New Products - IEEE Computer Society
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1. execute over 1000 application programs without dealing with DOS It interfaces between the user and DOS Version 2 0 or higher allowing any application to be performed with just a few keystrokes Sequence screens allow automatic execution of a series of menu entries while password security is available for all applications l Magic Menu can be made memory resident allowing use on systems without a fixed disk It also provides automatic screen blanking dynamic variables for customizing general entries and speed entries for advanced users For more information contact Deere Soft Inc PO Box 1360 Melbourne FL 32901 305 768 2477 Reader Service Number 25 Sey REVIEWS Getting it all together Richard Eckhouse New Products Editor In their latest release the folks at US Robotics have put together an impressive telecommunications package While possessing all the features one would expect of this genre Telpac version 3 0 also provides menu windows XMODEM remote access multiple phone directories photolog to record a logon sequence print spooler multilevel security access log file of calls made ALT key functions conditional command files and many other features too numerous to mention In evaluating the software I put it to the ultimate test would I start using it over my other communications pro grams I was immediately won over when it managed to log into a VAX sys tem that required multi2. Z DOS IT Out went KBfix _A few more tries resulted in memory overflow errors I pared down the number of programs to run concurrently I had a mixture of in house Basic programs and commercial software for word processing and telecommunica tions to fit within my system s available 256K RAM l Once this was done E Z DOS IT worked well requiring only holding the CTRL and ALT keys plus a number representing the desired program to toggle back and forth from one appli cation to another Speech system allows 255 strokes per word MicroPhonics Technology is offering Pronounce a speech input system for office automation applications The system allows the user an unlimited number of vocabulary files of 128 words or short phrases Each word or phrase may be associated with up to 255 keystrokes thus forming a tailored macro program or standardizing all non related programs under natural voice control Pronounce which consists of a PC board that fits into any IBM PC or compatible software with predefined vocabularies for WordStar and Lotus 1 2 3 a microphone and user manual retails for 895 For more information contact Micro Phonics Technology 234 SW 43rd St Ste B Renton WA 98057 206 251 9009 Reader Service Number 27 When toggling between applications the user can either type in the command to run the desired application or have E Z DOS IT call up the program through a batch file specified in
3. computer into The Portable Plus takes it home for the night and load the revised spreadsheet from The Portable Plus back into the desktop system the next morning An optional built in 300 1200 baud modem allows access to HP 3000 mini computers and IBM mainframes and to public databases including The Source and the Dow Jones News Retrieval The Portable Plus can link up with a variety of peripherals including the HP 9114A disk drive and the ThinkJet personal printer The HP 9114A disk drive is a battery powered 3 4 inch drive that can read from and write to both sides of a 710K byte disk In normal use the drive will operate for eight hours before its batteries need recharging The Portable Plus costs 2295 The Portable Desktop Link retails for 175 HP computers and 150 IBM PCs and compatibles The HP 9114A drive and ThinkJet printer retail for 795 and 495 respectively For more information call the Hewlett Packard dealer or sales office listed in the white pages of your local directory Reader Service Number 28 10 X 3 inches and runs on batteries for up to two weeks of normal use on a single charge It features an electronic disk and plug in ROM based software 72 Waltz Lisp available for MS DOS CP M ProCode International has made available a version of Waltz Lisp for MS DOS PC DOS CP M 86 and CP M 80 computers Waltz Lisp s interpreter uses a shallow binding and stackless garbage collection al
4. IT toggles back and forth between programs letting those not displayed execute in the background The manufacturer calls it concurrent processing system level software The software features a user friendly copy protection scheme While only two copies are allowed from the master disk the package comes with an uninstall option If a user needs to reformat his hard disk he can uninstall E Z DOS IT back to the master disk without losing one of his two allowable copies E Z DOS IT is simple to set up and execute From DOS a user enters the command SETUP to get the setup menu Several setup screens are allowed although only one can be executed at a time Function keys and TAB are used to move through the setup procedures _ I was annoyed only that the screen I marked as the default screen a handy feature in a system that allows several schemes for concurrent programs was September 1985 neither recalled when I later reentered the setup program nor marked as the default by the software That meant I had no way of knowing if the screen I wanted to be the default actually was short of running the program To label it as the default screen a user must manually label the screen After completing the setup I returned to DOS and entered EZDOSIT the com mand to run the concurrent program function The first few times nothing hap pened It turned out that my keyboard buffer extender K Bfix was interfering with E
5. New P Editor Richard Eckhouse Moco Inc 91 Surfside Road PO Box A Scituate MA 02055 Compmail r eckhouse This month s New Products and Product Highlights were reviewed and selected by Frank P Mathur California State Polytechnic University at Pomona PLS offers three Prolog products Programming Logic Systems has announced three Prolog software products micro Prolog Professional for MS DOS systems a sigma Prolog interpreter for Unix systems and APES Augmented Prolog for Expert Systems micro Prolog Professional runs on microcomputers under MS DOS and is upward compatible with micro Prolog 3 1 which has been in use for over four years It features Macintosh style windows and menus window handling primitives and full screen editor a variety of programming environments such as English like Simple syntax Edinburgh DEC 10 style syntax and Lisp style syntax memory for all variable names a speed twice that of micro Prolog 3 1 and an OEM version for the production of turnkey systems sigma Prolog runs on super micro and mainframe computers under Unix and is upwardly compatible with micro Prolog APES is a suite of modules imple mented in Prolog By combining these modules a range of logic programming environments can be constructed In par ticular APES can be used to construct logic based expert systems More generally APES is a tool for developing logic programs APES runs under the company
6. advanced file operations two virtual function definition schemes and Clog Prolog a small but complete Prolog interpreter All programs are supplied in fully commented Lisp code Waltz Lisp runs on any computer with MS DOS 2 0 or higher and CP M 86 with a minimum 128K RAM For Z 80 based CP M systems Waltz requires CP M 2 0 or higher with at least 48K RAM Waltz Lisp retails for 169 including a 300 page manual and domestic shipping and handling charges For more information contact ProCode International 15930 SW Colony P1 Portland OR 97224 1 800 547 3000 Dept 80 Reader Service Number 29 IEEE SOFTWARE
7. aracter for one that is filtered out Finally the only filter for output is LF I d prefer a more general system that allowed me to specify an IN OUT filter that included pairs of hex values for what to remove and what to substitute for example I have one last criticism related to all such systems While I have the ability to define a set of function keys what I also want is the ability to redefine some of the standard keys For instance on the PC you use the BS key to delete to the left On a VAX you use the DEL key I ve seen only one system that allows these keys to be interchanged depending on what host you log into Telpac is easy to use with extensive help windows All commands may be exe cuted using the windows but the profi cient user will soon begin to skip the windows and execute the commands directly Oh yes I am going to use Telpac as my main system It is one of the best that I ve come across IEEE SOFTWARE Products aid in GAPP chip development NCR Corporation s Microelectronics Division has announced two products that will enhance the ability of users to develop software for the NCR45CG72 the systolic array processor chip known as the GAPP Geometric Arithmetic Parallel Processor The products are the NCR45GDS1 a GAPP PC Develop ment System and the NCR45GS2 a GAPP Simulator Assembler software package The PC Development System consists of a 13 inch board and development soft wa
8. d PC 2622 a program for emulating the HP 2622 and the DEC VT102 terminals Programs are available separately as plug in ROM cartridges or on 3 4 inch disks The Portable Plus allows information to be stored and retrieved up to 10 times faster than with floppy diskettes and requires less power according to the company The reason is that it uses an electronic disk E disk a battery powered RAM circuit designed to func tion like a disk drive for nonvolatile storage of data and programs ROM based software built into The Portable Plus includes MS DOS 2 11 and Personal Applications Manager a friendly operating environment that eliminates the need for a user to learn MS DOS It also includes HP Link for communicating with the IBM PC and PC compatibles Diagnostics for checking out the system and other utilities Two expansion drawers at the bottom of The Portable Plus can be configured with additional ROM or RAM fora total capacity of over 3M bytes of total memory The ROM drawer accepts industry standard CMOS 32K byte or 128K byte plug in ROMs or 32K EPROMs The optional Portable Desktop Link PDL package which includes an HP IL card software and cables allows users to share data from available HP Touchscreen personal computers or IBM PC and PC compatible computers For example a user working with the Portable Desktop Link option could load a spreadsheet such as 1 2 3 from Lotus from an HP Touchscreen personal
9. ext it reduces the size of manuals from 30 percent to 50 percent with proportional savings in printing or copying shipping and storage In house laser publishing reduces the cost of document preparation from the 45 per page usually associated with outside typesetting services to around 07 per page for laser output If extremely high resolution over 700 dots per inch is required for preparation of printing plates or for glossy sales materials the ETP laser printer can be used as a proofing system prior to type setting The cost of a complete ETP in house publishing system is around 13 000 which includes Galliard Galliard Black wT wt ETP Systems laser publishing package enables Unix users to print high quality documents that have the appearance of typeset manuscript with variable typefaces multiple font sizes italics mathematical symbols and table ruling and Galliard Italic typeface fonts Addi tional International Typesetting Cor poration industry standard fonts such as Avant Garde Eras Franklin and Souvenir are available for 175 per face A Software Subscription Service is also available to provide maintenance and ongoing product enhancements For more information contact ETP Systems 10150 SW Nimbus Ave Ste E 2 Portland OR 97223 503 639 4024 Reader Service Number 22 Real time OS addresses 16M bytes The iRMX 286 real time multi tasking multiprogramming operating system from I
10. gorithm With highly optimized assem bly code and no overlays and linking modules the interpreter occupies less than 30K of RAM Debugging tools and error handling facilities remain on line at all times A progratnmable undefined functions handler traps illicit function calls An optional initialization file is loaded automatically at startup This Waltz Lisp version features a WordStar compatible full screen editor that permits the editing of files of any size from within the Lisp environment Program files can also be created using any ASCII text editor Like Common Lisp MacLisp and other mainframe Lisps Waltz Lisp has a complete suite of mappers built in pretty printing and level printing fast sort and merge I O streams and advanced pro gram control structures It supports functions of type lambda nlambda lexpr macro and both splicing and nonsplicing character read macros Waltz also features true dynamic character strings and integers up to 611 digits with selectable radix The OS interface allows the manipula tion of binary files Any number of files can be active simultaneously Random file access permits users to append to an existing file mix reading and writing operations and instantaneously access any byte in a file The MS DOS version of Waltz Lisp fully supports the 2 x file system including complete access to the subdirectory structure The package comes with programs for file comparison file sorting
11. ntel can address up to 16M bytes of memory expanding applications in process control communications and simulation The iRMX 286 Operating System Release 1 0 is application source code compatible with Intel s iRMX 86 oper ating system Applications developed on the iRMX 86 operating system can be ported to the iRMX 286 by recompiling application source code through use of iAPX 286 compilers The iRMX 286 takes advantage of hardware traps provided by the 80286 microprocessor to speed debugging of new programs If the amount of data exceeds the memory space allocated for example a hardware trap occurs and the error is reported The operating system enables the user to easily locate the programming error These hardware traps can automatically identify up to 90 percent of typical programming errors The iRMX 286 operating system is available at an OEM license fee of 7500 For more information contact Intel Corp Literature Dept W 232 3065 Bowers Ave Santa Clara CA 95051 408 987 8080 Reader Service Number 23 69 Modules aid accounting Micro Associates is offering a variety of accounting software packages for microcomputers including Mica Job Cost General Ledger Version 2 0 Pro ductivity Interface and Multicompany Manager Job Cost which runs on the IBM PC and compatibles under the PC DOS and MS DOS on the HP 150 and on AT amp T Texas Instruments Victor Docutel Olivetti and Tandy c
12. omputers lets a user specify up to 999 components per job while maintaining estimated revised and actual units and costs for each Job characteristics can be totally defined by the user General Ledger Version 2 0 offers enhancements such as more flexible budgeting capabilities the ability to maintain ledgers for multiple companies and the option to maintain ledger details for an entire year Users can maintain independent ledgers for up to 10 com panies and obtain both individual and consolidated statements General Ledger Version 2 0 comes with a utility program to change the format of data files entered under General Ledger Version 1 0 to fit the new format The Productivity Interface integrates accounting information from the Mica Accounting Series with most popular spreadsheet database and word pro cessing applications Using PI data can be transfered to any program that will accept ASCII format including Lotus 1 2 3 and dBase Il The Multicompany Manager for IBM PCs and compatibles permits financial records for several companies to be maintained on a single hard disk system with only one copy of each Mica accounting applications package For more information contact Micro Associates 2349 Memorial Blvd Port Arthur TX 77640 409 983 2051 Reader Service Number 24 Menu handles 1000 programs Magic Menu from DeereSoft Inc is a menu system that allows IBM PC PC XT and PC AT users to select and
13. ple prompts to get through two levels of Gandalf switches The photolog feature duly copied the exchange and when saved allowed me to edit it to remove any extraneous or erroneous data The same editor is used to edit phone directories and other menu entries a feature often missing in similar programs However I was later disappointed to find Telpac did not support the VAX 70 gold function keys while emulating a VT100 a must for editing on VMS systems I tried the remote access using my Radio Shack Model 100 Everything worked as expected within the confines of what you can do using MS DOS since many programs directly access the hardware and cannot be remotely accessed XMODEM worked equally well when I transmitted a file to CompuServe I en countered two minor inconveniences having to do with flow control Telpac has no scroll key so you have to type CTRL S and CTRL Q to stop and start the flow Other systems have a scroll function that allows them to stop the dis play while the remote host continues to send data to be held in a screen buffer Not only is such a feature useful it can save you connect time The other inconvenience is the IN filter You are allowed to specify any characters to be filtered out of the incoming data stream Unfortunately you can t remove all such characters such as the DEL that a VAX system sends generally only those that are printable Also you can t substitute another ch
14. re It is targeted for users who want to develop GAPP program code ina personal computer environment It can run on an NCR Model 4 PC or any IBM PC compatible computer and it is available in two versions MS DOS and Venix 86 The PC board contains two GAPP devices configured to form a 12 X 12 processor array Development software includes the GAPP Algorithm Language compiler and a program debugger which allows single and multiple step program execution The GAPP Simulator Assembler package is primarily for users who want to develop their GAPP software in either VAX VMS or VAX Unix environ ments The Venix 86 NCR45GDS1 VX and MS DOS NCR45GDS1 MS versions of the PC Development System are available for 3500 each and include a PC board with two GAPP chips and development software that runs under the Venix 86 VX version or MS DOS MS version operating systems The Simulator Assembler is available in a VAX compatible tape format and runs under VAX VMS NCR45GS2 VM and VAX Unix NCR45GS20 UX for 995 each GAPP NCR45CG72 devices are available for 150 each in quantities of a thousand For more information contact NCR Dayton OH 45479 513 445 2075 Reader Service Number 26 An alternative to windowing Galen Gruman Assistant Editor Hammer Computer Systems E Z DOS IT offers an alternative to traditional windowing programs Rather than divide the screen like an electronic quilt E Z DOS
15. s micro Prolog or sigma Prolog APES version 2 0 will feature a redesigned window menu based environ ment templates for whole rules and parts of rules to provide easily understood interaction and explanations as well as the ability to access pages of explanatory text from disk This version will be a compiler compiling APES programs to run with micro Prolog Professional micro Prolog Professional retails for 395 sigma Prolog costs 695 and APES retails for 425 All prices are for a single computer license a reference manual and Prentice Hall s introduction book For more information contact Pro gramming Logic Systems 31 Crescent Dr Milford CT 06460 203 877 7988 Reader Service Number 21 September 1985 Laser publishing available for Unix The ETP in house publishing system from ETP Systems is designed to provide laser printer typography for Unix com puter users at a small fraction of the cost of traditional phototypesetting The turnkey system includes a 300 dot per inch eight page per minute laser printer fully integrated with controlling software The company s usr tools software package contains an enhanced device independent troff several macro for matting packages a laser printer driver a choice of industry standard fonts and a font sizing program Special facilities of usr tools aid in the formatting of tables and mathematical equations Because typesetting also yields more compact t
16. the setup However the batch file for the first application must be called AUTOEXEC BAT which is the main bootup batch file for IBM DOS Consequently a user can t have his terminal boot automatically with E Z DOS IT and any other initial processes and then go on to the first application desired Instead any initial processes must be entered by another batch file either manually or as a toggle option in E Z DOS IT The manufacturer said E Z DOS IT has been tested successfully on popular programs such as Lotus 1 2 3 WordStar Smartcom II Sidekick and dBase III However the company said many users have reported problems running Basic programs One customer service represen tative said I was lucky that my two Basic programs ran without a hitch The pro grams read text from a disk file evaluate it and write back to another file 71 Portable cuts retrieval time Hewlett Packard has introduced The Portable Plus an enhanced version of its notebook sized portable computer for mobile professionals Designed to complement and com municate with computers used in the office The Portable Plus offers a full 25 line by 80 character LCD display and popular plug in ROM based software It comes standard with a 198K byte ROM and a 128K byte RAM expandable to 896K bytes Industry standard MS DOS software initially offered in ROM includes Lotus 1 2 3 Microsoft Word MemoMaker Time Management Executive Card Manager an
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