for Con- tinuing Engineering Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 929 North Sixth St., Milwaukee, WI 53203, (414) 227- 3125. June 10-12 National Computer Conference, Chica- go, IL. NCC '87, American Federation of Information Processing Societies, 1899 Preston White Dr., Reston, VA 22091, (800) 622-1987; in Virginia, (703) 620- 8955. June 15-18 ISDN/Broadband Networks for the Fu- ture, Atlanta, GA. Information Gate- keepers Inc., 214 Harvard Ave., Boston, MA 02 134, (617) 232-3 111. June 15-19 COMDEX International in Europe, Nice, France. The Interface Group, 300 First Ave., Needham, MA 02194, (617) 449-6600. June 16-18 IEEE First Annual International Confer- ence on Neural Networks, San Diego, CA. Nomi Feldman, Conference Coordinator, 3770 Tansy St., San Diego, CA 92121, (619) 453-6222. June 21-24 1987 National Educational Computing Conference, Philadelphia, PA. Gayle J. Yaverbaum, Temple University, Depart- ment of Computer and Information Sci- ence, Computer Activities Building, Phila- delphia, PA 19122, (215) 787-8810. June 24-26 VDT Health & Safety, Washington, DC. Continuing Education Institute, 21250 Califa St., Suite 102, Woodland Hills, CA 91367, (818) 710-1 126. June 25-26 If you send notice of your organization 's public activities at least four months in advance, we will publish them as space permits. Please send them to BYTE (Events and Clubs), One Phoenix Mill Lane, Peterborough, NH 03458. CLUBS New York Personal Computer Inc., Suite 614, 80 Wall St., New York, NY 10005, (212) 533-6972. C Users Group Italia, c/o Fabrizio Vir- tuani, Via Valsesia 86, 20152 Milano, Italy. International Computing Association (ICA), c/o Markus H. Maege, Roebbek 6, 2000 Hamburg 52, West Germany, (49) 40- 632-3517. Worldwide Commodore, P.O. Box 4002, S-35004 Vaxjo, Sweden. The Carrier, newsletter of the Telecom- munications Users Group; P.O. Box 45254, Seattle, WA 98145. Columbia-Baltimore User Group (CBUG), P.O. Box 125, Columbia, MD 21045, BBS: (301) 730-5624. Real limes, Greater Boston Chapter news- letter of The Association for Computing Machinery; P.O. Box 465, Lexington, MA 02173. South Bay Apricot Users Group, c/o Ken Stevens, 17302 Yukon Ave., Suite 11, Tor- rance, CA 90504, (213) 515-7718. Connect, newsletter of the South Jersey ST Users Group; 205 Emerald Ave., West- mont, NJ 08108, BBS: (609) 858-7817. Tandem Users ' Journal, the International Tandem Users' Group (ITUG); 111 East Wacker Dr., Suite 600, Chicago, IL 60601, (312)644-6610. MacHonor Bulletin, newsletter for CE Software Customers; CE Software, 801 73rd St., Des Moines, IA 5C312, (515) 224-1995. Island Reach Computer Users Group, P.O. Box 73, Deer Isle, ME 04627, (207) 348-9917. Sales Professionals Using Computers (SPUC), 218 Huntington Rd., Bridgeport, CT 06608, (203)333-6436. Lake County Amiga Users Group, c/o Philip Brauer, 280 Glen St., #2D, Grays- lake, IL 60030, (312) 223-3209. ■ *— Inquiry 309 JUNE 1987 -BYTE 65 Introducing the Hercules InColor Card. It runs more software at a higher resolution than any other color graphics card. The Hercules 9 InColor™ Card offers everything you'd expect from a high resolution color graphics card from Hercules — and more. Compatibility: The InColor Card is compatible with the thousands of pro- grams that run on our monochrome cards. Color: The InColor Card gives color capability to Hercules-compatible software like 1-2-3® and AutoCAD! Resolution: The InColor Card's resolu- tion of 720x348 is the highest of any widely supported standard. RamFont: The InColor Card has our unique RamFont mode — in color. Better graphics. Hercules is known for bringing high The InColor Card's RamFont mode gives Lotus 1-2-3 a pop-up graphics window and lets you view nearly twice as much spreadsheet data— all in full color. resolution monochrome text and graphics to programs like 1-2-3® and AutoCAD! Now the InColor Card gives you the same high resolution 720x348 graphics in up to 16 colors using an IBM® Enhanced Color Display, multi- sync monitor, or equivalent. That's the highest resolution of any widely supported graphics standard. And no other color graphics card allows you to move back and forth between color and monochrome sys- tems without changing drivers. Runs more software. All Hercules-compatible text, graphics and RamFont software runs on the InColor Card in black and white, or at least two colors. And many popular programs like 1-2-3, Symphony) AutoCAD and Microsoft 8 Windows that use graphics or RamFont, run in full color. More powerful RamFont. RamFont is a new mode developed by Hercules that gives your software the ability to display multiple fonts at lightning fast speeds. RamFont transforms advanced word processors like Microsoft Word from slow to text-mode fast. Technical word processors like Lotus Manuscript™ use RamFont 66 BYTE- JUNE 1987 to display onscreen the text you want to print Even 1-2-3 uses RamFont to almost double the size of the spreadsheet picture. And now, with the InColor Card, you get an enhanced RamFont with 3,072 programmable characters in up to 16 colors. All the way up to 12,288 characters in four colors. With the InColor Card's RamFont, no program should run out of speed, color or fonts ever again. What the InColor Card could mean to your company. The InColor Card allows you to run a program in color, and then move to a Hercules Graphics Card Plus and run the same program in monochrome. Without changing drivers. Compatibility between the InColor Card and our monochrome card allows you to network around one standard — Hercules. At last your PCs will have compatible graphics, in color or mono- chroma Remember, only the InColor Card has color-to-monochrome compatibility, high resolu- tion text and graphics, and the power of color RamFont Tb find out more about the new Hercules InColor Card, call 1-800-532-0600 Ext. 502. (In Canada, call 1-800-323-0601 Ext. 502.) rastz J Kfc.J AutoCAD gets the samehighresolution 720x3^8 graphics as our famous monochrome cards— only now in full color on an IBM Enhanced Color Display. Features of the Hercules InColor Card • Hi-res text with 9x14 character size in up to 16 colors with attributes • 720x348 Hercules graphics in 16 colors selected from 64 color palette • Special RamFont mode displays 3,072 pro- grammable characters in 16 colors with attributes, up to 12,288 characters in 4 colors • Runs Hercules-compatible graphics soft- ware in b&w or any two background colors • Designed for use with the IBM Enhanced Color Display, multisync monitors, or equivalents • Software diskette includes font editor, sample fonts, and Hercules utilities • Parallel printer port • Two year warranty The New Hercules InColor Card. Hercules Computer Technology, 2550 Ninth St., Berkeley, CA 94710 Ph: 415 540-6000 1elex:754063Fax: 415 540-6621 1^-ademarks/Owner: Hercules, InColor, RamFonUHercules; Lotus,l-2-3, Symphony, Manuscript/Lotus; Microsoft/Microsoft; AutoCAD/ AutoDesk; IBM/IBM Inquiry 129 for End-Users. Inquiry 130 for DEALERS ONLY. JUNE 1987 -BYTE 67 ASK BYTE Conducted by Steve Ciarcia Terminal Problems Dear Steve: I am having great difficulties with my computer system. I have an IBM PC AT with two serial ports and three parallel ports. I have been trying to connect a Kimtron KT-7/PC terminal (with AT- type keyboard layout) into one of the serial ports to use as an auxiliary termi- nal. I have used the MODE command to ini- tialize the port and the CTTY command to change the terminal. But the only thing I can do from the Kimtron is to switch from directory to directory and call up a direc- tory listing. When I attempt to run a pro- gram (i.e., SuperCalc3, WordStar, dBASE III, and BASIC A), the terminal freezes. In some cases, the program can be seen through the main monitor. Is this problem associated with the op- erating system I am using (PC-DOS 3.1), or is it the application software? I have been told that terminal set-up programs may be required; if this is the case, where can I get them? David Ware Oklahoma City, OK The reason that the programs don't work on the remote terminal has nothing to do with either DOS or the rumored set- up programs. It 's in the application pro- grams, and it 's notfixable. Period. The CTTY program simply redirects DOS's input and output requests to the remote terminal. Any program that uses DOS calls to read the keyboard and display characters on the screen will work correctly from the remote terminal. But most programs use the BIOS calls to read the keyboard, because DOS doesn V give enough information about the spe- cial keys. CTTY doesn 't affect the BIOS calls, so programs using those calls will continue to look for characters from the PC keyboard regardless of what you type on the terminal. And some programs use both DOS and BIOS calls, so they tend not to work at all. Nearly all programs write directly to the screen buffers in RAM rather than using the DOS or BIOS calls, simply be- cause that's the only way to get accept- able performance. CTTY doesn V have any effect on memory writes, so these pro- grams blithely sprinkle their characters on the PC's screen. To make matters worse, \urious ver- sions of CTTY have a variety of bugs. Be- cause nobody ever uses it, the bugs are pretty awful. Because the bugs are pretty awful, nobody ever uses it. And so it goes. You '11 note that most of the programs you list say that they 're intended for "IBM PCs or 100 percent compatibles" (although you may have to read the fine print to find that statement). As there is no standard for remote terminals on a PC, even though CTTY is "standard" DOS, it 's not going to help you win an argument with the vendors. Sony, but I don 't have a magic fix up my sleeve for you.— Steve LISP Machines Dear Steve: I am a student of mathematics and in- formation science at Warsaw University. I am interested in a computer for imple- menting some artificial intelligence sys- tems that I have written in LISP (Com- mon LISP version). I read about LISP machines in BYTE last year, and I won- der if you could give me some more in- formation about them; specifically, whether they work by compiling or inter- preting, and how their speed of execution compares with IBM PC XT LISP (Waltz- LISP). Adam Kraure Warsaw, Poland A LISP machine is a computer that is specifically designed to run LISP pro- grams. The memory includes (in addition to the normal data) extra bits in every memory word, to describe the data types; the CPU includes special operations to speed up LISP programs; and the display has very high resolution. As you might expect, LISP machines are not cheap: Prices start at around $20,000 for a stripped version, and beyond that the sky is the limit. It seems that Common LISP is the emerging standard for the LISP lan- guage, so a dialect of that is probably your best bet. Newer versions are opti- mized for the IBM PC AT, so the perfor- mance is at least acceptable, if not in the same league as a true LISP machine. The LISP programs run using the 80286's protected mode to access up to 16 mega- bytes of RAM and require a great deal of disk space. You won 't be able to get by with a stripped PC AT. You might want to talk yvur library into a subscription to the Institute of Electri- cal and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Ex- pert magazine. It covers the latest techni- cal developments in the AI field and may give you some ideas on the subject. Write to the IEEE Service Center, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, U.S.A., for the subscription details. It will cost about $40 including shipping. Incidentally, LISP Machine is also the trade name of a company in Andover, Massachusetts. —Steve What a Deal Dear Steve: If you appreciate the occasional off- the-wall question, I have a pair of them for you. First, a few months ago, while in the U.S., I bought an Oberon Omni-Reader from California Digital. It is a rather nice optical character reader that, since Oberon had gone under, was selling for $180 rather than the original $700. The ad implied that the unit came with sup- port for several different computers. Since I had heard of the unit and had even kept the original reviews from the U.K. press, I jumped at the chance and called in an order. As luck would have it, the unit was not delivered until after I left the U.S., so I didn't have a chance to look at it until it arrived here in Saudi Arabia. continued IN ASK BYTE, Steve Ciarcia answers questions on any area of microcomputing. The most representative questions received each month will be answered and published. Do you have a nagging problem ? Send your inquiry to Ask BYTE c/o Steve Ciarcia P.O. Box 582 Glastonbury, CT 06033 Due to the high volume of inquiries, we cannot guarantee a personal reply, but Steve and the Ask BYTE staff answer as many as time permits. All letters and photographs be- come the property of Steve Ciarcia and can- not be returned. Vie Ask BYTE staff includes manager Harv Weiner and researchers Eric Albert, Bill Cur- lew, Ken Davidson, Jeannette Dojan, Jon Elson, Roger James, Frank Kuechmann, Dave Lundberg, Tim McDonough, Edward Nisley, Dick Sawyer, Andy Siska, Robert Stek, and Mark Voorhees. 68 B YTE • JUNE 1987 MICROSOFT LANGUAGES NEWSLETTER VOL. 2, NO. 6 News about the Microsoft Language Family New Microsoft® QuickBASIC 3.0 Includes Integrated Debugger and Editor Enhancements It's hard to improve on a great product like Microsoft QuickBASIC, but we've added and enhanced features in Version 3.0 that make developing programs faster and easier than ever. Integrated debugger enhancements let you pinpoint errors by tracing or animating through your source code. Now you can observe the contents of your program's variables as the program is running. And set dynamic break- points at runtime to easily stop the program where you want. You don't have to add STOP statements to your programs and wait for another compilation anymore. With the debugger completely integrated into the compiler, you can start debugging your program while it's running simply by pressing " CTRL-BREAK. Microsoft Quick-B ASIC's built-in editor has been enhanced to support overtype as well as the existing insert mode so editing your programs is easier. In contrast to other compilers that give up after finding a single error, Microsoft QuickBASIC keeps track of all errors found during compilation. You can correct all the errors at once instead of recompiling for each error. And the Microsoft QuickBASIC Version 3.0 editor is compatible with SuperKey®ProKey,™and SideKick® programs. As in Version 2.0, Microsoft QuickBASIC 3.0 supports multiple-module programming. Separate compilation lets you divide your program into pieces that are compiled independently. These pieces can be integrated into other BASIC programs without recompilation. The linker in Microsoft QuickBASIC makes it easy to add Microsoft Macro Assembler object files to your BASIC programs. Just assemble your Microsoft Macro Assembler routines and let the linker incorporate them into Microsoft QuickBASIC automatically. There's no need to convert your Microsoft Macro Assembler routines into COM files or write them as hexadecimal numbers in your BASIC source file as in other compilers. Math Coprocessor Support in Microsoft QuickBASIC 3.0 Speeds Programs Microsoft QuickBASIC now has support for the 8087 and 80287 math coprocessors. The full 80-bit IEEE math support of the math coprocessor is needed for programs that demand the most precise calculations. In addition to this, you may use the existing Microsoft Binary Math support for fast 64-bit math or the new 8087 emulation routines for more accuracy when you don't have a coprocessor. There have also been many dramatic speed enhancements in Microsoft QuickBASIC 3.0> especially in graphics and math. For example, Version 3.0 is 118% faster than Version 2.0 for circles. And with 8087/80287 math coprocessor support, the floating-point math is 160% faster than in Version 2.0. New Microsoft QuickBASIC Language Extensions Make Programs Easier to Read A number of new control structures such as SELECT CASE, DO WHILE, DO UNTIL, LOOP WHILE, LOOP UNTIL, and EXIT have been added to Microsoft QuickBASIC 3.0. These are state- ments similar to those found in Microsoft C and Microsoft Pascal. These statements, in addition to the block IF/THEN/ELSE/END IF (which was incorporated in Version 2.0), make structured program- ming easier. The new named constants make your programs more readable and easier to maintain. Subprograms and multi-line functions have true local variables and allow you to call them by name and pass them parameters. These C-like structures let you write programs that are more well organized. For more information on the products and features discussed in the Newsletter, write to: Microsoft Languages Newsletter 16011 NE 36th Way, Box 97017, Redmond, WA 98073-9717. Or phone: (800) 426-9400. In Washington State and Alaska, call (206) 882-8088. In Canada, call (416) 673-7638 Microsoft and the Microsoft logo arc registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. PfoKcy is a trademark of RoscSoft, Inc. SideKick and SuperKey are registered trademarks of Borland International, Inc. Look for the Microsoft Languages Newsletter every month in this publication. Latest DOS Versions: Microsoft C Compiler 4.00 Microsoft COBOL 2.20 Microsoft FORTRAN 4.00 Microsoft Macro Assembler 4.00 Microsoft Pascal 3.32 Microsoft QuickBASIC 3.00 Inquiry 328 ASK BYTE' Copying diskettes will never be easier than pushing one button. While your computer is busy doing other things, your Victory Duplicator can be making as many as eight copies of a diskette at once — producing up to 400 copies in an hour. DualMaster 1 " models can even make multiple copies of two different diskettes simultaneously. Just insert the diskettes and press one button. Copy different formats, flawlessly. An automatic format analysis program makes it possible for the Victory Duplicator to ©1987 Victory Enterprises Technology, Inc. copy virtually any 5 'A, 3Va or 8rinch diskette. The system tests for quality and accuracy at every stage of the process. It practically services itself. Each drive has a separate controller to maximize up- time. Simple diagnostics to verify drive alignment and industry standard drives allow you to maintain your system without waiting for outside service. All at an attractive price. Victory Duplicators offer fast copying, serialization, copy protection, a commu- nications port, a four-month warranty and much more — all for one low price. Call 1-800-421-0103. Call today for more information. (In Texas, call 512-450-0801.) W >RY V VICTORY ENTERPRISES Technology, Inc. 8910 Research Blvd., Suite B2 Austin, Texas 78758 UNLOCK" Products Remove Copy Protection RUNS YOUR SOFTWARE ON ANY HARD DISK UNlock "copying" disk allows you to make "unprotected" DOS copies of popular original program disks. Unprotected backup copies perform perfectly, as do copies of these copies. UNlock copies run on any hard disk, including Bernouli Boxes. No original required in drive "A". Run on a RAM disk simply and conven- iently. Also, copy DOS 5 l A" programs to 3!/z" diskettes. For IBM®PC,XT, AT, compatibles, 256K or more, DOS 2.1 or higher. Back-ups don't require tedious un-installs, and reorgan- izing your hard disk doesn't result in your software calling you a thief! Back-ups are as easy as the "COPY" command in DOS. UNLOCK" ALBUM "D" PLUS • dBASE III & dBASE III PLUS™ (1.0) • FRAMEWORK I & II™ (1.0) • CLIPPER™ (THRU WINTER '85) • FASTBACK™(5.3) • CHARTMASTER™ (6.1, 6.2) • SIGNMASTER™(5.1) • DOLLARS & SENSE™ (2.0) • LOTUS 1-2-3™ (LA, l.A*. 2.0, 2.01) $74.95 (Plus $4 ship/handling, Foreign orders $10) • SYMPHONY™ (1.1, 1.2) • LOTUS 1-2-3 REPORT WRITER™ (1.0) • DOUBLEDOS™ (ALL) • HARVARD TOTAL PROJECT MGR.™ (1.10) • MANAGING YOUR MONEY™ (ALL) • THINKTANK™ (2.0, 2.1) • MICROSOFT WORD™ (1.15, 2.0, 2.01) Introductory Price $159.95 (Plus $5 ship/handling) UNLOCK" MasterKey™ Now, the most comprehensive copy protection removal program ever created. Breaks over eighty programs including Lotus 1-2-3™, Symphony™, PCFOCUS™, AUTOCAD™, REDBOARD™, CAP™, Clipper™, and smARTWORK™ to name just a few. In addition, generic copy busters for ProLok™ and Super Lock™ have been included. With MasterKey, you can break many more programs than before. MasterKey, from TranSec Systems, gives you UNlock 's solid performance and more. CHOICE OF THE CRITICS! PERSONAL "UNlock has two particularly en- LVJlMii'ltmSl dearing characteristics: it works, and worKS simply. I was able to quickly produce un- protected copies of Lotus 1-2-3 release 2, Symphony 1.1, Microsoft Word 2.0, dBase III 1.1, and Frame- work II. These copies performed flawlessly, as did copies of these copies." Christopher O'Malley PERSONAL COMPUTING, April '86 "Because copy protection can interfere with the ability to back up a hard disk, business-oriented users may prefer programs like TranSec's UNlock series." Winn L. Rosch, PC MAGAZINE, MAY 27, 1986 «ESSr« products ORDER TODAY TOLL FREE: 1-800-423-0772 IN FLORIDA: 1-305-276-1500 TranSec Systems, Inc., 220 Congress Park Drive, Delray Beach, FL 33445 Trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners. UNlock is for use only to improve the useability of legally acquired and operated software. The software was for an IBM and the main instruction manual was missing, al- though it did have an interface manual with it. I hooked it up and it works. Have you ever heard of this machine or do you know anyone who might have? I am look- ing for any available information. The second question relates tothe first: The interface manual says that to inter- face the optical character reader with Apple II computers you should use the Super Serial Card as an RS-232C inter- face. Well, I have the old Apple serial card (which is far from super but is at least here and paid for). I wrote a short program to read from the Omni reader using INPUT statements. This program actually works but is clumsy to use. I tried using the GET statement but all I get is trash; I suspect this is a result of not being in sync with the input. I seem to re- call that you designed a serial interface card for the Apple, but I only have about three years of back issues and I can't find the article. If you did, can you tell me what issue? Also, I would appreciate any suggestions you might have for my using the reader with my current setup. Marshall P. Brown Saudi Arabia ITie original developer of the Omni- Reader, Oberon, is indeed no longer among the living. Marketing rights to the design are now owned by G. A. S Interna- tional Inc., P.O. Box 1282, Euless, TX 76040, (800) 523-4898. They may be able to assist you. Several descriptions of the Oberon character reader have been published in the American microcomputer press. The reports have indicated that, while the hardware seems capable enough, speed is limited, only a few type fonts can be read, and the error rate is unacceptably high. Software improvements by G.A.S. International may change the situation, however. Garbage can result when the two sys- tems disagree as to the data rate (baud) and format (number of data bits and stop bits, and the type of parity used). You might try experimenting with variations to the serial card, although your experi- ence using INPUT suggests that this is not ihe cause of your problems. Several commercial utility packages have been marketed that use the Applesoft ampersand vector to create routines in machine code that can be used to "input anything, " from peripheral devices as well as from the keyboard. Assembly list- ings and descriptions of programs with similar capabilities have appeared in sev- eral of the Apple-specific computer mag- azines: Nibble and Call-A.P.P.L.E., to continued 70 BYTE- JUNE 1987 Order Status, Technical & Other Info. (602) 246-2222 Call for programs not listed WAREHOUS DATA PRODUCTS SPECIAL MICROSOFT WORD $179 TOLL-FREE ORDER LINE 1-800-421-3135 FREE SOFTWARE! FREE SOFTWARE! FREE SOFTWARE! Purchase over $100 and receive one of these disks absolutely FREE! Purchases over $250gettwo free disks, over $400 get three, or getallf ourdisks when your purchase is over $500! 1) MIXED BAG — A great assortment of utilities and gamesall packed on one disk. 2) PC-WRITE — Try this famous feature packed word processor. It's a winner! 3) FONT-SET — Lets you set popular fonts like bold, underline, etc. on most late model printers from Citizen, Epson, NEC, Okidata, Panasonic, Star, Toshiba, etc. You can even use your printer like a typewriter! 4) ABC-LIST — Great mailing list program! Sort on any field, do qualified searches, print reports and mailing labels, and more! - SOFTWARE - ACCOUNTING BPI AP, AR, PR, GA $169 ea. Cyma Call Dae Easy Accounting 39 Dollars & $ense 94 Managing Your Money 3.0. . . 108 COMMUNICATION PROGRAMS Carbon Copy 115 Crosstalk 89 Remote 89 Smartcom II 83 DATA BASE MANAGERS Clipper 380 Clout 2 Call Condor III 310 Knowledgeman II Call Powerbase 2.2 169 Q&A Call Quickcode 138 Quicksilver 295 Quickreport 138 Revelation 469 R: Base System V 345 EDUCATIONAL Flight Simulator 28 Turbo Tutor II 25 Typing Tutor III Call GRAPHICS Chartmaster Call Energraphics 2.0 294 In-A-Vision 275 Microsoft Bus Mouse 106 Microsoft Chart 164 Microsoft Serial Mouse 119 Newsroom 31 OPTI Mouse W/DR Halo II . . 106 Printshop 33 Signmaster Call INTEGRATED Ability 59 Enable 355 Smart Software Call LANGUAGES Lattice C Compiler 242 Microsoft C Compiler 249 Microsoft Fortran 4.0 255 Microsoft Macro Assembler . . 84 Microsoft Pascal Compiler .. 166 Microsoft Quick Basic 55 Ryan McFarlan Fortran 305 Ryan McFarlan Cobol 479 Turbo Basic 55 Turbo Pascal w/8087 + BCD . . 55 PROJECT MANAGER Harvard Total Project 262 Microsoft Project 219 Super Project Plus Call Timeline 2.0 209 SPREADSHEET Microsoft Multiplan 108 Spreadsheet Auditor 3.0 ..... $82 Supercalc 4 Call VP Planner 49 UTILITIES Copy II PC 19 Copywrite 39 Desqview 55 Double Dos 30 Fastback 85 Graph in the Box 55 Homebase 39 Microsoft Windows 55 Norton Utilities 3.1 48 Prokey 4.0 70 Sidekick (unprotected) 47 Sideways 3.1 36 WORD-PROCESSING Easy Extra 88 Microsoft Word 179 Multimate Advantage Call Volkswriter 3 139 Webster Spellcheck 37 Word Perfect 195 Wordstar 162 Wordstar Propac 233 Wordstar 2000 233 Wordstar 2000+ 278 - HARDWARE - ACCESSORIES Copy II PC Board 75 1 50 watt power supply 69 Mini Micro Parallel Print Buffer 69 Masterpiece 88 Masterpiece Plus 113 BOARDS AST Advantage Premium 422 AST Premium Sixpac Call AST Sixpac (384K) 219 Hercules Color Card 145 Hercules Graphics + 182 Intel Above Boards Call J Laser (Tall Tree) Call J Ram 3 (Tall Tree) 159 J Ram 3 AT (Tall Tree) 199 COMPUTERS S N AZ TURBO PC IBM Compatible Computer, 4.77 or 7.47 key selectable, keyboard, 640K, dual drive, mono graphics card, 150 watt power supply 719 or with 20 MB Seagate Hard Drive 1025 6 month limited warranty AZ TURBO AT IBM AT Compatible, 512K, 6 & 8 MHZ, keyboard, graphics card, 220 watt power supply, MS/DOS 3.2 GW Basic 1260 AST 286 PREMIUM COMPUTER 51 2K, expandable to 2MB on the system board, RT en- hanced style keyboard, paral- lel, serial and clock, 1.2 MB floppy disk drive, 7 expansion slots, two 32 bit fastram slots, DOS 3.1 & Basic \J year warranty Call^/ Sharp Portable Call EGA BOARDS Everex Enhancer EGA 235 Paradise Auto Switch 480 EGA Card 379 Quad EGA Plus 349 Vega Deluxe Call Vega Video 299 EGA MONITORS AMDEK722 455 NEC Multisync 559 Packard Bell EGA 450 HARD DRIVES AZ 20 MB Hard Card 425 AZ 30 MB Hard Card Call Filecard20MB 555 Maynard 20 MB Hard Card . . . Call Plus Hardcard 20MB 665 Seagate 20 MB Int. w/cont. ... 333 Seagate 30 MB Int. w/cont 399 Seagate 30 AT Int 539 INCREDIBLE VALUES Nationally advertised boards for IBM PC and most compatibles at give away prices. Keyboards (similar to 5151) $79 Monochrome Board w/printer port (similar to Hercules Graphics) $79 Expansion Board 0to576K $42 Multifunction Board w/game port (similar to AST six pack) $79 Four Drive Floppy Controller $39 Color Card w/o printer port $69 Color card w/printer port $79^/ KEYBOARDS Keytronics 5151 $162 Keytronics 5153 269 MODEMS Everex 300/1200 120 Hayes 1200 Call Hayes 1200B Call U.S. Robotics Courier 2400 ... 349 U.S. Robotics Passwd. 1200 . . 180 MONITORS AMDEK 410 Amber 157 AMDEK600 339 Magnovox Color RGB Call Multitech Color RGB 299 Princeton Max 12 159 Samsung TTL Amber 72 Samsung TTL Green 70 PRINTERS CANON LASER 1939 CITIZEN MSP-10 279 MSP-15 379 MSP-20 315 Premiere 35 Daisywheel 459 EPSON - Call on all models FUJITSU DX2100 Parallel Call DL2400 Ser/Par Call LASER IMAGE 2000 Call NEC NEC P5XLP 1095 NEC P7 Parallel 619 NEC 8850 1059 NEC P6 Parallel 439 OKIDATA - Call on all models PANASONIC 1091-1 259 1092-1 329 1592 425 KXP3151 399 STAR MICRONICS NP10 Call NB15 975 NX10 232 SG15 365 SR15 549 TOSHIBA- Call on all models RAM 64K150NS(setof9) 13.50 256K150NS(setof9) 30 256K 120NS (set of 9) Call TERMS: Shipping on most software is S5.00. AZ orders *6.7% sales tax. Personal check/com- pany check - allow fourteen (14) days to clear. We accept purchase orders from authorized institutions for 3.5% more than cash price. All returns are subject to our approval. There will be a 20% restock fee. Minimum phone order 550. All prices are subject to change. Due to copyright laws we cannot take back any open software. No Charge for Master Card or Visa We do not guarantee compatibility TOLL-FREE ORDER LINE 1-800-421-3135 WAREHOUSE DATA PRODUCTS 2701 West Glendale Ave. • Phoenix, AZ 85051 Phone Hours: Monday. Wednesday & Thursday 7 am-9 pm; Tuesday & Friday 7 am-5 pm; Satur- day 9 am-5 pm. MST. Inquiry 333 JUNE 1987 -BYTE 71 • No sales tax on orders shipped outside NY State • Please add 3% for insurance, shipping and handling ($3.00 minimum) (Some products may have a surcharge due to weight and size restrictions) • Defective merchandise can be returned for repair or exchange (please call for R.A. no.) • Due to variety of products, we cannot guarantee compatibility 72 BYTE • JUNE 1987 GRAPHICS/CAP-CAM Autocad 2.52 $2,195 Draf ix 1 99 Freelance Plus 299 Harvard Presentation 195 Microsoft Chart 179 Prodesign II 179 LANGUAGES Microsoft C $249 Microsoft Cobol 385 Microsoft Fortran 249 Microsoft Macro Assembler 84 Microsoft Quick Basic 59 Turbo Pascal 55 PROJECT MANAGEMENT Harvard Total $339 Microsoft Project 219 Super Project Plus 259 Time Line 219 FINANCIAL/ACCOUNTING BPI $145 Computer Associates 325 Dollars 'N' Sense 95 Great Plains 386 Managing Your Money 105 UTILITIES Carbon Copy $119 Crosstalk XVI 87 Fast Back 84 Fixed Disk Organizer 45 Microsoft Windows 55 Norton Commander 36 Norton Utilities 48 PC DOS 3.2 69 Sidekick 47 Sideways 34 Smart Com II 75 Superkey 38 SPREADSHEET/ INTEGRATED Enable $335 Framework 2 395 HAL 89 Lotus 1-2-3 305 Lotus 3.5" Ver 315 Lotus Metro 55 Lotus Report Writer 99 Microsoft Multiplan 105 Smart Integrated 429 Supercalc IV 285 Symphony 439 Inquiry 199 DATABASE MGMT GRAPHICS Clipper $369 dBase III Plus 389 dBase III Plus Lan Pak 579 Foxbase + 235 Genifer 205 R:Base System V 339 Reflex 79 WORD PROCESSING Display Write IV $309 Lotus Manuscript 319 Microsoft Word 3 247 Multimate 219 Multimate Advantage 269 Volkswriter 135 WordPerfect 195 Wordstar 2000 Plus 275 Wordstar Professional (Ver. 4) . 229 XY Write HI 199 LAPTOPS Toshiba T1100 Plus $1 ,575 Zenith Z181 1,749 Now available: luxurious leather carrying case for laptops only $149 SURGE PROTECTORS KENSINGTON MICROWAVE Masterpiece Plus $109 BACK UP POWER SUPPLIES DATASHIELD 200 WT (PC) $235 300 WT (XT) 335 500 WT (AT) 525 800WT(AT) 545 MODEMS HAYES Smartmodem 1200 $365 Smartmodem 1200B 335 Smartmodem 2400 555 Smartmodem 2400B 499 MONEYSWORTH (Hayes Comp.) Money Modem 1200 (Ext) .... 149 Money Modem 1200B (Int) ... 125 Money Modem 2400 (Ext) 269 Money Modem 2400B (Int) . . . 299 HERCULES Graphic Card Plus $185 Color Card 145 PARADISE Auto Switch EGA 339 Modular Graphics 3 169 QUADRAM EGA Plus 289 Pro Sync 345 VIDEO 7 VEGA 295 VEGA Deluxe 329 MULTI- FUNCTION BOARDS AST Six Pack + 384K $189 Six Pack Premium 249 Advantage 128K 325 Rampage AT W/512K 399 Rampage W/256 259 MONEYSWORTH (AST Comp.) Money Memory Vfe Card (384K) 119 Money Memory Vfe Card (576K) 145 Money- Board AT Multifunction (128K) 199 Money- Board Multifunction (384K) 155 Money I/O Mini -Half Card 99 MONITORS AMDEK 12"310A $145 12"300A 119 Color 600 369 Color 722 465 NEC Multi-Sync 549 PRINCETON Amber Max-12 149 RGB HX-12 399 RGB HX-12E 480 PRINTERS CANON Laser LBP8A1 $1,825 EPSON FX286E 499 FX86E 379 LQ800 459 LQ1000 639 HEWLETT-PACKARD Series II Low Price Call! NEC P-6 429 P-7 609 OKIDATA 182 Plug & Play 229 192 Plus 345 193 Plus 525 2410 1 ,749 TOSHIBA 351 P/S 999 321 P/S 449 KEYBOARDS KEYTRONIC 5151 Deluxe Keyboard $159 MOUSE INPUT DEVICES MICROSOFT Mouse (Serial) $119 Mouse (Buss.) 105 MOUSE SYSTEMS PC Mouse 99 HARD DISKS PLUS Hard Card 20 Mb $609 BACK UP STORAGE DEVICES EVEREX Excel 60 Mb Int $719 Excel 60 Mb Ext 845 IOMEGA Bernoulli (10 + 10) 1,829 Bernoulli (20 + 20) 2,389 Bernoulli 10 MG Cartridge Tri-Pak 135 Bernoulli 20 MG Cartridge Tri-Pak 215 SYSGEN Image Tape Backup 20 Mb Ext 649 Image Tape Backup 20 Mb Int 549 1406 JUNE 1987 'BYTE 73 Inquiry 346 CIARCIA FEEDBACK Run CP/M software on your IBM-compatible personal computer. We have Z80-HD64180 co- processor cards, V20 or software emulation. At low prices from $99.95. New! Z80 At 12.5 MHZ! We offer the world's fastest Z80 co-processor cards. For $599.95 our Blue Thunder Super- speed crunches through your work. Almost as fast is the 10-MHZ High Speed model at $399.95. The 6-MHZ Standard model is $249.95. Including software. Blue Thunder $249.95 fiW ISIS Very Fast Plug in one of our co-processors, then run your Intel development tools, on your PC, as much as 20 times faster. Run ASM51, ASM80, CREDIT, etc. $395.00 and up for a complete package, including serial communications. ISIS diskette translate packages available. HD64180 Hitachi's new microprocessor has taken the Z80 world by storm. Z80-compatible, but 15% faster for the same clock speed. Counter-timers, serial ports and DMA channels on chip. CMOS. Our customers have reported instances to us where the HD64180 blows away an 80186 at similar clock speeds. This baby moves! Our $295.00 D64180LP co-processor comes with our CP/M emulator and real-time programming support. 2-RS232 serial ports and 64K of memory. An excellent basis for a Z80-HD64180 development system. Clock speeds to 9.216 MHZ available. D64180LP $295.00 For $445.00 you can get our high powered D64180 real-time co-processor. 256K memory, expandable to 51 2K. 2 SBX bus connectors which allow you to use hundreds of commercially avail- able interface modules, such as synchronous communications, disk interface, etc. Software Developers Let us configure a complete Z80 or HD64180 de- velopment system for your PC. Our DSD80 Remote Debugger eliminates the need for an ICE. We have VAX and PDP-1 1 co-processors too. Z-World 2065 Martin Ave. #110 Santa Clara, CA 95050 (408)980-1678 V ^ In Germany: iSystem Tel; 08131/1687 J 74 BYTE* JUNE 1987 name just two. This type of utility should permit reading characters from your serial card without restrictions, although you may have to experiment to get the exact procedure that will be successful. I've never published a project article for an Apple serial interface card, but one by Richard Campbell did appear in the April 1979 issue of BYTE (" 'Cross-Polli- nating the Apple II"). It describes a serial interface based on the Intel 8251 PCI chip. You could construct this in- terface as described, or readily update it by using a 6551 or 2661 serial chip. Tlie latter two have on-chip oscillator com- ponents and internal data rate genera- tors; you only need a crystal and a few passive components to complete that part of the circuit. You should also use a transceiver (e. g. , the 74LS245) between D0-D7 on the bus and the corresponding pins on the serial IC. You might also want to look into constructing a dual serial interface card using the newer 2681 DART.— Steve Graphics Woes Dear Steve: I have an IBM PC XT clone computer with a Hercules-compatible mono- chrome graphics card. However, this card will not work with the medium- and high-resolution BASIC commands (e.g., LINE, CIRCLE). These BASIC commands allegedly work only with the CGA card. I would like to write some BASIC graphics routines to output to a monochrome monitor. Hercules HBASIC only works with a true IBM (since it makes IBM ROM calls), not with a clone. Has anyone writ- ten assembler routines that would allow BASIC access to Hercules-compatible graphics? Alternately, is it possible to output CGA graphics (medium or high resolu- tion) to a monochrome monitor? (My monochrome monitor is TTL.) If this is possible, I wouldn't have to buy a new dual-frequency monitor. Stephen Goldfarb Oakland, CA First, don't even try to adapt your TTL monochrome monitor to accept CGA output. The monochrome monitor is not compatible with the sweep frequencies of the CGA. The result would be a burned- out component in the power supply. You can write assembly language sub- routines and call them from BASIC with the CALL( ) statement. With interpreted BASIC, you would have to BLOAD the sub- routine, or POKE it directly into memory. The IBM BASIC manual has a section on using DEBUG to set up addressing so that the subroutines can be loaded into high memory as .EXE files. Another method is to write BASIC pro- grams to calculate the dot positions, use the DEF SEG command to reference the be- ginning of the Hercules graphics mem- ory, and POKE values directly into mem- ory. According to the Hercules manual, the addresses are calculated from column/row (X,Y) coordinates using a formula of the form: of fset = 2000H * (YM0D4) + (90*INT(Y/4)) + INT(X/8). This is the address of the byte containing the dot you want to plot. The value of the byte to POKE is determined by converting the value of7 — X MOD 8 to a power of 2 (i. e. , ifX MOD 8 is 0, the bit is the most significant bit in the byte— bit 7; if X MOD 8 is 1, the bit is bit 6; and so on down to the least significant bit). Interfacing is much easier if you com- pile your BASIC program with the Micro- soft QuickBASIC compiler. This allows you to write the subroutines and BASIC programs as separate modules whose ad- dresses will be resolved at link time. The QuickBASIC manual shows how to set up the subroutines so that parameters will be passed to and from the machine language subroutine correctly. The Hercules manual contains the in- formation you need to determine how to plot graphics points where you want them, and how to switch the controller to graphics mode .—Steve CIRCUIT CELLAR FEEDBACK Programming While You Wait Dear Steve: I am in the process of building a Z-80- based computer from scratch, using my own design. I will be using a 27C64 EPROM to execute the power-up self- tests and hexadecimal debug routine for data entry from a terminal. This will allow me to write and debug machine- coded programs for future use in other design applications. I like your EPROM programmer project in the October 1986 Circuit Cellar. However, as cost is a con- cern, I wonder what it costs these days to have an EPROM programmed, and where a person might go to have it done? Allen Speer Missoula, Montana Most large electronic distributors will program EPROMs, PROMs, PALs, and so on, for a fee. ITiis service is usually made available to their volume purchase continued Ip MAINFRAME y r~k. v It's moving clay. Time to pack up that big mainframe program and move it to the PC. Relax. It's going to be the easiest move you ever made if you use the new RM/FORTRAN™ V2.4 with Ryan- McFarlandfe new RM/Forte™ produc- tivity tools. RM/FORTRAN has the VAX, VS and FORTRAN-66 extensions you need, and is field-proven with more than two years of mainframe conver- sions by thousands of demanding engineers and scientists. And, with RM/Forte you f can complete your conver- I ^ sion at a record pace . . . -= ^ cutting debug time up to 50% . . diagnosing syntactical errors in 1/5 the time. You're in the fast lane because RM/Forte integrates all major program development tasks— edit, compile, link and debug— into one interactive, menu-driven environment. Just a few simple keystrokes move you from one task to another . . . and back again. Plus, you get a full screen editor, a syntax checker and a source code manager that automates compiling and linking as you make changes. RM/FORTRAN applications are more than just easy to develop— they run fast, too. Sieve or Whetstones, RM/FORTRAN benchmarks ahead of the bunch. And if you need it, RM/FORTRAN has a very fast 8087/80287 emulator to give you the power of a coprocessor. But don't take our word for it. Listen to a moving professional: "RM/FORTRAN lets us move main- frame programs to PCs faster and cleaner than any Inquiry 270 for End-Users. Inquiry 271 for DEALERS ONLY. other compiler on the market. " (John Haestad, Haestad Methods) RM/FORTRAN was theirs* PG FORTRAN GSA certified a Full Level ANSI 77 with no errors. You may have heard of its sister, IBM PC Professional FORTRAN by Ryan- McFarlancl Corporation. Enough reading. Start writing. Fill out and send in the coupon below to find out more about RM/FORTRAN with the new RM/Forte produc- tivity tools. Then move it! Ryan-McFarlancl 609 Deep Valley Drive Rolling Hills Estates, CA 90274 Or call 213/5414828 RYAN-McFARLAND r r i i ■ ■ i i Let's get moving. Send me details on RM/FORTRAN V2.4 with RM/Forte Produc- tivity Tools, and your special upgrade offer. Name "1 Company Title Street City State Zip Phone ( JUNE 1987 'BYTE 75 HARMONY COMPUTERS 2357 CONEY ISLAND AVE. , (BET, AVES. T & U) BKLYN, NY 11223 800-VIDEO84 or 800-441-1144 or 718-627-1000 I j^i rv^ Commodore 1571 -$206.95 PANASONIC 1080 i-$184.95 y ijf STARNX-10-S199.95 IBMPCXT-$869.00 *SW *fZ "PRINTER SPECIALS" Apple Image Writer II 449 Brother HR 20 324 Epson FX 286E 429 Okidata 193 Plus 489 Star NX15 319 Brother 1509 359 Epson EX800 369 Okidata 292 w INTFC 499 Star ND 10 319 Citizen 120D 169 Epson EX 1000 490 Okidata 293 w INTFC 646 Slar ND 15 399 Citizen MSP 10 269 Epson LO2500 869 Panasonic KXP 1080 i 185 Star NB 2410 449 Cihzen MSP 15 369 IBM Proprinter 379 Panasonic KXP 109 i 239 Star NB 2415 664 | Citizen MSP 20 319 IBMProprmterXL 519 Panasonic KXP 1092i 312 SR15,SRlOSheetfeed 49 Citizen MSP 25 459 NEC 3550 719 Panasonic KXP 3131 238 Star Power Type 179 Citizen Premier 35 438 NEC 8850 1039 Panasonic KXP 3151 369 Star NB 15 885 Epson LX80 159 NEC P6 427 Panasonic KXP 1592 379 Silver Reed Exp 420 198 Epson LX86 178 NECP7 599 Panasonic KXP 1595 459 Silver Reed Exp 800 629 LX 86 Cutsheet 24 NEC Color P6 529 Siekosha SP 1000 179 Toshiba 341 E 659 Epson LQ800 429 NEC Color P7 699 Siekosa SP 1200 189 Toshiba 351 Model 2 869 1 Epson LQ 1000 617 Okidata 182 228 Star NX-10 200 Toshiba 351C 1039 Epson FX 86E 308 Okidata 19? Plus 319 Star NP 10 159 Toshiba 321 SL 489 IBM MONITORS ATARI AT Unenhanced 2195 SEAGATE Amdek 300 Amber 119 128 , ATEnhancedlBM30Meg (339) Hard Drives Amdek 310A 129 R5XE 89 3449 20Meg No Comtoiier 289 Amdek 410A 148 179 IBM PC XT(1) Dr 669 10 Meg w controller 329 Amdek Co or 600 369 Atari 604 Prinler 179 IBM PC XT286# 6MHZ. 640* 20 Meg wcontroller 349 Amdek Co or 722 434 128 12 MB. 20 MB Hard Drive 2149 30 Meg wcontroller 389 Princeton HX12 394 Fountain PCX TTurDo 1 Drive 469 30 Meg AT »4036 549 Princeton HX12E 469 Atari 1027 109 IBM Monitor 219 40 Meg AT »25i 599 Princeton Max 12E 146 Atari Skxtem 301 49 IBM D.scDnve 104 Tandon 20 Meg SR12 529 520 ST Colnr System 719 ASTSi* Pack 384K 179 Hard Card 409 Scan Doub er 159 520 ST B & W Syslem 479 ASTAdvantage 126K 327 NEC Multisync 527 MODEMS ASTSix Pack Premium 256 K 189 Taxan TTL Amber 108 Hayes 1200 354 Hercules Color Card 139 Hayes 1200B w Smancom 2 325 Hercules Monogiaphic Plus COMMODORE Hayes 300 124 NEC EGAGBl 299 Commodore 128 239 Hayes 2400 559 Quad EGA+ 266 SOFTWARE 1571 Drive 207 Hayes 2400B w Smartcom 2 499 | Ouad Prosync 319 Loltis 12 3 Ver 2 299 1670 Modem 119 Micromodem 2E 125 1 Video 7 EGA+ 375 145 Promethias i200E»lemai 249 ,i Video 7 Delune 309 Framework 2 1541C Disk Drive X 158 P.omelhias 1200 Internal 149 1 Parad.se Auto Switch [350) 269 1802 189 Everex Modem internal I200B 106 | Paradise Auto Swiich (460) 359 Microsoll Word 3 1 254 I902A Monilor 249 Everex 2400 Internal 219 | Multifunction Card 109 Microsolt Windows I 03 59 MSP 1200 Prmler 199 Hayes Smancom 2 69 ' Everex EGA Enhancer 189 Word Perfect 4 2 196 Slar SG10C 169 APPtE 1 Everex Edge 209 O & A 2 199 Siekosha 180 VC 14 7 2E Enhancedw 128K 619 EverexGraphics Pacer PFS Professional Write 109 Amiga256K Dos. Mo use 649 Apple Drive w controller 279 I 1 Intel 6087-3 109 49 Annciii 1080ColorMo Onve HE IIC 139 1 Inlel 6067-2 168 Microsolt Mouse 109 309 MacPlus 1619 Inlel 80287-6 . Inlel 80267-6 169 269 Hayes Smartcom 11 WordPerfect Library 69 69 Amiga 256K Upqrad« 139 Imagewiiler 2 AT&T 6300 449 TOSHIBA PORTABLES Toshiba 3100 • 2749 Toshiba 1100 • i"29 Wordstar Professional 3ankslreet Wnterpius OAC Easy Accounimg 229 289 69 49 APC 4 with 20 MEG (Powermate 1) APC 4 with 40 MEG (Powermate II) 1699 2295 64 IK 1-360K Drive 640K 1-360K 1-20MB Seagaie Hard Drive ATT Dos 3 1 939 029 159 65 NEC Multispeed -. 1295 Items reflect 4% cash check discount. For your protection we check for .stolen credit cards. M.C./Visa welcome. Shipping & Handling charge extra. Defective merchandise will be replaced at our descretion within the terms of our warrantee . All Sales Pinal, Price and availability subject to change without notice. We cannot guarantee compatibility. PERMA POWER FIGHTS SURGES TWO WAYS . . OR WE PULL THE PLUG Perma Power Surge Suppressors give you peace of mind, knowing that your computer is protected against power line surges and against suppression element failure. PROTECTION FROM POWER LINE SURGES Our unique 2-stage circuit uses heavy-duty metal oxide varistors to protect you against high- voltage lightning-induced surges, and high-speed semiconductor devices to protect against frequent fast surges. Only this kind of hybrid circuit can provide the necessary high power dissipation while still providing fast response time and low let-through voltage. PROTECTION EVEN IF WORN OR BURNED OUT Any surge suppressor can wear or burn out. With PermaPoweryou can relax! Powerto your system is stopped ... as completely as if the plug was disconnected. Other surge suppressors may use a light or buzzer "warning," while they continue to let raw, unprotected power feed directly into the computer. Only with Perma Power's patented Automatic Shutdown* feature is your equipment kept safe from damaging raw power. Ask for Perma Power Extended Life Surge Suppressors, in 2, 4, or 6 outlets and Power Control Center models to insure your computer is being protected. At office, computer or electronics dealers nationwide. jw : •Patent #4,578,579 76 BYTE* JUNE 1987 PGRMA POWGR® electronics inc. 5601 West Howard Avenue • Chicago, Illinois 60648 Telephone (312) 647-941 4 Inquiry 232 for End-Users. Inquiry 233 for DEALERS ONLY. CIARCIA FEEDBACK customers. Most of the distributors I hove a working relationship with let me use their programming equipment when I need a PROM, PAL, or some other device programmed that my programmer doesn V support. If you are programming devices as part of a hobby, you probably won 't get this type of service from a distributor. How- ever, you might at least ask. Program- ming fees range from around $0. 50 to $5, depending on the device and the way you supply programming information. If you can't find a distributor in your area that is willing to program your de- vices, try a local college with an engi- neering department or seek out a com- puter club. You will find that not having access to a programmer and eraser on your bench is a bother. If you develop code, run to a distributor for programming, wait for the turnaround, and find that your code has a bug in it so you have to repeat the whole process, you '11 discover that a program- mer is worth more than the money you save having someone else program the device. —Steve Musical Floppies Dear Steve: I was recently going through some old magazines when I came across a small, one-page article about a digital audio re- corder that uses floppy disks as a record- ing medium. Do you think this would be a candidate for a future Circuit Cellar proj- ect? I can envision a similar recording device based on the SB180, using a 3V2- inch disk drive for storage with an RS- 232C port for interaction with a home computer. I own a compact disk player and I think that a digital recorder would be an ideal enhancement to my home audio system. Todd R. McMahon Zurich, Switzerland Thanks for your suggestion for a Cir- cuit Cellar project. OKI Semiconductor in Sunnyvale, California, has recently announced the MSM6258 speech-proces- sor chip, which may allow construction of the device you mentioned. The chip can be configured into a solid-state audio re- corder and can use static or dynamic RAM, ROM, or EPROM for storage. lam reviewing this chip, and if feasible I will include it in a future article. Another approach is a new digital audio tape-recording system (called DAT for short) that will soon be introduced to the consumer market. It uses a rotating head, just like a videotape recorder, with a (roughly) !4-inch tape in a cassette sim- ilar in size to conventional analog audio- continued WHO YA GONNA CALL? BUGBUSTERS! This is how PROBE displays real-time trace data. Trace information includes C source code, assembly language and data which was read or written during instruction execution. PROBE software simplifies the display by tossing out prefetched but unexecuted instructions. MM COSZ OtHWatS) — tftty other key to exit trece) 2S£ m mmwmm BAF7C Wja " & — (*Hri- ***** UJ. 8 « Ia ^ = WWW; MI7C WW "-""JS immtl 0ATK 1W " "" M5T W36 4865 B f7279WM83-FrFFRW22Bft5ftBfl *| imi.wimtti.m =C7 rmJwWii-wflBini =»« f 'iTBl.WBKR^.mCOWJI = B80I#H feSS^PBYte COTtpare CONsole DElete DIr Dfta EChc^iuffr^^S P/?0fl£ knows all about your local and complex variables. You can display and change an array of structures as easily as shown in this display. PROBE'S menu * window means you do not have to look up debug commands in the manual. Entering the command name shows you command syntax. "Real-time source-level debugging of very large programs simply can't be done Without AtTOn y S AT PROBE. " Ed Oates, Director of PC Software Development, Oracle Corporation The good news with your new Microsoft 4.0 or Lattice* C compilers is that they're providing more symbolic debugging information than ever. The bad news is you can't fit your program, a software debugger and that monster symbol table into memory - at least at the same time. The great news is that Atron's AT PROBE™ hardware- assisted software debugger not only has 1 -MByte of onboard memory for debugger and symbol table, but it now supports local variables and complex data types. The AT PROBE is a debugging tool that plugs into your PC AT and monitors everything the processor is doing. In real time. REAL TIME DEBUGGING. SOONER OR LATER, YOU KNOW YOU'LL NEED IT. The AT PROBE's hardware-assisted breakpoints trap on reading, writing, executing, inputting and outputting. On single or ranges of addresses, including particular variable values. All in real time. For a mere software debugger to attempt this, a 1 minute program would take 5 hours to execute. OPTIMIZED CODE - GOOD, BAD AND UGLY The good news is optimizing compilers generate very tight code. The bad news. The time to debug optimized code is inversely proportional to the quality of the optimizer. Figuring out how in the world you ended up somewhere gets ugly, fast. With AT PROBE's real-time trace capability, program execution history is saved on-board, in real time. Once a hardware trap has occurred, PROBE displays the program execution in detail, including symbols and source code. Real- time trace can show you how out-of-range pointers got that way. And there's really no other way to debug interrupt-driven code. AT PROBE OPTIMIZES THE OPTIMIZED When the job of bugbusting is done, your AT PROBE becomes a performance analyzer. So you can have both reliability and performance. So you can send only the best software into the field. CALL TODAY FOR YOUR FREE BUGBUSTING MANUAL Nine of the top ten software packages were debugged using Atron tools. Our complete tutorial on state-of-the-art bug- busting is yours, free. Full of examples and illustrations, it will show you how to become a bugbuster yourself. Call today. Bust bugs tomorrow. urn* BUGBUSTERS division of Northwest Instrument Systems, Inc. 20665 Fourth Street • Saratoga, CA 95070 408/741-5900 Inquiry 28 *Soon to be supported. Copyright © 1987 by Atron. AT PROBE is a trademark of Atron. IBM and Oracle own numerous registered trademarks. Adv. by TRBA. Inquiry 303 CIARCIA FEEDBACK UTAH COBO For IBM® PC's, XT's, AT's and other DOS machines. This is the one you've heard so much about— with faster compile times than many COBOL compilers costing hundreds of dollars more! It's based upon ANSI-74 standards. Now comes standard with source code programs demonstrating full screen, cursor control, color, reverse video, etc., another program shows how to even reprogram your keyboard and much more. Don't let our mail order prices fool ya! This is a new improved version of our best selling COBOL compiler previously offered at $300.00 a copy. Look at the December 1979 issue of Byte Magazine for one of our first COBOL ads! ; Other outstanding values at $39.95 are: Utah FORTRAN, Utah BASIC, Utah PASCAL, Utah PILOT and Utah EDIT. Used by 50,000 profes- sionals, students, and teachers in 40 countries. To order: (702) 827-3030 IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines. launers in q o SINCE 1977 ELLIS COMPUTING 7 tape. Given the economy of scale of consumer hi-fi equipment (look at how compact disk machines have fallen in price since their introduction), I think that I would rather wait until this tech- nology is established. There could be quite a number of inter- esting applications built around a com- mercial DAT machine, at far lower cost than using conventional data storage de- vices such as disk drives. —Steve Reusable Computers Dear Steve: I believe that at one time you were the owner of a Digital Group computer, as I was. You'll remember that if you wanted to change processors all you had to do was unplug the processor board and plug in another. All the other boards in the system recognized the same signals on the same pins, so that, in principle, no matter what innovations came out all you had to do was change a single board. Isn't this idea still viable? What makes me remember the Digital Group machine with nostalgia are all these new chips that sound so interesting but that I will never be able to afford— the 80286, 80386, 32032, the 68020, not to mention all the new graphics chips. It seems that if I want to indulge my hobby to the utmost, every two years I will have to throw away what- ever machine I currently own and buy an- other. Don't you think it would be a good idea if you were to design a Digital Group-like machine that would keep me (and thousands like me) abreast of the lat- est advances in hardware? M . Kreiger Brooklyn, NY The concept of bus architecture is alive and well. The IEEE-696 standard, better known as the S-100 bus, offers the possi- bilities you desire. Although some may think that the S-100 bus is more of a relic than new technology, there are 8088-, 6800-, 6500- , and 68000-based proces- sors available in S-100 boards that sup- port peripherals as defined by the IEEE- 696 standard. Unfortunately, the S-100 bus machines have become the domain of the small- business user, losing hobbyists and home users to the much simpler and ready- made technology of the IBM PC, Com- modore, and Atari machines. Perhaps coverage of S-100 projects warrants con- sideration—it is the base upon which BYTE was built.— Steve An SB180 in a Kaypro? Dear Steve: I have watched the development of your SB 180 8-bit computer system with continued 78 BYTE • JUNE 1987 Inquiry 102 THE Md;JHfr PLOTTER Enter the world of professional CAD applications with Houston Instrument's low cost DMP-41/42 series plotters. These single-pen plotters give you the fea- tures you need — C and D size plots, extensive software compatibility, and proven reliability — for a very afford- able no frills price of $3295.* The DMP-41/42 series' large C and D size formats are ideal for a wide range of CAD applications, from architectural elevations to assembly drawings. And a .005 inch resolution ensures crisp drawings on a variety of media — paper, matte film, or vellum. Inquiry 132 With the DMP-41/42 series, you can choose from an impressive selec- tion of off-the-shelf graphics software packages such as VersaCAD, AutoCAD, and CADKEY Or, by using Houston Instrument's popular DM /PIP 1 language, you can create your own custom software and be assured of upward compatibility with Houston Instrument's entire line of plotters. The DMP-41/42 scries. The plotters that offer superb reliability, comprehen- sive graphics capabilities, and a no frills price. The proven performers for low-cost CAD. For more information, call 1-800-531-5205 (512-835-0900 if in Texas), or write Houston Instrument, 1 ' 8500 Cameron Road, Austin, Texas 78753. In Europe, contact Houston Instrument, Belgium NV., Rochesterlaan 6, 8240 Gistel, Belgium. Tel.: 32-(0)59-277445. Tlx^: 846-81399. instrument DIVISION AMETEK *U.S. suggested retail price. Pricing subject to change. DM/PL and Houston Instrument are trademarks of AMETEK. Inc. JUNE 1987 -BYTE 79 ASKBYTE UNITE " Bridges The Operating Systems Gap. If you create applications in PC or MS J - M D0S and lor UNIX ™ , you know the frustration in not being able to integrate, much less communicate, between these dominant operating systems. Now you can bridge the operating systems gap with CYB Systems' UNITE. UNITE's unique connective power lets you de- velop and use software with total compatibility and flexibility between MS-DOS, PC DOS and lor UNIX operating environments. With UNITE, you can boost your productivity and end the isolation of PC stations, departments and work groups by mov- ing data between disparate operating systems and machines. Single function keystrokes enable you to process work on a PC, suspend operations and transfer files locally or to remote sta- tions, access 3270 mode, or act as a UNIX terminal with all utilities. UNITE also provides an on-board upward link to popular mainframes via TCP/IP or SNA protocols. And with UNITE you can add greater interconnect ive capabilities for true departmental processing further up the road. UNTTE. The bridge to fast, affordable program development today— and tomorrow. For more information, call or write CYB Systems, or visit our suite at the Dallas INFOMART. CYB SYSTEMS, INC. INFOMART, Suite 2017 1950 Stemmons Freeway •alias, Texas 75207 214/746-5390 UNITE is a rademark «f QTJ Systems, Inc. MS- is a trademark «f Microsoft Corporation. UNIX is a trademark of Bell Labor atori«s. interest, particularly inasmuch as I own three 8-bit Kaypro computers and plan to keep them for some time. Since there are tens of thousands of Kaypro 2s, 4s, and 10s out there, have you considered mak- ing available a "plug-compatible" SB1&0 for these machines? There wouldn't have been much of an advantage in doing so when the SB 180 was running at 6 MHz, but at 9 MHz such a replacement would benefit many. I would imagine that the changes to the SB 1 80 and associated software would be rather minimal: such changes as allowing the use of the Kaypro CRT as is, perhaps software changes to make Kaypro the standard floppy format, and (for the Model 10), changes to allow the use of the extant hard disk controller and hard disk. The operating software might also require a few modifications so that standard Kaypro software (which expects an ADM 3A monitor) would run as expected. What do you think? Norman Buchignani Department of Anthropology The University ofLethbridge Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada I currently have no plans to build a "plug-compatible" version of the SBI80 that could be installed in the Kaypro 8-bit machines. The SB180 can easily be used with an existing Kaypro by using an appropriate terminal program, such as the public do- main MEX, running on the Kaypro to make it into a terminal for the SBI80. The SB 180 distribution software allows you to specify any of a number of terminals to be used with the SB180. This method would not be exactly what you requested, but would provide the SB180 advantages at moderate cost while retaining all of your present Kaypro features. The SBI80 can read and write Kaypro II format disks. —Steve ■ Between Circuit Cellar Feedback, personal questions, and Ask BYTE, I receive hundreds of letters each month. As you might have no- ticed, at the end of Ask BYTE I have listed my own paid staff. We answer many more letters than you see published, and it often takes a lot of research. If yvu would like to share the knowledge you have on microcomputer hardware with other BYTE readers, joining the Circuit Cellar/ Ask BY1E staff would give yvu the op- portunity. We're looking for additional re- searchers to answer letters and gather Circuit Cellar project material. If yvu 're interested, let us hear from yvu. Send a short letter describing yvur areas of interest and qualifications to Steve Ciarcia, P.O. Box 582, Glastonbury, CT 06033. 80 BYTE- JUNE 1987 Inquiry 83 In 1981,we introduced the world's most successful personal computer. Here we go again. Five years ago, we sent our first personal computer out the door and hoped youd find it useful. We re pleased you did. Over three million IBM® PCs have been put to work, doing everything from financial analysis to first-grade arithmetic. Yet as PCs grew more popular, and as we kept improving them, one thing became clear. You needed more. You re in a hurry, so you want PCs You want improved reliability. And you want all this without ob- soleting your investment in equipment, software and training. So there was only one thing we could do: create a whole new system for personal computing. The new IBM Personal System/2. M Its heart is a new line of hardware and software, but its soul is bigger; new technology, of course, but also a new "balanced system" approach for IBM Proprinter II ;;^tlWm'. ' ™ 1-= I IBM Proprinter X24 il<- Programs are here for the IBM Personal System/2. to respond faster. You do many things at once and wish your PCs could too. You want software that's more powerful, but also easier to use. Youd like more color. You re eager for your systems to communicate with other systems. hohis l-2-:i fajWUrMun §■ l, fJ ,JMJJI... I««ll,i.*lf.tu.„' making things work together. It works with earlier IBM PCs so your invest- ment is protected. It works with larger IBM systems so your future growth is protected. It works for business and education, for profession- al people of every stripe. The next generation in The new systems. There are four models of the new IBM Personal System/2: Models 30, 50, 60 and 80, with a choice of configura- tions, with new design and components, and built not merely for speed but for well-balanced performance. cessor, is an even bigger step forward. It has new architecture (as do the even more powerful models) that breaks old barriers. One megabyte of memory is now standard, and there's plenty of room for more. Its graphics (again, in common with the larger models) are IBM Personal System/2 Model 30 Model 30 is about 25% smaller than the IBM PC, does many jobs more than two times faster than the IBM PC XT,™ and comes with 640KB of mem- ory and a 20-megabyte (MB) fixed disk if you want one. Much of what used to be optional is now standard, and im- proved. Graphics are spectacular. So is the value. Model 30 offers exceptional performance for the money. Model 50, with its 80286 micropro- IBM 'Personal System/2 Model 50 another dimension beyond. And it finishes many jobs signif icantly faster than the IBM Personal Computer AT® Model 60 takes up less space on your desk because the computer itself doesn't sit on your desk, but rather, be- neath or beside it. Equipped with a 44 or 70MB fixed disk, up to 15MB of memory and expanded expandability, its a system for serving a very busy person, and can be a file server for personal computin other busy persons. Model 80. For everyone who s been waiting to experience the real power of the 80386 microprocessor, its not just in this computer, we built this computer around it. Available this summer, Model 80 is a 32-bit system that does jobs up to The rest of this booklet tells more about the IBM Personal System/2. And how, all together, it can help make your professional life easier, more productive, and more rewarding. The new performance. You 11 find new architecture, new liXJ V: \ \ \\ IBM Personal System/2 Model 60 three and a half times fast- er than the IBM Personal ComputerATUpto2MB of memory are standard, and fixed disks can be 44, 70 or 115 megabytes big. Or with two fixed disks, — 230 megabytes huge. Computers this capable, and connectible, used to fill whole rooms. ■i 1 is J IBM Personal System/2 Model 80 integrated design and new operating systems that together lift raw power to higher levels of true per- formance, while cost goes the other way. The new graphics. You 11 see new graph- ics, all standard, that redefine the words "colorful" and "sharp." And new displays that give your programs a heightened sense of reality. The new connectivity. There will be new avenues for shar- ing information; new match-ups of hardware and software that shorten the distances and widen the roads between PCs, minis, mainframes and people. The new media. You 11 see rugged diskettes that are The IBM Personal System 12 is designed for connecting with larger computers like the IBM System/36 and the IBM 93 70. g^Eu 1^1 _ ._.... 5 _ ; „_... p „ — • H ;=j i.;:.;."~tn ^ ■ £7r®j m : §========11 The new printers. You 11 see an expanded family of IBMProprinterXL24 half as big, but hold up to twice as much as floppies did. Plus low-cost devices for transporting your data from one generation into the next. And a new IBM 200MB optical disk drive. The new solutions. You 11 discover new ways to solve problems; ideas about choosing not just software or hardware, but software, hardware and support in balance. IBM Quietwriter III Printer personal printers that fills just about any need, from economy, to speed, to the fussiest levels of document quality. The new support. And because its not just what you buy but where you buy it, you 11 learn how we Ve been working closely with the people who sell the Personal System/2 to create new levels of dealer support. Introducing the IBM Personal System/2 llllllllll!lll!l!llllll!ll!!llllllll!llllllll!llllllllll!!l!!(!!!i!; 1. tftf l"k Hi* % saa SmimU*!*** m So, it's power you wan The new performance. It's tempting to size up computers by the numbers, but in the IBM Personal System/2, real performance exceeds the sum of its parts. Components were designed not just to coexist, but to cooperate; within each system, and within your total computing environment. Tlie IBM Peisonal System/ 2 takes up less space on your desk. Tlie on/off switch is on the front, and monitors tilt and swivel. So your software runs faster, and your system is more reliable. Extras aren't extra. You could expand earlier IBM PCs after you bought them, but the Personal System/2 is expanded before you even open the carton. Things that used to cost extra don't anymore. Advanced graphics, parallel and serial ports, a port for pointing devices, and diagnostics are included. And new IBM technology— our one- million-bit memory chip, high-density logic circuits, and integrated "planar boards'— is sending performance up, and costs down. Paths to the future. Models 50, 60 and 80 share a design that's new to personal computing. Tech- nically it's described as parallel bus architecture (we call it IBM Micro Channel™), but think of it as a highway. Our first PCs were built around a two-lane street. Usually that's enough, but sometimes there are traffic jams. Your sales figures might have to stand on the corner while your mailing list goes by. The new system is like an ex- pressway. There are more lanes open t? TV in both directions. The ramps are more smoothly paved, and signals are better synchronized. So data can flow more freely. This is what the 286 and 386 chips have been waiting for. A highway to match their horsepower. The new operating systems. The Personal System/ 2 is being introduced with a new IBM PC DOS Version 3.3 that lets you tap into the new systems im- mediately, and works with all previous IBM PCs as well. There's also an IBM 3270 Workstation Program that, with PC DOS Version 3.3, helps the Personal System/2 connect with Tfie IBM Personal Systetn/2 Model 80 was created to unleash the power of the 80386 microprocessor. In earlier PCs, data sometimes had to stop and wait. New IBM Micro Channel architecture is more like an expressway. Dataflows more freely. mainframes, supports more memory, and lets you run multiple applications. But much more is coming. A new IBM Operating System IT will run on Models 50, 60 and 80. Available later on, its development is being carefully timed so that everyone involved— software makers, our dealers, you— can take full advantage of its power as easily as possible. It will do everything our existing PC DOS does (in fact, they'll get along beautifully), but it also will bring major advances. Memory. Our new systems offer up to 16 megabytes' worth, and Operating System/2 will make these vast resources easier to access. Multi-tasking. With IBM Operating System/2, you won't have to be a "power user" to understand how to run several programs at once. Multi-tasking will become a routine experience. Software. Together with the new architecture and more memory, ! Operating Sys- tem/2 will give software develop- ers new freedom to create programs that are more powerful, better looking, and easier to use than ever before. A bigger idea. Operating System/2 is also part of another new idea, called IBM Systems Application Architecture. Its goal is to bring the world of IBM computing closer together; to provide a greater consistency in look, function and feel— for systems, for software and for people who use them. IBM Operating System /2 is the first step for personal computing in this promising new direction. IBM Personal System/ 2 "planar boards " have many standard features that used to be options. It's like having 256,00 in one box. The new graphics. Back in the dark ages of personal computing, the world was ruled by numbers and words. Graphics were a nicety, but rarely a necessity. Welcome to the Renaissance. The IBM Personal System/2 has a talent for gra- phics that's dazzling Each new system can paint up to 256 colors on the screen at once, drawing from an incredible palette of over 256,000. And not one of those colors costs a penny extra. Even in monochrome, things aren't monotonous. There can be up to 64 shades of gray for new dimension and contrast. And the images themselves are greatly improved. The tiny "pixels" r rhe IBM Personal System/ 2 Monochrome Displays 8503. that create the image can now be tinier, and there can be lots more of them. Even the space between them seems to have disappeared. So pictures are U i~-L .J_J_ J All screens in this brochure are actual and unretouched. crayons sharp and clearly defined. Better letters. Equally important, letters and numbers are clean-edged and precise, The IBM Personal System/ 2 Color Displays 8512. looking more like they're printed than projected. After a few hours with your trusty spreadsheet, you 11 appreciate that. You'll also like the non- glare viewing surface, and ififiw r \- V s * 1- jji mountings that tilt and swivel so your neck doesn't have to. There are four new IBM displays, and each works with every Personal System/2 computer, all showing graphic improvements in price. The 12" monochrome and 14" color displays are great for most general- purpose work. The 12" color display is even sharper, ideal for detailed business graphics. And for design work, there's the big 16" color display with even higher resolving power. Your favorite programs. Just about any program you can run on the IBM Personal System/2 will look better, and will likely be more pleasant to spend time with. Many other pro- grams are being reworked just to take advantage of the new graphics. But the future holds real surprises. The screens of the Personal System/2 are like a brand new kind of canvas. How the artists will use them should be something to see. 77ie IBM Personal System/ 2 Color Displays 8513. 77ie IBM Personal System/2 Model 50 and the IBM Personal System/2 Color Display 8514. The future belongs to well-connected. The new connectivity. The earliest computers were big and costly, so people shared them. Then people wanted smaller com- puters just for themselves. Soon PCs were in offices everywhere. And how did people want to use them? The managing director uses IBM 3270 Emulation and Professional Off ice System™ software (PROFS) for checking calendars and sending electronic mail. The personnel director sends bulletins using the IBM 3270 Workstation Program and PROFS. For sharing things. So the idea of PC connectivity was born. From the start, the IBM Personal System/2 was designed to connect; with other IBM personal systems, with bigger IBM systems. Each new system comes with built-in asynchronous communications (which can save you an option slot for other uses). An executive assistant uses IBM DisplaylVrite 4 to polish up memos and reports for distribution through IBM DJSOSS. An inrentoiy clerk uses an inquiry to a data base to compare what's out in the warehouse with sales orders. the So information has no trouble traveling back and forth. But the real news is what happens inside. Going with the flow. The new architecture in Models 50, 60 and 80 will improve the flow of traffic within the system, so when an important message comes in from corporate head- 111 IfJ li'-F-l quarters, its less likely to see stop signs. And if the sender has a properly equip- ped IBM PC, PC XT, Personal Computer AT or IBM Personal Tire IBM 9370 computer System/2 Model 30, stores information and provides J v data base management support for the business. that' s okay too— they work together. And as the new IBM Operating System/2 unfolds, communication will become even easier. Its multi-tasking capability will make it easier for your system to receive a product manager anc j store e l ec t r0 nic mail, main- loads her spreadsheet using the ibm Token-Ring Network to frame data, or whatever, while access information. _ . you re busy doing something else. The scope of communication has been increased, too. A wide array of local area network and connectivity products is part of the IBM Personal System /2 family, so your resources can be as broad as your needs; from the first IBM PC your com- pany ever bought, to mid-range systems, to the biggest IBM 3090 mainframe, the lines are open. Andthis is just the beginning Programme™ work within the framework of IBM Systems Application Architecture to develop applications. Meanwhile, from a hotel room, a salesman uses the modem in his IBM PC Convertible to send back details of a new order. A design engineer uses an IBM Personal System/2 Model 80 to create a product accessing designs from the host computer. IBM just got smaller. three quarter inches. The new media. The amazing 5!/4" floppy diskette can hold literally hundreds of pages' worth of memos, reports and vital statistics. So why are we switching to 3V-f diskettes? Because they hold up to twice the information, and they don t flop. A hard plastic case protects them from mishaps that flop- pies are heir to. So not only can you slip a diskette into your shirt pocket, you 11 have fewer of them, with more of your work all in one place. You won t have to fool around with write-protect tabs anymore, either. They're built right in. Bridging the gap. Very nice, you say, but what about all that work on 514" diskettes? We thought |; : .-| about that from ■ KL ^^L the very begin- Wm ^^T ning, and weVe % mM offering a num- ^ tta ^ es two 36okb sw diskettes to hold ber of low-cost solutions to make the transition as smooth as possible. A simple accessory kit transports data from 5W to 3W diskettes. One is a simple cable adapter and software package that lets you send your data from an IBM PC, PC XT or Person- al Computer AT to your IBM Personal System/2, then onto the smaller disk- ettes. Depending on how much data you have, the whole job could be over in one sitting. Also avail- able are special IBM Wf and 5J4' ; external diskette drives, to be there # as much as one 720KB 3V2" diskette. By one and We re introducing a 200 -million- byte optical disk drive. It works with all Personal System/2 computers and, with advanced laser tech- nology, will let you build a massive library of infor- any time you need them, for conversions in either direction. Software is here. And what about software? Well, 3 Vf diskettes may be new to full-sized IBM personal computers, but they re not new to personal computing. They're used, for example, by the IBM PC Convertible. > v So, many popular spread- llie IBM 3363 Optical Disk Drive with 'write-once, read-many" disks (left) and the IBM 3.5 Inch External Diskette Drive (right). Tlie IBM 5.25 Inch External Diskette Drive. mation for business, science and educa- tion on removable disks you can hold in your hand. sheet, word processing, data base and other programs (from IBM and other com- panies) are already available on 3 V'f diskettes. And software makers are working to get new releases out quickly. Optical allusion. If a 3 Vf diskette can store large amounts of information, heres a way to store gargantuan amounts. The solution is part o system. The new solutions. We sell computer systems, but that's not what you re really after. You want the things a system can do for you. So while we were busy developing new machinery, we were also active on the software front. One of the first things we looked at was how you choose software. Over the last five years, thousands of programs have been written— by us and by others— for IBM PCs. That's a independent software companies. Getting with the program. We re telling them about our move to 3V-f diskettes so they can convert popular programs to that size. Were showing them our new graphics so they can revise software to take advantage of them. And were keeping them up-to-date about the new IBM Operating System/2 Hso they can create brand new programs with even higher levels of , function. mi i j .1 .] mm*** a/' : -., Hi i 1 BM CADwrite Design and Drafting System SolutionPac for designeis and engineeis. good thing, and we want to keep it going, so we ve continued to work with So, popular programs like Lotus 1-2-3* WordPerfects dBase III PLUS™ will be available for the Personal System/2. iiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii fthe Needless to say, we ve also updated our pop- ular IBM software. IBM DisplayWrite TM 4,theIBM Assistant Series™ IBM Business Adviser* and IBM educational programs are ready to go for the Personal System /2. The IBM SolutionPac: Then we looked at software from another point of view. With so many decisions to make, so many combinations of hardware and i designed for your kind of business, with a hardware ensemble that's been matched to it, and tested. Plus a program of service, training and support. A wide range of IBM SolutionPacs is in the works. Among the first ones available are the Business Adviser Financial Accounting SolutionPac, a CADwrite Design and Drafting System for designers and engineers, a desktop publishing SolutionPac and a Doctors Office Management package, as well as SolutionPacs for contractors and lawyers. 1 ■ ■ ■- »■-■- !■ - ! easa**- feSBdSf* < ** fit GENERAL LEDGER i ™h— , ., strs?— | &53P*— ' i \ - rrr"" **"' tM '" m Pf— i d!*\SE III PLUS