DBTEL. •. •. DBTEL is a top manufacturer in the high-tech industry. We offer ... algorithms solve for an use reports to manually information about.
HOT TECHNOLOGY 10 Virtual Private Networks Tested /p114 WEB SERVER SURPRISE: Microsoft Beats Netscape /p12s WINDOWS NT: Secure It! /psi
e THE FUTURE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TODAY NOVEMBER 1997 www.byte.com
Hundreds of superfast satellites will compete to beam data everywhere. Which systems will win?
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STANDARD FEATURES Intel430MXPCI chip set 256KB L2 pipeline burst cache PCI bus with 128-bit graphics accelerator MPEG compatible Zoomed video-ready Touchpad pointing device 16-bit stereo sound Built·in stereo speakers and microphone 2·way infrared port Modular floppy drive (flexible bay swappable with CD-ROM) Microsoft Windows 95 and MS®Plus! 5-year/ 1-year Micron limited warranty
MICRON TRANSPORT XKE
2JJMHz Mobile Intel Pentium processor with MMX technology 48MB EDO RAM JGB removable hard drive 13.J" TFT XGA display
STANDARD FEATURES Intel 430TXMobile PCI chip set 512KB L2 pipeline burst cache PCI bus with 128-bit graphics accelerator. 2MB DRAM 20X modular CD-ROM drive with AutoPlay'" technology and headphones Pick-a-Point'" dual pointingdevices Dragon Systems' Naturallylpeaking Personal voice recognition software 16-bit stereo sound (supports surround and wavetable sound) Built-in stereo speakers and microphone Integrated 33.6 fax/ modem w/ full telephony duplex phone CardBus· and zoomed video-ready 2infrared ports, 1front, 1rear I-video and NTSC-video capability; USB, built-in game port Management Pak'". Executive Travel Pak'" 2 modular expansion bays (hard drive, CD-ROM drive, 3.5" floppy drive, lithium-ion battery) Custom nylon carrying case Microsoft Windows 95and MS Plus! CD Microson Office 97 Small Business Edition CDs 5-year/ 3-year Micron Power limited warranty
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ne1wmlc opera1ingsystemincidenl molu1ionsincludedlor Micron serversystems 30-day money bac~ pn'icy 24-hour 1echnical supp ~ rt Thefore3ioin9 issulljec1 toandqualiliedbyMic1on'sstandardlimi1edwamm1iesandlelTl\S
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?.'.~!"" "' Micron Sales Hrs: Mon-Fri 6am-10pm, Sat 7am-5pm
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noHce; prices!lonol 1nclu·lcsl1ipp1ngalldhandlingandanyapphcable 1axes. 3!klay nlO!\ey-0.1Ck pojicycloesno1 include returofr eiglltarid ar191n.1! sh1pp1ng/handl111gch:1rges,applleso;11yt0Micronbrandprodoctsarldtieginsfron1 da!eofshlpmen1. All sales ,11esubjec1toMicronElectr 011ics' cunen11ermsandcorKlili011Sol s.1le. Leascpiicesbascd on3fi.moothlease. Theln!Cllnslde l ogoaOOPentiumarerf9s1eredtrademarksmKlMMXlsatraoemark of lntel Corporalion Microsoft. \11ndows, Windows IH and lhe Windows logo are regis1ered 1rademarks of Microsoft Cor?(lrlltkm. Prodoct name; of Microo prod11cts are tradem.irks or r~istere<.t trademarks of Micron Bectronics,Inc. OI'
lletFRAMESyste111s,1oc.O'llerprod 11ttnarnesuscdlnt1 11spul1l ~1tlonare !oridentifica1ionpurposeson ly a1Klrnaybe
tmdemarkso!their 1especl11'C cornpanles.
NetFRAME MVSOOO
MICRON"' NETFRAME®LV2000 SERVER
Intel 233MHz Pentium®II processor w/ECC llMB ECC SDRAM lGB Ultra-Wide SCSl-3 hard drive NOS Support (3 incident resolutions/1st year), 7x24
STANDARD FEATURES Singleor dual IntelPentium IIprocessors 512KB integrated L2cache in SEC package ECC. SDRAM (4DIMM slots) 5expansion slots: 4PCI, 1ISA Integrated Adaptec PCI Ultra.Wide SCSl-3 controller Integrated Intel EtherExpress'" Pro 100 controller 12X SCSl-2 CD-ROM drive 10 drive bays: 4external 5.25 / 1external 3.5''
2internal 5.25 / 3internal 3.5" Microsoft®Windows NT" Server 4.0 (10-user license) Intel LANDesk" Server Manager 2.8 Dedicated server technical support. 7x24 5-year/ 3-year Micron Power"' limited warranty 1-year next-business-day on-site service*
MICRON NETFRAME MVSOOO SERVER
Intel 300MHz Pentium II processors w/ECC 64MB ECC SDRAM 4GB Ultra.Wide SCSl-3 hard drive NOS Support (3 incident resolutions/1 st year), 7x24
STANDARD FEATURES
Single or dual Intel Pentium II processors
512K integrated cache in SEC package
Memory: ECC EDO or SDRAM option (8 DIMM slots)
9expansion slots: 6 PCI. 2 ISA. 1shared ISA/ PCI
Dual integrated Symbios Ultra.Wide SCSl-3 controllers
Integrated Symbios Narrow SCSl-3 controllers
Intel EtherExpress Pro 100 NIC
Embedded RAIDupgrade option
120 Compliant via embedded Intel i960-RD
5 Internal. hot-pluggable. hard drive bays
(Upgradable to 10)
3 External 5.25" media bays
1(one) 360 watt hot-pluggable power supply standard
(Upgradable to 3 for added redundancy)
Rack Adapter option
Intel LANDesk Server Manager 2.8
Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 (10-user license)
Dedicated server technical support. 7x24
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$6,199
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Intel lOOMHz Pentium processor with MMXTMtechnology llMB SDRAM 2.1GB Ultra ATA SMART EIDE hard drive 15" Micron SOOLx, .28dp (13.7 " display) STANDARD FEATURES 512KB pipeline burst cache, flash BIOS, DM I2.0 3.5'' floppy drive 16X EIDE variable speed CD-ROM drive Intel Pro/100 wjWake On LAN network adapter S3 ViRGE graphics accelerator, 2MB EDO RAM Advanced Hardware and Power Management features Chassis Intrusion Alert Microsoft lntelliMouse'" Microsoft Windows" 95 Intel LANDesk Client Manager 5-year/ 3-year Micron Power limited warranty
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MICRON CLIENTPRO XLu
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512KB internal L2secondary cache, DMIsupport
16X EI DE variable speed CD-ROM drive
3.5" floppy drive
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PCI 64-bit 3D video, MPEG, 4MB EDO RAM
Upgradable wavetable audio with speakers
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MicrosoftWindows NT Workstation
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THilNKilNG OUT OF THE BOX'"
THE ORBITING INTERNET
I
1 er1N
THE
November 1997 , vol. 22, no. 11
ByJohn Montgomery
58
Broadband satellite systems are ready to beam data around the world at multimegabit rates. So what's the catch?
BackOffice at the Forefront
104C
Making Money with Point-of-Sale
I
104M
By Ilan 1G0r4eeSnberg
By Ilan Greenberg
Socket to Me 73
By Tom R. Halfhill The Pe nti um II's proprietary slots could mean trouble fo r Inte l's competitors. What does it mean for users?
NT's Challenges: Microsoft's Solutions
96NA3 By Mark Schlack
VP Jim Allchin tells BYTE
about the fu ture of
Microsoft OS technology.
MANAGING DATA
Deja Vu All Over Again 81
By Peter Mudge and Yobie Benjamin Those holes in NT security sure look familiar. No wonder: Other OSes patched them years ago.
2 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
BUILDING NETWORK APPS
Components Battling Components 87
By Robert Richardson Software plug-ins for Windows and Macintosh can do re markable things. But they're also a source of conflict.
EDITORIAL
WHAT'S NEW
Raising the Java Standard 10
INBOX
13
, BITS
600-MHzAlpha
18
Socket 7 Successor?
19
Power Mac Prevails
22
400-MHz Pentium II PCs 22
Next for Java Office Apps 24
Knuth's New Knuth
28
EVAL
GRAPH ICS CARD
Number Nine's New Spin: Revolution JD
33 Fast video playbac k and you r choice of AGP or PCI.
DIGITAL CAMERA
CMOS Gets the Picture 34
Using a CMOS sensor, Sound Vision's SVmini-209 delivers high-quality pies at a low price.
AUTHORING SOFTWARE
A Watchamacallit for Words 37
Dan Bricklin's software fo r making hypertext documents.
NETWORKS
Adjustable Cell Rates for ATM Networks
43 By William Stallings A new ATM service compen sates for network congestion.
OPERATING SYSTEMS
Autoconf Makes for Portable Software
45
By Bob Friesenhahn Use of OS features and a free ware scripting utility solves
26 No-Compromise Power Portables
106
By Michelle Campanale We test MMX laptops with 166 MHz, 200-MHz, and 233 -M H z CPUs. Plus: the first notebooks with Intel's 1'illamook CPU.
Extend Your Net withVPNs
114
By Morgan Stern We check out 10 virtual private network pack ages that let you use the Internet as your own private WAN.
159 Alpha workstations hit 600 MHz; Unix notebooks; and more new products.
WEB PROJECT
REVIEWS
IMPROBABLE
Cascading Style Sheets
97 ByJon Udell CSS will change how Web designers work. H ere are some ways to learn and use it.
JAVATALK
An Uncertain Discovery 101
By Rick Crehan M etrowerks' Discover Programming will give you a decent introduction to Java, but it can be ann oying.
CHAOS MANOR
Fooling Around with the Web 129
By j erry Pournelle N ew tools help build the M anor 's Web site. Plus, a visit to th e world's greatest grap hi cs show: SIGGRAPH.
SECURITY SOFTWARE Cryptography Gets Personal
121
By Pete Loshin Six products that promise to secure your data, both over the Internet and on your desktop.
WEB SERVERS Battle of the Network Superservers
125
By Barry Na nce N etscape's SuiteSpot 3 vs. Microsoft's IIS 4.
Content nnd Property Que
Something to STARE At 164
4-D images arrive (on our very own pages)! Senders of junk e-mail get hosed.
SERVICE
Reader Service Inquiry Reply Cards 156A-B
Index to Advertisers
Alphabetical Order
156
Editorial Ind ex
by Company
158
THE BYTE WEBSITE and THE VIRTUAL PRESS ROOM
http: //www. byte.com
CORE
applicati on portability across various fl avors of Unix.
DATABASES The Quest to Standardize Metadata
47 By Stephen R. Gardner Someday, disparate data manipulation tools will be able to exchange info rmation.
CPUs Building the Virtual PC
51
By Eric Traut A software emulator trans form s th e PowerPC into a Pentium PC.
PRO RAMMING
Dynamic HTML Explained, Part 1
53 By Rick Dobson Dynamic objects and client-side processing mean better Web sites and better browsing.
PROGRAM LISTINGS FTP: ftp .byte.com
From BIX: Join "listings/
fro mby te97" and select th e appropri
ate subarea (i.e., "nov97").
BYTE (ISSN 0360-5280) is published monthly by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Publication office: 122 1 Avenue of the Americas,New York. NY 10020. U.S. sub· scriber rate $24 .95 per year. In Canada and Mexico, $34.95 per year. European surface mail subscriptions $60, airmail $85. Non-European subscriptions, $60 sur· face mail or $85 airmail. All foreign subscriptions are payable in U.S . funds that can be drawn on a U.S. bank. Single copies $3.95 in the U.S., $4.95 in Canada. Executive, Editorial, Circulation, and Advertising Offices: 29 Hartwell Ave., Lexing ton, MA 02 173. Periodicals postage and standard mail postage (a) in edition codes WPt and WP2 paid at New York, NY RCSC, and addi· lionat mailing offices. Postage paid at Winnipeg , Manitoba. Canada Post International Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 246492. Registered for GST as The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc .. GST # 123075673. Postmaster: Send add ress changes and fulfillment questions to BYTE Subscriptions, P.O. Box 552, Hightstown, NJ 08520.
Printed in theUnitedStates of America.
www.byte com
NOV EM BER 1 997 BYTE 3
CONTENTS BY PLATFORM
IN DEX
WINDOWS
A Ch ip off th e Old Block . . 18
Digital's new 600-MHz 211 64
Alp ha CPU delivers th e highest
benchma rk scores of any NT
system we've seen.
x86 Vendors Unite
Against Intel. ..... .. .. . . . 19
AMD, Cyrix, and others are getting together to define a new PC architecture.
Future Watch .. . . . . ...... 22
Co ming next year: 400-MHz Pentium II PCs.
Number Nin e's New Spin :
Revolution JD .. ......... 33
This graphi cs card o ffers fast video playback and your choice of AGP or PCI.
A Watch amacallit
for Words . .... ... . ...... 37
Trellix is one of the first app li cati o ns to supp ort the ActiveX H yperl inking Protocol.
Socket to M e . ........... 73
Intel's new CPU interfa ces fo r its P6-class processo rs will make it tougher fo r rival chip makers to co mpete. Wh at does it mea n fo r PC use rs?
Deja Vu All Over Again .... 81
A loo k at NT's security holes, how t hey happen, and what you can do about them.
Compon ents Battling
Components . .......... . . 87
Eve ryo ne talks about DLL problems, but nobody's doing much about them.
26 No-Compromise
Power Portables ........ 106
We test Pentium laptops w ith
166-, 200-, and 233 -MHz
processors. Plus, so me interest
ing fin d ings about Tillamook
machines.
MACINTOSH
Power Mac Prevails . .... . 22
Apple's new 9600/350 offers p lenty of power, than ks to its 350-MHz 604e, but a whole new fam il y of PowerPC C PUs is right around th e corner.
Building th e Virtu al PC . .. 51
Conn ectix's emu lator puts a Pentium PC inside a Power M ac. Here's how it wo rks.
Components Battling
Components ............. 87
Extensions load extra fu nc ti on-and aggravati on into the OS environment.
UNIX
Server Wars .. .. ......... 26
Sun's new Enterpri se 450
fa mi ly of mid ra nge se rvers erases th e cost-of-ownership adva ntage claim ed by NT based wo rkgro up machines.
Autoconf M akes
fo r Portable Software . . .. 45
A fr ee util ity lets programm ers build sc ripts that tailor an applicati on fo r a specific Unix.
JAVA
Raising t he Java
Standard . ............... 10
The ca ll for a sta ndard ized
Java dese rves qu ali fi ed su pport
and skeptical app ra isal.
Wh at's Next fo r
Java Office Apps ... ...... 24
Applix, Corel, and Loms wi ll
bring new apps to marke t.
An Unce rtai n Discovery.. 101
M et rowe rks' new Discover Progra mming package is a good startin g point for J ava development, but it has some ann oying problems.
NETWORKI NG
Server Wars .. . ...... . . .. 26
Sun 's Ultra Enterprise 450
delivers a pea k speed of 1.7
GBps.
Adjustable Cell Rates
for ATM Networks . . ..... 43
Available Bit Rate in fo rm s the source system about network congesti on.
Fiber in th e Sky .. .. . ..... 58
A new generati on of broad band satellites will bring m ulti megabi t data rates to th e enti re globe soon. What is that going to mean for your networks?
Extend Your Net
withVPNs .. .. .. .... .. .. 114
Virma l private networks let you use the Internet as your own WAN . We review 10.
INTERNET/WEB
The Man with No
Domain Name ........... 23
What happens wh en a Web service has its domain name removed from the root server?
10 Steps to Better
Usability.. ............... 32
Designing a Web site ? C heck out interfa ce expert Jakob N ielse n's suggestions.
Dyn amic HTML Explained, Part 1 ... .. ...... . . . ... . . 53
DHTML permits dynamic styles, positioning, and con tent, as we ll as data binding to a browser and fa ster browsing th rough client-side processing.
Deja Vu All Over Again ... . 81
Windows NT boxes on the Intern et are subject to a variety o f attacks. H ere's how to deal wi th the security hacks.
Cascading Style Sheets ... 97
Balancing HTML purity and prese ntation pragmatism, BYTE's Webmaster experi ments with CSS.
Extend Your Net
with VPNs . ..... .. ... ... 114
Virmal private networks are designed to eliminate the haz ards o f private exchanges in public networks.
Cryptography Gets
Person al .. . ... ......... 121
T hese six products help protect your data with encryp tion and digital signatures.
Battle ofthe Network
Superservers . . .. ....... 125
N etscape SuiteS pot 3 and M icrosoft IIS 4 go another ro und. And th e win ner is .. ..
Fooling Around
with the Web . .......... 129
Downl oading updates over the Internet proves hazardous to the Chaos Manor network.
AGP .. .. . ..·... .. .· . . ...... 33
ATM ... . . . . . .. . . . . . ... .. . . . 43
Access framework .. . ... . . .. 47
ActiveX .. ... .. .. .... 13, 37, 81
Alpha .... .. .. .. .. .... . 18, 159
Authentication .. . . .. . . . . . . . 81
Available Bit Rate ..... . .. . . 43
Broadband t echnology ... . . . 58
CMOS sensors . . . . . ..... .. . . 34
CPUs .. .. ....... 18, 51 , 73, 106
Cascading Style Sheets . . 53, 97
Chips ...... .... 18,51. 106, 73
Code transl ation .... ........ 51
Components.. ...... .. .. 13, 87
Cryptography...... .. . 114, 121
DVD RAM .. .. ......... . .. .. 18
Data communications. .. . .. . 58
Databases ..... . . . .. .... . . .. 47
Denial of Service.. . .. . .. .. . . 81
Digital cam eras .. .. . . . . 34, 129
Dynamic HTML (DHTML) 53 , 97
Emulation . . ... . .. .... ...... 51
Encryption .. .. .. .... . 114, 121
Firewalls .. . .............. . 114
Graphics .. . .. . .. . 33 , 129, 159
Hypertext .. ................ 37
Internet/Web ....... 13, 53, 58 ,
81 , 97 , 114, 121, 125, 129, 159
Java...... ...... 10, 18, 81 , 101
Metadata .. ............ . ... 47
Mobile computing . . .... 58, 73,
106, 159
Motherboards .............. 73
Networking . . ... 18, 43, 58, 81 ,
114, 121 , 12 5
Notebooks . .... ... . .. 106, 159
Operating systems. . 45, 81 , 129
PC architecture . . . ...... .. .. 73
PGP . . .. ...... .. ... ... ... . 121
Personal communications
systems ... . . .. . ... .. . . . .. . . 58
Portability . ..... ... . . .. .... 45
Programming ....... 18, 45, 51,
53,97, 101, 159
S/MIME.. ...... .... .. 121 , 125
SEC slot. . .............. . . .. 73
SOCKS ................. . .. 114
Satellites, broadband . ... . . . 58
Security .. . 13, 58, 81 , 114, 121
Servers .. . . . .............. . 18
Slot1 .. .. .. .. .......... 18, 73
3-D graphics. ... .. 33, 101 , 164
Virtual PC . .. . . .. .. . . . .. .. . . 51
Virtual private networks . . . 114
Web design . ... .... 53, 97 , 129
Web servers. . . .. ... ..... . . 125
4 BYTE N OVEM BE R 1997
WWW byt C-.Om
See Us At COMDEX Fall '97 - The Sands #S3973
Now you can securely sell
your software worldwide
Leading the software industry into the future, Rainbow provides security solutions for your software success.
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Sentinel Software Protection is the most advanced and reliable protection available. Over 25 ,000 developers rely o n mo re than 12 mi llion Sentinels to prevent pi racy and ensure sales revenue.
SentinelLM Software gives customers new ways to try, buy, and use yo ur products. It is the most flexible way to enhance and control your distributio n.
Internet Sentinel allows yo ur custo mers to register, activate and upgrade ·your products anytime - anywhere over the world wide web.
Sentinel Professional Services Group provides developers securi ty co nsult ing, custom programming, strategic planning and distrib ution solutions.
For your complimentary Software Success Brochure
call or visit our web site
(800) 705-5552
www.rain bow.com / success
·1 /;.RAINBOW ECHN0 L 0 6 I ES The Software Security People
C ircle 133 on Inquiry C ard .
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PORT\JGAL; (0MELlA051) 19416507 RUSSIA: Mult~h lnt'I (7 095)176 35 84 SAUDI ARABlA: ZEDAN(966l2665190'1 SCANDINAVIA.: PeflCO M (47) 2249 1500 SINGAPORE: 5)"i:ems0e!.q"l(65) 747 2266 SClJTHAR!CA; ~Q7) 11887 »13
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SWITZERLAND: IBVAG (41 ) 174592 92 SWJ21R.ANl 5.'i!(.cnJRiSA{41)244255B5 TAl\NAN: E~ Tech. (886) 2 8208925 THAILAND: Bus.Carp. Sr.;. (66)2 3 194451 TUNI SIA: Solt Info. Tech. (2 16) 17 19486 TURKEY: BIMEK5, ltd.(902) 163483 508 VENEZUElA: HFl.T-MOse!!.(58)22614282
©1997 Rainbow Tec hnologies, Inc . Sentinel, SentinelLM, Internet Sentinel and Professional Services Group are tradema rks of Rainbow Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.
rBv1 r.I·· E··-·-.·
November 1997, vol. 22, no. 11
EDITOR IN CHIEF Ma rk Sch lack Lexington, MA, 781-860-6827 mschlack @bix.co m
VICE PRESID EN T/PUBLIS HER
Kevin McPherson
Lexington, MA, 781-860-6020
kmcphers @mcg raw-hill .com
EditorialAssistant: Chrystie Terry
Lexington, MA, 781-860-6294, chrystie_terry@mgh.com
EDITORIAL
EXECUTIVE EDITORS
lnternational: Rich Friedman
Peterborough , NH, 603-924-2523 rfriedma n@bix.com
New Media: Jon Udell
Peterborough , NH, 603-924-2622 judell@bix.com
M ANAGIN G EDITOR Jenny Donelan Peterborough, NH, 603-924- 2511 jdone lan@bix.com
WEST COAST
Burea uChief/Features Editor:
John Mont gomery San Mateo, CA, 650-513-6809 jmontgomery@ dev5.byte.com
NEWS
News Editor:David L Andrews
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Raising the Java Standard
We need many flavors, but one standard.
he recent call by Microsoft, Intel, Digital Equipment, and Compaq for a standardized Java deserves both qualified support and skeptical appraisal. Let's take the skepticism first. Can you think of four companies with less inclination to openness? Windows and VMS have never been within a city block of a standards body. Intel used to be rela tively open, for a chip company, but its lat est moves with the Pentium II (see page 73) represent a classic closed door to com petition. And while Compaq has devel oped more original technology than most PC companies, it hasn't developed a sin gle open one that I can think of. Nonetheless, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Mindful of this group's motives, let's look at the realities. Why is the Internet bigger than Unix ? Because you can depend on the Internet to be the same everywhere and you can't with Unix. Which way should Java evolve-like Unix or the Internet? I vote for the Internet. So should Java advocates. For Java to spread beyond a dedicated core, both the software indus try and corporate IS will have to believe it has a stable future. Right now, Java has not realized its dream of "write once, run everywhere." Plenty of small differences in virtual-machine implementations pre vent that. Sun executives talk quietly about revoking Microsoft's license if it ships its version of the Java classes. Who will be left out in the cold then? The few hundred thousand Java users or the hun dred million Windows users? In a standards body, Sun will not get everything it hopes for, and neither will Microsoft. That's the point: Companies will have to cooperate to grow the pie. What do they have to lose? Let's exam ine the common myths:
Microsoft will hijack Java. Sure, it'll try. For over a year, the rap from Red mond has been "Java is a language, not a platform. " Sounds a lot like "The Inter net is a network, not a platform," a rap Microsoft was forced to retreat from. H owever, should Microsoft not come to its senses, there's nothing about a stan dardized Java that prevents Sun or any one else from putting out its version of correctness and letting customers decide. If this technology is capable of standing up to the rigors of mission-critical com puting, it's capable of surviving a stan dards body.
Standards slow the development process. Sure they do, in the same way that reading a map slows down the pro cess of getting somewhere. It also pre vents us from getting lost, a very likely outcome for Java if its advocates don' t
has ever submitted its product to a standards body, so why should Sun? No one else- at least since UCSD's p-code implementation-has claimed its product as a universal pl atform. Such a goal requires more than business as usual.
In a standards body, Sun will not get everything it hopes for, and neither will Microsoft.
plan the route carefully. And what's the rush? Java is three yea rs from being a mainstream application development platform. I'd like to think it' ll be right, not just available, by then.
Java's too young to strangle in a standards body. Hmm, standards are too slow to achieve results, but too fast to allow growth.
Standards mute competition. Real ly? Tell that to IBM, loser of the 1980s net work standards race between Ethernetand Token Ring. Submitting its Token Ring technology to the IEEE 802 committee did not prevent the other main 802-governed technology-Ethernet-from whipping IBM in the market. But it did allow cus tomers committed to Token Ring to know where the technology was headed.
No other operating system vendor
Right now Sun and Microsoft are mir roring each other, trying to establish de facto standards. I support the Java Lob by's call to Microsoft and Intel to cease fractious activities. But I also think Java needs anindependentstandardsbody perhaps a combination of the Java Lob by and vendors-dedicated to advancing the technology. If serious users are going to commit to Java, they 're going to have to see maturity, stability, and reliability from the vendors as well as from the products.
Mark Sch lack, Ed itor in Chief mschlack@bix .com
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ActiveX Files
The otherwise very good ActiveX cover story (Sep tember) includes some dis information in David Linthicum's sidebar on secu rity. Simply put, ActiveX has no security model. The infa mous Exploder control that powers down a Windows PC was signed with a Verisign certified signature (http:// www.halcyon.com/mclain/ ActiveX). Microsoft claims thatAuthenticode, its code signing framework, is a secu rity model. It is not. It's an authentication framework.
"If a control destroys your system," you say, "at least you'll know whom to beat up." This is silly. What if the government passed a regula tion that thieves must wear name tags if they break into a house when the owners are not present, and then the FBI rationalizes it by saying, "If a thief steals you blind when you're not home, at least you'l l know whom to jail"? I don ' t think so.
Any hostile ActiveX con trol worth its salt will erase all traces of itself before pro ceeding with the rest of the dirty work. Since ActiveX is Win32-omnipotent, it can do anything. ActiveX may have its place in the develop er's toolbox, but it's not a suitable model for exe cutable content. Gary McGraw Research scientist Reliable Software Technologies gem @rstcorp.com
I'm not sure I disagree with Mr. McGraw's observations.
My intention was to explain the ActiveX security model, not promote it. As with any security subsystem, there are always methods to defeat it. We've seen this with Java, with the Internet, and I'm sure ActiveX is no exception. - David Linthicum
I want to thank the folks at BYTE for writing that excel lent article, "ActiveX Demystified." There is, however, something that came to mind after reading it. Does ActiveX open Microsoft to a new era of unrelenting competition ? Think about it. By dividing applications into objects that follow the Component Object Model (COM) spec, Microsoft has created many more targets subject to com petition . It is difficult to unseat an entire suite of applications (as Corel has found out), but now, small and hungry software firms can target spelling checkers, TCP/IP handlers, peripheral drivers, and many other objects. Are we going the way of software widgets? Is Microsoft going the way of GM, where, in order to keep costs down, it will have to subcontract? The future that ActiveX will bring will be interesting indeed. Joseph Almeida Brampton, Ontario joe.almeida@sympatico.ca
P&S'ing for Dollars
We appreciate BYTE's recog nition of the growth of pub lish and subscribe technolo
gy ("Publish or Perish," by Richard Hackathorn, Sep tember). However, we wou ld like to clarify several points made in the article.
T he statement that "no examp les of monetary exchange with P&S have occurred" (page 66 ) dismiss es the origin of publish/sub scribe technology on Wall Street, where this model provides the infrastructure for billions of dollars in transactions. In fact, Open Horizon's Ambrosia product opens the door for electron ic commerce beyond the trusted computer base of a LAN to the often unreliable environment of the Internet. Ambrosia offers guaranteed message delivery, transac
tion support, and compre hensive security around the core publish/subscribe mes saging engine.
Contrary to the article's characterization of Ambrosia as based on COR EA, it is a pure publish/sub scribe product implemented in Java. Ambrosia provides thre e levels of CORBA com pliance to increase the flexi bility of customer imple mentations, but it is not tied to CORSA. Finally, while you quoted our CEO, you left out our contact information: 65 0-869-2200; http ://www .openhorizon.com. Audrey Kalman Director ofmarketing Open Horizon, In c. South San Francisco, CA
While there are certainly billions ofdollars being exchanged daily, these exchanges are done in sys tems carefully designed with limited sets ofparties in volved. There are no stan dards to allow economic exchange between indepen dent consumers and produc ers. The subscribing process needs to be opened, as the Webcasting folks are doing.
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Economic exchange is criti cal to that openness. While the article might have implied that Open Horizon works only as a CORBA based product, this was cer tainly not the intent. That said, COREA andJava are not mutually exclusive. - Richard Hackathorn
Web Groupware
Jon Udell's "HTML+ NNTP = Groupware" (September Web Project) hit on several important points but didn't mention that the Web was originally designed to do what he's describing: collab orative authoring. When Tim Berners-Lee invented this stuff, he was trying to provide a way for people to collaborate on document authoring so that dispersed groups could write scientific papers. That's why the little known and even less-used CHECKIN and CHECKOUT methods are part of the HTTP standard. POST was meant to allow people to post articles and papers to newsgroups; it wasn't meant to receive results from a form as it is now used.
The only advantage of using NNTP/INND over the Web is that replication is bet ter supported (this is where Lotus Notes scores). How about doing all this stuff using a Web browser and a Java applet that would add the re levant headers to an HTTP POST request so that you wouldn't have to split the subject line into name, company, and keywords? This would allow you to make the user interface more intuitive, and you wouldn't get misformed subject lines. The display of threading wouldn't be as easy (newsreaders have threading built in), but if Lotus Domino can do out
lining "twisties" on the fly, why can't a Web server script? Doing it this way removes the problem of old text-only news readers, and we're back to a thin vanilla client with any smarts being added as Java applets that get downloaded and updat ed when required, plus some server-side scripting for sort ing, outlining, and thread displaying. Hubert Matthews hubert@patrol.i-way.co.uk
Very true about the Web 's origins. And yet oddly, the Web has emerged into popu lar consciousness as primari ly a read-only medium. Meanwhile, the Usenet has become a read-write medium for the masses. My strategy is to go with the flow.
The biggest advantage of using NNTPJINND is: no server-side programming required at all to deal with .a basic document database, with discussions, with binary attachments, and now even with HTML. It wasn't planned this way, but the combo ofNNTP servers and clients has become in a way more useful than the combo ofHTTP servers and clients, that is, for the particular class ofapplication to which I'm trying to draw attention. This is a very large, impor tant class ofapplication.
A Web server script can do those things you mention. I've written lots ofthings like that. But I'm trying to focus on what can be done with out-of-the-box tools and no programming. -Jon Udell
Other lnterfaces
Your article on network user interfaces ("Good-Bye, GUI-Hello, NU!," August) left out one important NU!. Silicon Graphics' Indigo Magic has had for about a
year now many of the fea tures other vendors will be implementing in the "near future, " such as URLs direct ly on the desktop, a network clipboard, and a file manag er that can show FTP sites or other URLs directly and lets
you drag and drop a page to a local file. Kristoffer Lawson setok@fishpool. com
Here's another interface you might want to check out: the KDE (as in Kool Desktop Environment) pro ject for X Window-but mostly Linux-systems. Based on the Qt widget set by Troll Tech, KDE is a free GUI/NU! undergoing devel opment by a team of pro grammers around the world. At the heart of KDE is Kfm, the file manager. It's net work-oriented and can view any file tree that can be described in URL format. It can already render most HTML, and the next major version, Kfm II, will also function as a Web browser (it will even support frames). There are other app lications in KDE, too, including sim ple editors, a font browser, and a sound player. At the moment, the software is still in alpha phase, but it's remarkably stable, and I use it virtually full-time now. If you want to read more, go to http://www.kde.org/. ]ohnMcNulty jo hn @vogue.demon.co.uk
Improbable Products, or If We Had a Million
Man, I am sitting on an S.F. to-Boston flight and cannot stop laughing. September's Improbable item about Sto chastic Cleaner-the pro gram that "cleans your hard disk of all the clutter that you probably don't need" is just great. Keep up the good work. Steve Butcher steveb @collectivet ech.com
Glad you enjoyed it. Many readers have written us to find out how they can actu ally buy the products covered in Improbable; for example, we received virtually mil lions ofletters about Cyber Babewatch (August), includ ing one from a clinic that dangled before us the possi bility ofreal cash expendi ture. But until those fussy, ROI-obsessed venture capi talists start returning our calls, the items mentioned on the end page will have to remain on the drawing board in Marc Abraham's mind. -Editors
Hot Plug Today
While you did a solid job of describing how Hot Plug PC! technology works, and the role it can play in reducing server downtime, you left out information regarding the current availability of compliant products ("Hot Plug Will Deliver Higher Availability," July Bits). Net Frame Systems has been shipping Hot Plug PC! sys tems, boards, and device dri vers since 1996, when the company introduced its ClusterSystem 9016 server. Last June we introduced the ClusterSystem 9008, which offers eight individually hot
1 4 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
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FIXES
We used Visual C+ +version 4.2, not 4.3, as part of o ur benchma rk rests of Pentium II PCs (September H ardware Lab Report).
Zyxel's omni.net (October Hardware Lab Report) is 17.9 (W)x13.1(L)x 3.8 (H) centimeters, not inches.
Wright Strategies' FormLog ic 3.0 development kit (Sep tember What's N ew, page 145) costs $250 per user fo r 75 users. The per-user price goes down incrementa ll y as the number of sea ts goes up.
COVER STORY
Microprocessor Update
BYTE's annual analysis of the microprocessors that will be powering systems in the next year.
MANAGING DATA
Enterprise Management
Frameworks
Computer Associates, Tivoli, and a handful of others have
created systems that help you monitor and administer
everything on your network. Here's how they work,
wh at they do, and what they can't do.
BUILDING NETWORK APPLICATIONS
Microso~ COM 3
A look at the recently announced changes to
Microsoft's Component Object Model.
Editors' Choice Awards
Our pick of the most important products of the year.
REVIEWS
Web Development Kits
We round up high-powered software for developing and deploying custom Web applications.
BeOS
We get our hands on this multimedia- rich OS and analyze its chances of being an alternative to Apple's upcoming Rhapsody.
NT 4.0 Enterprise Edition
Until 5.0 arrives, the place to get Microsoft's latest NT based networking technologies is NT 4 Enterprise Edition.
Our testswill help you decide if it's worth the upgrade.
1 6 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
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News & Views
AChip off the Old Block
Digital has reestablished Alpha's CPU performance lead over Intel at the high end.
Its next move: Another stab at the desktop PC space.
ow that the new 600-MHz 21164 delivers a considerable advantage in raw performance over Intel's Pentium II, Digital will try again to penetrate a market that has so far eluded its Alpha processor: the desktop PC.
Like other RISC CPU vendors, Digital was embarrassed in late with DVD support, Digital officials say.
1995 when Intel's Pentium Pro caught up to the Alpha, at least The 21164PC isn't Digital's first attempt to enter the RISC PC
in integer performance. However, Digital has reestablished its market. The company's 21066, a less expensive version of the
performance lead at the high end: A new 600-MHz 21164 Al 21064 Alpha CPU, fared poorly and illustrates the many reasons
pha-based system from Polywell, which BYTE recently tested, why penetrating the mainstream PC market is such an uphill
trounced 300-MHz Pentium II-based systems in our CPU-/FPU battle for a RISC vendor. At the time, Digital officials blamed
intensive BYTEmark tests. The 350-MHz 604e also does quite the 21066's tepid reception on a lack of native Alpha NT appli
well on this test.
cations and other market factors. But analysts say the main rea
Now Digital is readying a new CPU, the 21164PC (see "Alpha son the 21066 sank was due to poor price/performance. Results
Arrives at the Desktop," May BYTE), which costs less than the from running our BYTEmarks on a reference system based on
21164 but delivers almost as much performance. The 21164PC the 21164PC indicate that the new CPU will deliver plenty of
targets desktop PCs costing $2500 to $3000, a price that's still performance for the dollar : It beats the 300-MHz Pentium II in
at the high end of the mainstream PC mar ket but much less than both integer and floating-point performance.
the $10,000 or so that systems us
Alpha chips are still dogged by
ing the 600-MHz 21164 now cost.
nagging questions about the num
The first 21164PC-based systems were expected to start shipping
RISC Races Ahead in BYTEmark Scores
ber of native app lications avail able for the platform, although
this fa ll, according to officials at
Digital and its partners have done
Digital. With the 21164PC, Digital re
533-MHz Alpha 21164PC
much to improve this situation since the days of the 21064. Today,
tained the 21164's basic core but did several things to reduce costs, including moving the 21164's modest (96-KB) Level 2 cache off
350-MHz PowerPC 604e 600-MHz Alpha 21164 466-MHz Alpha 21164
Digital claims 2000 to 2500 native app lications are available for the platform, and it's pushing the cre ation of more by offering hard
chip and reducing the pin count by eliminating support for mul tiple processors and limiting the
3:13-MHz Alpha 21164 300-MHz Pentium II
ware discounts for software ven dors and by helping vendors port their applications to Alpha. "We
size of the L2 cache to a maximum
90-MHz Dell Pentium
of 4 MB (down from 64 MB) .
The 21164PC processor costs
$495 in OEM quantities for the
533-MHz model and just $295 for
the 400-MHz version . At those prices, the chip competes with
have been driving the porting of app lications to Alpha for all OSes-with the focus on NT, and Unix a close second," says Aaron Bauch, manager of technical mar keting for Digital's Alpha Microprocessor. Another technol
both the Pentium and the Pentium II, although the 21164PC's ogy, Digital's FX!32 emulation/translation software, improves chip set, the 21174, costs abo ut $60 more than Intel's 440LX the performance of native x86 programs when executing on Al
Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) set. The 21164PC's motion pha NT hardware.
video instruction set enables it to perform streaming video Nevertheless, there are some holes. For example, Microsoft compression (e.g., full-frame and full-motion digital videodisc currently has native Alpha versions of Excel 97 and Word 97,
[DVD] acceleration) that can't be done on the x86 architecture but none of any other applications in its Office family. Getting
without additional hardware, such as a graphics accelerator more Alphas onto more desktopswill make the platform a more
1 8 BYTE NOVEMBER 199 7
anractive one for software developers to
target.
Many Alpha-powered systems are still
geared toward high-end applications,
such as animation, graphics production,
and databases, and most smaller compa
nies apparently don't need all that pow
er at the prices Alpha systems command
(see the Survey on page 24). Bauch be
lieves that this will change with the con
tinued evolution of Windows NT. "Our
advantage in the NT marketplace is per
formance and the longevity of a system,"
he explains.
By the first half of 1998, Digital will be
ready to release a new CPU, the 21264.
This is to be the company's flagship pro
cessor; it will target high-performance
servers and workstations and offer both
uniprocessor and multiprocessor config
urations.
In the past, Digital has simplifie d the
CPU core while gunning for the highest
speed. T he new 21264, which features a
complex, out-of-o rder CPU core, w il l
process up to 80 instructions at once. It
has a bandwidth several times higher than
that of previous chips, channeling up to
S.3 GBps of cache data and 2.6 GBps of
main memory into the demanding new
processor core. The new 21264 will start
life atSOO MHz, still far ahead of any com
petitors in terms of speed. And you can
expect Digital to release a PC version of
the 21264, according to PippaJollie, prod
uct manager for the 21164PC.
Digital is trying to emulate the success
of x86 manufacturers in building a base
of OEM customers by making the tech
nology more readily available. During the
past few years, for example, Mitsubishi
and Samsung have begun producing Al
pha chips, VLSI Technology has begun
producing third-party core logic (and it
might release a less expensive alternative
to the 21174 chip set), hundreds of op
tionsfrom third-party hardware vendors'
add-in cards now exist, and 2000-plus in
dependent software vendors now sup
port the platform.
What's missing-and what Digital
covets- is a design win for the 21164PC
with a top-tier PC vendor, such as Com
paq or Dell. "It's always been a primary
goal to get a tier-1 company," says Digi
tal'sjollie. Tier 1 ve ndors are interested,
she says, but they're currently in wait
and-see mode. "With the 21164PC, we
are providing vendors a product that we
hope they will adopt. I would be thrilled
if they did."
-Jason K. Krause
Geek Mystique
The Internet's Busting
Out All Over
The number of people who today reg ularly access the Internet through al ternative points of access has almost tripled since spring 1996. These alter native points of access include locales
Alternative Log-On Popularity
Hospitals
Museums/ 4% recreational
facilities
6%
Hotels
8%
other than home, school, or the office such as museums, libraries, retail out fits (including malls and cyber cafes), recreational facilities, churches, hos
Retail (malls, cyber cafes)
14%
pitals, and community centers. In 1996,
Media Research
1.5 percent of the survey respondents
claimed to access the Internet through alternative points; that's now up to 4 percent, sug
gesting that the Internet's importance in our daily life is increasing.
x86 Vendors Unite Against Intel
Foiled by Intel's rig id patents on Slot 1, rival vendors ofx86 chips are working on a new CPU interface to succeed the widely used Socket 7. The higher-bandwidth interface would be an open alternative to Intel's proprietary sockets and slots, but it could split the PC system architecture into incompatible standards. Cyrix officials confirm they've held discussions with AMD and other compa nies about a successor to Socket 7. Sock et 7 is the 296 -pin CPU socket used by all PS-class x86 chips, including Intel's Pentium processors, the AMD KS and K6, t he Cyrix 6x86 and 6x 86MX, and the Centaur IDT-C6. Intel's competitors need an alternative because they can't license the patented bus protocols for Intel's P6-class processors. All of Intel's P6 processors (including the Pentium Pro, the Pentium II, and the forthcoming Deschutes) require the same basic bus protocols, although the physi cal interfaces vary. The Pentium Pro uses Socket 8, the Pentium II uses Slot 1, and some fu ture Pentium II processors w ill use Slot 2. Mobile versions of the Pentium II use still another proprietary interface that's a miniaturized variation on Slot 1. Motherboard makers can put Intel's CPU interfaces on t heir boards, bur Intel won't share the technology with rival vendors ofx86 processors, although it has licensed it to some core-logic chip-set vendors.
"If we adopt a proprietary solution, it will only help Intel win," says Stan Swear ingen, product management director at Cyrix. "We be lieve the industry wants that to be an open socket. We' re already talking to chip -set vendors, AMD, and other companies to define a new inter face," he adds.
The interface would probably debut in 1999. Cyrix, AMD, and Centaur agree that Socket 7 wi ll remain popular at least through 1998, and possibly beyond. Although it has less bandwidth than In tel's interfaces, it's fast enough for main stream desktops and servers.
Vendors are currently working to ex-
Contents
Apple Pounds Clones
·22
Sun's 450 Server
Takes Aim at Wintel
26
Compaq Counters
Sun's450
28
How to Design
Better Interfaces
32
.by .com
NO V EMBER 1997 BYTE 1 9
tend the life of Socket 7 in several ways. This fall, AMD will likely anno unce a new K6 processor with a larger Level 1 (Ll) cache. Centaur plans to ship next year a new version of the IDT-C6 that will integrate the Level 2 (L2) cache. Other possible stopgaps include CPU daughter cards that plug into Socket 7 (see "Sock et to Me" on page 73 ).
Meanwhile, Intel isn't standing still. In August, it announced a new Pentium Pro processor with 1 MB of L2 cache twice the maximum cache size of earlier Pentium Pro chips. Intel plans to intro duce the Deschutes version of the Pen tium II in mid-1998. Deschutes will be the first Pentium II chip fabr icated on a 0.25 micron process, and it will eventually replace today's 0.35 -micron Pentium II chips (for more information, see "Future Watch," below).
Slot 2 is a higher-performance version of Slot 1 that will run at a bus frequency of at least 100 MHz and support larger single-edge contact (SEC) cartridges. These cartridges have room for bigger L2 caches. Intel is aiming Slot 2 at higher end desktops and servers, leaving Slot 1 for mainstream systems.
Even if Intel 's competitors can rally around an alternative interface, it will put many companies and users in a quandary. Today it's possible to make a Socket 7 motherboard that works with anybody's PS-class processor. But manufacturers say it costs too much to construct a mother board with two different CPU interfaces because they're electrically incompatible. Vendors would have to either create two versions of every product or choose sides.
The result could be two competing PC architectures: Intel and non-Intel. And since Intel is the industry's leading sup
plier of CPUs, motherboards, and chip sets, the non-Intel fac tion faces an uphill battle to establish an open standard.
-Tom R. Halfhill
Power Mac
Prevails (with
an Asterisk)
Apple's Power Macintosh 9600/350
uses the 350-MHz 604e CPU.
T
h anks to its 350-MHz PowerPC
604e CPU, faster cache, and other im
of Power Computing, the competition
provements, Apple's new Power Mac
for the 9600/350 is now a lot thinner.
intosh 9600/350 delivers excellent per
With Motorola pulling out of the Mac
formance. But its status as the "fastest
clone market and the Power Comput
Mac" comes with an asterisk.
ing buy-out, Apple doesn't have to wor
Thanks to turmoil surrounding Mac
ry as much about clone vendors further
OS licensing and Apple 's acq uisition
eroding its market share by introducing
Unsharp Mask (default) · · · ·
Unsharp Mask (custom) · · · · · · · · · ·
Gaussian Blur RGBtoCMYK
0
· Apple Power Mac 9600/350
(350-MHz 604e)
· AST Bravo MS 6300 (300-MHz Pll)
D Polywell 266-MHz Pll
· Power Tower Pro 250
4
6
8
10
Seconds
For more information on the Photoshop test suite, see the February Bits or http://www.whldbey.com/gallery/photoshop/.
The 9600/350's scores give It a sllght edge over AST's 300-MHz Pll.
Future Watch
Coming in 1998:
[ i400-MHz Pll PCs By th;< t;m< '"" year, Pentium II chips should be available at speeds of 400 MHz or higher, along with Pentium II versions for systems that have more than two proces sors and for notebooks.
Intel says the Deschutes ver sion of the Pentium II will debut at 333 MHz early next year. It will be built on a 0.25-micron process and will reach speeds of 450 MHz by the end of next year. Sometime during the first halfof 1998, Intel will release a 350- or 400-MHz version ofthe Pentium II that will support a 100-MHz system bus. This chip, which will
sit in a Slot 1 cartridge, will tar get desktops, entry-level servers, and workstations.
Around midyear, the compa ny will introduce Pentium II pro cessors that plug into Slot 2, which is intended for servers and accommodates a larger Level 2 cache that runs atthe core clock speed of the processor. Slot 2 configurations will support a
100-MHz system bus next year, and servers based on it will scale to a minimum offour processors, company officials said.
Intel will introduce Pentium II processors for portables during the first halfof 1998. These chips will be available in either a mod ified cartridge design (similar to slots but significantly smaller) or the Mobile Module.
2 2 BYTE NOVEMB ER 1997
new, powerfu l Macs based on the upcom ing G3 series (e.g., the PowerPC 750).
Another chip, Exp onential's533 -MHz X704 CPU, is a.lso no longer an option: Af ter fa ll ing short of its target clock speeds and delivery schedule, Exponential killed the X704 and is suing App le for breach of contract, interference, and other actions. At press time, the on ly Mac-clone vendor that had licensed Apple's Mac OS System 8 was Umax Computer.
For now, Apple's top high-end system is based on the 604e; G3-based systems from the company will probably ship this fa ll. But the %00/3 50 offers plenty of per formance fo:: power users. In addition to its 350-MHz CPU, the system has a 1 MB secondarr (L2) cache and a new cache controller that enab les the CPU to talk to the L2 cache at 100 MHz. Due to the cac he design , known as an in-li ne cache, the PowerPC doesn't have to wait as long for data as it would if the CPU accessed the L2 at the same speed as the 50-MHz system bus (CPU to ma in memory). The 604e's increa:;e in megahertz is due to the new 0.25-m icron process.
The 9600/3. 50 delivered the highest in teger performance of any desktop system BYTE has test·ed using our CPU/FPU BYTE mark tests. You can see how it rates against other systems on page 18. The BYTEmarks measure raw CPU performance and do not test other system components, such as hard drive and video adapter. In our suite of cross-platform Photoshop tests, the Power Mac beats a 300-MHz Pentium JI decisively m the arbitrary rotate test, but the other scores are closer.
The PowerPC 750 (code-named Ar thur), the first processor slated to come from the new G3 PowerPC fami ly, will in itially run :;lower (275 MHz) than t he fastest 604e. But thanks to a separate L2 cache bus and a small die size, the G3 se ries promises better performance at a low er price: A system from Power Comput ing with a 27~' -MHz G3 scored 9.4 and 6.1 in the BYTEmark integer and FPU tests, respectively. T hat system won't ship now, although Apple might sell it in the future .
But although Apple's decided that com petition from clones wasn't such a good idea, it still must compete aga inst Wintel, and, compared to some Pentium II PCs, the 9600/350 is pricey: w ith 64 MB of RAM, a 4-GB hard d rive, a 24X CD-ROM, a Z ip drive, a nd a video card with 8 MB, it's about $5400. AST's similarly configured Bravo MS 6300 is $2950. - Dave Andrews
wwwby om
The Man With No Domain ame
- -- - Dennis Gaughan must have looked forlorn, standing in the pouring rain, pound ~ .' ing on Network Solutions' door and pleading with security to put him in touch
with tech support. But what else was there to do? His domain name was gone.
Sometime Saturday afternoon, August 2, WebCom, a Web and e-mail ser
vice that hosts Gaughan's intranet site, had its domain name removed from the root servers
of Network Solutions, which manages the domain-registration system for the Internet.
The source of the problem was a bug in a script that Network Solutions was running over
the weekend while cleaning its databases, erroneously deactivating WebCom's domain. In
the aftermath of the crash, WebCom, which is based in California, was unable to contact
Herndon, Virginia-based Network Solutions to find out what had happened. Many ana
lysts say the WebCom incident is yet another in a string ofsnafus that highlight the Internet's
immaturity for hosting bet-your-business applications.
"Network Solutions is a single point of failure for the Internet, yet there's no 24-hour
hot line to contact them if something goes down," says Thomas Leavitt, executive vice pres
ident of WebCom. Network Solutions claims to have a direct line for contacting system
administrators at any time, but it's not a general hot line, and company officials asked BYTE
not to publish the number for the general public. Leavitt was unaware of this number at
the time that his Web site went down.
In the wake of the domain-name crisis, WebCom officials were able to find a WebCom
user, Gaughan, who lived in the same area as Network Solutions' facilities. "I went to Network
Solutions' facility in Herndon," says Gaughan. "I knew it wasn't the lnterNIC engineering
center, just an administrative office, but I wanted to get their security to put me in touch
with someone who could help."
Gaughan's confrontation with security happened to coincide with the first thunder
storm in the area in 31/2 months, and he got soaked for his efforts, but Network Solutions
called in some staff members and ran an emergency regeneration of the root server Zone
file to restore accessibility ofWebCom's domain.
-J. K. K.
DVD RAM Splits, But Products Still Coming
Justwhen it looked as if DVD RAM was sailing along smoothly as the next standard for writable storage, a rift in the group of key vendors backing the standard has created serious questions for end users. A trio of companies Hewlett-Packard, Philips, and Sony have decided to come up with an alter native format to DVD RAM, the record able version of DVD vid eo.
The new format, which will be called DVD+ RW, is incompatible with the o ne approved by the DVD Consortium and differs largely in its higher recording ca pacity, as we ll as in its recording tech-
nology. Nevertheless, major companies, such as Toshiba, say they're o n track to release products based on the original standard by the end of this year.
DVD+ RW will handle 3 GB o n a sin gle-sided d isk, and twice that on a do u ble-sided disk, versus 2.6 GB per side for the Consortium DVD RAM stand ard. At press time, Mitsubishi , Ricoh, and Ya maha had all signed on to the renegade standard, providing momentum for this proposal.
Could the split in the DVD RAM stan dard be a replay of the infamous Beta versus-VHS battle? Possibly, but it almost certainly portends unsettled times for buyers of DVD RAM prod ucts. Several oth er major players, such as NEC and Toshiba, have not announced any intent to support this new standard . "Toshiba is pretty much in line with the original schedule to commercialize this technol-
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 2 3
_ _1nr
What's Next for Java Office Apps ogy and introduce products into the
market by the end of 1997," says Ken Ishi
hara, vice president for Toshiba Ameri
ca. "We are currently not going with those three companies and are [not] working
Amid a sea of changing strategy and has since scrapped that approach. "The concerns over Java's direction, soft problem was that we would demon
with that [other] format."
ware vendors say they wi ll continue to strate our applications, and the response
Werner Glinka, director of marketing bring Java business app lications to mar from users, even at pro-Java sites, was
for Hitachi' s Storage Products Group, ket. Software developers working in the 'This is great, but can you add just this
says his company has already delivered Java space must juggle the evolvingJava one feature?'," says Chris Biber, Corel's
samples of its GF-1000 drive to key custom platform with the realities of bandwidth director of strategic alliances. "Before
ers, who will sell Hitachi's drives under availability and end users' expectations. you know it, users were asking us to add
their own labels. Like Toshiba, Hitachi's
drive is based on the original standard. Glinka admits that the rival standard
Java Office Apps Road Map
provides for slightly more storage space at first, but he says the DVD Consortium has announced plans to provide up to 50 GB of storage space over the next 10 years. "What counts in the end is broad avail ability of products from a number of com panies," he says. "Broad availability will solidify the standard." Sony isn't current ly saying when it will ship drives that are based on the new format- on ly that it will support it.
W hy the split? Sources who wish to re main unnamed said there are several pos sible reasons. One is that Sony was un
Appl ix: Will release this year an NT server version of Anyware Office (which delivers
a word processor, a graphics-capable spreadsheet, an e-mail client, and HTML author ing to Java-enabled clients) to complement current Unix servers. Also plann ed: a new presentation module and a Java client for th e TM 1 OLAP program. {508-870-0300; h t t p :// w w w.applix.com)
Corel: Will release in mid-1998 "Remagen " (which lets Java-enabled clients access
existing Corel WordPerfect Suite 8 or other office suites running on a se rver) and "Alta" (a universal in -box, calendar/scheduler, ad hoc work-flow, task-management, and data access/analysis package) , plus technology for dynamic UI and application assembly to make programs run better over networks. (613-728-0826; http:l/www.corel.com)
Lotus: Will release this year the "Kona" family (which includes a N UI and data-access,
spreadsheet, word processor, charting, project-scheduling, presentation-g raphics, cal endar, to-do, and e-mail applets) . (617-577-8500; http://www.kona.lotus.com)
happy w ith its cut of the roya lties fro m
the original standard. Others say Philips and HP w ish to cast confusion in the mar ket so that more people will buy their multisession recordab le CD drives.
Whatever the reason, the rift might give even more impetus to solutions such as Iomega's Z ip drive, which stores less data than DVD per disc, but more than a floppy. Un less you must have t he first writable DVD product, it may be better to wait and see for sure. -Jon Pepper
But vendors such as Applix, which al ready sel ls J ava-based business app li cations, continue to forge ahead with new versions. Corel, after reth inking its strategy, says it will release a new Java suite next year, and Lotus plans to re lease Java productivity applets in the fourth quarter of this year.
Corel originally an nounced plans for aJava version of its full-function Office suite of applications, but the company
more and more features. Adding a ll those would have resulted in a chub by- not a thin-client." Corelwi ll sat isfy demands for a fully functional, Java enabled office suite with its Remagen technology (see the table above), while a new product li ne, currently code named Alta, will combine elements of CoreICentral and the evolved Corel Of fice for Java.
While Corel and Lotus work on their projects, Applix says it will continue to
improve its existingAnyware Office and
Enterprise Anyware (which consists of
sales, service, and help-desk modules).
"We've already re leased our first suite,
Small Companies Snub Alpha
Percentage of Systems Powered by Alpha
so we know that you can use this kind of technology to create complex app li cations for the power-user communi ty,"
t hei r Windows NT appl ications over Digital's Al pha CPU, espe cia lly compa nies t hat have less t han 500 em pl oyees. Acco rd ing to a recent survey of compa nies t hat now run Windows NT, which was co nducted by BYTE's resea rch depart ment, almost97
~ ~
Under 500 employees 500 or more employees
l!!!I One or More Alphas 0 NoAlphas
Source: BYrE magazine research dept. Total number of respondents: 140.
says Barry Burke, vice president of prod uct marketing at Applix.
However, as vendors go forward, they will have to master the art of bro ken fie ld running as the Java platform evo lves. The latest donnybrook be tween Microsoft and Sun, over which fo undation class to support-S un'sJFC or Microsoft's AFC- in addition to questions over who shou ld control the
percent of those smaller com panies don't have any systems powered by Alp ha CPUs.
Java standard may only serve to imp ede
Java's growth.
-D. A.
24 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
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C ircle 130 on Inquiry C ard.
Datapro Report
Server Wars: Sun and Compaq Take Shots at Each Other
S un Microsystems' recently announced Ultra Enterprise 450 Work Group server is a stiff competitor for Compaq's Proliant servers. The Enterprise 450 levels the cost-of ownership issue against Windows NT/Intel (Wintel) servers, offers better performance, supports PC-client environments, and offers the resiliency of Solaris and scalability across Sun's Enterprise server product line (which supports up to 64 processors in a symmetric multiprocessor/server configuration). Com paq's Proliant 7000 (see article, next page) is strategically positioned against the 450, but Sun's 450 announcement is a bold strike against Wintel.
The Enterprise 450 is a robust midrange server. It supports up to four UltraSparc II processors, which use Sun's UPA system bus; it has a peak speed of 1.78 GBps. This compares with 540 MBps for Intel's Pentium Pro. A fast system bus lets multiple proces sors access memory faster, providing more efficient symmetrical multiprocessing.
The Enterprise 450's 1/0 architecture is based on the PCI bus : It has six PCI buses, including three 66-MHz PCI buses, resulting in a peak 1/0 bandwidth of just over 1GBps. This is more than three times the 1/0 band width of the Pentium Pro Intel servers, which support two 33-M Hz PCI buses.
The Enterprise 450 is actually priced less than Compaq's Proliant 6000 and 7000 servers (see the table below) . And Sun has taken care of third-party application software costs, which were a huge differentiator be tween midrange Unix servers and Wintel servers. Sun has negotiated a new work group-server pricing level for one· to four-way Sun Enterprise servers that levels the pricing differentiation for applications such as Ora cle and Sybase. Third-party applications for Sun's Enterprise 450 are priced the same as identical applications for Wintel servers.
Sun's Enterprise 450 server provides more performance than the fastest Intel servers currently available for Windows NT 4.0 (see the table) . Compaq has yet to publish a TPC C result for the Proliant 7000 for NT, but it claims 10,547 tpm for the Proliant 7000 with four 200-MHz Pentium Pros running SCO UnixWare. Its price/performance result ($71 / tpm) was not as good as Sun 's. Compaq is expected to publish a TPC-C result for the Proliant 7000 running NT, which should have better price/performance-and maybe even better performance.
PC users can access their files transpar-
Sun's Enterprise 450 has 10 PCI slots, including 66-MHz, 64-bit-wide ones.
ently from any Sun server w ith Sun's Solaris for lntranets, which ships with every Sun En terprise server. Solaris for Intranets is also available for $1 290 for Solaris Intel platforms.
Introduced recently, Sunlink, a module of Solaris for lntranets, supports file systems for Windows 3.11 , 95, and NT; Mac; NetWare ; and MS LAN Manager. Print-sharing and file sharing services for these clients are sup ported by Sunlink. PC users can access their Microsoft Office files from Sun 's 450 without changing anything. Sunlink is included with the Enterprise 450 server, but no additional client software is needed.
Sun has completely disguised Solaris from PC users, who can install the Enterprise 450 (or any Sun Enterprise Server) using any browser. Sun's WebStart is an easy one-but ton installation that has options for custom ized configurations. Installation is no harder
than it is for Compaq's SmartStart. The Enterprise 450 has many, but not all,
of the Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability (RAS) features found in the Enterprise 3000, 4000, 5000, and 6000 servers. It comes standard with two (and an optional third) 560 W power supplies, which are hot-swappable. Sun's 450 also supports hot-pluggable disk drives, thermal sensing, and four levels of sys tem diagnostics.
Sun's SyMON provides a complete set of on-line diagnostics. If a CPU or memory module fails, the 450 detects the failure auto matically, takes the failed module off-line, and continues to process. But the system does not support on-line reconfiguration (as other Sun servers do), where a failed processor or memory module can be replaced, or a new module added, and the system can reconfig ure itself without being taken down.
Short of supporting NT, Sun has done al most everything it can do to take on Wintel workgroup servers: It has eliminated price as a barrier and brings most of its enterprise ca pabilities to the workgroup server. The Enter prise 450 should gain market share against Sun's major Unix competition (HP and IBM) , whose Unix midrange servers lag far beh ind. For mixed Unix and NT environments, Data pro recommends that customers evaluate both Sun and Compaq (and other Wintel plat forms) for workgroup computing. Peter Lowber is a principal analyst for Datapro, a division of the Gartner Group. For more informa tion on Datapro reports, call 609-764-0100; fax 609-764-2814; or see http:llwww. datapro.com.
Sun Strike on NT
Processor/ MHz
Sun Enterprise 450
UltraSparc II/ 250and300
L2cache
1 and2MB
TPC·Ctpm results
11 ,560 (four 300-M Hz CPUs, Solaris 2.6, Sybase 11.5)
$/tpm
56.6
Entry street $14,650 (250 MHz) price (128 MB $19,150 (300 MHz) of memory, 4·GBdisk)
Compaq ProLiant 6000
Pentium Pro/ 200
512KBand1 MB
9029 (four CPUs with 512-KB cache, UnixWare, Sybase)
79
$15,196(512-KB L2 cache with NT Server4.0)
Compaq ProLiant 7000
Pentium Pro/ 200
512 KB and 1 MB
10,547 (four CPUs with 1-MB cache, UnixWare, Sybase)
71
$23,016(1-MB L2 cache with NT Server 4.0)
2 6 BYTE NOVEMBE R 1997
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Circl e 136 on Inqu iry Card .
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Proliant 7000 Takes on
Sun450
With the excellent reputation Solaris has for supporting enterprise-class, mission-critical environments, and the scalability of Sun's Enterprise Server line, Sun's450 is attractive forworkgroup serv er and enterprise environments. But with its ProLiant (PL) 7000, Compaq has de veloped a server that's strategically po sitioned against Sun's 450.
The PL 7000 provides many of the same Reliability, Availability, and Serviceabil ity (RAS) features as Sun's Enterprise 450 (see Datapro Report, previous page). In addition, the PL 7000 supports up to four oflntel's Pentium Pro 200-MHz, 1-MB, L2 cache processors.
But Compaq is positioning the PL 7000
Compaq's Proliant 7000 is expandable to eight CPUs.
with the future capability to support up
to eight Intel processors . As eight-way
servers for NT become a reality with NT
5.0 and Deschutes, the next-generation
Intel server processor, the pressure will
be back on Sun. The 450 is only a four
way server; for more scalability, Sun us
ers are forced into a much-higher price
bracket. Also, Compaq is strategically
positioning the PL 7000 as a standards
based server for hot-plug PCI and 120. Now that Sun is supporting the PC!
bus, Compaq is upping the ante. This is
not an issue yet, but it may become one
as these new standards materialize dur
ing 1998.
-P. L.
2 8 BY TE NO V EMBER 199 7
Book Review
The s·
onald Knuth's magnum opus The Art of Computer Programming is, quite simply, the
bib le of c lassical computer science. "The Knuths" are still referred to and studied in
an age when technology changes faster than processor clock speeds. Now, for the first time
since 1972, Knuth is updating his lifework. Addison-Wesley has released the first volume,
Fundamental Algorithms; the second (Seminumerical Algorithms) and third (Sorting and
Searching) are due to arrive in November.
It is Knuth's philosophical approach that preserves his work so well. He does not pre
scribe to the latest trend in programming languages. Instead, he expounds the funda
mental flow of programming algorithms, the essen
tial architecture of data structures, and the basic
mechanisms of stacks and queues, using, as he puts it, "English as my high-level language:' This approach cannot fairly be dubbed "generic:' Given the clarity
nrn CLASSIC WO !t K
Nl!WL\' UPOA'rl:O AN D REVISED
and specificity of Knuth's models, these constructs can be directly applied to a broad range of languages,
TheArt of
OSes, and hardware architectures. Typically, Knuth first describes an algorithm or
structure in general terms. He sets up the discussion
Computer Programming
with tables, flow diagrams, and other graphical aids. For instance, when opening the section on informa tion structures, Knuth covers important terms and
\IOI. Mill
Fundamental AJgori thms T hird Edition
notations by describing a simple algorithm involving
playing cards. The sample data structure includes fields for TAG , SUIT, RANK, NEXT, and TITLE-the
DONALD E. KNUTH
fields required for the data record. He then displays
the actual cards next to a computer representation
of the data records. Next, a figure shows record structures along with arrows that depict
how the records are linked. An algorithm for turning over a new card is presented step
by-step, accompanied in parentheses by relevant comments, as shown below.
Al . Set NEX T( NE\KARD l to TOP . <This puts the appropriate 1ink
into the new card node . )
AZ . Set TO P to NEW CARD. <This keeps TOP pointing to t he top
of t he pil e . )
A3 . Set TAG(TOP) to 0 . <This marks t he card as " face up ." )
Finally, Knuth uses low-level assembly language for the routine, listing each command
with comments. This meticulous, thorough methodology proceeds from a general descrip
tion to a specific implementation, so you understand the flow logic, the data architecture,
and the practical implications of the algorithm. The bulk of the first volume covers infor
mation structures, including stacks, queues, binary trees, and dynamic storage.
In his update, Knuth incorporates his own handwritten notes and adds hundreds of new
exercises and solutions, focusing on subjects that have "converged" over the years. In
some cases, Knuth concedes that a subject is evolving too rapidly to pin down. And in one
notable passage, Knuth admits that his M IX system, a mythical computer that he uses to
elucidate his models, is "now quite obsolete "-for example, MIX has no OS; it bootstraps
from tape. He plans to replace MIX with a 64-bit RISC computer, the MMIX 2009 , but he
has delayed converting the programs in Volumes 1 through 3 until after next year (and the
completion of Volumes 4 and 5) .
This is no casual read. But it is the essential reference
for the serious computer scientist and anyone who wants to understand computer structures and programmatic flows. lf you want a deep understanding of buffer-alloca tion or garbage-collection routines, along with alternative approaches and efficiency analysis, consult your Knuths. Stan Diehl is a frequent contributor to BYTE and former director of BYTE reviews. You can rea ch him at sdiehl@nebs.com.
The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 1: Fundamental Algorithms, Third Edition by Donald Knuth ; Addi son Wesley; 656 pages; 0-201-89683-4; $49.44
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Dell
l
IBM.
__j
_Comp_aq __
Sun Ultra_
- _ SGI _
1
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SGI
Viewperf CDRS Ben c hmark0 Test
Workstation s - Relative Price Performance '
WorkStation 400 266MHz w/ELSA Gloria-M Glint MX $195
lntelliStati on M Pro Mod el 26U INGR w/lntense 3D Pro 1000 $220
Professional Workstation 6000 Diamond Multime dia FireGL 4000 $318
Ultra 1 Creator3D Mode l 170E w/Creator3D $446
02 R5000/180MHz SC02 $533
- -Personal Workstation 266i w/Ac cel Graphics AccelPro 2500TX
--- --- _._
$624
Octan e 1x1 75MHz R10000 SI w/Tram $922
I Price pe1 composite score. lower number indicates greater price value . For more in·depth information. n?'~r te> w·ww.specbench.01g/gpc/opc/opc.cdrs.summaryJ1trnl
Dells expertise in industry-standard technology gives the Dell WorkStation 400 a price performance edge over selected models from significant competitors. This chart reflects a 30 -graphics-oriented benchmark modeling an environment similar to mechanical CAO.
Fasten your seatbe lts. Because the Dell "' WorkStation 400 is built for speed. From its high bandwidth dual independent bus arch itecture to its sing le or dual fast, new 266 or 300 MHz Intel Penti um®II processors. the word is "go'.' Even in the midst of the demanding data and graphics appl ications. it always fee ls like there's powe r to spare. And there is. thanks to all the high-performance industry-standa rd components in side. Like the 30, financial modeling, CAD. authoring and an imation video cards and even enhanced audio capabilities such as integrated 16-bit SoundBlaster Compatible Sound. But the rea l ru sh co mes from the fact that your Dell WorkStation 400 can be custom-built for you from the ground up . And is backed by a $9.8 billion global company* that can support it (and yo ur compan y) in eve ry way. With system engineering, 24x7 techn ica l hardware telephone and onlin e support, co nsulting, global integration. leasing, and asset management. The De ll WorkStation 400 comes with everything you'd expect in a workstation . Except, of course, the usual price tag.
DEu· woRKSTATION 400M
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* Prices and specifications valid in the U.S. only and subject to change without notice. !for a complete copy of our limited warranties, please write Dell USA L.P., One Dell Way, Round Rock. TX 78682. Ann: Warranties. ~on-site service provided by th ird-party providers and may not be available in certain remote areas. 3Com and Etherlinkare registered trademarks of 3ComCorporation. ·Reported revenues for last fo ur fiscal quarters.
°Copyright 1997, Standard Performance Eva luation Corporation. Information value co rrect asof print date. Intel, the Intel Inside logo and Pentium are registered trademarks and MMX is a trademarkof Intel Corporation. Windows and Windows NT are registered tra demar'<s of Microsoft Corp. ©1997 Dell Computer Corp All rights reserved.
_ _Inf
Blastsfrom · thePast
Years ago in BYTE
10 Steps to Better Usability
Jakob N ielsen, Sun Microsystems Distinguished Engineer, discusses the hows
and w hys of product usability.
What goes around, comes around. Five years ago, the hot topic was penny-pinch·
ing PCs. Dell's Dimen sion 386SX/25 sys tem offered an 80-MB hard drive, two floppy drives, Windows 3.1 , and a mouse for just $1359. Inexpensive PCs made lots of news this summer, too-not only traditional Pentium-type PCs that sell for under $1000, but NetPCs and network PCs (and cost of ownership), too.
Bill Gates was drumming up support at users-group meetings for OS/2, but devel opers (and BYTE columnist Jerry Pournelle) complained that OS/2 didn't take advan tage of the 386 and that it was a crippled OS on the 286. Compaq's 20-M Hz Porta ble 386 weighed 20 pounds, had 1 MB of RAM , and 40 MB of hard drive space fora mere$7999.
Remember the movie Tron , about a pro· grammer who finds himself trapped inside the electronic world of computers? Today its special effects seem tame, but at the time people were wowed. We wrote about how it was made and how Tron presaged a new era in computer-generated imagery.
Years ago in BYTE
Steve Ciarcia's well-known Circuit Cellar column, one that attracted a loyal follow ing over the years, debuted. And Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak wrote an arti cle about how to extend the 6502 proces sor using software.
BYTE: You've studied usability and user interface design issues since 1983. Is the number of people w ho design products with which others interact increasing? Nielsen: O h, yes, more peop le are al ready designing th eir own user interfaces, in the sense that a Web page is a user in terface. T he scope of user- interface de sign has expanded dramatically because of the Web. It used to be a small set of pro fess ionals do ing it. But now, it's essential ly everybody, because everybody seems
to be designing a Web site. M y ana logy is that d esigning a Web
page is quite similar to designing a dialog box. In either situation, you're designing a set of options for users. These options include what users can click on, what they can do, and what the stream of their at tention is when looking over the layout.
Designing a Web site is simi lar to de signing an application. You have to wo r ry about not just those detailed issues, but also about the navigational flow. How us ers move between all those differe nt op ti ons is o ne exa mple of w hat co mes into site design as opposed to page design.
We now have millions of peop le doi ng this, whereas, a few years ago, we had a few th ousand people doing this. Many of th e issues and prob lems that we see on the Web today, such as inconsistency, are the same ones we've had with other sys tems, such as mainfra mes, for a long time.
You can get more on this topic from http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic.
Nielsen's Top 10 List
PROVIDE STATUS FEEDBACK.
The system should tell users what's going on. "This is par tic ularly true for th e Web, which is not yet robust and reli abl e:'
MATCH BETWEEN SYSTEM
AND REAL WORLD. Th e sys tem should communicate in w ord s, phrases, and con cepts that are familiar to the user.
GIVE USERS CONTROL AND
FREEDOM. "Don't trap peo· pie in a state where they cannot escape. Always have a c ance l button available."
BE CONSISTENT. "If a button for your home page is al ways in the same location , users don't have to figure out where it is:'
PREVENT ERRORS. This may Wizards. There should be
sound obvious, but if some more than one way to ac
thing is likely to lead to an complish a task:'
error, make it difficult to do
PRACTICE AESTHETIC AND
and ask c onfirmation ques MINIMALIST DESIGN. "Every
tions such as, "Do you real piece of information on the
ly want to do this?" But don't screen competes with all
overdo th e confirmation, or the other information there.
the user may get impatient If something isn't necessary,
and cl ick "YES " to every· remove it."
thing.
HELP USERS RECOGNIZE,
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AND OPTIONS INTUITIVE. "Re FROM ERRORS. "In an error·
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something does:'
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PROVIDE FLEXIBILITY. "Give experi enced users short· c uts and give novice users
PROVIDE ON-LINE HELP that provides quick answers to specific questions.
32 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Your eyes might be the best way to control your PC screen. Page32IS3
Multilingual Net Searches
And Internet-based translation services. Page 32IS 4
Broadband Choices
ISDN or ADSL? The question just won't go away. Page 32IS 7
ugHunters
New testing tools help software developers control bugs and
ts. Page 32IS 17
Greener Design
Software helps manufacturers build environment-friendly products. Page 32IS 23
NOVEMBER 1 997 BYTE 32 15 1
First International Computer, Inc.
6F, FORMOSA PLASTICS REAR BUILDING 201-24, TUNG HWA NORTH ROAD, TAIPEI. TAIWAN Tel : 886-2-7174500 Fax: 886-2-7182782
See us at
COMDEX FALL
Las Vegas, Nov. 17-21 , 1997
Booth No. L2462 (LV.C.C.)
FIC WWW slte:http://www.fic.com.tw E-mail:mkt@ssl.fic.com.tw
Specilica tions sub~ct to chango wi thout no11co. All trad emarks used hero in are th e re~-s:erec property o! their
respective own ers ho Intel Inside and Penlium Logo arctrademarll.s o1 lnlel Corpora11on
Circle 450 on Inqui ry Card (R ES ELLERS: 451 ).
-:1
INTERNATIONAL
News & Views
Don't Blink
Forget Windows, icons, and your mouse. Your eyes may be the ultimate computer commander.
nv ision a PC t h at lets you trace a series of hyperlinked documents as you glance at the keywords or activate an incoming e-mai l message by just looking at the subject line. Researchers at the Heinrich-Hertz researc h institute (HHI) in Berlin recently demonstrated a gaze controlled 3-D user interface. It works w it hout inputti ng t raditional exp licit commands. " Our curren t prototype reads users' ga.zes and reacts before they can utter a command," says Siegmund Pastoor, a pro:iect leader at HHI. Called Bli ck (the German word for gaze), the system includes an autostereo scopic display that represents objects in 3-D witho ut the user wearing eith er a head-mounted disp lay or shutter glasses. Built-into-the-monitor head-tracking and eye-tracking cameras capture a user's gaze . "The advantage of our system is that users do not need to look at a fixed point on the screen or hold their head in a par ticular position," says Pastoor. Bl ick proj ects the stereoscopic right- and left-eye views into the user's visual fie ld. Blick's auto:;tereoscopic, free-v iewing 3-D display us es direction mu ltiplexing, a display techn ique that makes different
The current prototype deploys external cameras.
Eye-Controlled 3-0 Display
The system constantly projects the stereoscopic views into the user's visual field.
A head-tracking camera measures the exact position of the head, enabling stereoscopic right· and left-eye views to be projected into the user's visual field.
An eye-tracking system, to be incorporated in the monitor, senses a user's point of fixation.
The next generation of user interfaces may be in 3-D and controlled by your gaze.
perspective views visible only from spe cific positions. For each position, the sys tem calculates on the fly both st ereo scop ic views and projects them together to create the illusion of a 3-D space. Im ages seem to jump out at you.
To avoid time lags berween the head tracking camera's image capturing and the stereoscopic visualization on th e monitor (a typical delay of abo ut 120 mil liseconds), the system runs an algorithm to predict the viewer's head positio n. Thus, the graphics subsystem often works with anticipated head positions.
Additionally, an eye-tracking system constantly senses a user 's point of fixa tion (via a cornea-reflex method). The system then simulates the limited depth
of focus of the human visual system and makes currently fixated objects on the screen stand out against the environment. Thus, the user can interact w ith 3-D
o bj ects by just looking at them. If you
focus on an object for more than 0.1 sec ond, the object may change its shape or pop up new objects. Of course, the sys tem takes time to get used to.
HHI researchers also developed a vi sual OS (VOS) that allows you to paste together objects, configure applications, and even "visually" program applications in 3-D space, contro lled by yo ur gaze. VOS runs on a Silicon Graphics Onyx machine and also allows for live video conferencing in a virtual 3-D space.
-Rainer Mauth
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 3215 3
International Bits
Search the Net in Multiple Languages
Info rmati on retrieval on the Internet can be a labori ous task, not just because search engines o ften give you links th at are co m pletely out of context, but also because you may stumbl e on sites that are in a language you don'tunderstand. The only way around this hassle is a multilingual sea rch engin e that automatically translates info rmati on into a language that you understand. Lern out&Hauspie, a leadin g speech and lan guage technology developer, is planning to o ffer this service in mid-1 998.
L&H acquired several translati o n co m pani es, including M endez Tra nslati o ns (Brussels, Belgium) , Tra nslingua (Bonn , Germany), and Lexi trans (Madrid, Spain), last year. L&H says it will be investing $35 million in th e development of Intern et based translati on services. " Internet-based services w ill employ both our speech tech no logies and our newly acquire d transla ti o n ca p abiliti es," says Bo b Kutni ck , L&H's chief technology o fficer.
The L&H o n-lin e tra nslati o n se rvices will include multilingual text retri eval based on machine translation, and auto mated submission and receipt of hum an tra nslati ons via e-mail. The L& H search engine will, for exampl e, tra nslate a Ger man-language search request in to English, create an abstract of th e retrieved docu m ents, and tra nslate th e result back in to German.According to Kutnick, the engine will also ra nk t ra nslated d ocuments and build content clusters that make it easier for you to narrow down yo ur interests. If you want an exact translati on of your find ings, you will be able to submit docum ents via e-mail.
The company plans to offe r several lev els of services (e.g., basic machine trans lati on for a fl at m o nthly fee, unlimited
WHERE TO FIND
Central Research Laboratories
fax: +32 2 460 3834
http://www.lhs.com
Hayes, U.K.
+44 181 848 9779 fax: +44 181 848 6565 http://www.crl.co.uk
Prime View International Co.,
Ltd. Hsinchu, Taiwan
Lernout&Hauspie Wemmel, Belgium
+886 3 579 8599 fax : +886 3 578 8385
+32 2 456 0520
Prime View International Co., Ltd., of Tai wan has developed an LCD driving method that can crank sharp and crisp color images out of a thin-film transistor (TFT) LCD. Called the Integrated Driving Technology,this new driving method will give TFT LCDs higher resolution than other active-matrix LCDs, the company claims.
"We are the first in the world to offer such an advanced technology;· says Dyi-Chung Hu, senior director of R&D and the LCM man ufacturing division at Prime View. The new driving technology has received patents in the U.S ., Australia, and Taiwan , and is patent pending in Japan and the EC.
The Integrated Driving Technology will lower the cost of the LCDs by drastically reducing the number of driver ICs. Hu ex plains that in conventional active-matrix TFT LCDs,higher resolution has to be addressed by more individual pixels, resulting in a greater number of driver ICs.
For a Japan-made 5.4-inch TFT LCD, it
requires six !Cs-two 120-pixel 1/0 scan driver ICs and four 240-pixel 1/0 data-driver
ICs-to drive pixels to create a full -color dis
play. However, using Prime View's Integrated
Driving Technology circuitry design, you
can achieve a full-color, video-rate display
with only one 240-pixel 110 data-driver IC.
Prime View's latest 1.8-inch TFT LCD
module using the technology has a high res
olution of 234 by 480 pixels, compared to
standard 220- by 279-pixel resolution sup
ported by the existing 1.8-inch models. It
will let digital camera users obtain all the
detailed images for back-panel review and
replay.
The LCD module also applies an advanced
chip on glass (COG) mainstream technol
ogy,which directly mounts the driver LSI onto
the glass of the LCD and thus produces a thin
LCD panel. Compared with the currently
used tape-automated-bonding (TAB) tech
nology, the COG process cost is lower and
the process yield rate and reliability are
higher.
" We are seeing more and more consumer
and small industrial products incorporate
specialized LCD panels.Almost all of the next
generation of digital cameras will include
LCDs;· Hu says.
-Stella Kao
do ma in-specific machine translati o n for a higher fee , and combined m ac hi ne and human tra nslati on on a per-page bas is). At press time, L&H had not ser fees for th ese services. Fi rs t supp orted language pairs wi ll be English/Spanish and English /Ge r man (bidi rectional) . Bidi re cti onal trans lati o ns fro m Englis h to French, Itali an, M andarin Chinese, Ko rean, and Japanese will fo ll ow, th ough L& H declined to say when they wo uld be ava ilab le.
The se rvices will initially be targeted at certain business domains such as law and m edicin e. A p ro t otyp e se rvic e will be launched by th e end of the year.
-Rainer Mauth
Better3-D Sound Coming to PCs
Audi o chip m a nu fac tu re r s such as Ta i wan's C-Media and Japan's Yamaha ear li er thi s year licensed Ce nt ra l Research Laborator ies' new Sensaura Digital Ear 3-D audi o t ec hn o logy. Ya m a ha says it
selected CRL's algorit hms because, fo r the first time, they provide spatially accu rate sound perception using onl y two stereo speakers.
T he Sensaura 3-D audi o core di gitall y emulates human hearing. Music takes on a " bigge r room sound," including the spa tially accurate acousti c perception of the reco rded environm ent. The Sensaura co mpatible chips manu fa ctu red by Yam aha and C-Media are meant for PC-re lated multimedia applications such as computer games and virtual-reality applicatio ns. They can make any monophonic or mul tichannel source sound like a spherical3-D sound field by virtually positioning so und sources all around th e li stener, including above, below, and behind. Secondary p ro cessing provid es so und effects, su ch as reverberation and Doppler shifting. The system also includes cross-talk cancellation th at is critical for loudspeaker playback.
The chips will be comp atible with Microsoft's Direct3DSound and th e Vi r tu al Dolb y standards. Ex pect to see th e fi rst PCs including the new 3-D audio tech nology early next yea r from Taiwanese PC manufacturers such as Mitac.
-Rainer Mauth
3 2 15 4 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
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INTERNATIONAL
1aroadband Choices
The ISDN-versus-ADSL question just won't go away, at least in Asia and Europe in 1998.
By Stella Kao
he battle over who gets to bring broadband to the ho me is heating up. While ISDN see med to be the answ er a few m onths ago, oth er- possibl y more practical -so luti ons are beginning to emerge: 56 Kbps/ 112-Kbps modems, cabl e modems, and Asy mmetric Dig ital Subscriber Lin es (ADSLs). To date, most Internet se rvice providers (ISPs) still operate at 33.6 Kbps, with only a few of them offerings 6-Kbps speed. Rout
ing pathways o ften limit
th ro u ghput eve n furth e r.
These bottlenecks are worse
during tim es of heavy traffic.
Throughput ca n fall well be
low what current a.nalog mo
dems can handle. Thus, the
demand for spee dy broad
band techno logies is on the
rise.
ISDN'sWide Availability
!SDN is th e m os t w id e ly
available technology of th e
high-b andwidth optio ns.
M ost competin g high-speed
offerings are curre ntly in var
ious stages of research, test
ing, and deployment. None
of th em are as mature or as
widespread as ISDN.
Ev en in th e U.S., wh ere
!SDN is see n as a n ot- so
attractive technology, an in
creasing number o f ISPs are
now capable of handling
·
!SDN. On ce it '~. in stall ed
properly on th e user end, this
high-speed techn ology con
nects reliably at speeds of up
to 128 Kbp s and transfers data at speeds of up to 300 Kbps with
co m p r ess io n.
There are two ty pes of ISDN: Primary Rate Interface (PRI) and
Basic Rate Interface (BRI). PRI !SDN is ge nerall y fo und in tele
phone switches, computer telepho ny, voice processing, and dial
up Internet acces:;. Residential installations and small businesses
chi efly use BR! ISDN. A BRI ISDN link provides two B channels
for data and voice transmission, and a D channel fo r signaling
functions, such as call setup. You can use either o r both B chan
nels for LAN-to-LAN access, Internet access, videocon fe rencing, or other applicati ons th at demand higher bandwidth than ana log modems can prov ide.
To ac hieve an aggregate 128-Kbps thro ughput, all ISDN mo dems now supp ort the multilink PPP channel-bon ding techno l ogy, which lets two connecting units negotiate and combine two or multipl e channels to serve as one larger pipe with expanded bandw idth . In addition, multilink PPP ensures intero perabili ty
with all carrie r equipment. What's more, by incorp orat ing a new technology called Always On/ Dynamic ISDN (AO/DI), th e D channel will so on be ava ilab le to ca r ry e-mai l, news headlin es, o r other data- witho ut hav ing to di al up an ISP or cor porate network.
Th e r efo r e, ISDN u sers co uld spea k o n o ne vo ice channel, send fi les into a cor porate office on an oth er, and get low-bandwidth data such as e-mail on a thi rd. And be cause th e D channel is always li ve between th e !SDN sub scriber and the ph one co m p any's cent ra l office, users save th e co st of di a lin g up every ti me t hey want to get low-bandwidth data.
A Dead Technology?
Contrary to many pho ne co mpa ni es' ex p ec t ati o ns, ISDN services did not take off as planned, especially in the U.S. Users complained th at it was difficul t to install, that the phone companies took for ever to set up th e lines, thattechnical support was ineffici ent, and that it was too ex pensive . Also, ISDN's 64- o r even 128-Kbps rate hardl y spurre d the interest of th e business community, which handles many band width-hungry communicati ons applicati o ns such as shared CD-ROM access, shared live video catalogs, interactive movies, and real-time, downloadable videos and music. " If such obstacles in ge tting ISDN service cannot be removed,
w.byt
NOVEMBER 199 7 BYTE 32 15 7
In ternationa l B roadba nd C hoice s
users w ill tu rn to emergin g new high ba ndwidth techn o logies," says Thomas Huang, president of VersaNet Commu nicati ons, an affiliate of Taiwan modem maker CIS Tec hn ology.
In fac t, a handful of ISON ve nd ors have alread y pre di cted that IS ON may eve ntu all y be re p lace d by fas te r tec hn o logies such as ADSL or cable modems. H owever, "these data-o nl y solutions are not li kely to replace ISON, but to coex ist," according to Felix Jeng, R& O manage r at Alpha Tele com , a professio nal custo mer premises equipme nt (CPE) manufacturer.
Jeng points o ut that cable- modem ser
backi ng of the govern ment. T here w ill be nea rly I million ISON lines installed there by the end of th e year.
This is why most Taiwanese ISON prod uct ma kers ta rge t Japa n as their la rgest sales o utl et. H ow ever, because Ja pan 's NTT an d NEC corpo rations d omi nate mo re than 80 percent of th eir ho me mar ket, the re is little roo m for market ex pan sio n in Japan .
M an y modem and networking-prod uct manu fac turers in Taiwa n are app lying th eir mass-produ cti o n st rengths to vo l ume ISON service provi ders who need ter mi naI adapters (TAs) a nd in fras tru ctu re
Full suppo rt fo r ISON APIs such as Win ISON, W insock with PPP, multil ink PPP, Commo n AP! (CAP!) 2.0, an d Teleph ony AP! (TAP!) is impo rtant to ensure a TA's operability. It lets ISON TAs run most exist ingcornmunicationssoftware and all co m merciall y ava ilable applicati o ns.
Standards Support
Euro pea n users, es peciall y t hose in Ger m a ny, requi re th e us e o f CAP! 2. 0, b e ca use it elimin a tes th e need fo r COM port emulati o n . Auto-detecti on fo r th e 1TR6, 1TR7, 1TR12, E-OOS l , a nd NT-1 pro to cols, as well as th e N etwork Driver
ADSL Over Standard Telephone Line
Internet service provider
Telephone company central site
Twisted-pair wires carrying nonnal
phone service Subscriber's ADSL modem
Remote
DMT
transceiver
High-bandwidth applications can be delivered over standard telephone lines.
Digital output Video/data
Voice
vices do n' t cove r switched vo ice traffic. Cable-mo dem service is based on a shared network to pology, which mea ns th at th e amo unt of bandwidth that's available to a custom er depends o n how hi gh the traf fic volumes a re at any given time. In addi ti on, he says th at the shared networks o perate at a speed as fast as 10 Mbps. This shou ld give cu st om ers at least as much bandwidth as BR! ISON under no rmal traf fic loads.
"At least for the next two years, cable modems a nd AOS L devices wi ll not pose any threats to ISON," saysJim Hsieh, ISON projec t leader for th e co mmunicati o ns product busi ness divisio n at CIS. ISON is th e best soluti o n beca use use rs a re abl e to manage p ho ne calls, e-mail, and vid eo conferencing with one techn ology, H sieh adds.
Cost Is a Big Factor
In spite of its slow takeoff in th e U.S., ISON has lo ng been a standard for hi gh-speed remote access in regio ns w here the infra structu re is co mplete and th e service is easy to come by. Europe and Japan have seen th e greatest success in terms of ISON proliferatio n. In Japan, it has th e strong
equ ipment such as routers, bridges, a nd switc h es.
M ost ISON TAs th at Ta iwa nese co m panies make are 16-bit ISA cards with Win d o ws 95 Plug and Play sup port. T hese in te rnal cards spo rt commo n featu res as th ey all use so luti o ns prov ided by c hip ma ke rs. C utth roa t co m peti tio n amo ng ISON ve nd ors has large ly bro ught card prices down, resulting in decreasing pro fi t m ar g in s.
Lately, ve nd o rs in Taiwan are mov ing mo re upscale by adding external ISONTAs to th eir product lineups. W hile they ear mark internal ca rds for the Euro pean market, stand-alone models are in large demand in Japan.
Finding ways to make ISON TAs mo re sui table fo r use w ith po rtab le computers, act ive, se lf-powered adapter cards th a t h ave th eir o wn p rocesso rs, m em ory, and d rivers are currentl y unde r deve l o pm e nt. E-tech w ill soo n la un ch an active-type ISON adapter th at fea tures a 32-bit CPU, at least 256 KB of stati c RAM (S RAM ), and 8 KB of dual- po rt RAM for ISON protocols and d river software. T his will allow it t o operate without host PC reso urces.
In terface Specificatio n (NO IS) interface fo r raw-H OLC (high-level data-lin k co n tro l) , Cisco-HO LC, PPP, a nd MLPPP sup p orts, are included in most Taiwan ese produ cts.
Additi o nall y, th ese units confo rm to the ISON-1, 5ESS, OMS-100, Euro pea n Tele com muni cati o ns Sta nd a rd s In stitute (ETSI) , and INS Net 64 standards for ISON co mmun icati o ns. So me of th ese models also co me with bundled applicati ons, such as Intern et, videotext, fi le transfe r, fax, vo ice, mail, and termin al-e mu lati o n s o ft w a r e .
For the high-end corp orate segme nt, Taiwa n ese m a nu fa cture rs are m a kin g mo re ro uters that en able mu ltip le users o n a LAN to access th e Inte rn et at hi gh speeds. ISON routers, like o th er routers, let use rs build a nything fro m co m p lex switched-circuit networks to simp le pee r to-peer di al-in co nn ectio ns. Users can also fin e- tun e th e ir line u sage, w hi ch can redu ce ISON fees.
M any ISON ro uters are equipp ed with some combinati o n of a standard Ethern et port, multip le plain o ld teleph o ne service (POTS) ports, and a built-in fax modem. Some of the routers even have a built-in
3215 8 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
SEE US AT
International Broadband Choi c es
Ethernet h ub. This bundling obviates t he need for extr a analog lin es for the user 's office and additional equipment. T he Prestige 2864I, fro m ZyXel Commu nicati ons, for instance, has an option o f a fi ve-port external Eth ernet hub .
The standard fo r co mpression in ISON ro uters is Stac LZS, which o ffers up t o 4-to -1 and 5-t o -1 d at a -c o mpress io n ra ti os . H oweve r, th o ugh m any ro uter ve nd ors impl ement Stac LZS and m ost implementati ons wo rk together, some vendors supp o rt Microsoft's Stac com pression, which may not w ork with other Stac-based compression. M any vend ors supp o rt both types, but a fe w supp ort only one.
Another unique feature that's sup p orted by ISDN ro uters is IP-add ress shar ing. With this fea ture, each remote work station has its own local IP addresses, but all o utb ound pac kets fr om the remo te workstati ons share a single IP add ress, w hic h is attac hed at the router. Inbound packets destined for those machin es are sorted by th e router and readdressed to those specifi c rem ote workstati ons. Be cause dial-in ISPs typically charge by the IP address, this can save on operating costs and effort.
At th e CeBIT show in H ann over, Ger many, this year, ZyXel demonstrated its Prestige 100, which lets up to fo ur users access the Intern et at th e same time, sup porting IP routing. Another model, the Presti ge 128, sup po rts bo th IP and IPX routing, as well as bridging. A single-user acco unt feature lets multiple users on a corporate LAN access the Intern et simul taneously using a single IP address fro m an ISP.
ADSL on the Rise
ADSL links designed to give high-speed, inexpensive re mote access to corporate LANs a nd th e Intern et over st anda rd phone lines are the next big thing on the high-bandwidth hori zo n . T he p erfo r mance benefits are clear: The technology supp orts typical downstream rates o f 1.5 to 8Mbps and upstream links as fast as 640 Kbps. That makes it potentially more than 10 times speedi er than ISDN without the re quire ment to install an ex pensive new medium.
But while a new infrastructure is not requ ired, high equ ipment cost is keeping ADSL fr om significant growth in th e con sumer market for the time being. CIS' s H sieh speculates that wide-scale ADSL
32 15 1 0 BYTE N OV EMB ER 1 997
Alternatives to ISDN and ADSL
·· ···· ··· ··········· ········· ······· ·· ········ ·· ·· ·· ······· ···· ·· ·· ··· ··· ··· ·· ·· ······ ··· ··· ····· ······ ··· ··· ····
The next several months will bring increasingly widespread deployment of a variety of high-speed broadband technologies, such as cable modem andxDSL, to areas that have access to !SON or plan to use Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL).
112·KBPS MODEM An analog modem designed for high-speed Internet and remote access over two analog telephone lines. Based on the synchronous integration of two 56-Kbps modems, a 112 Kbps dual-line modem communicates over two standard analog telephone lines, provid ing aggregated, uncompressed download speeds of up to 11 2 Kbps-nearly 3.5 times faster than the current ITU V.34 standard. Using the combined bandwidth of two tele phone lines, though, the technology allows you to drop one line as needed for voice calls or faxes. Proposed and promoted by Texas Instruments and U.S.Robotics,the 112-Kbps analog modems that a numberofTaiwan com panies make should be in stores in the U.S. this quarter.
CABLE MODEM Modems designed to provide high-speed services via cable networks. Cable modems are internal devices that connect PCs to cable networks. Many solutions are being developed, with speeds ranging from 64 Kbps to 30 Mbps. Taiwan's CIS Technology is working with Toshiba of Japan to develop a second-generation cable modem. The mo dem, featuring a downstream speed of 8 Mbps, will be available in the first half of 1998 from Toshiba.
ASYNCHRONOUS TRANSFER MODE (ATM) A high-bandwidth switching and multiplexing technology based on small , fi xed -length cells that allocates physical channels for spe· cific connections. Highly scalable, ATM pro vides an ideal upgrade path for supporting higher-bandwidth applications and enables the simultaneous transfer of voice, data, and video traffic at very high speeds,and supports both LANs and WANs.
CNet Technology, a networking hard ware vendor in Taiwan , has unveiled a new ATM module that you can use with the com pany's Ethernet switches. The module in cludes 15 ports and costs less than $1000 per port.
DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER LINE (XDSL) A collective term for DSL transceivers that provide voice , data, and video services at megabit rates over standard twisted-pair wires. The technology includes ADSL, HDSL, SDSL, VDSL, RADSL, and more.
These are interim technologies that were
developed to get around the local-access bot tleneck using the installed base of copper wiring from phone and cable companies.
HIGH·BIT·RATE DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER LINE (HDSL) A technology offering full -duplex E1 /T1 access over two copper-wire pairs, without repeaters. HDSL specifications created by Bellcore use 2B1 Q modulation techniques. The technology is frequently used to replace repeated T1 service over distances as long as 12,000feet. UnlikeADSL, HDSLprovides users with 1.5 to 6.1Mbps in both directions instead of just downstream.
SYMMETRIC DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER LINE (SDSL) Also known as single-line digital subscriber line, SDSLoffers E1 /T1 transmission speeds in upstream and downstream directions over a single copper-wire pair. SDSL is full duplex, so it provides speeds of up to 1.5 Mbps both upstream and downstream.
The technology may be the preferred method for doing sophisticated real-time functions, such as conducting audio, data, and video communications, or remotely con necting to a corporate LAN.
VERY HIGH·BIT·RATE DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER LINE (VDSL) An impending upgradetoADSL, VDSLcom bines ADSL technology with ATM to give users speedy communications and network access over a twisted-pair copper wire at speeds of up to 60 Mbps downstream and 2.3 Mbps upstream over distances of up to 300meters.
Though VDSL promises an ultrahigh down stream bandwidth over copper wire, some developers question the viability of a near term marketfor VDSL, because it requires that afiber-to-the-curb switched digital-video infra structure be in place.
RATE·ADAPTIVE DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER LINE (RADSL) A rival technology of ADSL, RADSL can boost speeds to up to 8.2 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream with discrete multitone (DMT) capability. Because its transmission speed is rate-adaptive, based on the length and signal quality of an existing telephone line, RADSL is not optimized for only one loop, but dynamically optimizes to each loop for the greatest throughput available.
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deployment will not begin until 1999. All major telecom operators are doing trials m some areas.
In the meantime, some Taiwan com panies are offering high-bit-rate digital subscriber line (HDSL) systems. Providing the same fast data throughput in a sym metric and full-dupl ex format, HDSL is now being considered as a viable data access option for the mass market. Alpha's HDSL systems have been marketed and accepted in Japan.
Supports Three Channels
The ADSL technology supports three channels: downstream (simplex), up stream plus conrrol (full-dupl ex), and POTS . As always, POTS occupies the low est end of the bottom 4 kHz and is split off from the digital data by a passive low-pass filter, ensuring uninterrupted voice ser vice even if the ADSL connection fails. Both the downstream and full-duplex channels can carry more than one bearer channel. Moreover, the digital portion of the connection never reaches the service provider's switching system, thereby off setting network overload on the central switch.
In Taiwan, CCL/ITRJ is a government sponsored R&D organization. Chen Yun, manager of its transmission system de partment, says ADSL's channel-splitting capability makes the technology appeal ing to phone companies in the U.S. and elsewhere in the hope that they w ill be ab le to fend off competition from high bandwidth data services offered by cable modems.
To take advantage of the technology, you need a special ADSL m odem, and telecommunications operators must install special switches and equipment to provide service. Because most of the nec essary switch upgrades are not in place, it will take some time to bringADSL within reach of everyone.
Foreseeing a rosy future for ADSL as the most widespread high-bandwidth solu tion for connecting home computers to the Internet, modem manufacturers are revving up product development for the new ADSL technology.
CCL/ITRJ heads an ADSL alliance with more than 10 modem and telecom com panies, including Askey, DBTEL, GVC,
HUFitOrCon, U, T-Kaiinnge,t,aTnadiwZyanXeT!e. lTehcoemfi~sTtepcroomd~
uct produced by the alliance is a remote site product: ADSL Remote Bridge and
Ci rcle 459 on Inqu iry Card.
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 32 15 1 3
International Broadband Choices
POTS splitter. The interface between each site is connected by an HDLC/ADSL inter face. The service between each site uses a 10Base-T Ethernet interface. The frame based media access control (MAC) encap sulation is implemented for ADSL router based network access.
DMTorCAP?
For now, CCL/ITRI has yet to choose be tween two types of ADSL: discrete multi tone (DMT) or carrierless amplitude and phase modulation (CAP). Both are de signed to modulate bits that are sent though the line.
According to Chen, DMT is expected to become the industry standard in the future. The technology brings transmis sion speeds closer to the theoretical lim its allowed by ADSL, because it is more robust against difficult line conditions and impul se noise. Another major ben efit offered by DMT is support for interoper ability between equipment from different vendors.
Another advantage of DMT is that line coding divides available transmission bandwidth into 25 6 independent sub ch annels. Interference to the signal in one frequency range does not have as great an
Alpha Telecom, Inc. Hsinchu, Taiwan +886 3 578 5717 fax: +886 3 578 5817 atti@shts.seed.net.tw http://www.alpha-tele.com
CCL/ITRI Hsinchu, Taiwan +886 3 591 7567 fax: +886 3 582 0081 chen@n2sunl.ccl.itri.org.tw http://www.itri .o rg.tw
WHERE TO FIND
CIS Technology, Inc. Taipei Hsien, Taiwan +886 2 698 7099 fax: +886 2 698 2735 jimtse @cis.com.tw http://www.cis.com.tw
E-tech, Inc. Hsinchu, Taiwan +886 3 577 4991 fax: +886 3 577 7751 paulina_kuo @ml.e-tech .com.tw http://www.e-tech.com
Versa Net Communications, Inc. Diamond Bar, CA, U.S. +1 909 860 7968 fax:+ 1 909 860 2768 thomas.huang @versanetcomm .com http://www.versanet.com
ZyXel Communications Corp. Hsinchu, Taiwan +886 3 578 3942 fax: +886 3 578 2439 crlin @zyxel.hinet.net http ://www.zyxel.com
impact as it would with the unified chan nel structure of CAP.
CCL/ITRI is currently caught between the two standards . While DMT offers more performance benefi ts, CA P is more widely used than DMT. Besides, CCL/ITRI officials worry that the price for DMT's chip set will remain too expensive and dif ficult to implement without the pressure of competition from CAP technology.
Reduced Cost
Recent developments that are aimed at reducing the cost of the ADSL technol ogy are mainly directed toward increas ing highly integrated, low-cost, high-per formance chip sets. Leading suppliers for this market are Motorola, SGS-Thomson, Alcatel, Texas Instruments, and Analog Devices.
Originally, CCL/!TRI's ADSL alliance agreed to use Motorola's single-chip CopperGold ADSL transceiver, which guarantees the highest board reliability, according to Chen . CCL/ ITRI is a lso Motorola's alpha-site test-bed for the solution. Nevertheless, Motorola is find ing it difficult to increase its yield, accord ing to sources in the alliance, making the alliance turn to alternative solutions from Alcatel or SGS-Thomson.
IC vendors from Taiwan such as Win bond Electronics and Macronix Interna tional have also announced development projects for ADSL chip sets. The move will help hardware makers to substantia ll y reduce their costs.
Furthermore, CCL/ITRI plans to de velop ATM-based (asynchronous transfer mode) ADSL technology in hopes that the technology will be competitive with cab le modems without requ iring telephone companies to overhaul vast portions of their existing phone network.
In 1998, the ADSL alliance will intro duce the HLA system, which include s remote- and central-site products, ADSL Remote Bridge and POTS splitter and DSL Access Mux (DSLAM) and Central POTS splitter. The interface between each site is connected by an ATM /ADSL interface. The service at the remote site uses a lOBase-T Ethernet interface, and the ser vice interface at the central site uses an ATM interface to connect the ATM pub lic data network. Iii
Tel: 34 1 301 30 15 Fox: 34 1 332 00 54 E-mail: lnfo.lntl@pondosoffwore.e\
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3215 1 4 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Stella Kao is a BYTE contributing editor in Ta ipei. You can reach her at meou@e-mail .gcn.net.tw.
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INTERNATIONAL
Bug Bounty Hunters
As software complexity grows, new testing
tools help developers control bugs and costs alike.
By Derek Jones
oftware testing may be one of the least attractive of all software-development activities. Yet, simply put, it's one of the most important parts of the develop ment process. Typically, it costs 1Otimes more to fix a bug at any stage of the development cycle than it does to fix it during the previous stage. But the cost of formal, comprehensive testing procedures can be prohibitive and often delays the time to market unacceptably. Automated software-test ing tools can be a cost-effi cient solution for developers looking to enhance the qu al ity of their products. In ad dition, as app li ca tion de velopment bec o mes more intricate-especially with the growing complexity cre ated by the move to applets and components--tools that systematically check source code or detect unexpected behavior at run t ime are be coming increasingly impor tant for developers. Software testing involves more than just debugging code. It encompasses the validation and verification of software throughout the whole development process.
Static vs. Dynamic Testing
So-called static analysis tools analyze the source code of an application. Static checks deal with such details as un reachable code, the misuse of pointers, undeclared vari ables, and variables used before initialization. The information gathered by these techniques serves two main purposes : to help developers understand the source code (e.g., by displayi ng a graphical representation of the control flow) and to act as an automated proofreader, looking for constructs that are likely to cause problems.
Commercially available tools either supp ort a variety of pro gramming languages or are specifically designed for a certain language. Genera.Uy, tools that focus on a specific language can
better handle that language's special cases. Generic tools that support multiple languages, on the other hand, are more ap propriate for working with a variety of programming languages. Generic tools include IPL's (Bath, U.K.) Cantata; Verilog's (Tou louse, France) Logiscope; and Battlemap, from McCabe and Associates (High Wycombe, U.K.). Tools for specific languages include PC-Lint, from Gimpel Software (Collegeville, PA), and QA-C and QA-C++ , both from Programming Research (Her
sham, U.K.). PC-Lint offers an entry
level method of quality as surance on PCs. It detects a large number of common programming errors in C and C++ and gives devel opers a possibility to custom ize. Programming Research's QA series of tools are geared to large corporate develop ment groups. They offer comprehensive customiza tion features and can also generate metric information as well as graphical repre sentations of code. In addi tion, both PC-Lint and the QA series of tools support cross-module checks.
Find Bad Pointers
Dynamic testing tools help you test a program's individ ual units and modules and, gradually, as modules come together, complete appli cations. Their big strengths include checking for bad pointers and memory leak age. In addition, they allow you to test the concurrent operation and integration of mod ules, check operation after a bug has been fixed, and perform stress tests. There are two approaches to dynamic testing. One class of tools includes a compiler and uses source-code information to flag problems as it compiles. Another type of dynamic-testing tool checks the run-time behavior of executables. Of course, a tool that checks source code has access to more information and can therefore do checks that are more thor-
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 32 15 17
International Bug Bounty Hunters
o ugh. A good example of such a tool is Bounds-Checking GCC, which was devel oped at the Imperial College (London); se e http: //www-dse .doc .ic.ac. uk/ -rj3/ bounds-checking.html. It's an extension to the GNU C compiler that adds pointer ch ecks . By wo rkin g at th e so urce-co de level, it can detect when, for example, a po inter has "walked" off the end of an ob ject into another o ne. The disadvantage of this approach is that it requires access to source code, whic h may not be avail abl e if you use third-party libraries.
Tools that work at the executable level don't need info rmation about the source. A case in point for testing executables is Purify, fr om Pure Atria (Cupertino, CA). Purify d oesn't eve n need to know what language the original application was written in. Although it checks uninitial ized variables down to the byte level, its po inter-checking capabiliti es do n't go down to the level that the GNU C bounds-
checking tools do. Instead, it treats con ti guou sly all o cated sto rage as a singl e memory item.
Is More Testing Needed?
H ow do you know how much testing has bee n d o ne and how mu ch mo re is still needed? There are a couple of techniques for measuring test coverage. Statem ent co verage counts how many o f the total statements in the application are execut ed. Achi evin g 100 perc ent statem ent coverage shows that the tests are exercis ing every statement in th e application , although it do esn't give yo u any measure of how much of the program structure was tested.
An interesting side effect of 100 percent statement coverage is th at it helps pro gramm ers find statements that can never be exec uted. This is because definin g test procedures to execute a give n statement makes developers look at an applicatio n
Testing Java Applications
W hen granularity [of components] be comes so tiny [as when testing Java applications], the problems of integration testing are enormous," says Jeffrey Voas , chief scientist with Reliable Software Tech nologies (Sterling, VA), a software research and consulting company.
Testing Java applications is d ifficu lt be cause developers are forced to test applets on each configuration that they plan to sup port. This includes the different implementa tions of Java virtual machines (VMs)-brows ers as well as compilers. In addition,because Java doesn't allow a testing class to gain ac cess to private data and methods, develop ers must either add test methods to a class or change private classes to public classes. "Both of these options might modify the class so that some faults are not found;' notes Jef frey Payne, president of Reliable Software Technologies.
Another issue is that Java's built-in securi ty mechanisms make the testing of applets trickier. Test tools can 't easily write results to disk due to security constraints. "In addi tion, testing must be performed both inside of and through any corporate firewalls to ensure that applets will operate correctly;' Payne adds.
To specifically address the problems ofVM
diversity, JavaSoft has launched the 1000/o Pu re Java Certification program, which re quires Java developers to ensure that appli cations are portable. SunTest, a subsidiary
of Sun Microsystems, has introduced a suite of tools that helps developers not only gain certification but also perform overall quality testing .
JavaPureCheck checks that class files are indeed portable. It measures specified classes against a rule base. Classes that don't meet these rules are flagged, along with the construct that violates one of the porta bility rules. These errors and explanations are kept in a database that creates reports. You can download this tool for free from the SunTest Web site.
JavaSpin tests Java applications at run time. It's a low-end dynamic test tool that ex ercises a program through its GU I.
JavaScope is a coverage-analysis tool that includes method, branch, logical, and relational coverage (i.e ., it looks at the usage of Boolean operators, which is effective for detecting boundary-condition failures). The current release does not support statement coverage, however.
JavaStar is a GUI record and playback tool. It includes a scripting language and com pares the behavior of the program under test with the expected behavior.
JavaSpec uses the formal specifications of an API to automatically generate test pro grams. Developers can verify that an imple mentation of an API follows its written spec ification . JavaSpec was selected to create and maintain the entire Java API test suite for JavaSoft. -DerekJones and RainerMauth
GUI Checkpoint Results
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GUI testing tools compare expected and real application behavior.
in a new light. It un avoidabl y leads to th e qu esti o n : Is this statement necessary? Some programmers say they re move al most 30 percent of th e statements th ey find th rough this procedure.
Path coverage, on the other hand, cal culates the number of paths throu gh an application . Achiev ing 100 percent path coverage fo r any but the simplest code requires enorm ous resources. In practice, you can use path-coverage measures only to check the testin g level of the critical portions of an applicati on.
Some tools insert co de t o fl ag that a statement or path has been executed to obtain coverage info rmatio n, a process called instrumentation. T he big probl em with instrumentati o n is that it involves memory and CPU overhead. Fully instru me nted programs typica ll y run up to three times slower than noninstrument ed ones. Agood decision fo r softwa re test ing is, therefore, to completely instrument only critical portions of a program.
Acase in point isATAC, a publicly ava il able tool written at Bell Communicati ons Research for instrumenting C code. ATAC (http: //www.clark.n et/pub/di ckey/atac/ atac_ 96 1112.tgz) gives develo pers com prehensive coverage info rmation bycount ing vari ous bits of code being executed at run time.
Large sources and complex applica tions are natu rally harder to test than soft ware with simple functi onality. Software m etrics is one way o f measuring the vol um e and complex ity o f an applicatio n. This procedure looks at the structure and linkage between the larger software build ing blocks rather than at the level of state ments and expressions.
The two most often used metrics are the H alstead softw are scien ce counts, which calculates code volume based on
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International Bug Bounty Hu nt ers
abstract operator and operand counts, and McCabe's cyclomat ic comp lex ity measure, which measures the number of control-fl ow nodes and edges.
If you're new to testing and have a com plicated application to test, then metrics might help you fi nd the most like ly trou ble spots within your code. The most com pl ex and hard est- to-test mo dul es o f a progra m typically have the highest met ric values. O nce you locate potential trou ble spots, yo u can break these modul es down or rewrite the parts of a program that exceed predefin ed metric li mits.
H owever, don't overestimate the val
ue of metrics to software testing. In ter estingly, many metrics correlate very high ly to the number of noncommented lines of code. W hen evaluating a new software metric, always ask how accura te its pre dictions have been on historical data and to what extent it corre lates with si mple li nes of code measure ments. (Why use a complicated fo rmula that doesn' t give sig n ifica ntly better resul ts than you can get from sim ply counting lines of code?)
You ca n also use met rics to estimate such th ings as the nu mber of bugs likely re maining in code, the ease of software portability, or future maintenance costs.
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How to Choose a Testing Tool
Customization: All tool vendors claim that their products can be configured to handle company coding stand ards. But the extent to which this is possible in prac tice varies enormously. When evaluating tools, always send the vendors a variety of code samples to process.
Metrics: Not all tools give the same fig ures forthe same metrics. When evaluat ing tools, ask vendors to process some code for which you have calculated the metrics by hand. The subsequent discus sion of thei r results will be revealing. In addition, some metric s correlate to a cer tain extent with simple lines of c ode mea surements. Given these problems, there is little sense in spending lots of money on a tool·that calc ulates only metrics.
Visualization: This is essential wh en working on path coverage. Good tool s provide facilities for graphically viewing the results, highlighting statements or paths that have not been executed.
Analysis of conditions: Look for tools that analyze the conditions needed to reach a given block of code and that even go as far as suggesting values that vari ables must take. This can be useful wh en looking at nested conditions.
Language support: Unless your compa ny has applications written in a variety of languages, a tool designed for a specific language w ill invariably provid e better results than a generic tool set.
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H owever, all major testing tools can gen erate me t ric in fo rmatio n, so it d oesn't make sense to spend a lot of money on a too l that calculates onl y metrics.
GUI Testing
A critical component of all software test ing is the GUI. In GUI-based applicatio ns, users have cont ro l over several concur re nt input devices, and applications can output results to multiple windows.
GUItesting is usually a th ree-stage pro cess. First, the tool records all keystrokes, mouse movements, and button clicks into a script fil e. This recorded script can be played back to drive the application in test mode. This works well when an applica tion behaves as expected.
The second stage involves adding checks into the recorded script for handling ex traordinary cond itions. These checks can
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Bug Bounty Hunters International
include waiting fo r specific events to ap pear. It's also pos:;ib le to add synchroniz ing points to handle cases where an appli cation runs at differen t speeds.
In the third m.ge, the modified script runs against the application. The extent to which the script can reliably handle un ex pected behav ior depends on th e effort you put into manually programmin g the script. The more sophisticated programs ca n graphically di splay di ffe rences be tween what the script expects and what the application sends to the screen. It' s
als o possible to single-step throu gh a
script an d display the values of variables,
as simple debuggers do.
GUI testing tools, such as Mercury In
teractive's (Or Yehuda, Israel) WinRun ner for Windows and XRunner for Unix, enable developers to visuall y create test scenarios and verifications using a point and-click method of selecting objects on screen. They handle application changes automatically and maintain object-specif ic data independently of individualscripts to ensure that the same scripts can be re-
Gimpel Software Collegeville, PA
+1 610 584 4261 fax: +1 610584<\266 http://www.gimpd.com
IPL Bath, U.K.
+44 1225 475001a fax: +44 1225 444400 http://www.iplbal:h.com
McCabe and Associates High Wycombe, Ul.K.
+44 1494 46323 3 fax: +44 1494 46 3288 http ://www.mccabe.com
WHERE TO FIND
Mercury Interactive Or Yehuda, Israel
+972 3 538 8888 fax: +972 3 533 1617 http://www.merc-int.com
Programming Research
Hersham, U.K.
+44 1932 888080 fax: +44 1932 888081 http ://www.prqa.co.uk
Pure Atria Corp. Cupertino, CA
408-863-9900 http://www.pureatria.com
Reliable Software
Technologies
Sterling, VA
+1 703 404 9293
fax:+ 1 703 404 9295
http ://www.rstcorp.com
SunTest
Mountain View, CA
+1 650 336 2005
http://www.suntest.com
Verilog Toulouse, France
+33 561192939 fax: +33 5 61 40 84 52 http://www.verilogusa.com
used even when an application changes during development.
Internet Adds Complexity
Current trends in software development chall enge programmers as well as de signers of testing tools. The Internet is dramati ca lly increas ing th e pace of the software industry, and many developers beli eve that there is no w even less tim e available for testing. Object-oriented de sign techniques, such as polymorphism, encapsulati on, and inheritance, increase the complexity of testing through the ex tensive use of infor mation hiding.
In addition,Java's "build once, run any where" paradigm complicates matters be cause it requires developers to test appli cati ons not onl y on all platfor ms but also on each virtual machine (VM) they might run on, including the VMs used in Web browers. As Java testers say, "build once,
m test everywhere."
Derek Jon es, a former comp iler u;riter, is a testing expert u;ith Knou;ledge Softu;are, Ltd. (Farnborough, U.K.). You can reach him by sending e-mail to derek@knosof.co.uk.
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NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 3215 2 1
Ii n1.
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Fall '97 Nov. 17-21 , 1997 Las Vegas,Nevada, U.S.A. Booth No.:L3367
OEM/ODM Distributor Welcome
CE
DIALER & BUSINESS ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. No 29, Tzu Chiang Street, Tu·Cheng, Ta1pe1, Taiwan, RO.C Tel.886·2·268-2081Fax886-2-268-1964-5 E-Mail (Internet ID)· dbtel@smtp.dbtel.com.tw UK Off1ce: Unit 8Green Lane Ind. Estate, Green Lane, Thatcham, Berkshire, RG 19 3RG,UK Tel: (44) 1635-874123 Fax. (44) 1635-874133
INTERNATIONAL
Greener Design
As consumers demand more environment-friendly products, new software tools help manufacturers build greener machines.
By Eric Johnson and Christina Seeberg-Elverfeldt
he pressure on European manufacturers to produce cleaner and greener products never lets up. A steady stream of new regulations focuses not only on issues such as waste disposal and air and water emissions, but also increasingly on companies' use of hazardous materials
in their products. Take, for example, the computer industry. Unlike the rules of
the 1970-SOs, the latest rules no longer apply only to manufac turing sites, where chips are made, circuit boards fabri cated, or components assem bled. As Walt Rosenberg, Compaq's direcror of envi ronmental affairs, points out, "Environmental rules of the 1990s focus on the prod ucts themselves." Regulators want to see both greener PC manufacturing plants and greener PCs.
Additionally. users are demanding environment friendly PCs. Led by public authorities in northern Eu rope, green-minded com puter buyers haYe plumped for bans on certain materials, green guidelines for public procurement, and eco- and energy-label programs.
The key to reducing envi ronmental and financial costs of manufactured prod ucts is the desig;n process. "About 80 percent of a prod uct's environmental costs are established in the :onceprual design phase," saysAgis Ver outis of environmental con sultant Roy F. w,~ston (West Chester, PA, U.S.). "The sooner in the design phase you start analyzing the environmental impact, the better the results. "
Measure Environmental Impact
What designers therefore need is a yardstick to measure the envi ronmental performance of a product design. A new breed of tools, collectively called design-for-environment (DfE) sofrware, lets product devdopers analyze the environmental impact of
their concepts. These tools comprise several databases of envi
ronmental evaluation factors and aim at product designers rather
than environmental experts.
The core functions ofDfE programs are eco-impact reduction
and disposal optimization. However, out of the 15 tools we con
sidered, only two of them, Ecobalance's DfE Tool and Boothroyd
Dewhurst's Design for Environment, can do both.
This is not surprising, because the two functions of DfE soft
ware are distinct and inde
pendent tasks. Eco-impact
reduction compares the
environmental effects of a
product's design options,
using life-cycle assessment,
or LCA. (See the t ext box
"Life-Cycle Assessment" on
page 3215 24.) The idea of
LCA is to find the design
option that scores best when
considering all effects on, for
example, global warming,
marine pollution, or waste
disposal problems.
In disposal optimization,
the idea is to model and ex
periment with the disposal
options for a given product.
Typically, there are many
possibilities.
You can dismantle or
hred products or compo
nents, or deliver them whole
for reuse, recycling, inciner
ation, landfill, or any mix
ture thereof. In theory, the
final optimized design
should cause the lowest envi
ronmental burden and in
clude the optimal number of
reusable parts, no hazardous material, and a high degree of recy
clable material.
You must do disposal optimization before you build the
product. "Sometimes, just a slight reconfiguration of a machine's
internals can make dismantling ever so much easier," says Mark
Curtis, a senior partner at Boothroyd Dewhurst. But he warns
that disassembly is not just assembly in reverse order. "Fasten
ers can get rusty, glues can refuse to unstick, and things don't
always go out the way they came in."
continued
WWW.byte m
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 3215 23
Int e rn ati o nal Gr ee n e r D esign
Architecture of DfE Software
fJ
Eco-impact
£valuation
l .~
Existing links __,... Possible links ·· ·)>
reduction
database
Calculation
module
Optimization
module
Manual inputs or
external --+
databases
Component Inventory
@ Disposal optimization
Calculation
Opllmbation
module
module ____.......... ...... -------J
·
-I .
.
.
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.
.
.
.
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.
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.
..
.
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.
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.
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......
. I
0 Component inventory holds
environmentally relevant data; users can add their own information or purchase commercial databases.
8 Eco-impact
reduction compares
the environmental effects of a product's design options via life· cycle assessment.
@) Optimization
algorithms solve for an optimum level of disassembly.
0 Product designers
use reports to manually design products.
0 Some tools send
information about optimal design directly
to CAD systems.
Architecture of Tools
At t he core of DfE softwa re is a co m po n ent-in ve nto ry database. It ho ld s large amo unts of environmenta lly relevant data such as emissio ns, energy co nsumpti o n, dismantling t im es, and recyclability ind exes fo r electronics parts such as bat teri es, capaci tors , and !Cs.
A design m odule rep rese nts compo nents visually and shows how th ey link to geth er to fo rm the p roduct. This mo du le retrie ves the enviro nmental in for matio n fro m th e invento ry database and displ ays it on the screen.
In eco-impact reductio n, the software th en agg rega tes eco-impact info rm ati o n into a few categories or even a single-num ber index. Two co mmo n indexes are Eco Indicator, created in the N eth erlands, and Ec o Po ints, d evel o p e d in Sw itze rl a nd . These indicato rs co mpare the eco-impact o f a d esign to a fi xe d referenc e such as hum an- o r eco-toxicity, th ereby generat ing a relati ve score per eco-impact (e.g., for globa l w arming or acid rain) . The d e sign with th e low est sum o f th ese relative scores is best in envi ronm ental terms.
In di sposal analys is, th e software runs
Life-Cycle Assessment
Life-cycle assessment (LCA) aims at com· paring the environmental performance of products. It is an environmental acco unting method that tries to quantify the inputs and outputs throug hout the life cycle of a prod· uct,assess the effects of environmentalload· ings, and red uce the associated e nviron· mental burden. LCA is also the fo undation for the eco·impact a nalysis in DfE software.
The methodology behind software too ls that support LCA is to calculate the outputs during a product's life cycle and trans late them into environmental effects or damage. That's why these tools need detailed infor·
mation on manufacturi ng processes, materi· als, and energy use held in a large database that describes generic manufacturing pro· cesses and their emissions (see the figure "Architecture of DfE Software" above).
Because the evaluation depends so much on the quality of the database, critics say LCA usua lly reveals that whatever des ign you chose is best. Proponents, however, argue that LCAbrings a desperatelyneeded quan· titative, rational e lement to environmental decision -making. Des pite these debates, industry and government are increasingly accepting LCA, especially in Europe.
a sophisticated optimization process be fo re agg regatio n and repo rting. Seve ral vend ors have develo ped proprietary algo rithm s th at mo del th e compo nent stru c ture and solve fo r an o ptimum level of dis asse mb ly. D efi ning th e o ptimum can be
intricate. As Otto M eedt, o ne of the d evel
o p ers of Regred/ DisPlay softw are fr o m FAPS, po ints o ut, " If two a luminum parts are held together by an aluminum rivet, it m ay b e bette r to recycl e a ll three p a rts together rather than separating them ."
It is o n thi s o ptimiza ti o n kn owled ge and expe rt judgment th at DfE too ls a re competing. M any vendo rs supply pro prietary component databases and o pti miza ti o n algo rithms aimed at p ro ducers of electro nics equipm ent. Vendors point o ut the paucity o f public domain info rma tion in this area. " Environmental d ata o n some co mpon ents is costly to develop and co mmercially se nsitive," remarks M artin Wi elemaker, a directo r at Turtle Bay.
N atu ra lly, p ro duct d esigners w ant to swap co mponent databases around under on e DfE system. But because systems a re inco mp atible, thi s is no t ye t p ossible.
Standardization Is Coming
Four co mpeting initiatives are addressing the standardization of compo nent data bases, n ot only for electronics but other indu st r ies as w ell. Th ey ar e th e LCAD
32 15 24 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
International Greener Design
group in the U.S., led by Battelle (Colum
bus, OH); SPINE, a Swedish group run by
Chalmers University (Goteborg); the
DALCA team in the Netherlands, led by research institute TNO (Delft); and the industry consortium SPOLD in Brussels. All these groups concede that, at best, a broad integration of databases will need some more years and that the more spe cialized the data, the less likely it ever will become public.
However, in an attempt to open the component inventory, some manufactur ers have published their data. For exam
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ple, about a year ago, Delta Electronics
Testing published detailed material bal
ances on about 50 components common to electronics goods, plus details on the hazardous content and disposability of
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each material. The reason for the industry's and soft
New design-for-environment tools help product
ware vendors' sensitivity in this fie ld is that information about hazardous mate
designers create environmentally friendly products.
rials is not always public. An electronics afford and build the rest of the expert judg which are considerably cheaper than the
device, for example, has a number of haz ment internally. "Most companies wi ll ones with built-in expert systems. This is
ardous materials (e.g., brominated flame want to use their own expertise any especially helpful if a vendor's proprietary
retardants and sometimes cadmium and way,'' notes Remi Coulon of Ecobalance. component inventory doesn't meet a
mercury compounds) that are not labeled "It all depends on how they view their manufacturer's environmental compati
and tend to be a problem to dispose.
environm ental situation. "
bility standards. In this case, companies
Low-Cost Tools
Vendors such as Conceptware, Deci sion Dynamics, Product Ecology Consul
can buy cheap software and build their own expert judgment and database.
For now, say some vendors, the answer tants, and Spinwest encourage users to
Another competitive factor is integra
for manufacturers is to buy what they can start with their less-expert packages , tion with CAD systems. This is especially
important if designers use DfE tools on a
WHERE TO FIND
Boothroyd Dewhurst
Wakefield, RI, U.S. +1 401 783 5840 http://www.dfma.com/Dfe.htm
Conceptware
Eschborn, Germany +49 6196 47320 fax: +49 6196 473215 info @conceptware.de http://www.conceptware.de
Decision Dynamics
Vienna, VA, U.S. +17033193944 fax:+ 1 703 319 3943 GregNorris @aol.com
Delta Electronics Testing
Horsholm, Denmark +45 42 867722 fax: +45 42 865898 hr@delta.denmark http://www.delta.denmark
Ecobalance/Ecobilan
Paris, France +33 1 53 78 23 78 fax: +33 1 53 78 23 79 Larry_Brickman@radian.com
EORM
Savantage
San Jose, CA, U.S.
Austin, TX, U.S.
+ 1 408 321 2850
+1 512 305 0053
fax:+l 4084361136
fax: +15123050060
http://www.best.com/-eorm/
sandborn@savantage.com
FAPS
Erlangen, Germany
http://www.savantage.com
Siemens Nixdorf
+49 9131 857710
Munich, Germany
fax: +49 9131 302528
+49 89 63645503
meedt@faps.uni-erlangen.de
fax: +49 89 63653540
http://www.faps.uni-erlangen.de Spinwest
GA Seer Technologies
Giiteborg, Sweden
Los Angeles, CA, U.S.
+46 31 772 4222
+13106703404 fax: +1310670 6481
fax: +46 31 771 4171 lars.salmi @ champs.chalmers.se
info @gaseer.com http://www.gaseer.com
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, TX, U.S.
Nortel/Cognition
Manchester, U.K. +44161 247 6259
+18067423543 fax: +1806742 3411 hzhang @coe3.coe.ttu.edu
fax: +44 161 247 6326 64500322 @mmu.ac.uk http://www.Nortel.com
Turtle Bay
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
+31102651178
Product Ecology Consultants
Amersfoort, The Netherlands + 31 33 4555022
fax: +31 10 4651591 info@turtlebay.nl. http://www.turtlebay.nl
fax:+ 31 33 4555024
info@pre.nl
http://www.pre.nl
day-to-day basis. Says Stefan Utzinger, the managing director of Conceptware, "CAD integration is a way of building the environmental expert right into the de signer's desktop."
Thus far, only Nortel/Cognition's Eco Design Tool and Savantage's SavanSys have a direct link to lntergraph's CAD sys tem Pro Engineer. However, Boothroyd Dewhurst, Ecobalance, and FAPS have all built their offerings with CAD linkage in mind.
DfE tools are proliferating. By the end of the year, there will be about 15 com mercially available tools. While some industry experts expect a shakeout of DfE tools during 1998, the user base for DfE tools will be growing steadily. Says West on's Veroutis, "At the end of this century, every electronic product manufacturer will have a DfE system in place." [iJ
Eric Johnson and Christina Seeberg-Elverfeldt are consultants at Atlantic Consulting (Lon don, U.K.). You can contact them by sending e-mail to Atlantic@ecosite.co.uk.
32 15 26 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
www.byte.com
Generi c OCX s & DLLs
Bar Code
Bar Code Pro
£149
d-Barcode OLE Developers f;it
£145
Charts & Graphs
Chart FX Enterprise 3.0(16&~2) First Impression OCX 2.1 Graphics Server 5.0 Olectra Chart
£247 £204 £235 £247
Com ms
CommTools/DLL
£215
Greenleaf Commlib 5.2 (DLL)
£235
Sax Comm Objects Pro
£345
Data Grids & Spreadsheets
DataTable
£135
Formula One OCX 4.0
£204
Spread 2.5
£212
Database
ActiveX Component Suite
£243
Classic Data Control for Btrieve £175
CodeBase 6.2 (Unlimited-Cli!?nt) £295
VBtrv Toolbox Controls 4.1
£209
Graphics
Fastgraph for Windows GeoPoint InterAct TWAINWizard
£189 £204 £275
£89
Images
lmageGear Std ActiveX 6.0 lmageMan ActiveX Suite 5.0 LEADTOOLS ActiveX16/32 F'ro VectorFX Victor Image Proc for Win32
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Internet
Distinct Visual Internet Toolkit 2.0 £249
dsSocket OCX 1.6
£68
Sax Webster OCX (32-bit)
£99
Socke!Tools
£175
CA-Visual Objects 2.0 Std Clarion for Windows Pro Omnis 7 Workgroup Starter Paradox (Win32) 7.0 Personal Oracle for Win95 PowerBuilder Desktop 5.0 Sybase SOL Anywhere 5.5 Visual dBase Visual FoxPro Professional 5.0
CASE Tools
EasyCASE Pro ERwin/Desktop ERwin/ERX With Class Enterprise 3.0
Help Tools
AnswerWorks Doc-to-Help 2.5(Win32) Documentation Studio Help Magician Pro 95 HelpSite HyperText Suite Next Help RoboHELP 4.0 Visual Help Pro 3. 1 WinHelp Office 4.0
Installers
Eschalon Setup Desktop lnstallSHIELD Express 2.0 lnsta11Shield5 Professional PC-Install (Win32 & Win16) Wise Installation Enterprise
Macro Languages
BasicScript VBX Cypress Enable (32- & 16-bit) Sax Basic Engine Pro
Shells
MKS Toolkit with preferred sutJs Thompson Toolkit (Win&DOS)
Version Contrc·I
MKS Source Integrity (with su J) PVCS Version Manager 5.2 SMS TUB 5.04 Visual SourceSafe 5.0
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OLETools Stamina WinX Component Library
Reports
Crystal Reports Pro 5.0 Report FX Enterprise
Spell Checkers
Sentry Spell-Checker Engine VisualSpeller OCX 2.0
Special Purpose Calendar Widgets Eval-0-Matic Suite Input Pro Schedule/OGX
Text Editors ALLText HT/Pro OCX HighEdit Pro TX Text-Control Collection OCX
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3D++ Class Library GraphiC/Win 7.0 Real-Time Graphics Toots
Comms
COMM-DRV/LIB 16.1 Fax C++ SDK for Win16/95
Compression
Compression Plus Crusher! Win32 Greenleaf Archivelib 2.1 PKWare Data Comp Lib Win32
Database
DISAM96 for Wing5 HyperView++ ProtoGen+ Clienl/Server Win Raima Engine+ EADS 4.0 Report Writer Visual Coder Velocis + EADS (Offer) Visual SOL
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BoundsChecker 5.0 for Delphi
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Charting Tools for Win - Delphi
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IMSL C Numerical Lib w/Sub Math.h++ (with support) Linpack.h++ {with support)
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WinDK W1nDriver W1nRT Developer's ToolKit WlllSCSl -32
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BoundsChecker C++Builder BoundsChecker Visual C++ 5.0 C-Cover CC-Rider 6.0 (Win32) Exemplar Setup Toolkit Pro Thales {MS Basic to CIC++)
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Visual S/udio 97 includes /he equivalent edilion o/ Visual Basic 5 as well as Visual C++, J++, FoxPro &lnlerOev
Visual Basic Enterprise 5.0 Visual Basic Professional 5.0 Visual Basic Learning 5.0 Visual Studio 97 Enterprise Visual Studio 97 Professional
Jamba 2.0
Borland C++ 5.0 C+·Bu1lder Standard
Java WorkShop
C+·Builder Professional
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C++Builder Client/Server
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Learn to Program w/C++Builder
JDesignerPro
Power++ Developer 2.0
Parts for Java
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SuperCede Java
£99
Power++ Enterprise
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Salford CIC++ Dev Bundle
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Symantec C++ 7.5
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HYPERVIEW++ Add a GUI Bu/Ider lo Your MFC Apps
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INTERNATIONAL
Hardware
This month we look at software to stimulate creativity and a removable ]az drive.
CDT RP RAID Controller Price: Starts at DM 2150 (one SCSI channel) Enter 1008 on Inquiry Card.
ICPVortex Flein, Germany +497131597214 fax : +497131255063 http ://www.icp-vortex.com
RAID Controller Runs Intel 960RP Chip
The GDT RP is one of the first RAID controllers to run Intel's 960RP chip. It consists of a 30-MIPS RISC processor with lo
cal memory, a PCl-to-PCI bridge, and built-in support for interrupt
handling and DMA transfers. The new chip makes the GDT RP com
patible with the upcoming 1201/0 standard. But since OSes for 120 are not ready for market yet, you'll have to wait several more months
to capitalize on 120 's performance and manageability benefits. The GDT RP bridges 1/0 gaps between the CPU and disks via
high-speed bus transactions and intelligent caching algorithms.
This new PCI board can carry up to 64 MB of cache memory, imple
mented either as fast-page-mode or EDO SIMM modules.If 64 MB
is not enough, an optional PCI module lets you extend cache mem
ory to apiggyback board. In addition,the caching algorithm includes
adaptive delayed-write and read-forward functions. You can now buy
the board in Wide and Ultra SCSI versions;a Fibre Channel version
will be available by the end of the year.
With ICP Vortex's RAIDYNE firmware installed, disk arrays with
RAID levels O, 1, 4, 5,and 10 work independently of the host machine.
You can plug in extra disks and change RAID levels during opera
tion.It also enables you to assign a spare disk to a single RAID clus
ter or define a pool of extra disks that can be used by all clusters in
case of failure.
Because the GDT RP comes in several variants with up to five
independent SCSI channels, it's a scalable solution. It works in mid
size file servers as well as in high-end database servers with acapac
ity of more than 25 GB.
-RainerMauth
32 1S 28 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Remote-Access Router for the Home Office
Serial Ports Connect to PCI
BRAINBOXES' FOUR - PORT RS-232 1/0 card provides high-speed serial-port connectivity and plugs into the PCI bus. It transfers data at speeds up
to 115.2 Kbps, includes a 16-byte FIFO buffer, and comes with soft ware utilities for DOS and Windows 95, NT, and 3.11. Price: £265. Contact: Brain Boxes, Liverpool, U.K., +44 151 220 2500; http://www.brain boxes.com. Enter 1019 on Inquiry Card.
Three Interfaces in One Card
THE MC218 CARDCOMBIN ES ANALOG, ISDN, and GSM interfaces in a singl e PC Card. It offers a 33.6 Kbps data transfer rate on Public Switched Telephone Networks and includes automatic recognition of the line interfaces of different countries.Atspeedsupto 128 Kbps on ISDN networks and 9600 bps on GSM, the MC218 meets standard data-transmission rates. It ships with Windows95-compatible soft ware that supports faxing and elec tronic file transfer. Price: Ca ll company.
Contact: COM One, Bordeaux,
France, +33 556 78
84 00; http://www.coml.fr.
Enter 1020 on Inquiry Card.
VI CAS, ATELEWORKING ACCESS SYSTEM, combines a remote-access router with a phone switch and a fax ma chine.It provides ports for one ISDN line, two telephones, a serial con nector, and two Ethernet con nec tors. Because the device supports the TCP/IP and SNMP protocols, it enab les tel eworkers to access the Internet as well as remote LANs. Vicas includes several security fea tures and isintended for remote of fices and small call centers. Price: DM 3450. Contact: BinTec Communi cations GmbH, Nuremberg, Germany, +49 911 967 30; http://www.bintec.de. Enter 1021 on Inquiry Card.
A New Family of Ethernet Cards
HYPERTEC'S HYPER NET RAN GE OF NET work adapters provides Ethernet connectivity for sma ll business es. The entry-level HyperNet PnP Combo ISA-bu s card provides lOBase-2, lOBase-5, and 10Base T connectors; HyperNet PCI, the PCl-busversion ,supports 10Base 2 and 10Base -T. At the high end of the range, the HyperNet PCI 10/ 100, a Fast Ethernet version, in cludes 10Base-T and 100Base-TX connectors for data transfer rates up to 100 Mbps. Price: HyperNet PnP Combo, £29; HyperNet PCI, £40; HyperNet PCI 10/100,£49. Contact: Hypertec, Ltd., Hungerford, U.K., +441488 686844. Enter 1022 on Inquiry Card.
Software International
Removable Jaz Drive
FINALLY THERE'S ASWAPPABLE VERSION
The professional ve rsion contains encrypting and decrypting software, two smartcard readers to store keys, and the PC board, which encodes 650 MB in approximately 8 minutes. The software package alone is avail
SOFTWARE
Engineering
TPCAD Optimizes Motor Design
of the Iomega Jaz drive. Usi ng an able as a Personal Edition, including
interna l or external Swap Bay, the a database for keys and addresses. TPCAD ENGINEERING SOFTWARE HELPS
Swap Jaz Drive lets you remove the Price: Starts at DM 2070.
optimize t hree- phase induction
Contact: CE Infosys GmbH,
motor designs and predicts the
Bodenheim, Germany,
performance of motors when the
+49 6135 77 0.
design changes. The program sim
Enter 1027 on Inquiry Card. ulates test conditions and calculates
the weig ht and cost of materials for
Input Devices
a given design. You can purchase the ana lysis, optimization, and test
A Mouse for Notebooks
modulessepa rately or asa package. Price: Call company. Contact: Information
entire drive and plu9 it into any oth
Technologies and Electronics,
er bay-equipped computer, much MOUSEMAN, AMOUSE FOR NOTEBOOKS, Ankara, Turkey,
like a removable Cc r stereo.
weighs less than a standard mouse +90 3 12 210 1310.
Price: Starts at DM 730.
and includes a short, 60-cm-long Enter 1031 on Inquiry Card.
Contact: Computer Con nections, Ratingen, Germany, +49 210 242 990; http://www
Silux Simulates Multibody Dynamics
.storagecompany. com.
- Enter 1010 on Inquiry Card.
UPS Include!> Remote Monitoring
cable. Thethree-button input device executes frequently used key com binations in Windows95 or Netscape Navigator at the click of a button.
SILUX SIMULATION SOFTWARE HELPS SOLVE mecha nical-design problems with new al gorithms that in clude th e detailed ana lysis of multi body dy namics. The package runs on Win dows NT and Power Macs and al lows for t he detailed mechanical
Price: DM 79.
stressana lysisof parts as well as en
OFFERING SOPHISTI CATED COMMUNICA Contact: Logitech,
tire systems. Silux interfaces wit h
tions faci litiesviathe RS-232 port, Romanel-sur-Morges,
DXF and IGES for data excha nge.
the Ofys Micro UPSprovides com Switzerland, +41218635 111.
Price: Starts at 4000 SFR.
plete control over all kinds of pow Enter 1024 on Inquiry Card.
Contact: SiluxAG,
er electroni cs. Its ~.upervisor soft
Zug-Oberwil, Switzerland,
ware includes remote monitoring and sh utdown fea t ures and guar
Scanners
+41 52 366 0330; http://www.silux.com.
antees fa ult-free operation in case
Enter 1032 on Inquiry Card.
of system fa ilure. The package of Large-Format Scanner
fers real-time grap hsofoperating status and alarms plusscheduling HANDLINGDOCUMENTS UP TO 36 INCHES
Security
of sh utdowns and start-ups.
in width and of unlimited length,
Price: Call company.
thelmtec3 730C large-format scan Protect Your
Contact: Sicon-Socomec,
ner supports black and white, 256 Domino Databases
Vil/aver/a, Italy,
gray sca les, and 24-bit color. Scan
+39445 359111.
ning an AO-size document in 400 DR. SOLOMON 'SANTI-VI RUS TOOLKIT FOR
Enter 1026 on Inquiry Card.
dpi, for exa mple, takes 24 seconds Lotus Domino protects databases
PC Board Encrypts CD-RO Ms
in monochrome. Th e device uses photo transistors for co lorscann ing that offer superior picture quality.
and mail against viruses. It monitors all incom ing and outbound mail and attachments in the background, and
CD CRYPT, AN ENCRYPTll~G BOARD FOR CD ROMs, supports 150-9660 formats and protects access to CD-ROM
Price: £11,000.
Contact: The Imtec Group,
Ltd., Stanmore, U.K. ,
+441812043456.
it either isolates or deletes viruses in case of infection. Other features incl ude on-access and on-dema nd scan ning of Notes databases. The
content with a 112-bit algorithm. Enter 1025 on Inquiry Card.
program runs on Windows NT net
works; versions for OS/2 and Net Ware wi ll be avai lable soon. Price: £395 (10-user license). Contact: Dr. Solomon's Sofrware, Ltd., Aylesbury, U.K., +44 1296 318700; http: //www.drsolomon.com/. Enter 1028 on Inquiry Card.
ServerProtect Keeps NT Networks Clean
SERVER PROTECT FOR WINDOWS NT IN cludessevera l remote management functions that help prevent virus in
fection on large NT networks. The software detects macro viruses as well as vi ruses hidden in compressed or encoded files. You can down load updates of the latestvirusscanners from the vendor's Web site. Price: Call company. Contact: Articon Information Systems GmbH, Aschheim, Germany, +49 89 945 730; http://www.a rticon.de. Enter 1029 on Inquiry Card.
Image Processing
Analyze High Resolution Images
THE DI MPLE 3.0 IMAGE-PROCESSING PRO gram runs on Windows as we ll as on the Mac OS. It processes 32-bit images and includes ann otation features for producing detailed maps. Th e program handl es and analyzes various data types: satel lite, ai rborn e, radar, or data from geological or geochemica l research. The impl emented scripting lan guage lets users integrate theirown f unctions into t he menus. Price: £1395.
Contact: Cherwell Scientific
Publishing, Ltd., Oxford, U.K.,
+441865 784800;
http://www.cherwell.com.
Enter 1030 on Inquiry Card.
www.byte.com
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 321S 2 9
International Software
Java Booster Speeds Up Downloads
Frankfurt/Main, Germany, +49 69 23 69 29; fax: +49 69 23 69 30; http://www.isg.de. Enter 1015 on Inquiry Card.
IFYOU REGULARLY DOW NLOAD AMULTITUDE of Java applets, Innovative Soft ware's Java Booster may help you.
Calculate Effects of Delays
CreditSim Analyzes Finances
CR EDITSIM BUSINESS-SIMULATION SOFT ware helps analyze the long-term effects of management decisions on corporate fi nances. It displays the results in graphs and tables that
are dynamica lly linked to the de cision-input module.Th e program requires a Pentium PC with a min imum of 16 MB of RAM. Price: About DM 1400. Contact: Paradigm Busi ness Simulators AS, Bergen, N orway, +47 553 065 00; h t t p :// www.paradigm .n l. Enter 1036 on Inquiry Card.
l n o C - 0 . - ...
~ Vt ...
...- " " '
Thisutility caches Java applets, stores th em in your Windows NT or Unix networks, and makes them acces sible to all users on your network. Th esoftwa re also offers an off-li ne mode, text retrieval , and compre hensiveimport and exportfeatures. Price: Client version, DM 49; server version, DM 790. Contact: Innovative Software GmbH,
PROJECTDIRECTOR FOR WI NDOWS OFFERS sophisticated time-manageme nt facilities and cal cuIates the effects of potenti al delays. Th e software allows for an unlimited number of links between individual tasks and detects co nflicts automatically. A built-in co mmunicationsinterface lets you send e-mail directly from the program. Price: Call company.
Contact: Planetary Systems,
Budapest, Hungary, +36 1 313
8049; http://www. plansys. hu.
Enter 1033 on Inquiry Card.
.L ~
~ FRANCE
~Iii COM Fii e'
· Electrical Electromechanical CAD Solutions
MindMan3.o Price: DM 129
Enter 1013 on Inquiry Card.
Visualizing Ideas Karlsfeld, Germany +49 8131 505047 fax : +498131505046 susan@mindman .com http ://www.mindman.com
The most popular Electric CAD
Eaey to uee, powerful,
flexll11e, affordal11e I
Fully Automa1;1c; functlone:
Wire Numl1erine, Croee Ta"11!1e
Cuetom Part Llet. Cal1lln0 Llet ...
\
Microdata System srl - http://www.microdata.it Tel +39-187-988.460 ITALY Fax +39-187-988.322
MindMan Helps Manage Creativity
The concept behind mind mapping is as simple as it is enticing : Instead of using traditional lists and other forms of note-taking
during brainstorming sessions and general idea conception, use col
or, curved lines, and suggestive symbols to be more creative. This
mirrors the way in which the mind works and lets you harness your
creativity to the best advantage.
Whereas traditional mind mapping involves the use of paper and
colored pens, MindMan 3.0 uses all the bells and whistles of the
Windows 95 GUI to stimulate and visualize your ideas. With Mind
Man you can drag and drop branches to reorganize your ideas quick
ly, drag and drop objects from other applications, create hyperlinks
to external documents and Web pages, link multiple mind maps,and
define relationships between items or branches. The tool also lets
you attach textual notes to items and branches and automatically as
signs symbols to keywords.
Because creative processes are often more efficient when done
with teams, MindMan has a conferencing system that allows for real
time editing and collaborating of shared mind maps via the Internet.
The beta version I tested didn't include any tutorials, which may
be helpful if your' re new to mind mapping. However, MindMan is
impressively easy to use, and its concept of user interaction is con
sistent. The quality of the symbol library needs work, however. Most
icons are just blunt and sober bit maps.
-RainerMauth
3 2 I S 3 Q BYTE NOVEMBER l 9 9 7 Circle 442 on Inquiry Card.
wwwbyt .com
INTE~~ON -PRI NT5ERVER
For Excellent Connections
·NetWare
Tested end
Approved
CE
Software Support
· Novell 4.x NetWare Directory Services (NDS ) · Novell 2.x, 3.x, 4.x Bindery Mode · SNMP (MIB II and SEH Privat MIB) · HTML/HTTP configurable · UNIX (TCP/IP) · Apple Ether/TokenTalk · Windows NT (TCP/IP) · Windows '95 (SEH PrintMonitor) · 882000 RSO Spool (V. 2.3A, V. 3.0A)
Features
· Configurable with any HTML 3.x Internet browser · Multiprotocol support of all operating systems · Automati c recognition of the used network connector · Software update/upgrade via download in Flash-EPROM · Printer status request from host computer · Automatic protocol recognition · Configuration parameters can be edited by software · Configuration via printer operation panel (for KYOCERA) · Recognition and reaction to network environment changes ·Supports 16 queues on 16 servers (Novell) · Support of 8 logical printers · Easy Installation via PCONSOLE (Novell) · Status button
Hardware Support
Ethernet l0Base2/5/T/FL (BNC, AUI, RJ45 , ST)
· IC53-ETHER-KY0-5 · IC53-ETHER-KYO-FL · IC55-ETHERPOCKET · IC57-ETHER-EPSON
Token Ring STP, UTP (IBM Typel/2, Type3)
· IC60-TOKEN-KYO
Ethernet IOOBaseTX (RJ45)
· IC73-FAST-KYO-TX · IC77-FAST-EPSON-TX
More informa1tion about InterCon:
SEH Computertechnik GmbH
Sudring 1I
D-33647 Bielefeld, Germany
Phone:
+49 I 52 1 / 94226-0
Fax:
+49 / 521 I 94226-99
Internet:
http://www.seh.de
E-Mai l:
info@seh .de
Compuserve-Id: [( 0742, I452
Microsoft is a reg istered trademark and Microsoft Internet Explorer is a rrademark of Mi crosoft
S~H
Computertechnik GmbH
Circle 465 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 466).
Circle 464 on Inquiry Card.
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International Customer Service
United Kingdom Peter Gregson Phone: 44 1 61 430 3423
Contact your local BYTE Subscription Representative
Fax: 44 1 61 494 6976 or John Luker
Phone: 44 1 258 82 1114
Fax: 44 1 258 821 11 5
Benelux Gerry Westerhof Phone: 31 72 509 1855 Fax: 31 72 509 1145
Bu lgaria Daniel Christov Phone/Fax: 359 2 943 4203
France Eric Le Quinio Phone: 33 1 49 77 03 06 Fax: 33 1 43 76 74 29
Germany, Austria, Switzerland Wolfgang Brezina Phone: 49 89 525 847 Fax: 49 89 529 850
or Germany Dr. Margot Kahleyss Phone/Fax: 49 30 841 0 161
Greece Maria Hadjioannou Phone: 30 61 620384 Fax: 30 61 272072
Hungary lmre Szabo Phone: 36 76 488888 Fax: 36 76 488889
Ireland Ian Bangham Phone: 353 1 280 7133 Fax: 353 1 280 7157 Italy Enrico Campia Phone/Fax: 39 11 898 0240 Middle East Zafar lnamdar Phone: 97 1 4 666788 Fax: 971 4 621149 Poland Wlodek Bincyzk Phone/Fax: 48 2 2625 2275
Russia Moscow: Dmitriy Koloskov Phone/Fax: 7 095 432 0500 Novosibirsk: Oksana Gnezdilov Phone/Fax: 7 3832 4957 14
11197
Scandinavia, Estonia, Latvai & Lithuania Gunnar Sandbjerg Phone: 45 33 14 2226 Fax: 45 33 14 22 18
or Scandinavia
Latin America Julian Sanchez Phone: 787-781-7796 Fax: 787-749 -0898
Brazil Jocelio Valle
Lauge Dehn
Phone: 55 21 233-8180
Phone: 45 86 223188
Fax: 55 21 233-8886
Fax: 45 86 228159 South Africa
Asia Pacific Rudy Teng
Bernadette Jackson
Phone: 886 2 725 1701
Phone: 27 3 1 7008628
Fax: 886 2 725 1706
Fax: 27 31 7001979 Johannesburg: MAST Phone: 27 11 8804988 Fax: 27 11 4428327
Spain
South Asia Arijit Guin, Jr. Phone: 9 1 33 4408721 Fax: 91 33 4405750
Barcelona: Javier Casellas Phone/Fax: 34 3 238 0342 Madrid: Eduardo Montojo Phone/Fax: 34 1 57 16685 or Henri Misrahi Phone: 34 1 7337346
If there is no BYTE representative listed above for your country, please contact:
BYTE Subscriber Services
Fax: 34 1 7338970
Turkey Cengiz Eren
PO Box 72, Galway, Ireland Fax: +1 353 9 1 752793. Phone: +1 353 9 1 752792.
Phone: 90 216 345 3473
c:r:: ?
Fax: 90 216 346 2464
~
A Di11isiorz ofThe McGraw-HiU Comparzies
32 15 32 BYTE NOVEMBER 19 97
Graphics Card
With raging video playback and your choice of either AGP or PCI, the Revolution 3D runs circles around the competition. By David Em
Num1ber Nine's New Spin: Revolution 3D
cco rdin g to Moo r e's Law,
comp uting powe r do ubl es
eve r y 18 m o n t h s. W h en it
co mes to computer graphics,
however, it triples. As a result, graphics
horsepower that was once avail able only
on high-end workstations now exists at
the consumer level.
One of th e :first of the new generation
of gra phics su bsystems to include the
Acce lerated Gra phics Por t (AGP) is th e
Revolution 3D card fro m Number Nine
Visual Techn ology. The Revolution 30
comes in single-slot AGP and PC! versions.
It incorporate:; a third-generation 128-bit
chip called Ticket to Ri de .
Th e Revoluti o n 30 co mes in du al
ported Window RAM (WRAM) configu
rati ons ranging from 4 to 16 MB . I tested
both the 8-MB PC! and AGP versions o f
the card, and ran both cards at 128 0- by 1024-pixel resolution an d 85 H z.
The Revolution 3D's engine processes video scaling
The Revolution 30's 2-0 performance
as a texture and greatly reduces pixelation.
is spectacular. Screen refr eshes are as fas t
as any I've seen, and at 85 H z, the dis Photoshop and M etaCreations' Painter 5 ics and video data at up to 1.56 GBps.
play is rock-solid. Programs such as Adobe were very responsive.
The PC! and AGP versions of the 4-MB
11g FOCUS
AGP or More Memory?
The MMX/AGP combination should im prove graphics and video performance, and bring down thl!price of memory and band
Video playback was similarly impres siv e a nd incl uded RGB MPEG d ecom pression. I played both Audio Video Inter leave (AVI ) an d MPEG clips scaled to full screen at 1280 by 1024 pixels in true color on Windows 95. At 30 frames per second, the motion was extremely fl uid.
Revolution 30 sell fo r $349. The 8-MB ver-
RATINGS
TECHNOLOGY
* * * * *
* * * * IMPLEMENTATION
* * * * PERFORMANCE
width-intensive functions such as texture
Serious 3-0 users will want to consider sion costs $449. An 8-MB upgrade to 16
mapping. However, there are currently no applications to prove this. I tested the
the 16-MB card, which can supp ort dou MB is an additional $249. The Revolution ble-buffered color at 1280 by 1024 pixels, 30 can't compete with the highest-end
Revolution 30 <eard on a 300-MHz Pentium or up to 1920by 1060 pixels at 65,000 col 3-0 graphics cards fr om such companies
II machine with AGP. At one point, I even ors. The Revolution 30 sup ports Open as Intergraph and Dynamic Pictures, but
turned off its ~1-0 features. Despite all the GL, He idi , and Dir ecr30 driv ers, al it costs only about a quarter as much. Its
available power and bandwidth, graphics th ough Windows NT do es not yet have perfo rm anc e is we ll suited for artists,
slowed to a virtual crawl . Budget-conscious hardware support for Direct30 .
graphic designers, and desktop publish
w ~
I "
serious gamer!; and professional graphics
The floating-point setup engine reduces ers who need good 3-0 and scorching 2-0
0
'ii
users looking 1to buy new systems are far the performance hi t experienced when and video. Iii
±
better off sacrificing a little speed on the multiple 3-0 fe atures are enabled. The
IL
ii
(!)
CPU end and putting their money into the co mbi nati on of thel 28-bit, 2-0 drawing David Em (Sierra Madre, CA) is a digital artist
f2
0
fastest graphics card they can afford.
engine and the WideBus internal archi and writer. You can reach him at davidem
I IL
tecture allows th e car d to process gra ph @earthlink.net.
***** **** *** ** * Outstanding
Ve ry Good
Good
Fair
Poor
NO V EMBER 1997 BYTE 3 3
Digital Camera
Using new CMOS sensor technology, the SVmini-209 delivers high-quality pictures at a low price. By Stan Miastkowski
CMOS Gets the Picture
ntil rece ntly, digital still cam
eras were either inexpensive,
low-resolution devices or
high-end units for people
who need professional-grade images. But
a new camera from Sound Vision, the
SVmini-209, delivers ultrahigh-quality
digital images at a relatively bargain price.
Sound Vision itself sells the SVmini and
also OEMs it to Vivitar and others.
The key to this camera is its CMOS sen
sor, developed with VLSI Vision (Edin
burgh, Scotland). The model I tested is
Sound Vision's second-generation cam
era. The first, sold as the Vivitar ViviCam
3000 and Umax Sharpset 8000, was the
first digital still camera on the market to
use a CMOS sensor instead of a charge
coupled device (CCD) sensor. High-res olution CMOS sensors are less expensive
It's small, but the SVmini camera captures high-resolution
than comparable CCDs, and they also require considerably less power and sup
digital images with good color.
port circu itry, which means dramatical ly increased battery life.
The SVmini-209's four-co lor sensor produces a native resolution of 1000 by
800 pixels (10 bits per color). A Texas Instruments TMS-320C209 digital signal processor extrapolates the im age to 2000 by 1600, a truly impressive 3.2-megapix
RATINGS
TECHNOLOGY
* * * * *
* * * * IMPLEMENTATION
TECH FOCUS
el image. A noise -reduction algorithm in the camera software removes graini ness from images taken in poor light.
* * * * * PERFORMANCE
timer. There's a built-in microphone for
Don't It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue?
The camera holds 1 MB of DRAM and 1 MB of flash memory. System software takes 1.5 MB, leaving about 500 KB for
recording brief clips of WAY audio along with each image (although this eats into image-storage space). Windows 95 soft
Adigital camera tries to record colors the image storage. The SVmini uses variable ware included with the camera lets you
way the human eye sees them. Since the retina has three different color receptors (red, green, blue), you'd assume a camera also needs three receptors. Unfortunately, the dyes in a camera's sensors don't match the eyes' color response very well.
Sound Vision adds a fourth dye, teal. This extra measurement helps achieve a better color match. Interestingly, some women's eyes have four color receptors, a condition called tetrachromaticity. Some geneticists speculate that such women can better
assess their children's health by skin tone.
JPEG compression, which you adjust using download and view images through a ser either an on-camera LCD or a serial con ial port, set all the camera's parameters, nection, to balance image quality agai nst and clear images from memory. Macin storage space: 80 percent compression tosh software is also avai lable. An option (100 KB per image) gives optimal quality; al AC adapter extends the life of the six 40 percent (50 KB) produces some arti AA batteries. facts. The 500-KB internal memory isn't The camera I tested, an early prototype, much space for images, so the SVmini produced superb images in a variety of has a slot for flash memory cards holding lighting conditions. While its CMOS sen 2 to 16 MB. An adapter will be available sor technology is new, the SYmini is obvi for SanDisk MiniPort cards, which use a
ously riding the wave of the future. l1J DOS-compatible file format.
The SVmini-209 sports an f/4.0 fixed Stan Miastkowski is a BYTE consulting editor. focus glass lens, a built-in flash, and a self- You can reach him at stanm @bix.com.
34 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
***** **** *** ** * Outstanding
Very Good
Good
Fair
Poor
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Digita l, Alpha, and Digita l UN IX TM Digital.
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Authoring Software
This word/idea/document processor is something else, but we're just not sure what to call it. By Russell Kay
AWh1atchamacallit for Words
. .- - · an Bricklin created the elec tronic spreadsheet as we now know it. His subsequent soft
. ._ _ _ ware products have all been
distinct and different-category mak ers and breakers. So, too , is his latest brainchild, Trellix. There's no category label that clearly conveys what Trellix does. In brief, it lets you create hyper text documents that function like a Web browser, outl ine processor, and presen tation-graphi,:s package rolled into one, complete with instant links to other parts of a document or accessible URLs.
Paper documents are mostly read from beginni ng to end, whil e We b sites are clearly nonlinear: You branch back and forth, and when you find an interesting link, you click on it and bring it up. This navigation ab;.Jity is the essence ofTrellix, which is designed for on-screen viewi ng.
A Trellix document appears in two parts: a map that shows the document's structure, and the pages . Each page can have up to four borders (which are typi cally quite wide) that house navigation buttons, text elements, or graphics. There
,,,.. isalso an optional outline view. The map
shows each page as a small rectangle, high lighting the current page in yellow, indi-
H FOCUS
Looking at a Very ActiveX
Trellix, a set of ActiveX controls that are containers fol' each other, is one of the first applications to support Microsoft's ActiveX Hyperlinking Protocol. ATrellix document is an ActiveX document; therefore, it can link to (or be linked from) other Trellix or ActiveX documents. including video, spread sheets, and various graphics, or it can con tain URLs pointing to Web pages. You can also include a Trellix document within an other ActiveX container, such as a Micro soft Office Binder document.
Trellix organizes information with a document map, hyperlinks, an outline view, and dedicated screen areas.
cating sequential links by connecting lines, and representing structure by a vertical hierarchy. When your cursor hovers over a page icon on the map, a label appears with that page's title. Put your cursor on an underlined link, and the correspond ing map icon is also highlighted.
When creating a document, you can write pages in any order and rearrange them by dragging and dropping icons on the map. You can import content from ex isting documents in a variety of formats. Menu items make it easy to create links and sequences of pages. It's easy to pre sent summary information without inter rupting the flow of the document. And it's even easier to incorporate auxiliary information and footnote-like references that don't get in the way.
Trellix lets you program complex doc uments for the reader. You can create dif ferent viewing sequences (Trellix calls them tours) in the same document, for different purposes or audiences. You can print a Trellix document, but yo u would normally view it with Trellix itself, a free
viewer, or as an exported HTML page that any browser can display.
Trellix isn't a normal word processor for writing letters, e-mail, or the Great American Novel, nor is it a PowerPoint replacement. But it offers a powerful new potential for presenting and viewing structured information, from research re ports to textbooks to business plans.
RATINGS
TECHNOLOGY
* * * * *
* * * * IMPLEMENTATION
I drafted this Eva! using the "sneak peek" version 0.8, which didn't imple ment all the package's promised features but was easy to use witho ut a manual. If the final release lives up to this early promise, Trellix will be a useful tool that could revol utionize many kinds of writ
ing and presentation. m
Russell Kay is a BYTE technical editor in the reviews department. You can reach him by sending e-mail to russellk@bix.com.
***** **** *** ** * Outstanding
Very Good
Good
Fai r
Poor
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Networks
A new ATM service enables applications to compensate for network congestion. By William Stallings
Adju~stable Cell Rates for ATM Networks
owadays, when you use an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, you have a choice from four classes of service for carrying traffic. The first one is constant bit rate (CBR), which specifies a fixed data rate. The ATM provider's net work must ensure that this capacity is available and polices the incoming traf fic on the connection to ensure that the subscriber does not exceed its allocation. The second :;ervice is the more flexible variable bit rate (VBR). AVBR connection defines a sustained rate for normal use and a faster burst rate for occasional use at peak periods. The third one is unspecified bit rate (UBR). This is a best-effort service: No amount of capacity is guaranteed, and any cells may be discarded. Finally, a new ATM service has been defined: available bit rate (ABR). It proYides a guaranteed mini mum capacity. When additional network capacity is available, you can burst data above the minimum rate without risk of cell loss. Each :;ervice has its uses, as seen in "Four Types.of ATM Service." ABR and UBR are best suited for LAN internetworki:1g and other types of data traffic. UBR is directed at delay-tolerant app lications (e.g., file transfer and e-mail). It prov ides no feedback about net work congestion to the user or applica tion. Thus, UBR increases the risk of dis carded cells, which in turn increases network traffic because of the lost cells that must be retransmitted. To improve service to bursty sources that would in stead use UBR, ABR was defined. ABR is intended for applications where network delays are a concern. The main practical difference between ABR and UBR is that, in the case of ABR, the net work provides congestion information to the applicati.on. This lets the program constantly modify the sending rate, achieving the best throughput.
ABR Rate Contro l
An application using ABR specifies a peak cell rate (PCR) that it will use and a min imum cell rate (MCR) that it requires. The
The ABR serv ice offers a number of benefits. First, ABR connections share available network capacity. They have access to the instantaneous capacity un used by CBR/ VBR connections . Thus,
Four Types of ATM Service
Maintains asteady data stream, similar to adata lease line.
·
Unspecified bit rate
· · JlfUL__JlJL_
Available bit rate
· JIBJl W1 ·
Used by applicationssuch as voiceand videoconferencing that run at an 111even rate but need agiven capacity on demand.
For use in data networks by delay·tolerant applications such as afile transfer or e mail. No feedback about netwolil congestion is provided.
For use in data netlllllls where delays n aconcern. Congestion infonnatian lets applcations sand data at eptimal ll'lnsfer rates.
ABR is useful for on-line sessions where the network response is critical.
network allocates resou rces so that all ABR applications receive at least their MCR capacity. It then shares any unused capacity in a fair and controlled fashion among all ABR sources.
The ABR mechanism uses explicit feed back to the sources to assure that capac ity is fairly allocated. Any capacity that ABR sources don't use remai ns available for UBR traffic. An example of an appli cation using ABR is a LAN interconnec tion. In this case, the end systems attached to the ATM network are routers.
ABR can increase network use without affecting the quality of service of CBR/ VBR connections . Second, the share of available capacity used by a single ABR connection is dynamic and varies between an agreed MCR and PCR.
Third, the network provides feed back to ABR sources so that ABR flows are limited to available capacity. The time delays inherent in providing feedback dictate the use of buffers along a con nection's path. Because of the large data rate and a relatively large propagation
www.byte.com
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 43
Co re/N etworks Adjustabl e Cell Rates for ATM Netw orks
delay through a network, these buffers may be substantial, leading to large de lays. Accordingly, the ABR service is ap propriate for applications that can tol erate adjustments to their transmission rates and unpredictable cell delays. Fi nally, for ABR sources that adapt their transmission rate to the provided feed back, a low cell-loss ratio is guaranteed.
Feedback Mechanisms
The transmission rate of ce lls from a source through an ABR connection is characterized by four parameters. The current rate that the source is permitted to transmit cells at is called the allowed cell rate (ACR). T he source transmits cells at any rate between zero and the ACR. The MCR is the minimum value the ACR may take. The network will not restrict a source's flow to less than the MCR. You can set the MCR to zero for a given con nection. The PCR is the maximum rate the ACR may take . The initial cell rate (ICR) is the initial value assigned to the ACR.
A source starts with the ACR equal to the ICR and dynamically adjusts theACR based on feedback from the network. Feedback appears periodically as a se quence of resource management (RM) cells. Each cell has three fields: a conges tion indication (CI) bit, a no increase (NI) bit, and an explicit cell rate (ER) field. The source first checks the 2 fee dback bits. If an increase is called for, it is increased by a fixe d-size increment. If a decrease is called for, the rate is lowered by a fixed size increment.
Finally, ifthe ER is smaller than the ACR, the source red uces t he ACR to the ER. These adjustments are subject to the con straint that the ACR varies between the limits of the MCR and the PCR.
Cell Flow
T he figure "Adjusting ATM Cell Flow" illustrates the way that the fee db ack works. It depicts a flow of data in one direction over an ATM connection; a sim ilar flow occurs in the opposite sense for two-way data communication. Two types of ATM cells flow on an ABR connec tion: data cells and RM cells. A source receives a regular sequence of RM cells that enable it to adj ust the rate of cell transmission.
The source initiates the bulk of the RM cells. It transmits one forwar d RM (FRM)
cell for every (Nrm - 1) data cells. Nrm is a preset parameter, usually equal to 32. As each FRM cell is received at the desti nation, it is turned around and transmit ted back to the source as a backward RM (BRM) cell. Each FRM cell contains the CI, NI, and ER fields. The source typically sets CI = 0, NI = Oor 1, and ER equal to a desired transmission rate in the range ICR :s; ER :s; PCR. An ATM switch or the des tination system may change any of these fields before the corresponding BRM cell returns to the source.
An ATM switch on the network has a
or NI bit set rather th a n wait for a passing BRM cell.
· Explicit-rate marking: The switch may reduce the value of the ER field of an FRM or BRM cell.
These actions let an ATM switch signal a source that congestion is occurring and to reduce its cell rate . The destination sys tem can also signal congestion. Under normal conditions, a destination system simply converts each incoming FRM cell to a BRM cell without changing the NI, CI, or ER fie lds. The exception is that
Adjusting ATM Cell Row
Cell transmission
rate = ACR. Source
~
sends RM cells for every N data cells.
Congestion point:
i-. Set EFCI of a data
cell.
Return RM cell. ff networt< is congested, ~ reduce ER. ff EFCI is ~ set, set Cl bit.
'oo a1 ~aa 1'0aa 1 aoo.
a H
-1n n n/ n 111
n Forward RM cell Data cell
Backward RM cell
· . :·< '_"',' - -·
4 I Modify ACR based on Cl, NI, and ER. I
Congestion point: Reduce ER or set Cl or NI.
ACR = allowed cell rate
ER = explicit cell rate
Cl = congestion Indication
NI = no increase
EFCI = Explicit Forward Congestion lndicaUon RM = resource management
The source adjusts its cell rate based on values returned by the destination and network switches.
number of ways to provide rate-control feedback to a source :
· EFCI marking: The switch sets the Explicit Forward Congestion Indica tion (EFCI) condition in an ATM data ce ll header (using the payload type fie ld) as it passes in the forward direc tion. This causes the destination end system to set the CJ bit in a BRM cell.
· Relative-rate marking: The switch directly sets the CI or NI bit of a pass ing RM cell. If the bit is set in an FRM cell, that bit will remain set in the cor responding BRM cell. More rapid results are achieved by setting one of these bits in a passing BRM cell. To achieve the most rapid result, a switch may generate a BRM cell with the CJ
the CI bit gets set if an EFCJ signal has been received on the previous data cell.
However, if the destination is experi encing congestion, it may set the CI or NI bit, or reduce the ER value when con verting an FRM cell to a BRM cell. The first ATM switches to supportABR use the EFCI, NI, and CI bits, providing a simple relative-rate control mechanism. The more complex controls associated with the use of explicit rate constitute a sec ond generation of ABR service. lil
William Stallings is a consultant on data com munications and computer networking. This article is based on material in his latest book, High-Speed Networks: TCP/IP and ATM Design Principles (Prentice-Hall, 1997). You can reach him at ws @shore.net.
44 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
wwwbytecom
Operating Systems
OS features and a freeware scripting utility solve application portability across various flavors of Unix. By Bob Friesenhahn
Auto~conf Makes for Portable Software
incethe birth of Unix in 1969, there have been at least 70 dis;:inct versions of Unix and Unix-like systems. With thou sands of programmers enhancing Unix over the years for various system vendors and educational facilities, Unix's genea l ogy looks as tangled as a royal family tree. Due to the many versions of Unix that exist, popular opinion is that portabil ity among them is poor. To avoid a Tow er of Babel situation, many vendors, users groups, and standards organizations have made efforts to define common compo nents and AP!s for Unix. The end result is that while all versions differ to some degree, in modern-day Unix systems the variance between the AP!s for any two versions is smdl. Still, if porting software is so difficult, why is there so much free software avail able for so many versions of Unix? Dur ing the first 20 years of Unix's history, soft ware porting was something that often required overnight stints or even weeks of effort. Today, a utility called Auto conf neatly eliminates this work. To understand how Autoconf does this magic, we must first understand the changes that have occurred to Unix over the years. In the early 1990s, two events made porting much easier: the use of fea ture-based portability and the invention of the configure script.
Feature-Based Portability
Back when there were only a few Unix variants to contend with , it was common to base portability on preprocessor define statements that specified a particular ver sion of Unix . Such statements as XENIX, BSD, SUN, USG, andSYSVwere common. This is known as OS-based portability.
Unfortunately, as Unix continued to evolve, define statements that had pre viously made sc:nse became incorrect. For example, when Sun went from using a
BSD-based kernel to using an SVR4 ker nel, software that made decisions based on the vendor's being Sun did not com pile or work correctly on SVR4 imple mentations. By the mid-1980s, these problems became critical due to the ever-
MADVISE is a feature-based definition rather than an OS-based one, since it iden tifies a capability found in any OS. Port ing existing code to a new version of Unix entails identifying the features that the OS provides, providing equivalent defi-
Steps Toward Automatic Configuration
S-Ource code files
0
Configure script
(end user)
0
Developer 0 Run autoscan on
source files to obtain initial configure.in file.
@ Edit configure.in to
add any extra tests.
@ Run autoconf, and thereafter
autoreconf, to produce the configure script.
0 Run autoheader to produce a
configuration header file (optional).
0 Package for delivery.
End user 0 Run configure.
@Run make application (not shown) and install results.
Autoconf lets programmers build scripts that tailor an application for a specific version of Unix.
expanding pool of Unix variants and the growing amount of software that had to be maintained.
Feature-based portability then stepped in to the rescue. Rather than presuming certain characteristics based on an OS vendor, feature-based portability iden tifies the OS fea tures (i.e. , the AP!s) that the software uses and compiles code con ditionally based on those features. For example, the define statement HAVE_
nitions to the build system, and provid ing replacement code for features miss ing from the OS. After the code is ported to many systems, the various ways of solv ing a problem have been dealt with, and porting comes down to a simple config uration step and a build step.
The Configure Script
Configure scripts (usually written in the Bourne shell, / bin/sh) are designed to root
WWW yt CO
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 45
Core/Operating Systems Autoconf Makes for Portable Software
around in the OS and look for clues that tell it what features it has. The end result is a tailored make file, and possibly an in clude file or two.
The first significant configure script that I know of was written by Larry Wall and designed to configure Perl. This script was named Configure and became part of the Metaconfig package. Metaconfig Configure scripts are interactive and typ ically require the user to affirm guesses that it makes about the OS. The initial thrill of watching this script run is soon lost after the process continues for half an hour or longer.
However, David MacKenzie of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) wanted more: He wanted a configure script that didn't require any attention at all. This way it could be run simultaneously on many kinds of machines to aid in the FSF's port ing and testing efforts. There was also the desire to automate the end user's soft ware-installation process.
MacKenzie wrote the original versions of his configure script by hand, which made it difficult to reuse. He learned of similar efforts elsewhere at the FSF and at a company named Cygnus Support. Experience had shown that it was valu able to be able to build a configure script based on the needs of a specific program, rather than a monolithic one that sup ports all programs. The Autoconf pack age grew from a combination of all these ideas, and it became a common ground for configure-script efforts.
How Autoconf Works
Autoconf is based on a shell script wrap per around a macro language known as m4. This obscure macro language is sim ilar in operation to the C preprocessor (cpp) but is much more powerful. Auto conf provides m4 macros that an appli cation (or package) developer can use to
· determine installation paths · locate tools and utilities · determine compiler flags · determine header-file availability · determine available libraries · test compilation of code fragments · execute arbitrary shell-script fragments · write make files · write configuration-header files
The package developer informsAuto conf about features that the package re quires by providing a file named con
fig ur e . i n as input. This file is an m4 script that invokes m4 macros provided by the Autoconf package. This creates a configure shell script that tests for OS features. When the generated configure script is executed, it takes template ver sions of files with the extension . in (e.g., Makefile . in ) and edits them to gener
configure commands:
'config ur e-- prefix=/opt / tools ' ' make ins tall'
This supports options that allow tai loring where files are installed. It also determines which features should be in-
Sample Autoconf Configure. in File
dnl Ensure that configure is run in correct di rectory. AC_ INIT(dos2u.c)
dnl Add code to deal with a configuration header file AC_ CONFIG_HE ADER(config.h) dnl Locate C co mpi ler, 'install' and symbolic link utilities A(_PROG_ CC AC_PROG_ !NSTALL AC_P ROG_LN_S dnl Are the header fi 1es ANSI C compliant? AC_HE ADER_STD C dnl Look for header files we know how to use. AC_ CHECK_HEADERS(fcntl . h string.h sys/types.h unistd.h) dnl Checks for typede fs . structures , and compiler
characteristics . AC_C_ CONST AC_T YPE_OFF_T dnl Checks for library functions . AC _FUN C_MMAP AC_CHECK_FUNCS(madvise mktemp) dnl Create 'Ma kefi l e' from 'Makefile.in' template AC_ OUTPUT(Makefi l e)
ate a version tailored to the environment. (See the figure on page 45 for more on the files the developer makes and how they are deployed by an end user.)
The power of Autoconf is its ability to take advantage of the collective knowl edge and experience of hundreds of soft ware developers porting to the many vari ants of Unix. Each Autoconf m4 macro encapsulates this knowledge in a shell script fragment that knows how to test for a particular feature. As Autoconf ma tures, developers using it automaticall y pick up portability improveme nts by sim ply upgrading to a newer version.
What You See
When you obtain a package that uses Autoconf, it will include (at a minimum) files named configure, Ma ke fi le. in , and, often, co nf i g . h . i n. The configure scriptprocessesMak efi 1e . in and co n fi g. h . in into Make fi l e and con fi g. h, respectively. To configure and install the package in the Io ptit oo l s directory tree, the end user executes these simple
eluded in the package and where special purpose librari es and files reside. See the listing above for a script example of this capability. If you ever hap pen to for get what these options are, just type con figure--he lp.
Autoconf's Future
Most public-domain software packages now use Autoconf. With its ground swell of support, the future of Autoconf looks bright. Commercial software deve lopers should note that Autoconf decreases the cost of, and increases the reliability of, supporting more OS versions. Software vendors can increase their profit margins and market share by using Autoconf.
As Autoconf continues to be refined, the winners will the users of Autoconf; the losers will be those who don't realize the value of this free software. liJ
Bob Friesenhahn (Dallas, TX) specializes in Unix- and TCP/ IP-networking-related top ics. You can contact him by sending e-mail to bfriesen@simple.dallas.tx.us.
46 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Databases
A standard for database objects lets disparate data-manipulation tools exchange information. By Stephen R. Gardner
The C~uest to Standardize Metadata
etadata is popularly defined as "data about data." For the IT manager, this is more con
· · ·· cisely stated as "information about the enterprise." In the context of data warehousing, the term refers to any thing that defines a data-warehouse ob ject, such as a table, query, report, busi ness rule, or transformation algorithm. Metadata management gives users great er control of corporate data by providing a map of the locations where that data is stored. It also supplies a blueprint that shows how oni~ type of information is de rived from another.
The current crop of data manipulation and managem ent tools has resulted in IT products that all process metadata dif ferently, with little consideration for shar ing the information. This situation high lights the need for a metadata standard.
Efforts are under way by a consortium of companies to standardize metadata in terchange among products from diverse vendors. Six companies-Arbor Soft ware, Busines:; Objects, Cognos, Evolu tionary Technologies International, Plat inum Technology, and Texas Instruments Software-formed the Metadata Coun cil in July 1995.
The Council launched the Metadata Interchange Specification (MDIS} to ad dress issues relating to the exchange, shar ing, and management of metadata. The Council released version 1.0 of MDIS in June 1996. The standards document can be downloaded from http://www.he.net/ - m e t a d a t a /s t a n d ar ds /toc .html.
Initial Steps
MDIS consists of components that repre sent the minimum common set of meta data elements: and the minimum inte gration points that must be incorporated into database tools for compliance. MDIS also provides standards for optional and extension components that are relevant
only to a particular class of tool. A common language must be devel
oped before a standard can be construct ed. This involves setting up well-under stood and well-communicated processes
reflect information common to one or more classes of tools, such as database servers and data-discovery and data-ex traction tools. For MDIS to succeed, the metadata metamodel must be indepen
AUnifying Framework
Vendor metaaata tools
Data-query tool
Describes metadata elements that the tool manipulates
Maps tool data to specific metadata objects
Configuration profile Standard access framework
Standard API Standard metadata model
Metadata Interchange pecification (MDIS) framewotk
Profile information, an API, and a standard set of objects allow diverse metadata tools to interoperate.
for naming metadata elem ents, standard izing data types and lengths, and main taining descriptive glossaries.
This development of a common defi nition and terminology involves two en tirely different information models. First, there's the application metamodel. This model is application-specific and de scribes the tables and objects that contain the metadata for schemata particular to a given application. Second is the meta data metamodel, which is the set of ob jects that MDIS describes. These objects
dent of any application metamodel. It
must have a unique definition for each
object, and it should be character-based
so that it's platform independent.
Since metadata is stored in different
types of storage or data formats-such as
relational tables, ASCII files, and custom
ized repositories-the MDIS access meth
odology must be very flexible. This re
quires a framework that translates a tool's
metamodel access request to match the
MDIS syntax and format, as shown in
the figure above.
continued
ww..v.byte.com
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 4 7
Core/ Databases The Ouest to Standardize Metadata
To establish a bidirectional data flow, the standard uses three types of infor mation. First, the metadata files include a header with version information. Sec ond, a Tool Profile file contains charac ter-based information that describes the type of metadata elements that the tool manipulates . Finally, a character-based Configuration Profile file describes the mapping of data to specific metadata ob jects. It also describes what flows of the metadata are legitimate: A tool might be prohibited from using a later version of a metadata object because of major changes to source-to-target mappings of the metadata.
MDIS uses a text-based tag language that resembles HTML. The mechanism that implements extensibility to the MDIS is similar to Lisp's properties object, a character field of arbitrary length that's composed of identifiers and a value. The tool's import function uses the identi fier to recognize the metadata type and to locate the data within in the field. The value is the metadata itself.
In Search of a Standard
The Metadata Council examined sever al ways to implement the standardized MDIS model, as shown in the fi gure at right. The ASCII batch approach relies on an ASCII file format. The file contains descriptions of the common metadata components and standardized access re quirements that make up the MDIS mod el. The file loads whenever a tool accesses metadata via the common APL
This approach does not require updat ing the tool when the metadata model changes; modifications to the standard are made to the file instead. However, since using an object requires loading the entire MDIS framework, this approach is processor intensive.
The procedural approach requires that the intelligence to communicate with the MDIS standard be built into the tool. This approach needs only a modification to the AP! to accommodate changes and additions to the metamodel schema and/ or access parameters. But it also requires a great deal of up-front effort on the part of tool vendors to retrofit this logic to achieve MDIS compliance.
The hybrid approach combines the ASCII-batch and procedural approaches. It follows a data-driven model. Atool loads a set of tables that define the MDIS APL The tool interacts with the AP! through
Four Approaches to an MDIS Implementation
ASCII batch approacfl
Procedural
approach
Metadata lo
tool
11
Metadata tool
Metadata
tool
Import/export function
MDIS..aware . procedures
Import/export function
t
ASCII
I ' file
cM::t·) Metadata model
( Metadata object Metadata model
( M!:ij!.ata)
Metadata model
Pros: · Only requires an
lmporVexport function added to existing
. tools.
Cons: · Entire file must be loaded to use MDIS APls. Inefficient In heavy-use tasks, such as decision support. · Issues of multiuser access.
Pros:
·Best flexibility for
handllng an evoMng
st.andard.
Cons: · Any change to the API requires an update to the tool. · Much up-front wo11< required on existing tools to Implement the MDIS APls.
Pros: · Only data that implements the MDIS API tables is read.
Cons: · Asignificant change to the standard requires modifying and reloading the tables. · Table-loading is time-consuming.
The Metadata Council chose the ASCII batch approach because it's easy to implement and offers a shorter time to market.
the MDIS framework and retrieves just the need ed object. This eliminates the need for reading the entire schema.
Changes to the standard are reflected in the tabl e data so that the tools don't have to be modified to maintain compli ance with the MDIS specification. But loading the tables can be time consum ing, which is unaccep table in informa tion-intensive applications.
A fourth approach is to develop the MDIS stan dard within the Electronics Industries Association's CASE (Comput er Aided Software and Systems Engineer ing) Data Interchange Format (CDIF). The CDIF standards support multiple semantic layers and transfer formats for CASE tools. Adopting this approach car ries two obligations: the Metadata Co alition must appoint people to track the COIF standards, and every vendor sup porting the MDIS must subscribe to the CDIF publications to avoid violating the EIA's copyright on the standard.
For version 1.0 of the MDIS, the Coun cil recommends the ASCII batch approach because vendors can implemen t su pport for the specification with minimum over head and a shorter time to market.
Into the Future
There will continue to be a lack of integra tion among metadata tools for the next several years. Integrated metadata won't be readily available until at least the 1998/ 1999 time frame, when repository-based solutions should begin to emerge.
Furthermore, integrating new objects that consist of video, audio, and spatial data types will offer some additional chal lenges to the M etadata Council-as well as anyone who's looking for integration of metadata tools. Iii
Stephen R. Gardner (Seattle, WA) is the direc tor of advanced technology research at NCR Corp. You can reach him by sending e-mail to stephen.gardner@sanfranciscoca.ncr.co.
48 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
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CPUs
A software emulator shows that the PowerPC can emulate another computer, down to its very hardware. By Eric Traut
Build.ing the Virtual PC
evelopment of Virtual PC Connectix Corporation's Macintosh application that emulates a PC and its periph erals-began almost two years ago, in October 1995. The goal from the begin ning was to create a fully Intel-compati ble PC in software. The effort centered around a core Pentium instruction-set emulator, complete with MMX instruc tions. True PC emulation also required the reverse-engineering and develop ment of a dozen other PC motherboard devices, including modern peripherals such as an acce lerated SVGAcard, an Eth ernet controller, a Sound Blaster Pro sound card, IDE/ATAPI controller, and PC! bridge imerface. This strategy of hardware-level emulation resulted in an app lication that allows Macintosh users to run not only Windows programs and DOS games but several x86-based OSes, including Windows 95, NT, and NeXT OpenStep.
Pentium Emulation
The heart of Virtual PC is the Pentium recompiling emulator, a sophisticated piece of software written entirely in hand-coded PowerPC assembly language. Its job is to translate Pentium instruction sequences into a set of optimized Pow erPC instructions that perform the same operation. Translation occurs on a "basic block" basis, where a basic block consists of a sequence of decoded x86 instruc tions. Basic blocks end on an instruction that abruptly changes the flow of execu tion (typically a jump, call, or return from-subrourine instruction). As the recompiler decodes x86 instructions, it analyzes them for "condition code" usage. Finally, it generates a block of Pow erPC code that accomplishes the same task. For more details on this process, see "Virtual PC Operation" at right.
For purposes of speeding things up, the
emulator employs the following tricks. Translation cache: Even though written in PowerPC assembly language, the trans lator still requires substantial time to gen-
code flags that tell programs whether the addition produced a zero or negative result. Such codes are used, for exam ple, to determine if a program performs
Virtual PC Operation
Lookup table
Translation cache
The compiler analyzes x86 Instructions and removes redundant condition codes.
0 Dispatcher reads address of Pentium's
instruction pointer (IP).
@ Dispatcher checks in a lookup table to see
if PowerPC code already exists for the sequence of x86 instructions (basic block).
8 If a compiled code block exists, execution
jumps to the PowerPC code block in the cache.
0 If a code block doesn't exist, the dispatcher
invokes the compiler.
0 The compiler reads x86 instructions until it
hits an opcode that ends the block.
ASIC emulation module
llDE/ATAPI controller)
0 The compiler stores the compiled block
in the translation cache.
@ The compiler stores the Pentium IP and
address of the cached code block in the
table.
0 For an 1/0 instruction, a module that
emulates the desired ASIC (based on the
1/0 port address) is called.
0 Methods in the module either return
values or generate equivalent Mac OS
driver calls.
erate optimized instruction translations. To reduce this overhead, the emulator caches blocks of translated code. lnterinstruction optimization: Because the Pentium is a CISC processor, most instructions perform more than one operation. For example, the ADD instruc tion not only adds rwo values together, it also produces a number of condition-
a conditional jump. Most of the time these codes are ignored. The translator analyzes blocks of x86 instructions to determine which flags the program uses (if any) . It then generates PowerPC code for those flags actually used. The first two listings in "Translated Code" (next page) show how one Pentium instruction trans lates into three PowerPC instructions,
NO V EMBER 1997 BYTE 51
C ore/CPU s B ui lding t he Virtu al PC
while three Pentium instructions can be optimized from nine into five PowerPC instructions. Address translation: One ofthe most dif ficu lt Pentium features to emulate is its built- in memory management unit (MMU) . This hardware trans lates linear (or logical) addresses into physical mem ory addresses. Operating systems use the MMU to imp lement virtual memory and memory protection. Because of the Pen tium's small register file, about three in four Pentium instructions reference mem ory in one way or another. Each memory address potentially needs to be translated before the emulator loads from, or stores to, the referenced address. An MMU implemented in software would impose a high overhead, which would degrade per formance. Luckily, this overhead can be avoided: The Connectix engineers were able to program the PowerPC's MMU to mimic the Pentium MMU's behavior, th us managing the address translations in hard ware. The Pentium's memory page attrib utes can also be mirrored in the PowerPC's MMU. For example, if Virtual PC's emu lated OS marks a memory page as write protected, the page mappings are modi fied so the corresponding PowerPC page is write-protected. Segment bounds checking: The Pentium architecture includes the archaic notion of memory segments. Every memory ref erence, such as instruction fetches, stack operations, loads, and stores, has an asso ciated memory segment. When a seg ment's bounds are exceeded, the Pen tium's MMU generates a general protection fault (GPF). The OS uses GPFs for more than detecting bugs in app lica tions: T hey enable a program to "thunk" down into privi leged driver-leve l code not accessible at the application level. Therefore, the Pentium emu lator must detect segment bound fau lts where appropriate. Although the PowerPC does not contain segmentation hardware akin to the Pentium, Connectix used Power PC trap instructions to perform segment bounds checks with little or no overhead.
Hardware Emulation
Besides the Pentium processor, a rypical PC motherboard contains a dozen or so chips that work together concurrently. All these chips need to be emulated faith fu lly for compatibility. The Intel archi tecture provides an l/0 address space that's used to access hardware outside
Translated Code
Pentium Instruction
ADD EAX. 20
PowerPC instructions
l i addco. mr
rTempl,20 PF,rTempl,rEAX rEAX,rPF
Pentium Instructions
ADD EAX. 20 ADD EBX,30 ADD ECX,40
PowerPC Instructions
add add l i addco. mr
rEAX,rEAX,20 rEBX, rEBX. 30 rTempl,40 rPF.rTempl,rECX rECX,rPF
Pentium Instructions
MOV AL,8 MOV DX. Ox lFO OUT DX.AL ADD DX, 7 IN AL,DX RET
PowerPC Instructions
li li bl addi bl addi b
rAL,8 rDX,Oxl FO Hand l eIDEPortWrite rDX,rDX,7 HandleIDEPortRead rIP,r!P,8 DispatchToNext8lock
of the CPU. You work with this " 1/ 0 space" through two instructions-IN and OUT . When us ing these instructions, soft ware must specify an 1/0 port (or ad dress). Virtual PC routes 1/0 accesses to code modules that emu late each chip. For example, if Virtual PC encounters an IN instruction referencing port Ox21, it calls a routine in the interrupt-controll er emu lation module that returns the current interrupt mask. Simi lar module call s occur for every 1/0 space access, as the third listing in "Translated Code" shows.
Many of the extra chips on a PC moth erboard control l/0 devices such as the hard drive, CD-ROM, keyboard, and mouse. For compatibiliry w ith the Mac OS and all Macintosh hardware, Virtual PC performs all 1/0 through the stan dard Mac OS drivers. So, a request sent to the emu lated PC's IDE contro ll er to read a sector from the hard drive gets translated into a read operation that's sent to the Mac OS SCSI driver.
The most difficult hardware compo nents to emu late involve precise timing. For example, sound is a real-time opera tion, and any timing perturbation results in clicks or pops as d igitally sampled data fa ils to arrive on time. Because Virtual PC is hosted on the Mac OS (which gives time to other Mac programs running concur rently, as well as Virtual PC), and it needs to emulate several dozen PC chips in par all el, precise timing isn't always possible.
Virtual PC compensates by p lacing the highest priority on tasks that directly affect the user, such as sound and video.
Performance
Emulated systems are natura lly going to be slower than real hardware. But Con nectix engineers concentrated on tuning aspects of the em ulated hardware required to run popu lar PC games and productiviry applications at a usable per formance level. Th is was especially chal lenging given that the PowerPC proces sor emu lates not on ly the Pentium but a ll the other chips on a PC motherboard.
Performance of Virtual PC is also great ly affected by the host hardware system. The latest PowerPC processors with high clock rates and large on-chip caches wi ll run it best. The speed and size of the sys tem's L2 cache is also critical because of the code expansion that occurs during the trans lation process.
Whi le users wi ll take a performance hit because this is an emulator, Virtua l PC successfully emulates the entire PC at a very low level. PC programs- applica tions, device drivers, and operating sys tems alike- cannot te ll they are not runn ing on actua l PC hardware. Ill
Eric Traut (traut@connectix.com) is lead engi neer for Virtual PC at Connectix. At Apple Computer, he wrote the 680x0 dynamic recom piling emulator for PowerPC-based Macs.
52 BYTE NOVEMBER 19 97
Programming
DHTML supports dynamic objects and provides faster browsing through client-side processing. By Rick Dobson
Dynclmic HTML Explained, Part 1
- - - · ynamic HTML (DHTML) is like HTML on steroids. It uses an object-based model
. ._ _.. that bu il ds on HTML tags,
yet it permits dynamic styles, content, and position ing as well as data binding to a browser. ;For the site visitor, DHTML Web pages de liver a richer, faster brows ing experience through the magic of client-side processing.
This is the first in a three-part series on DHTML. A review of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) , a core DHTML enabling tec hnology, leads into a discuss ion of HTML tags as objects. This DHTML primer closes with an introduction to the
event object and bubbling- a new con
ce pt for scripting that simp li fies and streamlines code .
Not surpris ingly, Netscape and Micro soft offer different DHTML implemen tations. Both companies promise that these versions will converge after the World W ide Web Consortium (W3C) issues fina l recommendations. This arti cle uses Microsoft's version because it offers more capabilities (fo r more infor mation, see "Dynamic HTML Compar isons," September BYTE, page 23). It offers more than 90 HTML elements with properties, methods, and events. For detai led documentation, visit http: // www.m icrosoft.com/msdn/sdk/inetsdk /help/. The sit·~ also includes many code samples that cm jump-start you on your way to learning this new techno logy.
Tags and Scripting Objects
DHTML relies on CSS. This technology appeared initially with Microsoft Inter net Exp lorer :l and is approved by the W3C. CSS allo ws developers unprece dented contro:. over the appearance and positioning of content on Web pages. It ge nerally helps Web content authors sep arate style from content. (Look, Ma,
positioning wi th out resorting to tab les!) CSS offers four ways for site bui lders
to incorpo rate style components into a document. First, you can reference an external style sheet. Second, you can phys ically import an external style sheet. T hird, your code can create and modify style ru les with a pair of style tags locat
document hierarchy- the Body element, which is owned by the HTML BODY tag.
The P tag's read/write i nnerText prop
erty lets developers dyn amically read and
rep lace the text within a Pscripting object. Two P methods specifica ll y support
dynam ic content operations. First, the In s ertAdjac e nt HTM L method lets yo u
Code Gallery
A Classy Style Change <HTML ><HEAD >< STYLE> .bigred (font -size : 24pt:
color:red } .littlegreen (font -s iz e: l Opt:
color : greenl <!STYLE> <SCRIPT LA NGUAGE=" Jav aScript "> funct ion changeStyl e( l { docu ment . a 11 . ta gs ( "P" l . i tern ( O)
. cl ass Name =" bi gred ": docume nt . a l l . tags ( "P" ) . item ( 1)
.cl assName = "l ittleg reen ": J <!SCRIPT> <BODY onc lick="cha ngeS t yle( l ">
<P CLASS= "littlegreen ">Welcome! <P>Cl i ck anywhere to
accentuate Wel come ! <I BODY> <I HTML >
A Stylistic Style Change fu nction c hang eSty l e( l document.all .tags( "P") . it em(O ) .
style. fontSize = "24p t": doc umen t. a11 . tags ( "P" ) . item ( Ol .
style.color= "red": document . all .t ags( " P" ).item(l) .
sty l e . fontSi ze = " lOpt" : document.a l l. tags( "P"). item(l) .
style. col or= "green " : l
ed inside the current document. Fourth, you can pl ace in -l ine style attributes within th e tags on a document. There are over 60 style attributes fo r fine-tuning the appearance of your Web pages.
Al l the trad itional HTML tags become DHTML objects. DHTML developers must write short VBScript o r JavaScript programs that enable end-user interac tivity by manipu lating object methods and properties. A rich array of events offers a broad selection of options for triggering code that responds to user and Web actions.
Each DHTML tag has a corresponding scripting element. The Ptag, for example,
matches a Pelement (or scripting object). The P tag 's read-on ly pa ren t Elemen t
property returns the next object up the
insert new HTML into a P tag. Second, the In s e rtAdj a ce ntT e xt method helps to update a paragraph's content, but not its HTML code.
Dynamic Styles
Many deve lopers w il l be attracted to DHTML by its abil ity to change style in response to user and system events. One easy way to achieve this is w ith the cl a s sNam e property. This property
applies to block elements, such as P, and
it corresponds to the CLASS attr ibute. To change styles, simply set the cl ass Name property to a new style rule.
To revise a property, your code must first reference the underlying object. The a l l co ll ection often makes th is easy. Use the a 11 collection's tag property to
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 53
Core/Programming Dynami c HTML Explained , Part 1
flag all similar elements in a document. Then, use the tag's i t ern method to ref erence specific instances of an element in a document. Then, you set the instance's cl ass Name property equal to the new style rule.
The Classy Style Change listing in "Code Gallery" (on the previous page) illustrates these principl es. The HTML document contains two style rules and two paragraph blocks. The block con
onmo useove r events capture end-user mouse behavior relative to HTML tags, and the Body 's o nl oad event fires imme diately after the browser loads a docu ment. You write the ha ndlers that respond to these events. Event handlers can be written in European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) JavaScript or Microsoft VBScript.
DHTML events can bubble up from lower to higher document hierarchy lev
event bubbling, depending on where in the line a user clicks. Clicks anywhere on the line-except in the Bblock-permit the event object to bubble up the docu ment hiera rchy to th e Body level and beyond. Body 's event handler, set BodyStyl e, then changes the colorof the document's two Hl blocks.
Th e setBo dyStyl e function also demonstrates some interesting scripting techniques. First, it uses the i nner Text
Bubbling Up
<HTML>< HEAD><SCR I PT LANGUAGE= "JavaScr i pt " > fu nct i on set ParaSty l e() {
var el= window.event.srcEle ment: whi 1e ( e 1 . tag Name != · P· )
{el = el. parentE l ement:l el.style . textDecorati on = "underline " : if (event . srcE l ement . ta gName == "B" )
eve nt . cancelBub bl e =true ; ) fu nct i on setBodySty l e() {
alert ( "Cl i cked headi ng i s :" + event . src Elemen t.i nner Text)
var co ll = docume nt.all . tags( "H l " ) ; f or ( i=O: i <coll.le ngt h : i ++ )
col l .item ( i ) . s tyle.color= "green ": ) <I SCRIPT><I HEAD> <BODY o nc l i ck= " s etBodySty le() ">
<Hl >Firs t Welcome ! </ Hl >
<Hl >S e co nd We l co me ! </ Hl >
<P oncl i ck= "s etParaStyle() ">Clic k anyw here ,
<B >bu t he r e <I B> . to bubble up . <I BOD Y><I HTML>
taining Welcome! has its CLASS attribute set to the 1itt1 eg reen style rule. The other paragraph uses the default style. Clicking anywhere in the document fires the Bod y' s onclick event. This event launches the JavaScript changeStyl e function. It uses the index numbers of 0 and 1 to reference the document's first and second paragraphs. The JavaScript sets the c 1ass Na me properties of the first and second paragraphs to the bi gred and 1itt1 egree n style rules, respectively.
The Sty listic Style Change code seg ment in "Code Gallery" illustrates a more granular technique for achieving the same result. This version of c hange Style sets specific properties of the style object for paragraph blocks. When you need finer-grain ed control than the c 1a ss Na me property permits, or when you want to make ad hoc changes, consider using style object properties.
Events and Bubbling
DHTML introduces a new e ven t object that tracks the firing of events. Its prop erties permit identifying the element where the event occurred, the current state of the keyboard keys, the location of the mouse, and the state of the mouse buttons. For example, the on c 1 i c k and
els. This permits events for lower-level objects to bubble up and trigger event handlers for unrelated upper-level objects. Because of this potential, you must consider whether your code should explicitly turn off bubbling.
The "Bubbling Up" code segment (above) illustrates how to use the event object, and it reinforces basic scripting techniques. The document in this code segment includes a couple of Hl blocks and a P block. Within the P block is a B block. The P block has an event handler, s etPar aSty l e, that captures the on cl i c k event.
Clicking anywhere in the P block
launches its on c l ick event ha ndler. It starts by setting a variable, e 1, equal to the source element for the event. This wi ll
be either Por its embedded Bblock. If the tag's name is not P, then the code sets e 1
equal to the tag's parent, thereby forc ing e 1 to P. Notice that the function uses the tagName property of the src El ement property of the event object to detect where in the paragraph a user clicked. The code uses the text Deco r a ti on property of el 's style object to underline the whole paragraph, no mat ter where the user clicks on the line.
The final line in s etp a r aSty 1e turns off event bubbling if th e user clicks in the B block. This line selectively controls
prope rty of the s rcEl e ment object to echo back which document object caused the function to run. Second, it uses a for loop to iterate through the item indices for the H1 tag objects.
Hard Choices
DHTML offers Web developers the potential of improved speed and inter activ ity; it offers Web users a richer browsing experience. The technical chal lenge of moving to DHTML calls out to HTML and Visual Basic developers because it builds directly on HTML but offers an object-oriented model that is familiar to VB programmers.
The operational challenge of moving to DHTML might be more problematic. Will folks be able to view the effects? The answer is "Yes" only if they have the Inter net Explorer 4 browser. There are two solutions to this predicament. First, tar get DHTML for environments where you can mandate the browser (an intranet or extranet). Second, make your Net appli cations so compelling that folks volun tarily upgrade to the free Microsoft Inter
net Ex plorer browser. llJ
Rick Dobson, Ph.D., is president ofCAB, Inc. , a database and Internet development consul tancy. You can reach him by sending e-mail to Rick_Dobson@msn.com .
54 BYTE NO V EMBE R 19 97
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THE ORBITING INTERNET
Fiber
IN THE
Broadband satellite systems stand ready to bring multimegabit data
rates worldwide. Sounds great. What's the catch?
By John Montgomery
(ID omething special is in the air: your data. Or, at least, it's about to be. The technological and regulatory hurdles to create true high-speed satellite networks have fallen . We've seen low- and mid-bandwidth systems such as Motorola's Iridium and Hughes' DirecPC. But those were almost a parlor trick compared to the promise of 2 Mbps, 20 Mbps, and even 155 Mbps streaming down from the sky. And all you need is a small antenna, a satellite-to-com puter gateway (a small black box), and the service itself. In all, you'll probably buy satellite service pretty much the way you buy Internet service from an Internet service provider (ISP) today.
So, it's time to ditch your Tl lines and asynchronous trans fer mode (ATM) hardware, right? Not quite yet. Just as Iridi um's universal telephone didn't kill the cellular phone, broad band satellite systems won't kill terrestrial lines. Every broadband satellite system creator I talked to was clear that broadband satellite systems will complement terrestrial net works. They will provide high-speed service where terrestrial infrastructure does not exist, and they will enable easy multi point distribution of video. But high-speed, low-cost landlines are here to stay.
So where will these emerging data networks fit in? Better yet, how will they fit in? What makes them different from each other? Simple questions, it seems. The answers are also simple-at least until you start to dig. By examining some of the main systems in development, I was able to determine that these systems, while touting much the same capabilities, are vastly different. Some of the most visible ones may prove the most difficult to implement. Some of the most staid-looking
58 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Frequency range: 1.53-2.7 GHz
Pros: Long wavelenths can penetnte many stnictures; requires less pawerful transmitters.
Frequency range: 11.7-12.7 GHz downlink, 14-17.8 GHz uplink.
Pros: Medium wavelengths penetrate many obstacles and Cal'I')' lots of data,
Cons: Mostly allocated.
Ka-band
Frequency range: 18-31 GHz
Pros: Lots of available spectrum; short wavelengths cal'I')' lots of data.
Cons: Requires powerful transmHters; short wavelengths subject to rain fade.
NOV EMB ER 1 997 BYT E 59
C ove r St o ry Ne t work Int egratio n
systems may beat every other system to the punch.
Playing with the Bands
Satellite communications is nothing new. For years, you could hook up a very small aperture terminal (VSAT) system and buy time on a satellite . Dennis Conti, vice pres id ent of VSAT at Hughes Network Sys tems, says that a VSAT system can deliver up to 24 Mbps in a point-to-multipoint link (e.g., a multicast) and up to 1.5 Mbps in a point-to-point link. Pretty impressive statistics.
But, according to Tony Trujillo, direc tor of corporate communications at Intel sat, a leading global satellite operator, with VSAT, "customers buy very specific time on a specific satellite." This creates a sys tem that's good for predictable commu nications (e .g., periodic uplinks by news agencies or sate ll ite offices), but not so good for the ad hoc networking that most of us are used to.
For "anytime, anywhere" networking, you need new technologies. Primary among them are more tightly focused beams and digital signal tech no logy, which together can increase freq uency reuse (and thereby increase bandwidth) and reduce dish size from meters to centimeters . According to some, you also need a large and unused chunk of the electromagnetic spectrum.
All these technical requ irements began to come together in 1993, when NASA launched its Advanced Communicatio n Technology Satellite, or ACTS (see the text box "NASA Gets into the ACTS" on page 61). ACTS pioneered the testing of an all digital, Ka-band (20-30 GHz), spot-beam, geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) satel lite system-for definitions of these terms, see the text boxes "The Air Up T here," "NASA Gets into the ACTS," and "I'm with the Band"-capable of delivering hun dreds of megabits per second of band width. With NASA showing that such a sys tem coul d work (and offering time on the system to interested institutions), it was not long before others were interested . Very interested.
Earlier this year, the FCC granted orbital locations and Ka-band licenses to 13 com panies. Some are names you may recog nize : EchoStar, Hughes, Loral, and Mo torola. Others may be more obscure: Ka-S tar, NetSat 28, PanAmSat, and Tele desic . Regardless of name recogn ition, they all aim to bring information into your home and office at incredible speeds- up
Physics Is Everything
W hen it comes to communications satellites, what chunk of the radio spectrum they can use determines virtually everything-what they can do, how powerful they'll be, and how much they're going to cost. Why? Physics.
Let's start with the basics. You 'll hearthe terms frequency and wavelength bantered about quite a bit, so you have to know what they are. Rememberthat radio comes in waves ; imag ine a sine wave for simplicity's sake. How often a crest of a radio wave passes a point dur ing a given time is called its frequency. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz)- cycles per sec ond-and its variations: kilohertz (kHz), megahertz (MHz), gigahertz (GHz), and so on. The distance between crests is the wavelength, and it is usually measured in some multiple or fraction of meters.
Radio frequency and wavelength are related-higher frequencies mean shorter wave lengths and vice versa. Why? If you know how many pulses are hitting you in a second and how far apart the crests are, you know the speed, right? Well, the speed is constant: Radio waves travel at the speed of light (i .e., 300,000 kilometers per second, or 187,500 miles per second, which is usually rounded to 186,000 miles per second). Therefore , if wavelength goes up, frequency has to go down and vice versa.
Different wavelengths have different properties. Long wavelengths can easily travel long distances and go through obstacles.Think of AM radio. At around 1 MHz,its waves are about 300 meters long. You can pick up AM stations much farther away than FM stations, which are up around 100 MHz, or 3 meters. These longer waves can pass through or around buildings and mountains.The shorter the wavelength (i.e., the higherthe frequency) ,the more easily the waves can be stopped. When frequencies get high enough (up in the tens of giga hertz) , small things such as leaves and even rain can stop them-a problem called "rain fade:' It takes a lot of power to get around rain fade . More power means bigger transmitters or more focused antennas, which usually means satellites that are more expensive.
The flip side of this is that higher frequencies (i.e.,Ka- and Ku-bands) enable transmitters to transmit more information per second. That's bec ause information is typically encoded at a certain part of the wave-the crest, valley, beginning , or end. (In the film Crimson Tide, Denzel Washington's character wanted to verify a signal using the extremely low frequency [ELF] antenna. Unfortunately, ELF transmission was so slow that they couldn't get a com plete message before they had to start evading the bad guys.) The trade-off is that higher frequencies mean more information per second, but they require higher power to avoid get ting blocked, larger antennas, and more expensive equipment.
to 155 Mbps. These broadband systems are not going on-line before 2000 (although Loral's Cyberstar will start offering 400Kbps rates next year), and most will no t be fu lly operational unti l 2002 .
What are they going to use it for? Ac cording to the FCC, just about everything you would use a terrestrial line for : desk top-to-desktop videoconferencing, Inter net access, electronic messaging, faxing, telemedicine, direct-to-home video, elec tron ic transaction processing, dista nce learning, and even news gathering.
Is Thi sTrip Necessary?
Who needs this stuff, anyway?Most of the market that needs data services seems to be well served by landlines. "These sys tems will be important globally. In the U.S.? We're well served, although things are changing quickly," says Erwin Edelman of NASA's Lewis Research Center.
A first guess at an obvious market is in places that have underdeveloped com-
munications infrastructures. In some countries, stringing copper or fiber is out of the question-the empty distances to cover are too great and availab le money is too little. (There are places where peo ple will rip down any copper wire to rese ll it .) Still , a wire less, so lar-powered tele phone has some appeal. Of course, you don 't need a broadband satellite to make phone calls, tho ugh. Systems such as Irid ium will likely serve that market. Marco Caceres, of the Teal Group, says, "For most of the people in the world, the ser vices Ka-band supplies aren't interesting."
So who does need this new class of broadband satellite communications? The first answer I heard from virtua lly every broadband vendor is the same: multina tional corporations. "For some applica tions, landlines will always be superior. But when your reach is diverse and you have last- and first-mile problems, then satellite wi ll be the better choice,'' says Edward Fitzpatrick, H ughes Communications'
6 0 BYT E N OV EMBE R 19 9 7
Network In te gration Cov er Story
Broadband Satellites, Broadly
.............................................................................................................
Cyberstar
Celestri
Astrolink
Teledesic
Spaceway Skybridge
Backers
Use
Altitude (miles) Spectrum
Antenna size (est.) Data throughput
User terminal cost (est.)
System cost (billions) Operation stcirts Number of satellites Access method
lntersatellite commun icatilln
Lo ral
Data, vid eo
22,300
Ku (i nitial) and Ka 16 inches (initial Ku) 400 Kbps (initial Ku); up to 30 Mbps (Ka)
$800 (in itial Ku); $ 1000 (Ka) $ 1.05
1998 TBD for Ku; 3 likely fo r Ka FDMA, TOMA
Und ec ided
M oto rola
Voice, data, vi d eo confe rencing 875 and 22,300 Ka and also 40-50 GHz 24 inches
Up to 155 Mbps t ransmit and rece ive
Starts at $750
$ 13
2002 63 LEOs, 9 GEOs FDMA, TOMA
Yes
Lockheed
Data, video, rural telephony 22,300
Bill G ates, Craig Mc Caw, Boeing
Voic e, data, vid eoc on fe re nc i n g
435
GM-Hughes
Dat a, mult im ed ia 2 2 ,3 0 0
Ka
Ka
Ka
33-47 inches Up to 9 .6 Mbps
10 inches
16 Kbps64 Mbps (u p to 2.04 8 Mbps on symmetrical links)
As small as 26 inches
Up to 6 Mbps
Under$1000 N/A to $2500
Under $1000
$ 4
$9
$ 3 .5
Late 2000 9
2002 288
2000 8 initially
FDMA, TOMA Yes
MF-TOMA, ATOM Yes
FDMA, TOMA Yes
Alcatel w ith Loral
Voice, data, vi d e o c o nferenc ing
911
Ku
TBD
16 Kbps-2 Mbps to satellite; 16 Kbps 6 0 Mbps to use r; any multiple of this for business users $500 (consumer)
$3.5
2001 64
CDMA, TOMA, FDMA, WDMA No
NASA Gets into the ACTS
The whole Ka-band craze can be traced to NASA. When it launched its Advanced Commu nication Tee~ nology Satellite (ACTS) in September 1993, it began a research-and-testing project to determine what it needed to do to make Ka-band satellite communication work. "All the current Ka-bend filings [to the ITU ] are a directtribute to ACTS technology;' says Erwin Edel man, demonstra:ions coordinator at NASA's Lewis Research Center.
ACTS proved that it was possible to c reate an all-digital Ka-band system that could over come rain fade, a signal-degradation p roblem res ulting from short wavelengths passing through rain. ACTS is a TDMA-based system that uses many of the things you 'll fi nd in com mercial Ka-band satellite systems, inclu ding spot-beam (or multibeam) technology, on- board storage and processing , and all-dig ital transmission.
Spot-beam. This technology enables an antenna system to subdivide asingle large footprint (area of coverage,) into many subfootprints.It can then focus these subfootprints (or spot beams) on particular areas. Subdivision enables a high degree of frequency reuse. Rather than spread ing the entire frequency over the entire footprint , it spreads subsets of the frequency over smaller foot p rint~;. And, most important, it reuses these su bsets in nonadjacent footprints.
On-board storage an d processing. Most sate llites are " bent pipes"- a signal goes up and then goes back down immediately. On-board storage and processin g enables the caching of inforrnation until a spot beam is aimed; it also enables intersatellite switching.
All-dig ital tr;m smission. To overcome rain fade, signals need to be digital so that they can incorporate error codes. According to Edelman, ACTS uses the same TOMA system that you' ll find in terrestrial cellular systems.
Together, the~:e technologies enable nearly unheard-of data rates. "The ACTS is theoret ically capable of communicating over three 622 -Mbps channels;' says Edelman. In case you're wonderin ~ . that 's about 400 Tl lines.
vice pres ident for Spaceway. Of course, there are even places in the
U.S. thatwon't get broadband data service for a long time. For example, until recently, BYTE's office in Pe t er boro ugh , N ew H ampshire, wo uld have had serious prob lems getting anyth ing more than a Tl. But imagine if one of these satellite services had been in place- we could have tapped it no matter where we were. T hat is the sec o nd market that most of th e broadband vendors cited- low- population areas.
Th e ma in p rob lem sate lli te systems solve is getting high-bandwidth access to places witho ut a high- bandwidth infra structure. It's un likely that a satellite sys tem could compete with Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) to th e h o me or fi ber t o t he o ffi ce - if yo u can ge t th ose servi ces. Still, if you're in a rural area of the U.S. or in a low-population area in any coun try- yo u may not be able to get such ser vices. Satellites will deliver them, enabling not onl y high-speed Internet browsing (a technology that some industry pundits focus on relentlessly), but all forms ofhigh speed networki ng, including such things
NOVEMBER 1 997 BYTE 6 1
"Best-performing notebook ever..."
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©1997 NEC Computer Systems Division, Packard Bell NEC, Inc. NE C, Versa, and MultiSync are registered trademarks; VersaBay, ESM and Express5800 are trademarks and UltraCare is a service mark of NEC Corporation, all used under license. Direction and Magic Eye are trademarks and NEC NOW is a service mark of Packard 1Bell NEC I nc. Leasing based on typical 36-month lease with purchase option. Other lease options may be available. Leasing arranged by third party !easing company to q~ a l ified cust omers. Prices do not include shipping or applicab le sales tax, are valid in t he US only and are subject t o change wi thout noti ce. Products and specifications are subject to change without notice. Microsoft, Win dows and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. The
Intel Inside logo, LAN Desk and Pentium are registered trademarks and MM X is a trademark of Intel Corporation. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. *Maximum download spee~s are limited to 53Kbp.s. Ac u.al speeds may vary. Uploads trav:I at speeds up to 28.BK.bps. U.~. Robotics x2 modems require x2 -compatible analog phone hne and x2-capabte service provider. See www.usr.com/x2 for details. Integrated modems included m Versa 2700
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Cover Story Network Integration
as videoconferencing, collaborative work sharing, and telemedicine.
Is the telephone dead? Says Teledesic president Russell Daggatt, "It's not going to replace the current phone network the capacity isn't there." Put simply, ter restrial networks and satellite networks will complement each other. "Nobody's going to put up a satellite dish and take out th eir tel ep hone," agrees Ron Maehl, pres ident of Cyberstar. "We don't believe satel lite should compete with fiber or Asym metric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) it should complement them, especially for bursty service. Use the technologies for what they're best suited."
LEO vs. GEO
But bandwidth is only half the story. The other half is latency-the amount of time for your data to get from point A to point B. Here is where the rubber starts to meet the road. It's all well and good to talk about high-bandwidth satellite systems-that technology has existed in VSATs for years. But to deliver on the promise of highly interactive satellite networks is a different matter altogether. "There are some appli cations not suitable to satellite," says Karl
Savatiel, president of Astrolink and vice president for broadband systems at Lock heed. "Bond transactions, for example, are too latency-sensitive."
That is true-at least for a GEO system such as Astrolink. GEO satellites park some 22,300 miles above the equator: 0.24 sec ond- an eon to computers-of round trip away. With that kind of latency built into the system (not counting whatever latency is added by the various gateways and trans lations the data must go th rough), a tele phone conversation is an annoying, awk ward mess. And any kind of interactive application has to be nonlatency-sensitive. So Bank of America can probably forget putting its on-line transaction processing (OLTP) system through a geostationary satellite. Such systems include not only Astrolink, but Loral's Cyberstar and Hughes' Spaceway projects.
So here's a simple solution: Move the satellites closer to earth. That's just what systems such as Teledesic, Alcatel's Sky bridge, and Motorola's Celestri will do. With low earth orbits (LEOs) under 1000 miles, these systems offer latency that's barely apparent: hundredths of a second.
Of course, it's not that si mple. While
GEOs are a well-known technology (TV broadcasts, for example, have been using them for decades), LEOs are new and face new challenges. Perhaps the biggest one is that you need a lot of them to get total global coverage. At one point, Teledesic planned a constellation of more than 800 satellites, for example (that number re cently dropped to 288 when it signed an agreement to work with Boeing). Until recently, the concept of launching dozens or hundreds of multimillion-dollar satel lites was a pipe dream.
Each ofTeledesic's 288 satellites will cost in the realm of $20 million, according to Daggatt. That's $5.76 billion just in satel lites. That does not include launch fees or insurance-which, in the case of some satellite systems, is the price of the satel lite again.
Price is only one issue. Who is going to launch all these satellites? Teledesic has set an 18-month to two-year launch window to get its 288 satell ites airborne. All to ld, the LEO system creators are talking about putting more satellites into orbit in the nex t five years than the world has put into orbit since the Soviets launched Sput nik 40 years ago. To make it happen, a huge
64 BYTE NOV EMBER 1997
Many satellite systems will divide their footprint into subfootprints called "spot beams." Spot beams have the advantages of smaller footprints and also enable reuse of the spectrum.
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C o ve r S tory Netwo rk Int egra t io n
Some Satellite Personal Communications Systems
........................................................................................................................................................................
Ellipso
Backers
Use
Altitude (miles) Spectrum request Data throughput User terminal cost (est.) System cost (billions) Operations start Number of satellites
W es t ing house, Harris, Israeli Aircraft Industries Voice, fax, messaging Elliptical : 325 4904; 5025 UH F
0.3 - 9 .6 Kbps $1 000
$0.75
1998 17
Odyssey TRW, TeleGlobe
Voice, fax, messaging 6 4 71
L, S, and Ka 9.6 Kbps
$300
$ 1.8
2000 15
ICO lnmarsat, Hu gh es Space Telecom Voice and messaging 6459
S and C
2.4 Kbps
Several hu ndred $ 2.6
2000 12
GlobalStar
Loral, Q ualcomm, Alcatel, France, and many others
Voice, data, and fax
884
OrbComm
Orbital Sciences, Teleglobe, and many others
Messag ing and tracking 484
Iridium Motorola, Raytheon
Voice, paging, data, fax 483
L, S, and C
VH F
Land Ka
7.2 Kbps
56.7 Kbps
2.4 Kbps
$750 $ 2
Starting at $ 500 $0.33
$2500 $3000
$3.7
1998 56
1995 36
1998 72
jump in launch capacity is necessary. Once the LEO satellites are in orbit,
there's an entirely new set of problems. First, there's the matter of space junk: left overs from past space m iss ions of a ll sizes, speeds, and leth ality. "With all these satellites in orbit, it's possible that debris wi ll start running into them," says the Teal Group's Caceres. "They aren't that far from manned systems." Great just what Mir needs.
More Problems for LEO
If the satellites don't get aced by space junk, th ey still will fa ll into the atmos phere eventually. Unlike GEOs that, when their operational life is over, move into a parking orbit a few miles higher than nor ma l, LEO systems will burn up in the atmosphere, like SkyLab. Although satel lite life may be 10or12 years, "with LEOs, you must have a plan for satellite replace ment," says Myron Wagner, vice presi dent and director of engineering for Motoro la's Ce lestri system (a hybrid LEO/GEO system). It's possible, however, and Wagner cites Iridium as a pion eer in this field.
Let's say you solve these challenges. There are more. For example, there's the matter of acquiring and tracking these fast moving satellites. A LEO satellite may be visible for only 20-30 minutes before it passes over the horizon. This poses no small feat for aiming the antenna and keep ing the link active.
A technology called a phased-array an tenna solves the antenna problem. Unlike a satellite dish, which mechanicall y tracks satellite locations, phased-array antennas are self-aiming boxes consisting of many small er antennas. They can track several satell ites using the slightly different signals received by the array of antennas-with out physically moving, reducing wear and tear among other advantages.
The problem of keeping a link active when yo ur satellite disappears every half hour is solved by keeping at least rwo satel lites in view at all times (man y LEOs will keep three or more in view). The antenna array is aware of all the satellites' positions and starts a new link before it seve rs th e one to the setting satellite. This is "make before break" in satellite parlance.
All LEOs have to solve these challenges . Some of them have others, too. For exam ple, there is the matter of whether a LEO constellation uses intersarellite routing. The problem is, how do you get a signal from the footprint of one sate llite into the footprint of another? In other words, if a LEO user in New York wa nts to com municate with one in M oscow, the LEO system needs to figure our how to route the signal.
If the system is a bent pipe, such as Alca tel's Skybridge, the satellites don't have to be very smart. The LEO satellite over New York will beam the signal down to a ground station, which will ro ute the signal over landlines to a ground station near Moscow.
That station wi ll feed the signal up to th e LEO satellite over Moscow, which wi ll in turn bounce it down to the user th ere.
According to Motoro la's Wagner, how ever," Bent pip es are not good. There are too many hops from sky to earth." And that means dreaded latency-defeating th e who le reason LEOs are supposed to be better than GEOs. Instead, some sys tems, including Teled esic and Celestri, use satellite- to-satellite routing. The Te ledesic constellation communicates in the 40-50-GHz band. Ce lestri uses lasers for its links.
The downside is, of course, that each satellite has to have more communications and tracking hardware-more inte ll i gence- and therefore a higher price than a bent-pipe system . Also, th e performance gain over a bent pipe is nottremendous a few hundredths of a second.
Alcate l's Skybridge fac es yet another set of challenges, because it selected the Ku band instead of the Ka-band. According to Mark MacGann, director of public affairs for Skybridge, this lower frequency lets Skybridge be "the cheapest system in low earth orbit." That's because Skybridge can us e less power fu l transmitters. The Ku band is pretty crowded, though, with many GEOs working there, and that spells inter ference when Skybridge satellites are over the equator. "We took the GEO arc," says MacGann, "and defined a nonoperating zone of a minimum of plus or minus 10 degrees. Once a Skybridge satellite comes
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Cover Story N et w ork Integration
within that arc, it shuts off its offending beams, and th e ground te rminal switches to another satellite." A simple so lution.
The Air Up There
Niches in the GEO Sphere
In sp ite of the concerns of latency, GEOs and LEOs will likely coexist. Guy Chris te nse n, of Leslie Tay lo r and Associates, sums up the markets based on whether th e system is a GEO, wi th its inh e rent 0.24-second delay, or a low-l atency LEO. LEOs will be goo d for hi gh-speed net working, teleconfere ncing, and telemed icine- interactive applicati o ns. GEOs w ill be b etter for in for mati o n dow n loadin g and video distribution-b road casting and mul ticasting.
Some GEO ve ndors disagree . Hughes' Co nti says, " To d ay, we're ab le t o use GEO satellites to transport at least 24 Mbps of broadcast IP data and over 2 Mbps of point-to-point TCP/IPdata. T he latte r uses technologies such as TCP spoofin g. HNS has been using this technique fo r over three years to deliver lnternet/ intranet content at high speed to both consumers and enter prises ." If necessary, gro und ter min als using the Spaceway system will use simi lar TCP spoofi ng technologies.
But there's still the 0.24-seco nd delay that you just can't get arou nd. Daggattsays that any lossless protoco l is going to have p ro bl ems with this latency. Even if TCP spoofing works (and he is skeptical about that, given TCP's 64-Kb buffer ), there's the matter of other protocols. " It's reasonable to think that fu ture network protocols will be designed for terrestrial networks," he says . "Yo u need syst ems t hat offe r low error rates and low delay. People talk about voice and data as though there were two types of data. T hey aren' t. And if the net work doesn't work for voice, it won't work for other applications."
LEO Meets GEO
One of the systems I looked at is consid ering offering the best of both wo rlds: a hybrid solution. M otorola's Celestri plans a LEO constellati on of 63 satellites (i n i tially) coupled with one GEO satellite over the U.S. Mo toro la has the rights to eight more GEO orbital slots if it needs th em. The LEO constellation and the GEO satel lites will be able to communicate di rectly thro ugh a satellite-to-satellite network.
"We want users t o be un aware of the kin d of system they're using.The only way we know to do that is with a LEO config u rati on," says Wagner. The hybrid con
0 ne easy w ay to distinguish among the many new satellite systems is by how high up they are. This is also one key factor in determining how many satellites a system needs for w orldwide coverage and how powerful those satellites must be. If an ante nna can cover 15 degrees, for example, that sam e arc covers a much smaller area if the satellite is 200 miles away than if it's 20,000 miles away. However, it will require much less power to deliver a sig nal from 200 miles away than from 20,000 miles away. Satellite people have four basic terms to describe different altitudes.
GEO: Short for geosynchronous earth orbit, GEO satellites orbit at 22,238 miles above
the earth's equator. At this altitude, the period of rotation of the satellite around the earth is exactly 24 hours. The satellite see ms to stay above exactly the same point on the earth 's surface. (As a footnote, this orbit is called a C larke orbit, named for the author Arthur C .Clarke, w ho fi rst posited in 1945 that it should be possible. According to BYTE senior contributing editor Jerry Pournelle, Clarke never got the patent he sought for figuring it out.) Most of today's satellites are GEOs, as are planned broadband systems suc h as Hughes' Spaceway and Loral's Cyberstar.
GEOs require few satellites to cover the entire earth's surface. H ow ever, they're saddled w ith a 0.24-second latency for a signal to travel from earth to satellite and back to earth again. GEOs also need to obtain specifi c orbital slots around the equ ator to keep far enough apart, each separated by 2 deg rees, or about 1000 miles, according to Erwin Edelman, demonstrations coordinator at NASA's Lewis Research C enter. The ITU and, in the U.S., the FCC mete out these slots.
MEO: According to Marco C aceres of the Teal Group, medium earth orbit satellites orbit
at altitudes between 6250 and 12,500 miles. Unlike G EOs, their position c hanges relative to the earth 's surface. At thei r lower altitud es, you need more of them to ac hieve complete coverage of the earth 's surface, but the latency red uces substantially. Right now, accord ing to C aceres, there aren't many M EOs, and the ones in orbit are used for positioning.
LEO: Low earth orbits promise extremely high bandwidth and low latency. Plans exist for
huge constellations of hundreds of satellites that w ill cover the entire globe. LE O s generally orbit below 31 25 miles. Most of them are mu ch lower: only 400 - 1000 miles. At these alti tudes, latency reduces to nearly negligible times-hundredths of a second.
Three kinds of LEOs hand le different amounts of bandwidth. Little LEOs are low-band width appl ications (tens to hundreds of Kbps) suc h as paging and inc lude systems suc h as OrbComm. Big LEO s can handle paging, cellular se rvices, and so me data transmission (hun dreds to thousands of Kbps). Examples incl ude GlobalStar and Iridium. Broadband LEOs (sometimes called mega-LEOs) operate in the Mbps range and include Teledesic, C elestri , and Skybridge.
HALE: High-altitude, long·endurance platforms are basically a solar-powered, lightweight
airplane or lighter-than-air c raft that hover over an unmoving spot some 70,000 feet above the earth 's surface. Not often talked about, and right now primarily a researc h venture. An example of a HALE that uses blimps is Skystation.
fig urati o n w ill enabl e Celest r i to take ad va ntage of LEO's sho rter d e lays for interactive uses and GEO's power in the broadcast arena.
Alcatel and Lockheed have had similar thoughts. Th ey are lookin g at a partner ship that will enable Skybridge and Cyber star to wo rk together th ro ugh land-based ga teways . It's no t go in g to be qu ite as tra nspare nt as Celestri's system, because it wi ll need to ro ute traffic through ter restr ial ga teways, but it does hint at the power of a hybrid configurati on.
Space Security Unit
On ce yo u ge t beyo nd th e la t enc y and bandwidth issues (which is what the satel lite creato rs spend a lot of time arguing
over), there is another challenge: securi ty. If yo ur da ta is bein g package d up and broadcast into space, can' t anybody with a scanner just tune in ?In theory, the answer is yes. But the access technologies that these systems use- combinati ons of code di visio n multiple access (CDMA), t ime di visio n m u ltiple access (TOMA), fr e quency division multi ple access (FDMA), and a bunch of other x DMA protocols make that at least as difficult as it will be to intercept a digital cellular signal. On top of that, many of the networks will offe r some kind of internal security systems. But exactly w hat kind ? Well , that ge ts a bit murky.
All the vendors I spoke with told me that th ey were aware of the potential securi ty
6 8 BYT E NOVEMB ER 1997
Cover Story N etw ork Integ rat io n
concerns that customers would have. Few, however, had co ncr et e solutions. Sig Dekany ofAstrolink, for example, says, "I can say only that it does involve encryp tion . Add iti onally, second-tier secu rity at the user level will come by way of public key encryption." Representatives at Space way and Cyberstar were even less forth coming, saying only that they were wo rk ing on th e p rob lem a nd had no t ye t decided on a solution. Teledesic said that there is encryption within its network, and, ifusers want, they can add more. T hat seems to be the general consensus: If yo u want security, you're going to have to add it yourself.
But is that so different from ru nni ng pri vate business over any public network? Would you, fo r example, engage in trusted transactio ns over the Internet? Of course not. You wo uld purchase some kind of encryption software, a virtua l private net work (VPN) system , for example. And because all the satellite systems claim that they will be completely transparent to yo ur network, it's likely that the VPN system yo u purchase for the Internet will work just as well-and just as transpare ntly over a satellite system.
Down-to-Earth Price Tags
What will be the price for this magica l universal service? Surprisingly, on a per bit basis, every company I talked to said it will be probably not much more than what you're payi ng fo r your landline ser-
What the Band Names Mean
Band Name HF-band VHF-band P-band UHF-band L-band FCC's digital radio S-band C-band X-band Ku-band (Europe)
Ku-band (America)
Ka-band
Frequency Range
1.8-30 MHz
50-146 MHz
0.230-1.000 GHz
0.430-1 .300 GHz
1.530-2. 700 GHz
2.310- 2.360 GHz
2.700-3.500 GHz Downlink: 3.700-4.200 GHz Uplink: 5.925- 6.425 GHz
Downlink: 7.250-7.745 GHz Uplink: 7.900- 8.395 GHz
Downlink: FSS: 10.700-11.700 GHz DBS : 11 .700-1 2. 500 GHz Telecom: 12.500-12.750 GHz Uplink: FSS and Telecom : 14.000- 14.800 GHz; DBS : 17.300-18.100 GHz
Downlink: FSS : 11 .700-12.200 GHz DBS: 12.200-12.700 GHz Uplink: FSS: 14.000-14.500 GHz DBS: 17.300-17.800 GHz
Roughly 18-31 GHz
vices . That may seem like a pretty amaz ing statement, considering the investment req uired to get some of these systems run ni ng- Te ledesic, for exa mp le, is fore casting a $9 billion start- up charge (which so me critics say is low); Motoro la's Celest ri is at $13 bi lli on. But Teledesic presiden t Daggatt thinks it's reasonable. " It 's a very high-capacity system . And
unl ike a wir e-li ne ne t work, where all the ca paci ty of the infrastructure is rig idly dedicated to locations and users regardless of whether they are actually using it at any particular moment, Tele desic offers ' bandwi dth on d emand ,' where the system capacity used is limited to that requi re d by a particular user and a parti cul ar applicati on at a partic ular
I'm with the Band
The electromagnetic spectrum is an ongoing problem for everybody. To start off with, the common names for certain fre quency ranges-or bands-date back to World War II. But worse, inconsistencies and anachro nisms in the regulatory process may make it more difficult than necessary to get the bandwidth that a new system needs.
According to Ed Elizondo, sys tems engineering consultant at Lockheed, the IEEE has been pushing for a standard naming convention that would be easier to understand. Still, most people refer to segments of the radio spectrum by letter-band classifi cations that are often vague . In
World War II , U.S . and British radar developers named parts of the spectrum with letters, such as L-band, C-band, Ku-band, and Ka-band (see the table "What the Band Names Mean") . The letters were chosen at random, so that the enemy wouldn 't know what they were talking about. Over the years, some discrepancies crept into the labels, making some of the designations imprecise.
Many of the satellite system vendors cited the regulatory pro cess as a problem. Skybridge's Mark MacGann puts it this way, "Spectrum is a scarce resource . The ITU has always allocated fre quency on afirst-come,first-served basis. But that cannot continue:'
Indeed, the whole regulatory process could drive a neophyte nuts. According to Lockheed's Karl Savatiel, the process in the U.S.is highly iterative. You file with the FCC for authority to construct radio beacons at a particular fre quency (and a position in the case of G EOs) .If someone asks for the same frequency, the FCC makes its decision based on the greater public good. If there's a conflict, there may be an auction (which is what happened with the Ka-band when it opened up).
Then the FCC takes all the U.S. file rs to the ITU-the international coordinating body. However, be cause the ITU allocates bandwidth on a first-come,first-served basis,
while the FCC is resolving U.S . conflicts, other countries that can resolve conflicts quicker may be getting orbital slots and frequen cies that U.S. companies were counting on.
Then it goes back to the FCC's drawing board . "The FCC has teeth in its process;' says Savatiel. "If you don't deliver in five years, you lose your slot; the ITU has fewer teeth-you won 't lose it for at least nine years :'
Until recently, this arrangement hasn't been a problem . However, if future spectrum allocations are as heated as the Ka-band's, the ITU may need to reconsider its pro cess to add more teeth-perhaps a "greater public good " system.
7 0 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
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r.. StatSoft GmbH (Hamburg , Germany) , ph: +49 40/ 468866·0, fax: +49 40/468866·77 r.. StatSoft Fra nce (Paris, France), ph: +33 01-45-185-999, fax: +33 01-45-185-285
!'.. StatSoft Polska Sp . z o .o. (Krakow, Poland), ph : +48 12-3911 20, lax: +4812-391121 r-.. StatSoft Italia (Padova, Italy), ph: +39 49·893-4654, fax: +39 49·893-2897 r.. StatSoft Pacific Pty ltd . (Australia) , ph: +613 9521 4833, fax: +613 9521 4288 r.. StatSoft Japan (Tokyo, Japan), ph: +813 36671110, fax: +813 3668 3100
r... StatSoft Taiwan (Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.)1 ph: +886 2 5786587 , fax: +886 2 5793179
... ,..., . . .
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C over St ory Network Int egrat io n
Satellite System Overview
System type Fixed satellite service
Direct broadcast satellite Mobile satellite (GEO)
Big LEO
Frequency bands C and Ku
Ku Land S
L and S
Little LEO
P and below
Broadband GEO
Ka and Ku
Broadband LEO
Ka and Ku
Source : Leslie Taylor and Associates
Applications
Video delivery, VSAT, news gathering, telephony Direct-to- home video/au d io Voice and low-speed data to mobile terminals Cellular telephony, data, paging
Position location, tracking, messaging
Internet access, voice, video, data
Internet access, voice, video, data, vi deoconferen cing
Terminal type/size
1-meter and larger fixed earth station
0. 3 - 0 .6-meter fixed earth station Laptop com puter/ ante nna-mounted but mobile Cellular phone and pagers; fixed phone booth "As small as a packet of cigarettes" and omn idirecti onal 20-cm, fixed
Dual 20-cm t racking antennas, fi xed
Examples Hughes Galaxy,
GE American,
Lo ral Skynet, Intelsat
DirecTV, Echostar,
USSB, Astra
lnmarsat,
AMSC/TMI, ACES
Iridium, GlobalStar, ICO
O rbComm, E·SAT
Hughes Spaceway,
Loral Cyberstar,
Lockheed Astrolink
Teledesic, Skybridge,
C elestri, Cyberstar
mo m e nt. Th at all o w s th e hi gh syst em capacity of th e Teledesic network to ex tend to a ve ry large user base."
Other system operators agree . Savatiel says, " The price can co mp ete with und er uti lized Tl s, like 25 percent uti lized Tl s." Astrolink will be in the range of 20 to 25 cents p er minute fo r 64 Kbps, but remem ber that yo u will pay only for time that you use. " If you provide a good value to end users, you' ll be rewarded," says Savatiel. Astrolink will word reseller agree ments to tr y to avo id pri ce go uging- a p racti ce mor e common in countries where tele co mmunicati o ns is a mo nopo ly. Cyber star's M ae hl puts it a different way: " We're
Alcate l
Paris, France
http:l/www.astro link .com
+33 1 4058 5858 http :{/www.alcatel
Lora l
.com/our_bus/te lecom/ products/space/ whatsnew.htm
Palo Alto, CA 650-852-5736 http:l/www.cyberstar .com
Hughes
Commun ications, Inc.
Long Beach, CA
310-525-5000
Motorola
Chandler, AZ 602-732-4018 http:l/www.mot.com/
http:l/www.spaceway
.com
Teledesic
Kirkland, WA
Lockh eed
Sunnyvale, CA
888-278-7565
425-602-0000
http:{/www.teledesic .com
408- 543-3103
tr yin g to wa it to see wh at the mar ket wants." H e sees Cyberstar's service com ing in at about $20 per month for bas ic ser vi ce on its Ku -band system (which has a lower bandw idth th an th e p lann ed Ka band system) and a simil ar p r ice on its eventual Ka-band system.
T he price yo u see as a custo mer, how ever, is likely to be set by yo ur service p rov id er. Satellite system crea tors ar e wholesale service prov iders. No ne of the sa t e llite sys t em s wil l be se ll in g ba nd width to end use rs. They' ll sell to gateway providers such as telephone companies, who will probably resell the satellite band width to se rvice providers (like ISPs), who will se ll to customers.
The goal is to make th e satellite systems transpare nt to end users- yo u buy the service, and somebody else wo rri es abo ut t he plumbing. This tr ans pa rency is in c re dibl y imp o rt ant. Cybers t a r, fo r example, is work ing on deals wi th ro uter vendo rs to facilitate intellige nt ro utin g of hybrid networks. "Satellite guys can' t just do satellites-we have to kn ow about th e n etwor k arc hitec tur e as we ll ," says M ae hl.
Shooting for the Stars
According to analysts conducting research fo r M otorola, th e tota l telecommunica tio ns market is about $650 b illio n, and th at's going to double in 10 years, chiefly
du e to data co mmuni ca ti o ns. In o th e r words, there are a w hole lot of people out there needing a whole lot of ban dwid th. And we' ll need every hose we have to put o ut th at fir e : fib er, ATM, Synch ro no us Opt ical N etwork (SONET),xDSL, Giga bit Eth ern et, cable m odems, satellites, and p ro bably a fe w that haven ' t eve n bee n thought of yet.
" I do n' t think th e fac t th at it's a sate l li te system is going to make a difference," says Guy Christensen. H e sees all telecom municatio ns systems competing on th eir availability, price, and speed. That means th ere are go ing to b e tw o bi g winn ers: whoever gets its broadband service to con sum ers fir st, and wh oever can offer the most bandwidth with at least not-unrea sonable latency.
At this point, th e race could fall to any of the companies putting together a broad band satellite system. Or even to someo ne we've never heard of. T he pro fil e of the broa db and satell ite race has ch anged a grea t dea l since las t sp ri ng . AT&T has dro pped out. Teledesi c changed its con fi guration. And M otorola is collapsing two o f its systems (M-Star and Millennium) into Celestri.
Ge ntleman, to yo ur launch pads. llJ
john Mo ntgomery is BYTE 'sWest Coast bureau chief. You can reach him at jmontgomery@dev5
.byte.com.
7 2 BYTE NOVEMB ER 1997
Socket to Me
The Pentium !I's proprietary slots could extend Intel's control over the PC architecture. That's bad for Intel's competitors. But what does it mean for users?
By Tom R. Halfhill
ou can't fit a square peg in a round hole. And lately, Intel has much of the PC industry feeling like a square peg. The round holes are the new CPU interfaces Imel has been introducing for its P6-class processors. They are making it more difficult for rival chipmakers to compete with Intel, and they're dividing the industry into camps that are fight ing over the future of the PC system architecture. Caught in the crossfire are users. Will the PC standard they've always thought was open soon be come proprietary? It all started in 199S when Imel introduced the first P6 class microprocessor, the Pen tium Pro. At the same time, Imel rolled out a new inter face-called Socket 8-that connects the Pentium Pro CPU to the motherboard. The 387 pin Socket 8 was incompatible with Socket 7, which is the standard 296-pin ZIF socket used by all PS-class processors, including Intel's own Pen tiums, Advanced Micro De vices' KS and K6, Cyrix's 6x86 and 6x86MX, and Centaur Technology's new IDT-C6. Last May, Intel introduced another P6-class processor, the Pentium II, and another new CPU interface, Slot 1. Electrically, Slot 1 is identical to Socket 8. But physically, the Pentium II and Slot 1 repre sent major departures from past standards. Instead of selling the CPU in a small ceramic or plastic package studded with pins-the flat, black square commonly referred to as a chip-·lntel encloses the Pentium II in a much larger carrier known as a Single Edge Contact (SEC) cartridge. It's really a daughtercard sealed inside a protective housing, and it's the only way anyone can buy a Pen tium II. The SEC cartridge requires a 242-contact Slot 1 on the motherboard. Imel isn't stopping there. In mid-1998, the company will intro duce another Pentium II processor (code-named Deschutes) and another interface for desktop systems, Slot 2. For notebook com puters, Imel will introduce a miniaturized version of the SEC car
tridge and a miniaturized version of Slot 1, which will also work with Deschutes-series processors.
It's the biggest barrage of CPU interfaces in industry history, but that's not the problem. The problem-from the viewpoint of Intel's competitors-is that all these new sockets and slots are Intel's proprietary technology. And Intel doesn't want to share them with just anybody. The chip giant is guarding the
new interfaces with strong patents that make reverse engineering a much greater legal challenge than a tech nical challenge. Although Intel allows motherboard manufacturers to use the new interfaces, it won't license them to rivals who produce x86-compatible processors. And that puts many companies in a diffi cult position.
AMD, Cyrix, and Cen taur can't make processors that fit motherboards with SEC slots. Vendors of core
1ogic system chip sets can
support the slots, but only if they can license proprietary technology from Intel. Motherboard companies can't make motherboards that accept P6-class proces sors from any x86 vendor, as they can today with Sock et 7 and PS-class processors. They also can 't make Sock et 7 motherboards with Intel's latest system chip sets (because the chip sets aren't compatible with Socket 7), and they face a more limited choice of chip-set suppliers for SEC motherboards because some would be suppliers don't have an Imel license. These are unexpected obstacles for an industry that has been comfortably making PC clones for more than a decade. Moth erboard makers have to choose sides because it costs too much to build motherboards with both a Socket 7 and an SEC slot. Users will have to make a choice, too. One solution, of course, is to stick with Imel, whose proces sors offer the best all-around x86 performance (integer, FP, MMX). But Imel CPUs cost about 2S percent more than CPUs
NO V EMBER 1997 BYTE 73
Socket to Me
from other x86 vendors, and SEC moth erboards cost $30 to $100 more than Sock et 7 motherboards.
The PC market has always thrived on competition. But now it's almost as if PCs are following the lead of the Macin tosh-a historically proprietary architec ture that's going proprietary again after a brief fling with cloning.
What's Open?
It's easy to portray Intel as the bad guy. "Intel is trying to do exactly what IBM tried to do in 1987 by driving the industry toward a proprietary bus, in that case Micro Channel," says Glenn Henry, pres ident of Centaur Technology and a for mer IBM Fellow. "In fact, that's one rea son why I left IBM. I thought they were being stupid."
Henry is referring to IBM 's Micro Channelarchitecture, an internal periph eral bus that IBM pushed as the successor to ISA. Micro Channel was a proprietary bus that other companies had to license from IBM. If successful, Micro Channel might have forced some clone companies out of business and restored IBM's con trol over the PC architecture it invented in 1981. But the bus failed to catch on. "Customers voted Micro Channel out of existence," says Henry. "Now it's in the Computer H all of Shame."
Without question, Intel is graduall y establishing control over the PC architec ture. The critical components of a PC are the CPU, the system chip set, the graphics controller, the memory chips, and the motherboard. Intel makes about 90 per cent of the CPUs and 80 to 85 percent of the system chip sets. Intel is also the lead ing motherboard manufacturer.
Intel recently announced its intention to acquire Chips & Technologies, which makes key components for notebook computers and is working with Intel and Hughes to develop a 3-D graphics con troller chip (code-named Auburn); this controller is a threat to companies such as S3 . Intel also owns part of Rambus, which stands a good chance of setting the future standard for memory chips. Intel and Rambus are promoting Rambus DRAM (RDRAM) as the successor to synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), which would mark the first time since 1974 that a single compa ny controls the DRAM standard.
Not since IBM's heyday in the early 1980s has a company enjoyed so much dominance over the PC architecture . And
Intel has done it without selling a single PC under its own name. It see ms the only thing beyond Intel's reach is the OS, which is still firml y in the grip of Microsoft.
Does that make Intel the Evil Empire? Before indulging too deepl y in conspira cy theories, keep four points in mind:
· Like any company, Intel has a right to invent technologies and protect them with patents. "As an Intel stockhold er, I would get very upset if Intel gave away its most valuable secrets without ge tting anything for them, " says Manny Yara, Intel's publ ic relations manage r for desk top CPUs.
· Intel had solid technical reasons for inventing a new CPU interface . Socket 7 doesn't have enough bus bandwidth for high-end systems and servers, especially multiprocessor (MP) configurations. All
bus traffic on Socket 7 moves across a sin gle 64-bit-wide bus. Ar th e typ ical bus fr e quency of 66.6 MHz, that 's about 533 MBps of peak bandwidth. Even when the bus frequency increases to 100 MHz next year, it still won't be enough for hi gh end systems. (See the figure "Comparing Peak Bus Bandwidth," page 75.) So Intel added a second 64-bit-wide bus to the Pen tium Pro and Pentium II. This backside bus talks independently to the Level 2 (L2) cache and runs faster than the frontside bus . It needs at least 72 more pins than were availab le on Socket 7.
·Not everyone is frozen out; Intel does share some of its P6 technology with oth ers. For example, it helps companies such as Corollary, NCR, and Hyundai develop P6-compatible chip sets for MP systems with more than four CPUs. Intel says those
Sorting Out the Slots
A ll of Intel's P6-class processors use a similar
electrical interface-only the physical interfaces are markedly different. Is this a ploy to make the interfaces more difficult to clone? No, because the physical connectors are available from independent suppliers, and anyone can use them. Intel's patents protect the bus protocols, not the sockets and slots themselves.
Instead, Intel is trying to match each interface to the processor package and to different markets. Here's how they break down :
Socket s isa387-pinZIF socket forthe Pentium Pro. It requires a multichip modulea special chip package that includes a CPU die and one or two SRAM die for the Level2cache(256KBto1 MB). The L2 cache can run at the full core frequency of the CPU (currently up to 200 MHz). The Pentium Pro supports an L2 cacheable ad dress space of 64 GBand is found in high-performance desktops and servers.
Slot 1 is a 242-contact daughtercard slot that accepts a Pentium II processor
packaged as a Single Edge Contact (SEC) cartridge. Inside the cartridge are the CPU die and enough SRAM chips for an L2 cache of up to 51 2 KB.The current Pentium 11supports51 2 MB of cacheable address space, much less than a Pentium Pro. Motherboards can have one or two of these slots. The frontside bus usually runs at 66.6 MHz and will increase to 100 MHz when Intel introduces the 440BX system chip set in the first half of 1998. The L2 cache can run at a 1:1, 1:2, or 1:3 ratio of the core frequency. However, it typically runs at 1:2 because higher frequencies would require expensive SRAMs, and Intel aims Slot 1 at mainstream desktops and servers.
Slot 2 is a new daughtercard slot that will accept Penti um II processors packaged in a slightly larger SEC car!ridge. Slot 2 will not replace Slot 1. Instead, Intel will aim Slot 2 at higher-end desktops and se rvers . Motherboards can have up to four of these slots for glueless multiprocessing ,and even more by using custom chip sets.
There's room inside the larg er cartridge for more SRAM chips-enough for L2 caches well beyond 512 KB. Slot 2 processors will support much more cacheable mem ory than Slot 1 processors (probably 64 GB). By using expensive burst SRAMs, the L2 cache can run at the full core frequency.The frontside bus won't run slower than 100MHz.
Intel's mobile slot (as yet unnamed) is a physically smaller version of Slot 1 for notebook computers.Otherwise, it's the same as Slot 1. Intel also sells mobile processors on a small card known as a mobile module.
Contrary to some reports, future P6 chips aren 't nee essarily tied to specific slots. For example, the Deschutes processor-slated for mid1998-is simply a Pentium II fabricated on a 0.25-micron process. (Current Pentium II chips are 0.35-micron .) Deschutes will arrive at clock speeds of 333 MHz and higher, and it will gradually replace today's Pentium II. There will be versions for Slot 1, Slot 2, the mobile slot,and the mobile module.
74 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Socket to Me
companies "advance the PC architecture," whil e rivals such as AMO and Cyrix mere ly undercut Intel's mar ket share .
· Intel can't make the PC architecture proprietary because it was never truly open to begin with. This runs contrary to common wisdom, wh ich ho lds th at PCs are more popul ar th a n M acs because they' re an open standard that anyone can clone . Bu t in fact both the IBM PC a nd the Mac were proprietary from the start. Th e PC was cloned on ly because it was easier to cl one . By inventing a bus proto co l th at's difficult to duplicate, Intel is proving that PCs aren 't as open as many people think.
Preserving Socket 7
All this might seem to doom Socket 7 and Intel's competitors to the endangered spec ies list. Not necessar il y. Alth o ugh Socket 7 lacks th e bandwidth needed by hi gh-end systems, it's still good enough for low- to mid-ra nge systems-the kind most peo pl e buy. That also happens to be the mainstream market coveted by AMO, Cyrix, and Centaur.
"We are not limited by Socket?. That's the clear message l want to get across," says Lance Smith, AMO's technical mar keting di rector. "We're limited by time, more than anything else-the time we need to get new products out the door."
Early next year, new CPUs, system chip sets, m oth erboards, a nd SO RAMs will boost Socket 7's bus frequency to 100 MHz. That wi ll boost th e bandwidth to
Comparing Peak Bus Bandwidth
· Total bus bandwidth at 66.6MHz (MBps)
· Total bus bandwidth
3000
at 100 MHz (MBps)
300-MHz core frequency,
i
150-MHz backside bus
::E 2000 1 - -
No backside bus 1000
333-MHz core frequency, 333-MHz backside bus
Socket 7
Slotl
Slot 2
Intel's CPU slots offer more peak bus bandwidth than Socket 7 because they drive a backside bus at higher frequencies.
800 MBps-50 percent mo re than today's 533 MBps at 66.6 MHz.
M ea nwhil e, engineers are striving to reduce bus traffic. Enlarging the Level 1 (Ll) cache increases the possi bility that a CPU wi ll fin d the instructions and data it needs without venturing out on the bus. All CPUs have bigger L1 caches these days; AMO, Cy rix, and Centaur include 64 KB in th eir latest chips. That's twice as much cach e as Intel' s Pe ntium, Pen -
ti um Pro, and Pentium 11 ch ips. It's likely that AMO wi ll add eve n more
cache whe n the K6 moves from its current 0.35-micron fabrication process to 0.25 micron in the next few months. The sma ll er process will shrink the die fro m its current size of 162 sq uare millimeters to a miniscule 68 mm2. That leaves plen ty of room to add cache while still hold ing down the cost.
Centaur is taking a similar approach.
Seven Waysto Boost Socket 7
PROS
CONS
1. Speed up the CPU bus Faster overall performance for
L2 cache and main memory
More expensive motherboards; probably fewer motherboard suppliers
2. Enlarge the L1 cache
Higher rate of cache hits
Consu mes more silicon area on the microprocessor
3. Enlarge the L2 cache
Higher rate of cache hits
Requires more SRAM chips
4. Add an L2 backside bus Separates cache traffic from frontside bus traffic
Adds expense to microprocessor and requ ires a daughtercard that plugs into Socket 7
5. Integrate the L2 cache
Greatly speeds up access to L2
Consumes more silicon area on the
cache ; eliminates need for external microprocessor
L2 cache or allows optional L3 cache
6. Use an in-line L2 cache
Speeds up access to L2 cache ; doesn't consume any silicon area on microprocessor
Complicated design with multiple bus speeds ; requires a daughtercard that plugs into Socket 7
7. Integrate the L2 cache in a multichip module (MCM)
Speeds up access to L2 cache over dedicated backside bus; doesn't require a daughtercard
Prohibitively expensive unless manufactured with IBM's C4 process technology
LIKELY PLAYERS Everyone AMD Unknown Unknown
Centaur, AM D
System chip-set suppliers AMD,Cyrix
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 7 5
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8~~~e~~-1°~o~i~~i~~C~~t2:0: ···:::::.::~~=:~~
~g~g~ ~~g:g~g g~~1~1i~f~~mera·::: :::: ~~g:g~
~~~g~ ~;~~~;s~~g1~@g e~~~~c.!1nner· ::J~~:g~
Hewlett Packard ScanJet Ss .................199.58
Hewlett Packard ScanJet Sp ..................297.08
Hewlett Packard ScanJet 4cse............... 695 .77
Kensington Mouse-in-a Box .....................27.29
~=~~:~~g~ 5~gi~~·t··~·~·~·~·~··~~·.~.:.~.~~ :::::::~~:~~
~g~;~ Dg~ga2~~~mD~~h~f~~r!;~~a:.:·:::;~~:88
Logitech Cyberman II game controller ..... 88.39 Logitech PageScan Color Pro ................ 275.85 Microtek Color PageWiz rompact scanner ... 158.21 Microtek ScanMaker E3 color flatbed .... 149.00 Microtek ScanMaker EG std color flatbed ....284 .34 Nikon Coolpix 300 digital camera ........... 674.04
~\~~hs~1f8Y2v~~~~Fg~~~~~~~.::: ::::::::::: ~~~:rig
UMAX Astra GOOP scanner...... .. .. ........... 149.35
UMAX Astra GOOS scanner.. .
.......... 169.74
INPUT DEVICES
UMAX Astra I 200S scanner
wl PhotoDeluxc
............. 377 .18
Visioneer PaperPort mx scanner............149.26
Visioneer PaperPort ix scanner
.... 149.26
Visioneer PaperPort Strobe scanner ...... 249.99
MAG lnnovision 410V2 14" 0.28mrn ...... 209.50 MAG lnnovision 5 10V2 15" 0.28mm ...... 298.44 MAG lnnovision 7 10V2 17" 0.28mm ...... 495.26 Magnavox MB4010 14" 0.28mm ............ 199.07 Magnavox MV50 11 15" 0.28mm ............ 257 .16
~~8n~~~t~S~~~Wsici ~·59.3~~;;:n;· :::::::::;~::~~
NEC MutliSync E700 17" 0.25mm ......... 659 .18
~~g ~~b1bsr9~o~J~~0m2.~.·:.~:~~~~ ·····:~.~~~:~~
NEC Pl 150 21" 0.28mm ...................... 1388.76
Princeton EOSO 15" 0.28mm .................. 267.44
Prince ton E070 17" 0.28mm .. .............. 469 .36
Princeton E090 19" 0.26mm
.......... 849 .20
5amsung SyncMaster 500s 15" 0.28mm.... 279 .00
5amsung SyncMaster700s 1r 0.28mm......499 .00
Sony MuUiscan 100sx 15" PnP 0.25mm ... 329 .00
Sony Multiscan 200sx 17" PnP 0.25mm ....604.03
Sony Multiscan 300sf 20" PnP 0.30mm..... 1385.92
Viewsonic E641 14" 0.28mm ................. 205.81
Viewsonic E655 15" 0.2Bmm ................. 279.02
Viewsonic G77 1 17" 0.27mm ................. 524 .59
Viewsonic P8 15 2 1· 0.25mm ............... 1429.71
3Com LAN PC Card combo ....... . ...... 174.13 3Com 33.6 IOBT LAN +modem .............. 259 .25 3Com 33.G lOBT LAN+modem combo ...... 299 .12 3Com 32-bit Fast EtherUnk XL CardBus .....147.57
Hayes ACCURA 33.6 10BT Ethernel ... 299.91 Hayes ACCURA SGK ....... ..................... 179.79
Hayes OPTIMA 56 K .................. ... ......... 199.14
Intel EtherExpress PROl 100
11n~~~ik~~r~;~~e~~a~~bifo0' ·........ ·...... " 148'
89
32·b1t Ca rd Bus adapter ......................... 158.1O
Mo!orola Manner 33.6 ............................359.16
Motorola MobileSURFA SGK
...... 179.03
~~a~1~:1d~e~~h~r~~~ ~j,~ti~~.~~~~'.~~. ::::1~~:~~
Practical Peripherals SGK Flex cellular .... 179.91 Simple 33.6 cellular ....... ..................... .... 149.74 Simple 33.6 Communicator w!SimpleJack .... 139.09 Simple SGK Communicator..................... 154.72 U.S. Robotics Elhemel adapter w/XJACK .. ...109.00 U.S. Robotics 33.G cellular .................... 239.00
U.S. Robotics 33.G cellular w/XJACK .....229 .95 U.S. Robol ics 33.6 w/XJACK .................219 .00
U.S. Robotics SGK w/XJACK .................. 229 .20
Xircom 33.G ........................................... 148.95
Xircom 33.G Ethernet 10BT .................... 267 .84
Xircom 33.G Ethernet combo ..................299 .52
MODEMS
(DHayes
ACC URA 33.GK faxmodem inlernal . ........ 95 .61
ACCURA 33.6K faxmodem external ...... 119.41
OPTIMA 336 Business Modem internal ....169.02
OPTIMA 336 Business Modem external . ...179.91
ACC URA SGK internal .... .
.. .........139.29
ACCURA 56K external ...........................169.71
ACCURA SGK speakerphone internal ....1n.98
ACCU RA 56K speake rphone external ...189.48
OPTIMA 56K internal .............................. 267.21
OPTIM A 5GK external... ..
............. 289.59
ACCU RA ISDN .. .
... .. 259.39
(>-5) MoTOROLA
ModemSUR FR 5GK internal .... .. ............. 145.22
ModemSU RFR 56K external .. ................158.12
VoiceSURFA 56K internal........
... .159.62
VoiceSUR FA SGK external.. .. .. ............ 169.40
BitSURFR Pro EZ ISON .. .. .. ..... .............. 259.86
nii!/J/,~ffA'
5GK data/fax modem internal ...... ........... 129.97
5GK dala/fax modem external .. ..........159.91
llJ,'flobotlcs
~~~~4::ms~~~533.6 internal wffax . .76.24
V.34 33.6 internal w/fax .......................... 114 .38
V.34 33.6 exlernal w/lax ......................... 139.38
Voice V.34 33 .G in1e rna1 w/fax ................ 139.07
Voice V.34 33 .Gex ternal wflax . ............ 159.90
SGK x2 interna l ............... .................... 197.99
5GK x2 external ................. .....................217.99
5GK x2 Voice internal ..............................217.99
56K x2 Voice external .............................237.99
56K Winmodem
...................... 177.99
ISDN 128K terminal adapter .................226.93
Courier Series
V.34 33.G Internal wflax . ......... .. ............ .. 215.8 1
V.34 33.G oxternal w/fax ......... .. ............. 234.79
56K x2 Internal .......................................229.55
5GK x2 external
..... 264 .99
I-modem ISDN V.34 laxmodem internal .... 239.89
I-modem ISDN V.34 laxmOOem external. ....279.63
DalaBursl ISDN U interface exlernal ......208.25
DataBursl ISDN SfT interface external ... 239.39
ZOOM
33.6 voice/SVD in te~ .... ......... .....109.91
V.34 1Plus 33 .6 faxmodem internal. .......... 79.80
V.34X Plus 33.6 laxmodem external ........ 99.22
5GK inlernal ............................................ 139.29
5GK external .. . ................................ 159.86
PRINTERS
brother.
HL-720 laser ...........................................289.93
HL-730 laser ..................................... 329.18
MFC-4550 5-in-1 ....................................699.99
MFC-6550mc 6-in- 1 ................................929.66
Canon·
BJ-30 monochrome
.267.22
BJC·BO ...................................................299.00
BJC·250 ..................................................149.00
BJC-620 ................. ................................ 299 .00
BJC-4304 Photo
.239.00
BJC..550 ............................................... .499.00
EPSON"
FXB70 .. . ............................ .. ............ 2B9 .16
L0670 ....... ..................... .... ... ................. 349 .B5
L02070 ..
......... ... .... ............. 304 .00
LX300 ................................................. .... 169.17
Stylus Color 400 .............. ........... ............199.00
Stylus Color GOO .....................................299.00
Stylus Color 800 .....................................399 .00
Stylus Color 1520 ...................................799.00
Stylus Color 3000 ................................. 1999.00
Stylus Photo ......... . ................................499.00
(hP.J ~!6'K~~6'
~~ 8:;~~\ ~7~go2~~1r0~~~t~1r~~'.~.~~.~ :::::~~~:g~
HP DeskJel 694C color prinler. ... ........... 269.00
HP DeskJet 820Cse color printer ........... 249.00
HP DeskJet 1000Cse color printer ......... 499 .00
HP LaserJet 5se printer...................... .. 1049.00
HP LaserJet 6Lse printer... .. ................. 399 .00
HP LaserJet GMP printer ... .
.... 879 .85
HP LaserJet GPse printer ........ ............... 799.00
HP OlliceJet 570 multi-lunclion .............. 549.00
1EXM1\ R K .
Color Jetprinter 1000 ......... ..................... 139.99
Color Jetprinter 2030 .............................. 185.24
Color Jetprinter 3000 ..............................239.50
Color Jelprinter 7000 ..............................399 .61
Optra E+ ......... ......... ............................ 399.76
Optra S 1250 .....
. .. .. .............. ..... 1014.82
Optra S 1G50 ..
...... 1259.32
Optra S 2450 ........................................2189.10
Optra SC 1275 .. ... .............................3916.00
Ol(IC>AliX
ML320 Turbo ...................... ................... 318 .59
ML390 Turbo ...
.. ............... ... .. .... 338 .10
Okipage 4w... ................................... 199.00
Okipage Ge ... .... ... .................................. 299.00
. 8t~68: ~~.~.::·" .............:::::::::::::::::::::Jg~:gg
Adobe
For Windows 95 and NT
Ml\11 · ldcnlicnl feature scl on Windows und
Mncintosh systems for easy. shuring of fi les.
I~~·
across platforms · Professiona l typobrraphical 1 control s, including rows a nd columns, vertica l
1
,
·
text, sea rch and replace and hui lt.-in spelling checker
· URL embedding for creating web gra phics with buil t- in links
$116.30 Upgrade CD ............................
CDW 86042
$269. 70 Compelitive upgrade CD .......
CDW 86043
co· .
......................... $365.52 CDW 93091
·
Sengat.c Backup Exec- for Windows N T is the system of
ch oice for hig h -performance, reliable Windows N'I' dnt.a protection-and t.he m ost comprehens ive solution for 100% BackOfficc compatibility. As the fi rst backup solution desi g ned
for Windows N' I~ B ackup E.xec incorporates t he Wi nd ow s NT
A Pis for superior 32-bit performance and ease·of-u se.
Enterprise edition .
......S858.91 CDW94890
..... S429.88 Single-server edition
CDW 94889
New features include: · Microsoft. Image Composer Vi.5
(wi t h Micr osoft. G IF A n imator) · Microsoft I nternet.
Explorer V3.0 · Microsoft. Pcrsonul Web Server
· Microsoft We b Publishing Wizard VI .5
$48.26 Version upgrade CD .............
CDW 96190
.................$134,91 CDW 96254
COMPUTERS
COMPUTERS
TOSHIBA
AST
(h;J ~!~K~~6'
Libretto mini-notebooks SOCT sns 16MB 772MB 6.1· active .... 1929.45
Bravo MS-T Series mini-towers 5/200 MMX 32MB 3GB 16X CD ........... 1n9.n
HP Vectra VL Series 5 PC desktops
5/166 16M8 1.6GB .
... .. ............. 1166.30
Satellite & Satellite Pro notebooks
5/233 MMX 32MB 3GB 16X CD ........... 1a99.03
!>166 MMX 16MB 2.5GB BX CD ........ .. 1377.09
220CDS 5/133 16MB 1.34GB
12. 1 dual 10X CD ................................. 1899.13
440CDX 5/133 MMX 16MB 1.34GB
12.1" dual 10X CD
............ 19a9.69
440CDT 5/ 133 MMX 16MB 1.34GB
12. 1" active 10X CO ............................. 2799 .55
460CDT 5/ 166 MMX 32 MB 2.02GB
12. 1" active 10X CO .............. .... .......... 3659 .16
~&;~1~n3~e~~:J2MB 1.5GB
10 .4" active .
..................... 3 3 6 9 .46
660CDT 5/150 16MB 1.2GB
11 .3· aclive 1OX CD .............................. 3189 .63
Tecra notebooks
500CDT 5/ 120 16MB 1.26G B
12 .1· active 6X CD
...................... 1995.94
5 10CDT 5/ 133 16MB 2. 1GB
12. 1· active lOX CD ................. ............ 2659.76
520CDT 5/166 MMX 32MB 2GB
12.1· active 10X CD
.. .. ....... ..4159.45
530CDT 5/166 MMX 32MB 2GB
12.1" active 10X CD ............................. 4579.17
730XCDT 5/150 MMX 16MB 2GB
12.1· active lOX CD
.............. 3499.n
740C DT 5/ 166 MMX 16MB 3GB
13.3" active 10X CD ............................. 4659 .23
740CDT 5/166 MMX 16M B 3GB
13.3" active 10X CD
.......... 4849.62
750CDT 5/233 MMX 32MB 4.7GB
13.3. aclive 20X CD ............................. 6449.23
lnflnla mini-towers
7161 !>166MMX 32MB2.38GB12XCD ... 1649.a9
720 1 5/200 MMX 32MB 3GB 12X CD .19a9.24
Equium desktops
5230D 51233 MMX 32MB 3GB 24X CD .1798.36
6200D 61200 32MB 3GB 12X CD ........ 2118.60
6230D 61233 32MB 3GB 24X CD .. ......2199.43
Equlum mini-towers
6200 M 6/200 32MB 4.3GB 12X CD .. .. .2479.47
6260M 266MHz Pentium II 32MB
3.7GB 16X C D ...
. .......2569.07
+ °'i> AceR i~
TEXAs
INSTRUMENTS
Extensa notebooks
610CD 5/150 16MB 1.4GB
11 .3"dual 10X CD ............ ............... .. .. .1964 .67
610CDT 5/ 150 16MB 1.4GB
11 .3· active l OX CD ............................. 2549.84
660CD 5/166 MMX 16MB 1.35GB
12. 1" du al lOX C D .. ........ .. .............. 2699.55
660CDT 5/166 MMX 16MB 2.1GB
11 .3" aclive 1OX CD ........ ......... .... ... ...... 3179.04
TravelM ate notebooks
TM7060 5/166 MMX 32MB 2GB
12.1" active 10X CD .......................... .4289.59
TM 7063NT 5/ 166 MMX 32 MB 3GB
12. 1" active 1OX C D .............................4949.69
AST
Ascentla notebooks A60+ 5/150 16MB l .44GB 12. 1" active 10X CD ..... .. .. ... ... .............. 2369.15 A60+ 5/150 16MB 2 .1GB 12.1" active lOX CD .............................2887.70
COMPAQ
Armada notebooks
1530DM 5/133 MMX 16MB 1.4GB
12. 1· dual lOX CD .................. .............. 2399.79
1550DMT 5/ 133 16 MB 1.4GB
12. 1· active 10X CD .
............... 2899 .39
1580D MT 5/ 150 MMX 16 MB 2 .1GB
12. 1· ac1ive lOX C D ............... ... .. ......... 3399 .10
4130T 51133 16MB 1.08GB 11 .8" active .. 2459.43
4131T 51133 16MB 1.4GB 12.1" aclive .. 2769.98
415051150 MMX 16MB 1.6GB 12.1" dual .. 2a99.34
4 \00TS/166 MMX 1&\1B2GB 12.1" active ... 3999.00
4160T SL 5/166 MMX 16MB 2GB
12 .1" active slimline ......................... .... CALL!
733JT"150MMX 16'1B 2. 1GB 12.1"aclive .. 3799.00
7350MT 51 166 MM X 32MB 2. 1GB
12.1" ac!ive .
. .............. 4499.00
77 10MT 5/150 MM X 16MB 1.6GB
12. 1· active ........ .... ..................... .......... 3699 .00
7730MT 5/166 MMX 32MB 2.1GB
12. 1" active ...........................................4399.00
7750MT 51 166 MMX 32MB 2. 1GB
12. 1" active.
................ 4999.00
7770DMT 5/233 MMX 32MB 3GB
12.1" active 20X CD ............ ................... CALLI
Deskpro 2000 desktop s
5/ 133 16MB 1.2GB .....
....979.00
51 133 16MB 2.5GB ..
... ...... ............ 1089.00
5/ 166MMX 16MB2 .1GB ... .................. 1169.00
5/166 MMX 16MB 3 .2GB .....................1219.00
5/200 MMX 16MB 2 .1GB .... ... ... ........... 1319.00
5/200 MMX 32MB 3.2GB .. ................... 14a9.00
51233 MMX 32MB 3.2GB 16X CD ........ 1a59.00
233MHz Pentium II 32MB 2. lGB ........... CALL !
233MHz Pentium II 32MB 3.2GB 24X CD ... CALL!
266MHz Pentium ll 32MB 3.2GB 24X CD ... CALLI
Deskpro 2000 mini-towers
5/ 166 MMX 16MB 3.2GB 16X CD ........ 1529 .00
5/200 MMX 32MB 3.2GB 16X CD ......... 1679.00
266MHz Pentium II 32MB 3.2GB 24X CD... CALL !
300MHz Pentium II 32MB 3.2GB 24X CD ... CALL!
Deskpro 4000 desktops
5/ 166 MMX 16MB 2.4GB ... ................... 13a9.00
5/ 166 MMX 32MB 3.2GB ... .................. 1599.00
5/200 MMX 32MB 2.4GB ..... ................ 16a9.00
5/200 MMX 32MB 3.2GB .. ................ 1759.00
5/233 MMX 32MB 3 .2GB 16X CD. ... 2129.00
233MHz Pentium II 32 MB 2 .4GB ........... CALL I
233MHz Pentium II 32MB 3.2GB 24X CD .. CALLI
266MHz Pentium JJ 32MB 3.2GB 24X CD ... CALL !
Deskpro 4000 mini-towers
5/ 166 MMX 32MB 3.2GB 16X CD ........ 1799.00
233MHz Pentium II 32MB 3.2GB 24X CD .. CALL!
266MHz Pentium II 32MB 3.2GB 24X CD .. CALL !
Deskpro 6000 desktops
233MHz Pentium II 32MB 2.1GB 24X CD..CALLI
266MHz Pentium II 32MB 2. 1GB 24X CD... CALLI
266MHz Penliwn II 32MB4.3GB24XCD ... 3199 .a1
JOJMHz Pentium II 64MB 4.3GB 24X CD...3879 .89
Deskpro 6000 mini-towers
266MHz Pentium II 64MB 4.3GB 24X CD .. CALLI
5/200 MMX 32MB 2.5GB BX CD ........ .. 159a.63
51233 MMX 16MB 2.5GB ............. ......... 159a.12
HP Veetra VL Series 5 PC mini-towers
!>133 16MB 1.6GB .................... .. .......... 1219.44
!>166 16MB 2.5G B ................ ......... ...... 1229.50
!>166 MMX 16MB 2.5GB ax CD ....... .... 1439.22
51233 MMX 32MB 4GB ......... .. ............. 1aa9.76
HP Vectra VE Serles 3 PC desktops
51166 16MB 1.6GB ............................... 1038.97
5flOO 16M8 1.6GB .............................. 1048.60
HP Vectra 500 Serles d esktops
520MCx !>166 16MB 1.6GB 16X CD ... 1327.64
HP Vectra 500 Series mini-towers
525CD !>166 16 MB 1.6GB 16X CD ..... 1234.7a
525MCx 5/ 166 MMX 24M B
2.5GB 16X CD
........................ 1549.65
525CD 5/200 MMX 24MB 2.SGB 16X CD ..15aa.65
525MCx5200MMX32MB 2.5GB16XCD ...1936.70
HP Brio Serles mini-towe rs
5/166 MMX 16MB 2. 1GB ................ .. ..... 999.53
5/200 MM X 16MB 2.1GB ..................... 1154.35
51233 MM X 32MB 3.2GB
........... 1449.95
5/ 166MMX 16MB2. 1GB 16XCD ........ 1149.54
5/200 MMX 32MB 2. 1GB 16X CD ........ 1419.35
5/233 MMX 32MB 3.2GB 24X C D ........ 1649.54
HP Brio Seri es towers
5/ 166 MMX 16MB 2.1GB 16X CD ........1379.29
5/200 MMX 32 MB 2.1GB 24X CD ........1635.54
5/200 MMX 32M B 2. 1GB 24X CD ........1749.63
5/233 MMX 32MB 4GB 24X CD........... 1869.90
5/233 MM X 32MB 6GB 24X CD........... 2117.37
HP NetServe r E40 Serles towers
6/1aO 16MB no hdd BX CD
10/100 Ethernet .................................. .1719.09
6/1BO 16MB 2.1 GB ax CD
10/100 Ethernet ....................... ... .......... 1999.58
6/200 32MB 2.1GB ax CD
10/ 100 Ethernet ............... ........ .. .......... 2265 .63
~
ThlnkPad notebooks
380 5/ 150 16MB 1.0aGB 12. 1" dual ..... 1669.46
380D 5/ 150 MMX 16MB 2.1GB
12. 1· active ex CD ................ ... ............ 2999 .00
300E & 15011'MX 16MB 2.1GB 12.1" ru.J ... 2099 .36
380ED !Y166MMX 16MB2.1GB
12.1" dual 20X CD ................. .... ........... 2587 .51
380ED 51 166 MMX 16MB 3GB
12. 1· active 20X CD ... ..... ..................... 3599.44
560 5/ 133 8MB 2.1GB 11.3" dual ... ...... 1699.a9
560 5/ 133 eMB 2.1GB 12.1· active ....... 2849.32
560E & 150 MMX 16MB 2.1GB 11.3" dual.. 2599 .a6
560E 51166 MMX 16MB 2. 1GB
12. 1" active .... ................................ ....... 4186 .26
760ED !>133 16MB 2. 1GB
12.1· active 6X CD
............... 3739.72
760E 5/ 150 16MB 2. 1GB 12.1" aclive .. 3578.40
760Xl !>166 MMX 16MB 2. 1GB
12.1· active ...
..................... 3769.88
760XD !>166 MMX 32MB 3GB
12.1" active BX CD ................. ....... ........ 4679.37
A70+ 5/ 150 MMX 16MB 1.44G8
300MHz Pentium II 32MB 4.3GB 24X CD ... CALLI
765L 51166 WAX 32MB 3GB 13.3" active.. 5098.39
12 .1· active lOX C D . . ... .. ................... 2489.84
Presarlo desktops
765D 51 166 MMX 32MB 3GB
A70+ 5/150 MMX 16MB2. 1GB 12. 1" active 1OX CD ................ ... .. ...... .. 3299 .67 P70 5/150 MMX 32MB 2. 1GB
12. 1" active 10X CD ............. .. .... ........ .. 3148.94
2200 5/ 1BO 16MB 1.6GB ax CD ... .. .. .... 799.00 Presarlo mini-towers 4504 5/20016MB 2.1GB 16X CD ........... 999.00 4B 14 51233 MMX 32MB 6.5G B 24X CD .1999.00
13.3. active ex CD ..
... ... ............ 5499.91
770 5/200 MMX 32MB 3.2GB 13.3" ac1ive .5429.15
n o5/233 MMX 32MB 4GB 13.3" active .. 5899 .36
770 5/233 MMX 32MB 4GB
P80 5/ 166 MMX 32MB 3G B 12 .1· active 10X CD ....... .. ... .. ...............3568.98
4a24 5/233 MMX 32MB 6.5G B 24X CD Iomega Zip drive ............................ 2399.00
no13.3" active WinNT.
...... 5899.36
5'233MMX 32MB5.1GB 14.1 " active .. 7479.14
Bravo LC Series desktops 5/ 166 MMX 16MB 2GB ... ... .. ... .. .... .. ..... 1115.1a
(h;J ~!~K~~6'
Aptlva Serles mini-towers C3E 51233 MMX 32MB 4.2GB 16X CD .. 1939.05
V.i.s.it.C..D.~..o.n..t.h.e.Intern . .for-secure onlin,e~l!un!I;~ 5/200 MMX 32MB2GB.........................1339.17 233 MHz Pentium II 32 MB 2GB Win95 ..2099.23 233MHz Pentium IJ 32MB 2GB WinNT .. 2197.23 Bravo MS Series desktops 5/ 166 MMX 16MB 2GB 16X CD ........... 1514.69 5/ 166 MMX 32MB 2GB 16X CD ........... 1619.a7 51200 MMX 32MB 3GB 16X CD ....... .... 1696.69 5/233 MMX 32MB 3GB 16X CD ........... 1a49.4a
HP OmnlBook 800 Serles notebooks
C3D 5/233 MMX 32MB 4.2G B ax C D .2499.27
BOOCT 5/166 MMX 16 MB 2GB
S3C 51233 MMX 32MB 4.2GB 16X CD ..2159.29
10.4 " active ............................................ 3679.68
535 51233 MMX 48MB 6.4GB 24X CD .2499 .27
HP OmnlBook 5700 Serles notebooks
PC300GL Serles des ktops
5/150 MMX 16MB 1.e6GB 12T active.. .3597.52
5/ 166 MM X 16MB 2.5GB
5/166 MMX 16MB 1.e6GB 12. 1" active.. .4039.53
5/ 166 MMX 32MB 2.5GB
5/166 MMX 16MB 1.86GB 12.1" active .. .4098.82
5/200 MM X 32MB 2.5G B
5/166 MMX 32MB 2.79GB 12.1" active .. 4619.09
5/200 MMX 32MB 2.5GB 16X CD
-.~~--~~
\
COMPUTERS
~
PC300PL Series desktops
5/200 MMX 32 MB 2.5GB . ................. 15a9.34
51200 MMX 32 MB 4.2GB .................... 1719.77
5/200 MMX 32 MB 4.2GB 24X CD ........1a55.20
5/233 MMX 32 MB 4.2GB .................... 1a99.77
5/233 MMX 32MB 4.2GB 24X CD........ 2059.54
PC300PL Serles mini-towers
5/ 166 MMX 32MB 2.5GB
............. 1479.23
5/200 MMX 32 MB 4.2GB 24X CD ........ 1a79.77
5/233 MMX 32 MB 4.3GB 24X CD ........ 2469.56
PC300XL Serles desktops
233MHz Pentium II 32MB 2.SGB 16X CD..2275. 14
233 MHz Pentium II 32MB 2.5GB .........1985.36
266MHz Pentium II 32MB 4.2GB 16X CD.. 2659.12
266MHz Pentium IJ 32M8 4.JGB 16X CD ... 2949.24
FUpTSU
LifeBook 500 Serles notebooks
555Tx 5/150 MMX 16MB 2GB
12. 1" active lOX CD ... .... ... ....... 3499.00
565Tx 5/166 MMX 32MB 2GB
12. 1" active 20X CD
........ .4299.00
LifeBook 600 Series notebooks
635T 5/ 133 16MB 1.3G B 12.1" active .. 2799.00
655Tx 5/150 MMX 16MB 1.3GB
12. 1· active ...........................................3799.00
IHITACHll
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Socket to M e
Late next year, the company plans to ship an improved version of the IDT-C6 pro cessor that integrates the L2 cache with the CPU- already a feature in some RISC chips but a first for the x86.
Glenn Henry estimates that an eight way set-associative 25 6-KB L2 cache in the CPU could yield the same hit rate as the direct-mapped 512-KB L2 cache found in most of today 's PCs. Yet the integrated cache would be significantly faster than an external cache because it's synchro nized to the CPU's core frequency, not to the slower bus frequency. And the inte grated cache would reduce bus traffic.
"Even if you didn't know anything about the PC industry, an economist from Mars could look at it and recognize there's plenty of room for many compa nies to compete," says Henry.
Future Alternatives
Bigger on-chip caches aren't the on ly options available to the Socket 7 preser vation society. There are some more short-term solutions as we ll as some new alternatives beyond Socket 7.
One option is to design new CPUs with a backside bus for the L2 cache, just as Intel has done. But instead of inventing a new socket to accommodate the extra pins, the dua l-bus CPU and L2 cache wou ld sit on a daughtercard that plugs into Socket 7. The backside bus could run as fast as the CPU core, or at some frac tional speed-probably half the core fre quency, to reduce SRAM costs. The front side bus wou ld still run at66.6or100 MHz for backward compatibility. (See "Adding a Backside Bus to Socket 7," at right.)
The same thing could be done even bet ter by integrating both the CPU die and the L2 cache in a single package called a mu l tichip module (MCM), much like the Pen tium Pro. The core and the cache would communicate over a fast backside bus, and the MCM wou ld fit Socket 7. (See the figure "Multichip Modu les for Sock et 7," page 80.) MCMs are costly to man ufacture, but AMO uses an IBM fabric a tion technology ca ll ed C4 that would make it more economical. This technol ogy distributes the pads (the contacts to which the pins are wired) all over the chip's surface instead of only around the edges of the die, which is the more com mon pad-bonding technique. Among oth er benefits, C4 makes it less expensive to bond another die on the same substrate. NexGen, which was acquired by AMO,
7 8 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Adding aBackside Bus to Socket 7
The backside bus could run as fast as the CPU
core, but would probably run at 1/2 or 1/3 the
core frequency to cut SRAM costs.
Socket 7 CPU designers could make a Socket 7-compatible backside bus
by segregating t he L2 cach e on a daughtercard.
Adding an In-Line Cache to Socket 7
The daughtercard overclocks the CPU bus to speed up access to the L2 cache, but preserves compatibility by interfacing to Socket 7 at the standard CPU bus speed.
Socket 7
An in-line L2 cach e doesn't require a backside bus, so it would work with existing processors.
did something similar two years ago: One version of the Nx586 processor had a sep arate FPU in an MCM. This option is also possible (but less likely) for Cyrix, whose manufacturing partner is IBM.
Another option is to add an in-line or look-through L2 cache to a daughter card that plugs into Socket 7. In this scheme, the CPU wouldn ' t need a back side bus. Instead, an external oscill ator overclocks t he CPU bu s to drive it at a higher-than-normal frequency. The CPU talks to the L2 cache at this higher speed, but the cache controller steps down to
66.6 or 100 MHz w hen communicating over the daughtercard's interface to Sock et 7. This option saves the trouble of de signing new CPUs. Some of the latest Macs and Mac clones are using in-line caches to overcome their slow 40- and 50-MHz bus es. (See the fig u re "Adding an In-Line Cache to Socket 7," above.)
"Any one of those alternatives could
extend the life of Socket 7 and match the
performance of Slot l," says Mark Bluhm,
vice president of strategic p lanning at
Cyrix. "This socket has at least another
year or two of life ahead of it."
continued
w
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Socket to Me
Beyond that, however, even the Sock et 7 advocates admit they'll need a longer term solution . If they can't get around Intel's patents by then, they 've got two more alternatives: Agree on a universal motherboard slot that accepts daughter cards with any kind of CPU, or invent a new socket or slot that competes directly with Intel's slots.
The first alternative already exists, though it's not universal. At the Compu tex show in Taipei last June, Asus won a BYTE Best of Computex award for a motherboard (the P/I-P65UP8) with a spe cial slot for CPU daughtercards. The daughtercards may contain a Socket 7, Socket 8, or Slot 1 processor, along with the appropriate system chip set. In this way, Asus needs to make only one moth erboard that works with anyone's CPU. The daughtercard slot is proprietary for now, but if enough companies agreed on a standard, any company could build uni versal motherboards.
One drawback is that this design needs an additional edge connector (the univer sal daughtercard slot) between the CPU and the motherboard.Ifthe CPU is a Pentium II, there are two edge connectors between the CPU and the motherboard-Intel's slotand the universal daughtercard slot. Edge con nectors can be troublesome sources of noise and signal delays at higher bus frequencies.
The second alternative is for the rebel faction of the industry to agree on a new CPU interface to supersede Socket 7 with out stepping on Intel 's patents. "We believe the industry wants that to be an open socket, " says Stan Swearingen, product management director at Cyrix. "We're already talking to chip-set ven dors, AMD, and other companies to define a new interface."
None ofthose companies wants to reveal much about their negotiations at this point. But even if they can agree on a new socket, they still face a formidable obstacle: Intel.
Advanced Micro
Devices
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ion Centaur Technology 408-765-8080
(division of
htt p:/ /www.inte l.com/
Santa Clara, CA
Multichip Modules for Socket 7
The CPU has an CPU die
integrated cache controller.
The frontside bus runs
at 66 to100 MHzand
remains compabllle with
Socket7.
L. . 4....~.........Jal~~ij~~~~~:il
Socket7
Packaging the L2 cache in an MCM would deliver the benefits of a backside bus without the drawbacks of a daughtercard.
Whatever new interface th e contras come up with, it won't be supported by the indus try's leading CPU maker (Intel), the indus try's leading motherboard maker (Intel), and the industry's leading system chip-set maker (Intel). The fallout could be two PC architectures: one controlled by Intel and the other supported by a maj ority of the industry that nevertheless controls only a minority of the market share.
Users Wi 11 Choose
Users could tip the scales eith er way. Will they be comfortable with a PC architec ture largely controlled by Intel, or will they rebel? When BYTE put this question to users in our on-line conferences (http://www.byte.com), the answers were interesting. Some people denounced what they perceived as Intel's attempt to hijack the PC standard. But when the y considered the alternatives-basically either boyco tt Intel or buy a Mac-they weren't so adamant. It' s not easy to go cold turkey on Intel. The Pentium is pop ular because it's a good product, not because it has the best TV commercials.
For users who prefer to buy Intel-based PCs anyway, it's not a dilemma. Nor is it likely to matter to the growing number of users who don't know a motherboard fr om a surfboard. Performance-minded users who buy MP systems and high-end servers will have to choose Intel in any
case because AMD, Cyrix, and Centaur say they're not competing in that space.
Comparisons to the Micro Channel architecture go only so far. Micro Chan nel was a peripheral bus, so it affected users more directly than a CPU bus does. And IBM had to persuade other compa nies to make compatible cards, whi le the whole point of Intel's new slots is that nobody else can make compatible cards.
Motherboard makers' support is seen as a determining factor to the continued success of Socket 7. A sampling ofTaiwan motherboard makers said they were going both ways, designing boards to accom modate standard Socket 7 processors as well as Intel's new vertical-insert design.
Motherboard makers also say that Intel's actions could encourage them to use more non-Intel processors. An official at one company (who asked BYTE to with hold his firm's name) said the industry wants alternatives to Intel because nobody wants their future to be determined by a single vendor. When there are CPU short ages, it's common for smaller companies to suffer from short allocations.
Intel is taking the PC into unexplored territory. Chances are, most PC users will
follow. llJ
Tom R. Halfhill is a BYTE senior editor based in San Mateo, California. You can reach him
at thalfhill@bix.com.
80 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
oeja vu
Al I Over Again
Windows NT security is under fire. It's not just that there are holes, but that they are holes that other OSes patched years ago.
By Peter Mudge and Yobie Benjamin
o yo u have a strange feeling? The feeling that you've been somewhere or done something before? It's deja vu, and we' re developing a serious case of it as we hunt down bugs in Windows NT. It's not strange that there are bugs in it. We certainly have not come across any OS or piece of software that is bug-free. The peculiar feeling comes from the fact that the bugs we're seeing are the same security holes that were fixed many years ago in o lder OSes. Why hasn't anybody no ticed until recently? The Internet is largely a network of Unix computers, so hack ers aimed their sights on the thousands of Sun, Hewlett Packard, and IBM servers on it. NT was largely ignored. Microsoft's marketing jug gernaut changed that. The hacker community targeted NT security starting in the fall of 1996, and the rash of secu rity breaches has bee n relent less ever since. The shame of it is that none of these threats are new to the security world. Why does an OS only fiv e years old (compared to Unix's25-year history) have the se prob lems? NT may be another example of the veracity of Santayana's statement that "those who cannot remem ber the past are condemned to repeat it. " Let's look at NT's security by highlighting some of th e breaches, how they work, and what you can do about them.
Denial of Service Attacks
Denial of Service attacks, commonly referred to as DoS, make a machine unusable. They range from shutting services off to blue screen of death (BSOD) attacks to devoting resources to one pro cess and thus depriving other tasks of any sort of sizable time
www.byte.com
slice . In general, DoS attacks do not require user names or pass words. Instead, they work by combining the inherent weaknesses of TCP/IP and the OS. Let's take a look at four examples: Win N uke, Domain Name System (DNS), Internet Information Server (115) 1.0, and Microsoft remote procedure call (RPC) .
WinNuke is particularly troublesome . Most of the NT boxes out on the Internet are still vulnerable to this attack. We don't
know just who came up with the first example of Win Nuke or found the initial problem. Our apologies for not being ab le to give credit where it is due.The scenario goes something like this.
A cracker makes a TCP connection to a machine runningWindows95 or NT. As soon as the connection is made, and before any regu lar data is sent, the cracker transfers a message over the connection with the Out of Band (OOB) flag set. This flag normally signals an ap plication that some infor mation needs to get through right away and cannot wait in the regular data stream to be processed. The para dox here is that there is no data in the regular stream.
In an unpatched or under patched NT machine, your screen turns a nice shade of blue. You must reboot to clear this problem.
The moral of this exam ple? TCP stacks are not the easiest things in the world to write. Users continue to find bugs in most vendors' implementations. The one stack that is proba bly closest to being bulletproof is BSD Unix. What's more, the source code for this more robust and quicker stack is free. The only catch is that the license states you must mention that parts of your product were derived from Berkeley code if you use it. NT also had problems with DNS. DNS is responsible for map ping numbers such as 10.23.143.12 to names such as foo.bar.com.
continued
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 81
Managing Data I Deja Vu All Over Again
It is in much need of an overhaul, but it's
entrenched in how the Internet works. The Canadian company Secure Net
NT Security Threats: AFamily Tree
works found a problem in Microsoft's implementation of DNS . The standard operation for a DNS server is to field queries and send responses or send que
IBM LAN Manager:
Purchased by Microsoft and security technology installed on all NT versions so far.
TCP/IP: Inherently
weak protocol.
ries and fie ld their associated responses.
What happens when you send a response
to a nonexistent query? The DNS server
dies, most likely as a result of trying to ref
erence a fictitious ID number in the DNS
packet.
IIS 1.0 had a simi lar problem. All some one with malicious intent or sloppy fin gers had to do was request a URL in the form of http://www.someiismachine
Weak passwords, authentication attacks
Privilege escalation
Noncaptive environments
Denial of Service (DoSI attacks
.com/../../../.., and the Web server would
stop running. An easier way of doing this was simp ly to telnet to port 80 of the tar get machine and type "GET ../.. " Why did the server die? Probably, this is a case of requesting a file handle, getting a NULL pointer in response, and trying to deref
· LOphtcrack 1.5 · NTcrack · PWDump · CIFS attacks
· getadmin
· Man-in-the-middle
· Trojan horses
attacks
· lntemet_Exposure
· Rogue ActiveX
controls
· Out.of-band attacks IWinNukel
· High port overflow · Fat ping attacks · Data /service
bombs (UDP, ICMP, finger)
erence the NULL pointer. Finally, and not because we are running
out of Dos attacks on NT, but because we don't want to write exclusively on ways to make your NT network unusable, we have the problem of how a program
Exploltlng NT's roots In LAN Manager and TCP/IP, many hackers have been able to launch four kinds of attacks on the OS In recent months.
· DNS corruption · SYN flooding · Time and memory
leaks · Mail bombing · Hostile iava and
ActiveX applets
should respond to unexpected or erro
neous input. There are three possible responses to this question: Ignore the input, report the error and term in ate
services that listened on the network. Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 3 fixed the
are probably more TCP/IP bugs remain ing than we'd care to think about.
gracefully, or act in an undefined man ner (the program d ies from a segmenta tion fa ult or a bus error, munges its stack frame, or sits there spinning its wheels in an endless loop) .
We believe most people wo uld prefer either of the first two responses to the third. Unfortunately, however, the last one is what happened to most Microsoft
port 80 OOB attack, but crackers struck again. By connecting to port 135 of an NT machine and letting your 2-year-old bang away at the keyboard for a second, you would leave the program previously lis tening on that port spinning its wheels and pegging the CPU use at 99 percent. Micro soft plugged the port 135 hole in one of the 14 patches to Service Pack3, but there
Noncaptive Environments
In many situations, it is necessary to give someone or something limited access to your system. It is not necessary for every one who connects to yo ur FTP or Web server to have access to your main C or D drives. In the case of HTTP servers, all that people wi ll usually need is the document root.
NT Watchdogs for Hire
For example, if your Web tree lives in c:\users\web\html and your main page is
c:\users\web\html\index.htm, users
No add-on or accessory can close Windows NT's holes, but they all claim to help you tackle the job of guarding NT servers in more systematic ways.Internet Security Systems (http://www.iss.net) recently released RealSecure 1.0 for NT 4.0, featuring an automated, real-time attack recognition and response system, and a significantly enhanced manage ment console, including predefined engine configuration templates. It also features built in reporting capability, an ODBC-compliant database, and the ability to recognize attacks in a Windows networkil'lg environment. Network Information Technology (http://www .nit.com) offers UniSl\ield APO for Windows NT. UniShield's publishers say it transparently enforces security policies and audits all administrative activity, irrespective of whether such activity originates from the native NT programs such as User Manager or Server Manager, Net Commands, or third-party software developed using Net API functions. Axent Tech nologies (http://www.axent.com) claims to guard against NTCrack, insecure registry, and
should be able to request http://your.site .com/index.htm. Thus, \users\web\html looks like\ to the foreign entity. The same holds true for FTP servers, fi le sharing, and the like.
In the Unix world, administrators found that you had to double-check to be sure that restricted environments were really restricted. Administrators found this out the hard way and fixed it over time. Now it's Microsoft's turn to learn
the anonymous log-on loopholes, with OmniGuard/Enterprise Security Manager 4.4.
for itself. It's also possible that Unix ven
dors had an easier time of it, because the
82 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
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Circle 1OB on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS : 109).
Managing Data Deja Vu All Over Again
Unix source code they released actually helped hackers find and plug security holes.
In some versions of Microsoft's Web server, FTP server, and file sharing, it was possible to believe you were sitting at \, attempt to go up a level anyway, and mag ically find yourself outside your restricted environment. Although Microsoft has since patched the flaw, the idea that it could introduce the flaw years after the Unix community identified the problem is troubling.
Privilege Escalation Attacks
ActiveX and Java have provided a well spring of privilege escalation attack opportunities. Some of the most inter esting attacks involve the construction ofhostileJava, ActiveX, or plain old C+ + Trojan horses.
In theory, Authenticode gives a level of protection against Trojan horses. ActiveX controls are signed by certificate author ities and must identify their creators before they run. You get to decide if the creator should be trusted. Regardless of Microsoft's threats of litigation, how ever, unscrupulous crackers will still
find people to sign their ActiveX controls. In the ActiveX/Authenticode security
model, once a source is trusted, it is always trusted. For example, users who go to Microsoft's Web site are sent a flood of ActiveX controls without warning, be cause the controls came from a trusted source-Microsoft. What if a rogue Microsoft employee decided to modify registry settings, plantbackdoors for later use, or deposit logic bombs? An example of a rogue ActiveX control, called Inter net_Exposure, can be found at http:// www.network-security.com/nt/internet exposure.
In addition to the Trojan horse exam ples, a slick program entitled getadmin was recently released by Konstantin Sob olev, who wrote it in Russia, according to one security expert. This program found functions the NT kernel was pro viding that would let nonprivileged processes attach to memory areas that they should not be allowed to touch and modify the contents.
The result? A tool that would let an ordinary account convince the system it was just debugging something and place the account in the Administrator group
of an NT domain. The next time you logged in, you had full rights to the sys tem. This avenue seems ripe for explo ration as Microsoft pulls more and more of the services that used to live in user space into kernel space. Any bug or lack of validity checking in userland gets much worse ifit continues to exist inker nel space. As expected, getadmin has been ported into an ActiveX control and an application that a Trojan horse can deliver.
At press time, Microsoft has issued two patches for getadmin, the second ofwhich was headed for NT 4.0 Service Pack 4, but each works only in certain cases. N ei ther will work if you have any software developers on your system, because they need to be given permission to attach to processes for debugging purposes.
Weak Passwords/ Authentication
A while back, a white paper on insecuri ties and potential flaws in Microsoft's CIFS specification (its replacement for NFS and how all systems will share files across networks in the future) was posted on the Internet. The paper, which was by
Password Protection at a Price
o n Ju1y 14. 1997. M1crusof1 quietly adnutted a ma101
s11cur.ty µrobiem with all vors.0119 ul Window s NT Simply pul . the encrypllon 1mplemonta11on on NT 4 Oll'ak1>s 1t pcss1ble to extract all the LAN Manager and NT user names and passwords on any NT v.orks!at 1or senier. or duma·n. After !hos. you t:an then brute · force the plain text pe89worda.
M1crosuft Knowledge Base ·Document :014 7706· Cit can be found -at ftp .1/ftp.microsoft.com/
b..oasys /w1nnt /w1nnt·put>l 1c1fi~ea i usa /NT40/hotfuces·poa!SP3/!m· fix/0147706 .t"(f) is a disturbing mea culpa. The essence of the dot:umcn! is that security has a price-a very h1gr pnce. Microsoft w1li guaran:ee se cunty 'or your network only 1f all clients and servers are 100 percent NT If your network hes clients that require lhe LAN Manager proto· col . such as Windows 95 . Win · dows for Workgroups. or regular
Wonduws 3 1. anyone with th righl tools can intercept the ob lusca!ed user names and pass ....urds. and extrac.t their plain·text equivalent.
A wh ite paper by the reeeori;rer k'1own on the Internet as ilobbot ,;tarted 1t all. analyzing bot by bit the CIFS protocol used by NT. Domonique Brez1nsk1 of Cyber· i;afe then released a paper that conce11trated on-the man·ui ·!he· middle problem in the proce68. From down under. an anonymous Australiar. programmer released
the source that allowed the pro· grammallc deobfuscat1on of LAN Manager and NT "lashaa from the Nlreg1sto:y.
Cygnus programmer Jeremy Allison qu1ckiy cleaned it up and relaased PWDump. which was meant to be a oasswcrd audit tool for NT. PWDump ul'ieashed a storm of controversy after 1t was incorporated 1r.a Tro1ar. riorse by
aBay Area-based programmer.
later, tne hacktir group that"s known as the LOpht built a soph1e· t1c ated br u!a·!orc e password crac.ker !hat airtracttid plauHext passwords from the PWDump hashes.
NT's secunty 1,; t>aaed on two cryptographic methods the IBM· sired LAN Marager secur ·ty pro· tocol and the NT security proto· col Wh1'e each t>as strengths and weaknesses togelher theyµ ove to be disastrous. bacaus11 the weaker lAN Manager protocol emaaculates the ·atronger NT pro· tocol. Unfortunately. because of backward·compat1bilrty ~equire · ments.Microsoft contonuea to use the weak LAN Manager protocol.
1/1/hy is the LAN Manager pro· :ecol weak? i:'s the 1mple,,.en!a· hon. In a nutshell..LAN Manager hashes the oaaswords in.a pre· d1ctablo way and does not uae salting (the process of inserting several random bits into the hash).
From our research. we ·have
lound that you have to go through only 9even charat:ters to retneve paesworos 1up to t 4 er ara1:ters 1n length) on the LAN Manager he9h Also. because nu ealhng is being done t:onst.ints show up all over tho place g1v1ng away too much 1nformat1on and speeding up altacks tremendous1y.
The first 8 bytes are derived from the first seven c:hara1:tcrs of the pil&Sword. and tne·second 8 bylea are denved from the e1ghtn through fourteenth t:haracters of the ·password. If the paeaword 1e leH than seven characters. the second half is always the same.
Let's assume for th1a example !hat the user' a password has an LM haeh of ·OxC23413A8A 1E 7865fAAD3B435B61404EE (I will save everyone the nanosec· ond 1t would have taker. for them to plug !hos into tOphtc~ack and have 1t tell them the.password 1s "WELCOME ")
The-follow1ng·1s wnat !'lac;:pel's
84 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Deja Vu All Over Again Managing Data
hobbit@avian.org and available at http :// www.avian. org, pointed out many areas fo r co ncern and gave readers eno ugh information and source examples to cre ate their own "probing kit" to check things out for themselves.
One interesting note in the paper was that logging of attempts to connect to fil e shares was d o n e via t h e N etBIOS name, not the IP address. Thus, it was triv ial to explicitly tell the machine what to log by handing in the Ne tBIOS in for ma tion. Walking into work and seeing your logs filled with connection attempts from "HAHAHAHAH" might tell yo u that you were under attack, but it gives yo u little info rmati on to work with other than a taunting ramble.
In addi tio n to logging, NT prov ides account lockout "slowdown" solutions to programmatic dictionary or sequential passwo rd attacks over th e network . In account lockout, th e administrator spec ifies how many inva lid attemp ts it takes before an acco unt is locked out and how long the lockout period lasts. Great, ex cept yo u can't lock out the Administrator account. Ifsomeone re names the Admin istrator account to try to hide it and leaves
Anatomy of aWindows NT Server Break-In
Exploiting holes in NT security, hackers can even cause mischief behind many firewalls.
a dummy accou nt in its place, yo u can tell as soon as your automated attack scripts start failing in rapid succession as opposed to slowly and programmaticall y.
The slowdown solution makes NT in troduce a delay between each attempt to authenticate. Ostensibly, this would make it unfeas ible for an attacker to launch an
to this hash on the network: System B sends an 8-byte
challenge to system A. (Assume Ox0001020304050607.)
Machi ne A takes the hash of OxC23413ABA 1E7665fAAD3 B 435 B 51404EE and adds five nulls, thus becoming OxC23413 ASA 1E7665fAAD3B435B5140 4EEOOOOOOOOOO. This string is broken into three groups of seven.
The 7-byte strings are sir_ to_key'd (if you w ill) into three 8byte odd-parity DES keys.
Then, 8byte Deskey1 is used to encrypt the challenge OxOOO 1020304050607. Let's assume the result is OxAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
Next, 8byte Deskey2 is used to encrypt the challenge OxOOO 1020304050607. Let's assu me the result is OxBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB.
Next, 8byteDeskey3 is used to encrypt the challenge Ox0001020304050607. Let's assume the result is OxCCCCCCCCCCC-
ccccc.
The three 8-byte values are
concatenated (dumb), and the 24-byte response of OxAAAAAAAABBBBBBB BCCCCCCCC is returned to the server. The server does the same thing to the hash on its end and compares the result to the 24-byte response. If they match, it was the correct original hash.
W hy is this weak? The first thing we check to see is if the user's password is less than eight characters in length. W e do this by taking the 7-byte value of Ox04EEOOOOOOOOOO, turning it into an 8-byte odd-parity DES key, and encrypting it against the 8 byte challenge of Ox 0 001020304050607. If we get the result of OxCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC, we are pretty sure it's fewer than eight characters in length.
To be sure, we can run through Ox??AAD3 8 435B 514 (i.e.. 256 possible com binations) to see that 5f shows us that the result is OxB B BB BBB BBB BBB B B 8 , proving that the password is less than seven characters and also giving us the last byte of the first
half of the LAN Manager hash. Note that we're not worried
about optimizing the way this is done. and that there are much more effective ways to do this that reduce the amount of time re q uired even further. Even so, this shows that even a simplistic attack works against this implementation, and it' s no different than how a tool such as LOphtcrack attacks the hashes in the registry.
What if the password is eight characters or more? Let's say that machine A takes the hash of C23413ABA 1E766AC435 F2D D90417CCD6 and adds five nulls to it, thus becoming C23413A8 A 1E766AC435 F2 DD 9 0 4 1 7 C C D60000000000.
The first thing to check is if the password is fewer than eight characters in length. Deriving the 8 -byte odd-parity D ES key from Ox04EEOOOOOOOOOO and encrypting against Ox000 10203 04050607 does not, in this case, give us OxCCCCCCCCCCCC CCCC, so we know that the
password is eight characters or greater.
It takes us, in a worst-case see nario, 65,535 checks to figure out that the 2 bytes that are used in the last third are OxCC D6.
You can go through your sev en-digit combinations of characters for the first third the same way you would the LA N Manager hash from the registry. This will yield not only the first third of the response, but also the first byte of the sec ond third. Keep in mind that you already have the last 2 bytes that made up the final third. You can approach the middle third in the same fash ion.
Together, these problems enable utilities such as LOphtcrack to get and decrypt passwords quickly using brute-force meth ods.
Because opting out of the LA N Manager security mod el pre eludes continued use of Win dows 95 machines as clients to NT machines, it is still a moot point as to how tough or well done the NT hash might or might not be.
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NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 8 5
Managing Data Deja Vu All Over Again
entire dictionary at an account over the net-it would take too long. If you have 1000 words you want to try and the slow down period lets you try only one word every 2 seconds, it will take 33 minutes to go through them. The problem here is that the slowdown solution works only per connection. To bypass it, simply open 10 connections with different words from the list. Now it will take you only 3 min utes (these numbers are used just as an example).
For more information on this, see http://www.avian.org, http ://www.secnet
.com, and http://www.LOpht.com for the vulnerability-in-CIFS white paper, the NATlO auditing tool, and LOphtcrack, respectively.
The encryption implementation in NT 4.0 has left passwords vulnerable to attack (see the text box "Password Pro tection at a Price"). Microsoft recom mends abandoning LAN M anager-style passwords. NT-style passwords can be up to 128 characters in length. These pass words are case-sensitive. NT converts them to Unicode and then runs them through Rivest-Shamir-Adleman's (RSA)
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MD4 message digest function . The result ing 16-byte value is the NT hash. The only time hackers should be able to retrieve a LAN Manager password and not the NT MD4 version is if the MD4 version is orig inally longer than 14 characters. But iron ically enough, NT's UserManager appli cation won't let you type in a password greater than 14 characters.
Caught Unaware?
Microsoft officials we spoke to downplay these problems and characterize NT as "a very solid and secure OS." According to Enzo Schiano, group product manager for NT Server, "if you compare NT to Unix, we probably have a very, very com prehensive security infrastructure."
But much of Microsoft's advice on its Web site smacks of the obvious: Precau tions include reminding users not to pick easily guessable passwords. The Syskey patch to NT 4.0 prevents anyone from reading hash values out of the NT registry. The hacker community is now calling Microsoft's bluff by exposing more holes every day.
Unfortunately, the cracker community is exploiting the revealed vu lnerabilities for criminal purposes, and patches such as Syskey hamper administrators, not the crackers. To help administrators test the strength of their encryption, a future ver sion of LOphtcrack will include an NT based sniffer kit, for reading hash values over the NT server's network.
You can't just blame users who don't adopt or enforce security policies rigor ously. DoS attacks, noncaptive environ ment attacks, and privilege escalation attacks will continue, even through the implementation of Kerberos security in NT 5.0. Eventually, users will complain enough that Microsoft will turn its full attention to the problem. The seriousness of the situation may even cause Microsoft to turn to Unix methods and technologies developed over the years to patch the holes. NT is a robust OS, but only com pared to other Microsoft OSes. lt can pros per only if it becomes something more. liJ
PeterMudge is the chiefsecurity architect ofLHI Technologies, and Yobie Benjamin is the chief knowledge officer of Cambridge Management Labs, adivision ofCambridge Technology Part ners, Inc. They spend much research time in the areasof]ava,ActiveX, Unix, Windows NT, secu rity, cryptography, and the Internet. You can reach them c/o editors@bix.com.
8 6 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Circle 121 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 122).
Components Battling
Components
Everybody's doing components on the desktop these days, but what are the components doing to the desktop? By Robert Richardson
hen it comes to software components, simplicity is everything. It's not that these items-such as DLLs for Windows and extensions in the Mac world can't do fiendishly complex things. These mix-and match software plug-ins can range from simple buttons on Web pages to full-blown chart packages that you can toss into your enterprise database. However, the environment that these parts and pieces inhabit has to be homey if a thriving mar ket place for them is to emerge: It should be obvious how to add these components to an existing system. After all, what's the point of hav ing components if it takes an advanced degree and as much as a year of coding to get a few of them to commu nicate with each other? The computer industry came to realize the valu e of no-frills practicality after the hothouse growth in third party controls (known as
:.·/> VBXes) for Microsoft's Visu
al Basic. Since then, Micro soft has jettisoned righteous abstractions, such as inheri tance and polymorphism, which are sacred to these rious object-oriented-pro gramming crowd. The result has been a shower of derision from the gallery-and a ground swell of support from the vendors and users in the trenches.
DLLs Aren't Dull
Today, the locus of Windows component development is the shared DLL. This isn't surprising; developers want to be able to share functions without having to share code. This basic func tionality is something that DLLs have provided within Windows since the get-go.
There is a problem, though: The wide variance in the struc ture and syntax of procedure calls within DLLs inhibits the broad use of disparate DLLs. So, increasingly, the Component Object
Model (COM)-Microsoft's framework for encapsulating the variations within components behind rigidly defined binary interface entry points-has become a popular way of packaging the components stored within DLLs. COM makes component use easier through two technologies: OLE provides the standard approach to binary interfaces, and the COM "bus" hides the com plexity of finding and loading components (even when those componen ts are to be loaded on remote machines).
Much of the success of components on Windows desktops has been due to the success of DLLs. At the same time that DLL use has grown swiftly, however, a troubling pathology of system insta bility has emerged. In the pursuit of simp licity, Mi crosoft has overlooked man agement mechanisms need ed to prevent component chaos. The flood of DLLs in a Windows system directory (several hundred on an aver age Windows installation) is impossible to manage prop . erly. Microsoft seems to be on ly barely aware of what action it will take to keep components safe for end user consumption.
Extension Tension
Most component screwups today are on Windows desk tops, but that's not because other systems are any clean er. Rather, the popularity of Windows and the frenzy of shared DLL development have combined to make Windows the de facto test-bed for the desktop componentware concept. Apple's Mac OS has a limited concept of shared components: Mac OS extensions. These extensions load extra functions into the general OS environment rather than loading and unloading them on a per-application basis. But they do not lend themselves to easy reuse by other applications and, as a result, have not been an acti ve development area. As John Landwehr, product mar-
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NOV EMBER 1 997 BYTE 87
Building Network Apps Components Battling Components
keting manager for Apple's forthcoming Rhapsody OS, puts it: "There aren't many components in the Mac OS, and I would not say that they're the easiest to use."
Landwehr adds that extensions are mostly for situations requiring device driver software, and that applications generally use only the extensions in the application package. Yet Mac extensions often conflict with each other. This has spawned a market for third-party exten sion managers, such as Conflict Catcher (Casady & Greene, Salinas, CA), and the Extension Manager in more recent ver sions of the Mac OS. These utilities give users much finer control over when and in what order extensions load. If Mac ap plications shared extensions more often, as Windows applications do, Mac users would encounter the same array of disas ters that Windows users face daily.
Jeff Foster, president of Mac software developer Vicious Fishes Software (Brea, CA; http: // www.viciousfishes.com), says that, as a way to add functionality to seri al ports and other hardware, the exten sion mechanism is "worth the aggravation of most of the conflicts." But there are conflicts aplenty. "Since we ' re a develop ment shop here, we are continually hav ing conflicts of one sort or another," he adds. "You either find a workaround or let the machine keep crashing."
The originalApple strategy was to leave extensions as just that-extensions to the low-level OS-and then embrace Open Doc, a multivendor component-software initiative, as a way to deliver component ware on the Mac. But OpenDoc never gained widespread user support, and Ap ple abandoned it earlier this year.
For now, extensions are the only main stream component mechanism that the Mac OS has to offer. Since most vendors don't use extensions from third parties, relying on some other developer's exten sion-the Achilles' heel of DLLs-is not the problem. However, extensions share a common memory space, and one exten sion's bug is often another extension's corrupted data.
Apple's Technical Information Library is full of helpful tidbits like this: "You can attempt to remedy a conflict by changing the loading order of a given extension or Control Panel by locating the file in the System Folder and adding a space or spaces to the front of the file's name." In other words, you can use the alphabetical ordering of the extension filenames to
8 8 BYTE NO V EMBER 19 9 7
Windows NT Corrals Components
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The administrator can stipulate that programs
that are neither assieied nor published may not
be installed.
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NT 5.0 can lock down a user's System directory, install assigned applications, and allow published applications-but that's all.
shuffle around the order in which exten sions load. The goal is to mix things up enough so that whatever memory sins be ing committed are happening in some location where no one gets hurt.
Aspirations for a higher level of rocket science have spawned a market for the aforementioned third-party extension managers. They give users much finer control over when and in what order ex tensions load, generally by copying exten sions in and out of the fo ld er from which the Mac OS loads them.
This system might be OK for genuine OS extensions. But as a basis for compo nents similar to DLLs (which is what Mac extensions have gradually become), it's a ludicrous approach, and Apple has done nextto nothing to make the arrangement better. As of the 7.6 version of the Mac OS, you don't have to load all your extensions at the same time, but you do have to re boot every time you want to change ex tension sets. This is not one of those sit uations where Mac loyalists can gloat over how long it took the Windows camp to figure out how to do it right.
Apple's use of components will change radically with the introduction of its new Rhapsody OS, a heavily object-oriented, high-end, "next-generation" product scheduled to be in a developer release by the time this article sees print. Rhapsody, built from the foundations of the Next Step OS, has a highly developed object framework and at least the beginnings of
a system for managing it (see the screen on page 94). It remains to be seen wheth er Rhapsody will have the same compo nent confusion that Windows now has, but it seems possible. Since the simp ler Mac OS has extension-conflict problems, Rhapsody may well have even more.
DLL Dilemmas
DLL discomfort has several causes. For example:
Older DLL versions copy over the "cor rect" versions. This "back-revving" hap pens because vendors never know wheth er a customer's system is going to have the necessary shared DLLs. So, DOESGOOD .DLL version 2 goes into the Windows sys tem directory, obliterating version 3 of the same name. To be sure, vendors distrib ute the DLLs they've tested during devel opment. However, newer drivers may al ready have superseded these by the time users load them.
In theory, a vendor's installation rou tine should double-check to see if a new er version of a shared DLL is already on the target system. Yet vendors have been sloppy or cautious about this, depending on how you look at it. On the sloppy side of the equation, some installation routines simply don't check for existing DLLs. In the interest of caution, though, some ven dors intend to copy the specific DLL that they've tested, which gives them some cause for confidence (in particular be cause they're worried about the next DLL
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Building Network Apps Components Battling Components
discomfort I'll discuss). Copying older DLL versions means the newly installed application will work, but applications that rely on later versions of the DLL are now more likely to encounter problems.
Users can also get in on the fun by, for example, restoring files from backup tapes without regard for newer versions installed in the meantime.
Newer DLL versions copy over older versions. The heartening, if perverse, op timism of the software industry makes us believe that an updated version of a component will be better than older ver sions. But new versions introduce new bugs or don't speak the same interface lan guage as older versions. So when a ven dor follows the rules and does not load an older DLL, it can get into trouble for adhering to Microsoft guidelines.
If you load a new copy of Microsoft's Publisher 97, for instance, the installed program may fail immediately after it starts. The Microsoft Technical Support KnowledgeBase boldly states that "this error occurs if a newer version of the MSVCRT40.DLL file is already installed on your computer when you run Publisher Setup." This is your reward for keeping up with Redmond's product line.
The system deletes shared DLLs during uninstalls. When an application installs itself according to Microsoft guidelines, it increments registry-based usage count ers for all the shared DLLs it calls. When Microsoft's uninstall feature removes programs, it consults the counters to see how many other programs expect the shared DLL to be there.
If no other applications need the DLL, the system will assume it's OK to remove the DLL. But nothing forces applications to increment the counters. Ifone program shirks its duties, the counter is off, the DLL may well vanish prematurely, and there after any programs that need the DLL are bound to fail.
Windows keeps hidden copies ofspe cial DLLs that you cannot delete. Win dows keeps copies of some particularly sensitive DLLs in the SysBckup directory within the Windows directory. At start up, it compares the copies to the originals in the System directory and, if they don't match, the backups copy overwhatever's in the System directory. Copying a new version ofWINSOCK.DLL into the System directory, for example, will be magically undone at the next system start-up.
DLLs can conflict with each other.
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A report generated by Microsoft Windows 98's System File Checker,
indicating that a system-level file has changed somehow.
Some DLLs are just plain badly coded, a simple fact of programming life. While we're all resigned to a certain amount of buggy code, it would be desira ble to be able to separate contentious DLLs so that they never load at the same time.
This is an instance where the Mac has created advantage from adversity. Unlike DLLs, which load as needed, Mac exten sions load into memory and stay there throughout a session. In earlier versions of the Mac OS, all the needed exte nsions had to load, meaning that they all used memory all the time. When conflicts oc curred, the only remedy was to juggle the order in which the extensions loaded. Version 7.6's Extension Manager could create different groups of extensions so that some would load together while oth ers would not.
The DLL namespace readily allows col lisions. Vendors currently tend to throw all their DLLs into the System directory, although Microsoft suggests that only shared DLLs belong there. Further, even though Microso ft's 32-bit OSes allow DLLs to have long filenames, most ven dors stick to the 8.3 convention; they must if their DLLs are also for 16-bit environ ments. Plus, their files may someday re side on a shared network drive that sup ports only short names.
There are only so many eight-charac
ter names-fewer when yo u use mean ingful abbreviations and short words. When two developers use a name like DIS PLAY. DLL, somebody's going to get hurt.
DLLs may not load the way Microsoft says they do . Dan Plastina, group pro gram manager for Windows administra tion, says Microsoft's 32-bit platforms lo ad DLLs " by path name, not by file name." He says there is not a problem if they call two DLLs with the same name if they have unique full path names.
Not so, say programmers, including John McMillan, lead programmer for new product development at Great Lakes Business Solutions (Canton, MI; http :// www.glbs.com), which makes the instal lation product Microsoft now uses for its System Management System product. "Once a DLL is in memory, the system will never pull in another version of that DLL again," he adds. Other programmers cite cases where Windows has mistakenly used a same-name DLL.
The issue seems to arise because there are two ways in which a DLL can load. In a normal case, it uses a link library of stub functions (i.e., the same process com piles the actual DLL) and calls the DLL by its short name. Windows checks memory for currently loaded DLLs of the same name before looking elsewhere. It's pos sible to load a DLL by path name, but only
9 0 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
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Building Network Apps Components Battling Components
when you make DLL function calls by linking to a library of precompiled stubs.
DLLs with the same version number may be different. Each DLL has a version resource that includes several stock fields, including a binary version number and a string for the manufacturer. You can see the version number for a DLL by right clicking your mouse on the file within File Explorer and then selecting Proper ties. But there's no standard rule for up dating these numbers. It's common prac tice at Microsoft, for instance, to release several different builds of a DLL with the same version number.
This last problem-different DLLs with the same version number-has some in dependent software vendors (ISVs) hop ping mad. Bob Denny, creator of O'Reil ly and Associate's WebSite, says the root cause of "DLL hell" is what happens when you have "a component where the behav ior hasn't been changed but that's been bug-fixed. Microsoft itself has in some cases released dozens of versions of a DLL that are functionally identical but that have different levels of bug fixes ."
Moreover, end users are often unaware that underlying system-level components have changed. Loading something like an Internet Explorer browser update can up date low-level OS components-the low est-level TCP/IP protocol stack DLLs, for example. There may be no direct relation; Microsoft may have used the update to slipstream a number of OS patches.
The result is that it becomes harder for vendors to support their products because it's difficult to tell exactly what set of sys tem DLLs any given user has. ''As a devel oper," Denny says, "I really hate working in the Microsoft environment right now, because it's just a snake pit from a support standpoint. You never know what your customers have."
How Active Can One Desktop Be?
Developers are making two separate re alizations about desktop components. The first is that haste makes GPFs. Micro soft's rush to get activated has resulted in too many versions of system components that beg for stability. Vendors have been sloppy, too, with shared components in the System directory.
The second realization, though, has consequences that require more than tie straightening and good manners: Appli cations badly need a way to protect them
9 2 BYTE NOVEMBER 19 97
How to Stay Clear of the Long Ann of the Logo Police
Do not have to check for later versions of Dlls C:\program files\yourapp
~
Applicatlon speclftc DLLs
Check for later versions of Dlls C:\windows\commonfiles
DLLs shared with other appllcatlons
C:\ windows\system
Microsoft system DLLs only
Good behavior includes steering application-specific, common, and system-level Dlls into the proper directories.
selves when forward compatibility with new versions of trusted components does not work out. There's a new realization that better tools are necessary for assess ing component conflicts. It's sometimes more stable if developers reuse compo nents in their products but don't try to share them with other applications on us ers' systems. Much more stability is nec essary in widely shared components, such as the 3-D controls in Office, FrontPage, and Internet Explorer (all now shipped with slightly different versions).
The Microsoft Way
Microsoft realizes there's a problem, says Russ Madlener, product manager for desktop OSes. However, do n't look for any real fixes to come with Windows 98 (aka Memphis). Help will come in the form of somewhat-better safeguards for DLL installation and a tool for post-mor tem forensics on failed systems.
First, Microsoft intends to get tougher about granting "Designed for Windows" logos to software vendors. Madlener says there will be "enhanced restrictions" on the "whole approach of installing and uninstalling an application." To date, he says, Microsoft has offered only guide lines, which often are not well understood or followed.
Under the new program, vendors will be in "violation of logo" if they copy any thing other than Microsoft-shared DLLs
to the System directory (see the figure "How to Stay Clear of the Long Arm of the Logo Police" above). Components intended to be shared by others will be copied into the Common Files directory. Every other DLL that an application uses must be in the application's own directo ry. Assuming vendor compliance, this will at least reduce the risks of name collisions.
Comingwith Windows98 is the System File Checker, which performs such an obvious function that one wonders why it wasn't available before. This utility checks system-level files-and any other files that the user wants to monitor-to make sure they haven't been modified or corrupted since the last time the utility recorded a profile of the system (see the screen on page 90).
NT Promises
It's with the release of Windows NT 5.0 that component-management enhance ments really get interesting, according to Madlener. For one thing, vendors will no longer control their own destiny when installing a new application. Instead, in stallation will pass to a system-level instal lation utility. Currently code-named Dar win, this setup utility will run on all 32 bit platforms.
With NT, says Microsoft's Plastina, "when you go to install an application, you ask Darwin to do the work for you. You give Darwin an instruction file." Dar
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Rhapsody manages objects in three folder tiers: for user and system on each system and, here, for the system object folder on the server.
win carries out the instructions, follow ing the rules ofDLLreference counts and replacing DLLs.
Another change in DLLs has to do with packaging system components. Says Plas tina: "Today when yo u install an appli cation, it puts down a good number of megabytes of data that comes with the system. Those are really OS components, though. With NT 5.0, we'll have quarter ly releases of shared component service packs." These will contain "the latest ver sions of the DLLs that the OS group has blessed, and applications won't ship those DLLs anymore." DLLs in service packs will contain updated version numbers.
Darwin is just one part of the Zero Ad ministration Windows (ZAW) initiative that Microsoft announced a year ago. Network administrators will also be able to lock down the Windows directory so that a user can't change it (see the figure "Windows NT Corrals Components" on page 88). In addition, administrators will have complete control over which pro grams go on a user's system.
Future Perfect?
To some degree, mismatches among com ponents are an inevitable result of the cur rent pace of software development and the modular approach to software that's
necessary for updates in short time frames .
But there's now concern among some de
velopers that Microsoft's game plan of
migrating most components from plain
DLLs into the COM framework might
only make matters less manageable. Ifthe
problem of DLLs is a lack of control over
versioning, the problem with COM is that
the who le notion of versioning is absent.
In COM, the functionality of each in
terface is specified and permanently fixed.
Every interface is assigned a Globally
Unique ID (GUID), which virtually elim
inates name collisions. But individual
implementations of the interface associ
ated with any given GUID are indistin
guishable within COM.
For now, Microsoft has implemented
most of the widely used COM interfaces.
Furthermore, until now, fixing Micro
soft's COM interface bugs has entailed
adding functionality; each revised inter
face has received new function calls and
newGU!Ds.
Despite prior insistence that the inter
face is all that matters, Microsoft's Mad
len er says that there are "plans to add
finer-grained versioning to COM." The
details of versioning in the next gener
ation of COM (called Common Object
Runtime [COR]) should be out by the time
you read this.
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There are similar promises on the Ap ple front. Rhapsody gets the benefit of sev eral years of N ext's experience with ob jects. Unfort unately, R hapsody obj ects don't have versioning, either.Apple's Land wehr says that Apple is "planning on mak ing some changes this fa ll that wi ll sup port better object versioning."
There's no question that careless ven dors will always be able to crash systems w ith badly d one software . At th e same time, though, mainstrea m OSes need to provide at least a rational safety net when third-p arty component ve ndors take rea sonable pains to behave .
Right now, the Windows deskto p has arrived at a cri tical point w here thin gs are fa lling apart and more contro l is nec essary. O ther OS ve ndo rs- who haven' t fac ed the fi re that a base of 40 million us ers can ignite- should examine whether their own compone nt-management strat egies will hold up under heavy use .
There are certainly steps that users and ven dors alike can take to limit the depths of DLL hell. Vendors need to tighten up their installations so that only system-lev el DLLs (generally, those made by M icro soft) load into the System di rectory. DLLs for ge neral sharing among multiple ven dors should load into the Comm on Files subdirectory. All other DLLs go in the ap plicatio n's own directo ry. Shared DLLs should change only when a newer version of a comp onent re places an olde r one. Even then, the user should receive notice of the replacement and have the option to back up the DLL being replaced.
Users should use the Wi ndows 98 Sys tem File Checker utility to ensure that old er versions do not replace newer System files w hen new applications load. It wo uld be a creditable gestu re fo r Microsoft to free ly distr ibute this utility t o cu rren t Windows 95 users as we ll.
Meanw hile, because Windows is by far the m ostly wid ely distributed d esktop platfo rm that employs component tech nology, Microsoft sho uld embrace the long-term task of straightening up the mess. Usabl e compo nentware hangs in
m the balance.
Robert Richardson (Swarthmore, PA) is a fre quent contributor to Network Magazin e, Web Review, Web Techniques, and Z D Internet. H is latest book, Building Your High-Tech Small O ffice, is fo rthcoming from IDG BooksWorld wide. You can reach him by sending e-mail to robert@smallofficetech.com.
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NT's Challenges:
Microsoft's Solutions
Microsoft vice president Jim Al/chin talks with BYTE
about current and future Microsoft technologies.
By Mark Schlack
In our October issue, we talked briefly with Microsoft vice president Jim Allchin about some of the elements of Windows he would like to change. Recently, we spoke with him again about his vision of operating systems, components, directory services, and Microsoft's technology strategy.
BYTE: What is your view of OS evolution?
Allchin: WE HAVE A BROAD VISION THAT TIES
together a few dimensions. One dimension is the basics: qual ity, robustness, reliability, scalability, and security. We will continue to improve on those basics.
A second dimension is communications. I'm wiring communications into every nook and cran ny of the system so it becomes a great citizen in transient networks. If the connection drops or if you move between cells, the system should still work with the network. The sys tem needs to figure out what protocols are on the network automatically. It needs to understand whether it is going over a low-latency or high-laten cy network. It needs to understand how to take advantage of the quality of service that may exist if you are doing video streaming. If it has an error on a network, it needs to automatically reconfigure. The programming model I'm promoting is that the network is broken all the time. People design their software so that if you communicate at all, it's a miracle.
The last dimension is ease of use and simplicity. Systems
are too difficult to use. I would feel much prouder of the computer industry if there were not so many arcane things hidden in software. We present error messages that some body can't do anything with. The system could recover from more errors ifwe worked harder on it. And the system could
be much more intuitive. We clutter the screen with many options, and the sys tem isn't adaptive to what the users are doing.
Whether it's consumer or business makes no dif ference: Everybody wants simplicity. We want an environment that is much more helpful and much more intuitive. Intuitive ness is more than intelli gence. The system should be able to follow what's going on and make pro posals. You 've seen some work in that area in some of our applications and the answer wizard, but we're just starting to scratch the surface.
If I tile these three dimensions together, the result is being maintenance free. There is no reason machines can't just do much more cleanup. I mean, I hate utilities that run after the fact that have to clean up temp files and other things. It's unnecessary. The system could be much, much smarter. It should be able to automatically manage space,
www.byte.com
NOVEM BER 19 97 BYTE 96NA 3
NT's Challenges : Microsoft's Solutions
and if it does run out of space, it should be graceful. You want your system to basically be foolproof.
BYTE: The average system has thousands ofDLLs
and device drivers on it. When you talk about achieving simplicity, are you sayingyou can create a layer that manages that complexity?
Allchin: NO. LAYERS ARE NOTHING BUT MORE
overhead: You can put lipstick on a chicken, but it's still a chicken. We don't think apps should have to go through an install process-it should be seamless. As far as having lots ofDLLs, I think about it like this: The fact that you can see any of this stuff is like looking through a trans parent TV where you see all the transistors and chips and !Cs. The end user shouldn't see that. TV man ufacturers don't encourage you to open the case, stick your finger in, and try to pull out a transistor. Well, that's what happens if you try to delete a DLL. We've created an environment that can get into trouble, and we can change some of that. There are still going to be device drivers, but we'll apply some here-and now technology like Authenticode to sign them so customers are assured of a certain quality level.
BYTE: Some of what
you saidreminds me of the best years of the Mac, where you put stuff in and it would install itself and it actually worked.
Allchin: FIRST, THE MAC IS SUPER-PRIMITIVE. I
hope that nothing we are doing will be compared with that. The Mac was a joke architecturally. Come on-virtual mem ory? We have to have a rich, solid infrastructure for how apps deal with the system. The problem with the Mac is that it was too closed. It wasn't an open environment that people could innovate in. And if you didn't use a particular tool set from Apple, who knows whether it would work properly? It wasn't an industry: It was a closed world.
BYTE: At one time, you were talking about an
object file system as part of Cairo; now, you're silent on the matter. Has that idea gone away?
Allchin: IT HASN'T. INNT 5 WE WILL DELIVER BASI
cally all the functionality we talked about in OFS. Just think if we renamed OFS as NTFS [NT File System], which is basi cally what happened. So NTFS 5.0 will have quotas. It will be attributed, meaning you can have properties tied to streams in the system, and arbitrary properties tied to files. And it will be automatically indexed on properties and con tent. It will have distributed link tracking, so if you point to a link or if you have a link embedded in a document, we will automatically track down that document.
We are pushing three dimensions in terms of storage. The first is location inde pendence. We are doing some in Dfs [Distributed File System] now. We want to be able to migrate data between the client and the server transparently. The last thing we're focused on-and we have a team definitely cranking on this-is merging database technology with the file system to get a more uni fied storage system. It will not replace the super-high end OLTP environment, but our goal is to be able to offer programmers a rich storage system that is available everywhere.
BYTE: Are you going
to create an object file
system? If so, what
sets an object file sys tem apart from a reg ular file system with these extensions?
Allchin: I THINK IT'S
all semantics. When I talk about an object, it's got a data type and you can automatically bind to the code that is associat ed with it. Make links fundamental to the architecture and you can do things like link management automatically. You can surface this storage environment up into a programming language, so you can deal with the object in a seamless way in a programming language. So it's just a question of bind ing the programming language to this environment.
People are doing that today, and it becomes a question of the granu lar size of the data. Some types of data-integers, for instance-may be small, and the storage system may not be good at storing them. NTFS certainly is not good at stor ing integers; it needs reasonably sized pages.
When we did OFS, we thought the object sizes were going to be fairly small and spent a great deal of time packing the
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NT's Challenges : Microsoft 's Solutions
nodeitemsdensely.ltturnsoutthatwasamistake: Mostthings people deal with-take an HTML page-are fairly large.
But when you ask will we ever build one, I think NTFS is in part an object file system. It doesn't have the surfacing binding into a language, but we have some people looking at that. I think there are many other things that can be done to the storage system. We want to reduce the number of stores that we have on the system. NT 5.0 offers a step in the right direction. Now we have a very large team be tween the SQL group and the file system group that is working on continuing that movement for the future .
BYTE: How are you
going to handle infor mation that's storedin different formats-or even executables that are stored within doc uments like Active Server Pages?
Allchin: [FOR THE
first one] you will end up with a common interface that will enable you to access the directory, ad dress books, SQL, the file system, and Exchange. And in terms of being able to handle the dependencies and to understand the code, we're scratching the surface in NT 5. There is a class store as part of the directory. You use the directory to find snippets of code and how to automatically download those and how they should be run. But we have a broader vision-which is still early-where we are looking to do a repository.
BYTE: How does a security system have to adapt
for today's sometimes-anonymous/sometimes not intranet style of computing?
Allchin:WEONCEENVISIONEDTHATEVENTUAL ly there would be a community of kiosks, and we thought that public key would be the answer there. We thought people would have smartcards and walk up to the kiosks [and use them], so we would have to do some sort of authentication to be able to customize the environment we would show. This big-directory-in-the-sky idea did exist.
What have we done? As you probably know, in NT 5 we will have a mapping of public key-to-private key IDs. We
think it's a pretty efficient and smart thing to do. You're going to want to know who's coming into your site. You 're going to want to be able to tailor the information for them. That implies there's a directory. So when we're testing the direc tory that will be in NT 5, [we're testing with millions of entries,] not a thousand. I believe that you will see more and more authenticated users because the Internet is going
to turn into a good transfer environment-something that people count on even if it's not good.
BYTE: What's the
direction the directory has to go in now?
Allchin: IT GOES BACK
to the dimensions I talked about, [especially greater intelligence]. Instead of having the user or adminis trator try to figure out where a replicant should be, why doesn't the system just figure it out? We'll be working on performance, and we'll be working on tools to make schema changes even simpler than we are going to make it in the first release. I can also think of integration with the storage system being even tighter. We're defi nitely banking on it. Hope fully we've learned by watching others and having our own experience with the current NT directory. Some of us have a little background in that area, so we think we're going to come out okay.
BYTE: Are the improvements we've talked about
a five-year project? A three- year project?
Allchin: I DON'T THINK THAT ANYTHING I'VE
talked about is five years out. It's just a question of how capa ble we can make it. In other words, it can come out in inter mediate milestones; it'll be in NT 6, and from a technology perspective it may be used in several different products. But certainly it is going to happen. We'll continue to move ahead. NT 5 will have quality-of-service support in it, but we'll move that ahead further in NT 6.0. It's just one step at a time. You know, NT 5 isa big release, and we think we have a fairly rea sonable number of people working on things beyond NT 5. Things like this repository, things like the storage that we've been talking about, things like the end-user simplici ty-those things are now being thought about. liJ
96NA 8 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
WWW.byte 0
Jon Ud ell
CSS will change the way
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Style Sheets
some practical ways to learn and apply it.
TML puristssay that the mark up language, like SGML, ex presses only the structu re of documents. Th e browser not the author- contro ls presentatio n, because o nl y th e browser kn ows best how to adapt content to exploit the ca pabi lities and workaround constra ints of its host system. The reality of HTML is quite di ffe rent, of co urse . Th ere's intense pressure on pu blishers and software developers alike to co ntro l the look of their Web pages . We do this with bastard HTML tags, such as < FONT> and < CENTER>; with nest ed tables; and with nonbreaking spaces and invisible GIFs. By resorting to these hac ks we achieve the necessa ry effects, but we also tra de away uni ve rsal access and easy maintenance. CSS purists say that style sheets influ ence, but do not absolutely contro l, the prese ntatio n of documents. Author and reader can share influence, and the ren dered page is a negotiated compromise . N on-CSS browsers can fall back to vanil la HTML, which remains the skeleton o f any CSS-enhanced page . Th e reali ty of CSS wi ll li kely di verge fro m the ideal, just as HTML has, fo r the same reasons, involving the same trade offs. With HTML, I'm always looking fo r the sweet spot -the right balance of puri ty and pragmatism. Because that's a mov ing targe t, I continually adjust my pages and applications to track it. So with CSS. W hat's th e sweet spot fo r CSS right now, with immature sup port fo r style sheets in the 4.0 browsers fro m N etscape and M icrosoft ? W hat's it likely to be in eight months when CSSimplementations are mo re complete, widespread, and reli able ? H ere are some answers, and some educated guesses.
HTML+ CSS +JavaScript: Dynamic HTML
Here's a lightweight approach to act ive co ntent. In this demo, every list's title (i.e., one, two, three) is w ired to a JavaScri pt functio n th at toggles the CS S display property of the corresponding list. When you set the display property to "none;' the browse r hides the list and reflows the docu ment to reclaim its space.
A menu control
QM l2IlU
menu
~
items
ill!§§
ftoat
2
left ,
this
text can't break
to a position
- - - . - after the menu.
At least. not until it gets deeper thanthe
menu. Then it wi ll.
Here is text following a table surrounding the menu. ltwiUreliably break to a J:>Osition below the menu.
A tree control
Here's
text
associated with the
tree wi dget. If the
tree floats left, this
text wraps around its
right side. If the tree
ftoats right, the text
wraps around its left
side. If the tree does
not float, the text
follows it. ff the tree
is
absolutely
positioned , the text
may or may not overrun it, depending on
the position of the tree and the text's
origin . This overrun might or might not be
desirable. Used with script control of the
tree's display property, it could be a wey
to achieve a popup menu effect.
CASE I:
An HTML/JavaScript /CSS Slide Show
When I give presentations nowadays, I use Web pages fo r slides. M odifying style across a set of slides always use d to be a pro blem. If you used embedded HTML tags, such as < FONT>, you had to do a global search-and-rep lace across multi ple fi les to change the look of a presenta tion consistently.
CSS neatl y so lves this p roble m. N ow when I create a slide show, I clone pages fro m a template that includes a re ference to a style sheet. The style sheet contains a series of directives, like this:
body {fo nt -fa mi ly : ari a l ; hl { fo nt -s i ze : 24 pt;
fo n t- we i g ht : bo l d ; l
In this example, CSS defin es the defa ult
font, and the size of < Hl > headers, for
every slide. Techn ically, CSS merely infl u
ences these matters, subj ect to the coun
ter-influence of the user 's style prefer
ences . In practice, th at wo n't happ en
m uch until browsers support user style
sheets and users lea rn to apply them.
There's a lot to say about these rul es.
The fo nt- famil y, fo r example, might
better be req uested li ke thi s: Ve rdana,
Arial, H elvetica, MSSans Serif. Proceed
ing fr o m speci fic to ge neric, thi s list
equ ips the browser to use the author 's
preferred fonts when available (in order
of preference) and auth orizes the brows
er to fall back on a generic sans serif font
if necessary.
continued
NO V EMBER 19 9 7 BYTE 97
Web Project Cascading Style Sheets
Likewise, the font - s i ze might better be expressed in one of these ways:
hl font-s ize: larger; ) hl font-size : 200% ; ) hl font-size: x- l arge; J
Almost everything in CSS can be ex pressed using abstract terminology that's relative (larger, 20 0%} o r absolute (x 1a rge). Relative mode makes an element vary in proportion to other elements; ab solute mode makes an element indepen dent of others.
Why x-1 a rge rather than 24pt ? Be cause 0.33 inch (24 points divided by 72 points per inch) might be too small to say "extra large" on a high-res workstation, but overwhelm ingly large on a PDA. x large requests an abso lute size, but one that can still be interpreted in a device-ap propriate way.
The hl headers use the body's font family, although the h1 rule says nothing about font-fa mily . Why? hl inherits from body. If you're familiar with style sheets in conventional word processors, it may take a while for you to get the hang of this. CSS inheritance is a powerful mech anism.To exploit it requires a mind-set that owes more to object-oriented program
ming than to desktop publishing. The chal lenges-and the rewards-are similar.
ADose of Practicality
When I added a table to one of my slides, I ran into a snag. The table didn't inherit my font-fa mily request. Why not? Nav igator 4.0's CSS support is very shaky; in heritance across table boundaries is one of many things that just don't work. Mi crosoft Internet Explorer (MSIE} 4.0 (cur rently in beta 2) works properly in this regard, and in general it's far better than Navigator 4.0. It's a second-generation ef fort for Microsoft, which committed ear ly to CSS with support in MSIE 3.0. Net scape resisted for too long, and it now finds itself in catch-up mode.
What to do? Because I'm the only one giving my presentations, I could use MSIE 4.0 and just ignore Communicator's CSS flaws. But I don't want to just show my presentation; I want to put it on the Web so that others can view it. Requiring MSIE 4.0 won't do. I'd rather build something that works with both browsers. It's frus trating to look for workarounds, but that's the lot of the Web author. Better my frus tration than the reader's. In this regard, CSS is going to be a deja vu experience.
CSS is enormously flexible, so there are
lots of differentways to work around prob lems. To switch my table cells to an alter nate font-fa mi ly, I first tried this :
td I font-family : monospace}
But the preamble that my JavaScript code inserts into every slide builds anoth er table containing navigational icons and a title. The rule shown above sets every table cell in monospace type; I want only certain tables to be handled that way.
CSS offers a variety of solutions. Here's one: You can make a new class out of any element by adding a class attribute to its HTML tag, like this: <td class=Body Ta bl eCe 11 >.Then you can address the set of elements so tagged, as follows:
td.BodyTableCell I font -family: monospace }
This works. But it's stupid to add a class attribute to every cell . You might as well just say <td><font face=couri er> just the so rt of brute-force redundancy that CSS is supposed to abolish. He re's an other idea:
<di v c l ass=BodyTable> <ta bl e> ... <ltab l e>
continued
Anatomy of a Web Slide Show
Here's a simple JavaScript technique for controlling a Web based slide show. 1. Clone blank slides from this template:
el se
11 get the tit l e
return
str.substring(str.lastlndexOf( ' I ' l+l, str .lengt hl :
}
<head>
<link rel=sty l esheet
ty pe- "textlcss "
href= "style. ht m" >
4. Remember the current document.
<script src="scri pt . js "><lscript>
var href =document. l ocat ion;
<l head >< body >
var cur r - href. substring
( href. l as t In dex Of ( ' I ' )+1 , href. l en gt hl ; Note: Navigator can source the script from an external file, as shown
here ; MSIE (including version 4.0, beta 2) cannot.
5. Compute the hyperlink for the next or previous document.
The style sheet standardizes the look of the presentation ; the shared
fu nctio n getlink(whi c h) I
script controls navigation and presents numbered titles.
for (var i - 0 : i <- docs . length-1: i++ )
2. Store the filenames and titles of the slides in a JavaScript array.
if ( curr == it emF ro mOocs( ' url ', i) ) I if (w hich -- ' next ' ) I II next slide
lin k = item Fr omD ocs( ' url ' , i+l):
var docs - new Array ( 'overview.htmlBYTE Site overv i ew', ' arch ive.ht mlBYTE Si te: archive ' l
3. Treat the array like a Perl or Java hash (a table of name/
gi f - "next . gif" ; )
els e I
II previous slide
lin k - i te mFro mDocs( ' url ' , i-1) :
gi f - "prev.gif " : l l l
ret urn ' <a href=' +base+link+ ' ><img src= ' +gif+
value pairs).
' ><la> ' : l
fun cti on i temFro mOocs (type, i) I
if(i <Ol i - 0;
if ( i >docs . l ength-1) i - docs . l ength-1 ;
var str = docs[i J;
if (type -- ' ur l ' )
II get t he URL
return str . substring(O , str . las t lndexOf ( ' I ' )) ;
6. Emit a page header that includes the slide's title, plus Previous and Next links.
document.write( '<table width=l00%><tr> <td> + get link( ' prev') + ' <lt d><td>' + showTit l e() + ' <ltd><td >' + getl ink( ' next')+ ' <ltd><ltr><ltabl e>' ) :
9 8 BYTE NOVEMB ER 1997
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W eb Project Ca sca ding Style She et s
In CSS you can use nvo new HTML ele ments-DIV and SPAN- as metatags that group and classify other elements. DfV de fines a block element (anything bound ed by li ne breaks); SPAN marks an in-line element. In this case, the class attribute on DIV defines a class call ed Body Table. Now a single wild-card ru le, like this:
. BodyTable {font-family: monospace l
can influence all the tds contained within instances of that class.
Was this the sol ution? Nope. It requires inheritance, whic h, as you' ll remember, doesn't work properly with tables in Nav igator 4.0. Fortunately, CSS has another trick up its sleeve. You can select sets of elements not only with attributes (td , Body Tabl e) but also with contextual pat terns of attr ibu tes. Here is what fi nall y worked:
div th, div td { font-family : courier ; l
CASE 2:
BYTEHome-Page Redesign
A recent redesign of our home page gave me the chance to try out the design and layout capabilities of CSS-enhanced HTML. O ur requ irements incl uded a variety of st ati c and dynamic elements of various shapes and sizes, all with fixed locati ons. T here's onl y one way to do this in straight HTML. You wrap everyth ing in tables. CSS offers nvo other app roaches: floa ting el ements an d absolute positioning.
Because I' d have to dep loy to no n-CSS browsers, I started with a table-based ap proach. Eve n in th is context, CSS can be usefu l. If yo u classify elements, you can rapidly evaluate a series of alternate treat ments. T he fam ily, size, weight, an d color of fonts; the alignment, indentation, li ne spacing, and margins of text; and a host of other stylistic variables are easily nvidd led.
Depending on your inheritance scheme, you can adjust these things for the who le
TOOL WATCH
Th is says : "Apply courier to TH and TD elements, but only those contained with in a DIV. " I wrapped the rab ies that I want ed to march this ru le in a <di v cl ass= BodyTabl e> ... <!d iv > rag.
Note that it would have been enough simply to say <di v>-rhe new class Body Ta bl e isn't contributing anything to this solution. I left BodyTabl e in, though . It won' t cause problems with CSS or non CSS browsers. And it's extra information t hat might come in handy. Someda y I may want to select on ly the elements that matc h BodyTa bl e, rather t han a more general se t that matc hes div th. d iv td . Or, in a non-CSS context, I might want to use a Perl script to extract and catalog or rearrange all the tab les of that type.
Even if you have no immediate need to influence presentation with style sheets, there are compell ing reasons to adopt the CSS method of classifying content. Class attributes do more than lay the foundation for sty listic control of your pages. T hey can also provide new hooks for manag ing your content. Document collections are text databases. Class attributes are se lectors that operate o n these databases. CSS uses these selectors, but other appli cations can, too. The value of your text databases grows in proportion to the num ber and specificity of the selectors yo u can apply to it.
ColorPicker
(free) Robert Hess http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/ design/safety/colorpick-f.htm Here's a ha ndy reference to the "safety palette": the 216 colors that look a bout the same on all browsers and all platforms. If you're experimenting with color using CSS, bookmark this page.
BOOKNOTE
Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web
$29.95 by Hakon Wium Lie and Bert Bos Addison Wesley Longman IBSN 0-201-41998-X http://www.awl.com/css/ This defin it ive guide, written by the inventors of CSS, covers typography, layout, color, element classification and selection, and inheritance. One inva luable chapter shows how to reinterpret basic HTML page designs using CSS.
docume nt tree or for selected branches. O nce you settle o n a design, you can trans late yo ur CSS rules down to the per-ele ment tags required by straight HTML.
The next thing to try was floa ting ele ments. HTML authors use the FLOAT at tribute of the !MG tag to force images left or rig ht and to flow text aro und them. CSS generalizes the float property. Any block element- image, list, DIV- can float. In theory, yo u can use this technique to build a page that has a 2-D look but that adapts gracefully to narrow displays. In practice, CSS can do t his effectively only in simp le cases (see the screen on page 97).
The inventors of CSS are talking abo ut extensions that will make it a fu ll-blown layout system, but in its current form it isn' t one, no r does it pretend to be. Sti ll , the float property is powerful. You can, for example, apply it to a gro up of elements wrapped in a DIV tag. T he effect var ies according to the other properties of the DIV (e.g., abso lu te or relative w idth, left or right al ignment), the properties of the other elements in line with the DIV, and the properties of the D!V's conta iner. It's worth spend ing some time to sort out all these interactions.
Finall y, I t ried a version of the home page that uses absolu te position ing. With this CSS extension, whic h is supported in both 4.0 browsers, yo u can place any ele ment at a precise pixel offset from the top left origin of the page. It's an all-or-none method because elements position ed in this way will never flow, and any other ele me nts that are allowed to flow are liab le to overlap the fixe d ones . However, nor mal flow still occurs inside fixed elements.
Using t his technique, I ti led the surface of the page with my major elements. The resul t was p leasing because, unl ike a con venti onal tab le treatment, the CSS version didn't have to align elements on a grid. This freedom costs something, of course. Tables can stretch if you ex p ress t h eir widths in percentages. A page whose ele ments stand in fixed relation to the origi n cannot stretch.
I like t his last version best, and I plan to translate it into straight HTML for depl oy ment. Here's hoping that widespread adop tion of CSS w ill make that ugly procedure unnecessary when our next site redesign
rolls aro und. llJ
Jon Ude ll is BYTE's executive editor for new media. You can reach him by sending e-mail to jon _ u @d e v 5 . b y t e . c o m .
1 00 BYT E NOVEMBER 19 97
ww ·Jbyte m
Rick Grehan
An Uncertain
Discovery
Metrowerks' Discover Programming provides a decent introduction to Java code, but it has some annoying inconsistencies.
he CodeWarrior Discover Programming Ed ition (DPE), from Metrowerks, provides a decent multilingual gate way into the world of programming. But if your goal is to become fluent in Java, you may want to look for additional help : Anyone purchasing this set of learning tools should be aware that it's not Java specific enough to serve as a solid intro duction to Java programming. OPE, which is available for the Macin tosh and Windows 95 and NT (I used the Windows version), supports C, C++, Pas cal, and Java. The supplied CD-ROM in cludes version 2.0 of the distinguished CodeWarrior integrated development environment (IDE), plus tutorials, sam ple code, untold piles of documentation, and seven on-line books. The entire documentation system is constructed as a Web site. In fact, to enter the documentation system, yo u have to double-click on an icon named "Code Warrior Reference WebSite." All the doc umentation is in either HTML o r PDF form .You probablywon't need anything else to get going. The CD-ROM includes installable versions of Microsoft's Inter net Explorer and Adobe Acrobat reader. DPE's d ocumentation appears to be spread evenly among all its supported languages, although only one of the sev en books (Th e Java Programming Lan guage Handbook, from Coriolis Press) is Java specific. The language and compil er documentation includes both the Java language and Java virtual machine (VM) specifications. More specific to the Code Warrior IDE is the included TargetingJava manual. Finally, the comp lete Java AP! and Java Generic Library documents are supplied. I have two complaints about The Java
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Metrowerks' Discover Programming Edition includes the
CodeWarrior IDE and lot of other goodies for $79.
Programming Language Handbook . First, it's in Adobe Acrobat, and navigat ing through a book in this format can be an annoying pain. The Acrobat reader counts certain elements in a book, such as the cover, table of contents, and pref aces, as separate pages. But the Hand book's table of contents does not. Thus, there's no easy correlation between pages as Acrobat understands them and pages as the book's table of conten ts under stands them.
This is exacerbated by the fac t that the book is carved into multiple PDF files which leads to my second complaint. As a result, the rable of contents becomes nearly unusable. For instance, if you're looking for a particular section, you have to guess which PDF file that section is in (and, since Acrobat pages don't match ta
ble-of-contents pages, your guess is usu ally off). The index is equally unusable, having been placed at the end of part 1. (I discovered that by accident.)
Unfortunately, none of DPE's supplied tutorials is Java-specific. A mini-tutorial guid es yo u through the CodeWarrior IDE, but the examples provided are for the Macintosh version. This can be dis tracting for someone working with the Windows version.
On a more positive note, examples for the Handbook are provided as separate, accessible projects that you can easily pull into the IDE. Even though much of the text in the Handbook is in 1.0-era Java, the examples provided are updates to the 1.1-level Java Development Kit (JDK) .
At the bottom of the HTML link page for the book, you'll find links to each of
m
NOVEMBER 1 997 BYTE 101
Javatalk An Uncertain Disco very
Multiple Java Dimensions
In August, JavaSoft announced the new media and communications Java APls, of which there are a passel. They include the following:
+ Java 2D and Java 3D (which is what I'll focus on here). + Java sound, including mixing and Ml DI synthesis. + The Java mediaframework, which deals with (among other things) audio/video playback
and videoconferencing. + Java animation, which deals with 2-D animation. + Java telephony, which is self explanatory. + Java speech, which includes speech recognition and synthesis. + Java collaboration, which deals with data sharing.
I could spend much of the rest of this magazine's pages trying to cover all the APls, but obviously I don't have enough space for that. Instead, I'll continue my coverage from pre· vious columns, in which I discussed 2-D graphics and VRML, and concentrate on the Java 2D and Java 3D APls. (You can find and download further information about the other APls from http://www.javasoft.com.)
Java 2D is actually an extension to the Java Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT). Plans are that it will be included as part of the JDK. The additional classes of Java 2D provide such features as arbitrary fills, tiling, Bezier paths, extended font characteristics (which let you define such font features as kerning, glyph substitution, and ligatures), and a variety of trans· form operations.
More elaborate elements of Java 2D provide for image-processing operations. For exam· pie, Java 2D defines the classes and interfaces necessary for constructing convolution ker· nels, as well as source and destination image buffers.With the added help of the Co nvol veOp class, you can easily implement 2-D filter operations, such as blurring, sharpening, edge de· tection, and so on.
In addition, Java 2D provides greater control over colors. For example, its color·conver· sion classes provide for converting among RG 8, CMYK, gray scale, HLS, HSB, and a half dozen more color spaces (some of whose acronyms I'm not familiar with).
Java 3D (unlike Java 2D) is a "premium" extension to the standard JDK. What that means in terms of availability and distributability is currently unclear. Atthe time this article was writ· ten,JavaSoft representatives were unable to discuss the details of the business model.
Java 3D runs atop standard 3-D rendering engines, such as OpenGL, Direct3D, and QuickDraw 3D. But since it simply depends on the rendering capabilities of such graphics engines, it can run atop "raw" graphics hardware.
Java 3D is a "scene graphics" API .The virtual universe modeled by Java 3D is stored in a complex tree-like structure that's known as a "scene graph " and is composed of con· nected objects. Some objects in the scene graph define shapes that are ultimately rendered into the things seen in the virtual world. Other objects define textures, colors, reflectivity, and so forth .
One particular object, called the view object, carries the information needed to render the scene. The view object is itself a composite of other objects. For instance, one of its components is the Physica l Body object, which contains information describing the char· acteristics of the viewer (i.e., the end user) .The information is frighteningly detailed, and it's obviously designed to model the characteristics of a human viewer immersed in a 3-D world. Data in the Physical Body object defines the location of the viewer's eyes-even the inter· pupillary distance. The idea, of course, is to provide the developer with a framework that has enough richness to capture the widest range of viewing devices.
A unique component of Java 30 is the 3-D sound component. Given that a scene graph includes a view object, the system has all it needs to deduce the location of the viewer and the viewer's relation (in 3-D space) to other objects in the scene. (In addition, the system has information about the geometry of the viewer himself/herself.) This information is used by the sound engine to provide realistic, spatialized 3-D sound with little programmer inter· vention. If the viewer is close to an object that's emitting a sound, the sound is louder;farther away, the sound is softer.
Finally, even if you're uninterested in 3-D graphics, you should be aware that Java 3D de· fines a vector-and-matrix math library suitable for general-purpose mathematics program· ming.These libraries are not part of the Java 3D API per se, although Java 3D depends on them as storage and manipulation classes for data such as coordinates, color information, vector normals, and so on.JavaSoft expects that the members of this library will be removed into a separate java.vecmath package in the future.
102 BYTE NOV EMB ER 1997
the projects. If yo u click on a link, Code Warrior copies the project file into the di rectory o f yo ur cho ice . (It wo rks just as though yo u had selected a file for an FTP style download fro m the Web.) Once the project fil e is on your system, double-click ing on that fil e opens the IDE.
Another positive aspect is the included Metrow erks IDE. But be warned: This is a classic editor/compiler/debugger envi ro nment. And as good as th e compil er and debugger are, there are no facilities for vi sual applet construction or drag-and-drop fr ame populati on.
The system require ments for the Win dows version of DPE are remarkably mod est. All you need is a 486-based system with atleast 16 MB of RAM, Win 95 (or NT 4.0) , and a CD-ROM drive. It ran comfortably on my 50-MHz 486. (The M ac version re-
WHERE TO FIND
Metrowerks, Inc.
Austin, TX 800-377-5416 http://www.metrowerks.com
quires a 68 020 or Pow erPC 601, 16 MB of RAM, and System 7.1 or higher.)
I understand th at th e rapid evoluti o n of Java standards makes it difficult to kee p pace, and I applaud M etrowerks' updat ing of the examples fr om the Handbook. But upd ating th e exam ples puts them out of sync with some of the material in the book, and that can be a little confusing.
Metrowerks says that the books pro vided on the CD-ROM are "previews," and the co mpany recomm ends that if you find one of th e on-line books useful , you should purchase a "real" copy of that book in deference to the auth o r. I agree, but I would add that you should do so primar ily to keep your sanity. Dealing with a book in Acrobat fo rm is th e antipode of fun .
The OPE is more useful as an introduc tion to basic Windows p rogramming than J ava programming (and, admittedly, this is how M etrowerks advertises it). The OPE is sold as a learning environment; an up grade for commerc ial development costs an extra $449 . Still, for only $79 yo u get that great CodeWarrior IDE. Go buy a cou ple of newer J ava books, and you've got a gre at starter development system. liJ
Rick Crehan is a senior editor at Co mputer Design m agazine and coauth or of The Cli ent/Serv er Toolki t (Nob leNet, 1996). You can contact him at rickg@pennwell.com .
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Microsoft's BackOffice is coming on strong.
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Resellers like the integration of BackOffice. Now if Microsoft could only fix those nagging shortcomings. By Alan ]och
BackOffice
at the Forefront
ou'd probably be more than a little surprised if you
walked into a car dealership and the salesperson
steered you away from an expensive Jaguar or Lexus:
"What you really want is this Honda. It does most of what the Jag does, and in a year or two, you will be able to add on the other features." But that's just what many resellers are doing these days. Two years ago, resellers used Unix in 70 percent of their proj ects, with NetWare and Windows NT taking up the slack. Today, these same resellers report a 180-degree turn : NT accounts for Unix percentages of old, Unix projects run just under 30 percent, and NetWare is all but gone. Some resellers, such as Willow Technologies in Campbell, California, report changes that are even more dramatic. "Eighty percent of our business was Unix, with a bit of NetWare. Last year, our busi ness was predominantly NT. Our Unix work was mostly for mainframe connectivity," says Gary Clueit, Willow's CEO. ''As BackOffice expands, it will grab an even larger share of the market from 05/2, NetWare, and Unix," predicts James Venturi, president of Creative Technologies, a New York City reseller. "The market is ripe for NT because of its price and per formance. SQL Server, for example, is a great value." The surprising news is that resellers who report surges in NT say in the same breath that the BackOffice family, for all its advantages, remains glaringly immature in some areas. The platform's security measures are still "hokey, " according to Mohnish Pabrai, director of BackOffice implementation prac tice for Transtech in Naperville, Illinois. In particular, he dis likes the need to install third-party firewalls onto a platform that's touted for its tight integration. And resellers still ques tion the platform's large-enterprise capabilities, despite Mi crosoft's lavishly staged Scalability Days conferences. Some resellers shy away from BackOffice and NT for critical appli cations, such as real-time reservation systems and terabyte-size data-warehousing projects. But Microsoft sees these limitations and is promising changes. Even skeptical resellers believe Microsoft will cor rect shortcomings in BackOffice, though it may take a couple of development cycles. "We've seen [nondisclosure] specs for
We've seen specs for
BackOffice, and we're confident that in 18 months,
problems like scalability will
be moot.
- Mohnish Pabrai
NOVEMBER 1 99 7 BYTE 104C
BackOffice at the Forefront
BackOffice, and we're confident that in 18 months, problems like scalability will be moot," says Pabrai.
So how well does the current release of BackOffice serve the needs of resellers and systems integrators? BYTE spoke with resellers across the country and found them upbeat about BackOffice's business potential, if not completely enamored with the product line from a technological standpoint.
What's in It for You
For anything but the largest client/server projects, resellers see the Windows NT/ BackOffice package as an attractive one stop shopping alternative to buying dif ferent applications from different ven dors and coping with integration hassles.
The complete BackOffice bundle con sists of NT Server, which includes Inter net Information Server (IlS); Exchange Server, for e-mail and groupware appli cations; SQL Server; Systems Manage ment Server (SMS), for network admin istration and troubleshooting; Systems Network Architecture (SNA) Server, for IBM host connectivity; and Proxy Server, for secure Internet access for desktops. N ew additions are Merchant Server, for Internet/intranet electronic commerce, and Transaction Server, for managing dis tributed transactions. Resellers can license the fu ll bundle or choose indi vidual components, depending on the project.
Resellers like the tight integration among NT and the BackOffice applica tions, as well as with mainframe hosts. Integration makes BackOffice more than a bundle of separate applications, says Pabrai . "Because the development staffs of NT and SQLServer are in bed with each other, the SQL Server people are pri vy to the inner workings of NT, which isn't the case for developers for Oracle and the other databases," he notes.
This integration pays off, especiall y in economics. Clueit says that a full-blown client/server implementation on Unix typically costs two to three times more than on BackOffice, primarily because RISC-based workstations and servers are so much more expensive than PCs.
He also adds that while RIS C-based Unix systems offer superior performance on paper, x86 power is adequate for many real-world needs. "Intel hardware is growing at a faster rate than [our cus tomers] need," he says.
The BackOffice Bundle
Function
Pros
Cons
Exchange Server
E-mail and groupware
Tight integration with other Microsoft programs; automatically imports and exports directories from other mail systems
Weighty clients
SQLServer RDBMS
Logical, easy-to-use interface
Slow to match key features of other RDBMSes; not ready for terabyte size databases and data-warehouse applications
Systems Management Server (SM S)
Network administration and troubleshooting
Price/performance wins hands down against Unix alternatives
A resource pig
SNAServer IBM host connectivity
"Best SNA stack on the planet"
Lacks the power of some Unix alternatives
This price difference sometimes makes up for Unix's power and scalability ad vantages. C lueit says his co mpany inher ited a large client/se rver project that was begun by another reseller, whose speci fication called for several hundred RIS C workstations running Unix. The cost was $60,000 to $70,000 for each workstation, C lueit recalls. " We switched to NT, and now we estimate thatthe hardware costs will be between $15,000 an d $20,000 [for each Pentium machine] . When we got down to the numbers, the customer said [the Unix proposal] was a hell of a premium to pay for features they weren't sure they needed."
He adds that many of his customers are fami liar enough with the Windows envi ronment that training or add itional staff for systems administration usually isn ' t necessary with BackOffice, which isn ' t always the case with Unix.
Clueit cautions that he's seen prices ris ing as the BackOffice platform matures, and while there are still significant price advantages, the gap between BackOffice and Unix is narrowing. Also, experienced resell ers know when to look beyo nd BackOffice to give customers the right match of power and integration. For example, Clueit says SCO/Open Server and UnixWare sup port thousands of third-party app li cations, including turnkey financial and accounting pro grams, which are as tightly integrated as the BackOffice famil y and provide essen tially plug-and-play convenience.
Tackling Scalability
A catalyst for the growing popularity of BackOffice applications is the growing need for sca lability and NT's answer to it. "We're looking at Mips, Hewlett-Pack ard, Sequent systems, and they all have hardware designed for sca labi lity," says Pabrai. "Clustered [NT] servers address the scalability issue. Several people out side of Microsoft are working on this. NT today can't run airline reservation sys tems, but it will in three years," Pabrai believes. Wol fpack uses a distributed lock manager and a shared-nothing approach to clustering- a somewhat basic imple mentation that keeps servers from shar ing resources unless a failover occurs.
He adds that in the projects his com pany has worked on, the limits of NT scal ability haven't been a negative factor. "Most of our work centers aro und de partmental servers, Web servers, print servers. The fun starts when yo u go be yond departmental servers. Scalability is more of a SQL Server issue than a Back Office issue. You need to get to terabyte size databases before you have problems." SQL Server may have some problems there.
Many resellers credit SQL Server devel opers with improving the relational DBMS (RDBMS) since its early days as a direct descendant of Sybase SQL Server. Because the BackOffice bundle gives end users run-time licenses for SQL Server, it becomes convenient for resellers to use that RDBMS in custom applications. But
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BackOffice at the Forefront
the price/performance advantage of SQL Server is, as Pabrai quips, "where Billy wins hands down, thanks to volume."
Pabrai estimates that a 10-client Sun/ Oracle implementation with one server costs about $250,000. An NT/SQL Server project with the same number of clients comes in at only $35 ,000. "That's why in three years, the database wars will be over. The winners will be SQL Server [for small to midrange projects] with Oracle keeping its lock on enterprises."
Nevertheless, resellers say that Mi crosoft must look to what Oracle and other DBMS vendors are doing to find ways of changing SQL Server into a more powerful product. Clueit reports that the developers in his company "are less than enthralled" with SQL Server, compared to competing products from Oracle and Sybase. "Microsoft put a lot of effort into the user interface and the administrative capabilities, but some of the functional aspects of the server are not up to snuff," Clueit says.
SQL Server was slow to move beyond accommodating only page-level locking. It wasn't until its current incarnation that SQLServer supported row-level locking. As interest in data warehousing and data marts heats up, more SQL Server short comings become obvious. Tools for cre ating and managing metadata have yet to blossom, and there are no native on-line analytical processing (OLAP) programs.
Exchanging Notes
Thanks to recent upgrades that have boosted the reliability of e-mail services, Microsoft Exchange is a "powerhouse," according to Venturi. H e gives Exchange high marks for its electronic messaging, discussion, scheduling, and group-cal endaring capabilities.
True, hardware requirements can be daunting in the BackOffice environment. "Exchange clients are fa irly weighty," Venturi observes. "But with the Citrix technol ogy [which Microsoft acquired last spring], we'll be able to depl oy clients
across an enterprise without upgrading to Pentiums. It will also be excellent for remote access."
But its integration with other systems is superb. For example, according to Ven turi, Novell's GroupWise and Lotus's cc: Mail require resellers to manually import and export directories. Exchange, on the other hand, handles this task auto matically. Venturi says he's currently working on a project that melds Ex change with Quickmail and is finding that he can easily import directories into Exchange. "There are a lot of legacy mail systems out there, and a lot of our work centers around integrating Exchange with the old systems," Venturi says.
Management and Middleware
Integration is also the key w hen it comes to management and connections to other types of systems.
Venturi gives BackOffice solid marks for its administration capabilities, saying
Helping Pink Jeep See More Green
For Paul Giovanni, vice presi that was built on a selective mix a mix of Compaq Proliant Serv greater efficiency in organizing
dent of Software Innovations, of BackOffice products-NT ers and Pentium PCs.
tours.
a Sedona, Arizona-based com Server and SOL Server-along "In the past, it took 4-5 min Six seats are available in each
puter consultant, the ability to run with clients running Windows 95 utes to book a reservation," says tour Jeep, and to help fill those
Windows NT as an application
seats, the reservation staff can
server for the BackOffice family
see on-screen the spaces that
is a compelling argument for
are open for each driver on any
boarding the BackOffice band
given day, and how long each
wagon . Among his projects was
·tour is scheduled to last. If a cus
the reworking of the reservation
tomer cancels a reservation , the
system for Pink Jeep Tours, a
change is posted to the network
Sedona tour company that drives
in about 10 seconds to give the
tourists to remote desert loca
company the chance to rebook
tions, taking advantage of spe
seats.
cial permits from the U.S. Na
The old system also provided
tional Forest Service. The dis
this information, but it did so with
tinctive Pepto-Bismol-colored
cryptic codes, which Giovanni
vehicles provide what most vaca
says "meant nothing to anybody:·
tioners crave: a look beyond the
Rather than spending time track
tourist traps to see the land
ing down vacancies or sending
scapes that only locals usually
outJeeps that aren't fully loaded,
glimpse.
the reservation staff now can
However, with Pink Jeep's
clearly see the data it needs to do
bookings rising to more than
on-the-fly load balancing.
60,000 per year and cutbacks in
Giovanni isn't a BackOffice
"U
J:
permits,the company required a "In the past, it took 4-5 minutes to book a reservation. bigot; he credits NetWare as
§
more precise and easier-to-use way to match tourists with empty
Now it takes about 45 seconds." -Paul Giovanni
king of file and print services and says Novell Directory Services
Gl
~
"U
::i:
Jeep seats than the old System and Office. Microsoft's Visual Giovanni, who began the project (NOS) is still "second to none:'
;o m
36-based reservation approach C++ provided much of the pro- in 1995. "Now it takes about 45 "But throughput to the desktop
m a
provided.
gramming resources. Pink Jeep seconds." The result: a 30 per is not there" for an implementa
The answer was a new system runs the client/server system on cent increase in bookings and tion such as Pink Jeep's.
~ zJ: 0
"""''
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B ackO ffice at the Fo refron t
it's "simply more logical" than working with, say, Novell products. With support for SNMP, BackOffice provides a cen tral display for setting up the network, adding servers and workstations, and configuring equipment. However, the platform's capabilities won't cause large scale network administrators to turn in their HP OpenView or CA Unicenter licenses just yet. Clueit says SMS "could do .with a lot of improvement. It's a pig in terms of resources."
The BackOffice platform is getting two new pieces of middleware to boost the environment's stature for large enter prises. Transaction Server essentially marries the capabilities of a transaction processing monitor and an obj ect request broker (ORB). Message Q ueue Server (MQS ), code -named Falcon, is Micro soft's reworking of IBM's MQSeries, a store-and-forward message-que uing tech nology for get ting BackOffice to operate with other platforms, such as IBM's Customer Informa tion Control System (CICS) .
The design objective ofFalcon is to link network applications thro ugh a queu ing system . Accord ing to Microsoft, applications send and receive informa tion as messages t hat are st ored and routed through a series of queues that are designed to survive system and network fa ilure.
H owever, some resellers aren't con vi nced the technology is ready for prime time. O ne reseller that has beta-tested Falcon has came to the conclusion that the product "will be behind the eight ball," because it doesn't offer as many fea tures as MQSeries.
Development Advantages
So how do yo u st ring all th ese p ieces toge ther ? For development, especially when mixed clients are present, "onl y two environments are worth anything: Microsoft' s and Metrowerks'," says Clueit, adding one caveat: "M icrosoft started to get its tools act together only rece ntl y. . .. We do a lot of mul ti p lat form d eve lo p me nt . We w rit e MFC [Microsoft Foundation Classes] applica-
WHERE TO FIND
Microsoft Redmond, WA 800-426-9400 206-882-8080 http://www.microsoft.com
New Stuff in Next BackOffice
In its usual manner, Microsoft is sketchy about what will be in the next version of BackOf fice, which should be available early next year. Here is what we know at press time.
New Components The next version of Back Office will add Site Server and Transaction Server. The former is designed to help resellers and others launch Web content and man age intranets w ith tools to ana lyze usage patterns. Trans action Server will support electronic transactions,scal ability services, and con nection management.
Windows NT Integration
Thanks to NT 5.0 's Active Directory technology, Back Office administrators will be able to centrally add users to th e NT directory and to individual applications in the
BackOffice family. Thu s, end users will log on once to access all BackOffice appli cations running in their com pany, rather than logging on to each individually, as is now the case.
Clustering will move beyond basic failover (i.e., when a SOL server goes down, a companion server automatically takes over) to include rollover capabilities, easily adding additional
Mix and Match
Full BackOfficesulte . .. . . . . ... . .. . . . .$2418
SQL Server 6.5 (five users) ... $1346
Exchange Server 5.0 Enterprise Edition .. ...... ... . ......$826
Systems Management Server (five users) . . . . . .$1073
SNAServer (five users) . .. ...$1298
Proxy Server . . ..$966
servers to boost perfor mance when the current system is overworked.
Integration Among BackOffice Applications
Accord ing to Murari Na rayan,a BackOffice product manager, next year's Back Office will streamline inter nal plumbing that lets appli cations communicate. The result: Less code may be necessary to couple SOL and Exchange to get the messaging system to auto matically send an electronic orderform to a parts supplier once a SOL alert warns that an item in inventory dropped below a preset threshold.
Also promised: OLEDB and Active Data Objects will make it easier for reseller w ritten applications to ac cess multiple types of data, such as structured SOL information, unstructured messages in Exchange or Notes, and documents that are stored on file servers.
tions and run them on the Mac, and have had some problems. That was on [Visual C+ +] 4.0. When 5 .0 came out, Microsoft decommitted [Mac support] . That was a real disappointment, because we're actually doing more Mac development than ever before."
Although he says Visual C+ +is solid, Clueit notes that developers at his com pany are using Metrowerks increasingly often, primarily because of its capabili ties for both NT and the Mac.
Ronn ie McN eill Consulting Service's namesake president says Visual Basic "is progressing along quite well " as a devel opment environment. "But it wasn'tuntil the third version that you could take it seriously. " The company develops client/ server systems for such companies as HP and Coldwell Banker using Visual Basic for client ap plications and BackOffice applications on the server.
He adds that the BackOffice platfo rm hi nts at object orientation, but "it's not fu lly there." For example, McNeill says
an application can inherit the interface of an object but not the obj ect itself. NT isn't truly multithreaded in McN eill's view.
Seller's Market
Does tight integration of applications mean end users pay less for reseller and systems-integration services? No , say resellers who are working overtime to install BackOffice systems. Some savings are derived if fewer hours are needed to launch the project, but the cost of inte gration services is at a premium because the market is now so bullish. "We see a strong need on the services end fo r Back Office, par ti cul arly for SQL Serve r," Pabraisays. Because of demand, resellers are find ing a pro fitable supp ly-and demand situation. " There's a shortage of people to handle demand. It's funda mental capitalism. " liJ
AlanJach isa freelancewriter and former BYTE senior editor who covers emerging technolo gies. You can reach him at ajoch@monad.net.
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Circle 3 53 on Inquiry C ard (RES ELLERS : 354).
Four technologies are bringing POS to open hardware and software. By Ilan Greenberg
Making Money
with Point-of-Sale
uring the 1992 election campaign, George Bush made
headlines for being out of touch when he expressed as
tonishment at the technology used at a modern super
market checkout counter. If he hasn't taken advantage of retire
ment to do a little shopping, returning to his local grocery store
might give him a heart attack. Retail technology is undergo
ing a startling transformation-from staffed cash-register sta
tions to new-generation self-service checkout machines, RF price
changing, and multipurpose clients. The catalyst is the wide
scale adoption of PC-based point-of-sale (POS) packages, long
advocated by resellers and industry consultants and only recent
ly embraced by resistant POS vendors.
This is a marked change from just one year ago, when the
norm was a proprietary POS system. Even vendors that claimed
to provide open systems included proprietary pieces requiring
unique middleware wraps, points out Carol Simmons, a senior
analyst in the Retail Automation Division of Datapro Infor
mation Service Group (Delran, NJ). The reasons for this include
a cyclical wave of industry investment in technology, the boom
ing national economy, and the growing acknowledgment of
upos should be just the labor-saving benefits associated with improved PC-based
POS systems. Labor is near the top of the expense column in
most retailers' balance books.
The new POS systems offer increased integration as well as one of the functions
new capabilities, such as sales-figure consolidation and the automatic organization of disparate data. POS clients at a reg
of the corporate
LAN. We have them ister record everything from individual consumer-buying pat
terns to the effectiveness of shelf-space allocation.
running HR systems, But retailers want systems that go beyond simply capturing
point-of-purchase information-they want integration with
back-end client/server systems (e.g., SAP's R/3 suite and Van tive's customer-service automation software) as well as sup port for their existing investment in PCs running Windows and servers running Unix or NT. They also want to increase com
munication between their sales force and management by pro
payroll, and benefit enrollment in
addition to POS."
viding capabilities such as e-mail at POS stations. In short, re
sellers are being asked to provide PC-based POS service that
-Dave Sabre
fits into a company's existing IS architecture.
Four important technologies are ushering in the PC POS rev-
www.by 1;..c.
NOVEMBER 1 997 BYTE 104M
Making Money with Point-of-Sale
olution: new GU!s, RF labels, adherence to client/server application APIs, and easy integration with back-office systems. In addition, a single technology, Java, cur rently stands poised to make the biggest difference of all by connecting a POS sta tion to a Web-based infrastructure (and leveraging such new technologies as Web based data warehousing), although it's not there yet.
The New lnterface
Most proprietary POS systems don't share a common user interface (UI). This means that, even if a company hires a person who has experience working at a checkout, for example, it's going to have to train that person to use a new system. But PC-based POS systems with standard Uls are chang ing all that. They're enabling companies to cut training costs and even create self shopping systems.
The leading example of a no-train ing-required system is theATM machine. NCR's DynaKey (see the photo at right) is an ATM-style POS interface that many vendors are currently using precisely be cause it's so easy to learn. Says Dan Bo gan, vice president of retail marketing for the NCR Retail Services Group, "We've combined our ATM technology and PC based technology and then connected that to our high-performance scanners. Together it provides consumers with an interface that they're very comfortable working with."
DynaKey is the main competitor to Mi crosoft Windows, the other easy-to-learn POS interface. Both offer an intuitive, graphical interface that accommodates complex promotions and pricing struc tures and allows for the near-elimination of POS training.
Looking to the future, the model of an open -system ATM will be extended by even-newer technology emphasizing self service capabilities. The vision, which is expected to be delivered sometime in late 1998, is entire ly self-service check-out lanes. NCR intends to execute such a sys tem by combining bioptic scanners and self-checkout software with a video based security system.
Supermarket Frequencies
Another technology that is more easily integrated into the PC architecture than it is into legacy systems is RF pricing la bels. This market is shared mainly by four vendors: ERS (Wilton, CT), NCR, Swe
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den-based Pricer, and TelePanel (Toron to, Ontario, Canada).
Retailers use RF to electronically up date shelf labels, replacing the fami liar paper shelf tags and eliminating the need for store employees to walk through the store aisles with infrared readers to note price changes. Instead, new prices are transmitted from antennas located at the cei ling of the store. To avoid confu sion should several neighboring stores all implement RF, each store gets its own signal. The systems are surprisingly sim ple because they often are avai lable as prepackaged products.
RF is credited with increasing price-tag accuracy while accelerating the response time for stores that are eager to react to their competitors' sudden promotions or price hikes. RF is a proven technology that has actually been avai lable for some time, but demand remained sluggish at first as a result of the dominance of pro prietary systems and regulatory prohibi tions that relegated RF to stores in on ly a few states.
During the past year, CB Consultants, a company that specializes in RF technol ogies, has seen the use of RF expand in tandem with the rise of PC-based POS. "Stores are seeing RF as a way to change prices whenever they want, either from the PC in the back room or from the ware house," explains George Gi lfoil, presi dent of CB Consultants.
Likewise, the rise in popularity ofback office client/server applications, such as supply-chain software from Manugistics, has led resellers and system integrators to use PC-based POS systems that offer more seamless integration between RF and PC-based POS. Resellers might de velop software to transmit data retrieved from single-use POS devices into distrib uted databases, but it's a strictly one-way exchange, according to Dave Sabre, re gional partner of the western region for consumer markets at KPMG Peat Mar wick. Non-PC POS devices are designed to send data to the back-end database, where the information is crunched by on line analytical processing (OLAP) systems, such as Arbor Software's Essbase, into useful, compacted sales figures.
Connecting the Back Office
But in the new PC-based POS systems, information is like a two-way street; it runs both to and from the executive suite. By returning processed information back to the store manager, employees at the cash register are empowered to make use of sales and pricing data on their own.
"POS shou ld be just one of the func tions of the corporate LAN," explains Sabre. "We have them running HR sys tems, payroll, and benefit enrollment in addition to POS. The expansion of the features of POS on the PC is what gives
104N BYTE NOVEMBER1997
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[m
£1. FC LC
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CE @ k.
Making Mon ey w ith Point-of-Sale
ASmorgasbord of POS
The hypercompetitive restau rant industry is one of the first businesses that has embraced advanced POS; Restaurant Con sulting Services (RCS) is at the forefront of this advance. RCS looks for features that enable it to add to client functionality, inte grate with client/server systems, and incorporate the latest in data retrieval and data-disbursement technologies.
RCS emphasized all these qualities during its system -im plementation projects for Unique Casual Restaurant, the compa ny behind the Fuddruckers and Champs Americana chains of restaurants. The 150-restaurant Fuddruckers chain was looking for a system that gave company managers timely access to POS information so that they could change guesswork into informed decision-making .
RCS offered two systems for review. One was based on lber tech software running on IBM equipment with infrared touch screens. The other ran on an NCR system with 7440 POS termi nals and MicroTouch capacitive touchscreens ; it had POS, cash management, navigation, and la-
bor software modules from Com pris Technologies.
From these pilots, RCS and
especially in the area of inven tory management, and a clearer graphical presentation. "We take
"When Ican use PC standards, Ican control costs much better." -Ted Mountzuris
Unique Casual Restaurant se lected the NCR/Compris com bination because it offered a sig nificantly better level of detail,
the POS information and use it to populate the Oracle Financials applications that we have in the back office;' explains Ted Mount
zuris, CEO of RCS. This is basi cally a tool to connect the restau rants with the executive informa tion systems being used .by the executives."
The POS integration project at the Champs Americana fran chises had different require ments. Unique Casual Restau rant wanted to migrate from a proprietary Panasonic solution because the company believed an open system would allow for reduced system costs. RCS rec ommended lbertech's Aloha, a package that's particularly opti mized for a Windows NT envi ronment. Mountzuris c ites NT as "a particularly excellent platform for point-of-sale technology:·
"When I can use PC stan dards, I can control costs much better. And , with an open archi tecture, you have the ability to use the right software for the particular retailing situation," he explains. "Otherwise, you need to redesign the software to fit into your industry. Typically, your IS costs should be anywhere from 2 percent to 3 percent of your company's revenues, but with this system our costs are under 1 percent."
us the ability to say to compani es t hat they can imp rove customer valu e with these systems."
Wi th the PC, continues Sabre, resellers can ge t mo re creative wit h t heir ser vices, such as offering interfaces to Inter net-based electronic commerce sites and data warehouses, as well as developing middleware to shorten the supply chain.
Future POS
"There's a lot of interest right now in the thin client and its impact on point of sales," says Tracy Flynn, vice pres ident fo r the food -industry-marketing group at NCR Retail Services Group. H e points to several expensive qualities of the PC that aren't required for traditional POS, such as access to a disk dr ive, and then points resellers to the future potential of the network computer or N etPC as excel lent alternatives.
WHERE TO FIND
CB Consultants Portland, ME
207-799-2702
KMPG Peat Marwick Boston, MA
617-723-2700 http:l/www.us.kpmg . com/
NCR Retail Services Group
Atlanta, GA 770-321-8800 http:l/www.ncr.com/ product/retail/
Restaurant
Consulting
Services, Inc.
Danvers, MA
508-762-3900
PC-based POS is doing well and will do "Initially, we won't see these kinds of
even better, say industry fig ures, when it standards applied to POS; it's still 12 to ta mers will enhance their information
can take advantage of a thin-client con 18 months out," he predicts. "Howev retrieval-and-analysis tools by leveraging
figuration. T hat would likely mean Java. er, in some markets, such as the hospital the increased integration between their
,,
I
H owever, despite the move to open sys iry industry, yo u'll see it sooner because POS wares and their client/server applica
§
tems, many companies conti nue to re they have fewer peripherals with which tion investments. Iii
,.Cl >,,J
qui re POS peripheral devices that remain to contend."
:c
incompatible with open-development
By tu rn ing t o PC-base d sys tems for I/an Greenberg (San Francisco, CA) has writ
m"'
E
platforms, including Java. Eve n th ough POS so lutions, resellers are betting they ten about technology, science, and business for
m
~
some POS vendors are currently working will find gold in industry-standard PC many publications, including the Los Angeles
o;
I
on designing Java interfa ces for devices, development environments, such as Vi Times and U.S. N ews & World Report. You
0
the technology isn't yet available.
sual Basic and J ava. In addition, their cus can contact him at ilang@ix.netcom.com.
104P BYT E NOVE M B ER 199 7
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C ircle 363 o n Inquiry Card (RES ELLERS: 364).
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Circle 371 on Inquiry Card .
Unified messaging systems bring together voice, fax, e-mail, and paging for less than ever. By llan Greenberg
The Universal
Inbox
nified messaging systems, which provide an inter
connected system for everything from e-mail and
voice mail to faxes, have obvious benefits for end
users-especially for workers who prefer a single inbox.
A slew of new, increasingly sophisticated unified messaging
packages has recently become available, each offering a slight
ly different road toward a universal communication destina
tion. While certain trends are emerging, such as a predomi
nance of support for Windows NT as a server OS platform, oth
er requirements, such as type of mail system supported or tele
phony standard employed, are more varied. Choosing a uni
fied messaging system calls for considering whether the soft
ware package is compatible with the network architecture an
office environment already has in place (different solutions
support a wide variety of file formats, for example). Cost is an
other factor, with prices ranging from a low monthly subscrip
tion to turnkey solutions running upwards of $40,000.
Look for technologies that combine the best of integrated
inbox and real-time communication capabilities, such as a pop
up screen that provides relevant information when your phone
rings, advises Brian Curran, product manager at Coresoft
(Orem, UT). "In the whole unified messaging field we need to
focus more on messaging and less on the concept of inbox. We
still live in a real-time world, and messaging should be sec
ondary. Products generally do one or the other, but there are
a lot of benefits to doing both," he says.
There's no shortage of providers in the unified messaging
system market (as the product listing on the following pages
shows). Industry observers say this is bound to change as ven
dors consolidate. This is already proving true at the high end of
the market, as exemplified by the recent acquisition of the lead
ing voice application maker, Octel, by Lucent Technologies.
Standardization will probably become the biggest issue for
unified messaging systems. Many products are not yet compli
ant with the Windows telephony API standard, TAPI, but TAPI
is going to become more and more prevalent. Another criteri
on, says Michael Stanford, chairman of Algo Communications,
is network integration. Also keep in mind the potential of a mes
saging system to scale up to new technologies.
continued
www.by e.com
NOV EMB ER 1 997 BYTE 1045
The Universal lnbox
Messaging Products
Axxess Inter-Tel, Inc. 800-669-5858 http ://www.inte r-tel.com
Inquiry No. 1125
CallWarefamily CallWare Technologies 8 0 0 - 8 8 8 -4 2 2 6 http://www.callware.com
Inquiry No. 1126
CallXpress Applied Voice Technology 425-820-6000 h t t p : / / w w w.appliedvo ice .com
Inquiry No. 1127
CenterPoint Coresoft 801-431 -0070 http :/ / w w w.coresoft .com
Inquiry No. 1128
Communicate 01 Communique Laboratory, Inc. 905-795-2888 http://www.01com.com
Inquiry No. 1129
David Tobit Software 8 0 0 - 4 6 8 -6 2 4 8 http :/ / w w w.na.tobit.com
Inquiry No. 1130
GroupWlse Novell, Inc. 888-321 -4272 http ://www.novell.com Inquiry No. 1131
Hello!NT Enhanced Systems, Inc. 770-662-1503 http ://www.esisys.com
Inquiry No. 1132
lntuity Audix Multimedia Messaging System Lucent Technologies, Inc. 908-953-2716 http://www.lucent.com
lnqulryNo.1133
yes= V
Basic Features
Voice mail, e-mail, fax server, automated attendant
Server OS
Server independent
Access Method
PC
Text-to· Speech
Pager Interface
Price
$75 $150/user
Voice mail, e-mail integration, fax, automated attendant
Net Ware
PC, telephone, Web browser
Voice mail, e-mail,
Windows NT Fax, PC, telephone
v
fax, Web server,
interactive voice
response (IVR), instant
Web publishing
Voice mail, e-mail, IVR, fax server, call control, contact manager
Windows NT, NetWare
PC, telephone
$75-$400 peruser
$9000+
$4695 (10 users)
Voice mail, e-mail,
N/A
fax server, automated
attendant (stand-alone),
contact manager
PC, telephone
$179
Voice mail, e-mail, fax, Web server, interactive voice response, instant Web publishing
Voice mail, e-mail, Web server, contact manager, document management
Windows NT, NetWare
PC, telephone, fax, Web browser, PDA
NetWare, Windows NT, Unix, lntranetWare
PC, telephone, Web browser
Voice mail, e-mail, IVR, fax server, automated attendant
Windows NT
PC, telephone, fax, Web browser
$2495 (5 users)
$718 (5 users)
$1000+
Voice, e-mail, fax server (adding Web server in 1998), automated attendant, contact manager
sco
UnixWare
PC, telephone, Web browser
$15,000+
............... ............... ....... ·································
.......................................................................
NIA= not applicabl e
104T BYT E NOVEMB ER 1997
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You're sure that y o u needn 't waste creative energ y searching for technical solutions that already exist! You fee l ce rtain that ii isn 't necessary far you to track your project through X number of locations! You know there must be a single resource that w ill supply the answers and services you need to make
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··il COMDEX.
Fall '97
Booth #H1646
Circle 362 on Inquiry Card.
Postal : 150 E. Greg Street # 105 Sparks, Nevada 8943
The Univ e rs al lnb ox
Messaging Products
IPost Universal Box/ Courier IR DG , lnc. 666-476-769 3 http ://www.irdg.com
Inquiry No . 11 34
Basic Featu res
Voice mai l, e-mail, fax server, Web browser
Server OS Windows NT
MediaMail Telinet Technologies LLC 770-239-1 000 http ://www.telinet. com
Inquiry No . 11 35
Voice mail , e-mail, fax, Web browser
Windows NT
MVX-2000 S Macrovoice Corp. 600 ·6 22·76 69 http ://www.macrovoice.com
Inquiry No. 11 36
Voice, e-mail, fax, automated attendant, Web browser
Windows NT, Windows95
NeTruelink NeTru e Communications 714·670-066 1 htt p ://www.netrue.com
Inquiry No . 11 37
Vo ice mail, e-mail, fax serve r, Web server
Windows NT
PremisMail Unified Messaging Voice Technologies Group , Inc. 716-669-6700 http ://www.vtg.com
Inqui ry No. 1138
Voice mail, fax, Web browser
OS/2
Repartee Active Vorce Corp. 206·4 41 ·4700 http://www.activevoice.com
Inq uiry No . 1139
Voice mail, e-mail fax server, automated attendant, contact manager
OS/2
Telephony OneStop Lotus Development Corp. 617-577-6500 http ://www.lot u s.com
Inqu iry No. 1140
Voice mail, e-mail, fax
Windows NT, OS/2, Notes
Unified MailCall for Lotus Notes Phonesoft, Inc. 619-616·1900
http://www.phonesoft.com
Inquiry No. 114 1
Voice mail, e-mail, fax server, Web server, con tact manager
Windows NT
Work Group Attendant Algo Communications Corp. 972-666-2 000 http://www
.algocommunicat ions.com
Inquiry No. 1142
Voice mail, e-mail integration , fax server,
au tomated attendant
yes = il
Windows NT
Access Method
PC, telephone, Web browser
Text -to Speech
v'
PC. telephone ,
v'
fax. Web browser.
PO P 3 e·mail client
PC, telephone
PC, telephone,
v'
Web browser, fax
PC, telephone, Web browser
PC, telephone, Web browser
PC, telephone, Web browser
PC, telephone,
v'
fax. Web browser
PC, telephone
Pager
Price
Interface
v'
$24.95/
month
v'
$6900+
v'
$7000
v'
$7600
(4-port unit)
v'
$6000
$42,000
v'
$6500+
$50/user
v'
$2995+
v'
$499.95
$ 1699.95
104 V BYTE NOV EMBER 1 9 9 7
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November 17-21 . 1997 Booth No. S-4050e
altima
The Most pular "Maestro T''
Pentium 50/1661200 with MMX technology 12.l " SVGA TFT or 12.l " SVGA DSTN color Built-in 20X(Max.) CD-ROM module, 2.1I3.2 GB HDD and internal FDD 16 bit audio system with two stereo speakers and microphone Two PCMCIA type II slots with Zoomed Video and Card Bus support Internal 56Kbps data I voice I fax modem Fast lrDA infrared port and USB support
Multiventure T echnologies, Inc. Altima Computer, Inc. 6F , No.59 , Sec.2 , Tun Hua S . Rd ., T aipei, Taiwan Tel : 886-2-707-31 23 Fax: 886-2-703-1380 E-Mail: a lt im a@tpts 1 .see d .n et.tw Web sit e : http ://w ww .altima .c o m .tw
Authorized Distributors:
C ircle 365 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS : 366).
Accord (USA) Tel: 1-408-945-978 7
Universal Network(U.S.A.) Tel:1-97 2-907-2300
Twintop (Czech Republic) Tel: 420-441 -77 5302 Millenium (Germany) Tel: 49-2 151-8365-0
Frisch Data (Denmark) Tel: 45-444-7 128 1
Altima (South Africa) Tel: 27- 12-45317 5
LTD (Switzerland) Tel: 41-32-6239292
Alpha Data (UAE) Tel: 971-2 -337173
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A Division o(TlieMcGrawHill Compa nies
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 105
_J
26 No-Compromise Power Portables
Hardware
New MMX laptops with 166-, 200-, and 233-MHz processors equal a virtual office desktop replacement. By Michelle Campanale
icture this: You're 33,000 feet above sea level, packed in your seat tighter than the stuffing in a Thanksgiving turkey. On either side of you are irrita ble passengers w ho fight you for the arm rest. Indeed, traveling thousands of mi les cross-country is no easy trek. A turbu lence-free flight makes it bearable. A high-powered laptop souped up with a 13.3-inch screen, Pentium MMX proces sor, 20x CD-ROM drive, and 6-hour bat tery life can make the trip a delight.
Road Rules
True road mavens won't leave home without their trusty laptop. What's more, many people are rep lacing their ag ing desktop computers with portable ver sions w ith as many bells and whistles. Now, the newest-generation notebooks, powered by Pentium 166-MHz and 200 or 233-MHz "Ti llamook" processors, are more capable than their predecessors of becoming true desktop replacements.
We judged 26 portables that hit both ends of the price spectrum, ranging from $2600 to $5700 . All employ 166-, 200-, or 233 -MHz CPUs. We tested a good sam pling of what's currently shipping and chose to focus on 166-MHz nonbeta models with stable drivers. For this roundup, we sought systems that have 166-MHz processors or better, 1 MB or more of video RAM, 32 MB of memory, 2.1-GB hard disk minimum, a maximum of 512 KB of L2 cache, and two batteries. (Reference manuals and user guides were also judged, and they contributed to each system's usability score.) You'll notice a few systems reviewed here don' t exactly
match that fe ature list; we wanted to make sure that the most useful configu rations were tested, and we note varia tions where necessary.
Unfortunatel y, some vendors intro duced systems too late for testing, and others fell out fo r vari o us reasons. We had already reviewed a beta version of the new ThinkPad 77 0 from IBM (see "The Best ThinkPad Gets Better," Octo-
BEST
Micron TransPort XKE With its 13.1-inch screen, dual
pointing devices, and conveniently
located device bay, this is the outstand
ing 166-MHz portable. It outperformed
all other laptops in our tests, and it has
strong usability and features.
Gateway 2000 Solo 2300SE For the price, the Gateway Solo 2300SE
low-cost winner is a solid choice. In price/performance value, it bested all other systems tested, and its features set topped all other systems we looked at.
ber BYTE) . The first PC notebook (called the PowerTrip) from former Macintosh clone maker Power Computing was not ready for rev iew in time to meet our deadline. Fujitsu, Nimantics, and Sam sung also missed our testing deadline.
What's Hot, What's Not
Evolving trends in laptop design aren' t hard to spot. Support for Zoomed Video and CardBus are common. We also saw
some support for MPEG hardware accel eration for playing full-screen video smoothly at 30 frames per second. And designers continue to improve placement of device bays.
Integrated modems are becoming a standard for high-end notebooks. Addi tionally, integrated Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports showed up on nearly all the machines we tested. A few systems, like Micron's, include both trackpoint and touch pad pointing devices. Function keys provide access to configuration tools for each pointing device.
A handful of computers we tested had 13.3-inch screens. These could display full-screen, full-motion video. Many of the remaining laptops sported 12.1 -inch screens. More than half the laptops in our tests have a maximum internal resolution of 800 by 600. But vendors like Gateway, Micron, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, Sony, Sharp, and a few others provided screens that support 1024 by 768 pixels.The Gate way 9100XLsupports 1280 by 1024 max imum internal resolution.
In addition to better screen reso lu tions, other breakthroughs are apparent. A few vendors, like Dell, Micron, Gate way, AMS Tech, Sceptre, Win Book, Euro com, and Micro International, include huge hard disks with 3 GB of space. On the CD-ROM front, Micron broke new ground by send ing in a system with a 20x CD-ROM drive.
233 MHz: Built for Speed
Mobile MMX CPUs running at 200 and 233 MHz, in add iti on to the existin g 166-MHz CPUs, are available in a variety of configurations. The mobile module,
1 0 6 BYTE NO V EMBER 199 7
DISPLAY Screen size: 12.1 -inch SVGA or XGA TFT is common. Look for 13.3-inch XGA TFT screens, just now beginning to appear on the market ; 14-inch active matrix displays will arrive in the nearfuture. .........
AUDIO SPEAKER/MICROPHONE Every multimedia notebook should have integrat ed stereo speakers that support 16-bit stereo sound. Add a 3-D spatializer and support for surround-sound and wave-table sound are viable. A microphone and stereo line in/out jacks are also a must for today's multimedia laptops.A
I I I I I I
'
'
'
INTERNAL BATTERY / Lithium ion batteries are the most widely used in high-performance lap tops; they work well for units with lots of compo nents. You should ideally purchase a second bat tery for cross-country travel. Nickel metal hydride batteries are common among low-end laptops. In the near future,
look for lithium polymer
batteries, which contain
lithium instead of cobalt in
the cathod e.
DEVICE BAY / This housing holds a CD-ROM drive (up to 20x in some models) , floppy disk drive, multimedia controls, or spare battery. DVD drives will appear here soon.
Illustration based on the Micron Tran sPort XKE.
Many systems are powered by a 166-MHz Pentium with MMX processor. Look for 233-MHz processors in Tillamook-powered systems.
_ - - CHIPSET Intel's PCI Mobile 430TX is common for 166-MHz MMX systems and Tillamook systems.
- STORAGE You'll want the largest-capacity hard disk available. Some models have 3-GB removable hard drives, though some systems sti ll come with 2-GB and 1.6-GB drives. Drives that can hold a massive 5 GB are just around the corner.
Both touch pads and pointing sticks are common among laptops, with trackball s nearly obsolete. Most laptops have one or the other; a few (like th e Micron shown in the illustration) have both.
·--
- - BACK
..
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INTEGRATED PORTS USB, high-speed infrared (one on front, one on back), parallel, serial, VGA, PS/2 (one for external keyboard, one for mouse), game/MIDI port, cellular port, modem port, NTSC and S-video ports.
which integrates the Pentium CPU with accommodate increasingly powerful com declare one a winner. There are three 200
Q MMX technology, a portion of Intel 's ponents, such as high-resolution color dis MHz MMX CPUs in this roundup, from
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430TX chip set, and the pipeline burst static RAM L2 cache, powers many of the
plays, 20x CD-ROM drives, 56K modems, and high-capacity disk drives.
Chem USA, AMS Tech, and MicroExpress. Sceptre, Micro International, and Euro
.~ machines tested. Systems based on Intel's
As components become increasingly com were able to send us 233 -MHz systems
z P55C processor can reach speeds of up to more powerful, the need for longer bat for evaluation.
(!)
iii
166-MHz only. With Tillamook proces
tery life continues. The 166-MHz systems
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sors, laptops now reach 200 and 233 MHz.
currently operate at 2.45 volts. Tillam
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The first to utilize a 0.25-micron man ook laptops operate at a core voltage of Contributors
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ufacturing process, Intel's Tillamook processors are expected to enhance chip
1.8 .Yet the next generation of laptop com ponents, including 24x CD-ROM drives
0z performance 20 percent over their 166 and 14-inch displays, ma y negate any
;}, i
MHz counterparts. In addition, they are
reduction of power and hear.
Steve Platt and Andy Froning, Managing Editors/NSTL
Dorothy Hudson, Project Manager/NSTL Jeff Hudson, Tester/NSTL Maryanne Eves, Acquisitions Editor/NSTL
0
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expected to consume 40 percent less pow
Six of the 26 systems have 200-MHz (or
Linda Higgins, Editorial Associate/BYTE
~ er than previous high-end mobile proces faster) processors. Because these were ear Michelle Campanale, Technica l Editor/BYTE
:;:;:>: sors. Lower battery consumption can ly prototype or beta units, we chose not to
NOVEMBER1997 BYTE 107
POWER PORTABLES
e chose the Micron TransPort XKE as the overall winner. It was the performance leader among all the 166-MHz sys tems we tested. Though it is pricey (it is the thi rd most expensive among the 166 MHz crop), the Micron's superior usabil ity and exce ll ent co llection of fea tu res more than compensate. Micron does not skimp on compo nents. The unit includes a 13 .3-inch XGA compati ble active matrix display and modul ar bays for ho lding eith er a CD ROM drive or a floppy drive. The con veniently placed device bay is in the front of the system, beneath the keyboard. Add itionally, it has Zoomed Video and Ca rdBu s support, a built-in 33.6-Kbps modem , an d 20x CD-ROM drive. The TransPort has exce ll ent battery life and two pointing devices (touchpad and stick). It's heavy, however, weighi ng 7.2 pounds with battery and floppy drive.
Best Value
First place for Best Value notebook goes to the 166-MH z Gateway Solo 2300SE. Ir has the best price of all systems reviewed. The Gateway's strong performance score bested that of all the 166-M Hz systems tested except for th e higher-end Micron TransPort XKE and the Gateway 2000
TECH FOCUS
We've seen a glimpse ofTillamook's perfor mance leap (or lack thereof, in so me cases). Many of the systems we tested, though, were preproduction un its, so subsequent driver improvements should make a world of dif ference. However, sources at several note bookcompanies said that battery life should be extended by as much as an hour th rough Tillamook's low power consumption. Why? Tillamook is the first chip Intel is manufac t uring on a sma ller 0.25-micro n process, which keeps power consumption and heat to a minimum. While Tillamook brings up note book speed a notch, use rs likely won't see increases in performance thresholds until the second half of 1998, when Inte l ships the mobile version of the Pentium II (code named Deschutes).
Battery Rundown
WlnBook FX p166 MMX Hewlett-Packard OmnlBook 5700 C1X
Eurocom 7200 Dlgltal HINote VP 575 Chem USA Chembook 2600 AMS Ascentla M 166
Sony PCG·707C Sceptre Soundx 4500 Everex StepNote SE MMX Kiwi OpenNote 7808 Toshiba Satellite Pro 460 CDT Micro International 7200/mlnt 233 Empac Classic 5166 Hitachi VlslonBook Pro Dell Latitude Xpl CD M166ST MlcroExpress NP 7200 MMX Acer/TI TravelMate 7060
NEC Versa 6060 Sharp PC-9800 CT C1X EzBook EZ764MT Tatung TNB-5600 Sceptre Soundx 5500 Compaq Armada 7730 MT Micron TransPortXKE Gateway 2000 Solo 2300SE Gateway Solo 9100XL
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Not all batteries are born to run . Many of the laptops in our tests averaged around 3 hours of
juice, but there were exceptions.Tiiiamook processors,though expected to score well on bat· tery life, actually scored significantly lower. However, this is likely due to power-eating features like 4-MBgraphics cards, 24xCD-ROM drives, and other hungry components.
Solo 9100XL. In additi on, its usability is better than average.
The unit has a 12.1 -inch screen that supports 800 by 600 resoluti o n. Its PC Card connection supports Zoomed Video. And ir can house up to 192 MB of memory in three SO-DIMM sockets.
Notable Portables
T he Compaq Armad a 7730MT's ou t standing usability raring merits close attention . This model comes with an Sx CD-ROM drive, modular drive and bat tery bays, and a 33.6-Kbps modem. With a battery Li fe of 3:03 (in ou rtests), it places in the top third of all systems reviewed. The Armada, a good desktop rep lace ment, also scored excellent numbers in our Excel, Word, and Access app lica tions-based rests.
Another portable worthy of notice is the Acer/Texas Instruments TraveLMate 7060. (Acer recently acquired the TravelMate line from Texas Instruments.) It offers very good performa nce, coming in fourth among all other 166-MHz machines we
benchmarked. What makes this system stand out is its long battery li fe. In our tests, it lasted 6:35, scoring significantly higher than its closest competitor, the Micron TransPort XKE, which lasted 4:72.
A Scattered Mix
Eight ve ndors sent us speedy machines in either 200-MHz Pentium MMX or 233 MHz Ti ll amook configurations. T hose vendors who sent in 233 -MHz machines were Sceptre, Micro International, Euro com, Toshiba, and NEC. The 200-MHz systems were sent in by MicroExpress, Chem USA, and AMS. The performance resu lts were a scattered mix, to say the least. Some ofthese 200-and 233-MHzsys tems even scored lower than many of the 166-MHz systems tested. As a result, we did not pick a winner for this category.
The Sceptre Soundx 5500's perfor mance score led the way; note, though, that it beat the top-performing 166 MHz by a mere 3 percent. H oweve r, new drivers will surely improve these higher-speed PCs in the months to come.
108 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
RATING RESULTS!
BEST OVERALL Micron TransPort XKE Micron's TransPort XKE bested all rivals in the 166 MHz crop. Though it's pricey (the third most ex pensive, behind the Gateway 9100 and the HP OmniBook), its extremely strong features and usability deliver the goods. Its 13.3-inch XGA screen supports 1024 by 768 resolu tion. On the high end of the battery life spectrum (4:72), it wi ll acco mmodate a typical cross-country pl ane ri de.
WEIGH G
Micron TransPort XKE Gateway 2000 Solo 2300SE Gateway 2000 Solo 91 OOXL Compaq Armada 7730 MT Acer/Tl Travel Mate 7060 Sony PCG-707C Empac Classic 5166 Hitac hi Vision Book Pro Tatung TNB-5600 NEC Versa 6060 Tos hiba Satellite Pro 460CDT WinBook FX P1 66 MMX CTX EzBook EZ 764MT Dell Latitude XPI CD M166 Hewlett-Packard OmniBook 5700 CTx
PRICE
$5399 $2599 $5699 $4399 $3999 $4499 $3500 $4499 $3195 $3199 $3899 $2999 $3233 $4348 $5400
TECHNOLOGY
**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****
PRICE
** ***** ** ** ** ** ** ** *** *** *** *** *** ** **
PERFORMANCE
*"'**** **** **** ***** ** ** **** *** **** ** ** ** *** ** ****
FEATURES
***** ***** ***** **** **** **** *** **** **** **** *** *** ** **** **
USABILITY
***** **** ***** **** **** **** **** **** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
OVERALL RATING
***** ***** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** *** *** *** *** ***
BEST VALUE Gateway 2000 Solo 2300SE H ands-down , the Gateway Solo 2300SE is our low cost winner. Ir scored exceptionally well in our perfor mance tests, and its good usability and nice pri ce make it the top choice fo r price/performance value. Additionally, its battery life spans 3:21 hours.
WEIGH IN
Gateway 2000 Solo 2300SE Micron Trans Port XKE Gateway 2000 Solo 91 OOXL Tatung TNB-5600 Compaq Armada 7730 MT NECVe r s a 6 0 6 0 Hitachi Vision Book Pro Sceptre Soundx4500 Empac Classic 5166 Acer/TlTravelMate 7060 Sony PCG-707C Toshiba Satellite Pro 460CDT WinBook FX P1 66 MMX CTX EzBook EZ 764MT Dig ital HiNote vp 575
***** **** Outstanding
Very Good
PRICE
$2599 $5399 $5699 $3195 $4399 $3199 $4499 $2695 $3500 $3999 $4499 $3899 $2999 $3233 $3999
*** Good
TECHNOLOGY
**** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****
**"'*"'*
***"'* **** **** **** **** ****
PRICE
***** ** ** *** ** *** ** **** ** **
**
*** *** *** ***
** Fair
* Poor
PERFORMANCE
**** ***** **** **** ***** ** *** *** ****
**
** **
**
*** ***
FEATURES
***** ***** ***** **** **** **** **** ** *** **** **** *** *** ** ***
USABILITY
**"'** ***** ***** *** **** *** **** ** **** **** **** *** *** ***
**
OVERALL RATING
**"*"* * **** **** **** **** **** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Result s chart shows just the 15 highest-rated machines.
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 1 09
Size Matters
Sony steers clear of shoulder-straining hell with its first laptop on the market, the thin and light PCG-705C. Skinny but not weak, it weighs 5.3 pounds and measures 1.5 inches thick. It sports a 166-MHz MMX pro cessor, a 2.1-GB hard drive, and a removable 14x CD-ROM drive that can be replaced with a floppy disk drive or a second battery.
Nice Touches
Compaq 's Arm ada MT is the Marth a Stewart of lapt op computers. None of the fine details have been overlooked in its design, including programmable
f unction keys and an ind icator light right
on the batte ry.
Graphics Diva
Less eyestrain is a good thing. Gateway kept this in mind when designing the Solo 9100XL, which has 4 MB of video memory and a 13.3-inch screen, capa ble of 1024 by 768 reso lution. Like a few others we tested, it uses a high-performing 128 bit graphics accelerator.
Battery Life Blues Battery life and power consumption are a hot issue concerning today's laptops.Though the 166-M Hz systems led the way in terms of bat· tery life, the 200· and 233-MHz laptops fell sho rt of expectations. Keep in mind that fac· tors such as screen lighting, hard disk, and memory strongly affect battery life. For exam· pie, something as simple as taking out half of your RAM can add 20 percent or more bat· tery life. Sacrificing powerful components for longer battery life, however, may not be an option for those who need a laptop that can double as a desktop.
The Performance Predicament Performance among the 166·, 200·, and 233-M Hz machines varied widely in our tests. However, some general trends did surface from the benchmark results:
· Stable drivers play an important factor in a system 's overall performance.
· Systems with faste r processors tend to be faster, but in so me cases, the difference is a very small margin.
· Systems with write-back cache tend to be faster.
·Systems with 512-KB cache tend to be faster.
·Unsurpri singly, 233-M Hz machines are typically faster than 200-M Hz machines.
"Tend to be " means "in general"; there are lots of counterexamples. Some systems are better desig ned than others. If we factor out the lower-performing Eurocom 7200 and Micro International 7200/mint from our tests, the 200-MHz and 233-M Hz machines score fairly well.
MMX Performance
DMMX · Total Perfonnance
6
4
2
0 233-MHz 200-MHz 166-MHz
Average MMX scores (scaled 1 -10) compared by CPU speed.
11 0 BYT E NOVEM BER 1997
e picked the best portables based on their usability, fea tures, performance, tech nology, and price, all on a scale of five stars. We rated the MMX notebooks by testing performance with a suite of application-based benchmarks (including Word, Excel and Access) and lntermark video-component bench marks. We tested these elements sepa rately and then formulated an overall score by assigning a weight to each ele ment . The Overall category score is weighted 60 percent for performance, 20 percent for features, 10 percent for usability, and 10 percent for price. We derived the performance rating by averaging the results from our per formance tests. First, we measured the system's performance during a series of MMX tests. The second test consisted of a software-based battery test, a Windows application that records the power status of a system once every minute.
Features
To determine features scores, we mea sured each unit's capabilities in a few key areas. Each vendor completes a lengthy questionnaire providing a detailed description of its system's features and support options. NSTL then weighs cer tain features and calculates an overall score. The features chart lists the speed of the processor and availability of sec ondary cache, the display technology used, and maximum internal resolu tion. Other features items we weigh for the overall score include 1/0 ports, graph ics and sound systems, fax/modem com munications, and power supplies.
Warranty and support policies are what frequently separate major system manufacturers from second- and third tier vendors. The length of the standard warranty is one of a system's most impor-
Evaluations in this report represent the judgment of BYTE editors, based on tests cond11oted by NITL, Inc., as documented in a recent iss11e of NSITs monthly PC Digest. To purchase a copy of the full report, contact NSTL at 625 Ridge Pike, Conshohocken, PA 19428; 610-941 -9600; fax 610-941 -9950; on the Internet, editors@ nstl.com. Fora s11bscription, ca/1800-257-9402. BYTE Magazine and NSTL are both operating units ofTh e McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
rant features. We also look for the avai l ability of on-site service, on-line support, and a toll-free help line.
Usability
For usability, we focus on two key areas: system design and documentation. We paid close attention to the quality of each
ety of cell ranges and calculate various addition, financial, and statistical func tions. The Word benchmark includes subtests that measure search-and-replace functions, changing fonts, scrolling by page and line, checking spelling, print previewing, and printing to a file. In addi tion, NSTL's lntermark subsystem-level
Best Bang for Your Buck
ES 2500 .-----------.....------------.------G-ate-wa-y S-olo-2-30-0SE-·- - - - - - - - - -
Sceptre undx 4500 ·
· Chem USA ChemBook 2600 I
Ill MicroExpress NP 7200 MMI
3000
Kiwi-OpenNote·78 ··
111-Wm ook·fX·Pl66·MM
Tatung TNB-5600
CTX EzBook El764MT Ill
3500 1-- -- - hmX'St Nole-SE·MMX· · - --t1· ·Empo<-Clmic-5166
Micro lntll 7200/mirt 233 ·
· Toshiba Salelite Pro 460COT
4000 1-- - - - -,· · ·· i!fote- · ·Sha!p
· Acer-Tl
P575
PC-9800CT
Trav~Mate 7060
· Sceptre Soundx 5500
, titude Xpi CD Ml66ST ·
· Compaq Armada MT
4500 t-- - - - - - 1 - - ffibdri ~Pro · -Ill S..,PCG-70l'C-- - + - - - - - ---1
· AMS Aicentia M166
Ill Eurocom 7200
NOR
6000 5
Ill NP Omn ook 5700 CTX
· Micron TransPortXKE · Ga ay Solo 9100Xl
7
Petformance/Usability/Features
keyboard, concentrating on keyboard placement. If a system offers a comfort able typing position, we award it extra points. Additionally, we rate the ease of use and placement of pointing devices. Top honors were given to systems with recognizable status indicators for low battery and hard disk access. We rate the manuals for their organization, diagrams, and index. Finally, we determine how easy it is to install batteries and upgrade system RAM.
Performance
For our performance tests, we use NSTL's applications-based suite, which consists of Microsoft Word, Excel , and Access. These tests portray real-world situations by running macros that execute common functions. For example , the Excel rest measures the time it takes to delete a vari-
Windows rests exercise the video/graph ics subsystems.
Since these systems use MMX proces sors, our rests measure multimedia per formance. An MMX test, provided by Intel, puts the systems through a gaunt let of multimedia tasks. The automated test suite includes some photo editing with Adobe Photo Deluxe, an Intel mul timedia video clip, an MPEG-1 video file, a Direct 30 game, and business photo manipulation with Adobe Photoshop. These are all common tasks that MMX technology is designed to enhance.
Our battery check consists of power consumption and battery-drain tests that are executed by Power Monitor, a simple Windows application that records the power status of a fully charged battery. Status is recorded until the system sus pends itself due to low battery power.
ww yte om
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 111
FEATURES
Acer America AMS Tech Chem USA
Compaq Computer CT X Intern ation al
Dell Computer Digital Equipment
Empac International
Eurocom Evere x Systems * Gateway 2000
Price as Tested (MSRP)
Overall Rating
Texas Instruments TravelMate 7060
TravelPro 2030CX
ChemBook 2600
$3999
$4595 $2729
****
**** ****
CPU Speed (MHz)
166
200 200
Hard Disk Capacity Formatted (in GB)
16-Bit Sound
2
3.1 2.1
Armada 7730MT
$4399 ****
166
2.1
EzBook EZ764MT $3233 ***
166
2
Latitude XPi CD
$4348 ***
166
2. 1
M166ST
Digital HiNote VP575
$3999 **
166
2.1
Empac Premium M2X
$3500 **** 166
2
Eurocom 7200 StepNoteS E Solo 2300S E
$4899 ***
233
3
$3499 ***
166
2.1
$2599 ***** 166
1.3
STANDARD FEATURES
Fax/ Modem
CD-ROM Drive
Keyboard/ Mouse Port
Video Memory (MB)
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Gateway 2000
Solo91 OOXL
$5699 **** 166
3
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Hitachi PC Hewlett-Packard Kiwi Computers MicroExpress Micro International * Micron
VisionBook Pro
HPOmniBook 5700CTX Kiwi OpenNote 7808 MicroExpress NP7200MMX 7200/mint TransPort XKE
$4499 **** 166
2. 1
$5400 ***
166
2.7.
$2999 **
16 6
2
$2799 **** 200
1.4
$3690 *** * 233
3
$5399
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Versa 6060
$3199 **** 166
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Sceptre Technologies Soundx 5500
$3695 ** ** 233
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$2695 **
166
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$3999 ***
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Sony PCG -707C
$4499 *** *
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Swap ....
2
Tatung Company of America
TNB-5600
$3195 * *** 166
1.4
....
v
Swap ....
2
Tos hiba America Information Systems
Satellite Pro 460CDT
$3899 ***
166
2
v
Swap
2
Win Book
Win Book FX P166MMX
$2999 ***
166
2.16
v
Option
2
bay
*
= BYTE Best V= yes;
N/A = not applicable.
11 2 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Warranty: P= parts ; L = labor; F=freight to repair center; R =return to customer.
* ****Outstanding * *Fair
****Very Good
*Poor
***Good
Internal AC Ada pt e r / Battery Cha rger
....
Type of Pointing Devi ce
Glide pad
DISPLAY
Displ ay M anufacturer/ Si z e (i n inch es)
M aximum Interna l Resoluti on
Hitachi/ 12. 1
800x600
Wa rranty
CUSTOMER SERVICE
To ll- Fr ee Phone Number
Phon e
On-Line Address
3/ P, L, F, R 800-733-223 7 408-432-6200 http://www.acer.com
Inquiry Number
1075
Glide pad Panasonic/ 13.3 1024x 768
3/P L
800-886-267 1 626-814-8851
http://www.amstech.com 1076
....
Glide pad Sharp/ 12.1
800x 600
1/ P, R ·
800-866 -2436 510-60 8-8818 http://www.chemusa.com 1077
3/ L, R
....
Pointer stick Compaq/ 12.1
800x 600
_ 3/P,, L, FR 800-345-1518 281-370-0670
http://www.compaq.com 1078
Glide pad Neomagic/ 12.1 800x 600
1/ P, L, R
800-888-9052 909-595-6146 http://www.ctxintl.com
1079
Trackb all
Samsung/12.1
800x 600
Tr ac kb all
LG / 12. 1
800x 600
Glide pad Goldstar/ 12.1
1024x 768
1/ P, L 3/P 1/ P, L
1/ P, L
800-388 -8542 512-338-4400 http://www.dell.com
1080
800-344-4825 508-493-51 11 800-938-8878 510-683-8800
htt p ://www.windows .digital.com
http ://www.empac .co m
108 1 1082
Glide pad Samsung/13.3
1024x 768
1/ P, L, R
None
613-224-6122 http://www.eurocom.ca
1083
Glide pad LG / 12. 1
800x 600
2/ P, L, R
800-821 -0806 510-498- 111 1 http://www.everex.com
1084
....
Gl ide pad Sanyo or
800x 600
1/ P, L
800-846-2000 605-232-2000 http://www.gateway2000 1085
Sharp/ 12.1
.com
....
Glide pad NEC 13.3
1024x 768
1/ P, L
800-846-2000 605-232-2000 http://www.gateway2000 1086
.com
....
Glide pad Hitachi/ 12.1
800x600
3/ P, L, F, R 800-555 -6820 408-32 1-5000 http://www. hitachipc.com 1087
Pointer stick Samsung or Hit achi/ 12 .1
1024x 768
3/ P, L, R
800-32 2- 1501 415-857- 1501
http://www.hp.com
1088
Glide pad
Goldstaror NEC/ 11.3
800x 600
3/ P, L, F, R None
408-492·9 188 http: //www.kiwicom.com 1089
....
Glide pad Hitachi/ 12.1
800x600
4/ P, L, R
800-9 89-9900 714-852 -1400 http://www.microexpress 1090
.net
....
Glide pad Samsung/ 13.3 1024x 768
1/ P, L, R
800-967-5667 281 -495-9096 http://www.pcmint.com
1091
....
Pointer sti ck Micron or
1024x 768
3/P, L, F, R 888 -634-8799 208-893 -3343
http ://www.micronpc.com 1092
glide pad Toshiba/13.3
Glide pad NEC/ 12.1
800x 600
3/ P, L, F,R 888-8 63-2669 508-264-8000
http ://www.nec computers.c om
1093
Glide pad IBM/ 13.3
1024x 768
1/ P, L, R
800-788-2878 626-369-3698 http://www.sceptretech.com 1094
Glide pad Mitsubish i/ 12.1 1024x 768
1/ P, L, R
800-788-2878 626-369-3698 http://www.sceptretech.com 1095
....
Glide pad Sharp/ 12.1
1024x 76 8
3/ P, L, F, R 800-237-4277 201-529-8200
http://www.sharp-usa.com 1096
....
Glide pad Sony/ 12.1
1024x 768
1/ P, L, F, R 800-476 -6972 94 1-768-7676
http://www.sony.com/pc 1097
....
Glide pad Hitachi/12.1
800x 600
2/ P, L
800-827-2850 310-637-2 105
http ://www. tat ungusa
1098
.com
....
Trackball
Proprietary/ 12.1 800x 600
3/ P, L
800-334-3445 01 1-352-460-433 http://computers.toshiba. 1099
com
Pointer stick Samsung/ 12.1 800x 600
1/ P, L, F, R 800-965-5 147 NIA
http://www.winbook.com 1100
N OV EMB E R 1 997 B YT E 113
Extend Your
Net with VPNs
Software
These virtual private network packages let you use the Internet as your own private WAN. By Morgan Stern
ave you ever tried to have a private conversation in a pub lic place? It's not easy. Have you ever listened in, inad vertently or intentionally, to someone else's private conversation? If so, you'll understand the increasing popularity of virtual private networks (VPNs). The Internet offers a great way to communicate, but it's not very good for transmitting secrets. You never know who's listening, and a well-placed pack et sniffer can compromise your confi dential communications. VPNs eliminate the hazards of con ducting private conversations in public networks by making your communica tions intelligible only to the person with whom you want to communicate. VPNs encrypt IP datagrams, use strong authen tication before allowing communication, and check data integrity to assure pack ets arrive at their destination unchanged. Organizations implementing VPNs leverage their relatively inexpensive Internet connections to build virtual WANs with secured access for off-site employees, remote offices and business partners. VPNs reduce the costs of build ing and maintaining internal dial-up infrastructures or more expensive point to-point WAN links.
The VPN Puzzle
VPN-enabled devices typically fit in at the network perimeter. These devices might link the network to individuals in a client to-LAN configuration, effectively extend ing the internal network out to the remote user, or they might connect to another VPN-enabled device, thereby creating a virtual, encrypted point-to-point link
between two separate networks. LAN-to-LAN VPNs hide functions like
data encryption from end users. The devices on the LAN at the remote end of the VPN link app ea r to be part of the corporate network: The VPN operates entirely transparently to the user. Client to-client VP s, on the other hand, employ so ftware (on a workstation) that intercepts all ne twork traffic des tined for a VPN-linked host and adds the necessary encryption elements. End users communicate securely with hosts run-
BEST ··
Aventail VPN 2.5 Aventail offers the best combination
of encryption, authentication methods, and
end-user ease of use. Its ability
to provide additional content filters on a
service-by-service basis is a particularly
useful feature that most of the other
products currently lack.
ning compatible VPN software without affecting access to non-VPN hosts.
A VPN requires three functions: en cryption, authentication, and data integrity. Typically each VPN node uses a secret session key and an agreed upon encryption algorithm to encode and de code sessi on data, exchanging session keys at the start of each link using public key encryption. VPN nodes also must confirm that the entity at the other end of the connection is who they say they are . Most VPNs use public key authenti cation methods to validate each end of the connection; some may additionally
require the end user to supply an account name and password. Finally, both end points of a VPN link check data integrity, usually using a cryptographic hash or digest function such as Message Digest 5 (MD5) or Secure H ash Algorithm 1 (SHA 1). MD5 is a public-domain standard for generating 128-bit cryptographic check sums. SHA-1 is a hashing function for gen erating 160-bit cryptographic checksums. Developed as part of the Digital Signa ture Standard (DSS) by the U.S. Depart ment of Commerce and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, SHA-1 performs an advanced form of a checksum on all data received.
Testing Testing 1, 2, 3
For this report, we selected 10 VPN prod ucts. They reflect three different ap proaches to VPN implementation. In addition to four stand-alone VPN prod ucts, we tested four firewall servers with VPN features and two packages that inte grate VPN functions into network and operating system-level products.
Most of the products combine a vari ety of encryption methods, algorithms, and key lengths, so developing a consis tent testing methodology that could pro duce meaningful results was impossible. I tested for overall security, ease of use, manageability, and interoperability, with particular attention to individual securi ty elements, such as supported encryp tion schemes, key length, authentication methods, and data integrity support.
Aventail VPN currently offers the best combination of supported standards, management features, and ease of use. Impressively versatile, it makes creative use of the SOCKS protocol (frequently
11 4 BYTE NOVEMBER 19 97
' You can view tunnel definitions and
,
' activity through AltaVista's Tunnel ' Manager administration utility.
~~ml!IE!lll!mllm!ll!ml········~liiila'"·The Aventail Administration
Tool provides modular support for a wide variety of authentica tion and encryption options.
, A Java-capable
+Tumel Nome
MGS Connection
MGS Connection 2
' '
X test tunnel
teal tunnel
,
+f~1~~:::::~~~::::::~-=t~u~i!ig:::-~:~~=::==:~P.-··!·~-·-!-~-!-~-:-·~~!!~~·"······lll····lllll!lllii~~~~
Web browser is all
you need to configurea VPN with Secure Computing's
BorderWare fire·
wall server.
r.;;:;"'"".....- -L_:;_ ;
;
Check Point's FireWall-1 can encrypt on a p r o t o c o l · by protocol basis and supports multiple encryption methods.
Data Fellows'
F-Secure Virtual
Private Network
includes a handy
graphical VPN
creation utility.
,'
To configure a VPN ;
connection with FTP
Software's Secure
Client,just add the IP
address of the remote
host along with basic
encryption information.
N·\Nolk' IP Address& Mlldt
Ne"'1olk ll 11 me
j1eo ......
Ntlwork IP Address& M·sk j202 natair.olk
' Trusted Information Systems' Gauntlet 4.0 supports trusted, private, and pass-through VPN services through its Java-based administration tool.
Hota : Th· followlno lnfo1m.1tion Is not reoulrad for Pnsthrouoh Llnlcs
While their operation is mostly transparent, VPNs all need configuration and administration interfaces.
used by proxy firewalls) as its primary VPN mechanism. Two other products rank highly: Check Point's FireWall-1 and Rap tor Systems' Eagle NT. Both add an extra level of security by integrating VPN fea tures with firewall functionality, so you can provide varying levels of controlled access to VPN users once they've been authenticated.
Vendors define the term "VPN" very broadly; each product reviewed here offers some kind of VPN functionality, but each implementation is also unique. Almost every product solves at least one problem better than the others. For exam ple, Data Fellows' F-Secure Virtual Private Network 1.1 works for multinational
organizations looking for the highest encryption options available to connect multiple networks, while products like FTP Software's Secure Client and Sun Microsystems' SunScreen SKIP shine at client-to-client communications. Firewall based products, like FireWall-1, Eagle NT, and BorderWare, help corporations that must combine VPN versatility with the security of a firewall .
The VPN product category is still in its early stages. Only five of the products would interoperate for me: the firewalls, FireWall-1, BorderWare, and Eagle NT, and two clients, FTP Secure Client and SunScreen SKIP. Properly configuring them to work together is not for the faint
of heart. As protocols such as the IPSec family become officially standardized, and as VPN vendors implement them, expect true interoperability to become a core fea ture of all VPN software. For now, plan to stick with a single vendor to ensure VPN compatibility-organizations planning to establish VPNs with business partners must choose carefully.
Altavista Tunnel 97
AltaVista Tunnel 97, a dedicated VPN, sup ports tunneled LAN-to-LAN (available through the Workgroup edition) or client to-LAN (with the Personal Edition) con nections. Managing keys with the includ ed Tunnel Manager application is more
www.byte.com
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 11 5
Softw are Lab Report Extend Your Net with VPNs
Alta Vista Tunnel97
VPN FEATURES
Supports LAN-to-LAN
I/
Supports client-to-LAN
I/
Supports client-to-client
Supports PPTP
Supports compression
IP payloads
I/
IPX/NetBEUI payloads
Supports IPv6 carrier
Supports IPSec (rfc 1825)
Supports SKIP key management
Other key management
I/
Supports multiple tunnels
I/
from single server
Supports multiple tunnels from single client
ENCRYPTION FEATURES
RSA
I/
DES
Tripl e- D E S
IDEA
Blowfish
RC2
RC4
I/
Diffie-Hellman
MD4
MD5
I/
SHA-1
Full strength available for
unlimited export
Supports automatic key
I/
exchange during session
Does it support encryption on
a service-by-service basis?
MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION
Manage access levels by group
SN MP-manageable
Remote manage via HTTP
Remote manage via Java
Remote manage via other
Directory support for LDAP
Directory support for NOS
Other directory support
Includes client software
Client/server support:
Windows3 .x
W indows95
c
Windows NT
C/S
Solaris
BSD
Other Unix
s
AUTHENTICATION FEATURES CHAP/ PAP
RSA
I/
RADIUS
S/Key
SecurlD
Other token authentication
SSL
Does it support filters?
Is user auth enticated by IP address?
Aven t ail VPN2 .5
*
I/ I/
I/
I/ I/
I/ I/
I/
FEATURES
Check Point FireWall-1 3.0a
Data Fellows F·Secure Virtual Private Network 1.1
FTP Software Secure Client 3.0
Microsoft Routing and Remote Access Service
I/
I/
I/
I/ I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
Raptor Eagle NT4.0
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/ I/
"I/
I/ I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
"
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/ I/
I/
Bindery on ly
A
B
I/
I/
c
c
c
c
C/S
C/S
C/S
s
C/S
s
C/S
s
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I,,/.
,,.
,,.
,,.
I/ I/
I/
I/
A
B
I/
c
c
c
C/S
C/S
s
s
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
I/
,,.
I/
* = BYTEBes1
l/= Yes
A= NT Domain directory support
B=directory file import support . C=client support
S= server support
1 1 6 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Secure Computing BorderWare Fi rewall Server4.1
Sun Microsystems Sun Screen SKIP1.1
TIS Gauntlet 4.0
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
c
c
s
s
s
s
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
Exte n d Yo ur N et w it h VP Ns S o ftw a re L a b Report
intuitive than with many of the other products reviewed, and the ability to control how much of the internal network to make availab le to VPN users is a very useful feature . A setup wizard and wellorganized administrator's guide simplify installation, but compared to the other products reviewed, Tunnel' s narrower encryption support and less flexible implementation reduce its appeal. Tunnel 97 is a good product hobb led by relatively Jimired capabilities and feature set.
Aventail VPN 2.5
Aventail has taken a different approach to creating a VPN product, and the results seem unusual at first. Aventail impressed me with its flexibility, extensive support for encryption methods, and array of authentication options. Unlike other VPN products that tunnel encrypted packets, Aventail imp lemented a reverse SOCKS proxy gateway to provide VPN capabili ties and encryption functions at the session layer. Encryption and authentication can be controlled on a service-by-service level, and additiona l fi lters can be employed to limit user access or protect them from potentia ll y hosti le Java code or ActiveX components.
Authentication and encryption methods are implemented as software modules, so adding new standards as they evolve should be as easy as installing a new module. Administrators can exercise as much (or as little) control as they want over their VPN users. With its multiple authentication and subauthentication options, and multiple platform support for both servers and clients, Aventail is extremely versatile.
Check Point FireWall -1 3.oa
Check Point extends FireWall-1, one of the most popular firewa ll servers on the market, to include support for both LAN-toLAN and client-to-LAN VPNs. Similar to Eagle NT, FireWall-1 lets administrators create VPN connections with unrestricted network protocol access, or they can ereate VPNs with an extra level of security by enabling the firewa ll to restrict or permit certain types of traffic. Adding traffic restrictions on VPN links, limiting the type of application that can be run, makes sense when connecting to business partners.
Configuring a FireWall-1 VPN is complicated, but it is also much more flexible than most and supports a wider variety of encryption and authentication options. For organizations that already use Fire-
Wall-1 as their firewall server, adding VPN functionality is a no-brainer.
Data Fellows F- Secure Virtual Private Network 1.1
Developed in Finland, F-Secure VPN boasts freedom from any export restric tions, which means that international organizations are free to implement a fu ll strength version at all their locations. Its graphical VPN configuration design utili ty let me create our VPN definition with drag-and-drop simplicity. However, FSecure supports on ly LAN-to-LAN VPNs, and each endpoint network requires a dedicated VPN server, based on a strippeddown NetBSD kerne l with limited hardware support. Undocumented configu ration parameters that were needed to get the software to work with our 3Com network cards hampered installation.
FTP Software Secure Client 3.0
FTP's Secure Client offers VPN functionality as a component of a full-featured Windows 95 TCP/IP client implementation, unlike the other VPNs. Secure Client replaces Microsoft's IP stack and supports both IPSec and SOCKS security. Its ability to interoperate with other VPN products is impressive, as is its client-to-client communication encryption function. Howev er, with security features limited to client communications, Secure Client scores poorly compared to products offering both client and LAN VPN capabilities. As a standalone product, Secure Client might not meet all your VPN needs, but it could fit in nicely if used with other products.
Trusted Information Systems Gauntlet 4. 0
Gauntlet 4.0, from Trusted Information Systems, a lso incorporates VPN func tions into an existing firewall framework, supporting three types of VPN configurations: private, trusted, and passthrough. Private links provide secure communications, with the added safeguard of forc ing all communications to be eval uated by the firewall ru les. Trusted links provide fu ll , unlim ited access between VPN sites. Pass-through mode lets you implement a third-party VPN product in addition to Gauntlet. You configure Gauntlet at the server console or through a Java-based management applet.
Gauntlet4.0's extensive support for different authentication modes provides a
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 1 1 7
Software Lab Report Extend Your Net with VPNs
RATING
BEST OVERALL Aventail VPN 2.5 Aventail's extensive VPN features give it an edge over some close competition.
RESULTS!
TECHNOLOGY
Aventa ii VPN 2.5
Check Point FireWall-1 3.0a
Microsoft Routing and Remote Access Service
Raptor Systems Eag le NT 4.0
Secure Computing BorderWare Firewall Server4.1
Sun Microsystems SunScreen SKIP 1.1
Trusted Information Systems Gauntlet4.0
AltaVista Tunnel 97
Data Fellows F-Secure Virtual Private Network 1.1
FTP Software Secure Client 3 .0
**** **** ***
**** ****
***
***
** ***
***
*****Outstanding **** Very Good ***Good
VPN FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS
**** **** ** **** ***
*** ***
**
** **
**Fair *Poor
IMPLEMENTATION
**** **** *** **** ***
*** ***
****
** **
EASE OF USE
**** *** ***
*** **
**
***
*** **
**
OVERALL RATING
**** **** ***
*** ***
***
***
** **
**
secondary leve l of security. In a private VPN scenario, users can first authenticate to the VPN server, then use an authentica tion token such as SecurID to access indi vidual servers or services. VPN su pport is currently avai lab le only in the Unix ver
sion of Gaun tlet; the NT version is slated to have VPN support soon.
Microsoft Routing and Remote Access Service
Routing and Remote Access Service (see "Software-O nly Routing for NT," Sep tember BYTE) offers VPN func ti onality through Microsoft's Point-to-Point Tun neling Protocol (PPTP) . RRAS can do 128bit encryption. It can authenti cate only through NT's d irectory service or through Remote Au thenticati on Dial-In User Ser vice (RADIUS). Overall security wou ld benefit from the addition of some form of certificate auth entication on the cli ent end. H owever, RRAS's availability as a free download makes it an attractive option for budget-con sc ious organizat ions w ith modest security requirements. In addi tio n, RRAS offers enhanced multiprotoco l ro uting and dial- up supp ort for remote users, and it's easy to set up.
Raptor Eagle NT 4.0
Raptor's Eagle NT firewall/VPN combo scored well thanks to its support for mu!-
tiple encryption and authentication schemes, as well as its ability to selective ly control access to internal resources through the firewall access rules. I was also
SECURITY
Grab Your SOCKS
Most software VPN products use one of two methods for providing data security. Either they encrypt entire IP packets and "tunnel" them within plain packets, or they encrypt only the data portion of the packet and include clues for how to decrypt the data. Aventail VPN, however, takes a totally different approach: using SOCKS to provide both encryption and access control.
SOCKS, a security technology, uses circuit-level proxies to relay information between net works. All traffic destined for a remote network must be transmitted to a SOCKS server via the SOCKS protocol. The server then establishes a proxy connection to the requested resource and returns the data to the original requester. No traffic ever passes directly between the two networks.
One of the traditional disadvantages of SOCKS has been that every client that wanted to access the SOCKS server had to use specially modified applications (the term for modifying an application is known as "socksifying"). Companies like Aventail avoid the socksification requirement by creating a specialized Winsock as part of their AutoSOCKS client. The AutoSOCKS Winsock.dll works with any Winsock-compliant application, so software such as Web browsers or FTP clients can work without modification.
The latest version of SOCKS, version 5, includes a number of enhancements over previous renditions, such as support for multiple authentication, encryption, and message integrity functions, as well as support for UDP packets.
11 8 BYTE NOVEMBER 19 9 7
Extend Your Net with VPNs Software Lab Report
The Harder Side of VPNs
All the VPN products reviewed here are software-based, but hardware based VPN solutions are also increasingly popular. Many router compa nies,such as Cisco and Bay Networks, are offering VPN function ality within their routers and dial-up access products.Cisco introduced Layer 2Forwarding (L2F), a tunneling protocol similar to Microsoft's Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP), while Bay offers its BayStream IPVirtual Circuit technology.
With either of these product lines, users connect to the dial-up or LAN based router using standard utilities, such as Windows 95 dial-up network ing.All encryption functions are handledby the router, which establishes the virtual connection with therouter at thedestination network.Once end users have been authenticated, they may be totally unaware that they are con necting to their resources through an encrypted channel.
VPN functions, particularly encryption, tend to be computation-inten sive,so another class of hardware-based VPN deviceshas emergedt hat offers faster overall encryption performance.Products such as the VSU-1000, from VPN et Technologies, connect directly to the network to provide authenti cation, encryption, and compression services for both client-to-LAN and LAN-to-LAN VPN sessions.
Because the encryption code is contained within hardware,th ese devices have the ability to manage more sessionsat higher bandwidth levelsthan their software counterparts. Radguard'sc!Pro (slated to beavailablein Octo ber) is asecond-generation VPN product that supports IPSEC standardsfor Layer 3 encryption. Radguard claims clPro can encrypt IP packets at band width speedfor as many as 1000 concurrent users.
impressed with its monitoring and logging capabil iti es, th ough Eagle NT suffered fr om some minor glitches during testing. For example, it allowed only dial-up VPN sessions fr om a LAN workstation running Windows 95 version OSR2; other versions of Windows worked fi ne.
BorderWare Firewall Server 4.1
Configuring the BorderWare Firewall server fo r VPN sessions is extremely easy thanks to its Java-based re mote adminis tration utility and simplified setup menu. Configurin g the server hardware itself, however, is not so easy. Like F-Secure, Bor derWare is based on a stripped-down Unix
kernel, so hardware supp ort is more lim ited than fo r the other pro ducts. Once we got all the ri ght pieces together, installing the software was not a pro blem. Border Ware's combination of firewa ll and VPN fun cti onality is a plus because it gives you the ability to defin e varying levels of access for VPN clients.
Sunscreen SKIP
Like FTP's Secu re Client, SunScreen SKIP is a client-based package .It works on Win d ows95 or Solaris 2.5 .x computers and installs as a virtual network interface, so it can be managed through the Control Pan el in the W in 95 version. SunScreen SKIP supp o rts t h e SKIP key m a nage m ent
PRODUCT INFORMATION
AltaVista Tunnel 97
Workgroup version from $995; Personal version from $99 AltaVista Internet Software, Digital Equipment Corp. Littleton, MA 508-486-2308 fax : 508-486-2017 h t t p : / / w w w.altavista .software .digital.com Enter 1052 on Inquiry Card.
Aventail VPN 2.5
Server, $4995; client, $65 Aventail Seattle, WA 206-777-5600 fax:206-777-5656 h t t p : / / w w w.aventail .com Enter 1053 on Inquiry Card.
BorderWare Firewall Server 4.1
$4000-$13,000 Secure Computing Roseville, MN 612-628-2700 fax: 612-628-2701 http://www.securecomputing.com Enter 1059 on Inquiry Card.
Check Point FireWall-1 3.0a
$4995, 50 users; $18,995,
unlimited users Check Point Software Technologies Redwood City, CA 650-482- 4900 fax: 650-562-0410 http://www.checkpoint.com Enter 1054 on Inquiry Card.
Eagle4.0
from $6500 Raptor Systems Waltham, MA 800-9-EAGLE-6 781-487-7700 fax: 781-487-6755 http://www.raptor.com Enter 1058 on Inquiry Card.
F-Secure Virtual Private Network 1.1
$4995 (includes2 servers) Data Fellows San Jose, CA 408-938-6700 fax: 408-938-6701 http://www.datafellows.com Enter 1055 on Inquiry Card.
Gauntlet 4.0
from $5000 Trusted Information Systems Rockville, MD
301-527-9500 fax: 301-527-0482 http://www.tis.com Enter 1061 on Inquiry Card.
Routing and Remote Access Service
free download Microsoft Redmond, WA 206-882-8080 fax:206-936-7329 http://www.microsoft.com Enter 1057 on Inquiry Card.
Secure Client 3.0
$300 (single unit) FTP Software Andover, MA 800-282-4387 508-685-3300 fax: 508-794-4488 h t t p ://www.ftp.com Enter 1056 on Inquiry Card.
Sunscreen SKIP 1.1
$99-$149 Sun Microsystems Palo Alto, CA 800-786-3463 972-788-3150 h t t p ://www.sun.com Enter 1060 on Inquiry Card.
scheme, so you'll be ab le to establish se cure connections w ithout the hassle asso ciated with man ually exchanging encryp tion keys. One of the more attracti ve features of SKIP-not fo und in some of the tun nel-based pro du cts-lets yo u defin e secure and nonsecure hosts, and all traf fi c between your workstation an d those hosts will be encrypted accordingly. Over all, SunScreen is easy to work with ; how ever, it does lack the fu ll feature set of serv er-based products.
Digging Your Own Holes
Choosing the right VPN product for yo ur organi za tion re qu ires carefu l t ho ught about your requirements. Client-to-client encryption pro ducts, like those fro m FTP Softw are and Sun, might be best for decen tralized organizations or those with many mobile users. Internatio nal corporations might prefer Data Fellows' F-Secure VPN because of its fu ll-strength cryptography and no export controls.
The pro ducts that scored best in o ur testing-Aventail VPN, Check Point Fire Wall- 1, and Eagle Raptor NT-did well because each offers a good co mbination of encryption and authentication options, along with supp ort for both LAN-to-LAN and client-to-LAN VPN connections. They proved to be the most versatile and easy to use of all the produ cts in this roundu p.
H owever, VPN software is a rapidly pro gressing product category, and many of the technical obstacles I encountered, such as lack of product interoperability, will fa de as o pen stand ards for sec urity evo lve. Lo ok for big changes in the next revisions of all of these products. liJ
Morgan Stern (morganst@world.std.com) is a network consultan t and coauthor of NT Enterprise Network Design (Sybex, 1997).
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Comparison
End-user cryptography tools mature as standards evolve and inter(aces improve. By Pete Loshin
Cryptography Gets Personal
· · ·· ith Internet security issues in the headlines, software ven dors are answering the call with a variety of personal en
cryption products. Some, like Symantec's Norton Your Eyes Only (YEO) for Win dows 95 and RSA's SecurPC 2.0, secure files and directories with proprietary architectures on your desktop. Others, such as the offerings from Netscape and Microsoft, bundle S/MIME secure e-mail functions into Internet clients for e-mail encryption and digital signatures. In be tween, Entrust/Solo from Entrust Tech nologies offers a minimalist point of en try for individuals into Entrust's open security architecture, while Pretty Good Privacy 's PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 combines e-mail and desktop security with a "web of trust" certificate model (see "Who Goes There?," June BYTE).
In my tests of ease of use, function ality, and interoperability, PGP led the pack with its comprehensive personal security solution. No one package aced the interoperability test: While PGP hews to its own de facto standard, the S/MIME clients fared unevenly when dealing with standard key and certificate formats. En trust/So lo accepted only Entrust certif icates . YEO does public-key encryption, but with a proprietary architecture, so only YEO keys will work. SecurPC does only symmetric encryption and cannot yet handl e X.509 certificates. SecurPC, YEO, and Entrust/Solo do secure e-mail only as attached encrypted fi les, while Netscape's Communicator Suite and Mi crosoft's Internet Explorer (IE) 4.0/0ut look combination can exchange encrypt ed or signed e-mail-but it can't encrypt
files.
e
PRETTY GOOD PRIVACY
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trust sells enterprise security tools for building certification authorities (CAs) and clients for using the certificates.
Solo encrypts or decrypts and signs or
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* * * *
* * * * IMPLEMENTATION
This message will be digite
verifies signed files using Entrust-format public keys and file formats only. You can compress encrypted files and drag direc tory hierarchies into encrypted archive
RATINGS
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* * IMPLEMENTATION
NETSCAPE COMMUNICATOR
Your Certificates
Security Info ~ Navigator Messenger
You can use any ofthese certi&cales to iderdify yourself'to other people and to web siles. Communicator uses your certi&cates to decrypt information sent to you. Your certi&cates are signed by the organization that issued them
These are yolD' cerlif"icates:
Java/JavaScript Certificates
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Thurston Howell's VeriSign, Inc. 10
Entrust/Solo
Aspin-off of Nortel, Entrust has a Cana dian location that permits it to export cryptography with minimal limits. En-
files, do a secure delete, or administer your own or others' Entrust-formatted keys. Solo uses the RSA public-key-encryption algorithm, although other (higher-priced)
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***** Outstanding
****Very Good *** Good ** Fair *Poor
NOVEMBER 1 997 BYTE 121
Review Cryptography Gets Personal
Entrust clients can add Directory Server Agent (DSA) support. Support for stream ciphers, used to encrypt the actual files, in cludes DES, Triple-DES, and three strengths (64-, 80-, and 128-bit keys) of CAST, a pat ented encryption algorithm that's owned by Entrust (but with a free version avail able for both commercial and noncom mercial use) .
Solo offers an easy entry point for se cure communications with Entrust orga nizations. Solo runs on Windows 95 on ly; other Entrust clients work on the Mac, Unix, and Windows 3.x.
Microsoft Outlook/IE 4.0
NORTON YOUR EYES ONLY
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Norton Your Eyes Only
Symantec's Norton YEO for Windows 95 encrypts data so transparently that at first
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* * * * * *
Microsoft's IE 4.0 (see "Microsoft's Free Lunch Browser,"June BYTE), Outlook, and Outlook Express are all more-than adequate clients for most uses. To catch up with Netscape's S/MIME-based secure e mail function, Microsoft added S/MIME supp ort for digital signatures and public key encryption of e-mail sent and received among Outlook clients.
Unlike stand-alone solutions, the Mi crosoft and Netscape products both need a CA, such as Verisign or Thawte, to issue you an X.509 certificate that lives in the client software. Once you get the certifi cate, you must load it into your Outlook e-mail account properties before you can do any cryptography. Microsoft's S/MIME implementation may not win prizes or solve all security needs, but it makes the IE 4.0/0utlook combination competitive with Netscape's Communicator.
ENTRUST/SOLO
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I thought it wasn't working. When you log on to YEO, you get access to all files encrypted in place, as well as to any files stored in auto-encrypt directories, but ac -
RATINGS
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RSASECURPC
Encryption lriformation=='==;=;::;;:i::=:::;;::;;:::::======"n .C:\WINDOWS\DESKTOP
Netscape Communicator
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Netscape created Internet client cryptog raphy, building Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) into Navigator 1.0. This year, S/MIME e mail made its way into Navigator and Mes senger in the Communicator suite.
Communicator makes it look easy: You just click on the Security menu-bar option for easy access to all security (including SI MIME) functions.You manage certificates and toggle the defaults for encryption and digital signatures on your e-mail and news postings, although you can modify the default for some messages by clicking on the Message Sending Options in Commu nicator's Composition application. Net scape did a better job of implementing S/ MIME than Microsoft did, while support ing the same features. As tested, neither solves all your crypto needs, but both can do what they claim: S/ MIME e-mail en cryption and digital signatures.
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cess is seamless throughout. I had to copy an encrypted file to disk and open it on another PC to be sure it was encrypted.
If you don't log onto YEO on boot-up, you can access unencrypted data on the system, but yo u must reboot to get to en crypted data. YEO does clever things with its desktop integration, including figuring out which file a shortcut icon points to and encrypting it instead of the shortcut.
Like Entrust/Solo, YEO can encrypt and digitally sign e-mail-but only as a file at tachment. YEO will not interoperate with any other encryption program and can't import standard certificates or keys (al though a companion product, Norton Your Eyes Only Administrator, offers cen-
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* * * *
tral key distribution and master access to YEO-protected desktops or data).
YEO uses the RSA public-key algorithm and offers a choice of data-encryption al gorithms, including RC4, RCS, and DES. YEO can protect your desktop data, but lack of interoperability keeps it out of the running as an all-around crypto tool.
PCP for Personal Privacy 5.0
I enjoyed using PGP with the same sense of unease with which I enjoy sushi: There's
122 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
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Review Cryptography Gets Personal
Crypto-Tool Features
Entrust/ Solo
RSA SecurPC
Norton Your Eyes Only
Pretty Good Privacy
Microsoft Internet clients
Netscape Communicator
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= BYTEBest. A= byattaching encrypted files to e-mail. ti = yes. * = interoperable only with oth er Entrust clients and throug h Entru st server products.
always a nagging sense that it's bad for me in t he long run . With plug- ins for Qua l comrn's Eudora and M icrosoft's O utlook e-mail clients (and Netscape Messe nger and Lotus cc:Mail plug-ins are coming soon), PGP is a click away at all times.Wi th a key-management too l, you can go look for someone's PGP key or just grab it out of e-mail with the plug-in. PGP's desktop integrati on enables yo u to encrypt and/or sign any fi le or decrypt and /or verify any PCP-encrypted file; the clipboard integra
tion does the same for cut chunks of files. So what makes me uneasy? It's the stan
dards . Even though PGP has millions of users, because $/MIME is bund led increas ingly visibly in M icrosoft Internet clients and in Netscape's WebPass ID (rolled out wit h CA Ver isign ), PGP's ins tall ed base looks migh ty small. H owever, with stan dards decisio ns still up in the air, PGP's compre hensive a nd easy- to- use imp le mentation puts it head and shoulders over the other pro ducts, and its availability out
STANDARDS
Cryptographic Standards Meet the Internet-Head-On
When is a standard not a standard? Perhaps when it's a proposed Internet standard that uses proprietary technology. When (at the end of August) RSA's S/MIME (Secure/MIME) propos al got what seemed to be a brush-off from key players atthe IETF, PGP rushed to take advan tage and propose a new specification for secure e-mail based in part on the Pretty Good Pri vacy "web of trust" model, where certificates gain authority by being signed by people you know. Called OpenPGP, the standard would also permit a hierarchical approach to accommo date certification authorities (CAs}, X.509 certificates, and other already-accepted standards.
S/MIME's backers, accused of foot-dragging, saw their baby apparently consigned to the bit bucket by an onslaught of negative press-until IETF officials relented on the terms they would require from RSA before considering S/MIME. RSA is meeting these terms, including making freely available its proprietary algorithms for use in S/MIME implementations. S/ MIME's reliance on U.S.-exportable (i.e., 40-bit) keys for encryption still troubles opponents. The weak keys represent a compromise to turn S/MIME into a global solution, but this ap proach could backfire, since U.S. and foreign users alike might ultimately reject such break able encryption. This is particularly true if a stronger solution is available-something like PGP, as PGP officials are happy to point out. However, with Microsoft, Netscape, and many other vendors standing behind their support for S/MIME, by next year it may very well replace PGP as the de facto standard for secure e-mail, no matter what the IETF does.
side the U.S. makes it an ideal choice for th ose who prefer stronger international protection but don' t fee l comfortable go ing for one of Entrust's heavier clients.
RSA SecurPC 2.0
T he o d dest t hi ng abo ut SecurPC, from RSA, is its relative lack of public-key cryp tography. Other than p ublic-key encryp tion of user keys, SecurPC does nothing but symmetric encryption : no signing of files, and no encrypting a fi le with some one else's public key. SecurPC recently won approval for ex port of its full- strength encryption, maki ng it attractive for inter national use. Otherwise, it functions like YEO, with encrypt fi les and directories, boot protection, screen lockout, and se cure deletes.
SecurPC is activa ted only wh en yo u right-click on a fil e. One big feature is a self-ex tracting encrypted fi le, which can be decrypted by anyone with the secret key yo u select, making it possible to at least e mail encrypted attachments to recipients who don't have SecurPC. Like YEO, Secur PC should suffice for simple desktop pro tection, but its lack of supp ort for digital signatures and interop erability limits its usefuln ess as a stand-alone solution. liJ
Pete Loshin is a BYTE technical editor for soft ware reviews and author of the forthcom ing book Personal Encryp tion Clearly Explained (AP Professional, 1998). You can reach him at ploshin@mcgraw-hill.com .
124 BY TE NO VEMBER 1997
Web Servers
Although there's plenty of cheaper competition, these two Web servers are more capable and dependable than ever. By Barry Nance
Battle of the Network Superservers
etscape and Microsoft are lusting for your Web-server business in a dense market place crammed with over 200 other competitors. Moreover, the cur rent market leader, Apache, doesn't cost a dime. Should you plunk down cold hard cash for Netscape's SuiteSpot or Micro soft's Internet Information Server (IIS)? If so, which one? A year ago, comparing Netscape's and Microsoft's Web server suites was easy Netscape's product was feature-rich, ran on multiple platforms, and was almost as fast as !IS 3.0. But IIS 4.0, which was in final beta form during this review, has pulled even with SuiteSpot 3.0 in many areas and surpassed it in others. I evaluated IIS 4.0 and SuiteSpot 3.0 on an intranet consisting of Pentium Pro based NT Server 4.0 machines, an Ether net LAN running TCP/IP, and a variety of clients (Windows NT, Windows 95, OS/2 Warp, and Macintosh System 7). I compared features, performance, ease of administration, reliability, and suitability for running (or developing) transaction oriented business applications. SuiteSpot proved to have a better mes saging server, streaming audio server, and groupware server. However, IIS showed a slightly better search engine, a better transaction-oriented business application environment, and more-effective admin istrative tools. A forthcoming Microsoft proxy server also proved to be superior to Netscape's. IIS is a part of Windows NT Server, while SuiteSpot is a separate product. Each contains a different mix of software components. To compare similar func tions across both, I arbitrarily added Mi crosoft's NetShow (freeware) and Proxy Server (beta version) to the evaluation. As this article went to press, Microsoft wasn't sure whether it would bundle Proxy Server with NT Server.
Index Server
Content and Property Query
Document Author Resniction
Enter your query below:
Isales forecast:_ _ _
I Execute QuerJ1 ....__c_1e_a_r__,
Tips for searching Where the document author is IAle~
ADVANTAGES
+ Good proxy and transaction servers;
well suited for business applications
+ Capable, quick, versatile search engine
DISADVANTAGES - Runs only on Windows NT Server - Awkward audio and video integration
Microsoft's IIS 4.0 is a significant up grade over its predecessor. Version 4.0 makes Active Server Page (ASP)-based applications even easier to create and manage. IIS's debugger for testing ASP pages, the Microsoft Man age ment Con sole (MMC) interface, and Transaction Server all simplify the management of ASP-based applications. Web pages pro duced from ASP scripts can now be part of a transactional system, which helps en sure data integrity.
IIS is the first product to use MMC, which will be standard in Windows NT 5.0. MMC gave me greater control over Web server settings than Netscape's tools did, and I liked being able to set proper ties such as access controls with a simple
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mouse-click. The basic IIS logging func tion now supports the W3C Extended Logging standard, so administrators can capture just the data they want.
Management of secure transactions remains a highlight ofIIS, allowing busi nesses to easily secure Web pages and di rectories. You see files, directories, and ap plications in an Explorer-like interface and can view properties simply by right clicking. Configuring rights and secu rity settings was child's play. In addition, when I ran several Web sites on one serv er, I could specify how much server band width to give to each site.
One item often overlooked in evalu ating IIS is that, in contrast to Netscape's Internet-oriented servers, NT Server can be both a file server and a Web server at the same time. Referring to a remote drive letter and printing to a shared print er haven't yet gone out of style.
IIS4.0, which complies with HTTP 1.1, has a certificate server for creating and
***** Outstanding
** * ****Very Good ***Good
Fair
Poor
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 125
Review Battle of the Network Superservers
managing digital certificates. It also comes with a search engine, a news server, Micro soft Transaction Server, and SiteServer Ex press (stripped-down log- and site-analy sis tools for Web-site managers).
The new certificate server made it easy to create and distribute small numbers of digital certificates. It's appropriate for small companies or departments but needs more sophisticated management tools to maintain large numbers of certificates.
Microsoft's new Web server has a num ber of new features that should make it a
er as a router that would dial the ISP each time a client accessed a remote site.
The Index Server component ofl!S test ed slightly better than Netscape's Com pass Server. While neither is as well en dowed as, say, Infoseek's Ultraseek Server search engine, both provided basic, useful search tools for locating information on the test intranet.
I especially liked IIS's ab ility to handle different document types, its programma bility, and its ease of administration. Index Server succe ssfully indexed Office 97 (Ex-
Activate Profiler Now
Mail undelivered newsletters to: HyCompass e.g. nsuser@ndahost (My Compass
J
more stable ap plication server. I could run programs as processes in address spaces separate from those of the Web server. This means a badly behaved app lication is less likely to crash the Web server.
Proxy Server 2.0, despite its bias toward Windows clients, bested Netscape's. The new fault-tolerance and reverse-proxy fea tures impressed me . I was ab le to chain multiple Proxy Servers together for redun dancy and load balancing, a fea ture Net scape's Proxy Server 2.5 also supports.
However, Microsoft surpassed Net scape's distributed cachi ng by introducing the concept of arrays, which enables mul tiple Proxy Servers with the same name to run as mirrors of one another. I config ured Proxy Server both to republish Web pages from protected Web servers and to publish multiple Web sites on a single serv er using multihoming support for multi ple URLs and IP addresses.
I liked the way Microsoft has integrat ed Proxy Server with Remote Access Ser vice (RAS) to allow access to the Internet for dial-up connections. An entire network can share a single ISP dial-up connection. Wizards helped me configure Proxy Serv
RATINGS
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* * *
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IMPLEMENTATION
eel and Word for Windows) files and Ado be PDF documents in real time. It allowed full-text and HTML field searching by word or phrase and integrated closely with NT Server. But Index Server has no natur al-language interface and doesn't support proximity searching. It does, however, support seven national languages.
Microsoft's Ne tSh ow (which is freely downloadable) integrates closely with IIS to serve up streaming audio, video, and Web-enhanced presentations. While Net Show's authoring tool gave me a time line that helped me insert audi o, graphics, and URLs accurately, I couldn ' t insert video clips directl y. In fact, NetShow is rather rudimentary, wi th no tools for capturing audio or video. To convert audio or video files into Microsoft's .asf format, you must first use a separate tool to make your source material conform to the frame and bit rate you select. I preferred Netscape's Media Server to NetShow.
ADVANTAGES
+ Good messaging server + Server-based agents
DISADVANTAGES - Inconsistent administrative tools - Awkward directory-server interface
The standard Edition of SuiteSpot 3.0 includes Enterprise Server 3.0, Ca len dar Server 1.0, Messaging Server 3. 0, Col labra Server 3.0, and Directory Server 1.0. The Professional Edition adds Proxy Serv er 2.5, Media Server 1.0, Certificate Serv er 1.0, and Compass Server 3.0 . Both ver sions of SuiteSpot also include LiveWire Pro 1.0, Informix Online Workgroup Server, and NetObjects Fusion .
SuiteSpot remains a work in progress; only the Enterprise, Collabra, Compass, and Messaging servers (which make up the critical core) represent updated soft ware. It also lacks a single administrative interface. From Communicator4.0, I could use Netscape's new administrative tool to manage only the updated servers. The tool centralizes common tasks, such as main taining user accounts, via the Directory Server component. When I added a user or group, the change propagated auto matically to the oth er version 3.0 servers. However, I had to use the version 2.0 ad ministrative tool to update the down-lev el servers, making changes one server at a time.
The Collabra and Messaging servers carry new version numbers but haven't changed greatly. Only Enterprise Server an d Compass Server offer significan t improvements, such as Web Publisher, a Java applet for remotely managing con tent on a Web server. The new Enterprise Server also offers server-based agents. I configured the agents to monitor intranet pages and perform daily searches. Because the agents are server based, I could access them from multiple systems.
Compass Server (formerly Catalog Serv er) is a customized version of the Verity search engine. I liked Compass Server's support for more than just HTML and plain text, its personalization options, and its easy administration. However, as with !IS, Compass Server lacked proximity search ing and a natural-language interface.
In my tests, Compass Server accurate ly indexed Microsoft Office (Excel and Word), PDF, and WordPerfect files . Net-
126 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
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THE DOCUMENT COMPAN"l' XEROX
Re v iew Battle of t he Net wo rk Sup erserv e rs
scape claims that Compass Server can also catalog Rich Tex t Format (RTF), Power Poi n t, Interleaf, Lotus Word Pro, and FrarneMaker fi les.
Co mpass Server allowed me to specify words and p h rases with Boolean opera tors, and it performed pho netic look ups and synonym matching. I could locate doc u ments based o n metadata en tries I had p laced inside the HTML, and Compass Server let me categorize my documents into topics (taxonomies in Netscape par lance). The categorization made search re sponses immensely more relevant.
Compass Server let me painlessly create wh at Netscape calls a personal interest pro fi le subscription. T h ereafter, each time I updated Web p ages or documents, Com pass Server's ind exer automatically used m y URL classification rules and taxonomy designations to prepare and send me, via e-mail, a My Compass newsletter, contain ing the updated Web content I'd expressed an interest in.
T he Messaging Server adds tools such as receipt acknowledgement and encrypt ed messaging via Secure Mu ltipurpose In ternet Mail Extensions (S/MIME). I would h ave liked Messaging Server more if it incorporated some Exchange and Notes features, such as server-based ru les for fil tering messages.
Su iteSpot's m ail server has an Internet e-mail underpinning, supporting SMTP, Post Office Protocol Version 3 (POP3), and MIME. Exchange and Notes have only re cently embraced these standards.
Calendar Server, which Netscape has licensed from Corporate Software and Techno logies International, adds long awaited gro up sch ed uling to Sui teSpot, alon g w ith yet a third ad ministrative in terface. Ca lendar Server lets yo u sch ed ul e people an d resources so that you can manage time, events, and to-do lists. Col-
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Internet Information Server4.0
(included wit h Windows NT Server) Microsoft Corp. Redmond, WA 800-662-6796 206-882- 8080
h t t p ://www.mi croso f t .com
Enter 1062 on Inquiry Card.
Netscape SuiteSpot 3.0
Standard Ed ition, $3495 fo r 50 users; Professional Edition, $4750 for 50 users Net scape Communications Corp. Mountain Vi ew, CA 800-63 8-7483 415-937-2555
http:/Ihome. netscape
.co m Enter 1063 on Inquiry Card.
la b ra is a groupware product that sup ports ad hoc discussions, searching across forums, and virtual forms . etscape plans to integrate Collabra to run as an LDAP process. Currently it, too, requ ires separate administration.
Netscape Directory Server is an LDAP compliant server supplying a universal di rectory service for enterprise-wide man agement of user, access-control, and server configurati on. (LDAP is a subset of X.500, a directory-services standard .) Netscape
patible with Oracle's NC Architecture. Med ia Server consists of server so ft
ware, a set of conversion and audio-edit ing tool s, and client-side software. It also includes the Netscape Media Converter, the ToolVox voice encoder and client, Nav igator, and the Media Player client. Media Server did an excellent job, compressing and d istributing audio almost as well as RealAudio. Like RealVideo, MediaServer can deliver different files for users with d ifferent bandw idths. I also found that
l'D'l*·d'I· SMART INDEXING I
SOL Access to Web Sites
Un ique among all search-engine products- not just the t wo Web servers reviewed here Microsoft's Index Server 2.0 can accept queries expressed in SOL, in addition to trad itional keyword and phrase arguments. To use this feature, you develop a query program in Visual Ba sic, J++, C++, or VBScri pt. This connects to the ActiveXData Object (ADO), which passes the request to Index Server, which then returns a result set containing information from Index Server's inte rnal catalog. Microsoft says that adding th e SOL capability allows companies to treat highly structured Web sites like relat ional data bases.
I wrote a small VBScri pt program that successfully connected to the Index Server catalog. However, my attempts to use a variety of relational-d atabase query tools (e.g., Microsoft Access) fail ed. No netheless, t he concept of accessing a search engine's catalog via SOL state ments is a novel one that I hope Microsoft develops furth er in fu t ure versions of Index Server.
h as a lot of work to do to imp rove Direc tory Server and integrate it w ith the oth er SuiteSpot components. When I set up a group list, I had to enter the cryptic LDAP query syntax. Netscape needs to provide a better interface.
Whi le Netscape wants deve lopers to use JavaScript, Microsoft touts VBScript a nd ]Script, its own take on JavaScript. Microsoft's Java version,]++, a lso con ta ins p ropri etary extensions (if yo u dis count the fact that Microsoft has handed ActiveX over to a stan dards body). From a d eve loper's poi nt of view, using M icro soft tools for cross-platform applications is like walking a very thin tightrope. Active Server Pages is a more compell ing tech nology than Netscape's servlets, making platform selection for developers even more d ifficult.
Perhaps the answer to this dilemma lies in Netscape's announced Open Network Environ ment (ONE), a cross-platform ar ch itecture that em ploys an o bj ect mod el (Netscape Internet Foundation Classes) and offers support for distributed objects through the COREA-compliant IIOP proto col. Although ONE competes directly with M icrosoft's OLE /ActiveX/DCOM arch i tectu re, Netscape says that ONE will in clude ActiveX technology and will be com -
MediaServer can serve on-demand or live audio feeds, either mu lticast or un icast.
While IIS is only for use with NT m a chines, SuiteSpot comes in vers ions for NT, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, HP-UX, SGI's Irix, and Digital's Unix.
In short, SuiteSpot provides remote Web content management with version control, and its centralized directory holds great promise. However, Netscape needs to bet ter integrate the disparate server modu les, especially t he administrative tools.
MorN?
For many Webmasters, server software comes down to a choice between Microsoft and Netscape. The decision is an easy o ne to make if you already have NSAPI-aware (Netscape) or ISAPI-aware (Microsoft) ap
p lications . If you're developing a Web based system, I believe that IIS's ASP tech
no logy is the way to go. And IIS is much easier to administer.
O n the other hand, if a ll you're look ing for is a server for distributing static Web pages, then either one, or almost any of the
other 200 competing products, will do. Ill
Barry Nance (Wethersfield, CT) is a computer analyst and consultant. You can contact him by sending e-mail to barryn@bix.co m.
1 28 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Jerry Pournelle
Jerry finds some new
Fooling Around tools to help him work on his Web site-and with the Web finds time for a visit to SIGGRAPH.
have just spent the weekend chairing a meeting ofthe Cit ize ns Advisory Council on National Space Policy. Fifty rocket scientists and the administrator of NASA made for some intense discussions. I'm a bit exhausted, and I've got the meet ing reports to write. With lu ck, you'll find some of the results on my Web site, and there will be a link to the council's Web site as soon as we get that set up. I've been foo ling around with the Web aga in. You can see my latest effor ts at http://home.earthlink.net/-jerryp, not the easiest thing in the world to rem em ber, but it works. I've been quite happy with Eanh lin k's services, and it's a lot eas ier than trying to maintain my own serv ers for a Web site. It's also a lot cheaper, since my page comes fr ee with th e Earth link basic services. It's not a fancy site. I've been offered help by some of the best peo pl e in this business-for that matter, BYTE has some of them on its staff-but the point of this exercise is to see what I can do more or less unaided. I did have David Em help me get started, but it's pretty much mine now. It wi ll always be a text-oriented site-I'm a wordsmith, not an artist but I' m learning about whizbangs, and over time I may drop a few in. On that score, have a look at the home page at http: //www.lynda.com. New Rid ers author Lynda Weinman has some good demonstrations. Her husband has an absolutely mad page called "Stink," with more demonstrations of what you can do. It also has links to what he calls a "h all of shame": bad Web sites, at least two of which managed to crash Netscape as I tried frantically to get away from them. Another interesting place is http://www .webmonkey.com, which has tutorials. I
have only recently realized, alth ough I may have known it for a while, that with Netscape, you can "view" th e original HTML source code of a site that does things yo u find interesting and capture it to a fil e to have examples to work with.
In my case, I have the wonderful Olym pus D-300L digital camera, whic h makes it a snap to get digital pictures. It will even take pictures of text pages, diagrams, and,
put it into JPEG format with the "pro gressive" option. That saves the picture in interlaced layers, so that when it is first downloaded, it appears as a blurry out lin e with progressively sharper detail.
PhotoDeluxe saves JPEG files in linear fashion : you see the top stripe of the pic ture and then the next, etc. It's possible that PhotoDeluxe will save in interlaced or progressive mode, and Photoshop will,
It will always be a text-oriented site
I'm a wordsmith, not an artist.
for that matter, other pictures. Olympus has steadily improved the software that comes with the camera. It's now easy enough to us e that I can recommend it to nearl y anyone able to us e a computer, especially if they have a BYTE reader help ing th e first time they downl oad pictures and play with th em.
The D-300L comes with Adobe Photo De 1uxe, a so rt of poor m an ' s Phoro shop. PhotoDeluxe is all right, but if you really want to touch up photographs both digital photos from a camera like the D-300L or scanned images of regul ar pho tos-1 ook at Kai's Phoro Soap from MetaCreations. I find that Paint Shop Pro from J ase is about the best all- purpose photo-tinker program I have. Photoshop is said to be better-and perhaps it is but I find Paint Shop Pro a great deal easier to understand, and it's what I've been using for most Web photo work.
Photo Soap is amazing: it can do auto matically what the other programs can accomplish only if you know what you're doing. If you have old photographs or you're a lousy photograph er, try Photo Soap. Then when you get the picture the way you want it, us e Paint Shop Pro to
but after 10 minutes of tinkering with manuals and help files, I wasn't ab le to make it work. With Paint Shop Pro I got it first try, so that's the one I'll be using.
Ci RAPHICS FILES TAKE A LOT OF disk space. It's also hard to know what's in a file. The other day, I used the D-300L to shoot a series of pictures of the tenth Sunday after Trinity service at St. Mary's. I downloaded them from the camera to the Fujitsu magneto-optical (MO) disc. The download software lets me give a root filename-in this case, tr in i for Trinity-and will then give each a unique name, so I ended up with t r in i 0 . j pg tot r in i 26. j pg . Not all of them were taken at St. Mary 's- some were on the camera before I started-and some were a great deal better than others for putting up on the Web site.
If you build your Web pages with Microsoft Office 97 Word, it will give you a preview of a picture you 're about to insert, but that's still a painful way ro select pictures. Much better is Thumbs Plus, a shareware program that makes thumbnail sketches ofyour graphics files. You can aim ThumbsPlus atan entire disc,
www.byte om
NOVEMBER 1 997 BYTE 129
Chaos Manor Fooling Around with the Web
and it will find every graphics file and make a thumbnail.
We had one problem with ThumbsPlus. Graphics files tend to be big, and with the D-300L, I can make a lot of them. In 1024 by 768-pixel resolution, the D-300L holds 30 pictures; butin VGA (640 by480 pixels), it will hold over a hundred, each one 50 KB and more in full-image JPEG (i.e., the images are compressed, but no detail is lost; as opposed to partial-quality JPEG,
when I download my photographs from the D-300L, they go onto an MO disc.
Then I found that ThumbsPlus would look at the MO drive, pretend to make thumbnails-and do nothing. This was frustrating, and the help file had nothing, so I called the programmer. "Do you have a volume label on the MO disc?" he asked. "We use that in making the database."
A quick check showed I didn't, so I added one. After this, ThumbsPlus worked
With Quick View Plus, you
can look at nearly anything.
which blurs out some details as it com presses the file).
It seemed natural to combine the D-300L with the Olympus MO drive. The Olym pus MO and Fujitsu MO drives use the same medium and format, so discs are inter changeable between them. MO discs hold 128 to 230 MB (there are larger ones, but I never find them at Fry's) and cost under $20; a lot of storage forthe money. They're a natural accessory to a digital camera, so
perfectly with the MO discs. This program has quickly become essential: if you do any graphics work, get ThumbsPlus and pay the registration fee. You' ll be glad you did. Highly recommended.
Another utili ty worth having is Quick View Plus for Wmdows95 (Win95)andNT. This will plug into Norton Commander for Windows 95 and NT, and view nearly any file, includ ing graphics files. It doesn't seem to view JPEG files saved by Paint Shop
Pro in progressive format, although it has no problem with the same file saved lin early. Otherwise, I haven't found much that it won't show. Of course, Quick View Plus will work by itself or in conjunction with other file management software (in cluding Explorer), but I particularly like it with Commander 95.
Commander has always been my fa vorite file manager, but the Windows version lacks the wonderful viewers that th e last DOS versions had. With Quick View Plus, you can look at nearly anything, including individual components of ZIP files, DLLs, uuencoded fi les, and all kinds of stuff. I prefer to use it with Comman der, because when I use Explorer and dou ble-click on a file, I am never sure what will happen; with Commander, F3 brings in Quick View Plus and nothing else. To gether, Commander and Quick View Plus are a killer combination. Recommended.
Finally, there's PhotoRecall from G&A Imaging. While this does limited special effects, mostly it's useful for organizing photographs into albums. It does that rea sonably well, but it doesn't seem to have
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Chaos Manor
a batch capability. That is, to make a new album, I have to select and load pictures one at a time . Once that's done, it's easy to move them around in the album.
The presentation is quite good: a small, medium, or large picture in an album lay out. Click on it to get the full-size picture. There's also a way to search the Web for pictures, although most pictures I have found on the Web are not ones I would want to download and keep. As a presen tation system, PhotoRecall is neat, but as a management system for lots of pho tographs, I greatly prefer ThumbsPlus.
IN THE COURSE OF PLAYING WITH the Web, we upgraded our software, and that generates this month's tales of hope, horror, and glory.
Begin with CyberMedia's Oil Change. If you regularly cruise the Internet, you need this program, which finds and down loads updates to your software. In our case, it found an update to Dial-Up network and one to Win 95 Winsock. We downloaded and installed them on Cyrus, the Cyrix P-166 that is my current main Win 95 ma chine. My real main machine is now Prin cess, a Compaq Professional Workstation 5000 running NT 4.0, but for the moment, I do a lot of work on Cyrus as well. Both updates installed painlessly, although there were a few oddities. For instance, I had to go find the passwords to my Dial-Up net-
about an hour, he was able to get the net work restored. It wasn't easy. Among other things, TweakDUN set the network prop erties so that NetBEUI was no longer the default protocol. There were other prob lems, but eventually we had Pentafluge back on the network.
We defragged the disk drives and did some more tweaking. Then we tried the upgrades again. Big mistake. Once again, Pentafluge va nished from the network; and this time, possibly because we tried to do some adjusting without uninstalling TweakDUN, things got progressively worse. By the time we did the uninstalla tion, it was too late. Bottom line: I worked a day trying to get Pentafluge back on the network, to no avail. It would not work.
I decided that drastic ac ti on was re quired: it was time to boot up in DOS, nuke the Windows directory, and reinstall Win 95 from scratch. We've used Pentafluge as a test machine for a year, and there were remnants of programs that couldn't be uninstalled. Tons of DLLs in the system directory. Garbage files everywhere. That sort of thing. Cleaning house was indicated anyway, and it also seemed to be the only way to restore the network. There was only one problem: in order to reinstall Win 95, I would need the CD-ROM drive, and that CD-ROM drive wasn't visible unless I was running Win 95.
That shouldn't have happened. In the-
Upgrading our software generates th is
month's tales of hope, horror, and glory.
work accounts, because the update lost the ones I'd saved.
The result is a real improvement. Inter net access is much faster, and multiple In ternet operations really work. We were able to simultaneously do two downloads, answer mail, and go look at another Web site without any slowdowns. That's quite an improvement from a free download.
This worked so well that Alex thought he'd apply them to Pentafluge, the rather dated Pentium 60 machine with an Intel Pentium OverDrive processor that Larry Niven uses when he works here. The result was a disaster: whatever effect these up grades had on Internet browsing, the Dial Up network update 1.2 (TweakDUN) col lapsed the internal network. Pentafluge could no longer connect to any of our
other machines. Alex uninstalled the upgrades. After
ory, I have a panic boot disk for every ma chine. A panic disk should contain the driv ers for the CD-ROM drive, Zip drive, and other important accessories. Unfortu nately, I had changed CD-ROM drives without updating the panic disk.
Two possible remedies: I could try to find the specific CD-ROM drivers for this version of the Distributed ProcessingTech nology (DPT) SCSI controller Pentafluge uses-it's an older SmartCache III-surely I have those here somewhere. Or call DPT. Maybe they have something that would let me access the CD-ROM. I considered call ing Sony-it's a Sony CD-ROM drive.
But, in fact, as I was dithering, I found a copy of Sony.sys from DPT. It took about 10 minutes to fit up a CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT-I'd completely for gotten how to do that-but eventually I got it done. The real trick is in getting the
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Chaos Manor Fooling Around with the Web
command-line parameters for Microsoft change hardware, don't wait for a crisis to although not before I saw more than
CD Extension (MSCDEX). They're in most update your panic disk. A second moral is, enough to boggle my mind.
DOS books, but I don't have many left. clean your Windows once in a while . It Some major impressions. First, the price
Once I was sure th e CD-ROM drive sure can make a difference.
of admission to the world of high-end
worked in DOS, I saved the entire Win
graphics is low and fa lling. Intergraph and
S dows directory onto the Maxoptix glass
drive and then deleted it on Pentafluge.
IGGRAPH IS IN TOWN . THIS IS Compaq both had new boxes with super the Special Interest Group on Graph computer capabil iti es at under $12,000,
Boot up in DOS and run Golden Bow Sys ics of the Association for Computing and I don't say that lightly. You could cre
tems' Vopt, still the best disk defrag pro Machinery. It has become ACM's largest ate all the objects inJurassic Park on either
gram I know of. Reboot in DOS. Then I show (and presumably also their largest of these machines, and you might eve n be
installed Win 95 from a CD-ROM. Since I fund-raiser). If you have any interest in ab le to animate them. Rendering the fina l
had an upgrade Win 95, I had to find the graphics, it's more than worth going to. prints to movie quality still takes days on
setup disk for Windows 3. 11 and put it in
the floppy drive before Win 95 would in stall. After that, it all went swimmingly.
Moments later, I had the network re
Clean your Windows once in a while.
It sure can make a difference.
stored. I had a pl easan t surprise: Penta
fluge runs about five times faster than be There are classes from raw beginner to much larger mac hines, but yo u could cre
fore. Programs load faster, and the system very advanced techn iques, chances to use ate a show, render in TV-video qua li ty, and
doesn't thrash about as much. Everything a supercomputer for an hour or so, and have it to present to financial people with
is crisper. I didn 't do any benchmarks, so I technical exhibitions.
equipment and software costing no more
have no objective measures, but it's more Alas, the floor show is becoming indis than $25,000. This is asto nish ing.
than noticeably faster, so much so that I tinguishabl e from the Electronic Enter
Hewlett-Packard and Digital Eq uip
am thinking of doing the same thing to tainment Exposition: lots of hype, flash ment, and even Dell and Gateway 2000,
Cyrus.
ing lights, and a general heat-and-noise are also getting into the high-end graphics
The moral of this story is that if you level sufficient to drive me out ofthe room, machine game. I fully expect that my esti
mated $25,000 for a professional system
will be cut in half in no more than a year.
Ain't competition wonderful?
You've already heard that...
Second, it's no longer a Silicon Graph ics/ Unix world . At least half the profes
sional-level displays we saw on the floor
MicroGuard Copy Protection is
at SIGGRAPH were run on NT platforms. A few years ago, there were essentially none. As David Em, our gra phics associ
ate who attended the show with me, puts
it, "The era of SIGGRAPH as the Silicon
UNBEATABLE
Graphics-and-everything-that-goes-with it show is over."
Third, while most of the very high-end
professionals are still using Softimage- a
program developed for Silicon Graphics
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systems but now acq uired by Microsoft and running on NT platforms-3D Studio Max, from Kinetix (a division of Auto desk), is catching up fast. Moreover, the current version of 30 Studio Max was designed to be an NT progra m and uses an
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interface that will already be familiar to AutoCAD users. This leads me to believe that d esign students are more likely to learn 3D Studio Max than Softimage.
Also, while the final cost of Softimage and 3D Studio Max with all the enhance
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students and beginners.
continued
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134 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Chaos Manor
It's an exciting world out there. As I said, David Em, who knows much more about graphics than I do, attended SIGGRAPH with me. Look for more of David's observations in the Web Exclusive part of the column on the BYTE Web site. Incidentally, if you are interested in com puter-generated art, yo u can see some of David's work at hrtp:// businesstech.com/ art/emgallery. html. While we' re on the subject of graphics, CAD, and Web sites, if yo u don't know about Visio, you ought to. Visio is a stand-alone application for making technical drawings and other art work. It has its own development envi ronment or can ex tend Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications environment. It also knows about Microsoft Office, and you can use it in conj unction with any of its components, including Word. Mostly, Visio has a number of smart templates, and if rhe set you need didn't come with the package yo u bought, it's probably available. Templates include architect, chemical, electrical, electronic, process plants, pump s, pip es, heating and ventilation-well, yo u get the idea. There are also abstract shapes suitable for making flowcharts and diagrams. If you
work with computers and don't know about Visio, I bet you wish you did. Not only rec ommended, it's close to essential.
IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR SOME unusal clip art on a Western theme, the classy RT Computer Graphics collections are now available on CD-ROM. Cowboys and Indians, traditional Navajo and other Santa Fe art, perroglyphs (genuine and humorous), plains Indian art, borders and images, it's all pretty neat. Look them up at http://www. rtcomputer.com, Next time I do a pass through my Web sire, I'll prob ably include a few of these.
THE OLD GAME OF THE MONTH is the Deluxe Edition of Conquest of the New World, from Interplay. One tip: the Deluxe Edition has a feature known as the ancient temple of war. Find it and get control of it; it's worth almost any cost. Even if you can't control it, try to get the ownership in dispute, because it gives an enormous advantage to the side that pos sesses it.
The new game of the month is Imperi alism, from Strategic Simulations. It's somewhat like Civilization II, but it takes place in the 1800s, which was the classic
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Conquest of the New World, Deluxe Edition $29.95
Interplay Productions Irvine, CA 800- 468-3775 714-553-6655 fax: 714-252-2820 http://wwwj nterplay.com Enter 1113 on Inquiry Card.
D-300L $899
Olympus America, Inc. Melville, NY 800-347-4027 516-844-5000 fax: 516-844-5339 http://www.olympusamerica.com Enter 1114 on Inquiry Card.
Imperialism $49.99
Strategic Simulations, Inc. Sunnyvale, CA 888-808-4311 650-897-9900 fax:650-897-9956 http://www.ssionline.com Enter 1115 on Inquiry Card.
Kai's Photo Soap $49.95
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Paint Shop Pro $69
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PhotoRecall $49.95
G&Almaging Hull, Quebec, Canada 819-772-7600 fax: 819-772-7640 http://www.ga-imaging.com/ Enter 1119 on Inquiry Card.
Quick View Plus $59
lnso Chicago, IL 800-333-1395 312-329-0700 fax: 312-670-0820 http://www.inso.com Enter 1120 on Inquiry Card.
30 Studio Max 2.0 $3495
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Visio Professional or Technical
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CTohme p1l ete
Reference
Java Programmer's Reference
Herbert Schildt
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Chaos Manor Fooling Around with the Web
era of colonial imperialism, with great powers scrabbling for control of smaller countries. You do exploration and pros pecting, and invest in both research and industry. It's not too bad as solitaire, but it's great as a multiple-playe r game: all the
AFB. It has been out of print for years, although photocopies circulated with my perm1ss1on.
Recently, some young officers asked me to make it ava ilab le. A professional Web designer, Arno ld Bailey (abailey@ bix
The book of the month is my own ,
but you don't have to pay to read it.
fun of Calhammer's Diplomacy, but with far more realistic economics and military actions. Make alliances and then stab your partner; but when you do, not on ly do the other human players take notice, but so do the non player nations. Great fun .
The book of the month is my own, bur you don ' t have to pay to read it. Th e Strat egy of Technology was written in 1968 by Stefan T. Possony, Francis X. Kane, and J erry Pournelle, and published by the Uni versi ty Press of Cambridge, Massachu setts. It was used as a textbook in all three service academies at one time or another and numerous times over the years in the Air War College at Maxwell
.com), volunteered to turn it into good HTML, and so he did. You can find it, com plete with partial revisions and notes, on my Web site at hrrp://home.earthlink .n et/- jerryp as well as a couple of other places. Fair warning, this is a cold war book, and while the principles haven't changed at all , nearly all the examples are from the Seve nty Years War between the U.S.S.R. and Western civilization. It's an interesting example of how a book might be published on the Web; not fancy, but I think well done .
The computer book of the month is by
Michael J. H ernandez, Database Design
for Mere Mortals (Addison-Wesley Devel
oper's Press, ISBN 0-201-69471-9). This is just what the title implies; if you keep lots of files and notes and wonder if there's a better way, you need a relational data base, even if you don't know what one is. This book will help you understand the su bj ect whether you work with Visual Basic, Access, FoxPro, Delphi, or w hat ever. It includes rules, views, and a good bibliography.
With luck, next month we' ll have our new Pentium II system built. I've got all the parts, and we're getting a new ViewSonic monitor to go with it. Now to do my space council reports. liJ
Jerry Pournelle is a science fiction writer and BYTE's senior contributing editor. You can write to jerry c/o BYTE, 29 Hartwell Ave., Lexington, MA 02173 . Please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope and put your address on the letter as well as on the envelope. Due to the high volume ofletters, j erry cannot guarantee·a per sona l reply. You can also contact him on. the Intern.et or BIXat jerryp@bix.com. Visit Chaos Manor at http://home.earthlink.net/ -jerryp/.
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Ci rc le 102 on Inquiry Card.
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· 70W-350W output · 60KHz PWM control IC · 0-55°C operating · MTBF > 20 years
ICP ACQUIRE INC.
CALL: 1-415-967-7168 FAX: 415-428-1172
Don't get boxed in!
Joinusat,.
Fall'97
Booth #H1646
Indu stria l PC Enc l osures · To\Ner PC Enc l osures · A ac kmount PC Enc l osures · Rack Systems · R ackmount Accessories
Rackmount Drive Enc l osures Redundant N + 1 Load S h aring Power Systems I ndustr i a l PS2/ATX Power Supp li es
Phone: 1 800 255 0267 FAX: 1 702 356 6361 Emai l: info@sliger.com Internet: http://www.slige r.com Postal: 150 E.Greg Street #105 Sparks, Nevada 89431
Circle 103 on Inquiry Card (R ESE LLER S: 104).
C ircle 105 on Inquiry Card (RESEL LER S: 106) .
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 151
a Laptops Notebooks · Networking
Multimedia/CD-ROM· Networking· Programmable H/W
4 Video Windows from a PC I Card
· 4 Concurrent Real-Time Video Windowing on a Single PCI Card
· NTSC, PAL, SECAM Non-synchronous Video Source
· Dynamically Sized Video Windows Displayed At Any Position
· Remarkable High Quality Video
· Max. VGA Res. at 1024x768
· Max. Video Size at 1024x768
· VGA Text Graphics Overlay on Video
· Windows 95 & NT 4.0 API and GUI
Avitech International Corp. Redmond , Washington , USA
Voice: 425 836-8970 Fax: 425 836-8976
Circle 89 on Inquiry Card .
WHO SAYS??
"...All Network Monitors are BIG and Expensive."
Obviously ;;:::=:;~
They haven't heardooo
Remote Access environm~nt allows remote users with access to corporate LAN resource or local users with connections to remote workgroups or Internet. MOXA Terminal Server and Multiport serial board provide you with the best and alternative solutions.
MOXA C320 'Tu rho Multlport
Board
MOXA CN2100
Async/Termlnal
Server
· High speed serial ports ·· 460.SK bps · Expandability -- 8to 32 ports · Drivers for all popular O.S. · APl-232 Library for Win32 SOK
· High speed serial ports -- 921 .6K bps · Speedy configuration setup·· in 5 minutes · Easy software upgrade -- FlashROM · User Authentication and accounting··
RADIUS
Welcome to Comdex Fall - · Las Vegas, NV Sands Expo, Nov. 17 - 21 , Booth No. C9324
./'.....
®
~ C:::J ~./'.....
,/'..... Moxa Technologies
www.moxa.com
524 W eddell Drive, Suite 1, Sunnyvale. CA 94089
Te l : (408) 734-2224
Fax: {408) 734-4442
E-mail: info_byte@moxa.com
152 BYTE NOV EM B ER 1997
Circle 99 on Inquiry C ard (R ESELL ERS: 100 ).
POCKETWatch
Palmtop Protocol Analyzer
lPllil~~ ~IID.<e lF@W<ell" @lf
LANWatcli
mthe IF~ @f y@unir' lEI~IDl«Il
fo:r under $1,500!!!
G PQECISIDN9utSSf/V'~rk, Inc.
F ive Central Street, Topsfield, MA 0 l 983
(508) 887-6570 (phone)
http://www.guesswork.com
(508) 887-6552 (fax)
Email: info@guesswork.com
*Hcwl cll Packard is a 1-radcmurk of the Hewie!! Packard Com an
Circle 101 on Inquiry Card.
Embedded DOS ~g~H~A~
Controllers at 8051 ~ ·ces
F/ash/iteTMuse your PC
development tools! No
more crash and burn EPROM!
· 2 Seria l Ports
· 8/ 10 MHz V-25
· 24 Parallel 110 lines · 2 Timers
· 512K RAM · 256K/512K flash
5
· 4 Interrupt Lines · 8 Analog Inputs
· X·Mode mTransfer · includes DOS and utilities
QTY ~
JK microsystems 510-236-1151 VISA
Cost e,jcjectz.ve controllers ja. r i.ndustry
w51w0w-2. d3s6p-2.c9o9m9
fax / jkmicro
Circle 92 on Inquiry Card.
Programmable Hardware
Storage · Internet Services
Original Manufacturer
All steel construction Server& RAID Chassis
SUPPORT - Qual, Dual, Pentium Pro & ATX M/B
A:i.
=-.:= --
Ameri ca n Megatrends
· AMI Gotlath M/B
- Dtgltat Equipment Alpha M/B
-- Intel ATX M/ B
Super Micro P6 NOH M/B
momoama.
infel.
SUPERe ·
·Easy to program in Borland/ Microsoft C/C++
· 2.3'x2.2' A-Core", · 3.6'x2.3' A-Engine" · AMD1 BBES. 50+ I/Os, 1112-bit AOC · 3UARTs, 3timers, 2PWM, Bat+RTC · Clibrary, Development kits
We have 20+ Low Cost 16-bit Controllers with ADC, DAG, solenoid drivers. relay, PC104, PCMCI A, LCD , DSP motion control , 10 UARTs. 100 I/Os . Customer boards design. Save time and money.
f rERN 216 FStreet, Ste. 104, Davis, CA 95616, USA INC. Tel: 916-758-0180 Fax: 916-758 0181 aEllil tern@netcom.com http://www.tern .com
Circ le 9 1 on Inqui ry Card.
~[Ji}5J~~D ~[fill]®[?
fJJJ ill 0 ~®~
0 0 ct]~g
Z-World's powerful BL 1500 controller is ideal for OEM machine control and data aquisition, especially when analog I/O is required.
· 4 analog inputs · 26 parallel 1/ 0 lines
Our Dynamic C"' software (editor, com piler, and symbolic debugger) makes your system development fast and easy.
· Real time clock · SRAM/Flash EPROM · RS485/ RS232 · Watchdog timer
INNOVATION IN CONTROL TECHNOLOGY
Callfor the name ofthe dealer nearest you!
916.757. 3737 916.753.5141 FAX
MS-1620 DUALM/B - Front access with 14 x 5 1/ 4" exposed drive bays (NS-14()())
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- Heavy duty power supply options 400w-600W
- Hat-Swap Redundant 2 x JOOw, 2 x 400w, 3 x 300w
· A6:o avall46Ce atftet Server & RAID C(ias sls
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-Perfect for RAID & removable storage application ~
AEH CORP.
Tel : 1626) 369-2608 · Fax: 1626) 96 1-0468 http ://www.aehome .co m
Circ le 93 on In quiry Card (RESE LLERS : 94).
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at your
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Circle 107 on Inquiry Card.
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 153
...... .. It 1.- -·~
, r- .I T
__......
·I
THE BUYER'S MART
·· ' I ·
··t I
THE BUYER'S MART is a unique typewritten copy. 2"x1 1hs" ad
classified section organized by
can include headline (23 characters
product category to help readers
maximum), descriptive text (300
locate suppliers. Ads may have inquiry characters is the maximum recom
numbers to aid readers requesting mended) plus company name,
information from advertisers.
address, telephone and fax number.
AD FORMAT: Each ad will be
2"x2 S/a" ad has more space for
designed and typeset by BYTE. Do descriptive text (850 c haracters is
NOT send logos or camera-ready
the maximum recommended).
artwork. Advertisers should furnish DEADLINE: Ad copy is due
approximately 2 months prior to issue date. For example : November issue closes on Septem ber 15. Send your copy and payment to: TH E BUYER'S MART, BYTE Magazine, 1 Phoenix Mill Lane, Peterborough, NH 03458. For more information please call Mark Stone in BYTE sales at 603-924-2533 or FAX : 603-924-2683.
RATES (January 1997)
2"x 11/e"
3-5 issues
1 ad
$820
2 ads/issue "
3 ads/issu e "
6·11 issues
$790
12 issues
$690
660 620
1 ad $1 640 $1,580 $1 ,380
211x2-:./e" 2ads/iss ue "
1,320
3ads/issue "
1,250
········CO LO R - Add$100 " ' " " "
BAR CODE
CD-ROM
DATA RECOVERY
Bar Code Headquarters
· Complete Bar Code Readers from $299 · Portable Bar Code Readers from $759
· Laser Gun Readers from $549 · Cordless Scanners from $595 · Two way RF Terminal - $1095 · Bar Code Labeling Software for
Windows - $295 DOS Version - $279 · Bar Code Fonts for Windows/Mac - $199 · Direct from Manufacturer
Worthington Data Solutions 800-345-4220
Phone: 408-458-9938 · Fax: 408-458-9964
In UK call 0800 393 213
In France call 0800 90 65 47
In Germany call 0130 8150 84
Rest of Europe call 353 1 6614 566
Website: www.ba rcodehq .com
CD·ROMS
Wlndows95.com 32·bn Shareware Collection ................. S35.00
Compilation ol "'ww'w.windows95.com" website32·bit Shareware Section.
LINUX Developers Resource 6CO set. ...... . . . ... .. ...... S27.50 Redhat. Deb1an. Slackware. MetroX Server, On-Une Docs.
LINUX Toolbox. .. ............ . .. ....... .. .. .......... S45.00 Includes 6 CD Set with 600 ?age Manual!
Pro~:£1~~~r~n~t"~~~~:5MOdU~·-3·{pre:b·u·i1i ·biriarresi·SCherTieija~~s.oo
Standards .. . . . . . . . . . . ............ ... .... .... ... S30.00 Domestic and international networking standards.
WebmasterTools Volume 1 . . · . . . . · . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S35.00 Everythingneedediogenerat:andpromotewebpages.
WebmasterTools Volume 2... . .. . ...... ... ...... . ..... S35.00 Every1hing you need to run and administer aweb server.
Webmaster 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... ...... . . ... S35.00 Includes all theadvanced aspmof \lo'?b ~n including Video, VRMLand more!
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MOO·TIF for LINU X· 100°": Molif CompaflbleGUI · for LINUX . .. S99.00
Vlsual Basic Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... .. ........... S35.00
Latest shareware tools aM utibes Databank. multimedia&refined VBX controls.
Wlnslle CD-ROM Se1. ..... .. .. .. ..
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Shareware for Windows 3.1. NT and 95
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Programmers Heaven . ................... .. . . ... .. ... .. $30.00 Con!ai ns.over850 01ilesandmorethan630packedme gabytesol lnlormat1onabout every aspect ol programming !hat you can imagine!
Phone Orders: 1-800-800-6613
We accept
fax Orders: +1-520-52 6-9573
MC. VISA & AMEX
lnl'I Phone: +1-520-526-9565
Web Orders: www.Jnlomag lc.com E-mail: orders@in1omagic.com
InfoMagic 11950 N. Hwy 89, Flagstalf, AZ 86001
rl" ..._
Inquiry 385.
CAD/CAM
CONTOURING MOTION CONTROL F~~~,.~ ~~\~:;,~~~RT! $249
- DATA RECOVERY
~I ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"
We Can Save It!
All Platforms - All Storage Devices
VERSION 3
VISA/MC
Proprietary techniques so advanced we
· Controls up to six step moto rs simultaneously.
rescue data others simply abandon.
·Linear and Circ ula r Interpolation.
· New features to accommoda1e machine control.
DRIVESAVERS
· Easy·lo-u se device dri ver. Super Manual.
· CAD-CAM interface available.
Restoring data since 1985
Ability Systems Corporation, 1422ArnoldAve. Roslyn,PA 19001(215)657·4338
1-800-440-1904
http://www.abilitysystems.com FAX: (215) 657-7815 Inquiry 381 .
-
""!
Inquiry 386.
... 415-883-4232 ... -,.~.,.-~ -
TG-CAO Professional v.6.0
The Leader in Data Recovery
CAD Solutions Software
A16 &32 bit CIC++ Windows 95, Win NT &Win 3.1
-
· Expertise in virtually every operating system & media storage device.
CADDevelopers Kit. The best in CAD/CAM software
· Emergency services with calls answered
kits. Free Demo and Technical Paper.
24 hours a day. Call for a FREE consultation!
,_ ·:J Call 800-635-7760 or Fax972-423-7288 or
http ://www.disksolt.com or E-mail
~
disksolt@ix.netcom.com or BBS972-881-9322
ONTRACK DATA RECOVERY
Mpls · LA· DC· London ·Tokyo· Stuttgart
Disk Software, Inc. 109 S. Murphy Rd .. Plano, TX USA 75094
1-800-872-2599 · www.ontrack.com
Inquiry 382.
Inquiry 387.
Data Recovery Service
From one of Europe's largest disk drive manufacturers
· 24 hour, 7 day hotline · Data promptly restored and returned · SSA capability · No fix, no fee Call now: +44(0)1705 443283 or (0)374136170 On-line information: www.xyratex.com
Xyratex
Inquiry 389.
DATA/DISK CONVERSION
CONVERSION/DUPLICATION
Tape : 4MM, QIC, 8MM, DLT, 9-trk, 3480/90/90E
Disk : 3", 3'!,", 5'//', 8"
CD-ROM
1·800·357-6250
Shaffstall Corporation
317-842-2077
7901 East 88th Street
Fax 317-842-8294
Indianapolis IN 46256 sales @shaffstall.com
Since 1973
http ://www.s haffstall. com
EDUCATION
EARN B.S. AND M.S. IN COMPUTER SCIENCE THROUGH DISTANCE EDUCATION
· Object oriented B.S. program · New courses in Java, Networking , HTML, MIS · Approved by more than 275 companies · Follows ACM/IEEE guidelines
Free catalog 1-800-767-A/CS or http://www.aics.edu.
Accredited: World Association of Universities & Colleges
HARDWARE
HEWLETT-PACKARD
Buy - Sell - Trade
LaserJ et
Co lorPro
DeskJet
DraftPro
RuggedWriter DraftMaster
Electrostatic Plollers
DesignJet
We specialize in Demo & Refurbished Equipment
HP 9000 Workstations and Vectras also available.
Ted Dasher & Associates
4 11 7 Second Ave.. S. Birmingham, AL 35222
Phone: (205) 591-4747 Fax: (205) 591-1108
(800) 638-4833
E-mail : sales@dasher.com
Inquiry 390.
CD-ROM
HELP WANTED
CD-R Media $2.99
"'
DVD-R, SCSI Drives
- ;i.'
Data Compression : CRl-X
INC 500, Established 1988
303-384-3922 FAX 303-384-3926
www.cdrominc.com
..-; .I·r
Inquiry 383.
.
.,...~
.. t tr
~
1 54 BYTE NO V EMBER 1997
i .. .,.-~ - ..............
Don't pay thousands of Dollars! Download our
DO-IT-YOURSELF
Data Recovery Software
TlRAM/SU.
We support DOS. WIN DOWS, NOVELL and NTFS file systems
hnp://www.recovery.de
Email : data_recovery@compuserve.com
The Virtual Data Recovery Company
Inquiry 388 .
Multiligual-Junior
Windows NT Systems Engineer
~~~;r~~i ;~~!~~~~rsb~n~Ps~:Cia~:~~~~n~n ~~~f-nt~;u~IK~~~7~~~~t f~~~~~~
cesslul candidate must be mu lti -lingual, preferably wilh more than one European language, and have at least one middle -eastern language You must know Win95, WinNT & MacOS. You should also be ci Microsoft Certified System Eng ineer.
Salary £22,000
~~~~ r~~~dc~ci~s~~~:~ Wa~1~1~e~~J. E~~~~0~· Xj00~~~1~~13.gm~ri~w~
JOb@tpd.com
·
... .-1,
,.
'.
'\[
..
'
.-"'
, r
·I,..
THE BUYER'S MART A DIRECTORY OF PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
INTERNET PRESENCE
Virtual Web Hosting· 3-T3 Connections!
www. YourName.cam
$19.97/mo.
(800) 808-9241 I FREE "web" Page http://PICK.NET RESELLERS Welcome Inquiry 391 .
SCIENTIFIC GRAPHICS
.. \ Graphic Outstanding scientific graphics http://www.sciend.com
Inquiry 396.
SECURITY
KEY-LOK IITM SECURITY
Software Piracy Prevention - Survival 14 years proves effectiveness. Active algorithm, programmable memory, counters, date control , remote update. No ID on device.
Low pricing (e.g. $16.50 each for 5).
No startup costs.
Also, ACCESS CONTROL systems and disk drive/system LOCKS
MICROCOMPUTER APPLICATIONS, INC.
3167 E. Otero Circle, Littleton, CO 80122
http://www.keylok.com
1-800-453-9565 (303) 770-1917 FAX: (303) 770-1863
Inquiry 400.
LASERJET PCL VIEWER
LaserJet PCL Conversion and Viewing Tools
View your PCL5e print files in Windows with 100%
accuracy using Visual PCL. PCL to TIF/Fax/raster command line conversion tools. Convert PCL print files to Acrobat PDF in DOS, Windows, UNIX for
viewing and distribution over the net. Evaluations and full details available on our Web site. Libraries available for OEM developer integration.
Visual Software http://www. visuaf .co.uk
Fax: +44 1306 742 425
geddes@visual. co.uk
Inquiry 392.
PROGRAMMERS' TOOLS
EASIER! HIGHER QUALITY! FASTER! LOWER COST!
..
Tools For VB & Access"' Developers
· Impress your clients with the uniquevisual cues and
enhanced navigation and input interfaces of our Sense1"
custom controls1Be more productive th an ever with the
I"
Sense graphical design tool !
· With VBRenderTMand DBRenderTM, you have a point-and-click interface for designing, developing, managing, sharing and reusing source code and schema
efficiently and safely! You've never been more productive!
· Let Serve1" turn an Access file server database into a scalable, distributed client/server system without the expense and hassleof real upsizing! Best of all, the end result is still based on VB I Access!
· With Inform'" it will be easy and inexpensive for your clients to train and support their workers! Inform is an easy-to-use, multi-media, interactive EPSS supplement to
or replacement for traditional Help.
· Bring it all together with Prolit"' ! Estimate, analyze, design, model, develop, test, document, account for, manage and report on a development project with ease.
ALL PROOUCTSUNOER $50! VOLUME DISCOUNTSAVAILABLE!
SOURCECooE AVAILABLE!
KinetiSys
(800) 799-7115
(847) 835-7115
www .kspot.com
sales@kspot.com
Inquiry 393.
SECURITY
THE ULTIMATE SOFTWARE SECURITY e STOPCOPY family - UNCOPIABLE copy protection
· STOPVlEW softwa re encryption · NETLIMIT network license metering · DOS, Windows {3.X, 95, NT), Mac, OS/2, support · Machine Tie, Internet Protection, CD·AOM Protection,
Serialization , Date & Execution Limitation, Registration, Remote Authentication, Concurrent User Limitation · Our products destroy ALL of ou r competition
BBi Computer Systems, Inc.
14105 Herilage Lane, Silver Spring. MD 20906
BOOITRY-ABBI · 8001879-2224 · 301/B71-1094 · FAX: 3011460·7545
E·mall: bbl@bblcs.com · Web: htlp:/lwww.bblcs.com
Inquiry 397.
> ·
CRYPK(YSOfTWAR( llCfN SING SYSHM
"Software Protection with NO ha1dware lock and NO disk key" CrypKey is sollware copy protecllon that is:
· completely secure from any disk copy program · perfect for CD-ROM or INTERNET distribution! · cost effective. user friendly, and 100% guaranleed
to satisfy!
CrypKey ca nIncrease your software sa les: · upsell options and levels of your software · lease or demo your software by runs or time · enable or upgrade you r customers instantly by phone , lax or E·mall!
New! unique Ready-To·Try feature upon install allows 1 trial period only per customer. Newt unique Add -On feature· add more options. levels, runs or time to existing licenses. New! CrypKey Instant-protects In just 5 minutes with no so urce code changes . CrypKey is completely compatible with MS-DOS, MS-Windows 3.x. Win32s. w;n95. Win95B/FAT-32, Win NT . and manages ne twork licenses on all Novell and Microsoft operating system based networks.
CrypKey Instant is Ready-To-Try.
FREE for 30 days on our web si te:
http:/Jwww.kenonic.com/crypkey.htm
Kenonic Controls Ltd. Calgary,Canada
(403) 258·6200 · fax:1403) 258-6201
INTERNET: crypkey@kenoni c.com
Inquiry 398.
SIMULATION SOFTWARE
... Analog/Digital Simulation!!
· Windows, NT, DOS
· Model Libraries, AF, Power
· Power Mac, Macintosh · More Than 5000 parts
· lsSPICE4 Real Time SPICE · Waveform Analysis
· Mixed Mode Slmulalion · Full SPICE programs
· Schematic Entry
starting at $95. Complete
· New AHDL Modeltng Kltl! systems, $595·$2595
·n tUSOlf P.a.aox 110 san Pedm. cA 90133.0110
1 fi (310)833-0710, FAX (310)833-9658
Call for your Free Demo and information kit.
Inquiry 401 .
SOFTWARE PACKAGING
MANUALS ON DEMAND
600 dpi In 4 days - As low as 2c: l page BUY J UST WHAT YOU NEED - CONS ERVE CASH
.. ·FREE CATALOG···
Software boxes Laser labels 1 5~ Mailers
Everything you need to sell your software
Hice & Associates
8586 Monticello Dr., West Ch ester, OH 45069
Phone/Fax: 513-779·7977
Inquiry 402.
TRANSLATION SOFTWARE
Word Translator for Windows
·Hot· key translation of words, phrases & documents from withinyourword-p1ocessor or OTP program;
·Huge range al languages including Eo11 &West
European, Scondinovion, Lalin American &S!ovic;
· User·delined di<lionary - odd yoUI own ent1ie1; · P1ices slarl al only USS60 - coll, lox 01 email IOI deloils! CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY (ctsole1@net;hoppe1.co.uk) Europe: Tel +44 1889 567160 · Fax +44 1889 563548
US: Tel 303 319 8716 · Fax 303 388 1511 hnp:j/ www.nel>hoppei.eo.uk/1ohwore;1bm/ 110n1/index.hlm
Inquiry 404.
YOUR AD HERE
·
INTERNET APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
IN VISUAL BASIC
VB Bridge allows VB apps. to communicate with NT/ US server tllru ISAPL To put it simply,Jou can build Internet
server apps. using VB on save money!
Intro Price $99
Pacific Software Publishing
Sales 800-232-3989 Tel 425-688-8080
http://vbbrid9e.psp;nc.com
Inquiry 394.
·
· I-
I
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High·Speed xBASE Engine...
For C, C++, VB, Delphi and Java programmers. Get
multi-user compatibi lity with FoxPro, Clipper and
dBASE files. CodeBase is portable between DOS,
Windows, UNIX, Mac and OS/21 Includes unlimited
clienVserver, ActiveX controls & visual report writer!
FREE 30 day test drive!
Call Sequiter Software Inc. for details or visit us on the web ot www.sequ1ter.cam
Phone 403 437-2410
FAX 403 436-2999
Inquiry 395. ..... t
-.
'-· - :l'U
VT Protect
SECURE PRODUCT LICENSING
OVER THE WEB!
Secure, reliable piracy protection at a fraction of hardware dongle prices.
Single tool allows administration of multiple products on Windows and UNIX platforms with full integration measured in hours. not days!
Unique user defined security level with support for time limited evaluations. product demos and full and sub product licensing.
An individual, node locked password generated with VT Protect Administrator converts demos and evals to a full single user product, cutting sales time and reducing licensing headaches.
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(888) 842-8323 / (508) 647-0464
Inquiry 399.
ADD
COLOR IMPACT
TO YOUR AD
The Buyer's Mart
For rates and details to
start or upgrade your
advertising
Call Mark Stone today at
603-924-2533
Fax: 603-924-2683
stonem@mcgraw-hill.com
Inquiry 405 .
.
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 155
.· t ,..
~ '
ADVERTISER CONTACT INFORMATION
To order products or request free inforrnation, call advertisers directly or send in the Direct Link Card by mail or fax Let them know you saw it in BYTE!
INQUIRY NO.
PAGE NO . PHO NE NO.
A
85-86 ACI SYSTEMS
151
800-983-1177
93-94 110-111
108-109
AE HOME CORPORATION
ALADDIN KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS LTD
ALADDIN KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS LTD
ALPHA POWERED
153 626·369-260B 12 B00·562·2543
83 B00-223·4277
8-9 BBB·ALPHA-45
AMERICA ONLINE
OUTS EAT
162 AMERICAN AOVANTECH
AMERICAN POWER CONVERSION
145 16A-B
BOO·B00-6889 401-788·2797'"
112 AMERICAN POWER CONVERSION
17 BBB-289-APCC ext8 199
AMERICAN POWER CONVERSION
4BA-B 401 ·788-2797'"
113 AMERICAN POWER CONVERSION
146 ARTECON
157-158 ARTMEDIA
89
AVITECH INTERNATIONAL CORP
49 88B·289-APCC ext825 1
95 BOO·USA ARTE
99 +886·2-778·5850 152 425-836-8970
B
BUSINESS WEEK
96NA2
BYTE BACK ISSUES BYTE ON CO ROM
149 603·924·92B l 133 800·924-6621
BYTE READER SERVICE
105
BYTE READER SERVICE
148
BYTE SUB MESSAGE
134
BYTE WEB SITE
c
104 http://www.byte.com
153-154 CMO TECHNOLOGY 352 COMP USA
COMPAQ COMPUTER ASSOCIATES/CHEYANNE
50 38-41 20-21
15
714·454·0800 8008654576 800·345-15 1B BBB·864·236B
COMPUTER ASSOCIATES /UN ICENTER
29 800-864-2368
116 COMPUTER DISCOUNT
76-n
WAREHOUSE
95
CONTEC MICROELECTRONICS 150
118 COREL
91
164 CORPORATE SYSTEMS
146
CENTER /CSC
353-354 CU BI XCORPORATION
104L
119-120 CYBEX COMPUTER
55
PRODUCTS CORP
B00-959-4239
soosBBBBB4 613-728-0B26
ex t30BO 40B·743B732
B00·953·0145 205-4304000
D
DELL COMPUTER CORP
DELL COMPUTER CORP
DELL COMPUTER CORP (FIOOO)
CV-CVI CVll -CVlll
CV-CVI
800·67B· 1710 B00-678· 1710 800·727-4236
DELL COMPUTER CORP (F1000)
CVll 800·766·47B3
121-122
DELL COMPUTER CORP (Fl OOO)
DELL COMPUTER CORP
DELL COMPUTER CORP OELTEC
CVlll
30-31 96NA 7
86
888·67B-3355
B00-822·3309 800-765-536 1 BOO·O ELTEC·l
INQU IRY NO.
PAGE NO.
1BO DIALOIGITALINC DIGITAL
144 DISTINCT CORPORATION 145 DISTINCT CORPORATION 355-356 DISTRIBUTED PROCESSING
TECHN OLOGY 123-124 OTK COMPUTER INC
136 56-57
16 16 104E
79
F
125 FAIRC OMCORPORATION
96
168 FOREFR ONT DIRECT INC
141
G
169-170 GRANITEOIGITAL
144
142-143 GRIFFIN TECHNOLOGI ES
130
H
m-178 HIWAYTECHllOLOGIES
142
126 HUMMINGBIRD
42
COMMUN ICATIO NS
PH ONE NO.
604·29 1·883B BOO·OIGITAL
408-366-8933 40B-366·B933 407-B30·5522
800·2B9·23B5
573·445·6833 B00-475·5831
510-47 1-6442 800·986-6578
800-339-HWAY 416-496-2200
IBM
87-88 ICPACQUIRE
371 INTRASERVER TECHNOLOGY
96
10 TECH
J
92
JK MICROSYSTEMS
K
KILA KILA KILA 357 KINGSTON NETWORKING 358 KINGSTON STORAGE
L
367-368 LEOPTICS INC
M
11 151 B00-500-4138 104A 888-429-0425 150 216·439-4091
152 510·236-1151
150 303·444· 7737
151
303·444·7737
153 303·444·7737
1048 B00337-7039
1040 B00·337·7039
1041 +BB6·2· 755 -0366
359 MICRO 21XXJ
160-161 MICRO MACRO TECHNOLOGIES
104J-K 132
B18-547·0397.. 303-320· l628
MICROGRAFX
127 800·877-3040
MICRO-INTERNATIONAL INC
152 800-967·5667
140 MICRON ELECTRONICS
Cll-1 800·362-7306
MICROWAY
36 50B·746·7341
166-167 MINICOM ADVANCED SYSTEMS 144 +972·2-51B593
363-364 MITAC
104Q +886·3·328·9000
99-100 MOXATECHNOLOGIES
152 B00-699-MOXA
365-366 MULTIVENTURE MARKETING CORP
104X +8B6·2·707-3123
N
97 173-174
NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS
NEC COMPUTER SYSTEMS DIVISION
NEWVOICE
150 800-433·3488 62-63 l·BBB·B·NEC·NOW
147 908-6B4·l 300
IN QU IRY NO.
PAGE NO. PHONE NO.
0
179 OBJECT MANAGEMENT GROUP 103 508-820-4300
OSBORNE MCGRAW-HILL
135 800·822-B15B
p
127 PANASONIC COMMUNICATIONS 69 &SYSTEMS
151-152 PHILIPS BUSIN ESS ELECTRONICS 120
PH ILIPSMAGNAVOX
96NA 1
128-129 PKWAREINC
131
163 POLYWELL SYSTEMS
143
149-150 POWERQUESTORIVEIMAGE
67
147-148 POWERQUESTPARTITION MAGIC 35
101 PRECI SION GUESSWORK INC 152
800-742-8086 ex t PO
800·835 -35 06
414·354-B6 99 800 -3 00·7659 800-379 -2 566 800·720-039 9 50B·BB7-6570
Q
130 QNX SOFTWARE SYSTEMSLTD 25
QUANTUM CORPORATION 96NA 4-5
131 -132 QUATECH INC
94
B00-676·0566 exll047
800-624-5545 ext131
800-553-1170
R
175-176 RAIOTEC CORPORATION 133 RAINBOW TECHNOLOGIES 171 -172 RARITAN COMPUTER INC
142 770-664·6066 5 800·852·B569
147 908-764-8887..
102 134-135
RECORTEC INC
ROSE ELECTRONICS
s
151 BBB·RECORTEC 93 800·333-9343
136 SAMSUNG 360 SCEPTRETECHNOLOGIES 361 SCEPTRE TECHNOLOGIES 362 SLIGER DESIGNS 103-104 SLIGER DESIGNS
SOFTBANK/COMDEX 155-156 SPOTTEC HN OLOGY 137 STATS OFT
T
27
104 888-580-55BB
104G 888-580-5588
104U 800-255-0267
151 800-255-0267
138
617-433- 16 00
123 +8863-587-8966
71
918·749-11 19
105-106 TECHNOLANO
151
91
TERN INC
153
159 TRACEPOINT TECHNOLOGIES 89
165 TRIMAP INTERNATIONAL INC 140
TV INTERACTIVE/.COM
137
v
800 ·292 4500 916758·0180 888-6BB·2504 510-447-2030 800 3118001
107 VALUE WEB
369-370 VECCOM CO LTD
98
VIOEX INC
138-139 VIEWS ON IC
w
153 888-846-7756 104W +BB6-3-451-5217
150 541-758-0521
65 800-88B·B5B3 AGENT4007
142-143 351
WIBU SYSTEMSAG
WINBOOK COMPUTER CORPORATION
z
130 800-986-6578 800-2 93-1 639
90
Z·WORLO ENGINEERING
153
916-757-3737
156 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
BYTE ADVERTISING SALES STAFF
Mi chael P. Walsh , Associate Publisher 29 Hartwell Avenue, Lexing ton, MA 02 173 Tel: 781-860-6714, Fax: 781-860-6179, mike_wolsh@mcgraw-hill.com
Lori Silverstein , Eastern Regional So les Director 92 1 Eostwind Drive, Suite 11 8, Westerville, OH 43081 Tel: 614-899-4908, Fax: 614-899-4999, lorisf@mcgraw-hill.com
Jim Hussey, Western Regional Sales Director 1900 O'Farrell Street, Suite 200, San Mateo, CA 94403 Tel: 650-513-686 7, Fax: 650 513- 6867,jim_hussey@mcgraw-hill. com
.... ~o
NORTH PACIFIC
AK, Northern CA, HI, ID, MT, DR,
Silicon Va ll ey, WA, WY, Western Ca nada Lisa Farrell 650-513-6862 lfarrell @mcgraw-hill.com Matt Knuth 650-513-6951 matt_knuth @mcgraw-hill.com Sara h McGregor 650-513-6952 sarah_mcgregor@mcgraw-hi ll.com Chris Litchfield 650-513-6939 Th e McGraw-Hill Companies 1900 O'Farrell Street, Suite 200 San Mateo, CA 94403 FAX: 650-51 3-6867
SOUTH PACIFIC
AZ, Southern CA, CO, NM, NV, UT Beth Dudas 714-443-9314 bdudas@mcgraw- hill.com Geanette Perez gperez@mcgraw-hill.com The McGraw-Hi ll Companies 635 Camino de las Mares, Suite 212 San Clemente, CA 92672 FAX: 714-443-9602
MID WEST- SOUTHEAST NEW MEDIA/ONLINE PRODUCTS
FL, GA, IL, KY, Ml, MN, NC, SC, SD, WI Neil Helms404-843-4777 nhelms@mcgraw- hi ll.com Kirstin Powell 404-843-4765 kpih l@mcgraw-hil l.com The McGraw-Hill Companies 4170 Ashford - Dunwoody Roa d Suite 520 Atlanta, GA 30319- 1465 FAX: 404-256-5962
NEW ENGLAND
CT, MA, ME, NH, NY, RI, Vl,
Ontario, Canada, Eastern Canada Edward Marecki 401-351-0274 ed_marecki @mcgraw-hill.com BYTE Magazine One Richmond Squ are Provid ence, RI 02906 FAX: 401-351-0276
MID ATLANTIC
DC, DE, IN, MD, Metro NY, NJ, OH, PA,
VA,WV Don Calamaro 212-5 12-48 11 doncalamaro@mcgraw-hill.com John Ferraro 212-512-2555 j ferraro @mcgraw-hil l.com Jill Poll ak 212-512-3585 jpol lak@mcgraw-hill.com The McGraw-Hill Compan ies 122 1 Avenue of Americas, 28th Floor New York, NY 10020 FAX : 212- 512-2075
SOUTHWEST-MIDWEST
AL, AR, IA, KS, LA, MO, MS, ND, NE, OK, TN, TX Jennifer Brinkm an 214-688- 5165 jen_brinkman@mcgraw-hi ll .com Chrissy Copple 214-688-5 171 ccopple@ mcgraw- hill.com The McGra w-H ill Compani es Mockingbird Towers, Suite 1104E 1341 W. Mockingbird Lane Dallas, TX 75247-69 13 FAX: 214-688-5167
INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING SALES STAFF
Lori Silverste in, in ternational Sales Director, 921 Eastwind Drive, Suite 11 8, Westerville, OH 4308 1U.S.A.
Tel: +614-899-4908, Fax: +614-899-4999, lorisf@mcgraw-hill.com
BYTE ASIA-PACIFIC
AUSTRALIA, HONG KONG, INDIA,
INDONESIA, KOREA, MALAYSIA,
PAKISTAN, PHILIPPINES, OTHER ASIA
AND PACIFIC COUNTRIES,
SINGAPORE, TAIWAN
Weiyee In
weiin @mcgraw-h ill.com
Jennifer Chen
jennchen@mcgraw-hill.com
#305 Nanking East Road,
Section 3, 10th floor
Taipei, Ta iwan, R.O.C.
Tel: +886-2-715-2205
FAX: +886-2-715-2342
KOREA
Young-Seoh Chinn
JES Media Internationa l
6th Fl., Donghye Bldg.
47-16, Myungil-Dong
Kang dong-Gu
Seoul 134-070, Korea
Tel: +82-2-481341 1
FAX: +82-2-4813414
GERMANY, SWITZERLAND, AUSTRIA
Jurgen Heise jheise@ mcgraw-hill.com The McGraw-Hill Compan ies Adam-Berg-Str. 115a D-81735 Mun ich, Germany Tel: +49 -89-680701 - 16 FAX: +49-89-680701- 1B
ISRAEL
Dan Aronovic rhodanny @act co m.co.il DARA Internationa l 11 Hash eldag Street P.O. Box 2335 Kadima 60920, Isra el Tel: +972-9-8995813 FAX: +972-9-899 5815
ITALY, FRANCE, SPAIN, PORTUGAL, SCANDINAVIA
Zena Coupe, Am anda Blaskett 101645.171 O@compuserve.com A-Z Intern ational Sales Ltd. 70 Chalk Farm Road London NWl SAN, Eng land Tel: +441712843171 FAX: +44 1712843174
JAPAN
Akiyoshi Kojim a Japan Advertising Com munications, Inc. Three Star Bui ldi ng 3- 10-3 Kanda Jimbocho Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101Japan Tel: +8133261459 1 FAX: +81 3 3261 6126
UNITED KINGDOM, BENELUX
Jonathan McGowan jonmcgow@mcgraw-hill .com Tel:+441714956781 M arc Green marc_green@ mcgraw-hill.com Tel: +44 171 495 6780 The McGraw-Hill Compa nies 34 Dover St. London W1X4BR Engl and FAX: +44 171 4956734
PETERBOROUGH , NH OFFICE One Phoenix Mill Lan e Peterboroug h, NH 03458 Sa les FAX: 603-924-2683 Advertising FAX: 603-924-7507
BUYERS MART & EURO-DECK Mark Stone 603-924- 2533 st onem@mcgraw-hi ll. co m
BYTE Deck Brian Higg ins603-924-2596 bhigg ins@ mcgraw-hi ll.com
ADVERTISING PRODUCTION
Advertising/ Prod uctio n FAX:603-924-7507
Advertising Production Manager: Linda Flu hr 603-924-2551 lfluhr @mcgraw- hill.co m
Senior Advertising Production Coordina tor: Lyda Clark 603-924-2545 lclark @mcgraw- hill.com
Advertising Production Coordinators: Karen Ci lley 603-924-2557 kcilley@mcgraw-h ill.com Rod Holden 603-924-2675 wholden@mcgraw-hill.com
Senior Operations Coordinator: Li sa Jo Steiner 603-924-2540 lisajo @mcgraw-hi ll.com
Advertising Graphics Manager: Susa n Kingsbury 603-924-2507 suekings@ mcgraw-h ill.com
MARKETING AND PLANNING
Market Information Manager: Edward Fielding 781 -860-6344 FAX: 781-860-6822 fie lding@mcgraw-hill.com
Market In formation Coordinator: Dylan DiGregori o 781-860-6267 FAX: 78 1-860-6822 digregor@mcgraw-hill.com
Assistant Man ager. Trade Shows and Special Events: Arja Neukam 78 1-860-6378 FAX: 781-860-6307 aneukam@mcg raw-hill.com
Marketing/Sa/es In formation Associate: Susa n Monkton 603-924-2618 smonkton@mcg raw-hi ll.com FAX: 603-924-2602
Marketing Services Coordin ator: Kate Woodhou se 781-860-6361 FAX: 781-860-6307 woo dh ous@ mcgraw-h ill.co m
SUBSCRIPTIONS Customer Service U.S. 1-800-232-2983 Outside U.S. + 1-609-426-7676 For a New Subscription U.S. 1-800-257-9402 Outside U.S. +1-609-426-5526
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 1 5 7
For more information on any of the companies covered in articles, columns, or news stories
in this issue, enter the appropriate inqui ry number on the response card. Each page number refers
to the first page of the article or section in which the company name appears.
INQUIRY NO.
PAGE NO.
INQUIRY NO.
PAGE NO .
INQUIRY NO .
PAGE NO .
IN Q UIRY N O.
PAGE NO .
A
1075 AcerAmerica 991 Adobe Systems
Alcatel Alpha Telecom AMO 1076 AMS Tech AppleComputer Applix 1003 Aqueduct 990 Arte con 1029 Articon Information
Systems Asus 1053 Aventail Ax ent Technologies
B
1021 BinTee Communications Boothroyd Dewhurst
998 Borland International 1019 Brain Boxes
c
977 Canon Computer Casady &Greene CB Consultants CCL/ ITRI
1027 CE Infosys Centau rTechnology Central Research Laborato ri es
1122 Cerious Software 1054 Check Point Software
Technologies 1077 Chem USA 1030 Cherwell Scientific
Publishing CIS Technology 1020 COM One 1078 Com paq Computer 1010 Computer Connections Conceptware Connectix Corel 1079 CTX International Cyrix
D
1055 Data Fellows 992 Datalink
Decision Dynamics 1080 Dell Compute r
106 159 58 321S 7 18.73 106 18.87 18 159 159 32 1S28
73 114 81
32 1S 28 321S 23
159 321S28
159 87 104M 321S 7 32 1S2B 73 321S3
129 11 4
106 32 1S 28
321S7 321S 28
106 321S 28 321S 23
51 18 106 18,73
114 159 321S 23 106
1001, Digital Equipment 1052, 1081
1000 Dimensional Insight
1028 Dr. Solomon'sSoftware
18.106. 114. 159
159
E
Ecobalance/Ecobilan 1082 Empac International 1110 Entrust Technologies
EDRM 996 Eos Systems 983, Epson America 989
Hech 1083 Eurocom 1084 Everex Systems
321S 23 106 121
321S 2 159 159
321S 7 106 106
F
FAPS 985 Frankl in Electronic Pub lishers 1056 FTPSoftware
32 1S 23 159 11 4
G
1119 G&A Imaging GA Seer Technolog ies
129 321S 23
1085, Gateway 2000
106
1086
Gim pel Software
321S 17
Great Lakes Business Solutions 87
H
982, Hewlett-Packard 1088 1087 Hitachi
Hu ghes Communications 1022 HyperTec
10 6, 159
18. 106 58
32 1S 28
981 IBM 1008 ICP Vortex 1025 The lmtec Group 1031 Information Technologies
and Electronics 1015 Innovative Software 1120 lnso 994 Intel 1113 Interplay Productions 995 Iomega
IPL
159 321S28 32 1S 28 32 1S 28
32 1S 28 129
18,73.159 129 159
321 S17
J
1118 Jase
129
K
1041 KOS USA
159
1121 Kinetix
129
1089 Kiwi Computers
106
KM PG PeatMarwick
104M
L
Le rnout& Hauspie Lockheed 1024 Logitech Loral Lo tu sDevelopment
321S 3 58
321S 28 58 18
M
979 Matrox Graphics
159
McCabe and Associates Mercury Interactive
321S 17 321S 17
1116 MetaCreations
129
Metrowerk s
101
1090 MicroExpress
106
1091 Micro International
106
1092 Micron
1057, Microsoft 1062, 1109
Motorola
987 Mylex
10 6 81. B7. 114,121. 125.
96NA 3, 104C
5B 159
N
NCRRetailServices Group
104M
1093 NEC ComputerSystems Division 106
1063, Netscape 1112 Communications
121. 125
Network Information Technology 81
Nortel/ Cognition
32 1S23
1074 Number Nine Visual Technology 33
0
1114 Olympus America
p
1036 Paradi gm Business Simu lators
1033 Planetary Systems 976 Polywell Computers 1107 Pre tty Good Privacy
Pnme View International Pro duct Ecology Con sultants Prog ramming Research Pure Atria
129
321S 28
32 1S28 159 121
321S3 321S 23
321S17 321S17
Q
978 Quantum
159
R
1058 RaptorSystems
114
986 ROI Computer Reliable Software Technolog ies Restaurant Consulting Services
1108 RSA DataSecurity 1124 RT Computer Graphics
s
Sa vantage 1094, Sceptre Technologies 1095 993 Seagate 1059 SecureComputing 1096 Sharp Electronics 1026 Sicon-Socomec
SiemensNixdort 1032 Silux 1097 Sony Electron ics 1106 Sound Vision
Spinwest 1115 Strategic Simulations 1060 Sun Microsystems
Sun Test Symantec
T
1098 Tatung Company of Ameri ca Teledesic TexasTech University
1099 Toshiba Ameri ca Information Systems
984 Toshiba Imaging 1002 Traveling Software 1004 TravRoute 1042 Trellix 1061 Trusted Information Systems
Turtl eBa y
v
Veril og VersaNet ViciousFishes Software 1123 Visio 1013 Visualizing Ideas
w
997 WexTech 1100 WinBook
z
ZyXel Communications
159 321S 17
1D4M
121 129
321S 23 106
159 114 1D6 32 1S 28 321S23 321S 28 1D6 34 321S23 129 114 321S 17 121
106 58 32 1S 23 106
159 159 159 37 114 321S23
321S 17 321S 7
87 129 321S 28
159 106
321S7
IS pages appear only in the International edition. NA pages appear only in the North America edition. C and M pages appear only in th e Reseller edition.
158 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Hardware
A 600-MHz Alpha workstation, Unix notebooks, Java development tools, and remote network management software.
PREVIEW
PolyAlpha PC
$10,661
Enter976
on Inquiry Card.
Polywell Computers South San Francisco, CA 800-999 -1278 415-583-7222 http ://www.polywell.com
The Fastest Box on the Block
Digital Equipment's Alpha chip is not just for servers anymore, though it is still not your typical desktop processor. The latest 21164 processor can run at 600 MHz, roughly twice the speed of most competitors' chips. The typical user won't need this kind of speed to run Microsoft Office or read e-mail, but this level of pro cessing power promises to push high-end graphics or database ap plications to new heights.
I looked at a Polywell PolyAlpha PC running the new 600-MHz chip with a 2-MB L3 cache, 128 MB of RAM, a 4.5-GB Ultra-Wide SCSI hard drive, and a 4-MB Matrox Millennium PCI graphics card. This configuration costs $10,661 ,though most users will probably opt for a more powerful graphics card, should they use this system for animation, 3-D rendering, and such graphics applications.
The system runs either Unix or Windows NT. Unix systems have been shipping since July, but the system Isaw is among the first run ning NT. I ran the native Alpha BYTEmark benchmark on this system (see"A Chip Offthe Old Block" on page 18), which tests the raw pro cessing power of the CPU, and got the highest numbers from any NT desktop system we've tested to date.
If over $10,000 is excessive for this kind of processing power, a 533-M Hz system will cost $4300 less, and the 500-M Hz Alpha system will cost $5200 less.The price of the 21164 chip will even tually come down, and the price of the system with it, but for now, this is likely the most screaming processor on the market.
-Jason K. Krause
w.b te m
Add-ins
Video Graphics TV Kit for PCs
MATROx's NEW GRAPHICS, VIDEO AN DTV Kit combines the Matrox Mystiqu e 220 3-D and video accelerator with 4 MB ofSGRAM and video-capture and TV-tuner options to let you capture and edit video. Or, you can simply watch TV on your PC. Th e system, wh ich includes video-edit ing software, games, and other titles, sel lsfor $379. Contact: Matrox Graphics, Dorval, Quebec, Canada, 800 -361-1 408 or 514-969-6300; http://www.matrox.com. Enter 979 on Inquiry Card.
per-minute printing in black ink and 2 pages per minute in color. Contact: Canon Computer Systems, Costa Mesa, CA, 800 -848 -41 23 or 714-438-3000; http: // www.ccsi.canon .com. Enter 977 on Inquiry Card.
Scanners
Digitize Images Faster
THE HP 5CANJET 6100C ($799) SPEEDS the scanning process, capt uring images with asingle exposure, and
. -. ·i>rin.ters
Desktop Printing in a Small Package
CANON 'SBJC-80 OFFERS COLORPRINT ing in a package that's not just affordable, but portable, too. Th e Canon BJC-80 ($299) isa 3-pound,
hardware-accelerated image pro cessing takes the guesswork out of scanning. A trichromatic beam captures the full spectrum of color in one pass across an image, and a processing chip, new to Hewlett Packard's lineof scanners, performs color matching, more acc urate gray-scale output, and basic image processing tasks. Contact: Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, CA, 800-722-6538 or650-857-1501; http://www.hp.com. Enter 982 on Inquiry Card.
Bigger, Bolder four-color ink-jet printer that is Scanning
11 .8 inch es wide, 6.2 inches deep, and 2.2 inches high. It is capable of THE EPSON ExPRESSION 836Xl ISASCAN printing on paper up to 8 inches nerfor graphic designers and engi wide. Th e BJC-80 achieves 720 by neers.It can scan imagesthe size of 360 dpi with Canon's Drop Modu a tabloid newspaper, such as post lation Technology th at allows th e ers, blueprints, or large-form at print head to control the size of dots prints, or can batch-process multi
as it prints. It is rated for 4-page ple smaller images. It has 800- by """''
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 159
What's New Hardware
1600-dpi optical resolution with 36 bit co lor and an auto-focus lens, rather than fixed-focus. The Expres sion 836XL makes scans in one pass and can scan images of up to 12.2 by 17.2 inches. With the bundled Sil verFast scanning software, you can optimize image output with contro l over range, gradation, color balance, contrast, brightness, high lights, halftones, and shadows. The basic unit costs $2500. For $3000, you can get one th at can process slides, 40 at a time. Contact: Epson America, Torrance, CA, 310-782-0770; http: // www.epson.com. Enter 983 on Inquiry Card.
1 Videoconferencing
Get the Picture
THE TOSHIBA IK-MM 1BRINGS HIGH-RES Oiution imag ing to the portable computer environment for $139. It features aCCD image sensor with a fixed-focus lens, automatic white balance, 512- by 492-pixe l resolu
ti on, and avideo-capture rate of 30 framespersecond.ThelK-MMl has ana log NTSC video output and works with most video-capture cards. It has no audio capabilities, which means you need a separate microphone to conduct an audio/ video videoconference. Contact: Toshiba Imaging Systems, Irvine, CA, 714-461 4984; http://www.toshiba .com/pccam. Enter 984 on Inquiry Card.
PC Cards
King of the PIMs
REX ISAPIM IN APC CARDFORM FAC tor.Use itto download information from Pl Ms such as Microsoft's Out
look, Schedu le+, Lotus Organizer, and Starfish's Sidekick. You can ac cess the data anywhere on REX's 9 row, 30-co lumn LCD screen. REX has 128 KB offlash ROM, fits into aType II PC Ca rd slot or uses a serial -port adapter to access PCs, and uses Starfish'sTrueSync synchronization software for accessing data. It weighs 1.4ounces,measures ''· inch thick by 2 inches wide and 3 inches deep, and runs on two lithium- ion batteries. The estimated street price of the REX PIM ranges from $129.95 to $179.95. Contact: Franklin Electronic Publishers, Burlington, NJ, 609-386 -2500; http://www.franklin. com. Enter 985 on Inquiry Card.
' Monitors
Get the Whole Picture
A 19-INCHMONITOR FROM KDS USA, THE Visual Sensations VS-19, presents 18.8 inches of screen space priced at $999. It has a horizontal scan ning frequencyofupto 95 kHz with a picture resolution of up to 1600 by 1200 pixels at 75 Hz. It needs an adapter for use with a Mac and sup ports Plug and Play on Wind ows 95 machines. KDS USA, Garden Grove, CA, 714-379-5599; http: // www.kdsusa.com. Enter 1041 on Inquiry Card.
Systems
The Power Paradigm
THE POWERDIGM XSU FEATURESMICRON'S Samurai chip set, which promises higher system bandwidth and sup port for Ultra SCSI, Gigabit Ether net, or Fibre Channel 1/0. Slots on the motherboard include one (66 MHz) 64-bit PCI, two (33-MHz) 32
bit PCI, and two ISA. The system sup ports up to two Pentium II CPUs and comes with your choice of a Dia mond FireGlor Number Nine Rev olution 3D video card . Standard features include the Pentium II, a 512-KB L2 cache, up to 384 MB of RAM, a 24x CD-ROM drive, and up to a 9-GB Ultra SCSI hard drive. The system starts at $5199 with a sin gle processor. Contact: Micron Electronics, Nampa, ID, 800-209-9686 or 208-893-3434; http://www.micronpc.com. Enter 980 on Inquiry Card.
New Network Computers
NOT EVERYONE ON ACORPORATE NETWORK is a power user. IBM's new Series 1000 network comp uters are built to be cost-effective alternatives to a PC.They have e-ma il and Internet and intra net access. They can run Java applets and applicationsas welI as execute Windows app licatio ns via multiuser implementations of Windows NT on a PC server. They support 3270 and 5250 terminal applications and work with appli cations on AIXand Unix servers using X Window System server support. Contact: IBM, Somers, NY, 800-426-7080 or416-383 -5152; http: //w w w.ibm.com/nc. Enter 981 on Inquiry Card.
Cameras
Making Picture Taking Simple
EPSON'S PHOTOPC 600 DIGITAL CAMERA ($799) captures images atXGA res olution (1024 by 768 pixels). with an auto-focus lens and built-in Col orTrue image-processing software for fine-tun ing co lor accuracy, saturation, balance, and contrast. Auto-exposure and abuilt-in auto matic flash simplify picture taking, a built-in LCD monitor plays back photos, and the camera will print photos directly to the Epson Stylus Photo color ink-jet printer without downloading them first to aPC. The
printer's estimated street price is $499, and the $69 Stylus Photo Direct Kit inc lud es the implements necessary for direct printing with out a PC. Contact: Epson America, Torrance, CA, 3 10-782-0770; http: // www.epson.com. Enter 989 on Inquiry Card.
Portables
Portable Sun Workstations
THEULTRABOOK ($1 1,995), FROM RDI Computer, offers Unix workstation perform ance in a portable note book. This 7.4-pound lithium-ion
powered notebook has a 200-MHz UltraSPARC processo r, a 14.1-inch active-matrix LCD, and a9-GB EIDE hard drive for portable processing power. It includes 32 to 512 MB of memory and a PCl-based ATI Rage LT Sun Creator 2-D or 3-D graphics acce lerator. The UltraBook runs unmodifiedSolaris2.5.1 or2 .6and is compatib le with Sun Microsys tems workstations. Contact: RDI Computer, Carlsbad, CA, 760-929-0992; http://www.rdi.com. Enter 986 on Inquiry Card.
Hard Drives
High-End Hard Drives
THE0UANTUM ATLAS Ill AND VI KINGII have the disk space and through put that high-end workstations and servers need. Both support the Ultra2 Low Voltage Differential SCSI for high bus transfer rates, and the 7200-rpm Atlas Ill drives sup port Fibre Channe l-Arbitrated
1 60 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Software What's New
Loops. The Atlas Ill series (from $749 to $1995) offers 4.55-, 9.1-, and 18.2-GB hard drives, and the Viking II series ($595-$895) has 9.1- and 4.55-GB drives. The Viking II series is targeted at t he PC se rver and workstation environment. TheAtlas Ill is geared for OLTP, data ware housing, and multisystem clustered environments. Contact: Quantum,
Milpitas, CA , 408-894-4721;
http://www.quantum.com.
Enter 978 on Inquiry Card.
Servers
Thin Is In
THE AUTON ET ($995), FROMMYLEX, ISA platform-independent, embedded Plug and Play network server en gine, otherwise known as a "thin" server. Based on the NetEngine arch itectu re, which uses open RISC, ASIC, 1/0, and LAN architectures, the AutoNet will support the ad di tion of high-performance SCSI peripherals to a LAN architecture. The Auto Net has the form factor of a 31/1-inch disk drive. You can use it as a file server or to add storage products to a network. You can use the Auto Net to perform functions that were previously performed by more expensive file se rvers, but
or Pentium II processors and a host of the latest server features. The Revolution 2XL, an enterprise-class server, has a 64-bitSMP parity path between processor, cache, and memory; integrated PCI Fast Wide UltraSCSI and PCI graphics con trollers; and two 365-W power sup plies for load sharing. A PCl/EISA bus architecture offers fast periph era l performance, while maintain ing backward compatibility with EISA legacy systems. Contact: Advanced Logic Research, Irvine, CA, 714-581-6770; http://www.alr.com. Enter 988 on lnqu iry Card.
Storage
Highly Scalable RAID Solutions
without requiring NICs, large amou nts of RAM, or NOS licenses, as do other file servers. Contact: Mylex, Fremont, CA, 510-608-2222; http: // w w w.mylex.com . Enter 987 on Inquiry Card.
Continuing the Revolution
BUILDING ON THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE ALR Revolution Qu ad6 and Revolution 6x 6 servers, the Revolution 2XL {$3495) supports dual Pentium Pro
THELYNXSTAKSERIES2000 RAID SYS tem scales from simple 4-GB RAID protection up to backup protection for workgroup envi ronments with terabytes of backup disk space. Each Lyn xStak contro ll er supports as many as 14Artecon Lynx drive sub systems, for up to 118 GB ofusable capacity. Ultra Wide SCSI channels provid e up to 40-MBps burst and 33 -MBps sustai ned data transfer rates. Hot-swap removable RAID controllers, disk drives, fans, and power supplies help eliminate downtime, and the RAID controller achieves 4600 I/Os per second. Prices start at $9710 for a 12-GB configuration. Contact: Artecon, Carlsbad, CA, 619-931-5500; http: // www.artecon.com. Enter 990 on Inquiry Card.
SOFTWARE
'
imaging
Digitize Real-World Objects
PH OTOMODELER PRO3.0 ($795) GEN erates 3-D models of real-world objects and scenesfor architecture, accident-reconstruction, forensics, archaeology, engineering, and 3-D-animation ap plications. To construct 3-D models of real-world objects, shoot two or more pho tographs of an object or scene from different ang les and mark points on one photograph that correspond to points in another picture. Scan
or digitize the photographs, and let PhotoModeler process the data. You can export the resulting 3-D mod els into CAD, anim atio n, or graphics software. A few new fea tures include support for new file export formats, enhanced photo texturing, cylinder and curve mod eling, and multimedia tutorials. Contact: Eos Systems, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 800-782 -5974 or 604 -732 -6658; http://www.photomodeler.com. Enter 996 on Inquiry Card.
PC Camera and Software
INTEL'SCREATE AND SHARE LETS YOU TAKE snapshots from your PC, create short videos, or make video phone calls over the Web and regular phone lines. The program comes in three versions-USS, PCI, and PCI with built-in modem-ranging in
price from $199 to $349. Applica tions include photo-enhancement software, NetCard (for creating e-mail messages with images and sound), Kai's Power Goo for shrink ing an d morphing images, and video phone. It also includes an imaging camerathat sits on top of a 90-MHz Pentium (or better) PC. Contact: Intel, Santa Clara, CA, 800-538-3373 or 916-377-7000; http://www.intel.com. Enter 994 on Inquiry Card.
Postproduction for Home Movies
FEED VIDEO INTO YOUR COMPUTER AND ED IT and add special effects with !omega's Buz multimedia production soft ware for under $200. The Buz kit includes in and out connector ca bles for S-video, composite video, an d stereo audio systems, and can output finished product to video tape. Buz consists of a video-cap ture card, an UltraSCSI controller, and software.It is co mpatible with PCs and Macs, and can accept not on ly video input, but also data from any SCSI device. Contact: Iomega, Roy, UT, 801-778-1000; http: // www.iomega.com. Enter 995 on Inquiry Card.
Programming
Java Development Tools
BORLAND'SJBUILDER FAMILY OF VI SUAL developmenttoolsfo r Java,JBuilder Standard,JBuilder Professional, and JBu iIder Client/Server Suite feature aJavaBean creation component, a scalable database architecture, and visual development tools. These Java development environ ments offer support for JavaSoft'sJDK 1.1,JDBC, and the JavaBea ns component model for producing Java applica tions, applets, and JavaBeans. JBuilder's open environment also supports 100 percent PureJava,JFC, AFC, RMI, CORBA,JDBC, ODBC, and most major corporate database servers. JBuilder Standard has an
NOVEMBER 1997 BYTE 1 61
What 's New Software
estimated street pri ce of $99.95. Owners of oth er Borl and tool s ca n purchase JBuilder Professional for $249.95,and owners of competitive toolscan pu rchase JBuilder Profes sional for $299.95. Contact: Borland, Scotts Va lley, CA, 408 -431-1000; http: // w w w.borland.com. Enter 998 on Inquiry Card.
Build a More Helpful Application
ANSWERWORKS {$795) IS ANATU RAL language interfa ce for bu ilding help f iles in an appli ca ti on. The prog ram can in te rpret queri es yo u ty pe in and matc hes keywor ds from the qu esti on to th emost re l eva nt t opics stored in the appl ica -
PhotoDeluxe 2 .0 $49
Enter 991 on Inquiry Card.
Adobe Systems, Inc. San Jose, CA 800-888-6293 408-536-6000 http :// w ww.adob e.co m
Photo Editing Made Easier
Adobe's PhotoDeluxe 2.0 image-editing software adds a host of features designed to appeal to both novice and experienced users.Although that sounds likea bit of atightrope act,Adobeman ages to pull it off.I previewed a beta version of PhotoDeluxe for Win dows, but Adobe will also release a Mac version .
PhotoDeluxe's revamped user interface has visual cues that pre sent fun ctions in a more logical way to the end user, and Guided Activities in the program now require fewer steps. These improve ments make the program more approachable and easier to follow for first-time and occasional users. Key tasks,such as Red Eye removal or edge selection, are vastly improved and automated for quicker execution. However, Ithink that Microsoft's Picturelt does a slightly better job at quickly outlining shapes. Other additions include the powerful PhotoShop clone tool, better text manipulation, and more snazzy special-effect filters.
For those who don't want to be led by the hand, PhotoDeluxe's Advanced mode is also beefed up, and it is easier to switch from the Guided Activities into the Advanced mode. In either mode, you can now access the Internet (Internet Explorer is built in) to send photos or get onto the Adobe Web site and download new Guided Activi ties. You can also makescreen savers,e-mail cards,and slide shows out of photo projects.
Other notable features include Storm's EasyPhoto Organizer, plenty of project templates, and MMX support. PhotoDeluxe 2.0 is a winner, offering both creative power and usability. -Jon Pepper
t io n'shelp fil e. For deve lopers, th e AnswerW ork s proj ec t wi za rd guides th em t hro ugh t he process of crea ting help t opi cs. The pro gram automa ti ca ll y genera t es end- user proj ect f iles (NJP, LIM, and NMP fi les) and has in te lligence buil t in for extractin g keyword s from a sentence keyed into a help progra m. An swe rWorks run s on Wi ndows 3. 1, 95, and NT; supports six langu ages; and ca n be give n a custom interface. Contact: WexTech Systems,
New York, NY, 212-949-9595; http://www.wextech.com.
Enter 997 on Inquiry Card.
Fil e-Compression
Technology
RMX TECHNOLOG IES HAS DEVELOPED Rush, an encoding technology t hat, RMX cl aims, ca n shrink some fil es by up to 95 percent of th e original size. RMX has ki ts avai labl e, start ing at $5000, fo r deve lopers who want to use t his t echnology. Rush is able to encode parts of a fi le's data stru cturewithout math emat ica l com pression , th ough you ca n use sta nd ard math-b ase d co m pression on Rush-encoded fil es to further reduce fil esize. Rush istai lored to shrink graph ics fil es. You can view th e fil es with most Web browse rsor th rough plug-ins. Contact: RMXTechnologies, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 61 3-749-1400; h ttp: // www.rmx.com . Enter 999 on Inquiry Card.
Disaster Recovery
Survive a Network Crash
SEAGATE 'SBACKUP EXEC FOR WI NDOWS NT is backup soft wa rethat, with its Intelligent Disaster Recovery mod ul e, provides recove ry fo r yo ur server after hardwarefa ilure. Back up Exec auto mates backup opera tions and ca n recover critical data in theeven t of acrash without rein
stalling the OS. Fau lt-tolerant back up processing maintains backup integ rity by rerouting j obs in th e event of system, med ium, or device error. With support fo r Microsoft's COM architecture,Backup Exec ca n
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integrate wit h app licatio ns from th ird-party storage ma nage men t ve nd ors. Th e si ngle-server ed ition costs$695,and the ente rpri se edi t ion is $ 1395. Contact: Seagate Softwa re, Heathrow, FL, 800-32 7-2232 or407-531 -7500; http: // www.seagatesoftware .com. Enter 993 on Inquiry Card.
1 Development
Better Beta Testing
AOUEDUCTPROFILER ($20,000) ANSWERS thequ estionson every betatester's mind : How are peop le us in g an
ap pli ca t ion, who is usi ng it , how long t hey are using it , and when does it crash? Wri t ten fo r Sun OS, HP-UX, and Wind ows NT and 95 applications,it isinteg rated into an appli cation by add ing library ca lls to t hesource code. It automatica lly e- mai ls user activity info rm ati on fro m the applica ti on to th e devel oper asASCII text, and a reporting too l puts th e data int o simple graphs, pi e charts, or tab les quan tifying the ways beta users deployed th e applica ti on. Contact: Aqueduct, Men lo Park, CA, 650-463 -8700; http: // www.aqueduct .com. Enter 1003 on Inquiry Card.
1 62 BYTE NOVEMBER 1997
Software What 's New
Dive Into Your Database
DI-DIVER ($1000) TAKESODBC-COM pliant rel ationa l data base fi les or fl at ASCII fi les and turns unfath-
omable amounts of data into func
tional reports and graphs. DI-Diver
supports HTML for accessing infor
mation across the Web and intra
nets, al lowing reports to be shared
on-line.The interface supports more than 100 ana lytica l functions and can create reports with one mouse click of the "report" button.
Contact: Dimensional Insight, Burlington, MA, 617-229-9111 ; h t t p :// w w w.dimins.com. Enter 1000 on Inquiry Card.
Travel Assistant Speaks for Itself
quotes over a wired or wire less phone.You can also get updates on market indexes (e.g.,DowJones) and currency exchange rates. Contact: DataLink Systems Corp., Sanjose, CA, 888-603 -5465 o r 4 0 8 - 5 5 8 -0 800; h ttp: // www.datalink.net. Enter 992 on Inquiry Card.
Software Update
Intel has introduced a unif ied Windows NT and Nove ll NetWare client/server virus-protection version-5.0-of LANDesk Virus Pro tect ($1495). This release provides protection with real -time back ground scanning of incoming data and an integrity shieldthat secures executable fi les with write protection. Integrity verification scans modified fi les to limit virus propagation. Centra lized management works across all Windows platforms as well as NetWare Server and DOS platforms, and you can activate a virus sweep of all servers and clients in a domain with one mouse-click. Contact: Intel, Santa Clara, CA, 800-538-3373 or 916-377 7000; http://www.intel.com. Enter 1005 on Inquiry Card.
Built-in HTIP and CGI functionality ends FileMaker Pro's reliance on other software products for Web-related tasks. You can search, ed it, and update records with a Web browser, and HTML templates facil itate the creation of custom intranet or Internet pages. File Maker Pro 4.0 ($199 or $99 upgrade) supports storage of GIF and JPEG fil es in the database, and can send records in large, bulk e-mai ls. For general use, you can create FileMaker Pro files directly from Excel spreadsheets, and you can sort information in the main database accord ing to various re lationships and notjust displayed by the dates files were created. This latest re lease also has new calculation func t ions and improved search features. It supports http, ftp, mail to, and file protocolsfor viewing on-line data. Contact: Claris, Santa Clara, CA, 408-987-7000; http://www.claris.com. Enter 1006 on Inquiry Card.
First Aid 98 ($39.95), the third-generation version of the PC repair software, has anewly refined interface, an Emergency Recovery Sys tem, and on-linehelp services. It lists any problems with asystem in plain English, listed in order of severity. It can fix a problem auto matically. If you don't trust the software to fix abug on its own, you can fix stuff yourself, and the software wi ll walk you through the steps, explaining them as it goes. It links tosupportsites to get answers it doesn't know, and with HTML support and FAQs, on- line data can be presented without needing to launch aWeb browser. First Aid 98 trapserror messages to make it easier to identify the source ofacrash. If the program is unable to find the source of a glitch, it will contact the vendor bye-maii, sending adetailed message outIi ning the nature of the bug. The Emergency Recovery System checks the OS for sig ns of fai lu re. First Aid 98 runs on Windows 95. Contact: CyberMedia, Santa Monica, CA, 310-581-4700; http://www.cybermedia.com. Enter 1007 on Inqu iry Card.
TRAVROUTE SOFTWARE'SIN-CARNAVIGA ti on assistant (12-ch annel GPS receiver included) not only gu ides you in your trip from door to door, it will talk to you as you drive. Ifyou miss a tu rn or need to detour for traffic, CoPilot ($499) automati ca lly provides a new route to your
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destination, while continuing to provide verbal directions. CoPilot gives yo u detailed directions; all you do is input the addresses of the starting and destination points. In addition to CoPilot talking to yo u, you can talk back to it. You can speak to the program, command ing it to tel l you where you have to make the next t urn, for exa mple. Contact: TravRoute Software, Princeton, NJ, 888-872-8768 or 609-252-8197; h t t p :// www.travroute.com. Enter 1004 on Inquiry Card.
Stock Quotes on Demand
DATALINK, APROVIDER OF FINANCIAL AND person al information services that are delivered using alphanumeric paging andother wireless networks, enhances its QuoteXPress stock market service by addi ng Quote On-Dema nd capabilities. OuoteX Press delivers stock quotes to your digital cellular phone or pager based on criteria you specify.With Quote On-Demand, you can query a real t ime stock quote feed and receive
Pragmatic Virtual Networks
REMOTE NET-ACCELERATOR ($ 1999). from TravelingSoftware, lessens th e burden of remote- and In ternet access clients on a network. Fil e co mpression, disk cac hin g, and buffering increase an application's response timeover avirtual private network or RAS remote-node con nection.During file transfer, only the parts offiles that have changed are uploaded.Remote Net- Accelerator groups fi le requests and transfers fi les in blocks of information to con trol the network's burden. Contact: Traveling Software, Bothell, WA, 800-343-8080 o r 4 2 5 -483 -808 8; http://www.travsoft.com. Enter 1002 on Inquiry Card.
LAN, WAN, and VLAN Management
DI GITALEOUIPMENT'SCLEARVI SN 2.0 network management su itemeets the demands of remote network admin istration. It f ea tures a new wiza rd for virtual LAN configu ra tions, support fo r emulated LANs, and WAN servi ces management. It supports a common database fo r storing device information . The suite consists of the Fault Policy Manage r ($149 5); the Intranet Manager, including WAN Services Management ($10,995) ; and th e RMON Manager ($3495). Contact: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton, MA, 508-493 -5111 ; http: // w w w.n et works.digita l .com. Enter 1001 on Inquiry Card.
www.byte com
NOVEMBER 1 997 BYTE 1 63
Advances and Retreats in Computing
,-
Something to STARE At
Forget 3-D because 4-D is here, literally here on this page. As you can see, it is stunning. Promises about
move! And you don't even have to wear goggles!
This new printer allows you to vary the printing process so that
slow motion. Ironically (and this example rea//ydemonstrates that life is a series of technological trade-offs), with this process, it
Admittedly, ittakes a while to accustom your eyes to the Papa dopoulous system. But once you "g et it," you will be ab le to in
3-D stretch back more than a the imagesappearto movein real is difficult to print an image that stantly see the full glory of any
generation, but the reality was time, accelerated time, or even appears to be "still."
other picture of this kind .
always disappointing, re
The image shown
quiring that you wear col ored lenses or that you buy very expensive and hokey
Continuous Bombardment
Our recent story about e-junkmail generated
above (it appears to be three
viewing equipment. Some numerous letters from readers who want1o
images, but
of th e3-D images also had join the fight against e-spam. But e-j unkmail
really isn't)
the drawback of making you nauseous while you looked at them .
Arvin Papadop oulous, Inc., a tiny
perpetrators often disguise their true addresses
by forging the mes
Firehose
sage headers. Even if you find them, e-junkmailers are elusive. They move
was prepared using a beta version of the 4-D printer. To view it, position your eyes
outfit from the high Firehose is asimple Javaapplet. It'sfree, quickly (and often) from one Internet about BO centimeters
tech wilderness of Boise, Idaho, has ren dered all these 3-D
fun,and satisfying to use. The noble men and women (and skilled children) of the Department of Public Works maintain
service provider (ISP) to another. What's needed is a way to find and
from the paper and hold the page ata slight angl e. Do not blink
efforts obsolete. The a list ofthe e-junkmailers' true addresses track them as you lay down a stream
(that's important). If
co mpany is about to that is updated daily. Firehose sends a of deadly fire to wipe them out. We
th is is the first Pa pa
market a new kind of continuous stream of messages to every speak metaphorically, of course.
dopoulous image you
ink-jet printer that produces 4-D images
junkmailer who has sent e-junkmail to you and who is on the DPW's list.
An elegant program called Firehose have seen, it will likely take approximately
on glossy paper. With
The E-junkmailers' e-junkmail is jujis (see the text box) does exactly that.
4000-4500 seconds
this printing break through, you can view
tuistically turned back against themand then some.The evil e-junkmail crea tures cannot for long avoid Firehose's
Like e-junkmailers themselves, Fire- beforeyou see the pic hose is relentless and inhuman. Some ture for what it is.
a// sides (including the
mighty stream.
of you may ask whether this
inside) of every object in a picture. And you
approach is overkill, in that the
Marc Abrahams is the editor ofthe Annals of Improbable
can also see the "fourth mail Firehose generates does itself soak up enormous band·
Research. You can contact
dimension," which is time. width. Perhaps. But in this war to eliminate e-junkmail, it may
him by sending e-mail to
You can see the images be necessary to destroy the global village in order to save it.
marca@improb.com.
1 64 BYTE NOVE MB ER 1997
www.byte.com
* 13.3" XGA Active Matrix
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* 32MB SDRAM {144MB Max)
· 512KB L2Pipeline Burst Cache
* 2.1GB ATA Hard Drive
· Modular Options Bay accepts 20X Max·· Variable CD-ROM, 35" Floppy Drive (both included) or Optional 2nd Li thium Ion Battery
· 128-bit GraphicsAccelerator with 64K Colors at 1024x768
· Zoom Video and USBPorts
* Stereo Speakers with 3D Surround
Sound and Yamaha SW Wavetable
· Smart Lithium Ion Battery
· Cardbus Ready/Fast IA 1.1
* Microsoft· Office 97 Small
Business Edition
· Microsoft Windows®95
· Microsoft Internet Explorer
* 6.9 Pounds·rrouchpad
· Extendable 1Year Warranty'
* Upgrade to 64MB SDRAM.
add$399.
*Upgrade to a 4GB Ultra-ATA Hard Drive, add $349.
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SDRAM. FINALLY, HIGH-END FEATURES WITHOUT THE HIGH-END PRICE.
Okay. We admit it. We think our new line of lnspiron'" notebooks ispretty impressive. And it offersafeature set for under $4,000that's evenmoreexceptional. It comes loaded with a233MHz Penti um®processor with MMXTMtechnology, the fastest mobile Pentium processor you can find in any notebook. A 13.3" XGA TFT screen. add ing up to a 21 %larger vi ewi ng area th an a 12. 1" screen and, thanks to XGA resolution. fitting
63% more information on the screen. 30 Surround Sound and high-performance video. Pretty amazing considering th at even loaded with all these features, the new Del l® lnspiron 3000 M233XT weighs in at just 6.9 pounds. So you see awhole new categ ory of notebooks has arrived. Dell lnspiron. The notebook fo r people who are looking for
J?~f!l,i HQ1' more. If you're looking for more. give us a call or visit us on our website.
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Common features : · Mini-Tower Model · 512KB L2 Cache · 24X Max' Variable CD -ROM Drive · Micro soft· Office 97 Sma ll Business Edi tion plus Bookshelf 96 · Microsoft Intern et Explorer · Microsoft Mouse IMS lntelli Mouse on XPS Systems) · 2 Universal Serial Bus IUSB) Ports · 3 Year Limited Warranty ' with 1 Year C Upgrades: · 3Com' 3C905 Fa st Eth erlink XL 10/ 100 PCI Ca rd , ad d $99. · 4/ BGB EIDE TR4 TBU , add $199. · APC Back-UPS Pro 650. add $299 . 3 Yea rs On-site'
NEW DELL DIMENSION" XPS 0300
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233MHzPENTIUM 11 PROCESSOR FEATURING MMXTECHNOLOGY
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233MHzPENTIUM"' PROCESSOR WITH MMX TECHNOLOGY
Common fea tures listed above plus: · 64MB SORAM Memory
· NEW8.4GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive with 512KB Cache19 5ms)
· NEW1200HS Monitor 117.9" v.i.s., .26dp) · NEWMatroxMillennium 11BMB WRAM
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· NEW Creative Labs AWE64 Va lue Sound Card
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with One Cartridge
Common features lis ted above plus: · 64MB SORAM Memory · NEW6.4GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive
19 5ms) · NEW1000TX Trinitron' Monitor · NEWSTB Velocity 4MB AGP Video Card
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Common fea tures li sted above plus:
· 32MB SORAM Memory
· NEW8.4GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive with 512KB Cache l9.5ms)
· NEW1000TXTrinitron Monitor 115.9" vi.s, .26dp, 1280x1024 max. res.)
· NEW STB Velocity 4MB AGP Video Ca rd
· NEWCreative Labs AWE64 Va lue
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· Altec Lansing ACS-90 Speakers
* Upgrade to a 1200HS Monitor (17.9"
v.i.s, .26dp), add $189.
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Common features listedabove plus: · 32MB SDRAM Memory · 6.4GB Hard Drive l9.5ms) · 1000LS Monitor 115 9" v.i.s.) · Matrox Millennium II 4MB WRAM
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Common features listed above plus:
· 64MB SDRAM Memory
· NEW8.4GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive with 512KB Cache 19 5ms)
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· NEWM atrox Mil lenniumII BMB WRAM AGP Video Card'
· Integrated Yamaha Wavetable Sound
· Altec Lansing ACS-490 Full Dolby Surround SoundSpeakers with Subwoofer
· Iomega Zip 100MB Intern al Drive with One Cartridge
Common features li sted above plu s:
· 64MB SDRAM Memory
· NEW8.4GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive with 512 KB Cache19 5ms)
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· NEWSTB Ve locity 4MB AGP Video Card
· NEW Creative Labs AWE64 Value Sound Card
· Altec Lansing ACS-490 Full Dolby Surro und Sound Speakers with Subwoofer
$3599 $2999
Common features listed above plus:
· 32MB SDRAM Memory · NEW6.4GB Ultra ATA Ka rd Drive
l9 5ms) · 1OOOLSMonitor 115.9" vis) · NEWSTB Veloci ty 4MB AGP
Video Card · Integrated Yamaha Wavetable Sound · Altec Lansing ACS-290 Speakers
with Subwoofer
* Upgrade to 64MB SDRAM. add $179. * Upgrade to a Creative Labs AWE64
Value Sound Card, add $39.
$2499
Common features listed above plus:
· 32MB SDRAM Memory
· 4.3GB Hard Drive l9.5ms)
· BOOHSTrinitron Monitor 113.7" v.i. s.,.26dp)
· Matrox Millennium II 4MB WRAM PCI Video Card
· Sound Bl aster 16 WaveSynth Wavetabl e Sound
· Allee Lansing ACS-290 Speakers with Subwoofer
* Upgrade to a IOOOLS Monitor(159" v. is). add $99.
* Upgrade to a Matrox Millennium 8M6
WRAM PC/ Video Card. add $79.
$1999
Personal Lease: $160/Mo., 24 Mos'." Personal Lease: $134/Mo., 24 Mos:' Personal Lease: $111/Mo., 24 Mos~- Personal Lease: $89/Mo", 24 Mos:·
Order Code #501004
Order Code #501003
Order Code #501002
Order Code#501001
Call for details on Dell's Business Lei
lPr1wig 1s not discountable !For a complete copy of our Guarantees 01 l1m11ed Wa1ranues. please w111e Dell USA LP. Amn Warranty. One Dell Wav. Round Red. TX 78682 tteasmg arranged l1f Dell fmancia! SeMces l P, an 1ndepeOOem enuty, 10 qualified customers "System weight 1·11111 fiJPP'f drll'e or CO-ROM lf1 options bay .\().Hite service prOVlded by an mdepeOOem
thnd-p.1rty provider May nol be available 1n certain remote areas 002QX lv\n:/1 IX Mm i24X Max/12X Mm ·· .,;i prodocts are cap.1ble of 56Kbps downloads Due 10FCC 1ules thal restrict power output however. cunem download speeds are l1m1ted to 53Kbps.Uploadspee-Osarehrrntcdio336Kbps Actualspecd s mayvarydcpend inganhnecon d it ions . ~ 4MBBas cbo.1 rdw11h a 4MBU1~1c1de Module. · Prim and spt'l:ilicmionsvalid in the US only and sub1cct !ochm1ge wi1t1ou1 no11ce.Intel, tile Intel lnsi<le lo~l. LANDesk and Pentiumarc registered uadcmaiks and MMX and EtherExprnss are trntlemarks ofIntel Co1po1c1tion MS. M1crosolt. Windows and Wmdow'S NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corpllfallon. 3CCllll and Ethe1lmkare reg1stereo trademarks of 3C<m Cor1Xlfa!10n Tnnmon is a registered tradem.;rk of Sony Corporation Oirectl1ne rs a Sl!fV.Ce mmkolDellComputerCor1XJ1a!lon ©l9970ellCompute1Corporat1on Allrightsreserved
0 Amount of monthly lease payment, based upon 24-month lease from Dell Financial Services LP., an independent entity; first and last monthly lease payments due prior to delivery: 0 $321; ES267; ~$223; "$178 Above monthly lease payments exclude tax which may vary; !for example, Hartford City, IN sales tax: 0 $8.02);shipping cost and $55 doc. fee due with second payment no security deposit required, subject to credit approval and availability. Lease terms subject tochange.
~ i croso ft Windows· 95 site' Service rvice. add $99.
DELL DIMENSION M200a ZOOMHz PENTIUM PROCESSOR WITH MMXTECHNOLOGY
::ommon features listed above plus: · 16MB SDRAM Memory · 3.2GB Hard Drive(l 2ms) · NEW800LS Monitor(137" v i.s ) · 2MB EDO ViRGE 3D Video · Iomega Zip lOOMB Internal Drive
with One Cartridge · 3Com EtherLink 111 lOMbit ISA
Combo Card o- Upgrade to 32MB SDRAM. add $89. o- Upgrade toa4.3GB Hard Drive. add $39. o- 3-Pak of Iomega Zip Cartridges. add $39.
$1899
Business Lease': $69/Mo.. 36 Mos. )rder Code #591001
SOFTWARE
DESCRIPTIONS
Microsoft Office 97 Small Business Edition (SBE) includes: · Word 97 · Excel 97 · Publisher 97 · Outlook 97 · Automap Streets Plus · Small Business Financial Mgr 97
Microsoft Home Essentials plus Best of Entertainment Pack (available on desktops only) includes: · Word 97 · Works 4.0 · Encarta 97 · GreetingsWorkshop · Arcad e · TETRIS. Taipei. SkiFree.
Dr. BlackJack and more. Microsoft Internet Explorer
Common features: · 512KB Integ rated L2ECC Cache · Integrated PCIUltra-Wide SCSl -3 Controller · Intel· Pro/lOOB PCI Ethernet Adapter · Intel LAN Desk· Server Manager v2.5x · 3Years Next Business Day On-site· Service
DELLePOWEREDGE" 2200 SERVER DELL POWEREDGE 2200 SERVER
300MHz PENTIUM II PROCESSOR
233MHz PENTIUM II PROCESSOR
Dual Processor Capable, RAID Capable Dual Processor Capable, RAID Capable
Common features listed above plus: · 128MB ECC EDD Memory (512MBMax) · 4GB Ultra-Wide SCSl-3 Hard Drive
(27GB Max)
· 24X Max§Variable SCSI CD-ROM
· APC Smart-UPS700w Power Supply
· 3Com Office Connect Hub 8-Port/TPC · 6 Drive Bays: 3 Hard Drive. 3
Removable Media · 6 Expansion Slots: 3 PCI. 3 EI SA *MS Windows NT~ Server4.0(10
Client Access Licenses). add $799.
Common featu res listed above plus:
· 64MB ECC EDO Memo ry (512MB Max)
· 2GB Ultra-Wide SCS l-3 Hard Drive (27GB Max)
· 24X Max§Variable SCSI CD-ROM
· 6 Drive Bays: 3 Hard Drive, 3 Remova ble Media
· 6 Expans ion Slots 3 PCI , 3 EI SA
* Upgrade to 266MHz Pentium II
Processor, add $300.
* 12/24GB Variable SCSI DAT Tape
Backup Unit. add $7099.
Business Lease: $177/Mo.. 36 Mos. Business Lease: $109/Mo.. 36 Mos.
Order Code #250101
Order Code #250100
Common features: · Modular Options Bay accepts 20X Max00 Va ri abl e CD-ROM, 3.5" Floppy Dri ve (both included). or Optional 2nd Li-Ion Battery · Smart Lithium Ion Battery · Microsoft Windows 95 · Microsoft Office 97 Small Business Edition · Microsoft Internet Explorer · Touchpad · Extendable 1 Yea r Wa rranty'
NEW DELL INSPIRONTM3000 M233XT NEW DELL INSPIRON 3000 M200ST NEW DELL INSPIRON 3000 M166ST DELL LATITUDE0 LM M133ST 233MHz PENTI UM PROCESSOR w/MMX 200MHzPENTIUM PROCESSOR w/MMX 166MHz PENTIUM PROCESSOR w/MMX 133MHzPENTIUM PROCESSOR w/MMX
Common features listed above plus: · 13.3" XGA Active Matrix TFT Di splay · 32MB SDRAM (144MB Max) · 512KB L2 Pipeline Burst Cache · 128-bit Graphics Acce lerator with
64K Colors at 1024x768 · 2.1 GB ATA Hard Drive · Zoom Video and USBPorts · Stereo Speakers with 3D Surround
Sound and Yamaha SW Wavetab le · Ca rdbus ready/Fast IRl .1 · 6.9 Pounds *
* Upgrade to 64MB SDRAM. add $399.
Common features listed above plu s: · 12.1" SVGA Active Matrix TFT Display · 32MB SDRAM (144MB Max) · 512KB L2 Pipeline Burst Cache · 128-bit Graphics Accelerator with 16
Million Colors at 800x600 · 2. 1GB ATA Hard Drive · Zoom Video and USBPorts · Stereo Speakers with 3D Surround
Sound and Yamaha SW Wavetab le · Cardbus ready/Fast IRl .1 · 6.4 Pounds*
* Upgrade to a4GB Hard Drive, add $349.
Common features listed above plus: · 12.1" SVGA Active Matrix TFT Display · 16MB SDR AM (144MB Max) · 256KB L2 Pipeline Burst Cache · 128-bit Graphics Accelerator with 16
Million Co lors at 800x600
· 2. 1GB ATA Hard Drive · Zoom Video and USB Ports · Stereo Speakers with 3D Surround
Sound and Yamaha SW Wavetab le · Cardbus ready/Fast IRl.1 · 6.4 Pounds *
* Upgrade to 32MB SDRAM. add $199.
Common features listed above plus: · 12.1" SVGA Active MatrixTFT Display · 16MB EDO RAM (72MB Max) · 256KB L2 Pipeline Burst Cache · 128-bit Graphics Accelerator with
64K Co lors at 800x600 · 1.6GB Hard Drive · Integrated 16-bit Stereo Sound · lrDA 1.0 Std. Compliant · Under 7 Pounds*
* Upgrade to 40MB EDD RAM. add $299
*Upgrade to a2.1GBHard Drive. add $149. * 2nd Lithium Ion Battery, add $149.
$33991 $29991 $24991
Business Lease: $142/Mo., 36 Mos. Business Lease: $120/Mo., 36 Mos. Business Lease: $109/Mo., 36 Mos. Business Lease: $91/Mo., 36 Mos.
Order Code #800186
Order Code #800187
Order Code #800183
Order Code #800154
g and new Personal Leasing programs.
TO ORDER TOLL-FREE
800-678-1710
TO ORDER ONLINE
ww w. de11. c0 mI buyd e11
Mon-Fri 7am-9pm CT Sat 10am-6pmCT Sun 12pm-5pm CT In Canada'. call 800-233-1589 GSA Contract #GS-35F-4076D
I Keycode #01261 I
-_,
NEWDELL DIMENSION XPS 0266 265MHz PENTIUM II PROCESSOR FEATURING MMX TECHNOLOGY
· Mini-Tower Model
* 32MB SDRAM Memory
· 512KB Integrated L2Cache
* NEW6.4GB Ultra ATA Hard
Drive (9.5ms) · lOOOLS Monitor (15.9" v.i.s.)
* NEWSTB Velocity 4MB AGP
Video Card · 24X Max1 Variable CD-ROM Drive · Integrated Yamaha Wavetable Sound · Altec Lansing ACS-90 Speakers
* NEW56K Capable** U.S.
Robotics x2 WinModem · 2Universal Serial Bus (USB) Ports · Microsof Office 97 Small Business
Edition plus Encarta 97 · MS Windows~ 95/lnternet Explorer · Microsoft lntelliMouse · 3Year Limited Warranty 1 with 1
Year On-site· Service
l*L
Business Lease: $91/Mo., 36 Mos.
Order Code #591022
You' ll be doing a double-take once you've seen the new Dell Dimension®XPS D266. Because it's more than ju st a 266 megahertz demon . We've armed this Intel Pentium"' II processor-based system with the new STB Velocity 4MB AGP card, boosting 30 graphics performance a whopping 317% over the STB Nitro 4MB PCI video card. And faster graphics means more rea listic and more lifelike graphics. On this Dell Dimension XPS D266, design, CAD/CAM, virtua l reality imaging, web content development. games and just about any other 3D application will blow you away. We've also included high-speed SDRAM memory that "bursts" data twice as fast as EDO memory, and a 6.4GB Ultra ATA hard drive (up to 8.4G B avai lable) with two times the data transfer rate of a non-ATA hard drive. So give us a call or visit our website tod ay.
TO ORDER TOLL-FREE
800·678· 1710
TO ORDER ONLINE
www.del1.com/buydel I
Mon-Fri 7am-9pm CT · Sat 10am-6pm CT
Sun 12pm-5pm CT InCanada, call 800-233-1589
GSA Contract #GS-35F-4076D
I Keycode #01259 I
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