specifications in the manual. ... manual. Historical performance software analyzes and fine tunes ... These can be handled manually through.
DISCOVER FOR YOURSELF W
Any PC maker can claim ro offer a solurion rhar covers your needs. Bur ar Micron Elecrronics'\ we prefer ro ler our hisrory and our producrs speak for rhemselves. We rhink you'll agree irs an impressive srory.
Superior Manufacturinf--A Micron Tradition
Micron builds PCs with a legacy Of excellence. Our manufacturing processes grew our of
nearly two decades in rhe semiconducror business, where precision is measured in mil
~:;;;-..,..t-"~" , , lionths of an inch, and qualiry in pares per million. We've built strategic relationships
,_ -. ·
wirh companies like Intel, Microsoft and NoveU. From rh1s solid background,
-~==~ :J.. :::> we're forging unbearable systems you can count on today and tomorrow.
~~
.
~ ·'11-~
·
~ ·
Award-WinninK Products
In rhe past two years, leading industry publications have applauded Micron
PCs wirh more rhan 170 awards for producr performance, customer service and sur
porr. This includes PC Magazines Besr Products of 1995 and Edirors' Choice awards in severa
caregories. Add more than 40 PC World Besr Buy awards and you've gor an impressive technology hall of fame.
Recognized Service and Reliability
Afrer your purchase, the srory continues. Jusr ask PC Magazine readers. They besrowed on us the covered Readers' Choice for Cusromer Service and Reliability in 1994 and 1995. And PC World readers recenrly awarded us first-tier srarus along
wirh the likes of Apple, Compaq, Digiral and HP. Pretty good company, wouldn'r you say?
Micron Power'·"Wizrranty-An Industry First
We support our reliability promise with rhe indusrry-leading Micron Power warranty. Ir backs rhe microprocessor and main memory for five years, an industry first. Add a three-year, parrs-only system warranty and a 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can rest assured that you're in good hands.
HY MICRON KEEPS RECEIVING ACCLAIM.
Outstanding Performance-Don't Take Our WOrd for It.
Talk is cheap when you're speaking for yourself. Bur when it's from the mouth of an industry expert ir carries weighc.
Here are a few of many examples of what they're saying about Micron PCs:
Micron Home MPC"
"... the fastest we've ever testt·d . . . as well as a mnrvelow family package . . . it wim our Top Rated fllvmd . ... "
-Family PC, May 1996
Micron Millennia'"
"/11 short, Micron covers all the bases with this Best Bu/'
-PC World, March 1996
Micron Millennia TransPort"' "... nearly a dead ringer/or IBM's 111inkPnd.. . but performs better and saves you about $2,500."
- PC Magazine, April 1996
The Right System for You
Micron makes a suite of outstanding solutions designed for the way you work or play. From home systems to servers, desktop PCs co portable multimedia solutions, Micron always comes through wirh a system built to satisfy. For derails and prices, rum che page.
JI Sofes lillittd wanaty 11 lliaopr1C1S1« alll llOio _ . , 1 l·yes lillittd ports-, syst.. w1m11ty 1 1-, 2· 11 l year optioom lllHite smite.,_ 111 Miaaa dtiktop sy>fem 11 30 days al fret MJa...llpp&t4 soltw11e ..,,..i 111 Miaoo lesktop system
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Mft!@l!iI ii.IMm1
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Circle 162 on Inquiry Card.
Walking, Talking Web
BONA 1 By EdmundX Dejesus Until fat pipes are ubiquitous,
fractal and wavelet c.ompression help make multimedia practical on the Web.
EDITORIAL
INBOX
Living Dangerously 14
By Mark Schlack The squabbling gods must he lp build bridges between computing platforms.
19 Readers react to our stories on 64-bit OSes, WebNFS, net work computers, on-line help, and more.
B I TS
.. ... . ~·
'"' .
'
.
STATE OF THE ART
Better Web Tools
on the Way
26
Data Warehouses 82
Better Clients, Better Decisions
Smart Netcards Coming
to America
28
How to build the best faci lity for your information, and how to help users find the data they
91 By Alan Simon The right tools can turn all
Wireless PDAs
30
need right now.
that data into useful informa tion.
Warehouse Cornerstones
BYTE Survey: Data
Warehouse Woes
32
85 ByJay-Louise Weldon
Take Your Data to the Cleaners
Corel's New PDA Internet and Outernet 34 and Java Suite
An expert in database manage
97
38 ment explains how a well
By Mike Hurwicz
designed data warehouse leads "Dirty" data could bring your
Security Wake-Up Call 36 Sun's McNealy on Java 40 to smarter decisions.
wa rehouse tumbling down.
4 BYTE JANUARY 1997
EVAL
Silicon Graphics' Wintel Kill e r 41
By Dave Rowell Just when NT-based Penrium Pro PCs are starting to look like hot 3-D machines, SGI intro duces the cool blue 02.
Local AltaVista Searching 42
By Steven j. Vaughan-Nichols AlraYisra now lets you aim its popular Internet search engine at your PC and LAN. Bur you need big metal for good performance.
LAB REPORT
'
Kane, and john McDonough We pick the best of the big screen monitors.
LAB REPORT : HARDWARE
Big Screens for Big Jobs 104
By Dorothy Hudson, jim
LAB REPORT : SOFTWARE
8 Tools for Weaving Your Web Site
116 By Tadesse Giorgis Build your Web sire with o ne of these a uthoring rools.
WEB PROJECT
REVIEWS
Multiplatform CodeWarrior 47
By Raymond CA Cote Merrowerks' CodeWarrior 10 hits t he sce ne with develop ment tools for some PDAs.
World's Fastest Disk Drive 48
By Stan Miastkowski Seagate makes a giant leap in hard drive speed with the 10,000-rpm Cheetah.
Search Again
123 Byjon Udell
O ur Webmaster explains how ro move beyond basic search-engine capabilities ro make your sire more in fo rmative.
COMPARISON
At Last: Pocket PCs That Run Windows
133 By PeterWay11er
New hand-held PCs bring Windows to the palmtop. We rest three HPCs bui lt arou nd Windows CE.
Dial 411 for Directory Assistance
137 By Steve Gillmor Novell's larest NerWare release bets big on Java and the inrranet.
Hot Sauce for Cooking Up Databases
139 By Russell Kay If you've got Salsa, you don't need ro understand darabase theory ro build an app lication.
WHAT ' S NEW
184 Design Inrelligence's i-publish helps you turn ideas into com pelling documents; rhe Tek tro nix Phaser 350 rivals fast color lase r primers.
-
CODETALK
You Can Start Developing Now
192 By Rick Crehan
Moss Micro's programming rool guides you down the path of Visual Basic.
SE RV I CE
Reader Service Inquiry Rep ly Cards 48A-B, 176A-B
Index To Advertisers
Alphabetical Order 176
Product Category
178
Editorial Index
by Company
180
CORE
OPERATING SY STEMS The State of Linux
CPUs Video for Everyone
CJ ·ApponCllOn
o m
~
Area Coda
m ARTIST
" ·Afiisr s Noma
m AUTHOR
j CJ ·Author's Nome
PROGRAM LISTINGS
FTP: ftp.by te.com
From BIX : Join "listings/
frombyrc97" 3 11d select the appropri·
arc subarea (i.e., '"ian97'').
49
59
I CJ Average Prico Pl1ld
Olr
ByjimMohr
By William Chien
" Ave1aae Ralina
THE BYTE WEB SITE
An update on this 32-bit Unix- C-Cube's low-cost MPEG
and THE VIRTUAL PRESS ROOM
like OS, with pointers ro even
. more Linux info.
~
encoder can rum a desktop PC into a video-editing stati on.
CHAOS MANOR
lmp: // www.byre. co m
BYTI: (ISSN 036£>.5280) is published monthly by Tho McGraw·Hill Companies. Inc. U.S. subscribar 1a10
~
.0zw... NETW ORKS
::i;
[l Client/Server Magic
PROGRAMMING Java Security and Type Safety
A Hard Drive and a Hot Santa Ana
141
$29.95 por year, In C anada and M e1ico, $34.95 per
yoar. European surface moil subscriptions $60, airmnil $05. Non·European suba.criplk>ns. $60 surlaco maJ or $85 airmail. All foreign si.bscriptionsare payable in U.S. funda thDt can bo drawn on o U.S. OOnk. Singlo coplaa $3.95 in tho U.S.,$4.95 in Canada. Executive, Edilori41.
w ~
53
63
uJ: By Tom Yager
By Gary McGraw & Ed Felten
:i!
UJ
Remore procedure calls provide
Java's sophistica ted st:curity
Cl
~
seamless dara exchange among
mechanism performs run-rime
aw>: u 0
applicarions across a network, regardless of rhe platform.
safety checks before it all ows a downloaded app let ro execute.
By jerry J>o11melle It's a monrh of disasters at C haos Manor: Jerry has ro replace a baked hard drive, and Cyrus needs internal surgery after raking a fall.
C.rculallon, and Advertising Offices: O ne Phooni1 Mill l.nno, Peterborough, NH 03458. F'eriocf)¢a.Ja postago pa<l ot Potcrl:>orough, NH, and odd"K>nal moiling off"'"" Po:!.tage paid al Winnipeg. Mani1oba. C anada Pott lntcmat)(IMI Pubications Mail Product SalesAgrecnient No. 246492. Regiatorod for GST as Tho McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., GST f 123075673. Postmaster: Sond-....changelandhanentquestionato BYTE SubscripbOn&. P.O . Bok 552. H;ghtatown. NJ 08520.
Printed inthe United States of America.
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 5
CONTENTS BY PLATFORM
INDEX
WINDOWS
Goodbye NT for MIPS ... 36
NT users will have one less
RIS C to choose from.
Video for Everyone ... . 59
PCs will be able to capture,
edit, and output MPEG video,
thanks to a low-cost real-rime
encoder.
1997 Editors' Choice
Awards . . . . . . . . . . . 127
NT 4.0, Compaq Armada,
Stratus Radio PC, IBM Open
Doc toolkit fo r Windows, and
Wall Dara Salsa score honors as
some of the best products of
the year.
At Last: Pocket PCs That Run
Windows .. . . .. .... 133
Microsoft has downsized Win
dows for ha nd -held PCs. We
rest three of the first HPCs
based on Windows CE.
Hot Sauce for Cooking Up
Databases . .... .. . . 139
Salsa takes most of the
drudgery out of building Win
dows database applications.
A Hard Drive and a Hot
Santa Ana .. . .. . . . . 141
A new hard drive insra!Iarion
forces Jerry to take o n Win
dows 95's REGEDIT.EX E and
SYSTEM. DAT-very carefully.
You Can Start Developing
Now . . .. .. . . . . . . . 192
Mr. Codetalk checks out Moss
Micro's Visual Basic program
ming tool.
MACINTOSH
Multiplatform
CodeWarrior ... .... .47
T he latest version of this popu
lar development tool nor only
rackIes several languages, it
goes beyond Mac program
ming with tools for th e Palm
Pilot and Magic Cap.
1997 Editors' Choice
Awards ........... 127
Metrowerks' CodeWarrior,
Digital Harbor's WAY, Apple's
Cyberdog, and Powe rMacs
from Apple and Power Com-
puring were among the best Mac products o f the year.
UNIX
Why Java Won't Repeat
the Mistakes of Unix ... 40
Scott McNealy explains "the
problem with Unix."
Silicon Graphics' Wintel
Killer ... . . . . . .. ... 41
Despite Pentium Pro advances,
the new SG I 02 proves th at
Unix still rules the world of 3 D graphics.
The State of Linux . .... 49
For the price of a download or
CD-ROM, you can get32-bit
Unix-like OS. Linux offers SM P, real-time support, and provides compilers and appli cations as part of th e package.
1997 Editors' Choice
Awards .... ... . ... 127
Silicon Graphics' new 02
workstatio n and Ross Techno l
ogy's SPARCplug were two of
the most innovative products
of the year.
NETWORKS
Local AltaVista Searching 42
Now you can aim the AltaVista
search engine at your LAN.
Client/Server Magic ... . 53
A look at how remote proce
dure calls work, with an
emph asis on NT 4.0.
Warehouse Cornerstones 85
As you distribute a warehouse
across your enterprise, be sure
you make the right server and
DBMS decisions.
Better Clients, Better
Decisions .. . . . . . . . . 91
If you don 't choose the right
analysis tools fo r end users,
your data warehouse could
become deadsville.
Take Your Data
to the Cleaners .. . . ... 97
How to ensu re that the in fo r mation in you r data warehouse is accurate enough to info rm, rather than endange r, your e nt e r p ri se.
1997 Editors' Choice
Awards ........... 127
Best networking products of
the year included Vinca's
Standby Server 32, Digital's
AltaVista for intranets,
Microsoft's File and Print Ser
vices, and NetWare 4 .1 1.
Dial 411 for Directory
Assistance .. ... . ... 137
Novell, focusing on inrranets, packs a bunch of new stuff into the latest NerWare.
INTERNET
Applications generators ..139
BYTE Awards . . . . . .. .. . ..127
CD-ROM ... ... ... ...38, 141
Chips .. . . . . . . ... .. . . .59, 127
Client/server . ... ........ .53
Data analysis . . .. . . . . ... . .91
Databases ... ..85,91 ,97, 139
Data cleansing . .. ..... 32, 97
Data mining . . . ...... . . ..91
Data warehouses . .32, 82, 85,
91 , 97
DCE ..... . .. . ........ ... .53
Web Tools Will Converge ..26
Building an application can involve a hodge-podge of dif fe ren t tools. Bur that situatio n will improve this yea r.
Embedded systems . . ... ..47
Executive info systems . . . .91
Graphics . .. . ... . . ... .. . . .41
Hand-held PCs .. .. .. ... .133
Why Java Won't Repeat
the MistakesofUnix . . . 40
Scott McNealy talks about how
Sun's programming language
will change co mputing.
Java Security and
Type Safety . . . . . .. .. 63
This month's Programming
column looks at Java's sop histi
cated security mechanism.
Today the Web, Tomorrow
the World . . . . . . . . .. 68
J ava isn't just fo r Web applets.
It co uld be the key to true mul ti platform develop ment.
8 Tools for Weaving Your
Web Site .. . . . . . . . . 116
This month 's Software Lab
Report looks at publishing
packages that range from sim
ple to suite.
Web Project: Search
Again ......... . . . 123
The latest indexing and search
too ls make your Web site more
usefu l with concept searching,
querying by exampl e, and field
index in g.
1997 Editors' Choice
Awards . ..... . . . .. 127
Cybcrdog, WebCompass,
Domino, WebCD, and WebOb
jects Pro rank as some of the
most innovative products in a
year when eve ryth ing seemed
to have some Net connection.
HTML ... . .. . .30,42, 116, 123
Indexing ... .... . ... . ...123
Internet . . ..26, 34.42, 63, 68,
116. 123, 127
lntranets ... . .. . .. .. .42, 137
Java . . ....... 14, 38, 40, 63, 68
Linux ..... . .. .. . . . .. .... .49
Mobile computing ... .30,38,
127, 133
Monitors .. . . . . ...... . ..104
MPEG ... .. . .... .. .. . .41,59
Multiprocessing . . ...... . .85
Networking42, 53, 82, 127, 137
OLAP . . . . . .. ... . ... . .. . .. 91
Operating systems . . . .36,49,
... ....... .. . . ...53. 127, 133, 137
PDAs .. ... . . . ..30, 38.47, 133
Programming . .26, 47, 53, 63,
68, 123, 139, 192
Remote procedure calls .. .53
Search engines .. . . . .42, 123
Security . . .. ....28, 36, 63, 68
Smartcards . ... .. . . . . . .. .28
Storage . ...... . . . . .. . . . .48
3-D . .. .. . . .... .... .. . . ..41
Video . .. . .... .. . .... . . . ..59
Wireless .......... . . .. . . .30
Workstations .. . . . . . ... . .41
World Wide Web . . . ..26, 68,
116, 123, 127
6 BYTE JANUARY 1997
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I
January 1997, vol. 22, no. 1
EDITOR IN CHIEF Mark Schlack
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EDITORIAL
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Living Dangerously
The computer industry is engaged in a
plat(arm war. Which side should you be on?
n one of my favorite movies, er. You can even run Windows apps in
The Year of Living Danger emulation mode. At roughly S1500 for a
ously, Linda Hunrexplains to full y configured syste m, this is worth
Mel Gibson how the shadow some serious thought for users with a few
puppets of J ava mimic th e relati onship dedicated computing tasks of low-ro
between gods and people. The puppeteer moderare complexity and little need for
moves th e puppets behind the curtain, so multiple periph erals. You 'll save on the
the audience sees only shadowy projec adminside.
tions on the gauzy material.
Oracle, on the other hand, thinks
T hose of you tryi ng to make sense our Microsoft's Windows NT doesn't cut it.
of all the alternative platform d ebates It has a better idea: an Oracle server feed
may have the same impression that you're ing lots of low-cost (the now legendary
not seeing th e whole show. And, indeed, $500 machine), low-function Intel box
it could be a dangerous yea r if yo u guess es (after all, Inte l' s the volume client
w r o n g.
leader) . Give this serious thought if your
Our cover story this month rakes on aim is to pu sh an application or service pervasive and imporranr to survive on
the issue of Java as a development plat into many hands that previously haven' t one model anymore, whether it's Win
form, following o n our November cover used a computer.
tel or one of the challengers. What we
story about J ava chips. Java software is The WebTV. You know your aunt and all must insist on is that none of th ese
clearl y a broader platfo rm than the chips, uncle who are on e-mail now? Perfect for camps builds walls between their hard
and we ex plain why.
them, plus they can see your new Web site ware and software and that of their
Meanwhile, mo re opening shots in a during the commercials. So far, this is the competitors'.
war over who gets to dominate the com
puter industry were fired in rece nt Computing is too pervasive to survive on one model anymore,
months. Ar issue is what kind ofcomputer is the right kind , and for whom? As the
whether it's Wintel or one of the challengers.
shadow puppets moved furiously around only reall y sub-5500 platfo rm our there. Which brings us back to J ava. As we
the stage, some of the images came into The NetPC. The Network PC is a cheap move into a world that's about to have
clearer focus.
PC, folks. Microsoft and Imel are mak many more islru1ds of computing, we may
BITE has always taken the position that ing a lot of noise about mak ing it easier at last have a pl atform that bridges them.
there is no one true com purer platform to configure and manage-wasn't that If the various gods behind the curtain
for eve ryo ne, a nd we'll continue to be what Plug and Pla y was abouc?-but don' t create a host of competing virtual
skepticalabout anyone who says there is. this time they might mean it. Comperi machines and extensions that recreate the
Thar goes for Wintel as well as its chal ti on doe s have its va lu e. If th ey can nonstandard world of Unix, we'll get that
lengers. So here's a scorecard :
deliver, the NetPC is the right platform platform. But to do so, we may have to
The NC. T he Network Com purer for what I' ll ca ll th e lo w-powe r use r. pull back the curtain and force those
comes in two distinctly different fla Many office workers don 't really stress squabbling gods to keep to the promise
vors, anri-lnreland anti-Microsoft. (Well, a co mpute r, bur th ey d o a variety o f o fJava. Or live dangerously.
actu all y it's more like two different kinds things, use a vari ety of peripherals (scan
of swirl cones: One's more chocolate, the ners, digital cameras, bar code readers),
o th e r mo re vanilla). Sun's a nti -Inte l and need the flexibility of a machine with
~
E
thrust starts with its Java chip; others will slots and hard drives.
"'
use different RISC chips. While Sun has In the coming mo nths, you' ll hear lots
its ow n se rv ers, there's no reaso n yo u of appeals from aU these gods as they fight Mark Sch lack, Editor in Chief
couldn 't run Java apps off any other serv behind the curta ins. Computing is too mschlack@bix.com
14 BYTE JANUARY 1997
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WebNFS at the Limit
"A File System for the Web" (Core, November 1996) was excellent, and the layout of the protocol diagrams, with each protocol having its own horizontal displacement, is brilliant. Thanks, too, for stressing the limits of Web NFS. It's important to set expectations correctly: WebNFS is a file-system technology that has some overlap with HTTP, but it's not an HTTP replacement. Brent Callaghan bre11t.ca llaghan @E11g.S1111 .com
Reading "A File System for the Web" makes me curious about your impression of CIFS, the counterpoint to WebNFS. Does it have the same limitations as WebNFS? Jef(Ta1111er ieffta@cci11t11et.wrq.com
CIFS, the Common Internet File System, is a modification ofMicrosoft's Server Message Block (SMB) protocol that can be used over the Internet from a Web browser. One major difference between CIFS and WebNFS is that with CIFS, both the server and client maintain state infor mation; with NFS, only the client mai11tains state.
If the TCP connection sup porting a CIFS session fails, then the CIFS session ivill likewise fail, and data may be lost. NFS RPC is indepen dent ofthe TCP connection carrying it, so the TCP session can simply be reestablished with 110 more hann than a connection delay.
In a LAN environment, where con11ectionless trans ports are acceptable and often perfonn better than TCP, CIFS should be resistant to temporary network dis turbances. CIFS also supports features that NFS lacks, such as network printing, stream ing devices, and built-in file locking.
Internet hype aside, the big money for software vendors is in the intranet (i.e., LAN) market. Since PCs are the majority LAN client, and many already use Microsoft's SMB protocols, CIFS should do well in that area. In the Internet environment, Web NFS should be more robust in the face ofunreliable modem connections and dynamic lP address assignments. For more on CIFS, see http:// samba.anu.edu.au/cifs/ or http://www.microsoft.com/ intdev/cifs/. -Bob Friese11hahn
The Real 64- bit OS
I was disappointed to see no mention of Linux in "Unix Leads the 64-bit Charge" (November 1996). Linux for the Digital Equipment Alpha has been avai lable for over a year, is rock solid, and is 64 bit through and through. It's also worth noting that the developers in the Linux/ Spare project are aiming for a 64-bit implementation on the UltraSparc. There's a good possibility that it will be available before Sun pro duces a true 64-bit Solaris. Christopher Hom chom@warwick.net
correctly in a 64-bit address space, let alone fully exploit it. The largest volume of 64 bit software, by any measure (e.g., lines of code, fully en abled applications, and sys tems deployed ), is written in RPG and COBOL and runs on the AS/400. Steven ]. Munroe SJM UNROE@aol.com
It seems unlikely for Unix to lead the 64-bit charge when AS/400 is already there. Whi le OS/400 (the OS) is mentioned several times in "Unix Leads the 64-bit Charge," AS/400 {the hard ware system product) is not, and neither one is put imo any context. If OLTP, data warehousing, and content management are interesting to BYTE's readership, then a full description should be of real interest.
Whi le the Unixoids have been playing in the 64-bit space for a whi le, there are few real 64-bit applications
to exploit it. c (and c++)
implementations are not truly portable and require significant recoding to work
At the Crossroads
What Mark Schlack seems to miss in his excitement over Sun's Java chip ("Comput ing Crossroads," November 1996 Editorial) is that we've bee n here before. We've seen custom C chips, Ada chips, and even BASIC chips. In the ory, a chip designed to run a particular language should outperform a general-pur pose chip, such as the Pen tium; in reality, however, this isn't true. The strong optimizing compilers we
now have for c ++, with the
few tweaks Intel has made in the instruction set, deliver performance that I bet will meet or exceed that of any custom Java chip.
True, portability is a con
[
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cern-for Sun and Apple but not to the majority of users who already have Intel chips in their machines.
Java may become a stan dard for Web programming, but to achieve acceptable performance, it will have to be precompiled with multi ple-instruction-set versions on the server. Your browser will request the instruction stream that corresponds to your local processor, and that' s what will run on your platform. In that world, a Java chip has no real advan tage over the existing choice of RISC and Intel chips. Mike Kelly 111ikeke/ly@ms11.co111
I agree that Sun must demon strate-not just assert-that theJava chip delivers the 11eeded performance. l think you miss the boat, though, when you say that portabil ity is a concern to Sun and Apple but not to the majority of users. When business man agers scream for applications that can leverage the Internet to deliver a service or prod uct anywhere, on any kind of customer computer, porta bility is no longer a theoret ical issue but a pressing con cern. While prior technologies may have attempted similar things, they didn't exist in the con text oftoday's need for per vasive computing i11 a het erogeneous, networked world. Meanwhile, for more on Java as a sofrware plat form, see "Today the Web, Tomorrow the World" on page68. -Mark Schlack, editor in chief
The Egg, VMS, or NT?
I appreciated "VMS: Alive and Well" (Core, November 1996), but author Ben Smith
had his facts reversed when he stated that "VMS has incorporated many ofNT's data structures and design elements." Dave Curler was the chief architect of NT; before that, he was employed by Digiral Equip ment as one of the original architects of VMS. In fact, many ofNT's internal data structures resemble those of early versions of VMS. NT owes a lot of its success present and future-to its VMS heritage, not vice versa. Glenn Carr gcarr@lgc.com
Actually, it has worked both ways. NT can be said to be a descendant ofVMS in some respects, but the point l wanted to make is that VMS has now had to adopt many ofNT's stmctures in order to coexist with it and profit from its growth. NT has drained offsome ofVMS's potential, as did Unix. -Ben Smith
Help Yourself
The real need with respect to user help ("Self-Help Soft ware to the Rescue," Octo ber 1996 Bits) isn't for on line databases of answers to frequently asked questions. Nor is it for software to automatically fix bugs. Many of us can fix problems with wrong file types, appli cation clashes, and missing or replaced DLLs. All we need are dect:nt error mes sages. Message boxes that tell me an error has occurred and ask me to click OK are not OK. Message boxes that present an error code with nowhere to look up that code are just bits blowing in the wind. 1wouldn't mind giving disk space to applica tion bloat if it was spent on decent error messages that allowed me to diagnose and
fix the problems on my machine. Glenn P. Davies gdaviesl @ent.agt.ab.ca
CLV Clarified
Thank you for the informa tive "CDs for the Gigabyte Era" (October 1996). How ever, you mention that for CLV to maintain a constant bit rate, the rpm has to be increased as the drive reads the inner tracks. Shouldn't that be the opposite? Are the pits evenly spaced on the disc? Marc Y. Pa11/i11 mark11s @nb11et.11b. ca
It helps to remember that CLV stands for constant lin ear velocity. Because the inner tracks are shorter than the outer tracks (and because the pit spacing-which must fall within very tight para meters-is constant), they contain less data. Rather, the laser sees less data during a revolution ofthe disc. There fore, the drive has to spin the disc faster, exposing more pits to the laser, to maintain a constant bit rate on the inner tracks. -Tom R. Halfhill, senior editor
The Cost of NCs
Your review of the HDS @workStation ("X Terminal +Browser+ Java= Web PC," October 1996) shows that a network computer (NC) that's acceptable to a user with enough RAM, a decent monitor, and so forth would cost about the same as a PC. Existing office applica tions suites are network aware and can be installed on a server, thereby reducing licensing and support costs. Changing to NCs with browser-based front ends
and running server-based Java applications will make little difference in the cost per user.
Then there's the Internet. Like most dial-up users, I won't have access to inex pensive high-capacity band width for ages. A sure way to make me lose interest in a site is to force me to wait 2 or 3 minutes while ajava based home page builds up. I'm even less interested in waiting 20 minutes for a VRML-based home page to complete. I want to see changes that bring about more choice and better applications, bur the credi bility of the new technology might be damaged by over optimistic comments on cost savings and overuse of the technology in inappropriate situations. Howard Robi11son clippertradi11g@ms11.co111
NCs don't need hard disks, CD-ROM drives, floppy drives, extra slots, or a host ofother things. Flash ROM and some RAM is enough for a minimal setup. So, NCs can be less expensive. In addi tion, running an office net work isn't as easy as simply buying an office sofrware suite. Users inevitably install their own software; eventu ally a service technician has to go in and diagnose con flicts individually.
Many businesses also pro hibit their employees from downloading software because offear ofviruses. Java is more secure than the old system, and it's also more secure than floppy disk s11eakernet. Its garbage col lection can also lead to fewer memory management bugs.
In any case, it doesn't real ly matter whether you down load the software as Java applets, EXE files, or COBOL code. The time required is similar, butJava, unlike
20 BYTE JANUAR Y 19 9 7
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FIXES
The correct e-mail address for Visage Development, which was mentioned in "Security Gets a New Face" (October 1996 Bits), is bvisick@cix .compulink.co.uk.
Due to an editing error in "Photo Quality Arrives for Low-Cost Printers" (Octo ber Bits), we neglected to mention that almost all of Canon's new line of color ink-jet printers (including the BJC-240, BJC-4200, and BJC-4550) take optional photo-quality ink cartridges (which cost $37 to $42). Only Canon's BJC-620 model, which prints at 720 dpi and doesn't require the photo inks, does not take the optional cartridges.
In our review "Real-Time RAD" (November 1996), we erroneously referred to Microtec's VRTX real-time OS as Vertex.
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News & Views
Web Tools Wi 11 Converge
Better tools are coming that address all the needs of an enterprise Web site application.
elp is on the way for Web site development teams frustrat
We~ Development Roster for alfPical Team
ed by inferior tools that don't work well together. But before that happens, expect a lot of con solidation in the market. The funda
Today's Web apPllcaUon dMI0~1$ done·by piiople Wltb .~ Wlite,niki:IY
.cifJOb'~~ .
mental difference between old-style,
'<
client/server applications and today's
dynamic Web sites caught developers by
surprise, and the first generation of
cools didn't adequately address Web
Coaled cnabn Create pages and graphics, translate file fonnats, CR1ate animations
masters' needs. New tools, and even new
tool categories, are appearing at a rapid
clip. But while many of these tools excel
at a specific function, they still need to
improve in their ability to integrate with
each other.
"Today, Webmasters are working from
8 a.m. to I 0 p.m. shuffling files around and
tracking down content when they should
be formulating long-term strategy," says
josh Bernoff, an analyst at Forrester
Research (Cambridge, MA) who covers the A fundamental difference between old teams of programmers, and months or
Web tools market. "The tools are improv style applications and dynamic Web years could pass before the release of the
ing. But as sites get bigger and more com applications is who creates them and the next version . But a survey conducted by
plex, the need for these tools to work bet pace at which new applications are intro Forrester (see the chart above) shows that
ter with each other will increase."
duced. Before, applications were built by today's Web development team includes
positions in a company ranging from pro
grammers to marketing personnel. "Web
applications are fundamentally different
'.
.~
.t :Y..) '\:·: f ... I -·. .. · · ·
se!ectell wome,i '(ages 1ll'to,55l;in the U.S;
from any other applications that are get ting built today," says Rowland Archer,
· Almost hl!lf. (48· percent) said jolnf chief operating officer at HAHT Sofuvare
[ I ]
Although the computer technology realm household fu_nds wereilsed, while 24 per
has more tha.n its fair·share ofmen, women cent·said they personally paid for the PC.
may be gcckierthan you ttilnk. Accordi'!g to · Of those surveyed, 69 percent agreed
!I survey of women who live in a househol!I that has-either bought a
~
smomen.etwthhaatttohersytfro~nfggcl;y>owd iatbhothutetshteamte-
PC in the P.ast two years or Is plan·-
ning to buy- one in t~e next 18
·
selves when .us}n!i com.plicated tech nology. And 68 p_ercent said they
months, 66 percen~ h,ad .significant
would hate to ~e witliourthelr PC.
inp4tand 21 percent had some Input in com · Women don't feel like they arc getting
.Pu~er-rclated purchases-a~ home. The; sur an equal shakefrom -salespeople: 51 percent
(Raleigh, NC), a maker of application development and deployment tools. "As the Web makes the move from an adver tising medium to an application platform, this difference will matter even more." Tools geared toward programmers or cre ators ofcontent just don't address the big picture by themselves.
This is why analyst Bernoff predicts
vcy, performed by the research company agreed that women receive less respectful vendors will increasingly adopt a strate
lntelliQuest, questioned 1500 randomly treatment from sales persons than men do. gy of integrated tool suites that address
Web developers' diverse needs. Today,
26 BYTE JANUARY 1997
developers can pick from a variety of tools that address certain aspects of a Web site's needs. For example, Astra, from Mercury Interactive (Sunnyvale, CA), addresses site analysis, usage tracking, and link management. Ringmaster, from Ikon ic (San Francisco), coordinates content among Webmasters, editors, and authors.
Rick Fleischman, senior product man ager for tools at Netscape (Mountain View, CA), says these tools generally have one of three goals: creation of core page elements such as graphics and Java or multimedia applications; site assemhly that integrates content and these vari ous applications and provides function ality like live database access or electronic commerce; and site/content management and deployment.
Each category has tools with capabili ties that cross over into another catego ry, however. For example, Microsoft's FrontPage 97 offers WYSlWYG page lay out tools, but the program also has site management and content creation tools (Image Composer that comes with the FrontPage Bonus Pack). The site-assem
r----~-------,
yeah, but...
September 17, 1996, and the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) starts i1s autumn by filing Chapter 7 bank ruptcy. So what? Another day, another company bites the big one.
Yeah, but NPTN (http://www.ntnp.org)
was the tallest tree in the Free-Net forest. NPTN was leading the way in creating com munity-run systems that let people get free access to the Internet.
Today anyone can hook up to the Internet for as littleas$15a month;so who cares?
Yeah, but in rural areas, Internet ser
vice providers can be hard to find . Free Nets give people from Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Community Network (http://high lander.cbnet.ns.ca) to Montana's Big Sky Telegraph (http://macsky.bigsky.dillon .mt.us) a chance to keep up with the rest of us. Urban sites let people whose computer equipment consists of a discarded XT and a 2400-bps modem hook onto the Net. The Free-Net march may continue, but with the flagship gone, the entire movement has been shaken. NPTN remindea us that the Inter net is about people, rich and poor, city and country, communicating.
L., _ _ _ _-S...t.ev_en_J. V_au_gha_n-N_ich_ols.J
HAHT Software's HAHTsite 2.0 typifies new Web tools that integrate a wide variety of functions.
bly category has the widest variation, ranging from WYSIWYG page-layout tools to enterprise application-deploy ment tools. HAHT Software's HAHTsite 2.0 is an example of this latter category. It has a Windows-based integrated devel opment environment that incorporates other vendors' tools; its application serv er runs on multiple operating systems and can integrate with existing third-party client/server platforms such as SAP.
Forrester's Berno ff predicts that tools will continue to improve this year and says you can also expect the currently fragmented market to consolidate into partnerships or around platforms. One such platform is Netscape One, an open network environment based on publicly defined standards that lets developers create tools that work with each other. Netscape and Silicon Graphics (SGI, Mountain View, CA), which already offer the LiveWire and Cosmo suites of tools, respectively, will also improve their offer· ings, either by developing new products or by acquiring products from other com panies. Microsoft, which is developing Internet Studio, will play a major role in the suite trend, and so may Adobe and Macro media. Adobe will probably focus on creating tools that integrate with Microsoft's and Netscape's environ ments, and Macromedia will concentrate on video, interactive Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML), and ani mation, Bernoff says. SGI's current focus on its own hardware may turn away potential customers who want Mac or Windows solutions.
In the meantime, developers can seek
relief from tools that are improving. Builders of database-connected sites should check out products from HAHT, NeXT (Redwood Shores, CA), and others that avoid Common Gateway Interface (CG!). It's also smart to budget for con stant tool turnover to avoid getting locked into products as vendors' fortunes ebb and flow.
The good news about all these bewil dering options is that competition among vendors is fierce. "Prices will come down, and performance and features will esca late at a much faster pace than you've ever seen before," says john McCrae, mar keting manager for SGI's Cosmo suite. "Customers will end up with better, less expensive products and better content."
-Dave Andrews
r... . .
~~.JComtents
Netcards Coming
to America
28
BYTE Survey: Data Warehouse Woes
32
Security Wake-Up Call 36
Sun's McNealy
on Java
40
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 27
Netcards Coming to America
A marvel of technology that enjoys wide spread use in Europe, and to a lesser degree Canada, may finally gain accep tance in the U.S. The PC/SC Workgroup, supported by the Sma rt Card Forum and made up of PC and smarrcard com panies, recently announced its intention to develop open standards allowing the integration of smarrcards with PCs. The workgroup includes Schlumberger Elec tronic Transactions, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Siemens Nixdorf lnformation ssysteme AG, and Bull CPS.
While the use of smartcards with PCs is nothing new, an open standard fo r inter operability between smartcards and PCs is. "The idea is to offer the same type of interoperability between smancards and PCs as already exists with printers," said Jean McKenna, president of the Smarr Card Forum and vice president ofPayment Technologies at Visa International.
At press time, the workgroup planned to release its standa rd in th e fourt h quarter of 1996, serring the stage for prod uct announcements, including new smarrcard readers from Schlumberger, the expected bundling of smartcard read ers with HP PCs in earl y 1997, and sup port for the standard under Windows.
In the U.S., isolated implementations of smartcards have already occurred. Visa Cash, an electronic-cash card, proved successful at the Atlanta Summer Olympics. However, the U.S. may lack the
marketplace infrastructure and consumer buy-in to make stored-value cards, used at point of sale, the dominant smartca rd application in this century. " It wi ll be at least the year 2001 before there is suffi cient momentum and in frastructure to allow for the widespread implementation of stored-value smartcards in the U.S.," according to David Weisman, ana lyst for Forrester Group (Cambridge, MA).
tum from corporations looking to pro vide secure access for employees to cor porate networks from the office or the home. T he use of these cards on the Inter net (hence the term Netcard) also forces a paradigm change. "With the introduc tion of universal standards for smarrcards and readers, you no longer authenticate you r terminal. You authenticate the indi vidual," said Michel Roux, general man
Software developers write to high-level interfaces such as Microsoft's smartcard API or CryptoAPI.
resources to support multiple applications and smartcanls.
Microsoft's API for smartcards insulates software developers from having to become cryptography experts.
This is where Microsoft comes in. Its 32-bit Windows APls include a generic interface fo r smartcard reader techno l ogy (see the figure) that adheres to up coming PC/SC standards, as well as to the ISO 7816 specification.
Smarrcards will initially gain momen
ager, Mu ltimedia Business Division of
France-based Ge mplus, a developer of
smartcards and readers.
Once th e tec hn ology exists in the
home, or on the notebook, people wiJI be
enticed to rake advantage of it fo r per
sonal use.
-Daniel Coyle
iuture watch
Coming This Year: Virtual Receptionists
Tired of waiting on hold to sched ule appointments? Relief is on the way in the form of a new Internet calendaring and scheduling stan dard. This standard, currently still a work in progress, will let you, where access is per mitted, browse other people's calendars, schedule meetings. and view the open time slots that a person or an organization has. Vendors such as Lotus, Campbell Services, and On Technology offer products that let
you check schedules using a browser; for example, Lotus's Organizer 97 Web Calendar server application lets you access Organizer schedules over the Internet But Lotus's pro gram and alternatives don't universally work with calendar programs from other vendors. "The number of people using PC calendaring is about one-third the number who use PC based e-mail," says Anik Ganguly, a longtime advocate ofcalendar interoperability. uwhy? Because calendars lack compatibility, unlike
e-mail, which has numerous gateways and a common backbone."
Thafs where standards such as the Versit consortium's vCalendar, the Internet Calendar Access Protocol (ICAP) originally proposed by Lotus, and others come in. Once the Internet Engineering Task Force blesses a working standard for calendar interoper ability, possibly by this summer, you'll start seeing products that talk to each other.
-Dave Andrews
28 BYTE JANUARY 1997
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Wireless PDAs
address book, and a calculator are built in. won' t be rolled out in the U.S. until some Beyond this, the Nokia 9000's capa time late r thi s year, pa rtl y because its
Will Proliferate
bilities include Internet access, although communications network is not fully in the gra y-sca le 640- by 200-pi xe l LCD place.
doesn' t deli ve r the type of spi ffy Web In fact, the larger issue for buyers may
Mobile phones are on the verge of expe graphics you may be used to. Still, the be whether GSM and the rest ofthe alpha
r iencing the sa me so rt of gro wth and ability to log on from a device that weighs bet soup ofpersonal communications ser
options th at p ersona l computers d id less than a pound is pretty slick.
vice (PCS), including CDMA (Code Divi
years ago. N ot only are there new prod- The Nokia 9000 Communicator is an sion Multipl e Access), TDMA (Tim e
Division Multiple Access), PACS (Personal
Access Communications Systems), and
DCTU (Dominant Certified Telecommu
nications Utility), represent a fractured
market that make them an unwise buy.
According to Bukasa Tshilombo, research
m anager, world wireless markets, fo r
Northe rn Business Information (New
York City), bu yers shouldn ' t w o rr y.
According to Tshilombo, by the yea r
2000, GSM w ill enjoy broad coverage in
the U.S., as it does in Europe today. How
ever, don't expect a device that supports
the U.S. versio n of GSM to automatically
work in Europe. U.S. GSM phones will
operate at a different frequency than GSM
devices in Europe.
Tshilombo predicts that users in
North America will soon have numerous
A wealth of wireless communications options will be available in the U.S., according to NBl's forecast.
wireless options. "Over time, all of these various options should offer reasonable price and coverage," he says.
That's certainly good news for those
ucts on the horizon, but new parts of the impressive product (in fact, it won BITE's att racted by t he charms of t he Nokia
radio sp ectrum are com ing into play Best of CEbit award last year). However, and similar PCS-based phone/communi
thanks to the deregulation in the U.S. of even if you' re prepared to spend rough cators. Clearly, talk alone isn' t going to
the ainvaves and the subsequent auctions ly $2000 to buy one, you' ll have to wait. be enough in the untethe red world.
by the Federal Communications Com The phone is available in Europe bur
- Jon Pepper
mission. Digital wireless offers numerous
advantages over today's analog system,
including relief from congestion in urban
areas, support for voice and data, and bet
ter security through encryption. One o f the most innovative of the
new breed is the Nokia 9000 communi cato r, w hich offers far mo re than just wire less voice communications. The N o kia, whic h uses the Gl oba l Sys tem for M obil e C o mmuni cations (GSM ), looks like a conve ntio nal pho ne but can o pen up to revea l an inside that loo ks more like a small palmtop computer. In t hi s mod e, th e No kia can be used t o
HifML Stymies Netscape Navigator
Even the relatively simple Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) can be used to do bad things. Richard Smith, president of Phar Lap Software, a vendor of programming tools, discovered a way to disrupt Netscape Navigator using plain old HTML
First, create an HTML file named
BOOM.HTM whose contents include:
<body>
Compose an e-mail message that contains BOOM.HTM as an attachment and send it to someone. When the recipient reads the e
mail message with the Netscape Mail program, Navigator locks up when the mail program attempts to display BOOM.HTM.
The lockup occurs because Navigator is trying to read a GIF file from serial ports COM 1 through COM4. Because
send and receive e-mail messages that yo u
<img src="file : /// coml
no data is coming through those ports,
can type on the small keypad.You can also send and receive messages to and fro m a fax machine. In fact, th e Nokia 9000 not only looks like a palmtop computer when full y opened but also includes some func
<img src="fi le: // (. com2
<img src= " file:///com3
<img src= " file: I I / com4
Navigator hangs. And when the target device name is AUX, the computer might lock up completely.
Netscape says it fixed the bug with a recent upgrade of Navigator 3.0.
tions that are more typical of a hand-held
organi ze r. A cale nd ar, a no tepad, a n
30 BYTE JANUARY 1997
c0 MpuT
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What makes a storage subsystem tough ? Is it the materials
used ? Superior design ? 100% testing? Sure, it's all of that,
·
and especia lly the company that stands behind it. Kingston~
engineers took their same rugged, removable drive
enclosures and gave them a metal-shielded
plastic housing. The result? The toughest
little subsystem ever to be caUed a "lightweight''.
T he Data Express'" DE90 still provides the superior cooling and reliabil ity you've come to expec t fro m Kingston. Its cam-assisted, carrier-eject fea ture allows for the smooth removal and insertion of
the carrier tens of thousands of times. Plus, it still mixes and matches bea utifully with Kingston's other rugged Data Silo'" external expansion cha. is. And, since it's Ki ngston made, it's backed with
the industry's best service and support; including a generous 7-year warranty.
A sk abo ut the DE90 by call ing a Kingston storage representative toll-free at (888 ) 435-5439. Because in rhe world of data storage, tough is a Kingston thing.
For more inform ation call the
on che net :hctp ://www. kingsco n .co m/ b. hcm
Kins,';')ton Technoltl.')' G._)m1r.my, 17&.XJ Newhopc S1n:t"t, f!.Jun1ain Valley, CA 92708 USA. (714) 435 -2600.
©1996 All ri~luii rcscrvc.-d. KinJ,?~IOn 1i:clmolot'Y is a Tr:lJcnunk ,if Ki nustnn Tc."Chll1)\oi...ry G1111pany. All Tmdcmarh 11nd Rl~~b.rcml Trademark.;; tm: the llmpcny llf their rcsp.:"C ll\'t' holders.
Welcome to the Real Data Superhighway
North America stands poised to finally enter the age of the true electronic "infor mation superhighway." In December 1996, the 36-kilometer first phase of the Express Toll Road (ETR) Highway407wasexpect ed to open. Heralded as the world's first fully automated open-road tollway, the system allows commercial traffic to pass through tolls without slowing down or stopping. When phase 2 is completed in 1999, ETR407willextend 69 km,spanning the top of metropolitan Toronto and fea turing 125 electronic toll points installed at on- and off-ramps.
Each electronic toll point or roadside toll collection (RTC) point operates with in-vehicle transponders, roadside antennae and cameras, and data man agement systems that record vehicle iden tity, monitor tollway use, and manage revenue collection. Vehicles without transponders can also use the tollway because digital cameras record rear license plate numbers as the vehicles enter and exit the road.
When a vehicle enters the tollway, its transponder networks via UHF with the RTC. Each RTC utilizes the Slotted Alo ha Time Division Multiple Access (TOMA) protocol. (The protocol was originally developed by the University of Hawaii for military applications.) Hugh es Aircraft has adapted the protocol for use with its Vehicle-Roadside Commu nications systems. A technique called angle ofarrival, which enables the mili tary to pinpoint enemy targets, can also, in a fraction of a second, identify specif ic transponders at any place and time, allowing for toll collection withoutslow ing down at the RTC. Transponders, developed by Mark IV Industries, are mounted on the vehicle windshield directly behind the rearview mirror. Each has a communications frame of 10 mil liseconds and creates a 915-MHz link using active communications and the Slotted Aloha TOMA protocol.
Slotted Aloha provides for concurrent communications at more than 500 Kbps with up to 272 vehicles at a time, regard less of the speed at which they ' re travel ing. This accuracy allows the RTC to iden
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Coordination, Cleansing-Most Demanding ·1
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Data warehouse projects can be a bit like cleaning a messy room. It's easy to justify the.project, but c:J.9lng the actual cleanirg,is the hai'd work. So say respondents to .BYTE'~ SUJV~Y on}i:lat~~~arehpuse projects, which is designed to.gauge the level-of dif
ficulty for a variefy of.tasks. Response to thnurveywasn't as high.as previous ones, But
1'5'respondents who\1efompleted at least one.data warehouse project:and five others
currently ii) the pilol Rhase rated the tasks in terms of difficulty and took the time to write
in comments aboul,their experiences. Their comment~s~ggest that.while.defining goals anp justifying aprojectare relative·
ly ~~}' (see the charts),.data cleansing and coordination amongst varioiis departments
are the two most difficuit·t11$ks in aprojeet. Responaents wrote that·this collision ofexpee
tations (goals) anB-reality (availability of data) can come back to hurt you if you don't plan
properly and detemiine.yihat users need anc;l.whatfPU can deliver to them.
~Data [that usel'.S'] ~hihk 1.s availablefrequently' isn\t or is jn such poor condition it can't
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Data clean~ing and d@partmental coordination are the I
toughest data warehouse tasks, according to a BYTE survey.
I I
be easily used; say!?, 9ne respondent. Several saidlhatwarehouse·planners.should get I
astrong definition upfrontof what d11ta should be;in1he.warehouse and what's available I
to:ensure tJsable'.re'SJ;llts::Knowiri.9 in advance What datais·accessible is.qujfe\.lsefol, as .'I
60 percent of resP,ondents rated integration with legacy data either "hard" or "very hard~ · I
Along with technical e~rtise, knowing how·to play'the political gam~ can help, too, I
says one respondent. Since coordination amongst various departments is hard, you'll I
want to ensure that t~e project sponsor wields a big enough stick to knock down barri- I
ers to success..
- Dave Andrews I
L--------------------------~
tify individual transponders within a frac tion of a meter, so even motorcycles rid ing side by side, inches apart, can be sep arately identified.
"Equipped with Slotted Aloha, trans ponders provide 99.99 percent accuracy even in the high-speed, close spacing, and
mulrilane conditions found on tollways such as the 407," says Martin Gray of Hughes Aircraft and project manager for theETR407. lnaddirionto 125 RTCs, ETR 407 also includes rwo toll transaction processors that use asynchronous trans fer mode (ATM) technology. These are
32 BYTE JANUARY 1997
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Dept. A2
located in a central adm in ist ratio n cen
ter with a revenue manage ment system.
Informatio n collected by RTCs passes
th roug h fi ber-optic cable to the transac
tion p rocessors vi a a n ATM ne tw ork.
Co mpute r a nd imaging t echn o logy
develo ped by Hughes matches the toll
road entry fo r each vehicle w ith the cor
respo nding roll-road exit . Thi s data is
then relayed to the revenue management
syst em, which h a ndl es all customer
billing and collection fun cti o ns.
ETR 407 is the result of a public/private
partn ersh ip. Me mbe rs include th e
Ontario M inistry o f Transpo rtation,
Hughes Aircraft of Canad a, Bell Canad a,
Bell Sygma Teleco m So lutions, Mark rv
Industries, and C anadi an Hi ghways
International Corporation.
W hile ETR 407 is the wo rld's first ful
ly automated toll road, electro ni c to ll col
1ec ti o n is not un iqu e t o Onta r io . In
1987, seve ral toll agencies in the N orth
east Corridor spanni ng New York, New
J ersey, and Pennsylvania began investi
gating the potential of electro nic roll col
lection. In 199 1, seven toll facilities w ith
in the Northeast Corrido r joined to form
th e E-Zpass lnte rage ncy Group (IAG).
Accounting for a lmost 40 percent of all
U.S. toll transactions and 67 percent of all
U.S. roll revenues, the IAG wants to devel
o p a cohesive, regionally compatible elec
tro nic system to streamline ro ll collection
a nd to offer customers a transparent
m ethod .
Upon evaluation of several technolo
gies, IAG is now implementing tra nspon
der techno logy fr om M a rk IV Industries.
O ve r the next five years, IAG members
pl a n to install E- ZPass t ec hn ology a t
approxi m a te ly 200 si tes, coveri ng a p
proximately 1500 miles of to llway, fo ur
tunn els, and 12 majo r bridges. The suc
cess of IAG's effo rts represents the m ost
significa nt move toward standardization
o f e lectro nic toll coll ectio n in N o rth
America. Discussio ns between LAG a nd
the Province of O ntario have taken place;
however, at press time, Ontario hadn' t
committed to join the agency.
W hile it is the strength of the technol
ogy playe rs that has drive n regio ns such
as the N ortheast Corrido r and Onta ri o
to choose similar systems, much wo rk has
to be done to provide drivers with a con
tinent-w ide sta ndard fo r to ll collectio n.
But the fi rst steps have been take n toward
a more efficient way ofcollecting revenue
fro m busy trave lers.
- Daniel Coyle
Ne.t Metaphors
fact, no other book tliat I'm awai:~ of por ·frays the philosophical development ohlte
A re the metapho~ ~e.use to describe internet with such depth and ~rspective. :the intemet a dange'.r to its develop- The boOk carefully explains wtiere eaeh
ment? Mark Stefik, a scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research ·tenter (PARC), belle11es1hey are, ~n~ \:le make~ a convinc::
ing 9ase ,in lntern~t;:i/Jre.ai'Tls. Steflk has
compiled a p:ow~rttil . · ·
metaphorfails, butStefikdoesn'Ueallyoffer any new metap.hors, which l tooJHo~ug-
gest that it's time-for us to e: fqrYJh~t'lfis,. Orui:ew~di .
e Net -> ICj;bag;
gage, we e'an move on.
collection of essays,
Most of the essays were writt:en·fo r:-an
from Vannevar Bush's
academic or professional audience, and
seminal "As We May
the writing is sometimes dense:and·dry.
Think" from 1947··fo 2 more current worl<s.
Stefikassumes that his reac1erswillbeeicpe rienced Net users, yet the booR roEJpetitive-
Oever juxtapositioning
ly explains some of its mostbasicaspects.
ofthe essays wrapped
B,ut don't let these nits stop you from read·
in the autho~'s insight- .
.
ing this b9ok. Stefik bring.a clarity~focus,
The ful commentary paints.atdlling,picture:
antj,ltistoric~tperspective to tlleJ flte"rn.!!t.
·
lnter'net is
- y.
unh:1ue,
y~~"!'·~~ tb~e.
,i~'. olicies·
'
tha
·
t:
·
··
~
..... ..
~
~·
-Mlcli'aeU:ladeau
shape its design a.nd.use are often influ
enced by the metaph.Qra.fhst we ascribe to
it. The rules that gov~"). 11ay, telephone
c.ommunications probably won't Iran.slate T here's a brave new world-.oµ t tfi.ere
well to the Net.
where you can access.thoAJsands of
Wh}'.is this·a big d_ealJ.1Although meta· · ·magazines and newspaper{!, ~h'a( with "
phors are usefuLforexpli(inlng1th.e Internet friends , make new acquainla'!'lces;:a,nd to noviees,they m~k.subtle but important receive mail free of chargl) {alba.it only six
differences. Lawma kerst notoriously.une ducatea about tji1H>1J~lir;ie. world, might impose ill-fitting r~gul~tlons.'Companies mighHry to.adapt ~xisting.tiut inappropri
days a week!. Sound familiar? ' It's the Ol{femet, the.world beyondpurcornpufer screen; in other words, rea/ii,Y.>eut0cbnge nial as reallty sounds, hardcore.on"line
ate commerce models.to it Most important. addicts will need a little help adj4_sting.to it.
as these metaphors 'become more and· They ma even want to subscribe to
more entrenched in the public subcon- America OH-Line,A. J. Jaaobsls 6ccasion·
, ¢o~s. W:e lose si~~\:?Hh'~~io~~hai S eftk .ally hilarfeus g!,ljde to life in. t):ie,Gyternet.
.a_s_. a,nC!.his:ChqseoesaayJsl§ocrtJJnefo.rthelN.et. · ...:-: · ~ · ·Stefikorganizes the'l:'io,6~ into fburparts, ·· ·:?..:::'
C:lea ~y. Ja~.~~s..has~.
logged some ;painful
each representing-a,dif(erent metaphor. These include the digital library, electronic
hours in cllatrooms;the
best p<1rts qf his book
mail, electronic marketplace, and the digi-
concern the do's and
tal world.The essays-l!how the ev9lution of
don'ts of int~rlacln,g in
a ,. . . the metaphor,as.wl)ll al? prei;ent a vision.of
the Net's potentiai. i=or example, philoso ·
pherScott D.N~ Cookta~es what he'calls:
reaflife. H isl~C!vice for ~ introducir;i_g y,oorseit at
a.,:- off·llne partie_s: ·oa not
tbe Gutenber.gMyth;.explaining thatthe · - - - describ~ yo,1/!fself..., )
invention of the printing P.r.ess,was onlyone of th~ events that, over;.cen\unes, brought about mass liter.ac'y. L~i.fra Fillmore tells
what it's like to be an on-lfne publisher.
you don'thaveto and b) ifyoudp;you can't lie about what you looklik~'
In the·course of poking fu'n atth'e.on-line world, Jacobs does the saroe to~ off.line
Stefik introduces each ~ay, then puts counterpart. He's clearly no.technophobe;
it into perspective with an ending com· he's just having a little fun. If you've sperit
ment~. lntemet Dream.sis not just a philo much time on commercial on-lineservices,
sophi.cal·argument,_tfiei;p,.fore,. but a valu you're sure·to·get a guffaw pr. ,t)Yo from
able1hlstlli;Y (al')d prel'Jt~tpt:y) dfthe Net. In 'America:CJ>ff.,linf!.
-Je 11/~_.,._lan "
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34 BYTE JANUARY 1997
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Goodbye NT for MIPS
The original RISC platform for hosting Windows NT, the MIPS architecture, is getting phased out as a host for M icro soft's enterprise operating system. Microsoft has announced it wi ll cease future NT development efforts for the MIPS platform due to decreasing demand. On NT, the MIPS architecture got caught between Digital's Alpha processor at the high end and the Pentium on the low end; when software deve lopers had only enough resources to support nvo hard ware platforms for NT, the MJPS platform often got squeezed out.
NEC, the manufacturer that sold the most MIPS/NT workstations, says it will no longer build NT machines based o n the MIPS platform. However, NEC will continue to make MIPS-architecture chips for Nintendo 64 systems, Silicon Graph ics workstations, and the new Windows CE platform.
Al th ough Microsoft says it will con tinue to support NT 4.0 on MIPS, the com pany advises customers to evaluate oth er hardware platforms for future versions of NT. Those hardware choices are Pow erPC, Alpha, and x86.
But Cheaper Alpha NT PCs Are Coming
While MJPS gets de-emphasized as a plat form for NT, Digital Equipment and VLSI Technology are working to bring less expensive computers based on the Alpha microprocessor to market. This year, the two companies expect to release the first products that include VLSI-designed core logic chips that will work with Dig ital' s Alpha chips.
Chips developed by VLSI will handle functions such as connecting m icro processors to memory and the PCI data bus, as well as handling peripheral func tions pertain ing to audio, graphics, input devices, and VO ports. Digital officials say the goal is to introduce a desktop Alpha PC that will cost about $3000 or less, mak ing that platform more attractive to cor porate buyers.
36 BYTE JANUARY 199 7
Security Wake-Up Call
It's time for organizations to stop saying they are concerned with securing their informa tion and get down to the business of doing it. In theory, upper management supports the
protection of information assets; in practice, the implementation of security strategies is
minimal or nonexistent within many organizations today. That's the conclusion Datapro
analysts draw from Datapro's 1996 lntemational Survey of Information Security Issues.
Companies that have implemented successful, cost-effective computer security strate
gies typically have formed a policy, conducted a risk assessment, and put in place risk
management methods. An organization should identify its unique risks to ensure those
areas are covered by the security policy, then execute suitable countermeasures based
on priorities and levels established in the policy stage. Training and awareness play an
invaluable role in making a security implementation successful: globally, current employ·
ees were responsible for 57 percent of all security incidents.
Unfortunately, economic influences such as the drive to cut costs have taken their toll.
Funding for security has disappeared from many corporate budgets. While the number of
companies with a dedicated security department and a security policy has decreased, the
number of companies with no plans for a poficy has risen. Only 54 percent of survey respon·
dents in 1996 had a security policy, down from 82 percent in Datapro's 1992 survey. For
those companies trying to salvage some form of protection when the security department
is dismantled, the responsibility is primarily reallocated to the MIS manager. MIS is not the
ideal location-as long as security remains part of the IT function, it may never become a
priority. Organizations that have a dedicated person
assigned to security are more likely to have a security
policy in place.
Companies With aPlan
Companies today place high value on the ability of
PCs, networks, mainframes, and databases to con
tribute to an organization's success. Yet security is still
regarded as a drain on the bottom line. Organizations
need to stop thinking of security as something that
impedes or restricts, like the locks and seat belts in a
car. Instead, they should think of security as something
that enhances the ride and ensures that you reach your
destination,like antilock brakes. The drive for electronic
commerce, the phenomenal growth of the Internet,
and the increasing popularity of business applications
that use public networks require organizations to devel
op sound information security. Security needs to be
regarded as an enhancement that contributes to 1he
bottom line, not a function that drains it.
Rebeccll J. Duncan and Jackie Hyde are information-secu· rity analysts at Datapro. For more on Datapro services, call
Firms with a plan often have
(609) 764·0100 or see http://www.datapro.com.
dedicated security staff.
Hanlnni ~ ~ mil~ fllnCuoa
i
Softwve maifuctloa
t
'°"S "lo,.ss- ,I.O.(.i.w.a.r.8.p.r.o.b.l,e.m,
t
"!
Password exposure~~~~~~~~~!
~~......... o a
@ oo u
Computer viruses are the most common microcomputer security breach.
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Both the PowerEdge 2100 and 4100 feature high-speed ECC EDO memory as well as Ultra/Wide SCSl-3 support for wickedly fast read/write to their hard drives. The dual-processor capable 4100 also features redundant, hot-plug hard disk drives. power and cooling for a higher level of network security. Both have Intel's LANDesk'" Server Manager v2.5x. And through 12/31/96, both include Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 (10 Client Access Licen ses) at no extra charge.
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Ii.
Corel PDA to Bundle Java Suite
Does the world need another PDA? Corel (Ottawa, Ontario) certainly thinks so. The company that has been successful where others fear to tread (taking on Microsoft in the office suite market, for instance) has an interesting offering on tap. The Corel PDA (as yet unnamed) will be powered by a RJSC processor and offer a choice of either monochrome or color LCD screen. The hand-held unirwiU mea su rc about 3 by 4 inches and should retail for less than $500. The company currently plans to release the device in the second half of 1997.
Corel plans to bundle in a suite of applications, including e-mai l, a notepad, a contact manager and scheduler, hand writing recognition, and voice annota
should run without problem on the Corel PDA. Plus, the platform independence of Java means that any Java application (e.g, Corel Office for Java) should work on just about any Java-compliant plat form, including Java-based set-top box es, network PCs, and other devices. Fur thermore,Java should encourage a lot of development from third parties because of this potentially large market. Corel plans to provide a truly open operating system so that developers will be able to create add-on programs for the PDA. The OS itself will be embedded as a kernel into the PDA with the Java Virtual Machine running on top of that kernel.
The device will incorporate integrat ed communications, so that sending and receiving e-mail or fax messages and get ting onto the Internet will not require you to buy additional options or software. The Corel PDA will have a unique key board/ docking station that will let it synchronize the database with the desk top computer, work as a battery recharg
_The office without boundaries!
.T_.h.o.O,.!.ft.c.e._ ._....,.......__ °"" ...
Wrcf'wfed Ofb Ind b dhor -"'"*'1proct.ldato..-Oo -Oftloe ....ltol ... _
·wordprooasor, ............. """11"1gend-~ lrl'IOl'lO athef awoctctMy tocts. Al or
wit*'.,... lhla wl bll WecJttld
epplcllion frM'llt'NQft. The office de
.......,.......,.....--..... ~
Corel's new office suite looks like the others, but it's written in Java.
tion. So far, tnis sounds like pretty stan dard stuff. But a major part of what sets the Corel PDA apart from other PDAs is the fact that all the applications, includ ing a built-in Web browser, will be pro grammed in Sun'sJava language. Corel's Java suite isslared to ship in the first quar ter of this year.
TheJava approach provides a number of advantages, Corel says. First, Java applets are relatively efficient, so they make sense for the somewhat restricted PDAenvironment. lt alsomeansthatjava applets downloaded from the Internet
er, and give the user a full-size keyboard.
The Corel PDA is being designed ro
operate in either portrait or landscape
mode. The former will be used to work
with the PIM-based functions, and the lat
ter for Internet and e-mail access.
As PDAs begin ro mature, functional
units li ke the Corel PDA that don't over
reach may well rule the market. And with
its inherent cross-platform nature, the
Corel Java-based office suite may appear
on thin platforms where today's
resource-intensive desktop PC applica
tions can't fir.
-Jon Pepper
cd-rcm review
Learn to Read and
Have Some Fun
Finally a great program for1hree- to six· y,ear·old beginning readers. Richard Scarry's Best Reading Pr.o:grarn Ever
. attually lives up ta its Yf erbolizing '
In Miss Honey's chtssroom, cliildrcn can click on ol>je~
moniker. If children can get by the o~n'
ing screen that a-sks them to type in their
·· name,they will be entertained and.gently
cnalienged with reading readiness activ
ities. These exercises focusoa )apguage,
phonics, listening, andfoli8wir:i.g simple
directions.
There are five'main sites inthe program. /\t each,site, the child works1hrough a specific learning exercise. Examples of 1hese learning exercises include such things as identifying beginning sounds, matching upper- and lowercase letters in afarm while picking apples, and deter·
mining Yfhich picturesJonn the begrnping,
middle, and end of a story. As is the case in Richard S~W'r:y _chil·
dren1s books, the program~ graphics are · of high quality.'Tile charac,ters.in thll var· iouuxercises will appeal toc:Hildr.en.lh'e program is easy to navigate, ani:l"there ari:i handy stop points. In fact, once,the pro gram is loaded and launched,-the com· puter fades into the backgroam:t<a& if it
~~n't even th.ere. Begjnningm<iders get a lotof positive reinforcement e11enwhen they select the wrong answer, but they ~richly rewarded when they complete a.task correctly. Simon &Schuster Inter active has done a commendablejpb mal<· ing learning to read a fun experience.
-Rich Fr18dm1n
3 8 BYTE JAN U AR Y 1997
Farlres 101 protects boot process,
desktop settings and arrangemen~ and the file system Secure Hle System for Windows and Windows 95 on FAT drives allows you to block or control
access (full, read-only, no access) to local drives, files, and directories; force user saves to floppy, or specific directories; prevent executing any program from floppies; prevent user from downloading and executing programs. All file security is provided in memory, without modifying the file structure. Provides multi-user or station
security for local resources on stand alone and networked PC's. Does not modify the registry. Does not rely on user profile settings. Does not conflict with user profile settings. All security
can be turned on and off in seconds without rebooting. Fortres 101 can be unloaded, completely, from memory without restarting Windows. Includes support for both Windows 3.lx and Windows 95 with 16 or 32 bit file access. Does not alter the Windows Interface. There are no visual cues that Fortres 101 is running. Does not patch any DOS or Windows files. Works with Novell, LAN Manager and Microsoft Networks. Central control module is available.
System Requirements:
· OS: Windows 3. lx, WFW 3.lx, Windows 95 ·Dos Memory: lK (can be laaded high) ·Windows Memory: 35K (3.lx),
55K (Windows 95) · Disk Space: 400K
$395 per fifty computers per building. Academic discounts available. 30 day money back guarantee.
Fortres 101
Visit our web site at Fortres Grand Corporation
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Circle 196 on Inquiry C ard .
Bla&t& trom
the Pa&t
Ye ars ago in BYTE
~c·nk~d GI · .Jl!lSolve, a spreadsheetfor
~he Mti?~'· · esof,.r~. along with 0th.er
Mac ~ersiori~of spreadsheets such as 1 -2~ 3·and Wingz, weakened In the face of Microsoffs Officejuggemaut for the Mac. We also ran ea rly reports on the Apple/ Motorola/IBM alUance and delays .in Windows 3,1 al)d OS/2 2.0.
Why Java Won't Repeat the Mistakes of Unix
Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO ofSun Microsystems, talks about howJava will change computing and the computer industry.
something and the brand lost value.
BYTE: Is that the primary lesson you take from the Unix experience, that branding was lacking? McNealy: I also think that licensing terms of Unix were very, very different. We're fundamentally aying that you don'rneed a Java license from us ro go do what you need to go do. You have to go out and just do a great implementation.
Timothy Lear,YoJate leader,ofpsychedelia, pitched software to the Boston Computer Society. Leary would later document his impe nding de~th in 1996 on the Web, a ·medium'tha.t somefeel is a powerful di:ug :in Its own,righ1. ~ven 'more addicting than tobacco. hi .the same issue, editor Phil Lemmons reminded us that people who said most users don't need the power of a 32-bit processor used to say the same thing about 16 KB of RAM.
Year:s ago in BYTE
We covered the new IBM PC in depth: we fig ured. i.t w~s Important .
en ou ~h to merit a·'
second looic Guess we made the right call on that one.
Year5.F90 in BYTE
We covered hashing techniques that speed up table search operations. North Star advertised 5-inch floppy drive systemsfor the ·unbelievable· price of$599.
BYTE: What's your vision ofaJava-cen tric computing industry? McNealy: The whole point of the Net is more than convenience, it's open inter faces. All of a sudden now, no single microprocessor's in charge, no single operating system's in charge, no single vendor's in charge, no single customer is in charge. Regarding Sun's place in this new industry, we believe that we can be one of the three equipment suppliers for data-rone/Web-rone equipment on the client and server side. Wintel, Sun, and IBM a re th e on ly three eq uipment sup pliers left. Everyo ne else is just a dealer of other peoples' equipment.
The problem with Microsoft and Intel is that it's a lot like General and Motors, with Fisher Body separated from Chevro let, and that's why it rakes 10 years ro get a32-bitOS on a 32-bitmicroprocessor. lt's hard to merge them at the end of the assembly line when you're not under the same shareholder agreement.
BYTE: A lot of the open interfaces TCI'!ll', HTML, for example-are con trolled try standards bodies. But you own the Java spec. McNealy: No, this is huge: You can go out and write a Java virtual mach in e ro that spec. I will nor sue you. So, ''own" is too loaded a word. We' re going ro con tinue to drive that [spec] forward. If you want ro call it Java the brand, yea h, we own Java . The problem with Unix is that nobody prorected the brand to mean
BYTE: How important is it toJava enter prise computing that you have a com pelling Windows compatibility strategy? McNealy: We'll provide it the right way. Put it on one server, you only have to buy o ne copy. And I'm urging every CEO ro make sure it [Windows] runs really slow ly, so people stop using that stuff. The right way is to ban PowerPoint from your com pany. The second-best answer is to buy just one copy. And the wrong answer is to give everyone their own personal copy.
When the anthropologists dust off the 1980s and 1990s and look at the produc tivity dip, they're going ro blame Office. I banned PowerPoinr from my company and we've had the best two quarte rs we've ever had in the history of the com pany. I want ro give everybody plastic Mylar sheers and all the pens they need to scribble on them. And I said use what I call the [Sun cofou nder] Bill J oy font. You can see where he licked his thumb and erases; it's so much faster.
BYTE: Suppose the whole world con verted to Java-centric computing today. ls the infrastructure there ? McNealy: That would bea problem. The beauty of the fact that not everybody buys into what we're doing is that it gives us a head start. This is an arc hitectu re that really does sca le like no other architec ture has ever done. It's got all the new stuff built into it, like threading and absolute objects. This is not object-ori ented; this is an object-based language. Ir has enough compelling new features that it is just the right answer.
40 BYTE JANUARY 1997
3-D Workstation
SCI beefs up the low end of its 3-D graphics workstation line with the power-packed 02. By Dave Rowell
Silicon Graphics' Wintel Killer
ust when NT-based Pentium Pro PCs are looking like hot 3-D machines (see "Afford able 3-D Workstations," De cember 1996 BYTE), Silicon Graphics, Inc., introduces the sexy blue 02. Re placing the Indy in SGI's workstation line up, the 02 is built from scratch to han dle complex video and graphics-and street pricing starts below $6000. In our OpenGL 3-D graphics testing, the 02 ran well against the latest Intel systems. With professional video appli cations, it should provide an even-better bang for the buck. I was impressed by the 02's ability to distort a live video stream in real time. The 02 architecture, a unified mem ory design on steroids, dynamically al locates the system memory among dou ble-frame buffers, a 24-bit z-buffer, and virtually unlimited texture storage, all through a 2.1-GBps memory bus. With independent "engines" for memory con trol and rendering, display, imaging, com pression, and l/Ocontrol, the 64-bit 180 MHz Mips RSOOO CPU has little left t0 do. The memory and rendering engine ef ficiently gates access to system memory (up to l GBofSDRAM DlMMs) with cross bar switching. The rendering component
The 02 packs lots of video, imaging, and 3-D graphics power into a small, modular package.
provides hardware acceleration for tri angle setup, z-buffering, and textured and nontextured rasterization with up-ro-32 bit RGBA graphics modes. The 02's dis play engine supports up tO 1280- by 1024 pixel displays, as well as screen capturing and video-format conversion in real time without CPU overhead.
The imaging and compression engine performs real-rimeJPEG for nonlinear ed iting as well as MPEG-1 hardware decod ing. It supports Cinepak, QuickTime, and AVI codecs (but not in real time) . With a programmable 66-MHz R3000 integer core, it will handle future formats.
The 02 can maintain simultaneous an alog or digital video streams. It also has two wide UltraSCSI channels, built-in l 0/ 1OOBase-T Ethernet, and a 64-bit PC! slot. An optional $1000 AV module provides the jacks for video and audio equipment, including the 02's digital camera.
lrix 6.3 has a new Web-based user in terface, which allows such things as hy perlinks within the extensive on-line doc umentation. SGI's applications suite lets
RATINGS
TECHNOLOGY
* * * * *
* * * * IMPLEMENTATION
1c
* * * * PERFORMANCE
you edit images, video, HTML, and VRML. Also bundled is Netscape's Navigator 3.0 and FastTrack Server 2.0, as well as In signia's SoftWindows 2.0.
With price/performance numbers that match or exceed those of NT worksta tions, the 02 destroys any rationale tO leave the SGI camp to run professional ap
m plications recently ported to NT.
Dave Rowell is a BYTE senior technical editor. ¥011 can reach him at drowell@blx.com.
***** Oulslanding ****Very Good ***Good ** Fair *Poor
JANUARY '1 997 BYTE 41
Search Teal
These "private" versions of AltaVista lack the heavy hardware that makes the Web tool such a screaming performer. By Steven]. Vaughan-Nichols
Local Altavista Searching
igital Equipment hit a grand slam with its AltaVista Inter net search engine (http: //www.altavista .di gital .com). Now, the company is trying to repeat its success with free-text search programs for PCs, LANs, and intranets. This soft ware family goes by the cumbersome name of AltaVista Search Private Ext~n sions, but the programs themselves are anything but clumsy. From a marketing point of view, it's an unbeatable idea. AltaVista is, without a doubt, the search engine of choice for the Internet. Practically speaking, how ever, it's another matter entirely. The problem is that the Private Extensions lack what made their big brother suc cessful-screaming performance, thanks to Digital Unix running on an arsenal of high-end servers. Instead, the Private Ex tension servers are constructed to run on either Windows 95 workstations or Wm dows NT servers. ln both of these cases, any Web browser can act asaclienttothe database server. While it's still too early in the devel opment process to make any hard pre dictions about the baby AltaVistas' speed, they ' re clearly not going to be as fast as the server we know and love from use on the Internet. Then again, most of us don't have the luxury of running appli cations on maxed-out Digital Alpha clus ters either. From your desk, you won't be able to tell the difference between your local AltaVista servers and the Internet server (except for the performance slowdown). The interface looks and feels the same as ever. Behind the front end, the database engine, whi le taking different roads, works as its Unix elder does. For exam ple, with advanced searches, you use Boolean-style operators-the one odd fish is "AND NOT" for "NOT"-and you can narrow searches by restricting them
llooma:rks .Q;tlonS' QIRJtory WlndOll Help
· JPR_OGRA"1IOIGITAL/ALTAV1"11PR.~AT"1/riP~html
<
~--·/1;;. .
\lTAVisTAn.Search
1Si te Know ledqe
Computer All
Besides letting you use a Web browser, the local AltaVista services come with their own front end.
to particular fields in the automatically generated records.
On the server side, while query results come in at a decent clip, full-text index ing takes a long time. You'd be we ll advised to run this job in batch mode at
RATINGS
TECHNOLOGY
*** *
* * * * IMPLEMENTATION
PERFORMANCE
* * *
an obscene hour of the morning, when it won't impact anyone's real-time work.
The only real problem with the new AltaVista spin-offs is that there's nothing new here. Long before the Web was a gleam in Tim Berners-Lee's eyes, askSam Systems(http://www.asksam.com), with its eponymously named free-text data base product, was indexing and retriev ing data for PCs and LANs. Today, the
company's Web Publisher does essen tially the same job as AltaVista. What's more, askSam bests AltaVista in the num ber of file formats it supports.
For example, the AltaVista servers can work with most Microsoft formats, sev eral graphics and spreadsheet formats, and all Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) formats. However, askSam can do all that and adds Lexis/Nexis, Word Perfect, and database formats like the Xbase family's DBF.
Now, make no mistake, AltaVista does a fine job of organizing information from your PC to your intranet. It's just that you should look at other products, rather than simply leaping for AltaVista. You may find that the best-known product is not the best product for your office. llJ
Stevenj. Va11gha11-Nichols is a freelance 1vriter. ¥011 can reach him at sjvn@blx.com.
42 BYTE JANUAR Y 19 9 7
* ** ** Outstanding
****Very Good ***Good **Fair *Poor
Dr Solomon's
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97.0%
You want th e best virus detection software for your computers. Just look at the facts.
In study after study, test afrer resr, one virus derecrion soft ware wins out against the rest - Dr Solomon's. The facr is, Dr Solomon's anti-virus scan ners give you superior detec tion and repair of all varieties of viruses - polymorphic, "in the wild," boot sector, stealth and ochers. The numbers prove it, aga in and again.
Dr Solomon's A nti-Virus Toolkit is the intem arional leader in vi rus derecrion, with over 3 million users worldwide.
The Ami-Virus Toolki t is ava ilable on all platforms including: Windows 95 , Windows NT, Windows 3. x, DOS, NetWare, Macinrosh, OS/2 and SCO UNIX.
Make sure you know the facts about anti-virus software. Because when it comes co choosing the best, the decision isn't even close.
For free
evaluation
please visit our
web site at:
www.drsolomon.com
Dr Solomon's Software , Inc. USA a 1-888-DRSOLOMON (888-3 77-6566)
Dr Solomon 's Software Ltd. , U.K. a +44 12963 18 700
D r Solomon 's Software, Germ an y,
GmbH = +49 40 25 19 540
IT Secure, India m +91 22 643 J233/ J246
Priority Data Systems Ltd., Ireland = +353 I 284 5600
M ~ mory lvlasrc rs, Kenya = +254 2 75 1 9 16/743934/223543
G ru po ASISA , Mexico - +52 5 392 41 55
Data A lert International BV, Netherlands = +3 1 70 307 71 1I
Bysuppon South America - +56 2231 0308
lnfonnation Security AB, Sweden · +46 8580 I 00 02
CSS Computer Ser"ices, Zimbabwe= +263 4 304 822
For a complete listing of all world wide distributors: please fox your request to 6 17-273-7474
Circle 190 on Inquiry C ard (RESELLERS : 191).
DR SOLOMON'S
The international leader in virus protection
Dr Solomon's Software One New England Executive Park Burlington, M A 01 603 888-DRSOLOMON
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Adobe PageMaker V6 0 WIN 3.5/C O .··.·· , ·. SU.74 Adobe PageMaker V6.0 WIN upg 3.5/CO , ·.·· 132.11
Adobe Ptiot<»hop V3.0.5 WIN l .SICO ..··..·. 5'S.78 Adobe Photoatiop V3.0.5 WIN upo . ··· .· ···. 151..55
Arcada Backup lor Windows 95 .. , ..... , . . ··· 56.52 C3oro OmniPage Pro V7.0 WIN95 VOt1 upg ·· · .· 113.65 Cfarl1 flkl Maker Pro V3.0 WIN/95/NT CO ..... t 76.80 CorelOfftce ProV7.0WIN95~l4>Q ··.·· 117.32 Coro! WEB.GRAPHICS Suite WIN1951NT , · , ·. 186.35 Coro! WordPetfec1 S~o V7.0 W1N95 CO · ·.· · 241.34
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Coral WonFettea 5'.ile V7.0 W'HJ5 lC'g CO . . ·· . · 19.17
Coflll YIOfdPoffoet Sulc WIN 3.5Pa>. ··· , · · · 272.17 Corel YlonSPoffact &Me WlN CO ····· ·.·.·. 2.39.95 Corlil WordPerlec'I Suite WIN upg 3.!JCO .···· 133.70
Corel Wof'dPef18d Sule WIN upg co ......... 11.n
CorDIORAWI V5.0 to V6.0 WIN9S upg CO , ·· , · 171.20
CorelORAW! V6.0 W IN95 CO ·· · ······.···· 421 .73
Oatntonn PrOOOl'Ml Aus VJ.O WIN/95 , ···. . 124.11
Oatasloon Procomm Plus VJ.O WIN/95 CO , . . 124. t 1
Oelrino. WlnFAX PRO V7.0 WIN95 CO. , , · , , .· . 76.14
Holix Hunicane V2.0 VllN/95, ···...·· , ·· , .·. 43.30
lntutl Oulckon Ooluxo vs.o WIN C O .·... . , . , · 59.99
l olus 1·2·3 V5.0 WIN ···.·· , ········ ···· · 295.75
LOIUS 1·2.J vs.a W IN gpoc upg .' ..... ' .. ' ... QJ,15 LOIUS cc:Mall Mobtlo V6.0 WIN ·······..·. · · 126.00
Lotus O..ganlzer 97 WIN95 CO .· .····.·. , ··· 71 .63
McAfoe Vlru aScan V2.0 WIN95 ··· ·· ···· ··· · · 44.25
Mc:Afeo VIN$$c.an V2.2 WIN ······ . ········ · 44.as
Mlcr0$0 rt Actess V2.0 WIN .··· · ··.··. . .· ·· 291.04
Mlcrololl Fron1Paoe V l.1 WlN95.·· . ··· · ··· · 137.34 Mlcro$0tl MS·OOS V622 upg .. , .·· , , , .··· , , 49.88
Mlcrosort Office Pro w/Aecer.s WIN95 upg , , . , , 314.50 Mk:rosort Offiee Pro W1N95 CO w/Bksh911..... 544.30
~ orco Pro 'MN951.4'0 co w9c:&hof . ....· 311..c1
Mfcrosort Office Pro V4,3 WIN , · · · , · , · , , , , , · 535.47
Microloft Olloo Pro V4.3 WIN CO w8kshol .... . . 443.49 Mlct050 h O lflce Pro V4-.3 WIN upg , , , , , , , , , , 354.25
Mlcr050f1 Offico Pro W1N95 ........... ..... 539.03
MJcroson o mce Std W1N95 ........ ..... .. . 4S4.4J
omc. Mlctosoft
Std WIN95 C O . ·.·. , ... , .. . 453.30
MlctOIOl1 Office Std WMS upg. · ..· · ·...·. , 223.97
Mlcrosoll Otftee StdWIN95 uog CO.·.·.··.·. 221. 13
Microsoft orriee V4.2 Vi\N ·····.···.·····.· 449.03
Microsoft otf'tca V42 WIN IJPO.············· 261.36
Mlc>osoll Plus! WIN95 co.... .. ..... ...... . 45.46
Mc:ro.ol'I Prqod V4.0 WIN ·.··· .·.···..... 414.42
t.ticrosotl Pro;ect V4.1 'fnf\195 CO ·.·.·.. . ..· 421 .73
P.4ic:rolol'I Publishec' V2.0 WIN ··. .· , ... , · · ·· · H.29 MS YtlUftl Baslc Pro V4.0 W'INl9Mff CO · , ..· , 443.49 MS\bdaD:::Ac \14.0~ o:rrp"'9 C0 ··. . . 21 9. 11 MSV...U Sn: Plo V4.0WN~wist.pgCD , .. , , H .3'3
Mlcrosoll Visual Cw Subscriplion WIN95 .· . .· « 7 .93
Mlcrosoll Visual J +-+ W1 N9SINT. . .
. .· 14.51
Mlcrosol1 Windows 95 .··· ·.·.·. , · . . · . . · 113.4 7
Mk:rosort Windows 95 upg .········ · ...... · t4 .77
Mierosol1 ~95 upg CO. ..·. . .. . ..... . 94.77
MS Windows 95 w~ Expber Lc>Q CO . . 97.69
MS ~NT~ V4.0 l -UU L'7iJCO ....... 239.49
Mlcm9ofl Wildows NT Wcwl<slaSon v...o CO ···.· 213.20
Mlct050tl \Vindows VJ.11 . ·..· , , , , · , .....· . 92.Qe;
Micr0'50l1 Windows V3.11 lconso....... .
71.5 1
Mlcmlott WO«J ve.o WIN upg · · · · · · · · · . . . 115.55
.o Mletosort Word V7 WIN95 upg · ·· . ' . .
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OuenerdecJt OEMM va.o WIN/95 · · · . · . · . . . . 62. 16
Stac ReadlOut ve.o WINGS · · · · · · · · · · · · I 21.:l3
SymantK: ACTl V2.0 WIN , · ·· , · . ···· · , ··. . 17 1.24
Symantec Nonon Anti'\l\rus V2.0 WINM
.·. 65.91
Symantec Norton An1Mrus V3.0 DOSNilN ..... 41.0&
SjmlnOOC - ............ WIN95- . . . . . :Jl.99 Symantec Norton NT Tools V l .OWIN NT CO . . 4 5.32
Syman?ee Notion Utii;tia vao DOSIWtN ·.·· 11 4.n
Sym&ntoe Notion Util&s WtN9S . · . . . ..··· 111. 15 $yman!oe Norton Utilities wtN95 ~ -,., . 55.15
Sym&n!ec pcANY\YHERE V2.0 WIN .. , . . . . . . 11 IUJ
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S )'tl\llntoc WrnFAX PRO V'4.0 WI N .. , . · , · . · . , 71.14
VII.lo TecMlcal V4 .1 Wll'WSINT , , , . , , · , , , ·. 256.21
VlliO V4.0 WIN 3 .51CO . .. . ... .. . . , .. , .... 131.97
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5-USC1' c o ... .·.. ' · . '....
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10-user CO . , ... , , , . ·
· , .· , , · , · , , 513.32
25-uset CD .· . , , , . , . , . . , , , .. , , . .. , , . , , .· , , 911.32
SO-user CO ·. , ···· .. , . ·· ..··· , .· · , , , · . , · , 1245.'8
10Q.usor CO ·... , ·· . .··· .. . .. , . ·..·....·· 1H t .03
250-user CD ···..··..·· . .·····.... . ··.·.. »4t.ts
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5-usef co .. ....... .... . . .......... . . .... . 672.39
1 ~ CO .................. ... ....... . . 1291 .15
25-uset co ................. . .. . ... . . 2211.ll
50-user co . . . . . . .
3015.57
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25--user co .. . .. . .
... . . . . . . . . '51.12
... .. .. ........ 2331.61
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· · · ·· , ·· · SH.3'
100-user CO . · . .
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10-User CD .
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25-user CO . . , . , ·. .
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Comp upg co .. .. . . . . . . . . . . · · · . . · . · . . . . . 1513.10
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20-dienl lieeflse ..·. '. ..
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20-dlent lleeose p&ck. · . . · · · · · · . · · .
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Comp l4)g · 1o-dion!i lc:ens.t CO. .. . .. . . ...... SOl.H
Seiver+ 5-dont liconM co. ..... . . ...... .. .. . 741.21 Sefver + 1Ckient liOense co.. . .. .......... .. 103171
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3C900 Elher'Mt XL PCI COl'NXI · · · · · · .
· , 132.15
3C900 E!tien"l'll XL Pel cOfT'lbo S·peO ,.
. ··. 115.37
3C90S Fast E!helUnk XL PCI 10r'1D08T · . · . ·. , 134.IS
3C90S Fasi EOMrUnk XL PC1 10t1008T s-pack ··· 606.42
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SupefStadl II Swt1ch 2000 TR 12-pon . . , , , , . , · 5349.47
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CKeoProCPA761 access fDUtel ISON ...... , .... · 79.51
ChooProCPA766 aoc:e5$ router ISON ..··· ···. · · 6 1'4,74
CllOCIPro EtherSwitch 1200 25-pott IOBT, , .·.·. . 3.n&.H
C4tcx1Pto EthtrSwilch 1600stadl systom .. , · .· , , 4047A2
COMPAQ.
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TM'1eUJgont 10J100BTX PCI ccnlroUer . . .
. .. .. 138.4 5
Nolollloont 2000 B·port 10BT ropoa1cr ..
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Netefl'!Jent 2000 16-pott 10BT r~o1 a1 · . .. . 564 13
NG10Wgon1 5000 101100BTX 6-pon swttch . . ·.... 1029 19
Netettlgent 5012 I Or'I OOBTX 12·por1 'wit~
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EtnotExpros.s PA0/1 0+ Pel c::imbo 5-padt ·. .. 553.34
EthorExpreu P RO 100 PCt
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F.ttwE·ptflU PRO 100 PCt 5-pack .. ..
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EicptOH 100BTX 12-porl stackable hub ....·.··. 1517.98
Expfesa 100 BTX swlu::hlng hub . .. , ..
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SONY
SCT·5200 OOS-2 OAT witcmal· . SCT·SOOO DOS.2 DAT internal.. SOT·SOOO 005·2 DAT external . SOT-7000 DDS-2 DAT Internal·.
. . 676.iO . 99$.48 1003.)7
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EZ 1J5 135MB IDE intomal ...
EZ l35 135MB SCSI external .. , ·..
EZ 136 13!iMB oxlernat .. . .. .
E21 3S 135MB cartridge ..... . .
EZFtv'' 230MB SCSI extcrnnl .
EZFlyer 230MB ClltOmal . .
EZFlyer 230MB cartridge .
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l.Ogf1ech SUrlMan ln!On'IOI controller , , · . . , ·· . · , , .· 84.51
l.oQ!toch TrackJMn Mrublo · · ·· , . ... . ....... .. ,. 14.76
LOQl!aeh PaooScan Coio1 Pio aeannor . . . . . . . . · . 307.76
MiC~ok Pti.goWU: cornpact $CflM6t...
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Mlcroeek ScanMall.er E3 c:olOf flatbed ·.··........ 300.26
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Mictotek Seant.Wt·· 351 Plua . . ·
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Play SnaPPY video ·Iii caprure.·. ·.···..·.···.. 1QS.97
Umu PJ09()fflce Cok>r scanner . ·.·· . ···..· .·· 239.ta
Umax V111A·S6E at.annctr ··.· ,, .·· . .· .. , ·· · , . , 292.93
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VIS!OnOet Papo1Porl Ix le400Cll .. . ·· , . . .
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Mag IMOVt$1on OX 1 5~ PnP 1!5' .2&m1 .
. . 341,28
Mag lnnovilion OX1795 PnP I T .26mm. . . .. 6 12.1 1
Mag lnnovtslon OX 15T 15" .26mm .,,. , . ,
.. 394.49
Mag lnnovtMon OX 1795E 1T .28mm ..
. . . 521.00
Mag lnnoviilon M XP 17F 17' .26mm , . . , .
. . 7 13.22
Magnavoic CM2090 14' .2Bmm . . . . ....... . .. . 244.2 4
M&Qnavox CM20 15 15· .28mm . · . . . · ·. .·.··. m .11
~bgnavoit CMl 216 16· .28mm . · . · . · ·
, · 34 1.37
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NECXE212 1' .2fln'r'n ......... ... . . . ....... 1705.19
NEC XP21 21" ..29n'wn ....... , .............. 1"3.57
Sony~ 1SP ts· PnP ..2:5nwn·····. . · , ··· 369.:M
Sony J.\lllflclt\ 15'111 IS" PnP .2Snwn · ········ · · 43'..$1
Sany Mi.llilCM 171111 17' PnP 25rnn ..···..·..· 72t.2l
Sony Mul!ilcan 17Mll 1r PnP ..25nm.··..·· , , ·· 92t.16
Sony ..~ 20l.ftl 20" PnP .30rrYn ·· .· . .· .·. 15Sl.14
ViewSonlc 15GSlll 15' .27nwn ····.··· .· .··.· · · 3S9,0
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· ······· . 6 11.7'1
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. ... .. 1417.00
VIOWSonlc P8 10 21' .2Smm
.. .. 1472.U
VIOWSonk: P8 1521· .2Smm . .
. ... 1653.43
ViewSonk: PT'8 10 21" lOmm ..
. . .. 1614.10
IJj ,J $ 1# :!1f.j -j, F
ATI 30 Xpfeulon PCI 2MB ·.. . , .··. ,,,.
151.54
ATI Graphics Xpre Won PCI 2MB · ·.· , , ,
.· ll.111
All Graphics XproWort ISA 2MB .
, , tS.17
ATI Gtaphlcs Pro T11r1X> PCI 2MB.
. . 175.21
ATI Video Xprcttslon PCI 2MO . . · . . . · .
. . · 11.27
Dwnond Stullh 30 2000XL 4MB PCI . , .
. 171..43
Diamond SpeedSl:ar64 2200 2MB ISA . .
14.U
Mattox MillftMium PCI 2MB WRAl.4
181.3 I
Matrox Millennlum PCI 4M9 WIW.4 . . . . . . . ... 2S t.15
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.. , 167 .7 1
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. .. .. . 113.34
ln!el Ch-erDrive Ponl!um G3MHl . .
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Imel OvetOrl\'9 Pentium 12SMH.t upg lor
251.24
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. . . . · . 248.t l
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. . . 3 11.52
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ACT! V3.0 and WinFax PRO V7.5
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$1 09.62 lnte rn a l.............. .............................. .
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BETTER!TM
COMPUTERS
TOSHIBA
S.tollito l S.telllto Pro Notebook·
11 0CS 51 100 BMB 810MB 11.3" dual ·····. 1579.28 110CT ~100 8MS 810MB 11 .3" active ··.·· 2059.50 200COS5rl006"'a81CJ.IJ11.3"~6XCO · 1111.00 4 10CSS.W8MB n2MB 11 .l'oual . . . . . .. 1112.16 410COT~8MB172MB 113"'active 4XCO.· 2475.41 420COS & 100 8MB e10M811 .3" WOil 6X CO .. 21 49.63 420COTS'IQ'Hf.S 12008 11.3" ~6X CO . 2161.lt
OX:OS912016'.e I 20811.l"d.d 1QXC:0 2479.00 A.XCOT5'1ro 16f.'B 1.2GB 11.3' "°"8 lOX C:O . 22'7'.00 Portege Notebooks
620CT 51 100 BMB 1.2GB 10 .a· octiv· . . , .. 241»7.62 650CT 3113316MB 126GB 11 .3" acwo .... 3965. 11 66CCOT YlSO 16UB l.2GB 11.3" ed'tle 6X CO USUJO
Tecra Notebook> SOOCS 51120 16M8 1.26GB 12. 1· Ml ... 2949.21 SOOCOTS/12016M8 1.26G812.1*oc:ti'l.-e6XCO ·111.&1 510COS 51133 1W.8 1.2GO 12.1· Wit 10X CO 3679.00 5IOCOTY13316t.t8 2. IG812.1 ' dYe 10XCO U5t.OO 720COT S'13:l 16MB 1.13GB 12.1" co.116XCO 5219. 11
730COT .51150 16MB 2GB 12.1" lllctrve 6X CO. 51rJ.75
AST
Aacentlli NotebooQ
A41 S/ 120 16MB 108 11 .3" dual OX CD .·. , ~Hl.00
A42 51120 1eMB 100 12. 1" nct!ve 6X CO .·· 2999.00
J20 51100 8M8 5'0Mll 11 .3' duol ........ 1449.07
J20 51100 eMB BOOMS 11 .3· du&I .· . ...... 1520.41
JJO 51100 et.ta eOOMB 10.4" dual. ··...... 1~79 67
J30 51100 eMB BOOMD 10.4" oclivo ... . .. , 1573.96
J50 51133 eMD BOOMB 10.4" ftCllvo .. ... . . 1890.00
P30 51 100 8MB 800MO 11.3" dual 4X CO . . 185 1.40
.ex P30 51 1008MB 1.208 11 .3" dual CD .. 2084.97
P40 51 120 16MB IGB 11 .3' acttve 6X CO . 3021.70
P40 51 120 16MB 2 . 1G8 11 .3" ncttvo GX CD . 3399. 11
.ax PSO 51133 8MB 800MB 11 .3' acUvo·X CO ., 2099.74
PSO S/1J3 8MB t ..2GB 11 .3 ' 8C1tvo co .. 323'.1 7
P50 51133 24MB 1GB 12. 1· acttve 6X CO .. 3127.5"1
P50 5/133 24M8 2.IGS 12.1" ·c:tM!l 6X CO.· 4275.73
'.. ::,v;~~='2~1~:~1~C:~~~,.
2 199.00
ex 9312 51166 24MB 2 5G8 CO .
. .. 2"219.00
9315 S/I E6 32MB 2.5GB 8X CO .
23!900
9316 51'2C<:l 32MB 3GB ex co . . . . . . . 21!9.00
Advanlegel 9300 Serio· Mlnl·lowt,.
9304 51133 2·P.t8 t.6GB ex co . 9308 5.'166 24MB 2 .5G8 ex co
. . 159900 . 1999.00
9314 5'2002.:.Ms 4GO ex co .
. 2-499.00
Bravo O..k1opa
LC 5 100 51100 eMO 630MO . · .
. ... 1004.ff
LC 5 100 Y1 00 16MB 1.208 ....
10.Ct 11
LC 5 133 ~ 133 BMB 630M.B . .
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LC 5 133 51 133 16M8 1.2G8 ..
. 1322.11
LC 5166 51 166 16MO 1.2GB . ···. . ······ Ui79.55
MS 5100 5/100 16MB 1.2GB ······ · .·..· 1118.99
MS 510051100 16MB 2. 1GB
. 1201.93
MS 513351 13316>.tB t.2GB
1327. 11
MS51335113:J 16MB2. 1GB
.·.. 1319.25
MS5t665116616MB2. 1G86XCO . . . . . · 1921.67
Bravo Mlnl--lowert
MS-T51005110016MB l.208 .... .
. 1174.24
MS-T5100S/ 10016MB2. 1GB .. . .
1215.01
MS-T5t33S/13316M81 .2GB ...··.
13H. 11
MS·T 5 133 51133 16MB 2. 1GO ..··
. . 14 73.33
COMPNJ.
Armada Notebook· 112051t008M8 elOMB t0.4*duol ....
1499.00
11 20T 51100 eMB 810MB 10.4" achve. · ..· 1999.00
4110 51100 eMB 8 10MB 11.3" duol. .. ..... 2499.00 41100 S.'100 6M8 fJ10MB 11 .3" dual .. . .. 2199 .00
4120 51120 16MB 1.08G B 11 .3· dual . . . . 3099.00
4120T S.'120 16MO 1.08GB 11 .8" oct1vo ., .. 3749.00
4130T S.'133 ISMS 1.08GB 11 .e· Actrve ... ' · 449.00
LTE SOOO Series Notebook· 5100 S190 6MB 810MB 10.4· actiYe . · · ·
4032.t7
5150 51 1008M8810MB 11.l" dual .. . . . · 2189.00
5200 51120 BMB 1.35GB 10.·· octlvo .. . 480 1.:17
5250 51120 ISMS e 10MB 10 4' active . · . . 3 199.00
5290 51120 16MB 1.35GB 11.3· .&ctNe .
J I H .0 0
5300 51133 16MB 1 35GB 12. 1" 1t-"11VO
· 4399 00
5380 51133 16M8 2. 16GB 12. 1" DCtJWt
J.;H.00
OeskPfo 2000 Sarin Oe1ktosn
5100l630 51100 8MB 630t-.AB..
11 1100
5100/1200 51100 8MB t.2GB .
. ... 111100
5100'1200 S.' 100 16MB 1.209 512G'l200 51120 8JIAB l.2GO . .
1229.00 . 11H .OO
512G'1200 51120 16MB 1.200 ··.
. 1239.00
513311200 51 133 16MB 1.200 5 1 ~ 51133 16MB 2.5GB
. 1381.00
1 ~.00
516611200 51166 16M9 1.2GB
1138 00
COMPUTERS
~~=B~.. .·...· . . 17ft.OO
520CV2500 5l200 32MB 2.508 .. . . .. .· . . . 2209.00
enoo ax 618Q/1200ICO 61180 16MB 1.2GB BX CO .. · 20tt.OO
62'00f2.50l)'C0
18MB 2.SGB CD . ·· 25H.OO
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5 166/250ll"CO 51166 32MB 2 .SGB ex co . . . 22 11.00
620Ql250QICO &'200 32MB 2.5GB ex CD · ·· 2741.00
Desl<t 5D1H2Gl<'"p1t0o6040501102-0 16MB 1.08GB ····. ··..· IJ.41.00
512G'1620r'l.S 51120 16MB 1.6208 .·.···· . 1529.00
5 13311080 51133 l&MB 1.0808 .. ···· ···. 1S39.00 513311620 5/133 16MB 1.5208 ..··.·.··. 1121.00 516&'1520S/16616MB 1.62GB ·.······.· 117900
ex 511&'25CXVLS 5'166 16UB 2.SGB .····..· 2Clt.OO
618Qf162GICDS 61180 32f.AB 1.62GB c o . 2549.00
ax 62002S<XJl\..SIDS &'200 32MB 2.5GB CO . 2951.00
DHkpro 4000 Series U LnHoweq 5133'162M..S Slt33 32M8 t.62GB. · .. ·... 197100
~~s~ ~:~:OSo8 ax co . 2321.00
51661108Q.'COS 51 16632.MB 1.08GB 8X CO . 2571.00 ~108G'CDS S1200 32.MB t .08GB 8X CO . 2199.00
6190'2 15CVCOS&118032MB 2..15GB 8X CO . 3191.00
620CV2 ISGICOS Gl200 32MB 2. 1SGB ax co . 3339.00
62ro'4200IPOS 61200 32M8 4.2GB PO-CO . 4141.00
O..kpro 6000 S...IH UlnHowers 51681'215CVCOS 51166 321.18 2. 15GB 8X C O. 2999.00
PrHar lo De·ktops
4 11 2 51 120 1GMB l ,6GB 6X CO
130 0 .00
4122 5115016M82.SG9 8XCO ·.·····.. 1899.00
4402~3319·.et .0086XC0b.Jl..f11S"m:nilb' . 191100
Preu rlo Mlnl--lowon
4704 S/ 133 16MB t.6G9 5X CO ....
15 99 .00
4712 S/ 166 24MB 2 .SGB 6X CO ... . . . 1Ht.OO
6704 51166 24MB 2..SG8 ex co ....
. 2 1tt.00
6702 51166 24M8 2.SGB 8X CO . . · ·.·.. 24 W .DO
4710 5l200 32MB 2.SGB ex CD . .
. ll99 00
6708 5l200 32MB 2.SGB ax co .......... 2699 00
IBM
Thl nkPad Notebooks
36SE0511008MB540M8104* dual4XCO . 1571.15 365X 51 120 SMB e10MB 10.· · active . . · 2l2t.22 365X 51133 eMS 1.0BGB 11 .3" du.al ·..·.. 2216.IO 365XOSl100eM8810M910.4" o.'814XCO . 2361.. 17
365XO 51120 8MB elOMB 10 4" aarve 4X CO 252t IO
365XO 51120 8MB 1.08GB 11 .3" dual 4X CO . 23Sl.55
co . 365X0511208MB 1.0l:lGB 104" a::tive 4XC0 . 300UO
365XO 51133SM8 1.35GB 11.3" ac:r.116X
3511.60
!,60 51 100 BMB e10MB 11 .3" dual . . . . . . . . 27N DI
56051120BMBe10M8 121' actlVe ·..·.. 17.CS.64
560 51133 eMB t.08GB 12.1" active .... . . . .&1 95. 15
810MB 760E 51120 eM8
12. 1' edlvo ..... 44tl2.26
760 51120 8MB 1.2GB 12.1' activo .. . ... . ..427.71
760£ 51133 18MB 1.08GB t2S <Klive ·... SOM.SO
760EOf/13:l 16MB l.2GS 12.rac:M4XCO.. 5407.· t
700EO 51133 16MB2.1GB 12. 1· active 6X CO . 5799.3e
760E 51 150 16MB 2.. tGB 12. 1" active . . . . . 54119.97
760EL 51100 eMB 810M3 11 .3' dUal . . · .· 2.stt.90
760ELD!YIOOBMB810MB 12. 1" d..e4XCO . 4 11 11.23
760EL 51120 eMB 810MB 11 .3" dual ..... .. 2tHll.50
760EL 51 120 6MB 1.0SGB 12. 1· active ..... 4392.50
7GOEL 51 120 BMB t.3SGB 11 .3" dual
. 34&1.H
16MB 760EL &'133
1.0808 12.1" active .... 4503.92
Apllv· Serles Do·ktop· C32 51 133 16MB 1.2GB6X C O.
ex C33 51133 16MB 1.6GB BX CO.
C65 51166 16MB 2GB CO ·.
en SJ200 i6M8 2.SGB ax co..
564 51166 16MB 2.SGB ex co .. .
S66 51 166 16MB 3.2GB ax co.. .
574 5l200 16M8 2.SGB ex co .. . $78 S."200 32MB 3.2GB ex CD ..
.. .. . 1407.13 . . llH .7· .. 2099.00 . . 22411 00
. ... 22..~ .oo
· . 2399.00
· ... 23iMl .OO .. 2Ht.OO
PC300 Series O.·ktops PC3305/13316M81.2GB3bays . . . . . . 1499.12
PC330 51133 I GMB 1.6GB 3 bays . . · . . 1547.62
PC340 51100 &MB BSOMO 4 bays .
. . 991.45
PC3AO 51100 16MB 1.2GB 4 bays
. .· 11 71.92
PC340 51133 16MS 1..2GB 4 bays .
13 49 .0 5
PC350 51100 16MB 1.2GB 5 bays . . .. . 13 22.11
PC350 51133 16M8 1.2GB 5 bays ..... ·. . 1556.41
PC350 51133 16MB 1.6GB 5 bayS · . . . . . 1&11.06
PCJ.50 51133 16M8 1.6GB 5 bays 6X CO .. 1799.92
PC3.SO 51166 16MB 1.6GB 5 bays .
. 1111.H
PC700 s.rie· Onktopa PC700 51100 16M8 1.208 5 bays
PC700 51133 16MB 1.2GB 5 bays .
PC700 S/166 t6MB 1.2GB 5 bays
.. . · 1284.20 . .... 174&.44
. 1129.31
COMPUTERS
NEC
V.rN Notebooks
240051100eMB810MO 11 .J'"dua.1 ·· . . . .·· 1999.00
2400CO 511008MB t .0608 11 .3" du416X CO . 2499.00
4200 51100 eMB810MB 10 .4' actiYo ······ %699.00
4230 51133 8MB 1.0808 10.4 ' acttve GX CD . 3499.00
600Cl-t 511001&.e1 .oeGO 11.:Tac11'46XCO · 3.. 99.00
GOtOH5f133 16MB 1.0809 11..3' ACt1Ve6XCO . 3799.00
co . oo::Di $1'133 16Ml 1.3!iGO 12.1' ~ 6X
·499..00
OOXJX &133 16.\e 1.4408 12.1" oc:iw 6X co . 4799.00
~n~:.-0~
Exten... NotebooQ
570CO 51100 &MB l10MO 11.3" doM 6X CO 1953.Al
570COT51100811S 1.2G810.4".:fve6XCO . 2651..SS
we co . 600CO 51120
810MB 12.1" dual 6X
2222.~
650C051 1331GM01.4GB12.1"cbll 10XCO . 3tll.Q4
650COT 6'133 ICNS 2. 108 113' ac:tPr4: 1QX CO·· l659..23
TravelM·te Notltbo06t· TM6020 51120 8MB 1.080 8 11 .3 ' 1tCl!\le ··· 3751 .93 TM6030 51133 16MB 1.35GB 12. 1· active . · ·229.30 TM6050 51150 16MB l .35GB 12. 1· active··· 4609.9 1
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Yec1ra 520 Serie· Oetk1op· 520MCx 51120 12MB 1.2GB ex co ......· 1533.75 520 51133 18MB 1.200 . .. . . .... . . . .... 1279.84 520CO 5/l33 16MB 1.208 BX CO ·· . ·. · · · 1534 .65 520MCx IS/ 133 16MB 1.200 ex c o ... .. .. 17 17.86
Vectre 525 8ortH Mlnl-tower1
525CO 51160 16MB 1.600 ax co .. . . ... . 18!a4.i4 a25MCx 51160 16MO 1.6GB ex co . . ... 20$4.49 52SCO 51200 16MB 2.5G8 ax co ... ..... 2196.31
525MC1t 51200 32MB 2.SGB ex co . . . . · . 2584 .40
IHITACHl l
EIOOO 51100 8MB 810M8 11.:J" dual . ··.. 1"9.00 E133T 51 133 H5M 8 810MB 11 .3" dual., .... 2999.00 M120T 51120 16M8 1G8 11 .8 " ac:Uve·X CO . 3699.00 M133T 51 133 16M8 1GO 11 .e· actrvt 6XCO . 4399.00
PRINTERS
ALPS
M0·2010 COk>f pm:.Ot" ·· , ·.· M0-4000 COk>t pm!ef/$Cannef .
. . 499.00 . .. 619.00
brother.
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HL·7:l0 laMt . . . . . . . . . . .
. .. 399:9'
MFC.1950Plu$ 6-in·1 . , ..· , , , ........ 499.99
MFc-4550 5-ln· I , .....
. .... . .. 799.99
MFC-6550mc &-In· I .
. 999.99
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.·· 2'65.50
BJC-70 .·.· , · .
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. ..· ..·. 179.00 . 359.00
. . 229.00
BJC-4200 ··. . .·.. ' . . . . . . .
· ....... 279.00
Molllf>ASS 800 moltl·luncllon . . . . . . . . ·.. , 449.00 MultlPASS C2SOO color moni·lunct1011 . . ··.·· 599.00
EPSON'
OFX5000· FXe70 ··
LOe70 . L02070 L02170 ..
LX300.. Stytus 1500 ·. . . . Stytus Cole> 200 .·. Srytu, Color 500 .
' ... .... . 1387.25 . 289.-45 . 44.3.03
..... 313.0-4 . 599.00
. ...... 165.41 . 995.00 179.00
. . 279.00
StylusColOr II ....
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· 279.00 · ······· ]"Tg,OQ
. .... 1719.00
(;t] ~
HP Dc&kJol ·oo p1!n1er. . . . . · · . · · ·
· · 204.61
HP Desk.Joi 340 POr1llblo it\kiOI prin!er ...... 293,&4
HP DeskJet 682C colol' printM
· 299.00
HP Des~OI 820ClO oolot prinlet
. .. 399.00
HP L.asorJel SL Xlla prinler. . ....
. . -479.00
HP Lasor.Jel SP printer · . . ·
·
. 796.71
HP OttQJet inqel laJ.leopieffprinlet . . . · . 05.87
HP omc..Jet 350 fl!Qot m.tt>-h.rction .
. S49.DO
PRINTERS
i.EXM,\RK
Jetponler 1020 · · .
. . . · . . . . t .fl . 15
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... .. . . , . 256.11
JetpririlOf 2070 . . . . . . · . . . · . . · . . .·.· . 3'4.04
Optra C · .
. .· 591 3.75
Optra E.
. . .. . . .. . . . . . · . · H .41
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. . . ·.. . 1'83.44
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· .·..·...' ...·..·. S44Osl..0n2
.. 603..17 .·. 299.00 . . ... . . 3H.OO . ............ 41 7.3J . .....·.. . 573.1 2
HARD DRIVES
631Mll FaSl·ATA... ID?SHgltt
.. . 132.H
l .2GB EIDE·2 ..... . ..
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1.0808 Fast SCSl·2 ...
. ... . 282.25
2. 1GBFast ATA·2 ... . . , . . · . · · · . .···. 275 ,33
2 .1408 Fast SCSl·2 .. . . . . . . . · · .
. , .. 7.fl.27
2. 1G0 utLra wide SCSl-3 .·.·... .....·.... 604. 12
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9GB Fast SCSl·2 ... .. .........
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CaWr e53M8 EIDE ·· . .····.·.·.··.·.· 169.f.I
caviar t.2GB EIDE ...·.·..·.·.......·· 2 1:Vl.5
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A popular Mac development tool steps out-this time, ready
to do battle with a variety of platforms. By Raymond GA Cote
Multiplatform CodeWarrior
etrowerks CodeWarrior is
one of the all-time great
development tools for the
· · · · Macintosh. The latest release,
CodeWarrior 10 (CW10), tackles C,
c++, Object Pascal, and Java. Plat
form-wise, CW10 supports System 7 on
68K and PowerPC Macs.
CodeWarrior is expanding beyond
Mac programming with development kits
for General Magic's Magic Cap and the
new US Robotics Pilot PDA (see the screen).
You can also target Wmdows 95 and NT,
BeBox, PowerTV, and Sony PlayStation.
As this article was taking shape in early
November, Metrowerks announced that
at fall Comdex it would demonstrate a
Windows version of CodeWarrior. This
will letyou build 32-bitWmdows and Mac
applications from the PC side ofthe world.
Other development kits (such as for the
Pilot) will appear on the PC as well. Metrowerks' core technologies are its
CodeWarrior now supports development for the US Robotics Pilot
compilers, linkers, and debuggers. How
PDA, a simulation of which appears in the upper right.
ever, the CodeWarrior integrated devel
opment environment (IDE) is just as ment and a custom Metrowerks compil can use Jasik's The Debugger and Onyx
important. Metrowerks has built an er. Granted, you can automate this build Technology's QC quality-control tester.
The Wise Route extensible IDE, with plug-in compilers, from within the Metrowerks IDE, but I
linkers, and pre- and postprocessors. The find having to switch in and out of the IDE
company provides the AP! for this IDE as during development unsatisfactory.
With the exception of Java, Metro
part of the standard development kit. Compiler (and linker) writers who deliv
Pilot Development
werks is not attempting to build tools that
allow cross-platform application devel
er tools as plug-ins to the IDE are able to I spent some time with Metrowerks' opment (that is, a single source-code base
leverage those powerful core capabilities. Magic Cap and Pilot development envi simply recompiled for Windows, Mac,
There are, however, some rough ronments. Aside from Magic Cap being etc.). CWlO, for example, supports
spots. Even Metrowerks has not moved based on c+ + and the Pilot being based Metrowerks' PowerPlant C++ frame
all its compilers into the IDE. For exam on C, they are fairly similar environ work on the Mac and Microsoft Foun
ple, both the Pilot and the Magic Cap ments. Both let you link your applications dation Classes on Windows. Instead,
development cycles require that the final into a simulated environment that runs Metrowerks is taking the wise route of
product build (the build downloaded to native on the Mac. Both need a final com providing a core IDE onto which new
the target hardware) be performed using pile and link phase to be run through tools can be grafted, setting the stage for
Apple's MPW command-line environ- MPW. Both let you remotely debug your what could be the next standard in devel
application on the target hardware.
opment environments. liJ
RATINGS
The simulators permit Metrowerks
~ECHNOLOGY
* * * * *
* * * * IMPLEMENTATION
to leverage the wide assortment of Mac intosh development tools. For example, while working on a Pilot application, I
Raymond GA C6te is president ofAppropnate Solutions, Inc. You can reach him via e-mail at
rgacote@apsol.com.
* * * * * Outstanding ****Very Good ***Good **Fair *Poor
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 47
Seagate's new Cheetah UltraSCSI hard disk is the first to hit 10, 000 rpm. By Stan Miastkowski
World's Fastest Disk Drive
emanding PC applications
too often run up against hard
disks that can't push data
fast enough. Seagate Tech
nology has changed that picture with its
introduction of the Cheetah line of disk
drives. They're tl1e first to bump the stan
dard for high-performance hard drives
from 7200 rpm to 10,000 rpm.
I tested an UltraSCSI Cheetah on a 133
MHz Pentium system using an Adaptec
AHA-3940UW SCSI card. The results were
impressive. The Cheetah was able to
transfer data ata continuous rate of near
ly 11 MB per second. That's more than
enough for the most demanding use. And
the Cheetah's embedded-servo technol
ogy means the drive doesn't need to per
form periodic recalibration that slows
down data transfer. This is particularly important for video applications, where even the sma llest data interruptions mean
More revolutions per minute drives the Cheetah's latency down to a ridiculously low 2.99 milliseconds.
dropped frames.
It's not difficult to see why the Chee ly impressive. Seagate claims 2.99-ms that rightly packed data from electronic
tahs offer better performance; the faster latency, by far t he fastest of any drive noise. The drives are compliant with SCSI
a drive spins, the quicker it delivers available today. By contrast, average Configuration Automatically (SCAM)
data. The faster rpm rate also means the latency on high-performance 7200-rpm and with Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and
drive finds data faster. I measured the drives is about 4.2 ms. These seemingly Reporting Technology (SMART), so they
unit's average access at 5.8 milliseconds. sma ll differences become important should be easy to install and maintain.
But it's the Cheetah ' s latency figure (which measures the average rime to access the next data called for) that's real-
when you're pushing a drive to its limits. When first turned on, the Cheetah
sounds like a distant jet engine spooling up. But because ofspecial sound-absorb ing and sonic-damping materials, the drive soon settles down to a sound level
RATINGS
· i~cJf N~:u:o6·'{
* -* *~'--* *'
*. * · IM·f''"EME~TAT:ION
! 11: « '!<, ·'·~-
* * * .. PER'FORMANCE ': ~ f*
that's littl e different from other high-end
T he Cheetah comes in 4.5-GB and 9.1
drives. The Cheetah does, however, get GB models, in both UlrraSCSI and Fibre
very hot after it's been running for a Channel versions. Other major manu
while.You'd be wise to fo llow the airflow facturers wi ll no doubt fo llow suit and
specifications in the manual. Seagate's introduce I 0,000-rpm drives, bur for now,
stated mean rime between failures Seagate is the one to buy if you wantstate
(MTBF), by the way, is 1,000,000 hours of-rhe-arc hard disk storage. Iii
CD
114 }'Cars.
;:0;
z
The Cheetah uses magneto-resistive Stan Miastkowski is a BYTE consulting editor
:;
heads to pack the data, a 512-KB buffer, who has been poking aro1111d inside computers
5
m
and partial-response, maximum likeli for almost two decades. Yo11 can reach him at
:0
0
hood (PIUvlL) read channels that separate stanm @blx.com.
48 BYTE JANUARY 1997
***** Outstanding
****Very Good ***Good **Fair *Poor
Operating Systems
The latest version of this free Unix spans multiple platforms and offers many sophisticated features. By Jim Mohr
The State of Linux
magine a Unix server sup porting a dozen users con nected via serial terminals. Now add a few more users connected across the network using X Window. Finally, let's add a handful of Windows PCs that use the Unix machine as a file and print server. If you think that the machine can't handle this many operations, just add another processor and let the OS perform symmetrical mul tiprocessing (SMP) to distribute the load. If I were to say that all this is available for free, including the source code, you might think I was joking. If I were to add C and C+ +compilers, a text processing system, a spreadsheet, and a Web server to the deal, you might begin to question my sanity. If I were to tell you that most of this software smorgasbord has been available for years, you might begin to question your own sanity and wonder why you haven't checked it out yet. It's called Linux, and it's a Unix-like 32-bit OS that supports all the utilities, tools, and other features found in com mercial Unix proqucts. The latest kernel (version 2.0) provides enhancements such as Java and SMP support, making it bet ter than some commercialUnix offerings. The best thing about Linux is that it's essentially free. However, for this same reason, many people question its legiti macy. Added to the fact that Linux start ed as a college project by LinusTorvalds, it seems only narural that it would not be something you ' d want to run your business on. But as we'll see, the most log ical question Linux poses is: "Why not?"
Running Linux
Linux runs on most major processors, such as various species of the x86, the PowerPC family, the Alpha series, and MrPS chips. It supports most major hard ware peripherals, with some caveats. Typ ically, the developers of Linux hardware
drivers are Linux users themselves. If someone wants to get a peripheral to work, he or she either writes the driver or waits for someone else to write one. The positive side of this situation is that since the developer uses the device and ends up with the same bugs as you, prob lems are quickly fixed, usually in a mat ter of days or weeks. Another advantage to this arrangement is that the person
describes how to configure an Internet firewall, or hardware-related, such as the CD-Writer HOWTO that describes how to get certain CD-R devices running on your system.
lt is important to check if there is a HOWTO for a specific piece of hard ware in case it describes problems some one has already dealt with. Agood exam ple is the CD-Writer HOWTO. Although
Selected Linux Sites of Interest
URL ftp:/lflll.aynwr.com/pub/lu:hai~es
http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw http://rortex.cc.misscai.eda/- rllys.lim.bbm http://wwwlOmb.com/im/
I ·
lltlp://m.i.arg/illlx-ilt/ http://www.tu-cbenlitz.de/home/im http://www.xnelcom/-blabl'a/linux.shbnl
D~
List of kernel changes. including links to sites with this information
The Lin ux Source Navigator. Li nux so urce code in HTML pages.A must for thedeveloper
The Linux Documentation Project home page; comprehensive set of on-line documents
list of common fixes to Linux problems
Home page ofThe Linux Advocacy Project; encourages commercial Unix application vendors to provide a Linux version
Linux International home page
Information, including books, links to other home pages (most in German)
Web Wanderer's List of Linux and Unix resources
who actually uses the particular periph eral- again, typically the developer writes the documentation. The negative side of this arrangement is that older peripherals won't garner such devoted support, so finding a reliable driver for vintage hardware, such as an old CD ROM drive or network card, can be prob lematic. Furthermore, the person best su ited to write device drivers may be ill -equipped to write clear and user friendly documentation.
The documentation of all commer cial Linux distributions appears in the form of HOWTO files. As its name implies, a HOWTO describes how t0 do something. This can be software relat ed, such as the Firewall HOWTO that
there exists a program (cdwrite) that operates CD-R drives, not all CD-R drives work with it.The HOWTO describes how to get the standard SCSI driver to work with specific CD-R drives. Computer controlled uninterruptible power sup plies (UPSes) are another example. With out any direct support from the manufacturers, users have gotten UPSes to work with Linux; their experiences are documented in the UPS HOWTO.
Many of the Linux hardware problems are due tO the peripheral being simply mo new to the Linux scene, so no driver exists. Other times, changes to the kernel may cause problems to specific drivers. For help, a glance at the Yahoo Web page is a good place to start. For example,
JANUARY 1 99 7 BYTE 49
Core Operating Systems
when checlcing the driver srarus for 3Com
EtherLink mVortex Ethernet cards, I was
able to quickly locate patches for the 2.0 kernel, as well as for several other, older releases. The rable "Selected Linux Sites oflnterest" shows other useful Web sites. There are also sites that provide infor mation in German, Swedish, Czech, French, Italian, Russian, and Spanish.
Perhaps the single most important HOWTO is the Hardwa re HOWTO. This is the Linux hardware " compatibility list." It describes not only the hardware that is supported but provides tips and UIU.S for hardware that isn't. "Support ed" means only that the standard distri bution has drivers for that particular set of hardware. It's always a good idea to check the Hardware HOWTO for a spe cific peripheral before attempting a Lin ux installation.
For information on the latest drivers and ports, you should check out the Lin ux Documentation Project (LDP) home page (http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw). Aside from providing a full version of various LDP documents or "books," this Web site is a treasure chest oflinks to the latest dri vers and patches, as well as to compa nies that provide Linux software and complete systems.
Linking Format (ELF) binaries, which is not available prior to the 1.2.13 kernel. In addition, there are known problems with Java for specific versions of Linux.
A common issue with Linux is its com patibility with other systems. While its interoperabiliry with other di alects of Unix is taken for granted, its connectivi ty to Windows-based PCs may be a point of concern. Linux works fine as an Inter net server, but can it offer the file and printer se rvices that other Unix dialects can ? It can if you have Samba running. Samba is a software package that provides the session message block (SMB) func-
ux has developed a very large army of fol lowers able to help since they have expe rienced the same problems you have.
Industrial-Strength OS
The most compelling aspect of Linux is that it typifies the whole Unix mentality. Unix is a system of choice. You choose how to configure the system and what functions the system has. lf you want to implement it on a low-end PC or a high end workstation, you can. If you need real-time processing, that's avai lable as well. Linux takes this one step further : Not only can you change parameters and
Selected Linux Disbibutors
Coqwiy
lilllX type
Wonr.roup Solutions Redllat Wahrt Creek CB-ROM
lnloMarJc
DebimCNll/lim Craftlolt Wiliaes Deix Computer CmbH
YggdrasiCo~
S.U.S.E. CmbH
LinuxPro Red Hat Slackware Slackware Debian Craftworks Linux OLD Yggdrasil Linux S.u.S.E. Linux
Website
E-mai
http://www.wgs.com info@wgs.com
http://www.redhatcom redhat@redhatcom
http://www.cdrom.com info@cdrom.com
httpt/www.infomagic.com info@infomagic.com
http://www.debian.org debian@debia n.org
http://www.craftwork.com info@craftwork.com
http:l/www.delix.de delix@delix.de
http://www.yggdrasil.com info@yggdrasil.com
http:l/www.suse.de suse@suse.de
Running with Linux
lf you're asking, " What good is all this if there is no software to run on it, " the answer to that is: There is. Besides sup porting all the programs that come stan dard with a Unix system, Linux sup portsall the nerwork protocols that Unix users have grown accustomed to, like TCP/lP, NFS, and HITP. ln addition, there is a wide range of free applications soft ware such as a text processing system, a spreadsheet, and a database. If these are insufficient, a wide range of commercial software is available.
Not every software product runs per fectly on Linux the first time. Most non commercial Linux sofrware is available as so urce code that yo u compile on the host system. This increases the likelihood that it will work correctly. However, check the program's accompanying REA DME file that describes what steps to take for specific platforms.
Like the hardware, many software products have their own HOWTO. The Java HOWTO describes the steps neces sary to get Java working on your system. Java requires support for Executable and
If you need information in languages other than English, there are a number of places to look. A good start is: http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_lnternet/Operating_Systems/Unix /Linux/Foreign_language_Sites/.
tions required to support Windows for Workgroups, Windows 95, Windows NT, and LAN Manager. In fact, any client that supports SMB can access a Linux system running Samba. The great thing about Samba is that it works both ways, so your Linux system can also access other sys tems such as NT.
One of the biggest arguments against Linux has been that of support. Because Linux was not deve loped bya single enti ty, there is no 800 number you can call. However, Linux is bundled and distrib uted by a number ofcompanies, as shown in the tab le "Selected Linux Distribu tors." lf you purchase one of these bun dles, you are often provided technical support on basic issues such as installa tion. M a ny companies do nothing other than Linux support. Some companies, such as WorkGroup Solutions, not only provide complete systems, including their own version of Linux, they offer consulting services as well. Finally, Lin-
configuration as you wish, you can change the basic behavior of the operat ing system if you need to because you have the source code.
Although Linux doesn' t yet run on mainframes, it's just a matter of time . Since Linux runs on every major com puterarchitecture, the odds are that there is a Linux syste m tha t fits your needs. Because of the amount of software and support availab le, Li nux has found a place right alongside Unix OSes from even the largest vendors. And you can't
m argue with the price.
Jim Mohr is a system and network ad111i11is tratorfor Kaeser Compressors in Coburg, Ger many. He has spent six years providing tech nical support for SCO Unix and is the author ofSCO Companion : The Essential Guide for Users and System Administrators (Pre11tice Hal/, 1996). He is working 011 a book 011 Lin ux, to be published this year. Yott can reach him at 100542.2677@compuserve.com.
50 BYTE JANUARY 1997
Across the Office...
.Across the Build ing...
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Bu t, you can still make it ... until you geti:h'e CCJll '(yo.u knew·t ou
shouldn't have answered it) telling you that your server has gone down at the Atlanta office. You could fix It- if you weren't i'1 Frankfurt. ~
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trademark of Banyan Systems Inc. Netware is a registered trademarli of Novell Inc.
Come see us at Comnet, Washington, D.C., Feb. 4-6 at Booth #1612
Networks
Remote procedure calls bring network
applications together. By Tom Yager
Client/Server Magic
evelopers can no longer pre tend that their applications run on isolated systems. Whi le today's workers are used to seamless data exchange among applications running on the same system, it won't be long before they dema nd the same effortless data connectivity across networks. Every network-capable OS has its pet scheme for passing app li cations data through network links. Sometimes you can graft one vendor's method onto an other vendor's OS. The TCP/ IP (" Berke ley") sockets API has taken up with PCs (even those running DOS) and Macs, stay ing transparently compatible with its Unix birthplace. However, sockets pro gramming takes some time to master. Developers yearn for a simpler, more ele gant networking AP!. That API does exist. It's called remote procedure call (RPC). RPC was born at Sun as part of its NFS and Open Network Computing (ONC) distribution. The Open Software Foundation (OSF) made a significan tly enhanced RPC part of its Distributed Computing Environment (DCE). There is also an emerging ISO RPC specification. RPC, old or new, comes with most OSes. The focus ofthis article is the imple mentation Microsoft delivers with Win dows NT Server 4.0. If you're a Unix or Mac user, you should have little trouble applying what you read here to your tar get OS . Note that Microsoft ships only the RPC portion of the DCE standard with NT. A complete DCE implementation is available in source code from the Open Group/OSF (http://www.osf.org).
Embrace Diversity
NT's version of RPC is sweet. It supports NT's standard nenvorking protocols and can converse effortlessly with clients run ning DOS; Windows3.x, 95,orNT; Unix;
or the Mac OS. Data knows no platform preference, because RPC smooths the data representation, such as byte ordering and INT size differences. As long as both client and server speak DCE RPC, all lines are open. T he Win32 Software Development Kit (SOK) includes the tools and header fi les needed to support RPC,
The server can even modify data that is passed as arguments, just as a local func tion can. You can pass pointers, struc tures, and unions as data. RPC takes care of sending the data, making the call, and returning the results.
If your network is running an RPC directory service (DCE defines its stan-
Microsoft-Supported Network Protocols
Protocol name Description
DOS Winlx Win 95 Win HT Mac Unix
ncacn_nb_tcp NetBIOS over TCP c c
N
C, S N N
ncacn_nb_ipx NetBIOS over IPX c c
N
C,S N N
ncacn_nb_nb NetBEUI
c c C,S C, S N N
ncacn_lp_tcp TCP/IP
c c C,S C,S c C,S
ncacn_np
Named pipes
c c c C,S N N
ncacn_spx SPX
c c c.s C,S N N
ncacn_dnet_nsp DECnet
c c N N NN
ncacn_at_dsp AppleTalk
NN N
N
c N
ncacn_ms_spp Banyan Vines
N N
N
C, S N N
ncadg_ip_udp Datagram UDP/IP c c N
C,S N C,S
ncadg_ipx Datagram IPX
cc N
C, S N N
ncUpC
Local procedure call N N C, S c.s N N
Each protocol's OS support is shown with a C for client support, S for server support, and Nfor no support.
and Microsoft's Visual C+ + deve lop ment environment supports and docu ments RPC development.
In describingRPC, it helps to start with a broad brush and work down to the detail. Aone-line summary of RPC is that it lets you call virtually any C function from across a network. If you let RPC do all the work, your client code simply makes ordinary function calls, even though the target function resides and executes on a remote server. You can pass arguments from client to server, and the server can send back return values.
<lard Cell Directory Service [CDS]; NT includes Microsoft's proprietary RPC Locator), the client searches the directory for a serve r that is offeri ng the requested fu nction. A server can upgrade its func tions and still remain compatible with older clients. Each RPC interface (group of functions) is tagged with a versio n numbe r.The server invokes the function with the matching version number, or it refuses the request if a version is no longer supported.
In the NT environment, a server can make an RPC function availa ble to all
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 53
Core Networks
types of network clients simultaneously. That means one server application can advertise its functions to TCP/ IP, Mi crosoft NetBIOS, NetWare IPX /SPX, and AppleTalk clients. The table u Microsoft Supported Network Protocols" shows the OSes thar offer RPC and which pro tocols they suppon.
Fetch the Marshal
RPC's programming interface is partly implem e nted in a way not often seen today: as a C-code generator. There are libraries and header files, of course, but RPC's simplicity comes from its generated code. Every RPC application is tagged with a Universal Unique Identifier (UUID), which is derived randomly as the first step of code generation. This is part of the identification string that servers register with the directory service. Clients searching for a server must supply a reg istered UUID, interface name, and version number ro get a march.
The RPC code generator works from a rem plate written in rhe RPC interface definition language (IDL) . Microsoft made its mark with some enhancements, turning IDL into MIDL. "Sample MIDL Listing" shows a MIDL file that defines the UUID, version number, and interface name for the application. It also defines the data that passes between client and server through expanded C-style func tion templates.
Earlier implementations of RPC per mitted one outgoing and one incoming data structure . DCE RPC permits any number of function arguments. Each argument can send data ro the server
([in J), return data to the client ([ out]),
or both ([i n. out] ). MIDLfilescan con tain quite ordinary-looking C variable definitions, even typedef s .You can use any data types that are defined in the MIDL file as arguments and return values in RPCs.
The MIDL compiler takes in the MlDL definitions and churns out stubs, the C source code that does RPC's hard work. This includes three files: a server stub, a client stub, and a header file. Using RPC's simplest model, you need only compile your stubs ro object files and then link those objects into your code. You link the server stub with your server application and the client stub with your client appli cation. You include the header file in both client and server to import the data def initions and to gain access to the RPC APL
The stub code converts data for trans mission through marshaling and unmar shaling operations. When a client calls a server, the client stub marshals the argu ments by combining the data and con verting numeric information into an architecture-independent Network Data Representation (NDR). When the server receives the data, the stub breaks apart the incoming arguments and converts NOR-encoded numerics back to the
access to a binding handle. Calls in the RPC AP! use this binding handle to iden tify and manage the server connection, but the stub code holds the handle for you. If you choose explicit binding, your client is responsible for the binding handle and must pass it as an argument with every remote call. Implicit binding exposes more of the RPC AP!, while ex plicit binding lets a single client maintain connections with multiple servers.
Sample MIDL Listing
After the header, the MIDL file follows C-language conventions with some extensions.The RPCDemo function prototype shows one string argument passed to the server, one string shared by the client and server (the server may modify it), and a Boolean (true/fals e) return value.
//fi l e RPCDemo . idl [ uuid(7a98c250-6808-llcf - b73b · OOaaOOb677a7l,
version(l . 0) ,
pointer_default(uniquel
J
interfa ce RPCDemo I
con st 1ong MAX _ LEN - 255;
t y pedef [str i ng] char ps zArg l[MAX_ LEN + 1) :
t yp e def [ s tring] ch ar psz Arg 2[MA X_ LE N + 1) :
Boo l ean RPCDemoProc ( [ i nJ pszArgl . [i n, out] psz Arg2
) ;
host's native format. The server calls the requested function, and the server stub then marshals modified ([ out ]) argu ments and the rerurn value for transmis sion back to the client.
Ties That Bind
When you're building an RPC applica tion, you must choose a binding method. This determines how the client locates the remote call on the server. Automatic binding takes care of everything. The server can advertise itself on all protocols simultaneously. The client consults its configured directory service (RPC Loca tor or CDS) to find the server it needs. It lines up matching network protocols, marshals the arguments, makes the call, and unmarshals the returned data with practicaJly no effort. Furthermore, a con nection based on automatic binding can often automatically retry a call that fails due to a temporary network outage.
Implicit binding gives your client
Of the three binding methods, auto matic binding is clearly the slowest one. It exacts enough of a performance pen alty to force you to use another method for frequent calls or performance-criti cal code.
While it's a linle slow, automatic bind ing creates the shortest, most easi ly understood code.The sample code (which is available at http://www.byte.com/arr /down load/download .htm) includes a Visual C++ make file, a MIDL file, and client and server code for a simple RPC application. The server is written for NT, but the client can run on any version of \Vindows. If you run the client under Windows 95, check the readme file for instructions on modifying the registry to point to an RPC Locaror or CDS on your network. Ill
Tom Yager is a freelanc e writer and senior software developer i11 Dallas, Texas. You ca11 reach him at tyager@maxx.net.
54 BYTE JANUARY 1997
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CPUs
C-Cube Microsystems' low-cost MPEG encoder brings digital video to the mainstream computer user. By William Chien
Video for Everyone
nril recently, the use of MPEG-a standard for the storage of high-quality digi tal video-as a data type on PCs was limited. That's because while decoding MPEG data is easy-software can convert it back into a digital video strea m-encoding live video into the MPEG format requires dedicated and expensive hardware. Thi restricted PCs to being playback devices for MPEG data. However, that situation is about to change. Low-cost encoder processors from C-Cube Microsystems capture live video and convert it into MPEG-1 data in real time. One of these encoders, the CLM4111, lets OEMs turn standard PCs into true video-processing engines. Thus, you now can create high-quality MPEG videos for presentations, training videos, and communications on the Internet.
CLM4111 Architecture
The CLM4l11 performs all the process ing required to turn uncompressed digi tal video from a video-capture device into an MPEG-1 video data stream. To provide this capability at low cost, C-Cube took a programmable approach, enhancing a 32-bit RJSC core, the VideoRISC CPU, with special instructions and hardware coprocessors, as shown in the figure "The CLM4111 Microarchitecture."
The VideoRISC CPU operates at 80 MHz with single-cycle instruction exe cution. Integrated I-KB instruction and data caches provide single-cycle access to data for both the Video RISC CPU and Motion Estimator (ME) coprocessor to reduce stalls.
Besides the standard operations, the VideoRISC instruction set includes single instruction/multiple data (SLMD) instruc tions. These SLMD instructions perform operatio ns on multiple pixels, and C Cube widened the CPU's internal data paths and registers to 36 bits to support
The CLM4W Microarchitecture
Processor bus
811&
16132
0 . . . . . . data is fitered llld scaled in the capbn sta&e.
9 The CPU llld Motion Estimator perfonn the pnprocessq stage.
32
811&
6) 1he DSP llld ~coder
cannrt llld co.- the data in the
MPR 111C04iW stage.
0 The MPEG data is sent to the host in
the output stage.
Because of little overlap in chip resources, most of the
MPEG-encoding stages can execute in parallel.
processing four 8-bit pixels in parallel. The SIMD instructions execute on a dedicated Video DSP (digital signal pro cessor) ALU. Video DSP instructions accel erate filtering, discrete-cosine-transform (DCT) calcu lations, and the image analy sis required for MPEG compression.
Coprocessors and 1/0
The CLM4111 has several on-chip copro cessors that boost the data-encoding rate. Operating on 8- by 8-byte data arrays, the ME coprocessor performs the repeated block matches required to find the best motion vector when coding MPEG Band P frames.
The variable-length-coder (VLC) coprocessor performs the final lossless
compress ion stage of the MPEG algo rithm. The VLC does a zigzag scan of each data block to order the data for maximum compressibility, followed by run-length and Huffman encoding. The VLC uses ROM-based lookup tables to implement MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and H.261 encoding schemes. The variable-length-decoder (VLD) coprocessor performs the reverse processing necessary to decode an MPEG data stream.
To keep the large amounts of video data flowing through the processor, the CLM4111 has four l/0 interfaces. Two 8-/ 16-bit video interfaces handle digital video data, and each one of these has a 32- by 32-bit first-in/first-out (FIFO) buffer to hold the data. The video input port can
JANUARY 1 99 7 BYTE 59
Core CPUs
interface directly to CCIR-601 signal compatible video decoders. The data out put port can transfer data to the host application asynchronously.
The third interface, a I6-/32-bit host port, is used to initialize the processor and download microcode. The CLM4111 has a message-based AP! that contro ls the MPEG encoder and its compression pa ran1eters. The host system issues the com mands through this interface.
The last interface is a 32-b it DRAM interface that connects to 2 MB of fast page-mode DRAM. The CLM4111 uses this DRAM as a scratchpad to store tem porary data during the encoding process. This interface generates the signals nec ess a ry to drive the DRAM bank, thus reducing pans in a design . Aseven-chan nel on-chip DMA controller prevents con gestion by managing data transfers.
stage's coding instructions are now avail able for the MPEG-encoding stage. The Video DSP performs the morion com pensation, DCT, and quantization on each 8- by 8-byte data block. These results are transferred to the VLC. The VLC unit performs the run-length and Huffman coding of the data, with the output again transferred by the DMA controller to DRAM. In the outputsrage, the CLM4 I I I transfers the compressed data frames to
the CLM4111 to perform different func· tions, depending on the targeted market.
CLM4111 System Design
The CLM411 l is a 3.3-V part, using a three-metal-layer, 0.5 -micron process. It's housed in a 208-pin Plastic Quad Flat Package (PQFP). It dissipates only I W at 80 MHz. To help OEMs incorporate the CLM41I1 into their products, C-Cube provides a reference design, as shown in
The CLM4W Reference Schemtatic
YAnidaelogil - _- __~
MakingMPEG
A description of how the CLM41 I I encodes video data shows the complex processing required to achieve real-time MPEG encoding. In the capture stage, the processor receives uncompressed video frames through the video input port. The input interface's hardware performs sub sample filtering and 2-to·l horizontal scaling of the data. The Dl'vlA controller transfers the processed data from the input FIFO buffer to a buffer in DRAM.
In the preprocessing stage, the DMA controller transfers frame data to the VideoRlSC data cache. The VideoRlSC CPU and Video DSP perform additional filtering, scaling to Quarter Source Input Format (QSIF) resolution , and image analysis to determine rate-control set tings (i .e., how to encode the current frame with the highest quality). The resulting data is transferred back to DRAM for use in the subsequent encod ing stage.
Target and search data are also trans· ferred to the data cache for processing by the ME coprocessor. The resulting best match information is stored by the Vid eoRlSC CPU in DRAM.
The fi Ite red video da ta, the ME ' s morion vectors, and the pre processing
WHERE TO FIND
C- Cube Microsystems
Miipitas. CA (408) 944-6300 fax: (408) 944-6314 http://www.c- cubcd.rom/
PClbus
74fCT244
The parts to add MPEG editing to a PC cost about that of a quality graphics card.
the host through the video output port, again under DMA control.
Microcode Machinations
The CLM411 l's microcode manages the overall operation of the processor and implements C-Cube's MPEG compres sio n algorithm. The microcode pro vides the flexibility to handl e different video-frame sizes (SIF and QSIF resolu tion) and rates (NTSC and PAL). The microcode implements the MPEG algo rithm's "smarts," making on-the-fly deci sions about how to best encode each frame. The microcode is also responsible for managing the data flow through the processor, such as scheduling DMA trans fers and coprocessor execution.
The CLM4ll1 's internal architecture lets the microcode implement a software pip eline . Because most of the MPEG encoding stages use different on-chip resources, the microcode arranges them to execute in parallel, boosting through put. Finally, the microcode can program
the figure "The CLM4 t 11 Reference
Schematic. " Sincee it has a generic host
interface and outputs fully compressed MPEG video data, you can connect the CLM4111 to ISA or PC! buses or inte grate it on a graphics accelerator board.
The CLM411 l costs $75 in produc tion quantities (i.e., lots of 5000). The ref· erence schematic's estimated bill of mate rials is $175. These costs are comparable to those of a quality graphics card. The CLM4111 's capabilities and price point make it attractive as an add-on for ven dors wishing to differentiate their sys tems. Because the CLM4 l l l lers you cap ture, edit, store, and communicate wirh digital video, Ml'EG becomes an active data type and useful to everyone. The PC finally becomes an active-not pas· sive-rool for video work. Iii
William Chien is the program manager for the CLM4111 processorat C-Cube Microsyst ems. You can contact him at wllllam .chlen @c·cube.com.
60 BYTE JAN UA RY 1997
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Programming
Java uses a sophisticated class-checking mechanism to ward off breaches in security. By Gary McGraw and Edward Felten
Java Security and Type Safety
ava's ability to download, integrate, and execute code from a remote computer is a double-edged sword. On the positive side, the use ofJava enables a computer to obtain new capabilities with little user intervention. In addition, Java requires no installation of hard-to track-down and dubiously secure plug in files. On the negative side, however, Java's intricate machinations leave a com puter vulnernable to attack. A hostileJava applet could stealthily tamper with a host system's files or siphon off private data without the user's being aware ofthe dam age until it's too late. Java's designers did their best to make such malicious activities impossible by implementing a security model. This se curity model performs a number of checks before allowing a downloaded applet to execute. (For additional information on Java security, see "Plugs for Java's Se curity Holes" on page 76.) Java security relies on three prongs of defense: the Byte-Code Verifier, the Ap plet Class Loader, and the Security Man ager. Together, these three prongs per form load and run-time checks to restrict file-system and network access, as well as restrict access to browser internals. Each of these prongs depends in some way on the others. Each part must do its job properly for the security model to function correctly.
The Security Triad
The figure "Java Security Triad" above shows how the three prongs of defense fit into the Java framework. The Byte Code Verifier is the first prong of the Java security model. When a Java source pro gram is compiled, it's converted to plat form-independent Java byte code. The Verifier then checks that the untrusted outside code "plays by the rules" before it's allowed to run.
The Verifier checks byte code at a num ber of different levels. The simplest test ensures that a . cla s s file (i.e., a byte code file) has the correct format. On a less basic level, the Verifier applies a built-in theorem prover to each method. The the orem prover helps ensure that byte code
as a new class. The Class Loader deter mines when and how an applet can add classes to a running Java environment. Part of the Class Loader's job is to make sure that the applet doesn't install code that replaces important components of the Java run-time environment.
Java Security Triad
OWell lmn« dowmoads Java applet fnm Web page. .
&The ilowQoaded bJte code lildelpes bmlt checks and
static lJpe cheaiiw.
8 1he Class Loads insWttiates Ille applet in anamespace.
0 The Secriy Mn&er perfarms 111t-line checb, based an the calq class's qin. The Searity Mn&er may well soimadililies attmtlall
by utnal code.
Java performs several safety checks before a downloaded applet can execute.
does not forge pointers, violate access re strictions, or access objects using incor rect type information. The verification process, in concert with the definition of the Java language, helps to establish a base set of security guarantees.
Java's second prong of security de fense is the Applet Class Loader. Typically supplied by a browser vendor, it loads all applets and the classes that they ref erence. When an applet is loaded from the network, the Applet C lass Loader re ceives the binary data and instantiates it
In general, a running]ava environment can have many active Class Loaders, each defining its own namespace. Namespaces allow Java classes to be separated into distinct kinds, according to where they originate. In other words, a namespace is a type-safe portion of memory with classes that are associated with a specific Class Loader.
The third prong of the Java security model is the Securiry Manager, which restricts the ways in which an applet can use visible interfaces. Thus, the Security
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 63
Core Programming
Manager implements a good portion of the entire security model. It's a single module that performs run-time checks on dangerous methods, such as those for file or network access or those that define new Class Loaders.
Code in the Java library consults the Security Manager whenever a dangerous operation is about to be attempted. The Security Manager then has a chance to veto the operation by generating a Secu rity Exception. Decisions made by the Se curity Manager take into account which Class Loader loaded the requesting class. Built-in classes are given more privilege than classes that have been loaded over the net\vork (e.g., applets).
The three parts of the Java security model were created ro enforce type safe ty, which means that a program can per form particular operations only on par ticular kinds of objects. Therefore, Java programs are prevented from accessing memory in inappropriate ways.
More specifically, every piece of mem ory is part of some Java object, and each object has some class. For example, a calendar management applet might use such classes as Date, Appointment, Alarm, and GroupCalendar. Each class defines a specific set of operations that are al lowed to operate on objects of that class. In the calendar management example, the Alarm class might define a tu rnOn operation, but the Date class would not allow tu rnOn to occur.
Why Type Safety Matters
To understand why type safety matters, consider the following, slightly contrived, example. The calendar management applet mentioned above defines a class Alarm, which is represented in memory, as shown in the figure "Type Safety" above. Alarm defines an operation turn · On, which sets the first field to true. The Java run-time library defines another class called Applet, whose memory lay out is shown in the figure. Note that the first field of Applet is f i l eAcce s sAl · lowed, which says whether or not the applet is allowed to access files on the hard disk.
Now suppose that a program tries ro apply the tu rnOn operation to an Applet object. If the turnOn operation is per mitted, the program sets the first field of the object to true. Unfortunately, since the target object is really of type Applet, setting the first field ro true allows the
applet to access the file system. The applet is then allowed-incorrectly-to mod ify and even delete files.
How Java Enforces Type Safety
Java labels every object by associating a class rag with it. One simple way ro en fo rce type safety would be ro check an object's type rag before every operation on it ro make sure that the object's class allows such an operation. This approach is called dynamic type checking.
Although this scheme works, it's inef ficient. Programs end up running slowly because the system spends a lot of rime checking class tags. To improve perfor mance, Java uses static type checking,
an effective static type checker that elim inates al most alI the tag-checking opera tions from Java programs. The result is a program that's type-safe but that runs quite efficiently.
Type Confusion
There is only one problem with Java's static type-checking strategy: It's com plicated. Although Java's designers ob viously got the overall strategy right, a great many details have to be correct for type safety robe enforced. An error in any of these details leaves a tiny, albeit crucial, hole in Java's type-safety armor.
A clever cracker who finds such a hole can launch a type-confusion attack. This is done with a Java applet carefully de-
Type Safety
MakeTrue() method
L~......"""'!!illll!lll!..,.._....,""'
Settq Ille &st field ii these two classes (Alana
and - ) Iii "lnie~ is aot eqiinleat. Type safelJ cbecb.eosrn that i11J alljed amethod mar try to
maniplUle is of Ille pruper type.
Java ensures that malicious programs can't gain access to system resources.
which is more complicated but more ef ficient than dynamic type checking. Stat ic type checking is where the Java sys tem looks at a program before it runs and carefully deduces the results of the tag checking operations. If Java can figure our that a particular tag-checking opera tion will always succeed, then there's no reason to do it. The check can safely be removed, thus speeding up the program.
Java's designers carefully crafted the Java language and byte-code formats to facilitate static type checking. Each piece of byte code is a binary representation of an assembly-like language with op codes and operands.
ButJava op codes always take type-spe cific arguments. There are no "generic" operands that rake multiple types in the same operand position, as is the case with processor assembly languages.
This, and other properties of byre code, make static type checking easier to implement. The Byte-Code Verifier is
signed ro leverage a tiny type-enforce ment hole into a complete system pene tration. The anacker can set up a situation like the aforementioned Alarm/Applet example, in which the program has one type of object but the Java system thinks the object has some other type.
Because the Verifier normally prohibits such actions, type-confusion errors are usually the result of bugs in the Java in1 plementation. It is hoped that such prob lems will disappear as the implementa tion is debugged and refined. Iii
Gary McGraw, Ph.D., is a research scientist at Reliable Software Technologies Corp. (Ster ling, VA). He can be reached at http://www .rstcorp.com/-gem. Edward Felten, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton University. He can be reached at http://www.cs.princeton.edu/- felten. Por tions ofthis articleare taken from the authors' book Java Security: Hostile Applets, Holes, and Antidotes (joh11 Wiley and Sons, 1996).
64 BYTE JANUARY 19 97
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TODAY
the WEB,
TOMORROW
the WORLD
Is Java a serious programming language? Yes. Will it become
a Windows killer? Maybe.
By Tom R. Halfhill
ou've heard the hype. You 'vegroaned at the bad cof
fee puns. Now it's time for the crucial question: Is
Java for real?
Straight answer: Java isn't just for building cure
Web pages anymore. Java is establishing itself as a seri o us pro
gramming language capable of cackling the most sophisticated
business applications. Never in the history of computing has a
new language attracted so much support from toolmakers, soft
ware developers, and OS vendors in such a shore rim e.
The larger question is, " How much further can J ava go?"The
answer, incredible as it may seem, is rhar Java could surpass
Windows as the software platform wirh rhe world's largest
installed base by the rum of the century.
This is possible even in light of five critical Ja va shortcom
ings-including an immature security model, slow perfor
mance, and a hodgepodge of unpolished development tools
that exist today.
Nevertheless, the key events are already in morion for Java
to overtake Windows and cause enormous changes in com
mercial and corporate software development. The bottom line:
All of us who have anything to do
See page 40 for
with software dev e lopment exclusive Scott McNe~ly interview
ignore Java at our own peril.
on Java's inftuence on computing.
More Than a Language
Java transcends being a language to being a softwa re platform because of th e .Java virtual machi ne (VM), which simulates a computer in sofnvare. The Java VM c::m run on existing com puters and OSes (e.g. , Windows and the Mac OS), or it can run on hardware designed only for Java. Developers who use Java°, whether they realize it or not, are supporting a new platform that exists independently of rhe underl yi ng OS and hardware.
co11ti1111ed
6B BYTE JANUARY 19 9 7
Single-platfonn application
Today, applications developers write for one
platfonn-often Windows on x86-and port
the program to another platform later.
Native applications
talk directly to the
native OS and CPU. Code must be rewritten before it
can nm on a
different OSICPU platfonn.
The Java Difference
Multiple-platfonn application
Tomorrow, developers may need to write for only one platform-Java. End-users can run the code on any Java-enabled machine, no matter
what operating system and CPU it uses.
Java applets always run within a browser's sandbox or secure partition.
Java applets Web browser
Stand-alone Java
,applications
Stand-alone Java applications talk to the OS/CPU through the run-time environment or via native (hard coded) methods.
"'·· · ; Peer classes translate Java objects (e.g., GUI
widgets) into native OS objects.
JIT c:ompiler
·. {opti onal.) ~·;;,>:'.·.
J 1\N U i\'lY 1 997 BYE 69
Cover Story Today the Web, Tomorrow the World
Today, many commercial developers write their software for Windows first, because Windows runs on about 90 per cent of the world's PCs. Then they either port their programs to the minority plat forms (e.g., Mac, OS/2, and Unix) or ignore them.
If the Java VM someday commands a larger installed base than Windows, developers may write for Java first and last-because Java software is inher ently cross-platform and can run on any system with a Java VM. In effect, Win dows would become another minority platform (albeit the largest one) that may or may not justify the extra expense for special support. Java could trigger the biggest platform shift since Windows sur passed DOS-all without forcing you to change your hardware and OS.
The Java Language
Before Java can become a dominant plat form, however, corporate and commer cial software developers must embrace it as a language. As recently as last summer, many of us were asking if Java was pow erful enough for serious software devel opment. Today, that question is obsolete. Consider the following:
· In October, Sun estimated that more than 200,000 professional programmers were using Java.
· According to Sun, one-third of all the enterprise developers at companies with more than 5000 employees use Java.
· Last summer, 11 companies (includ ing Cisco Systems, IBM, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Netscape, and Oracle) pooled $100 million to form the Java Fund, a unique venture-capital resource for new Java projects.
· IBM and more than 50 independent software developers announced the San Francisco Project, a plan to build new busi ness applications with Java.
These developments help overcome Java's reputation asa lightweight language for creating decorative Web applets. Look beyond the bouncing heads that enliven Web sites, and you'll see that Java is an industrial-strength, object-oriented lan guage that supports inheritance, encapsu lation, polymorphism, multithreading, dynamic linking, and interfaces. It's in the same major league as C+ +.
Why is Java winning over professional developers, who are notoriously hard to
please? Java closely resembles C+ +,so experienced programmers probably have more to unlearn than to learn.Yet it offers significant advantages over C+ +.Java makes it easier to write code that's portable, reusable, and bug-free.
Cross-platform compatibility is a tremendous factor in Java's early success. Java compilers (available for Windows, the Mac OS, and Unix) convert Java source code into class files of byte code. The class files correspond to executable binary files generated by compilers for other lan guages. Unlike native binary files, how ever, Java byte code isn't specific to a par ticular microprocessor architecture. Its "native" architecture is the Java VM, which today exists only in software. (Soon, it will exist in hardware as well; see "Sun Gam bles on Java Chips," November 1996 BYrE, page 79.)
As a result, Java class files are portable to any hardware platform that has a Java run-time environment. The environment consists of the Java VM, some standard class libraries, a byte-code verifier (for security), and a byte-code interpreter. The interpreter runs the class files on the VM without requiring programmers to rewrite or even recompile their source code.
This "write once, run anywhere" uni versality is so compelling that some com panies are writing their Java development toolsinJavaso they'll run on any machine. Ignite Technologies' Layout Mill, a visual GUI builder, is one example.
"For the fust time, developers can write applications using their Windows people, their Unix people, and their Mac people," says Bill Kelly, president of Ignite. "All of the programmers can work on the same project with the same tool on any plat form. This allows developers to hire pro grammers based on the programmer's expertise with the type ofapplication they want to write, not just the kind of machine they know how to use."
Because Java programs stay within the Java run-time environment, they nor mally don't interact directly with the native CPU or OS. The run-time environ ment handles memory management, including garbage collection, so pro grammers don't have to allocate memory or dispose of leftover objects. There's no need for pointer arithmetic, another major source of bugs in C++. Java has a clean, efficient model for error handling and encourages code reuse because it's object oriented from the ground up. Java also
substitutes interfaces for the complex mul tiple inheritance of C+ + .
According to John F. Andrews, presi dent ofCSX Technology, programmer pro ductivity and cross-platform freedom were "key factors" in his railroad's deci sion to use Java for a massive shipment tracking application. CSX thinks it's the largest enterprise application yet written
70 BYTE JANUARY 1997
Today the Web, Tomorrow the World Cover Story
inJava. "Java happened at exactly the right time for us," says Andrews.
Java's much-vaunted portability isn't flawless, however. Sun's JDK 1.0 doesn't fully encapsulate the native AP!s of under lying OSes, so Java pioneers must work with a more limited vocabulary of GUI widgets and features. Also, there are numerous quirks in thewaydifferentJava
run-time environments map high-level objects to native AP!s (see the text box "The Bitter Taste ofJava" above left).
Growing pains are inevitable with something as spanking new as Java. JDK 1.1, scheduled for release early this year, will fix many of these problems. NewJava VMs and development tools are in the works, too. Java is evolving so rapidly it's
like the weather in some places-if you don't like it, wait an hour.
The Java Platform
Even ifJava becomes nothing but a popu lar development language, Sun will have scored a big hit. However, Sun-and oth ers-have grander things in mind. Could Java, as a platform, be a Windows killer?
Probably not. But it doesn't have to be. It's important to realize how Java can supersede Windows without killing Wm dows-or any other platform, for that matter. Java is a stealth platform that prop agates entirely in software and coexists peacefully with the native OS.
Other platforms are tied to specific hardware. For every installed copy ofWin dows, there must be a Windows-compat ible PC to run it on. Likewise for the Mac OS, OS/2, Unix, and so forth. There's a lit tle overlap due to emulators, such as SofrWindows and PCs with dual-boot OSes. For the most part, however, the lead ing platforms add to their installed bases only when someone plunks down a few thousand dollars for a machine.
This is not the case with Java. It's a platform implemented in software that runs on practically any machine, and soft ware spreads much faster than hardware. If you've installed a Java-compatible Web browser, such as Sun's HotJava, Netscape Navigator 3.0, or Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0, the Java run-time environ ment is already on your computer. You can also download JDK for free off the Web to make yoursystem aJava platform.Java development tools come with a VM, too. Java isn't self-replicating like a virus, but it's nearly as contagious.
Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Silicon Graphics, and Sun are paradoxically accel erating the process by integrating the Java run-time environment into their OSes. All ofthem say their OSes will be Java-enabled within·a year. They recognize Java's pop ularity and potential, and that offering a superior Java run-time environment will give them a competitive advantage. It's good for users because each new Java enabled application you install won't have to clutter your system with its own VM.
"We think it's critical to establish a good, stable, standard Java VM on the Mac platform," explains Mike Zivkovic, product manager for Apple's Mac OS Java run-time environment. "We are concen trating on stability, stability, stability. That's what software developers tell us
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 71
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Cover Story Today the Web, Tomorrow the World
they want more than anything right now." By the end ofthis year, there will be Java
VMs for Windows 95, Windows NT, Wrn dows 3.1, the Mac OS, most flavors of Unix, OS/2, NetWare, and Apple 's Pippin and Newton OSes. IBM is even porting Java to the AS/400 and MYS, which manage an esti mated 70 percent of the world's corpo rate data. This is why it's not crazy to pre dict that by the turn of the century, there will be more copies of the Java VM in the world than any of the OSes that host it.
Note that Java will not replace any of those OSes. lndeed, the Java VM is a benign parasite that cannot run without a host OS. (Sun has a special Java OS, but it's for dedicated Java devices, not conventional PCs.) Far from beinga Windows killer, Java actually needs Windows to spread itself on the massive installed base of PCs.
Things will get really interesting if that happens. Sheer numbers will make Java the world's most widespread software platform. Every Java VM will run every Java program that has ever been written or will be written, without porting or recompiling. How will this affect the soft ware balance of power?
It could work to the advantage of minor ity platforms that currently don't attract as much software development as Win dows. Today, developers justify Windows centricity by explaining that it's simply good business to target the largest installed base. IfJava becomes the largest installed base, and developers gradually shift their focus away from Windows, the minority platforms will get much more software. On the other hand, Java could also hurt the minority platforms by robbing them of the special development they receive now-the kind of support that makes them unique and justifies their existence.
This is not just a puzzle for sales-con scious commercial developers. Cost-con scious corporate developers must weigh the benefits ofwriting for a universal plat form, too. David Gee, Java marketing manager of IBM's Internet Division, says Java will revolutionize the deployment of enterprise applications in heteroge neous environments. "It doesn't matter what the server is, it doesn 't matter what the client is, it doesn't matter what the net work is. That's huge."
Five Reasons to Snub Java
With an upside this big, there has to be a downside. Although it's possible Java will someday be the most populous platform,
74 BYTE JANUARY 1997
Java programs can !rtclud~ multiple class files
and Beao cilmPonen\S, Which are more
specl~lized class'Jil~{E'~~~ Bean can·have an
optlonlll Beanh\fo. ~1.a~s fi!e thirt contains
lnformation'abOllt the.Bello's·properties and
methods.
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Object wrappers will alloW eeans Jo work ·in OLE applfcatlons·and OpenDoc cdntainers, sue~ as Visual Basfp at. ClarisWorks. The wrapper makes the Bean appear like anative object to.the container application al)d includes a self. contained Java run-time environ~t.
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Cover Story Today the Web, Tomorrow the World
it won't necessarily be the most popular platform for new software development. Despite Java's benefits, there will still be reasons why a developer might "go native" by writing for the foundation OS:
1. A native OS might offer features th at
Java can't use withour sacrificing cross platform compatibility.
2. Interpreted Java byte code doesn't run as fast as compiled native code.
3. If a program must interact with leg acy code or data, a more established tool
or language might work better. (This is an especially important consideration for corporate developers.)
4. A developer may have superior tools for another language or may be more pro ductive using a familiar tool or language.
Read/write local storage
No
Optfonar Selectable.. Yes Yes Selectable..
ACl:e$,S any URL
No
Opt l dn al Selectable.. Yes Yes Selectable"
Call native code
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Yes
76 BYTE JANUARY 1997
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Cover Story Today the Web, Tomorrow the World
5. A developer may not want to change, even if it costs money and customers.
It's important that most of the reasons are technical, subject to technological progress-and technological roadblocks.
Take the first reason. To a great extent, you can measure Java's maturity by its abil ity to take advantage of platform-specific features. Today, Java is definitely imma ture. It can access native features in two ways. The most desirable way is to encap sulate the native service in a Java class file, because it preserves cross-platform compatibility (assuming other platforms offer a similar service). The other way is to access the native features by calling their native code directly; this sacrifices cross platform compatibility.
Forexample,Javahasaclasscalled But ton that displays a push button on-screen. Push buttons are common to all GUis. When a Java program instantiates a But ton object, Java creates an intermediate peer object that maps the button to a cor responding routine in the native OS'sAPI.
On a Windows PC, Java calls the but ton routine in the Win16 or Win32 APL On a Mac, Java calls the button routine in the Toolbox. On a Unix system, Java might call the button routine in Motif. This abstraction gives you a Java button that looks like a native button on screen, even when you run the same class file on different systems.
Java's Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT) is a standard class library that encap sulates a large number of these basic GUI components. Additional libraries encap sulate other native services. But they don't include them all. There's no support in the currentJDK (1.02) for drag-and-drop edit ing, the playback of QuickTime movies, and numerous other advanced services.
New class libraries will address many of these shortcomings. JDK 1.1 will include a more complete AWT, and JavaSoft is working on a slew of libraries to fill in the remaining gaps. Also coming this year are classes to support richer multimedia (including 3-D graphics and audio/video playback), more flexible security, on-line commerce, telephony, nerwork manage ment, enterprise interoperabiliry, cross platform components, and server-side Java processes (called serv/ets).
JavaSoft is releasing these libraries in stages, preceded by specs that introduce programmers to the new classes and meth ods. For instance, some of the enterprise classes are available now, letting Java
programs access corporate databases through Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) interfaces. There are also gateways to Common Object Request Broker Archi tecture (CORBA) components and remote method invocations (RMis).
Sun andJavaSoft aren'tworking on this alone. Java has broad industry support. Examples include Symantec's dbAny where, which provides the middleware and Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) drivers to connect Java programs to Ora cle, Sybase SQL Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access, and numerous other databases. Centura Software (for merly Gupta) sells Centura Web Devel oper, which lets corporations build Java programs that simultaneously connect to multiple databases via IBM's Customer Information Control System (CICS), a transaction-processing monitor.
Corporate developers who need to make Java applications fit with legacy code are encountering fewer roadblocks. Howev er, if a developer absolutely needs a native service that Java doesn't support, Java has a method modifier (native) that lets a Java application directly call a native exe cutable file, such as a DLL or an OS APL This also delivers native performance.
Unfortunately, native methods have rwo major drawbacks. Java applets (pro grams that run in a Web browser) currently are not allowed to call native methods, for obvious security reasons. Sun is develop ing a new securiry model that will let users
and administrators selectively change this restriction, as well as other security rules. More seriously, native methods undercut Java's cross-platform compatibility. AJava program that relies on native methods would need a similar method on every sup ported platform.
Sun's new component architecture, JavaBeans, will accelerate Java's encapsu lation of native features by bringing more third-party developers into the fray. Beans are easier to write than Microsoft's ActiveX objects or Component Integration Labo ratories' OpenDoc Live Objects, yet they can interact with those component archi tectures (see the text box "JavaBeans: Cross-Platform Components" on page 74).
Speed Limits
Developers who need maximum perfor mance have a good reason for avoiding Java: They can write a compiled program in C or C+ + that runs at least 1O times faster than an interpreted Java program. For many applications, this isn't impor tant. Tools such as Visual Basic and Power Builder are popular because they're fast enough. But when performance does mat ter, there's no denying that interpreted Java byte code is slow.
To some degree, this problem will solve itself as computers get faster. Of course, native code will run faster on those new computers, too, so this won't eliminate the performance gap . However, the gap does not have to close altogether for Java to sue
78 BYTE JANUARY 1997
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Circle 148 on Inquiry C ard.
Cover Story Today the Web, Tomorrow the World
ceed. Compiled CIC++ code doesn't run as fast as expertly written code in assem bly language, yet few developers are using assembly language these days for anything but optimizing critical routines. CIC++ rules because it's more portable and it helps programmers work more produc tively-the same advantages that Java offers over CIC++.
Nevertheless, programmers and tool makers are striving to improve Java's performance. Programmers can write inline code (see "Better Java Program ming," September 1996 BITE). Sun Micro electronics and International Meta Sys tems are designing microprocessors that will execute Java byte code directly.
Perhaps the most promising solution is just-in-time (JIT) compilers. Like Java interpreters, they convert byte code into native code on the fly, but they cache the converted code in memory while the program runs.
JIT compilers can be completely trans parent to users. Java programs that run through a JIT compiler can achieve up to 50 percent ofthe speed of native code, and the technology is steadily improving. Netscape plans to bundle a JIT compiler with Navigator 4.0, and Microsoft, IBM, and Apple plan to integrate JIT compilers with their Java run-time environments.
Another option is static compilation. Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) technology translates byte code into Mips RxOOO native code, links the resulting binaries to the Java class files, and adds a second entry point to theJava method block. Java pro grams, running on SGI's specially modi~ fied VM, check the method block to see if there's a pointer to a translated method. If so, the program executes the translated method instead of the byte code version. Combined with inline coding, this allows Java to approach the performance of C + +, according to David Henke, engi neering manager of SGI's Web Products Division.
As with native methods, however, SGI's technology limits cross-platform compat ibility-the translated code runs only on a Mips CPU. It offers two advantages. Developers can easily separate the trans lated code from the byte code to regain portability, and programmers can write an entire project in Java instead of writing native methods in another language.
There's no reason wh y SGI or someone else couldn't adapt this technology to other CPU architectures. Java applets will
probably always exist as platform-neutral byte code, because they're embedded in Web pages that must run on any browser. However, stand-alone Java applications that need top performance will almost cer
tainl y rely on some kind of JlT or static
compiler. The performance boost is sig nificant, and it doesn't have to interfere with the cross-platform compatibility that is Java's greatest strength.
Higher Abstraction
ln the long run, none ofthe technical prob lems that might deter today's developers are likely to pose an insurmountable obsta cle for Java. As both a language and a platform, Java is evolving at an unprece dented pace. We can speculate on Java's course because it's consistent with histor ical trends in computing.
The most important trend is toward higher levels of software abstraction above the hardware. The more rightly that soft ware is intertwined with hardware, the bigger the headaches for developers and users. Programmers get more performance by writing to the metal, but the code is hard to maintain and even harder to port. And code lives longer than anyone plans.
That's why the computer industry is spending billions of dollars rewriting ancient code that can't handle the year 2000. That's why the U.S. air-traffic-con trol system is still running on antiquated machinery from the 1960s. That's why the Social Security Administration is patching a program from the 1970s that has been underpaying retirees for two decades. Put bluntly, it's negligent for software devel opers to ignore the possibility that their code may live for 10 or 20 years.
Java carries software abstraction to the next level because it abstracts everything below the VM. It's designed for a world in which the OS and CPU are interchange able parts that can be replaced without breaking applications. It's designed for an age of diversity in which PCs and other smart devices can use any CPU or OS that delivers the best performance, the lowest cost, the most efficient power consump tion, the lightest weight, or any other pa rameter that becomes important. Java's success isn't inextricably tied to network computers, PDAs, and smart appliances, but Java is ideal for devices that expand today's narrow definition of a PC.
Unix and NT offer some hardware abstraction, butthey're mulriplatform, not cross-platform. Users still have to replace
or recompile all their software if they switch CPUs, and not all software is avail able for all CPUs. Also, these OSes still chain you to an OS. Java can run on just about any OS or CPU.
Gambling on Java
So a developer's decision about adopting Java depends on three questions. First, can Java handle the job? It should be clear by now that Java is suitable for a wide range of applications and is gaining ground fast. Still, it can't do everything, and the tools need to get a lot better.
Second, does cross-platform compati bility matter? If you believe the comput ers of tomorrow will be basica lly the same as the computers of today, on ly with more megabytes and megahertz, Java isn't the best choice. Other languages and tools are more refined and deliver better perfor mance on traditional hardware.
If, however, you'd like to write code that runs on any hardware, the fin al question is whether Java is the best cross-p latform option. The answer depends on the matu rity of Java, which changes almost daily. Certainly you can do a lot with Hyper text Markup Language (HTML), Java Script, VB Script, Perl, and other cross-plat form solutions, especially if Microsoft delivers on its promises for ActiveX.
But it's hard to bet wrong on Java. His tory shows that those who gamble cor rectly on an emerging platform win big, and those who gamble wrong end up with dead code. Even ifJava fails to conquer the world asa platform, you'll still end up with code that runs on whatever platform rules the kingdom. For developers, the risks are minimal. For users, Java could bringa new freedom to change OSes and CPUs with out breaking software-a freedom they've
never had before. flJ
Tom R. 1-Ialfhill is a BYTE se11ior editor based in Sa11 Mateo, California. ¥011 ca11 reach him 011 the Tlltem et at thalfhlll@bix.com.
BO BYTE JANUARY 1997
Walking, TalkingWeb
Fractals and wavelets, and Internet savvy, help make multimedia more practical for the Net. By Edmund X. Dejesus
isten to pundits and you'd think the Web is already a world of "click and watch" images and streaming video. Multimedia is certainly a key element of many home pages today, but "click and watch" is too often "click and wait." Before the Web can efficiently feed a sen sory-hungry world, it has to be much faster at painting pictures on our screens. The big snag, of course, is bandwidth. Even today's fastest analog modems deliver only 33.6 Kbps tops, when the wind's right. But realistic looking video running at 30 frames per second requires 566,000 Kbps. (Audio is demanding in its own right; CD-quality sound requires throughput of about 706 Kbps.) Until digital commu nications technologies become more widespread, how can Web developers help traditional modems sip from this fire hose of multi media information? One answer might be new compression algorithms that use fractal and wavelet tech nologies, which are specifi cally suited to still images and video. They could bring us closer to fast-loading multi media Web pages. Fractals, wavelets, and a combination of the two offer shorter download times and more rightly compressed files rhan what GIF, JPEG, and MPEG offer. The trade-off? It takes a comparatively long time to compress files with fractals and wavelets before you send them over the Web. Also, fractal and wavelet files are unreadable unless your audience has a special viewer to decompress the files. Nev ertheless, fractals and wavelets represent a step forward from GIF and JPEG files, which use lossless Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) and lossy algorithms, respectively.
Fractals in Action
This is the essence of fractal compression: Rather than transmit the image, you transmit the much-smaller algorithm parameters
for creating that image. To understand how this algorithm is cre
ated, consider an equilateral triangle. On each of its three sides,
erect equilateral triangles one-third the size of the original. On
each of the smaller triangle sides, erect equilateral triangles one
third their size. Continue this process an infinite number of times,
or until you can't tell one iteration from the next. You will end
up with something resembling a snowflake (called a Koch
snowflake) that is a fractal: Its dimension is not a whole num
ber but lies between 1 and 2.
This illustration exhibits
two of the main features of
fractals: self-similarity and
recursion. Self-similarity
because if you expand any
part ofthe snowflake, it looks
the same: namely, little trian
gles constructed on bigger tri
angles. Recursion because
you are repeating the same
algorithm over and over to
create it.
Now suppose someone
sees your snowflake, decides
to make it the company logo,
and asks you to put it on your
Web site. You could just make
a GIF of the image itself and
put that image on the site. Or
you could put the algorithm
that created the image on the
site and distribute viewer
programssothatwhensome
one accesses it, the algorithm
generates the image on the
viewer's machine. Clearly
the algorithm parameters
would take up far less space
than the GIF.
The real "aha! " for frac
tals comes when you realize that you can turn the original tri
angle into a triangle of different size and orientation simply by
turning, stretching, and expanding or contracting the original
(mathematicians call this an affine transformation). In other
words, rather than needing detailed information about the sec
ond triangle, you need only its turning, stretching, and expan
sion or contraction parameters. You can compress a picture into
a list of these parameters. To decompress the image, you simply
take the parameters, plug them into the algorithm, and gener
ate the image again.
continued
JANUARY 1997 BYTE BONA 1
Walking, Talking Web
The big plus here is speed. The para meters arrive nearly instantaneously, and the picture begins generating immediate ly. No more coffee breaks while you wait for a jumbo GIF to waddle on down.
You can also zoom in or out on fractal images to examine details. Unlike other formats that clearly show their dots or blocks as you blow them up, the fractal image is resolution-independent, so an expanded version of the image is as sharp as a tiny image. There is one proviso. A Web site manager may well limit image resolution; expanding even a fractal image will make it look dotty and blocky.
Sharp Images
Fractal images differ from, say, GIFs in sev eral ways. First, Glfs start out blurry and get sharper as more ofthe file downloads. Fractal images start out sharp and stay sharp. This is important for Web surfers. You don't have to waste download time to see the image clearly enough to decide if you're interested in it or not.
Fractal compression can range from 20:1to50:1, depending on the complex ity of the image. Since fractals work by self-similarity, the more complex the image, the less compression is possible.
One downside to fractal compression is the length of tin1e (sometimes 5 minutes for a4-by 3-inch image) and considerable processing power required to shrink images with fractal technology. There fore , fractal compression is useful for still
You can magnify portions of fractally compressed images without adversely affecting the resolution.
images and prerecorded video, but it isn 't practical for live video.
Another problem is that fractal com pression is lossy compression: The orig inal and the decompressed image will not match pixel by pixel. However, this is important only when creating perfect compressed archives of images, which is not typically important for the Web, where the images will look good enough.
To create a fractal-compression algo
rithm for your Web graphics, you'll need a commercial fractal-compression cool, such as Fractal lmager from Iterated Sys tems ($40 to download, $70 to buy the CD-ROM). With lterated's compression process, yo u first break down the origi nal image into regions with similar fea tures, using standard edge detection, tex ture variation, and other algorithms. For example, if yo u were compressing a photo of a person's face, some regions
Sound and the Web
W hen you're compressing sound, the first step is to leave most of it out. While that may seem surprising, telephone engineers have known it for years. You can slice out most of the highest and lowest parts of the audio spectrum, and average listeners probably won't notice any quality degradation. (This is mainly true for spoken sound, not for music, which is why you find very few bands record ing albums over the telephone.)
Another nice feature of sound, for the pur poses of compression, is the large degree of repetition found in most speech and music. When you're sampling music 44,100 times a second (for CD quality), much of it can be encoded as "ditto~ Same for speech: Vowel sounds vary little from beginning to end, and there are not that many consonantal sounds to encode (which makes you wonder why all
artificial speech programs sound like inebri
ated frogs).
·
Not surprisingly, there are many more prod
ucts for sending speech (i.e., telephony) over
the Web than there are for music. Sound com
pression is quite lossy, and most people can
tell the difference (that's one reason we listen
to FM radio rather than AM and CDs rather
than records).
Music over the Web requires higher band·
width than even a 33.6-Kbps modem connec·
tion. Once you have tossed out the frequen
cies you don't want, there are many choices for
compressing the result, including Lempel-Ziv
Welch (LZW). Because compressed sound
travels as packets over the Internet, you must
plan for packets going astray. One strategy,
implemented by VocalTec's Internet Wave,
uses the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
with a buffer that stores a few seconds of sound, plus a predictive cache. The buffer pro vides a few seconds' wait for any dawdling packets to show up, and if the packets never show up, the prediction algorithm guesses at their contents.
Another strategy, one that's implemented by Progressive Networks' RealAudio, employs the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), with the sound minced and distributed among successive packets.Ifone of these packets does not show up, the effect is a few-milliseconds gap every quarter of a second for about 3 seconds.
Want to pause, fast forward, or rewind? Unfortunately, HTTP is not bidirectional. Again, there are ways around this: VocalTec, for exam ple, uses Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts with HTTP; Progressive Networks uses other non-HTTP servers.
BONA 2 BYTE JANUARY 1997
Hi gh Resolution 768 x 576 Pixel
images
multimedia
digital camera
Stills with Sound
· Dual Lens Design utilizes a wide-angle 35mm and telephoto 55mm lens as well as Macro optic s for close -up photography.
· Automatic Featu res like Auto Flash, Auto Focus and Auto Exposure makes picture taking effortless.
· Exposure Compensation adjusta ble to +/-5 EV stops in .3 increments gives you control ove r your images.
· LCD Monitor (optional) allows you to view your im ages before and aft er you shoot them.
· Compact Design makes the camera easy to hold yet small enough to fit in your shirt po cket.
Ricoh's RDC-2advanced design features let you go beyond just taking still pictures. Now you can bring your images to life by capturing the movements and sounds of your subjects.
The RDC-2 lets you select between five independent recording modes to capture digital information in any combination or order you choose: Still Mode with macro capability, Sound Mode, Stills with Sound Mode, Continuous Mode, Document Mode.
The Ultimate Presentation Tool. The RDC-2 allows you to use your digital images in a multitude of ways...plug the RDC -2 into any TV monitor or VCR and playback your images and sounds instantly. Download text and graphics to the camera to customize
and enhance your presentations.
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
······· ·
I :1 ·1351
RDC-1 3X Zoom Digital Camera with Full
Motion and Sound.
DIGITAL CAMERA
· High Resolution 768 x 576 images.
Macro Capability
· Portable: Easily fits in your briefcase, purse or pocket. · Outputto Virtually All Digital Media: Output to color PC or video printer, TV monitor, or send still
images and sound around the world via modem /dig ital phone. · 6 Different Data Recording Modes: Still images, sound, still images with sound, continuous
shooting, full motion video with sound , document mode, and macro cap ability.
· Removable Media: Stores everything on PCMCIA cards available in 2, 8, and 24 megabyte capacities.
· Software Included: Photo-editing and cataloging software is included for both Windows and
Think of the Possibilities!
Macintosh platforms.
Document events, create entire
presentations, send your images
to the Internet within minutes.
Communicate with co-workers
in remote locations.
1111111·
Visit us@ www.ricohcpg.com
C ircle 607 on Inquiry Card.
RICOH CORPORATION· 475 Lillard Drive· Sparks, Nevada 89434 ·TEL 702.352.1600 ·FAX 702.352.1615
Walking, Talking Web
might contain just skin, some regions might contain just hair, and so forth . You then fractally compress each of these regions by expressing each part of the region as a turned, stretched, and expand ed/contracted version of another part. You record the regions, the "standard" image for each region, and the parame ters to generate all the other images in the region. This takes time and is clearly an off-line, non-real-time process.
But the results are striking. You can compress some images up to 250 times smaller than the original, and the images can load up to four times faster over the Internet. The resulting image looks near ly identical to the original.
Fractal Imager turns still images into fractal image format (FJF) files. You can then place these images on your Web site just as you would a GIF or a JPEG image. To view them, however, your guest will need Fractal Viewer, which Iterated dis tributes for free.
Wavelet Compression
Another important compression option for the Web is wavelet technology, which works similarly to Fourier analysis. Fouri er analysis, used extensively in signal analysis, represents an input signal as a combination of simple sine and cosine basis functions. If the input signal were a single frequency, the output would be a single number, namely the coefficient of the particular sine or cosine function cor responding to that frequency. Ifthe input had several frequencies present, the result would be several coefficients.
Fourier analysis works best for con tinuous input and repetitive patterns. Unfortunately, most inputs are neither continuous nor repetitive, resulting in very large sets of coefficients. For many
WHERE TO FIND
lter.ited ~ystems Atlanta, GA
http://www ·
.realaudio.c:om
(404) 264-8000
http://www.iterated .c:om
· VDOnet Palo Alto, CA (408) 654-8400
OLiVR
fax:408-654-9447
Lexington, MA
http://www.vdo.nd
(617) 861-6111
.c:om
fax: (617) 863-6155
http://www.olivr.c:om VocalTec
Northvale, NJ
Progressive
(201) 768-9400
Networks
fax: (201) 768-8893
Seattle, WA
http://www.vocaltcc
(206) 447-0567
.c:om
fax: (206) 223-8221
Wavelets allow CBS to broadcast news
snippets over the Web.
real-world applications, like compressing graphics, Fourier a nalysis requires too many coefficients to be practical for rep resenting an image.
Wavelets also represent input images with coefficients of basis functions. How ever, the basis functions for wavelets are much more complicated than the simple sines and cosines of Fourier analysis. Plus, the wavelet basis functions can effective ly represent noncontinuous and non repetitive inputs, like the edges and oth er features of real-world images. Thus, wavelets can represent real-world images using only a small set of coefficients, resulting in excellent compression. To decompress the image, you simply use those coefficients with the wavelet basis functions to generate the image.
Butwaveletcompression shares prob lems similar to fractal compression: Lengthy compression time on the front end a nd use of lossy techniques. Also, wavelet compression lacks fractal com pression's resolution independence. When you expand wavelet-compressed images, you get artifacts, but they ' ll be imperceptible in most cases.
OLiVR (for On Line Interactive Vir tual Reality), a company that has devel oped a new arc hitecture specifically for streaming media, uses a wavelet/fractal combination, taking advantage of each technology's scalability and resolution features. OLiVR's technology works for both still images and video.
Video over the Web
Compressing video is a lot like com pressing a series ofstill images. However,
video offers even more compression op portunities. Images may not change much from frame to frame, and you may need to compress only the differences in suc ceeding frames. This clearly works better for some applications, like an unmoving camera recording a university lecture, than it does for others, like a Hollywood action movie.
The advantage of fractal or wavelet compression is streamingvideo: The clip starts playing as soon as you click on it. With ClearFusion, lterated's streaming video viewer, you can watch video as it downloads into a box ofapproximately 2 by 3 inches, but movements are jerky on a 28.8-Kbps modem connection. Any associated audio will be of acceptable quality. Even if you prefer to download the whole file before viewing, the size of the file is far smaller. For example, a video clip that would be about 1200 KB in MPEG format is only 290 KB in fractal format. In addition to fractals used to compress Web page video, Iterated expects to see the technology used for entertainment and corporate training applications.
When OLiVR movies begin down loading, you can see what the picture is with less than 5 percent of the file present. Detail fills in as the remainder of the file arrives. You can rotate the image and zoom in and out on the quarter-screen images. These seem ideal to show prod ucts: For example, by rotating an image of a disk drive, I could check out what ports it had on the back.
VDOnet's VDOLive also uses wavelet compression for streaming video. At least on~ major news organization, CBS News, uses VDOLive to broadcast its Up-To-The Minute news snippets on the Web (see screen, this page).
Coming at You
As the Web moves beyond text delivery to becoming a viable multimedia medi um, we need better ways to compress still images and video. Otherwise, all that stuff gets bogged down and can't traverse modem connections quickly enough. By sending descriptions of these images, frac tals and wavelets use today's thin pipes efficiently to take us a step closer to bring ing the Web to life. Ill
Edmund X. Dejesus is a senior technical editor based in BYTE 's Lexington, Massachusetts, bureau. You can reach him by sendinge-mail to
edejesus@blx.com.
SONA 4 BYTE JANUARY 199 7
Walking, TalkingWeb
Fractals and wavelets, and Internet savvy, help make
multimedia more practical for the Net.
By Edmund X. Dejesus
isten to pundits and you'd think the Web is already a world of "click and watch" images and streaming video. Multimedia is certainly a key element of many home pages today, but "click and watch" is too often "click and wait." Before the Web can efficiently feed a sen sory-hungry world, it has to be much faster at painting pictures on our screens. The big snag, of course, is bandwidth. Even today's fastest analog modems deliver only 33.6 Kbps tops, when the wind's right. But realistic looking video running at 30 frames per second requires 566,000 Kbps. (Audio is demanding in its own right; CD-quality sound requires throughput of about 706 Kbps.) Until digital commu nications technologies become more widespread, how can Web developers help traditional modems sip from this fire hose of multi media information? One answer might be new compression algorithms that use fractal and wavelet tech nologies, which are specifi cally suited to still images and video. They could bring us closer to fast-loading multi media Web pages. Fractals, wavelets, and a combination of the two offer shorter download times and more tightly compressed files than what GIF, JPEG, and MPEG offer. The trade-off? It takes a comparatively long time to compress files with fractals and wavelets before you send them over the Web. Also, fraetal and wavelet files are unreadable unless your audience has a special viewer ro decompress the files. Nev ertheless, fractals and wavelets represent a step forward from GIF and JPEG files, which use lossless Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) and lossy algorithms, respectively.
Fractals in Action
This is the essence of fractal compression: Rather than transmit the image, you transmit the much-smaller algorithm parameters
for creating that image. To understand how this algorithm is cre
ated, consider an equilateral triangle. On each of its three sides,
erect equilateral triangles one-third the size of the original. On
each of the smaller triangle sides, erect equilateral triangles one
third their size. Continue this process an infinite number of times,
or until you can't tell one iteration from the next. You will end
up with something resembling a snowflake (called a Koch
snowflake) that is a fractal : Its dimension is not a whole num
ber but lies between l and 2.
This illustration exhibits
two of the main features of
fractals: se lf-similarity and
recursion. Self-similarity
because if you expand any
part of the snowflake, it looks
the same: namely, little trian
gles constructed on bigger tri
angles. Recursion because
you are repeating the same
algorithm over and over ro
create it.
Now suppose someone
sees your snowflake, decides
to make it the company logo,
and asks you to put it on your
Web site. You could just make
a GIF of the image itself and
put that image on the site. Or
you could put the algorithm
that created the image on the
site and distribute viewer
programs so that when some
one accesses it, the algorithm
generates the image on the
viewer's machine. Clearly
the algorithm parameters
would take up far less space
than the GIF.
The real "aha!" for frac
tals comes when you realize that you can turn the original tri
angle into a triangle of different size and orientation simply by
turning, stretching, and expanding or contracting the original
(mathematicians call this an affine transformation). In other
words, rather than needing detailed information about the sec
ond triangle, you need only its turning, stretching, and expan
sion or contraction parameters. You can compress a picture into
a list of these parameters. To decompress the image, you simply
take the parameters, plug them into the algorithm, and gener
ate the image again .
co11ti1111ed
JANUARY 1997 BYTE BONA 1
Walking, Talking Web
The big plus here is speed. The para meters arrive nearly instantaneously, and the picture begins generating immediate ly. No more coffee breaks while you wait for a jumbo GIF to waddle on down.
You can also zoom in or out on fractal images to examine details. Unlike other formats that clearly show their dots or blocks as you blow them up, the fractal image is resolution-independent, so an expanded version of the image is as sharp as a tiny image. There is one proviso. A Web site manager may well limit image resolution; expanding even a fractal image will make it look dotty and blocky.
Sharp Images
Fractal images differ from, say, GIFs in sev eral ways. First, GIFs start out blurry and get sharper as more of the file downloads. Fractal images start out sharp and stay sharp. This is important for Web surfers. You don't have to waste download time to see the image clearly enough to decide if you're interested in it or not.
Fractal compression can range from 20: 1to50: 1, depending on the complex ity of the image. Since fractals work by self-similarity, the more complex the image, the less compression is possible.
One downside to fractal compression is the length of time (sometimes 5 minutes fora4-by 3-inch image) and considerable processing power required to shrink images with fractal technology. There fore, fractal compression is useful for still
You can magnify portions of fractally compressed images without adversely affecting the resolution.
images and prerecorded video, but it isn't practical for live video.
Another problem is that fractal com pression is lossy compression: The orig inal and the decompressed image will not match pixel by pixel. However, this is important only when creating perfect compressed archives of images, which is not typically important for the Web, where the images will look good enough.
To create a fractal-compression algo
rithm for your Web graphics, you'll need a commercial fractal-compression tool, such as Fractal Imager from Iterated Sys tems ($40 to download, 570 to buy the CD-ROM) . With lterated's compression process, you first break down the origi nal image into regions with similar fea tures, using standard edge detection, tex ture variation, and other algorithms. For example, if you were compressing a photo of a person' s face, some regions
Sound and the Web
W hen you're compressing sound, the first step is to leave most of it oul While that may seem surprising, telephone engineers have known it for years. You can slice out most of the highest and lowest parts of the audio ·spectrum, and average listeners probably won't notice any quality degradation. (This is mainly true for spoken sound, not for music, which is why you find very few bands record· ing albums over the telephone.)
Another nice feature of sound, for the pur· poses of compression, is the large degree of repetition found in most speech and music. When you're sampling music 44,100 times a second (for CD quality), much of it can be encoded as "ditto~ Same for speech: Vowel sounds vary little from beginning to end, and there are not that many consonantal sounds to encode (which makes you wonder why all
artificial speech programs sound like inebri· ated frogs).
Not surprisingly, there .are many more prod· ucts for sending speech (i.e.,.telephony) over the Web than there are for 'music..Sound com· presslon is quite lossy, and most people can tellthe difference (that's one reason we listen to FM radio rather than AM and CDs rather than records).
Music over the Web requires higher band· width than even a 33.6-Kbps modem connec· tion. Once you have tossed out the frequen ciesyou don't want, there are many choices for compressing the result, including Lempel·Ziv· Welch (LZW). Because compressed sound travels as packets over the Internet, you must plan for packets going astray. One strategy, implemented by VocalTec's Internet Wave, uses the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
with a buffer that stores a few seconds of sound, plus a predictive cache. The buffer pro· vides a few seconds' wait for any dawdling packets to show up, and if the packets never show up, the prediction algorithm guesses at their contents.
Another strategy,one that's implemented by Progressive Networks' RealAudio, employs the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), with the sound minced and distributed among successive packets. Ifone of these packets does not show up, the effect is a few-milliseconds gap every quarter of a second for about 3 seconds.
Want to pause, fast forward, or rewind? Unfortunately, HTIP is not bidirectional. Again, there are ways around this: VocalTec, for exam ple, uses Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts with HTIP; Progressive Networks uses other non·HTIP servers.
BONA 2 BYTE JANUARY 1997
High Resolution 768 x 576 Pixel
images
multimedia
digital camera
Stills with Sound
· Dual Lens Design utilizes a wide-angle 35mm and telephoto 55mm lens as well as Macro optics for close-up photogra phy.
· Automatic Features like Auto Flash, Auto Focus and Auto Exposure makes picture taking effortless.
· Exposure Compensation ad justable to +/·5 EV sto ps in .3 increments gives you control over your images.
· LCD Monitor (optional) allows you to view your im ages befo re and aft er
you shoot them.
· Compa ct Design makes th e camera easy to hold yet small enough to fit in your shirt pocket.
Ricoh's RDC-2advanced design features let you go beyond just taking still pictures. Now you can bring your images to life by capturing the movements and sounds of your subjects.
The RDC-2 lets you select between five independent recording modes to capture digital information in any combination or order you choose: Still Mode with macro capability, Sound Mod e, Stills with Sound Mode, Continuous Mode, Document Mode .
The Ultimate Presentation Tool. The RDC-2 allows you to use
your digital images in a multitude of ways... plug the RDC-2 into
any TV monitor or VCR and playback your images and sounds instantly. Download text and graphics to the camera to customize and enhance your presentations.
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
······· ·
I ;1 ·1351
RDC-1 3X Zoom Digital Camera with Full
Motion and Sound.
DIGITAL CAMERA
· High Resolution 768 x 576 images.
Macro Capability
· Portable: Easily fits in you r briefcase, purse or pocket.
· Output to Virtually All Digital Media : Output to color PC or video printer, TV monitor, or send still
images and sound around the world via modem /digital phone.
· 6 Different Data Recording Modes: Still image s, sound, still images with sound, continuous
shooting, full motion video with sound, document mode, and macro capability.
· Removable Media: Stores everything on PCMCIA cards available in 2, 8, and 24 megabyte capacities.
· Software Included: Photo-editing and cataloging software is included for both Windows and
Think of the Possibilities!
Macintosh platforms.
Document events, create entire
presentations, send your images
to the Internet within minutes.
Communicate with co-workers
in remote locations.
111101·
Visit us@ w w w.ricohcpg .com
C ircle 607 on Inquiry C ard.
RICOH CORPORATION· 475 Lillard Drive· Sparks, Nevada 89434 ·TEL 702.352.1600 ·FAX 702.352.1615
Walking, Talking Web
might contain just skin, some regions might contain just hair, and so forth. You then fractally compress each of these regions by expressing each part of rhe region as a turned, stretched, and expand ed/contracted version of another part. You record the regions, the "standard" image for each region, and the parame ters to generate all the other images in the region. This takes time and is clearly an off-line, non-real-time process.
But the results are striking. You can compress some images up to 250 times smaller than the original, and the images can load up to four times faster over the Internet. The resulting image looks near ly identical to the original.
Fractal Imager turns still images into fractal image format (FIF) files. You can then place these images on your Web site just as you would a G!F or a JPEG image. To view them, however, your guest will need Fractal Viewer, which Iterated dis tributes for free .
Wavelet Compression
Another important compression option for the Web is wavelet technology, which works similarly to Fourier analysis. Fouri er analysis, used extensively in signal analysis, represents an input signal as a combination of simple sine and cosine basis functions. If the input signal were a single frequency, the output would be a single number, namely the coefficient of the particular sine or cosine function cor responding to that frequency. If the input had several frequencies present, the result would be several coefficients.
Fourier analysis works best for con tinuous input and repetitive patterns. Unfortunately, most inputs are neither continuous nor repetitive, resu lting in very large sets of coefficients. For many
WHERE TO FIND
Iterated Systems Atlanta, GA
(404) 264-8000 http://www.itcrated .com
OLiVR Ltxington, MA
'(617) 861-6111 fax: (617) 863-6155
http://www.ollvr.com
Progressive Networks Seattle, WA
(206) 447-0567 fax: (206) 223-8221
http://www
.rcalaudio.com
VDOnet Palo Alto, CA
(408) 654-8400
fax: 408-654-9447
http://www.vdo.net
.com
VocalTec Northvale, NJ
(201) 768- 9400 fax: (201) 768-8893 http://www.vocaltec .com
Wavelets allow CBS to broadcast news
snippets over the Web.
real-world applications, like compressing graphics, Fourier analysis requires too many coefficients to be practical for rep resenting an image.
Wavelets also represent input images with coefficients ofbasis functions. How ever, the basis functions for wavelets are much more complicated than the simple sines and cosines of Fourier analysis. Plus, the wavelet basis functions can effective ly represent noncontinuous and non repetitive inputs, like the edges and oth er features of real-world images. Thus, wavelets can represent real-world images using only a small set of coefficients, resulting in excellent compression. To decompress the image, you simply use those coefficients with the wavelet basis functions to generate the image.
But wavelet compression shares prob !ems similar to fractal compression: Lengrhy compression time on the front end and use of lossy techniques. Also, wavelet compression lacks fractal com pression's resolution independence. When you expand wavelet-compressed images, you get artifacts, but they'll be imperceptible in most cases.
OLiVR (for On Line Interactive Vir tual Reality), a company that has devel oped a new architecture specifically for streaming media, uses a wavelet/fractal combination, raking advantage of each technology's scalability and resolution features. OLiVR's technology works for both sti ll images and video.
Video over the Web
Compressing video is a lot lik e com pressing a series of still images. However,
video offers even more compression op portunities. Images may not change much from frame to frame, and you may need to compress only the differences in suc ceeding frames. This clearly works better for some applications, like an unmoving camera recording a university lecture, than it does for others, like a Hollywood action movie.
The advantage of fractal or wavelet compression is streaming video: The dip starts playing as soon as you click on it. With ClearFusion, lterated's streaming video viewer, you can watch video as it downloads into a box ofapproximately 2 by 3 inches, but movements are jerky on a 28.8 -Kbps modem connection . Any associated audio will be of acceptable quality. Even if you prefer to download the whole file before viewing, the size of the file is far smaller. .For example, a video clip that would be about 1200 KB in MPEG format is only 290 KB in fractal format. In addition to fractals used to compress Web page video, Iterated expects to see the technology used for entertainment and corporate training applications.
When OLiVR movies begin down loading, you can see what the picture is with less than 5 percent of the file present. Detail fills in as the remainder of the file arrives. You can rotate the image and zoom in and out on the quarter-screen images. These seem ideal to show prod ucts: For example, by rotating an image of a disk drive, I could check out what ports it had on the back.
VDOnet's VDOLive also uses wavelet compression for streaming video. At least one major news organization, CBS News, uses VDOLive to broadcast its Up-To-The Minute news snippets on the Web (see screen, this page).
Coming at You
As the Web moves beyond text delivery to becoming a viable multimedia medi um, we need better ways to compress still images and video. Otherwise, all that stuff gets bogged down and can't traverse modem connections quickly enough. By sending descriptions of these images, frac tals and wavelets use today's thin pipes efficiently to take us a step closer to bring ing the Web to life. llJ
Edmund X Dejesus is a senior technical editor based in BYTE's Lexington, Massachusetts, bureau. You can reach him &y sending e-mail to edejesus@blx.com.
BONA 4 BYTE JANUARY 1997
DATA MARTS COME DELIVERED IN ACHOICE OF BOXES. .. OURS OR PANDORA'S.
MULTIPLE VENDORS . . . MULTIPLE HEADACHES Today,many data warehouse projects become a"Pandora's Box" because they're built with tools from many vendors. Even the best tools can become anightmare if they haven't been designed and tested to work with one another. And what happens when you have aproblem? Your data warehouse vendors are experts on~ in their own environments... not in each others. The solution?
ASmartMart111 data mart from Information Builders.
THINK SmartMart111··· THE SMARTER DATA MART
SmartMart provides all the tools, technology and services you need to build, use,and manage adata mart ..in one proven and affordable package.You get tools for data extraction and movement, transformation,multidimensional data storage,
reporting and analysis,Web access, and data mart administration. You'll also get the consulting services you'll need to guarantee afast,trouble-free implementation. And because SmartMart is a complete, single-vendor solution, all components are integrated and fully tested to work together so you avoid the cost and delays associated with piecing together technologies from multiple vendors. It's the closest thing to a data mart in a box. Best of all,SmartMart's open architecture ensures full integration with your enterprise information systems... now and in the future.
CALL THE BUILDERS For complete information on our SmartMart data mart program, including afree white paper "The Data Mart ANew Approach to Data Warehousing", call 1-800-969-INFO.
http://www.ibi.com
- - - 800·969·1NFO In Canada Call 416·364·2760
lnf~rmation
Builders
SnunMart is~ tr.tdcrrurk o f Information Bulldcrs, Inc., NY. NY 212·736--4<t ) J E. mail: lnfo@ibi .com
Circle 608 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 609).
Data Warehouse
Building Blocks
Collecting information is the easy part. Knowing how to store it, access it, and
analyze it makes all the difference.
o extend your core business, you need comprehen
T sive information. For many companies, that means a robust data warehouse thatdraws together disparate
and unfiltered data and presents it in creative new
ways. As tools to capture and explore detailed data mature, so
will our ability to find ways to exploit the data we've collected.
In the last 10 years, two factors have combined to help data
warehouses proliferate. First, we've recognized the benefits of
on-line analytical processing (OLAP) beyond the traditional areas
of marketing and finance. Organizations now find that the
insights buried in the masses of data they routinely collect on their
customers, products, operations, and business activities con
tribute to cutting operating costs and increasing revenues, not to
mention making it easier to arrive at strategic decisions.
Second, the growth of client/server computing has spawned
server hardware and software that's more powerful and more
sophisticated than ever. Today's servers now rival yesterday's
mainframes and offer technologically superior memory archi
tectures, high-speed processors, and massive storage capacities.
At the same time, modern DBMSes provide more support for com
plex data structures and promote standardized middleware. From
this hardware/software renaissance emerges the multiterabyte
data warehouses we're now seeing in client/server environments.
How do you take advantage of these technology advances? In
the following pages, we'll describe how to choose the right ware
house for your enterprise. "Warehouse Cornerstones" explains
the pros and cons ofcentralized and multitiered warehouse archi
tectures and gives advice on how to choose the right servers and
DBMSes. "Better Clients, Better Decisions" will help you match
the right analysis tool to the cross-section of people who will be
using your data warehouse. And "Take Your Data to the Clean
ers" discusses the choicesyou have among home-grown and com
mercial programs that filter out nagging inaccuracies and
inconsistencies in your information.
Adata warehouse consists of myriad pieces. Ifyou choose them
wisely, you could end up with a repository of invaluable data to
inform your strategic decision making. In all likelihood, there is
gold buried in the data dispersed across your enterprise. You only
need to find it.
- Jay-Louise Weldon and Alan Joch
Like a physical warehouse built from bricks and mortar, a data warehouse begins with your choice of an overall architectilre. This decision will influence the other essential co_mponents you select.
1For example, If you need fut performaace md the .,.., to analyze multi,dmensionll data (I.e., sales for a given product by year, by region, by store!, JOU might pair a central-server architecture.··
Architecture alternatives
·Federated ·Tlend
. .with a "super-relational" 2 DBMS that prorides
.,,...Wiles. speclalzed lndexlagschemes to
r .
DBMS alternatives
· Relatloaal
· M11tlidlme11sloaal database
IMDDBJ4.oglcal
· MDDB-Phpk:al
· Object relalloaal
server
Warehouse Cornerstones ... 85
A successful data warehouse starts when you choose and integrate three key elements.
82 BYTE JANUARY 1997
Better Clients, Better
Sales Year to date ($millions)
Decisions . .. 91
Without proper end-user tools for data access and
Eectronics
Ql
Q2
Q3
Q4
By clicking on a category, you can expand the entry to see greater levels of detail.
VCR Camconier
TV
$1 .4 $0.6 $2.0
analysis, a warehouse
CD Player
$1.2
may be shuttered.
Products
Q2 Q3
Electronics SS.2
Toys
Sl.9
CloU1ing
52.3
3 Next, you'll add on-line analytical processing IOLAPJ tools that let end users pivot, drill down, and perfonn other " slicing and dicing" operations to analyze the data.
Business intelligence tool alternatives
· Querying and reporting programs · Executive infomiation systems · Data mining applications
Take Your Data to the Cleaners ... 97
44S2
"Dirty" data is dangerous. Custom
3458
scripts and specialized cleansing
8520
tools provide safety nets.
Customer ID# Name
3458
4 Responsiveness and flexibility are useless if you're
analyzing Incorrect or misleading data. A high-end data
cleansing program, with scripts that impose your understanding of
your business onto the data, provides the finishing touch.
Data-cleansing alternatives
· Custom "scrubbing" scripts · Data validation tools · Cleaning, transfonnation, synchronization software
r
An efficient data warehouse
JANUARY 1 !197 UYI E 8J
MORE DEVELOPERS PROTECT.
:;,~~=~:~, ,;,-1MPROORTEECTS
2
tuetcilhinzoinlogg2y5,0H0A-gSaPtep,acl.k5s-mtheicmroonsEt adva·n,c._e.d--· protection into the smallest key in the world.
NSTL Study Rates ·
HASP No.1!
·····
Arecent test conducted by tl1e National Software
lesling Labs, the world's foremost independent
lab, compared tl1e flagship products of leading
software protection vendors.* The result? HASP
was rated the clear overall winner-and number
one in all the major comparison categories.
These days, more and more developers are choosing to protect tl1eir software against piracy. They're protecting more products, on more platforms, with better protection - and selling more as a result.
And more of these developers are protecting with HASP. Why? Because HASP offers more security, more reliability and more features than any other product on the market.
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Scoring Category Secu ri ty Etcie uf Leaming
Aladdin HASP
9.3 9.1
Rainbow Sentinel
6.3
7.1
environments, OS/2, DOS, Mac, Power Mac, NEC, UNIX and Li\Ns.
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Ease of Use
8.3
7.2
Versatilit¥/Features 10
8.7
Compatibility
6.7
6.5
Speed of API Calls 0.9
1.2
Final Score
8.5 6.5
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Circle 129 on Inquiry C ard (RESELLERS: 130).
Successful data warehouses start when you choose
and successfully integrate three key elements. ByJay-Louise Weldon
Warehouse Cornerstones
ssembling the bricks and mor tar of a conventional ware house looks easy compared to integrating the server hard ware and DBMSes that frame a data ware house. On the hardware side, you must mix and match server platforms and con figurations while deciding how to take advantage ofalmost-constant leaps in raw processing power. On the sofrware side, the complexity and high cost of DBMSes force you to make tough decisions and inevitable trade-offs with regard to inte gration issues, support requirements, per formance, efficiency, and reliability. What if you choose incorrectly? Your data warehouse becomes an enterprise wide problem that is difficult to work around, expensive to fix, and hard to jus tify. To get your wnrehouse implemen tation off to a successful start, you need to focus on three key building blocks: the overall warehouse architecture, the serv er architectures, and DBMSes. Here are some guidelines for making the right choices for your enterprise.
The Blueprint
Data-warehouse development begins with the logical and physical structure of the warehouse database plus the ser vices required to operate and maintain it. This choice drives the selection of the other two fundamental items: the server hardware and the DBMS.
The physical platform can be central ized in one location or distributed region ally, nationally, or internationally. One scheme for housing your company's data, which might be gathered from multiple internal and external sources, is to con solidate the database in one integrated data warehouse (see the figure "Ware house Foundation" above). The consol idated approach helps to maximize your available processing power. Asecond ap proach, the federated architecture, dis tributes information by function, with financial data on a server at one site, mar keting data at another location, and man
Co.'1JCll'll\e
Financial
Marfleting
ManufactUring
Distribution
A centralized data-warehouse architecture provides efficiencies in both processing power and support costs.
ufacturing data at a third venue (see the figure "Two Alternatives to a Cenrralized Architecture" on page 86).
The third approach, a tiered architec ture, houses highly summarized data on one user's workstation, with more detailed summaries on a second server, and the most detailed information on a third. The first-tier workstation handles most requests for data, with successively fewer requests passing on to tiers 2 and 3 for resolution. Computers at the first tier can be optimized for heavy user loads and low data volume, while servers at the other tiers are more adept at processing heavy data volumes but lighter user loads.
As you're deciding on a centralized or distributed warehouse structure, you also need to considerthe servers that will hold and deliver the data. The size of your im plementation-and your enterprise's needs for scalability, availability, and sys tems management-all influence your choice ofserver architecture (see the fig ure "Server Architectures" on page 86).
Single-processor servers are the easi
est to manage, but they offer limited pro cessing power and scalability. In addition, a single server presents a single point of failure, limiting the guaranteed availabil ity of the warehouse. You can expand sin gle-server networks via distributed archi tectures that make use of middleware, such as Distributed Computing Environ ment (DCE) or Common Object Request Broker Architecture {CORBA), to distrib ute traffic across multiple servers. These architectures increase availability as well, since operations can be shifted to a back up server if one server fails, but systems management is more complex.
Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) ma chines increase throughput by adding processors that share the server's inter nal memory and disk-storage devices. You can buy most SMP in minimal configura tions (i.e., with two processors) and up grade when necessary to handle growth in your processing needs. The scalability of an SMP machine reaches its limit at the maximum number of processors sup ported by the connection mechanisms
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 85
Warehouse Cornerstones
(i.e., the backplane and the shared bus) . A massively parallel processing {MPP)
machine connects an array of proces sors via a high-speed, high-bandwidth link. Each node is a server, complete with its own {possibly SMP) processor and internal memory. To optimize an MPP ar chitecture, applications must be "paral lelized" (i.e., designed to operate in sep arate, parallel pieces).
This architecture is ideal for searching large databases. However, the DBMS that
you select must be one that offers a par allel version. And even then, substantial design and tuning are required to achieve optimum data distribution and to prevent hot spots or data skew (where a dispro portionate amount of the processing is shifted to one processing node due to the partition of data under its control).
The difficulty of moving applications and DBMSes to clustered or truly paral lel environments has led to newer archi tectures, such as nonuniform memory
access (NUMA). NUMA creates a single, large SMP machine by connecting multi ple SMP nodes into a single (though phy sically distributed) memory pool and a single instance of the OS. NUMA allows the SMP approach to achieve the perfor mance benefits of large MPP machines (with 32 or more processors) while main taining the simplicity and management advantages of a standard SMP environ ment. Most appealing of all, existing DBMSes and applications can be moved
86 BYTE JANUARY 19 9 7
How DBMSes Compare
Feature/Function
Normalized structures
Al:>atract data~
.Parallelism M1.dtidimens'icmal struetures
Drill·~own
Relational
Super-RelaUonal MulUdlmenslonal MulUCllmenstonal ObJect·RelaUdlial
'(logl~I)
(physical)
· ·
· v'·yos
from single-processor or SMP platforms to NUMA with no modifications.
DBMS Decisions
Data warehouses (along with decision support systems [DSSes] and client/serv er applications) were the first successes for the relational DBMS (RDBMS). While most operational systems were legacy applications mired in old data structures, warehouses and DSSes capitalized on RDBMS for their flexibility and ability to perform ad hoc queries.
RDBMSes are most flexible when they are used with a normalized data structure. In a normalized database, data structures are nonredundant and represent the basic entities and relationships described by the data (e.g., products, markets, and sales transactions). Buta typical on-line analyt ical processing (OLAP) query that crosses several structures ("How many blue wid gets did we sell in stores in the Midwest?") requires several join operations to put such data back together. The performance
oftraditional RDBMSes is better for key based queries ("Find customer account #1234") than for content-based queries ("Find all customers with income over $50,000 who have bought an automo bile in the last six months").
To support large-scale warehouses and improve responsiveness for OLAP appli cations, vendors have added new features to the traditional RDBMS. These so-called super-relational features include support for specialized database hardware, such as the Teradata database machine. Su per-relational features also support ex tensions to storage formats and relation al operations (offered by vendors such as RedBrick) and specialized indexing schemes, such as those used by Sybase IQ. These techniques can improve perfor mance for content-based retrievals by pre joining tables using indexes or through the use of fully inverted index lists.
Most data-warehouse-access tools ex ploit the multidimensional nature of warehouse data. For example, marketing analysts need to look at sales volumes by product, by market, by time period, by promotions and advertising levels, and by combinations of these different as pects. Structuring data in a traditional relational database to facilitate queries and analyses along different dimensions (e.g., star or snowflake schemata) has become commonplace. These schemata might use multiple tables and pointers to simulate a multidimensional structure. Some DBMS products, such as Essbase and Gentium, implement storage tech niques and operators that support multi dimensional data structures.
While multidimensional databases (MDDBs) help you directly manipulate multidimensional data objects (e.g., the easy rotation of data to view along dif ferent dimensions, or drill-down oper ations that successively expose more-
detailed levels of data), you must identify these dimensions when building the data base structure. Thus, adding a new di mension, or changing the views desired, can be cumbersome and costly. Some MDDBs require a complete reload of the database when restructuring occurs.
New Dimensions
A limitation of both RDBMS and MDDB is a lack of support for nontraditional data types, such as images, documents, and video/audio clips. If you need these types of objects in your data warehouse, look to an object-relational DBMS, such as ln formix's Illustra. Focused on coded data values, most database systems can accom modate these data types only with some what-awkward reference-based exten sions, such as pointers to files containing the objects. Many RDBMSes store com plex data as binary large objects (BLObs). In this format, the objects cannot be in dexed, sorted, or searched by the server.
Object-relational DBMSes, on the oth er hand, store complex data as native ob jects and can support the extensive data structures found in an object-oriented en vironment. These database systems nat urally accommodate not only special data types but also the processing methods that are unique to each (e.g., a COMPARE operation on a picture might return an other picture with similar features) .
But a disadvantage to the object-rela tional approach is that the encapsulation of data within special data types-a series of stock prices over time in each row of a stock table, for example-requires spe cialized operators for what were previous ly simple searches (e.g., "Find all stocks that showed a decline in price from April to May 1996").
DBMS selection is also ried to the serv er hardware you use . Some RDBMSes, such as DB2 Parallel, lnformix XPS, and
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 87
Warehouse Cornerstones
..
-
-
. - -
-
-
-
- -- . - - ~-
.
Data-Warehouse Decision Matrix
f6.r ,tlles&.e~vironr_n~nt5 ...
BusJ11ess reQulrementS 'usehio'pulati~n
~cop,e: departme.nfal , Small; l,J$e5: data'analysis ;,single location
'Systems support
.Minimal local;. average central
Choose .. ·
Atchltectur~
, , Consoliqatep; turn Rey package
Server
Si.ngle-processor orSMP
DBMS, ty1DDB
,S,c:Qp~: d~p!}rtmer;tal
Uses: analysis plus·
informational
' ····-i;···
;Jarge; .sinalysts at '.single location; infomiational users dispersed
,Minimal loc~I;. average.central
Tie.reg; ·detail·at central;
summary at local
Clustered SMP for central: .SP or SMP for local
RDBMSfor centrai; MDDB for local
SC(lpe: enterprise ~ses: i:iiialysis plus infql'll)ational
Se,,9pe:
.'
departmental
Uses: explora,tory
Large; geographically Strong cent~! <>dispersed
':·small; few sites
Strong central
q&ntra,li~ed "' ·~
96rifr~nzed
Clustered SMP MPP
Object,relational; Web support:
RDBMSwith parallel support
Oracle Parallel, offer versions that sup port parallel operations, Parallel software splits queries, joins across multiple pro cessors, and runs these operations simul taneously to improve performance.
Parallelism is required for the best per formance on large MPP and clustered SMP servers. It's nor yet an option with MDDBs or object-relational DBMSes.
The table "How DBMSes Compare" on page 87 summarizes the pros and cons of the different types of DBMSes for ware house operations. The table "Data-Ware house Decision Matrix" above contains some examples of how these decision cri teria affect the choice of a server/data warehouse architecture.
Piecing It Together
To select the right combination of server architecture and DBMS, you first need ro understand your company's business requirements, its user population, and the skills of the support staff.
Data-warehouse implementations vary considerably in scope. Some are de signed to support specific analysis needs for a single department or functional area of an organization, such as finance, sales, or marketing. Other implementations bring together data from across the en tire enterprise to support a variety of user groups and functions. As a general rule, the broader the scope of the warehouse, the more power and functionality re quired of the server and DBMS.
Warehouse-usage patterns are also a factor. Prestructured queries and report views often satisfy informational users while exacting fewer demands on the DBMS and the processing power of the
server. Complex analysis, which is typi cal of decision-support environments, re quires more power and flexibility from all server components. Massive searches of large data warehouses favor parallel ism in both DBMS and server.
Dynamic environments, with their ever-changing requirements, are served best by a simple, easily changeable data architecture (e.g., a highly normalized relational structure) rather than an intri cate structure that requires rebuilding af ter every change (e.g., a multidimension al structure). The required data-refresh rate indicates how responsive the data warehouse must be to new and chang ing data. Large data volumes that are re freshed at frequent intervals favor a phys ically centralized architecture to support efficient data capture and minimize data transport time.
A user profile should identify who your data warehouse's users are, where they're located, and how many you need to sup port. Information about how each group expects to use warehouse data will help you analyze the various usage styles.
Knowing the physical location of your users helps you determine how and to what extent you need to distribute ware house data. A tiered architecture might use servers already in place on LANs. Or you may need a centralized approach to support mobile workers who tap into the warehouse from their laptops.
The total number of users and their connection patterns determine the size ofyour warehouse servers. Memory sizes and 1/0 throughput must support the anticipated number of concurrent users under normal conditions as well as at
peak usage times at your organization. Finally, you must factor in support
staff sophistication. The IS resources that are available within your organization might limit the complexity or sophisti cation of your server architecture. With out skilled in-house staff or outside con sultants, an architecture that requires server-platform parallelism (MPP or clus tered SMP, for example) is difficult to cre ate and maintain successfully.
Expansion Plans
As your warehouse matures and the data it contains becomes more accessible, em ployees outside the warehouse might also discover the value of its data. By linking your data warehouse to other systems both internal and external to the organi zation-you can share information with other business entities with little or no custom development. E-mail messages, Web servers, and imranet/lnternet con nections can deliver inventory levels to your suppliers or order status to your busi ness partners.
As data warehouses continue to grow in sophistication and usability, the data accumulated within an enterprise will become more organized, more intercon nected, more accessible, and more gen erally available to more employees. The result? Better business decisions, more business opportunities, and a more en lightened work force. Iii
Jay-Louise Weldon (New York, NY) heads the Data Warehouse Practice within the U.S. East ern region ofMCI Systemhouse, a global-sys tems-integration firm. You can contact her at Jweldon@shl.com.
88 BYT E JANUARY 1997
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Without the proper end-user tools for data access and analysis, your data warehouse may be shuttered. By Alan Simon
Better Clients, Better Decisions
ou know it's there. Buried in gigabytes of marketing data or point-of-sale transactions lies the key information about an important customer trend or a suc cessful product launch. Now all you have to do is extract it in a way that informs the decision at hand. You need a specialized tool that lets you capture the relevant data quickly and view it across many different data dimen sions. The tool shouldn't stop at merely accessing data-it should also give you a way to meaningfully analyze the data; in effect, transforming raw data into useful business information. Business intelligence tools sit on top of the data warehouse and provide this ser vice. Because they're the main point of contact between your warehouse appli cation and the people who use it, these tools also can be the difference between a warehouse's success or failure. Business intelligence tools have become the suc cessor to decision support systems, but they have a broader scope: They not only support decision making but, in many cases, these tools support operational, mission-critical functions of the compa ny, too. However, business intelligence products aren't foolproof: You get the most out of your data warehouse only as long as you match the right tool to the needs of each end user.
Beyond Queries
The simplest of these tools are basic querying and reporting products. They provide grap hical front ends to SQL generators (or, more accurately, database access-call generators). Rather than requiring you to learn SQL or write a pro gram to access database information, the querying tool lets you point-and-click menus and buttons to specify data ele ments, conditions, grouping criteria, and other attributes ofan information request (see the figure "A View to Your Data" above). The query tool then generates a database call, extracts the relevant data,
$5.2
$1.9
$2.3
$1.1
EJeCtronics $8.9
:roys
$.75
$4.6
:$1.5
OLAP tools let you drag relevant categories like "Stores" and "Products" to a blank grid to build custom views of your data.
performs additional calculation and data manipulation if necessary, and presents the resu lts in a clear format.
You can store queries and report requests for subsequent submission, either as is or with modifications. Statis tical processing is usually limited to aver ages, summations, standard deviations, and other basic analysis functions. Although the capabilities vary from one product to another, querying and report ing tools are most appropriate when you need an answer to the question "What happened?"-as in " How do last month's sales for products X, Y, and Z compare with the previous month's sales
and the same month's sales last year?"
To make queries more accessible to
nontechnical people, products like Sea
gate's Crystal Reports, Cognos'
Impromptu, Borland's Reportsmith, IQ
Software's Intelligent Query, Software
AG's Esperam, and Andyne's GQL offer
graphical interfaces for drag-and-drop
selections. The more advanced of these
products will steer you away from queries
that have bad syntax or that return unin
tended results. Access ro data has also
improved with new versions of these
products as vendors ship standard drivers
such as ODBC and native 32-bit drivers to
popular data sources.
continued
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 91
Better Clients, Better Decisions
In general, data warehouse managers who are going to use these types of prod ucts should be prepared to spend time resolving setup tasks like managing direc tories and libraries, installing connectiv ity software, establishing English-like names, and precalculating "virtual data fields." Once you create your SQL front end, you may need to develop a set of standard queries and reports, although some products offer libraries of prebuilt templates and predefined reports that you can quickly modify.
TwoWays to Slice and Dice Data
On-Line Analysis
Report generators fall short when end users need more than a single, static view of data that is not subject to further manipulation. For these users, on-line analytical processing (OLAP) tools pro vide "slice and dice" capabilities that go beyond answering "what happened?" to analyzing why the results are the way they are (see "Two Ways to Slice and Dice Data" at right). The first OLAP solutions were based on multidimensional data bases (MDDBs). A structural cube (dubbed a hypercube or a multidimen sional array) stored the data so you could manipulate it intuitively and clearly see the associations across multiple dimen sions. Pioneering products such as Arbor Software's Essbase directly support the various views and dimensional manipu lations required by OLAP.
But the MDDB approach has two lim itations. First, new data-storage struc tures require proprietary databases. There are no truly open standards for accessing multidimensional data. Ven dors such as Arbor saw this as an oppor tunity to create de facto standards by pub 1is hi ng MDDB APls, encouraging third-party tools, and establishing strate gic partnerships. Many third-party query tools and data-mining solutions directly
Some tools pivot data: Here sale~ data moves ~ide by s,ide for
easier comparison.
Drilling down presents increasingly detailed levels
of data.
support Essbase, Oracle Express, and the data warehouse directly using stan
other popular MDDB formats. Com dard SQL calls. The front-end tools let
mander OLAP, Comshare's client/server you submit multidimensional requests,
tool, sits on top of an Essbase multidi but the ROLAP engine transforms the
mensional data store and supports queries into SQL routines. You then
dynamic access and manipulation of data. receive cross-tabulated results as a mul
The second limitation of MDDB con tidimensional spreadsheet or in some
cerns populating the data structure. Com other form that supports rotating, drilling
panies typically store enterprise data in down, and slicing.
relational databases, which means that Even with a data pump, developing
someone has to extract, format, and load and populating the MDDB structure can
this data into the hypercube. This process be challenging. ROLAP administrators
can be complex and rime-consuming but, must face the sometimes daunting task of
again, vendors are searching for solu developing the SQL routines to aggregate
tions. Data pumps and other tools auto and index ROLAP data as well as to ensure
mate the process by mapping relational correct translation of multidimensional
fields into the multidimensional structure requests into SQL command sets.
and populating the MDDB on-the-fly.
Advocates of ROLAP argue that it uses
Some vendors are now evangelizing open standards (SQL) and that it makes
relational OLAP (ROLAP), which taps into atomic (detail-level) data more readily
-
~
- ~
Choose the Right Tool
ToollYpe
Queryln_g and reporting
On·llne analytical processing (OLAP) Executive Information system (EIS) Data mining
Basic Questio n "What happened?"
"What happened,
and why?"
"What do I need to
know now?"
"Wl1at's interesting?";
"What might happen?"
Sample Output
Montlily sales reports; inventory histories Monthly sales vs. competitors' price changes
Briefing books; command centers Predictive models
lYPlcal User
Needs historical data; may have limited technical prowess Needs to go from stalic views of data to "slicing and dicing"; technically astute
Needs high-level or summarized information; may not be technically astute Needs to extract obscure data relationships and trends; technically astute
92 BYTE JANUARY 1997
Better Clients, Better Decisions
accessible. On the other hand, advocates of MDDB arg ue th at a native multi dimensional strucrure achieves better per formance and flexibility once you popu late the data store. The good news is that both of these technologies are maruring rapidly, and either can provide a strong OLAP solution. Some product examples are Cognos' PowerPlay, Business Objects' software of the same name, Brio Tech nology's BrioQuery, and MicroStrategy's DSS Agent/DSS Server suite.
The administrative and development challenges of OLAP, while similar to those encountered with query and report ing tools, are generally more complex. Set ting up the OLAP and the data access soft ware requires a clear understanding ofthe corporation's data models and the analyt ical functions required by executives, man agers, and other data analysts. Commer cial development products can ease the pain, butOLAP is rarely a rumkey solution; the architecrure must be runed to support your data sources and requirements. But once you've setup an 01.AP system, ongo ing end-user support is minimal.
For the Busy Executive
The concept ofthe executive information system (EIS) is simple: Executives have neither the time nor, in many cases, the expertise to perform OLAP analysis of large volumes of data. The EIS presents simplified, highly consolidated, and mostly static views of the data.
There are two major categories of EIS environments: the briefing book and the command center. The briefing book is an electronic, on-line version of its paper counterpart that many executives use in staff meetings. Electronic slides present a concise picture ofan organiza tional initiative or perhaps data to reveal the current starus of a major project.
The command center is basically a col lection of ports into a wide array of reports, newsgroup retrievals from the Internet, and other materials that provide insight into the organization. Command center reports may be accessed daily, or more often if information changes fre quentl y, or only when exceptions war rant. Some products generate alarms when specified exceptions occur.
When appropriate, each briefing-book slide or command-center screen should permit the executive to·receive addition al information ifdesired (and ifavailable). Unlike the 01.AP model, where increas
ing levels of information are revealed as the analyst manipulates the data, an exec utive expects the overview up front. He or she should not have to dig for answers. Therefore, when the executive requests more information from bri efing-book slides or command-center screens, the display should be carefully constructed to present primarilysupplemental, ampli fying information. The executive should be able to bypass every prompt for " more information" without missing any criti cal information.
Savvy executives may administer their own briefing book and command center, or administrators could maintain and modify the EIS according to the execu tive's specifications. EISes typically have a programming or scripting capability that will vary in complexity from one product to another. Pioneers in the EIS market include Comshare, makers of Commander EIS, and Pilot Software, developers of Pilot Command Center.
Digging for Data
Data mining is a category of open-end ed analysis tools. Instead of asking them questions, you hand these tools reams of data and ask for something "interest ing" in return-a trend or a peculiar grouping, for instance. The process of data mining extracts hidden knowledge or predictive information from the data warehouse without requiring specific questions or requests.
Mining tools use some of the most advanced computing techniques-neural networks, rule discovery, deviation detec tion, predictive modeling, and genetic pro gramming-to derive patte rns and asso ciations. Mining is a data-driven, rather than an application-driven, approach.
LBM's Intelligent Miner for AIX sup ports sophisticated mining techniques as well as data preparation function s to
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The Right Fit
There are some obvious rules to follow when choosing analysis tools. Match tools to end-user needs, corporate tech nical expertise, and your existing data sources. Ifyou selected a warehouse ven dor that also offers integrated tools, you will probably save significant develop ment time by choosing a compatible tool set. Otherwise, select a tool set that sup ports your data sources natively. Without such support, you should opt for a rela tional OLAP solution since it does provide a more open architecrure.
After you've selected a tool set com patible with your data sources, determine how much analysis you really need. If you just need to know "how much" or "how many," a basic query and reporting tool should be sufficient. If you require more advanced analysis that explains the cause and effect ofoccurrences and trends, look to an OLAP solution. Sophisticated data mining tools require expertise in data analysis techniques and are needed for advanced forecasting, classi fication, and pattern discovery.
As \vi th any technology, no single solu tion or set of solutions can make your company perform better. Your staff must understand the requirements of technol ogy, develop custom solutions that meet those requirements, and effectively main tain and upgrnde the systems. Business intelligence software is only a tool. You still need managers and executi ves who can grasp the knowledge derived and make insightful decisions. In other words, business intelligence software still
m requires basic business intelligence.
Alan Simon is the tech110/ogy ma11ager(or data warehousing at CoreTech Consulting Group (King ofPrussia, PA). He's author ofStrategic Database Technology: Management for the Year 2000 (Morga11 Kau(ma11, 1995). Yo11 ca11 reach him at aslmon@coretech-group.com.
94 BYTE JANUARY 1997
Columbus, 0 hi 0 ...
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You'll Stay fora Better tile
Robin Lawton's ship has brought her to Columbus - where she plans to stay for quite some time. She can pick just about any job she wants in any city in the country. Lucky for us, she chose Banc One Services Corporation , the data processing corporation for one of the nation's leading financial institutions.
Robin traded Broadway for Broad Street. She's lived in Columbus longer than any other city and has discovered a new career and a city with higher salaries, a lower cost of living and lots of things to do.
It's ayoung city with a long history of trying what's new. On-line information services were invented here and almost 300 software companies call Columbus home.
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Circle 231 on Inquiry Card.
"Dirty" data is dangerous. Custom scripts and specialized cleansing tools provide safety nets. By Mike Hurwicz
Take Your Data to the Cleaners
arbage in, garbage out: It's one of the oldest rules of pro gramming. No matter how well a program is designed or how skillfully it's used, if you feed it bad information you're going to get incorrect or misleading results. Unfortunately, even data that's been used successfully in op erational Line-of-business applications might be garbage as far as your data-ware house application is concerned. "Dirty" data can result from an inno cent slip of a data-entry clerk's fingers (e.g., "Snadra White Enterprises" instead of "Sandra White Enterprises") or from a number of other causes (see the figure "Nine Reasons to DistrustYour Data" at right}. No matter what the cause, dirty data damages the credibility of an entire warehouse implementation. Fortunately, data-cleansing tools can help. In some cases, you might be able to create an effective cleansing script your self. Commercial tools, on the other hand, might be mandatory if your database is large or especially inaccurate and incon sistent. Deciding which tool to use is im portant, and not only for the sake of data integrity. If you choose the wrong ap proach, you cou ld squander weeks of programming resources or hundreds of thousands of dollars in tool costs.
Data Cleaning
Cleaning up dirty data is a complex, mul ti faceted process that starts with an anal ysis of your corporate data to uncover inaccuracies, anomal ies, and other prob lems. You then must transform the data to make sure it's accurate and consistent ly represented. Next comes the step of ensuring referential integrity, the ability of the data warehouse to correctly iden tify every instance of every business ob ject, such as a product, a customer, or an employee. Next, you validate the data using the data-warehouse application to perform test queries.
After you're confident about the valid ity of your data, you need to produce
Nine Reas((ns to Dishust Your Data
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Data warehouses are often more vulnerable to inaccurate or inconsistent data than operational applications are.
metadata, a description of the data type, format, and business meaning of each field . Last comes the crucial step of doc umenting the whole process so you can more easily expand, modify, and repair the data in the future . In practice, you might have to perform multiple steps as
part of a single operation or when using a single tool. In particular, cleaning dara and ensuring referential integrity are in terdependent processes.
Commercial tools can help you with each of these steps. However, it 's possi ble to write your own programs to do the
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 97
Take Your Data to the Cleaners
job. For example, CompuCom Systems, a large Dallas-based systems integrator, implemented a 12-million-record, 10-GB warehouse for internal decision support and for customers to view order-status and product information via the Web.
CompuCom implemented some data enhancement routines in the fourth-gen eration language (4GL) associated with its Progress database, which runs on an HP 9000. Enhancement includes decod ing values of columns into short English descriptions, or mnemonics. Data-scrub bing code, such as date and data-type con versions, was written in C. One advan tage of this approach is that CompuCom now owns these routines and can use them in other applications.
Users helped define the data-scrub bing requirements. "They know the data the best," says Tony Birrittier, data-ware house project manager at CompuCom. "They inform us about what type of dirty data is out there and how to clean it."
Birrittier says the company didn't go with a commercial cleansing tool because most of its data is in the same basic form; thus, the company can easily reuse the routines it writes. The main drawback has been the amount of development time typically about a week-needed to cre ate the routines. "We're having a difficult time keeping up with demand," Birrittier explains. "We've been looking at some [commercial] software packages, but we haven't found anything on the market that's a better fit here at CompuCom."
Some users have found that in-house data scrubbing takes too long to be prac tical. Ohio Casualty Insurance (Ham ilton, OH) experimented for two years with in-house cleansing, using COBOL programs, before turning to a commer cial tool, the Integrity Data Reengineer ing Tool from Vality Technology.
The Ohio Casualty data warehouse combines records associated with about 1 million personal insurance policies, in cluding auto and homeowner's policies. As a test run, the company started out with 3500 of its employees' policies.
"It's a total nightmare to try to pro gram for all situations that you might run across," says Susan Parsons, Ohio Ca sualty's data administrator. Even after spending a year developing generic ex tract/transform/load programs, it took another year, using COBOL programming and manual editing, to get the policy data usable for the warehouse.
98 BYTE JANUARY 19 9 7
The Vality Integrity Data Reengin eering Tool helps attack the first set of customer data-about 15,000 policies at the company's Denver business center. Although Ohio Casualty personnel still needed to comb through anomalies that the Vality product discovered, no pro gramming or manual editing of the data was required. The data was ready for the warehouse in about six weeks.
Intel (Hillsboro, OR) is an example of a company that has successfu lly done some in-house data cleaning, though against its will. Intel originally intended to outsource its data cleansing to a ser vice bureau, for a customer-contact ware house of approximately 1 million records
ysis and cleansing. Since new data was coming in all the time, some of the Ora cle cleansing routines were implement ed as stored procedures so that they could automatically be run against new data.
Intel would still like to outsource the data-cleaning task. However, the compa ny plans to keep it in-house until it finds an acceptable service bureau.
Many companies also turn to consul tants for custom solutions. For instance, CrediCard (Sao Paulo, Brazil), a large credit-card issuer in South America, got data-scrubbing and enhancement tools as part of a data-warehouse implementa tion by Market Knowledge, a subsidiary of Equifax. CrediCard's marketing per-
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The cleansing tools within warehouse management software, like
Prism's, may be enough to solve anomalies in your database.
taken from five operational systems. The service bureau promised to identify re lationships among various groups with in customer companies. In addition, the bureau would provide industry informa tion for customer organizations, such as number of employees, revenues, and growth, which would be valuable to In tel's sales and marketing people. Unfor tunately, the service bureau did not do a perfect job of identifying relationships among customers because some contact people became associated with the wrong companies.
Intel took the tape it got back from the service bureau and then ran the data through the SAS statistical-analysis pack age, from the SAS Institute, to identify and correct problems with the relationships in the top 10 groupings (i.e., those with the most companies in a single relation ship hierarchy). The company then used Oracle database tools to do further anal
sonnet use approximately 200 custom routines to perform cleansing operations, such as removal of bad or useless data, correction of bad values, and standard ization of varying formats. In addition, they can enhance data by performing such operations as correcting monetary amounts for inflation and devaluation, creating a virtual age field based on a per son's birth date, and appending census data to incoming records.
These custom routines (e.g., inflation correction) are particularly suited to Brazilian requirements. They are also designed foruse by nontechnical market ing personnel. The data-scrubbing rou tines, which are programmed as SQL commands, took only about three per son-weeks to create- a negligible por tion of a 2 ~-year project. (Data-enhance ment tools, which are more automated and more intelligent, represent about $120,000 of the total $840,000 job.)
continued
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Take Your Data to the Cleaners
Data-scru'Bbing scripts don't provide much intelligence, so firms need to man ually provide the decision-making, based on top-line and data-audit reports. Each time a new set ofdata is loaded, data scrub bing usually constitutes about 25 percent of what is perhaps a four-week process.
.Light Cleaning
Even if you decide not to program data cleansing functions yourselfor hire a con sultant to do a custom job, you may not need to buy a tool specifically for the task: Your data-warehouse management soft ware might do enough cleaning and val idation for your purposes. Many data warehouse projects rely on a product such as Warehouse Manager, from Prism Solutions, or Passport, from Carleton, for a range of data-warehouse management tasks, including extracting data from operational databases, preparing data for loading into a warehouse database, and managing metadata. These products, which cost from $75,000 to more than $200,000, depending on the size and com plexity of the project, can also do clean ing, transformation, and validation.
For instance, Emory University (At lanta) does all the data cleansing for its 6-GB warehouse with COBOL programs generated by the Prism Warehouse Man ager. In addition to having typical prob lems, such as multiple date formats, data often contains uninitialized fields that hold arbitrary values. Two staff members spend as much as 4 hours a day working on data-cleansing tasks. Emory has con sidered using specialized data-cleansing tools, but the school is eliminating dirty data well enough now that it doesn't see enough additional value in other commer cial products to justify the cost, accord ing to Barbara Germon, manager of the data-resources group.
However, there's a good chance that the aforementioned tools from Prism and Carleton won't do all the cleaning you need. They might be able to deal with common anomalies that can be handled through simple lookup tables (e.g., rec ognizing that Street and St. represent the same information), but they might not deal successfully with more impor tant and unpredictable irregularities. "It's worth doing some testing," says Wayne Eckerson, a senior consultant at the Pa tricia Seybold Group in Boston, Massa chusetts, "but these tools are not designed to do 'heavy-lifting' types of cleaning."
With Apertus's Enterprise/Integrator, you impose your firm's business rules on a database to wipe out anomalies in the data.
If the data that requires cleaning con sists predominantly of names (including company names) and addresses, compa nies such as Harte-Hanks Communica tions and Innovative Systems provide not only software tools but periodically up dated data files to help match variants of company names, detect ZIP codes that don't match the addresses provided, and deal with similar anomalies. These tools might be appropriate where, for instance, fields other than those for names and addresses are either known to be correct (e.g., contract dollar amounts that have been validated by accounting) or contain free-form information that will never be used as a key or index (e.g., salespeople's contact notes).
Name-and-address-oriented solutions can cost anywhere from $30,000 to more than $200,000, depending on the size of the data warehouse in question . In ad dition, an extract/transform/load (ETL) tool, such as Warehouse Manager or Pass port, is also needed.
The Heavyweights
For extensive cleaning jobs, consider tools that are developed forthattask. Two top contenders are Enterprise/Integra tor, from Aperrus Technologies, and Val ity 's Integrity Data Reengineering Tool.
Enterprise/Integrator takes a top-
down approach, in which you have to pro vide the rules for cleaning the data. This is a straightforward strategy, where you impose your understanding about your business on the data. For instance, do you wish to treat a string of Martha's Fried Chicken franchises as a single customer with multiple addresses? Or, for the pur poses ofthe data warehouse, does it make sense to substitute a single central address for the different franchise addresses? Or would you like to treat the franchise loca tions as entirely different customers? This decision determines how you aggregate or consolidate these records and whether you treat differing addresses for Martha's Fried Chicken as anomalies.
Enterprise/Integrator offers not just data cleaning, but also extraction, trans formation, data loading, replication, syn chronization, and metadata manage ment. It's fairly expensive ($130,000 to $250,000), but it can be a money-saver if it eliminates the need for other data warehouse management tools.
The main disadvantage to Enterprise/ Integrator's top-down approach is that you have to know, or be able to deduce, the data-cleansing and business rules. Apertus provides samples to work from, which deal with many common anom alies and business structures. Still, creat ing rules is time-consuming, and you're
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Take Your Data to the Cleaners
sure to find some unexpected anomalies. These can be handled manually through an exception-handling system-but it's a time-consuming process.
Vality's Integrity Data Reengineering Tool takes a bottom-up approach. It ana lyzes the data character by character and automatically surfaces patterns and busi ness rules. Integrity then provides a data "blueprint" to help standardize, condi tion, and consolidate the data. This ap proach tends to leave fewer exceptions to be handled manually, and the process tends to be less time-consuming.
Like Enterprise/ Integrator, Integrity can take into account business relation ships that aren't obvious from the data, such as mergers and acquisitions that have taken place since the data was created. But with either tool, these rules must be imposed in a top-down fashion.
Integrity focuses exclusively on data cleansing, starting from flat files. It does not extract data from operational data bases, load data into the warehouse data base, replicate and synchronize data, or manage metadata. Therefore, in addition to typically costing $250,000, Integrity
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might also require a tool like Warehouse Manager or Passport. But the simple ex traction/ load utilities available with the database might be sufficient for you.
Facing the Threat
Dirty data is a serious threat to the suc cess of a data-warehouse project. De pending on the extent of the problem, it simply might not be possible to address
WHERE TO FIND
Apertus Technologies, Inc. Eden Prairie, MN
(800) 328-3998 (612) 828-0300
fax: (612) 828--0454
http://www.apertus.com
Carleton Corp.
Burlington, MA
(617) 272-4310
fax:(617)272~2910
Harte-Hanks Communications; Inc.
Billerica, MA (508) 663-9955 fax: (508) 667-7297 .http://www.hartc-hanks.com
lnnovatiye Systems. Inc. Pittsburgh, PA
(800) 622-6390 (412) 937-9300
fax:.(412) 937-9309
M·arket Knowledge, Inc. Lombard, IL
(630) 629-8200
http://www.mki.com
Prism Solutions, Inc.
. Sunnyvale, CA
(800) 995-2928 (408) 752-1888 fax: (408) 752-1875 http://www.prismsotutions.com
SAS Institute, Inc.
Cary, NC (919) 677-8000
fax: (919) 677-4444
http://www.sas.com
Vality Technology
·. Boston,MA
(617) 338-0300 ., _f~x: l617) .338-0338
it quickly, inexpensively, and well. In-house programming takes time; se
rious tools are expensive. Warehouse proj ect managers need to realistically assess the problem, and the in-house resources available to deal with it, and select the so lution that fits the schedule and the bud get of the project-or modify the sched
ule and the budget to fit the problem. Iii
Mike H1m11icz is a freelance writer based in New York City. ¥011 can reach him by sending e-mail to mhurwlcz@attmall.com.
102 BYTE JANUARY 1997
Circle 138 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS : 139) .
A trekkie
A kid - in a candy store on board the Enterprise
You - at JavaSoft
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THE NETWORK IS THE COMPUTER"
h t t p ·· I I j a v a · 5 u n · c 0 m
Big Screens for
Big Jobs
A big, high-quality display
can make a long day shorter.
We test 38 monitors.
By Dorothy Hudson,
Jim Kane, and
John McDonough
tshouldn'ttake a case of eye strain or even undue scroll ing to justify a good monitor these days. With some high quality 17-inch displays now selling for around $700, there's no reason why any computer professional can't enjoy more panoramic views of spreadsheets and Websites. At prices hovering around $2000, larg er, 19- to 21-inch screens are still reserved for desktop-publishing, imaging, graph ics, and CAD applications. But even with these higher-end monitors, prices aver age several hundred dollars lower than when we last looked at 21-inch displays (see "20 Big-Picture Monitors," January 1996 BYTE). For this hands-on Lab Report, we test ed 38 professional-quality monitors with nominal 17- to 21-inch screen diagonals. We ran the lot through NSTL's battery of screen-quality tests using side-by-side comparisons; evaluated ease of use and feature sets; and measured power con sumption. The monitors fell into two size classes: 17-inch and 19- to 21-inch. For the 17-inch group, the average price is around $850; for the 19-to 21-inch class, the average price is just under $2000.
Picture Quality
We asked companies to send us monitors that were capable of achieving at least a 75-Hz refresh rate at 1280- by 1024-pix el resolution. (As it turned out, not all the models that we tested were able to do this.) The higher the refresh rate, the less likely you are to suffer from the eye strain and headaches that perceived flick er can induce. While some people are more sensitive to flicker than others are,
75 Hz is high enough for most people. Larger monitors should have higher
refresh rates because more of the image appears in your flicker-sensitive periph eral vision. Cornerstone's Color 50/115 and ViewSonic's P815 can both support an 87-Hz vertical-refresh rate at 1600 by 1200 resolution-if you can find a graph ics card that's able to drive that high a pix el rate. (We didn't test the monitors at this resolution.) These two monitors do this by pushing scanning frequencies to new
BEST
Best 17-inch: Art Media TN·1885T
Best21 -inch: NSA/Hitachi SuperScan Elite 802
These two monitors provided the best combination of display quality, features, usability, and price in their
respective size classes.
levels-up to a 115-kHz horizontal scan rate and a 250-MHz video bandwidth (see the Tech Focus on page 105). Both mon itors support an amazing 1800 by 1440 screen resolution. But supporting these rates is electronically challenging, which accounts for the monitors' high prices (around $2200).
Different monitors often have the same picture-rube manufacturer; approximate ly two-thirds of the tested models incor porate either Hitachi or Sony tubes, for example. But that doesn't mean that they provide the same image quality. The elec-
rronics that produce and control the im age-painting electron beams have a big effect on picture quality, and there can be great differences bet\veen designs that use the same tube.
In addition, there are two basic tube types that affect image appearance, based on the type of shadow mask used to make each beam strike the correct color phos phor dots (red, green, or blue). The most common tube type uses a metal screen (a thermally stable Invar alloy) that's laced with dots that correspond to similarly arranged phosphor dots on the inside of the glass screen. Also common is Sony's Trinitron design (now licensed by other companies), which employs an aperture grille-a vertical array ofwires stretched across the screen that shadows vertical lines of colored phosphor.
Some people prefer dot-shadow masks for their pixel uniformity, while others prefer aperture-grille designs for their high contrast. Overall, the aperture-grille rubes did well in our image-quality rests.
Electronics have also made monitors easier to use. Most models now have ad vanced controls with on-screen menus for adjusting the picture just the way you want it. You can often adjust such things as pincushioning, barrel distortion, and color matching. Some monitors even provide focus and convergence adjust ment, important because large monitors slip out of their best adjustment setting over time.
Power and Configuration
Large monitors use lots of power-more than any other device on your desktop. We measured power-consumption val ues ranging from 79.8 to 128.5 W, in ac
104 BYTE JANUARY 19 9 7
TUBE
The most
common type of tube
uses a dot mask made of
lnvar. a steel/nickel alloy
that keep s its shape w ith
lt ein.mn.opteror an·ttuyrpeecthuabnegseuss. e
.., a
...
..,
..,
verti cal array of tensed
' ..,
w ires to shadow the
screen phosphors-pre ·
venting the "red " electron
beam from hitting the
green and blue screen
phosphors, for example.
,,
SCREEN SURFACE ' Today's high-tech screen coatings reduce re flection and glare w ithout degrading image sharpness.
I I I I
CONTROLS A minimum of buttons should allow you to intuitively work through pop·up on·screen menus so that you can adjust just about anything that's adjustable.
This illustration is based on the Samsung Synchmaster 17G Lsi.
, DEFLECTION , ; SYSTEM/YOKE
--."''ri§tf:~1ff;~fr~:;,, ~~g§Jgt Aseriesofcoils
the field or frame scan.
.- DEGAUSSING COIL Wraps around the picture tube. The earth's magnetic pull and movement of the active display c ause the pie· lure tube to magnetize, result· ing in image distortion . When momentarily activated , the degaussing coil demagne· tizes th e pic ture tube.
Rear-Panel View
At higher scanning frequencies (i.e., high resolutions and refresh rates), coaxial cables th'at connect to BNC connectors provide c leaner video signals.
rive mode with a full Windows screen. All rested monito rs have built-in Video Elec tro nics Standards Association (VESA) Dis play Power Management System (DPMS) electronics, a fea ntre that allows the host system to switch th e mo nito r to a low power mode that consumes less than 30 W, or into a sleep mode, where the mo nitor consumes less than 8 W With few excep tio ns, we fo und that the monitors power down as adv ertised.
All tested monitors p rovide Windows
95 Plug and Play support, and we had no problems setting them up. Plug and Play monito rs support the Display Data Chan nel (DDC) specification, so th e mo nitor and the hosrcompurer's graphics card and OS can all communicate. Th e end res ult is that th e monito r can provide Win 95 with the resolution and refresh-frequen cy combinations it suppo rts, and you get the most flicker-free mode at agiven screen resolution.
In additio n to the standard 15-pin D sub cable interfa ce, some monitors have BNC connectors that accept video signals over a set o f coaxial cables, often o ne for each video signal (red, green, blue, verti
cal sy nc, and ho rizo ntal sy nc) . Coax ial cables reduce signal noise by shielding the video-input signals fr om each o ther and
from extra neous electromagnetic noise. If yo u use BNC cables, howeve r, you don't get Plug and Play.
FREQUENCIES
The Pause That Refreshes
scanning frequency (in kHz) and video band
Perusing a monitor's glossy Sf!CoCSheet and see width (in MHz) are reliable measures ofwha_t
ing that it supports 1600- by 1200-pixel res a monitor can do. Maximum horizontal scan
olution and refresh rates as high as 120 Hzdoes rate describes the rate at which a monitor can
not mean that you.can get that high resolu write rows of'pixels down the screen; .video tion at 1~O Hz. or.~n at asolid 80-Hz refresh bandwidth is.the rate (roughly) at which ·a
rate. The refresh rate that a.monitor can sup monitor can pump pixels onto its.screen su~
portgoe~ down ·
faee. Astlie ~
as the resolu Guideline Frequencies
olution goes up,
tion goes up. · Thumbnail specs for two high·resolution modes.
Whatyou need, and what some spee sheets pro
MODE
HORIZ.SCANRATE
1280 x 1024 (75 Hz) 1600 x 1200 (75 Hz)
85kHz 95kHz
BANDWIDTH
120MHz 200MHz
vide, is a list of
a monitor has to write more pixels (and rows of pixels) with every vertical
screen resolutions with their maximum refresh screen scan. The higher the vcrtical-refn:Sh
rates. But without this list. you can still gauge rate, the more times it has to paint that
a monitor's capabilities byexamining two other screenload ofpixels per second. Monitor spec
frequency specifications.
sheets don't always list supported video
While a monitor's maximum vertical-re modes. butthe'{alway5 supply scanning-fre
fresh frequency tells you little, the horizontal quency ranges.
JANUA RY 1997 B YTE 10 5
_J
p R0 FEs s
0 NAL
11
M0 N
T0 Rs
ear after year, monitor man ufacturers refine display qual ity while shaving off dollars from the price you pay for that quality. Electronics that are more sophis ticated and more integrated (which re duces the number ofparts) accountfor both trends. Electronics have also increased ease of use by allowing on-screen adjust ment control. While judging among the 38 monitors, we put a heavy weighting on display quality. You adjust a display only occasionally, but you look at it every day-usually for hours at a rime. The 17-inch monitors with the best picture quality in our tests were the Art Media TN-1 885T and the Nokia Display Products Multigraph 447Xi. Four 21
Wetested each monitor's image qual ity and power consumption using a 200-MHz Dell Dimension XPS Pro200n with a Number Nine Imagine 128Series II graphics card. When available, we used monitor-specific drivers, but otherwise we stuck with Windows 95 Plug and Play (VESA standard) settings. We scored image quality at 1024- by 768-pixel resolution for the 17-inch monitors and at 1280 by 1024 for the 19:- to 21-inch displays.
Under DOS, we tested image quality using Displaymate Professional 4.2 from Sonera Technologies ((800) 932-6323; http://www.displaymate.com). Tests in cluded color and gray-scale displays, blooming effects on color and black-and white text,moire patterns at multiple res olutions, consecutive text and graphics switching, and geometric display of rect angles and circles.
Under Win 95, we ran NSTL test soft ware to measure an image's sharpness, misconvergence, and legibility. We mea sured sharpness using 1-and 2- pixel-thick lines near the screen edges. We also dis played horizontal and vertical lines across the entire screen to judge a monitor's re solving capability.
inch monitors shined the greatest in our image-quality tests: Cornerstone Imag ing's Color 50/115, the NEC MultiSync Pl 150, NSA/Hitachi's SuperScan Elite 802, and the ViewSo nic P815. Not sur prisingly, these monitors had the high est refresh rates and exhibited the best corner and full-screen image sharpness, RGB convergence, and legibility in our benchmarks.
The Top 17-inch Monitors
We tested 24 17-inch monitors, ranging in price from $649 (for the Max Group's MGC 1785) to $1299 (for Eizo N anao's Flexscan TX-C7S). Some of the higher cost 17-inch monitors support 1600- by 1200-pixel resolutions, but unless you're
An optical gauge from Klein Optical Instruments ((503) 245-8166) allowed measurement of misconvergence. With three prisms, the instrument reconverges the red, green, and blue components of a white line displayed on the test mon itor. We calculated the amount of mis convergence from the amount of correc tion required ; the less misconvergence, the better.
In our legibility test, we displayed a document containing six TrueType fonts at sizes ranging from 4 to 14 points. We then judged the smallest point size at which each font remained both readable and legible from a normal distance.
Your monitor is the biggest power hog on your desktop. We rated each monitor's power use under Windows, measuring consumption in three states (active Win dows, blank screen-saver, and low-pow er) with a digital power meter.
Weighted factors in our features score include dot pitch, range of scanning fre quencies, number of display modes, con trols, and Energy Star compliance. The usability score took into account such fac tors as documentation, technical sup port,ease ofadjustment. and cable lengths.
doing CA D or similar high-resolution work, you'll probably find the text more readable- and the refresh rate high er-at 1024 by 786 resolution.
Several 17-inch monitors rose above the pack (though not by much) when we crunched the numbers from our image quality, power-management, features, and usabi lity tests. Th e Art Media TN 1885T ($1088) was rated highest among the 17-inch monitors, but severa l lower cost displays weren't far behind.
Next in the pecking order is Mitsubi shi's Diamond Pro 17TX ($ 849), which features a Mitsubishi-manufactured Dia mondtron CRT with a 0.25-mm slot pitch-aperture grille mask. The Diamond Pro 17TX produces well-focused images, and it has a fairly high 135-MHz video bandwidth that can drive 1280 by 1024 pixe ls at a 75-Hz refresh rate.
Mitsubishi's monitor gets high fea tures and usability ratings: Its on-screen display-control system provides extensive adjustments. It also comes with Mitsu bishi's Diamond Match Color Calibra tion System. Mitsubishi's other entry the Diamond Scan 17HX {$799)-is also a good buy that scored in our top five.
The Max Group's MGC 1785, one of the best 17-inch monitors, is also one of the lowest priced ($649). The MGC 1785's bright, clear disp lay is better than that of most of the 17-inch models we tested. It has a 0.26-mm-dot-pitch picture tube from Hitachi that delivers 1600 by 1200 resolution at 65 Hz, although we found the flicker-free 1024 by 768 mode more to our liking.
The MGC 1785 offers well-placed im age-adjustment controls with an easy-to peruse on-screen menu. Two other low er-cost monitors also deserve mention as good choices for home syste ms: LG Elec tronics' Studioworks 78i ($679)and KDS's VSX-7 ($649).
Another hot 17-inch monitor is No kia Display Products' Multigraph 447Xi ($899). This monitor produced the sec ond-best image quality among the 17 inchers: It's sharply focused and flick er-free at an 85-Hz refresh rate with a
1 06 BYTE J AN UAR Y 1997
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~~
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Xi Pro200 MTowF.R SP Nov. 1996
Xi P13l MTowrn SP
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Xi manufactures the J!Fastest 200MHz Workstations*
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Xi®Pl33/200 MTower SP
- Intel"' Pentium Processor 133 to 200MHz - 16MB 60ns EDO, 256KB SBP Cache - l.7Gl3 9ms IDE4 HD. 32 wavetablc sound - 3D Accellcrator 2 MB Video PCI MPEG - 4 CD bundle w/3D games, pad & PW spkrs
- 17" Optiquest .28dp 1280 x 1024NI
- l.44 FD, I04K Kb, 28 Logitech mouse - Xi 513ays Mini Tower Case 200W UL PS - Microsoli"' Windows'~ 95 CD, 8 x CD-ROM
13311661200: $17491$19991$2199
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- 200MHz Intel Pentium Pro Processor - 256KB int. SBP Cache. Intel 440FX CS - 16MB 60ns EDO RAM exp. to 768MB
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- 128-Bit MPEG STB 2.25MB MDRAM PCI - 17" Opti/Viewsonic .26dp 1600 x I280N I - l.44FD, 104K Kb, MS or Logitech Mouse - Xi ?Bays Mid Tower Case 235W UL PS - Microsoti Windows 95 CD. 8 x CD-ROM
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- Intel Pentium Pro Processor, 256K Int. SBC - 32M13 60ns EDO expandable to 1024MB - Dual Pentium Pro SMP ZIF Socker 8 - 2.0 IGB 9ms Ull rnWidc SCSl-3 40M B/scc - 128-Bit MPEG STB 2.25MB MDRAM PCI - 17" Opti/Viewsonic .26dp 1600 x I280N I - l.44FD, 104K Kb, MS or Logitech Mouse - Xi IOBays Full Tower Case 300W UL PS - Microsoft Windows NT 4.0. 8 x CD-ROM
One CPU: $3899 Two CPUs: $4589
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RESULTS
BE ST 17-INCH MONITO R Art Media TN-1885T The Art Media TN-1885T has the best image-quality score among the 17-inch monitors we tested, and that helped it take the category. The TN-1885T also gets high features and usability marks. Using its drop-down control panel, you can adjust almost anything, ranging from brightness to color tempei:ature.
Art MedlaTN-1 885T Milsubishi Diamond Pro 17TX Max Group MGC 1785 Nokia Multigraph 447Xi Mi1subishi Diamond Scan 17HX
PRICE SIZE
$1088 17 $849 17 $649 17 $899 17 $799 17
TECH NOLOGY IMPLEMENTATION PERFOR MANCE USABIUTY
**** ****
***** ****
**** ****
**** *****
***11 ****
**** *****
**** ****
***** **:It**
**** **~*
**** *****
FEATURES POWER ECONOMY
**** * ***** **11 **** **11* *** *** ***** *
OVERALL RATING
**** **** **** **** ****
BE ST 2 1-INCH MO NITOR NSA/Hitachi SuperScan Elite 802 NSA / Hitachi's SuperScan Elite 802 had the best image quality among the big-screen displays we tested, and its price is low. The monitor has a Hitachi lnvar shadow mask picture tube with a 0.26-mm dot pitch that sup ports 1600- by 1280-pixel resolutions at a 75-Hz refresh rate. The picture is supet-solid at 1280 by 1024 resolution, with 114-Hzredraws.
PR ICE SIZE
NSA/ Hltachl SuperScan Elita 102 $1899 20
ViewSonic P815
$2195 21
NEC MultiSync Pl 150
$2079 21
Cornerstone Color 50/115
$2265 21
Panasonic PanaSync S21
$1799 21
TECH NOLOGY
**** **** **** **** ****
IMPLEMENTATI ON PERFORMANCE USABI UTY
****
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FEATU RES POWER ECONOMY
*** *** *** *'* **** ***** *** ** *** *
*****Outstanding ****Very Good
***Good ** Fair
* Poor
OVERALL RATI NG
***11:
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resolution of 1024 by 768. T he Mulrigraph 447Xi has a Sony Trinitron 0.25-mm aper ture-grille rube and provides an on-screen menu for color-matching and adjusting any geometric distortions.
The Top 21-inch Monitors
The 14 21-inch monitors that we tested are obviously not just for the common task of viewing spreadsheets or word process ing documenrs. Many support 1600- by 1200-pixel and higher resolutions, which, on a 21-inch screen, are useful mainly for renderi ng detailed images for CAD users and for desktop publishers who need to clearly see a whole page or two when do ing layout and design. We gave NSA/Hi tachi's SuperScan Elite 802 the nod as our top 21-inch monitor, bur you should also check our the following displays.
The Viewsonic P815 ($2195) carries a high price rag, bur it supports extremely
high resolutions that CAD engineers and graphic designers with high-end graphics cards can push to the limits. This 0.25-mm dot-pitch monitor by far exceeds the needs of the average spreadsheet and word pro cessor user when set at its maximum res olution of 1800 by 1440. The big monitor has a fast 106-Hz refresh rate at the more standard resolution of 1280 by 1024, and its 250-Hz video bandwidth is one of the highest. The P815 received a high usability score because its conrrols are easy to use,
the monitor tilts and swivels smoothly, and
it comes with a good user's manual. NEC's MultiSync Pl 150 ($2079), which
was tied with Cornerstone Imaging's Col or 50/115 ($2265) for second-best overall image quali ty an10ngrhe 21-inch displays, showed little misconvergence and effec tively mixed color combinations in our benchmarks. This 21 -incher supports 1600-by 1200-dpi resolutionsat 75 Hz, but
NEC reco mmends a resolution of 1280 by 1024 with an 88-Hz refresh rate. W hen not in use, the Pl 150 powers down to save en ergy in the most economical manner ofall the monitors in this roundup.
Contributors. Jim Kane, Project Manager/NSTL Oorpthy Huitson, Prl>ject Manager/NSTL John McDonough, Technical Writcr/NSTL Dave Rowell, Sc:niorTechnical Editor/BYTE
Evaluations in this~~thejudg ment ofBYTE. editors, baslil on tests am duaed by NSTL. Inc., as documented in a
recent issue ofits monthlyPe 'Digest. To
·puicJ;ase a copy oftbefilll report/co,,ratt· ~S"FLat62SRidgePike, ConShohodten; PA f?~28; (6ZOJ 941-9600:fax(6io) 941 9950; on the Internet, edirors@nstl.com. For.a subscription, call (800) 257-9401.. BYTE magazine andl)lSTL. are both oper atingunits(){TMM&Gnrw-HillCompania.
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 109
MONITORS FEATURES
Acer Ameri ca Corp. AcerView 781e
Apple Computer, Inc. AppleVision 171 0
Apple Computer, Inc. Multiple Scan20
Art Me di a TN · 1885T
Art Media
TN· 2185T
Cornerstone Imag i ng, Inc. Color 21/81fp
Cornerstone Imaging, Inc. Color 50/115
CTX
Daewoo
International, Electronics
Inc.
CMC1704C
PR700
Price as tested (MSRP) Nominal size (inches, diagonal) Overall rating Perfonnance score (display quality) Features score Usability score Power-economy score
$ 69 9 17 8.1 8.3 7.4 7.3 5.1
$949 17 8.4 8.4 8.0 9.9 6.2
$19 99 20 8.5 8.8 7.3 8.7 6.3
$1088 17 8.8 9.2 8.2 8.7 4.1
$1 888 20 8.5 8.6 8.4 8.3 6.8
$2070 21 8.6 9.0 7.1 9.0 7.5
$2265 21 8.8 9.4 7.1 8.8 6.5
$999 17 8.3 8.5 8.0 8.5 4.3
$699 17 7.6 7.7 7.4 8.3 5.2
CRT SPECIFICATIONS
Viewable size (inches, diagonal) Screen surface (A= antiglare; B =antistatic;C =antireflective) Dot/grille pitch (mm) Dot·mask type Max. noninterlaced horizontal x vertical resolution (pixels)
15.7
16.1
19.1
16.0
19. 1
19.9
19.9
16.0
16.1
8,C
A,8
A, 8
A, B,C
A, 8,C
A, 8
A, 8
A, 8,C
A,8
0.26
0.26
0.26
0.25
0.25
0.27
0.2 7
0.26
0.2 6
Shadow mask Aperture grille Aperture grille Aperture grille Aperture grille Shadow mask Shadow mask Aperture grille Shadow mask
1600 x 1200 1600 x 1200 1600 x 1200 1600 x t200 1600 x 1200 1600 x 12BO 1BOO x 144 0 1600 x 1200 1600 x 1200
SYNC-INPUT SIGNALS Min./max. horizontal scanning frequency (kHz) 30/B6 Min./max. vertical scanning frequency (Hz) 50/1 20
30/80 40/120
29/B2 50/15 0
30/85 48/150
30/B5 4B/ 150
311101 50/1 60
31/115 50/160
30/B5 50/120
24/86 50/t50
VIDEO-INPUT SIGNAL
Video bandwidth (MHz)
135
IN P
INP
50-100
50- 100
211
24 9
135
120
Separate RGB,0.7-Vp-p
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
Input connector (15·pin D·sub)
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti
ti'
lnpul conneclOIS (8 NC-RG8,HD, VO)
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
DISPLAY MODE
Number of factory-preset modes/ user·settable modes
11 /21
10/5
9/4
640 x 480 Mac II mode (max.non·
66.7
67
67
interlaced vertical·relresh rate, Hz)
832 x 624 Mac 16·inchmode (max.
75
noninterlaced vertical·refresh rate, Hz)
75
75
1024 x 768 mode (max. noninterlaced
75
vertical·refresh rate,Hz)
60
60
1152 x B70 Mac II two·page mode (max.
75
noninlerlaced vertical-refresh rate, Hz)
75
75
12BO x 1024 mode (max. noninteriaced
80
vertical·refresh rate, Hz)
75
75
1600 x 1200 mode (max. noninterlaced
6B
60
60
vertical·refresh rate, Hz)
10/15
15/1 5
7/2 6
7/26
80
60
N/A
NIA
76
75
NIA
NIA
B5
85
B5
85
75
75
N/A
NIA
75
75
B5
85
60
60
Bl
87
15/15 120 120 106 76 75 68
16/20
66.7
76.8
75
75
76
60
CONTROLS
Degauss
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
Focus
ti'
ti'
Convergence
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
Signal level
ti'
ti'
ti'
Side convergence (pincushioning}
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti
ti'
ti'
ti
ti'
ti
On·screen monitor settings
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti
ti'
ti'
Color matching
ti
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti
ti'
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS Integrated speakers Power input (volts AC)
VESA DPMS-compliant Height x width x depth (inches) x weight (lbs.) FCC rating TCO·compliant
90- 2 64
90-264
90 - 2 64
120-240
ti' 16.5 x 16.6 x 16.7 X40
8 ti'
ti
ti'
19.7 x 15.9 x 18.6 x 18.6 x 17.7 x 50 19.8 x 67
B
A
ti'
ti'
ti 17 x 16 x 17.8 x 44
B ti
120- 240
ti 19 x 18 x 19 x 65 B ti'
110-120/ 200- 240 ti 18.7 x 19.2 x 21 x 72.6
A ti
110- 120/ 200 - 2 4 0 ti 1B.7 x 19.2 x 21 x 72.6
A ti
100-250
ti 17.2 x 16.5 x 17.5 x 46.3
B ti'
100- 240
ti' 17.6 x 16.8 x 17.7 x 44.5 8
CUSTOMER SUPPORT Warranty length (years)/coverage Phone To~·free phone Web address
Inquiry Number
3/P, L, R (408) 432-6200 (800) 379·2237 http://www .acer.com/
1065
1/P, L.F (408) 99 6·1010 (BO O) 2B2·2732 http://www .apple.com/
1/P, L. F (40 8) 996· 10 10 (800) 2B2·2732
http://www .apple.com/
1066
1067
3/P. L. R (408) 980·89BB (800) 278 -633 4
http://www .artmedia .com/ 1068
3/P,L. R (408) 980·898B (BOO) 27B·6334
http://www .artmedia .com/ 1069
3/P, L, R (4 08) 435·B900 (BOO) 562· 25 52 http://www .corimage .com/ 1070
3/P, L, R (408) 435·8900 [BOO) 562-2552
http://www .corimage .com/ 1071
3/P,L, R (818) 839-0500 (800) B8 8·2012 http://www .cixintl.com/
1072
3/P, L. R (2 0 1) 460-2000 (BOO) 323 -966 8
http://www .daewoo display.com/ 1073
- BYTE Best.
ti' = yes ; NIA = not applicable;
INP 1111 informat ion not provided.
Warranty: P = parts; L = labor;
F =freight to ropairconter; R = return to cu stomer.
*****Outstanding ** Fair
****Very Good · Poor
***Good
1 t 0 8 YT E JANUARY 19 97
Daytek Electronics Corp. DT·1704C
$799 17 8.3 8.3 8.0 8.5 5.2
Elzo Nanao Hansol
Tedtnologles, Multitech
Inc.
Hansol
Flexscan
17PX
TX·C7S
$1299 17 8.0 8.8 7.6 6.3 4.4
$895 17 8.2 8.6 6.2 9.0 5.2
Hitachi America, Ltd. HM-47870
Hitachi America, Ltd. HM-4921·0
KOS U.S.A. VSX·7
$1769 21 8.5 8.8 7.3 8.6 5.8
$2129 21 8.5 8.9 7.6 8.3 6.0
$649 17 8.5 8.8 7.3 8.3 5.4
LG Electronics USA, Inc. Sludloworks 781
MAG
lnnoVision, Inc. DX700T
MAG lnnoVision, Inc. MX21F
$679 17 8.5 8.8 7.2 8.2 5.1
$799 17 7.9 8.2 6.8 7.8 4.4
$1799 21 8.4 8.5 7.7 8.6 5.8
Max Group Corp. MGC 1785
$649 17 8.7 8.7 8.2 9.0 8.1
Mitsubishi Electronics Ameri ca Diamond Pro17TX
$849 17 8.7 8.7 8.8 9.4 6.9
Mitsubishi Electronics America Diamond Scan 17HX
$799 17 8.6 8.5 8.8 9.0 4.8
16.4
15.9
15.7
A, B,C
c
A, B
20.0
20.0
15.8
A, B,C
A, B,C
A
16.0
16.2
20.0
A,B, C
B
B, C
14.6 A
15.9
15.7
B, C
B, C
0.26
0.25
0.26
0.26
0.26
0.28
0.26
0.25
0.28
0.26
0.25
0.25
Shadow mask Aperture grille Shadow mask Shadow mask Shadow mask Shadow mask Slladow mask Aperture grille Shadow mask Shadow mask Aperture grille Shadow mask
1600 x 1280 1600 x 1200 1600 x 1280 1600 x 1280 1600 x 1200 1280 x 1024 1600 x 1280 1280 x 1024 1600 x 1280 1600 x 1200 1600 x 1200 1600 x 1200
24/86 50/15 0
144 t/
,t,./,
30/92 50/160
,1,.8, 0 ,,., ,,.,
30/85 50/120
,1,.3, 5 ,,., ,,.,
30/107 50/152
,1,.0, 0 ,,., ,,.,
30/ 107 50/152
,1,.5, 0 ,,., ,,.,
28/70 50/120
,1,.0, 0 ,,.,
35/85 501120
135
30/70 50/120
,1,.0, 0 ,,.,
30/80 561120
,1,.3, 0 ,,., ,,.,
30/85 50/1 20
,1,.3, 5 ,,.,
30/86 50/152
,1,.3, 5 ,,., ,,.,
30/82 50/130
,1,.3, 5 ,,., ,,.,
8/20
4/26
4/13
4/16
4/16
13/6
Bl32
66.7
66.7
80
Depends on Depends on 75
100
video card video card
76.B
75
74.5
Depends on Depends on 75
75
video card video card
100
113
75
75
75
85
75
75
75
75
Depends on Depends on NIA
75
video card video card
80
85
75
75
75
60
76
60
73
67
75
75
NIA
66
18/8
25/8
10/4
11/10
8/12
67
66
75
150
152
75
75
NIA
131
125
70
76
70
105
105
B5
75
NIA
94
90
60
75
75
80
75
NIA
60
65
70
65
,,.,
,,.,
,,.,
,t,./,
t,,./,
,,.,
,,.,
,,.,
,,.,
,,.,
,,., ,,.,
,,., ,,.,
,,.,
ti
ti ti
ti
ti
,,.,
ti
ti ti
t/
,t,.i,
ti
,t,./, ,t,./,
,t,.i,
t/
t/
ti
ti
100-240
ti 17.4 x 16.5 x 17.4 x 44.5 B
100-120 110-240
ti
16.3 x 16.1 x 16.3 x 16.8 x
1B.4 x 46.2 17.4 x 44
,B,.,
B
Optional
B7-132/ 175-264
ti
18.5 x 19.6 x 20 x 74
B
87-132/ 175-264
ti 18.5 x 19.6 x 20 x 74
B
v
100- 240
,,.,
17.3 x 16.2 x 1B.1 x 42 B ti
98-264
v
17.1 x 1B.3 x 17.4 x 41 B
90-264 90-264
INP
16.7 x 16.1 x 19.4 x 19.8 x
18.3 x 42.9 20.6 x 75.9
B
B
ti 17.1 x 1B.3 x 16.9 x 38
,B,.,
120-240 120-240
v
,,.,
16.1x 16.1 x 16 x 16.1 x
16.7 x 47 16.7 x 47
A
A
ti
3/ P, L (972) 241-1700 (BOO) 329·8351
http://www .daylek.com/
1074
3/P, L, R (310) 431·5011 (BOO) B00·5202 http://www .eizo.co.jp/ welcome/
1075
3/ P, L, R (714) 562·5151 (BOO) 426·7651 NIA
1076
3/P, L, R (201 ) 573·0774 NIA
http://www .hitachi .com/
1on
3/P, L,R (201) 573·0774 NIA
http://www .hitachi .com/ 1078
3/P, L,R (714) 379.9599 NIA
http://www .kdsusa .com/
1079
31P, L,R (201) 816·2000 (BOO) 243·0000 http://www .lgeus.com/
1080
3/P, L, R 3/P, L, R
2/P, L, R
3/P, L, F
(7 14)
(714)
(818)
(7 14)
751 ·2008 751 ·2008 968·6798 220·2500
(800)
(800)
N/A
(800)
827·3998 827·3998
843·2515
http://www http://www http://www http://www .maginnovision .maginnovision .maxgroup.com .mitsubish~
.com/
.com/
display.com/
1081
1082
1083
1084
3/P, L, F (714) 220·2500 (BOO) 843·2515
http://www .mitsubishi· display.com/ 1085
co11ti1111ed 011 page 112
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 111
MONITORS FEATURES
Price as tested (MSRP) Nominal size (inches,diagonal) Overall rating Performance score (display quality) Features score Usability score Power-economy score
NEC Technologies MultlSync
P1150
Nokia Display Products Multigraph 44SXI
$2079 21 8.9 9.4 B.4 7.2 9.2
$1B99 21 B.4 B.7 7.6 7.7 7.0
Nokia Display Products Multlgraph 447XI
$899 17 B.6 9.0 7.6 · 9.0 7.6
NSA/ Hitachi SuperScan Elite
611
$799 17 B.O B.2 7.6 7.1 4.4
NSA/ Hitachi SuperScan Elite ·
802
$ 1B99 20 9.0 9.6 7.6 B.7 7.2
Panasonic Panasonic
Computer
Computer
Peripheral Co. Peripheral Co.
PanaSync
Pana Sync/Pro
521
P17
Princeton Graphics E017
$1799 21 B.7 8.9 7.6 9.4 5.B
$699 17 B.1 B.2 7.6 B.3 4.9
$669 17 7.6 7.9 7.5 7.B 5.1
CRT SPECIFICATIONS Viewable size (inches,diagonal) Screen surface (A= antiglare; B=antistatic; C= antirellective) Dot/grille pitch (mm) Dot-mask type Max. noninterlaced horizontal x vertical resolution (pixels)
19.6
19.7
15.7
16.0
20.0
lB.7
14.B
16.2
A, B,C
A,B , C
A,B,C
A,B,C
A, B,C
A, B,C
A, B,C
A
0.2B Aperture grille 1600x 1200
0.26 Shadow mask 1600 x 1200
0.25
0.26
0.26
Aperture grille Shadow mask Shadow mask
1600 x 1200 1600 x 1200 1600 x 1280
0.25
0.25
Shadow mask Shadow mask
1600 x 1280 1600 x 1280
0.26 Shadow mask 12BO x 1024
SYNC·INPUT SIGNALS Minimax. horizontal scanning frequency (kHz) Minimax. vertical scanning frequency (Hz)
31/94 55/160
30/102 501150
31/92 50/150
31/92 50/120
31/100 50/160
30/95 50/160
30/86 50/160
30/70 50/120
VIDEO·INPUTSIGNAL
Video bandwidth (MHz) Separate RGB,0.7-V p·p lnpu1 connector (15-pin D·sub) Input connectors (BNC-RGB, HD,VD)
...2,,,,0,, 2
..2,,0,, 0
..1,,,,40
..1,,,,55
200
.r,,,I
.1,,60 ...,.,.
...1,,,3,,, 5
..1,,,,00
DISPLAY MODE
Number of factory-preset modes/
21/22
14/lB
10/22
7/13
6/20
6/13
8/13
13/B
user-settable modes
640 x4BO Mac II mode (max.non·
160
N/A
N/A
N/A
160
160
160
67
interlaced vertical-refresh rate, Hz)
B32 x624 Mac 16-inch mode (max.
141
NIA
75
noninterlaced vertical-refresh rate, Hz)
N/A
144
141
129
75
1024x76B mode (max.noninterlaced
117
B5
B5
113
N/A
116
106
B5
vertical-refresh rate, Hz)
1152 x B70 Mac II two-page mode (max.
103
75
75
N/A
104
104
94
75
noninlerlaced vertical-refresh rate, Hz)
12BO x 1024 mode (max. nonintertaced
BB
B5
65
85
114
69
Bl
66
vertical-refresh rate, Hz)
1600 x 1200 mode (max. noninterlaced
75
75
NIA
73
75
72
65
N/A
vertical-refresh rate, Hz)
CONTROLS Degauss Focus Convergence Signal level Side convergence (pincushioning) On-screen monitor settings Color matching
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS Integrated speakers Powerinpu1 (volts AC) VESA DPMS-compliant Height x width x depth (inches) x weight (lbs.) FCC rating TCO-compliant
.1,,10
20.4 x 20.B x 22.1x 77.2
.B,,
.,,110-240
20.4 x 20.2 x 19.6 x 71
.B,,
.,,110-220
17.2x 16.g x 1B.Bx 4B.5
.B,,
.,,120-240
16.9 x 16.1 x 18.3 x 4B.5
.B,,
120- 240
t/ 1B.7x 19.2 x 21 x 73
.B,,
.,,100-240
19.Bx 19.1 x 20.4 x 62.7
.B,,
.,,100-240
16.4 x 16.1 x 1'7.5 x 3B.5
.B,,
.,,110-240
16.7 x 16.2 x 17.9 x 41
B
CUSTOMER SUPPORT Warranty length (years)/coverage Phone Toll-free phone Web address
Inquiry Number
3/P, L, R (50B) 264-BOOO (BOO) 632-4636 http://www .nee.com/
1086
3/P,L,R
3/P, L, R
3/P, l, R
(415)
(415)
(617)461
331-4244
331-4244
B300 x1305
(BOO)
(BOO)
(BOO)
296-6542
296-6542
672-4685
http://www http://www http://NSA
.nokia-americas .nokia-arnericas .Hitachi.com/
.com/
.com/
1090
1091
1088
3/P,L, R (617) 461 · B300x 1305 (BOO) 672·46B5 http://NSA .Hitachi.com/
1089
3/P,l, R (201) 392-4B12 (BOO) 742·BOB6
http://www .panason ic .com/ 1092
3/P, L, R
(201) 392·4B12 (800) 742-BOB6
http://www .panasonic .com/
1093
3/P, l,R (714) 751·B405 (BOO) 747-6249 http://www .prgr.com/
1094
· = BYTEBest. V =yes;NIA =not applicable;
INP = information not provided.
Warranty: P = parts: L = labor;
F = freight to repair center; R = return to cu stomer.
112 BYTE JANUARY 19 97
*****Outstand ing **Fair
****Very Good *Poor
***Good
continued 011 page 115
·
MODEL
·~.~
SCREEN · PITCH.
Performance. Art.
Introducing Studioworks, the new generation of computer displays from
GoldStar. On the performance side, Studioworks delivers a clearer, sharper image and more accurate color, edge to edge. Plug and play compatibillty w ith Windows" 95 sets optimal image characteristics automatically*. A compact design fits more screen into less space. And new digital onscreen controls make precise, custom adjustment simpler. For the artist in you, Studioworks displays the fine details and the subtle tones and textures, to give your vision that added brilliance. The new Studioworks series from GoldStar. They're more than monitors, they're masterpieces. See them at Comp USA or access our web site at http:// www.lgeus.com
~f or
GoldStar
8 LG Electronics
LG Electronics U.SA. Vic. 1CXXl Syivan Avenue, Erglewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 (201) 81 6 -2000
C ircle 603 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 604).
I 0 -...rt
@
s.,r. 101""'
ii
~
I
Im
l't/ l,,fUILI
J-~ Oft llU11
Cl
J · · I HU 11111 1
-IHUH t f I... tu·
~
J·l1 nU11111
llliilil ~
~
MONITORS FEATURES
Princeton Graphics E075
Samsung Electronics America 17Glsi
Sceptre
Sceptre
Smile
Sony Corp.
Technologies, Technologies, International, of America
Inc.
Inc.
Inc.
Multiscan
J73S
P73A
CA1706M2 17se II
Sony Corp. of America Multlscan 20sell
VlewSonlc Corp. 6810
VlewSonlc Corp. P815
Price as tested (MSRP) Nominal size (inches,diagonal) Overall rating Performance score (display quality) Features score Usability score Power·economy score
CRT SPECIFICATIONS Viewable size (inches,diagonal) Screen surface (A=antiglare; B =antistatic; C =antireflective) Dot/grille pitch (mm) Dot·mask type Max. nonintertaced horizontal vertical resolution (pixels)
$799 17 8.2 8.3 7.6 7.6 4.6
$1049 17 8.1 8.3 7.6 9.0 5.1
$759 17 8.1 8.5 6.0 8.4 5.1
$795 17 8.3 8.6 6.6 9.0 4.6
$745 17 8.0 8 .0 6.6 9.2 4.8
$1099 17 8.2 8.6 7.3 8.3 6.7
$1999 20 8.5 8.9 7.3 8.5 6.7
$1595 21 8.6 8.7 7.3 9.4 6.2
$2195 21 8.9 9.3 7.3 9.5 6.0
16.2
15.7
15.7
15.7
16.0
16.0
19.0
20.0
20.0
A,B , C
B,C
A,B
A,B
B, C
A
A
A, B,C
A, B, C
0.26
0.2 6
0.28
0.26
0.26
0.25
0.25
0.25
0.25
Shadow mask Shadow mask Shadow mask Shadow mask Shadow mask Aperture grille Aperture grille Shadow mask Shadow mask
1600 x 1200 1600 x 1200 1280 x 1024 1280 x 1024 1600 x 1280 1024 x 768 1024 x 768 1600 x 1280 1800 x 1440
SYNC·INPUTSIGNALS Minimax. horizontal scanning frequency (kHz) 30/95 Minimax.vertical scanning frequency (Hz) 50/120
30/85 50/120
31/69 50/go
30170 50/110
30/82 50/120
32/82 50/120
32196 50/160
30/89 50/160
30/115 50/160
VIDEO·INPUT SIGNAL
Video bandwidth (MHz)
200
135
110
100
130
INP
!NP
154
250
Separate RGB, 0.7·V p-p
t/
t/
t/
t/
t/
t/
t/
t/
t/
Input connector (15·pinD·sub)
t/
t/
t/
t/
....
t/
t/
t/
Input connectors (BNC- RGB, HD,VD)
t/
t/
t/
t/
DISPLAY MODE
Number of factory·preset modes/ user·settable modes
15/8
12111
12116
8/12
640 x480 Mac II mode (max.non·
67
interlaced vertical·refresh rate, Hz)
120
N/A
N/A
832 x624 Mac 16·inch mode (max.
75
120
NIA
N/A
nonintertaced vertical·refreshrate,Hz)
1024 x768 mode (max.nonintertaced
85
100
80
80
vertical-refresh rate, Hz)
1152 x870 Mac II two·page mode (max. 75
75
70
70
noninterlaced vertical·refresh rate, Hz)
1280 x 1024 mode (max. nonintertaced 85
BO
60
60
vertical-refresh rate, Hz)
1600 x 1200 mode (max.nonintertaced 75
68
vertical·refresh rate, Hz)
N/A
NIA
33/33
10/ 10
10/ 10
817
8/7
75
150
160
67
67
75
127
141
75
75
90
105
116
116
139
75
92
103
75
75
72
79
88
88
106
60
66
75
71
87
CONTROLS Degauss Focus Convergence Signal level Side convergence (pincushioning) On·screen mon~or settings Color matching
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS Integrated speakers Power input (volts AC) VESA DPMS-compliant Height x width x depth (inches) x weight (lbs.) FCC rating TCO-compliant
....
100-240 90-132
....
....
16.7 x 16.2 x 17.1 x 16.6 x
17.9 x 41
17 x 46.2
B
B
t/ 100-250
....
15.6 x 16.2 x 17.7x 40
B
100-250
....
16.6 x 16.1 x 17.1 x 37
B
90-260
....
16 x 16.4 x 16.4 x 41 .8
B
.1..1. 0
16.3 x 15.9 x 17.7 x 49.6
.B...
110
....
19.5x 18.6 x 19.7 x 66.1
.B...
90-264
....
90-264 t/
19.2 x 19.9 x 19.2x 19.9x
20.4 x 60.6 20.4x60.6
B
B
t/
CUSTOMER SUPPORT Warranty length (years)/coverage Phone Toll·free phone Web address
Inquiry Number
3/P,L,R (714) 751 ·8405 (800) 747-624g http://www .prgr.com/
1095
3/P, L,R
(201) 971·0402 (800) 933·4110
http://www .sosimple .com/
1096
3/P,L, R
(818) 369·9698 (BOO) 786·2878
http://www .sceptretech .com/
1097
3/P,L, R
(818) 369·3698 (800) 788·2878
http://www .sceptretech .com/ 1098
3/P, L. R (714) 546-0336 (800) 876·4532
http://www .smilekfc .com/
1099
3/P,L
(408) 432·0190 (800) 352·7669
http://www .Sony.com/ technology/ 1100
3/P, L (408) 432·0190 (600) 352·7669
http://www .sony.coml technology/
1101
3/P, L,R
(909) 86!l-7976 (800) 888·8583
http://www .Viewsonic .com/
1102
3/P, L,R
(909) 869·7976 (800) 688·6563
http://www .Viewsonic .com/
1103
c BYTE Bost
V' yes; N/A no! applicable;
INP= informalion not provK:led.
Warranty: P = parts; L = labor: F =freight to repair center; R = return to customer.
*****Outstanding * * fai r
****Very Good *Poor
***Good
J ANUARY 1997 BYTE 1 1 S
8 Tools for Weaving Your Web Site
Creating a Web page or site is an involved process. It's easier with the help of software like the packages we test here. By Tadesse W. Giorgis
ree at last! The World Wide Web's hyperlinked pages have freed us from moving through documents page-by page. We jump at will from one section or document to another without losing the navigational links. To be accessible, however, a Web page must first exist as a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) file on a Web server. The need to create and manage these files has spawned an entire new service industry, and an explo sion of software tools makes it possible for nearly anyone with an Internet con nection to create their own Web pages. For this report, NSTL looked at eight Web-authoring programs for Windows 95/NT that facilitate creating Web pages for users with minimal HTML program ming expertise. We also looked at three conversion/production tools and one new entry (see the text box "Four More for the Web" on page 118). At the low end are simple HTML editors with some pro vision for testing pages, such as a built-in previewer. At the high end are multi function programs with WYSIWYG and graphics editors, site management capa bilities, and a full-featured browser. Of these dozen packages, we think you should first consider Microsoft's FrontPage 97 with its Bonus Pack. This powerful Web authoring, publishing, and site management product was the most versatile overall and among the easiest to use. In particular, Web-site designers will find the Microsoft Image Composer add on extremely useful. FrontPage 97's site management and administration features make it highly attractive to companies
planning a strong Internet presence or extensive intranet service.
However, if you want to build a site for personal use, or a small- to medium size site, consider AOLpress, which is freely downloadable from America Online. Its interface is well done and easy to use, and it offers competent Web authoring and site management capabil ities for a good price.
Web Pages Are Different
Web-page authoring and editing call for both content and creativity. Design is important, and visual design for the Inter net requires a different approach than for
Microsoft FrontPage 97 is a powerful Web authoring, publishing, and site management product. Its site man· agement and administration features are attractive to companies planning a strong Internet presence or an extensive intranet.
It's the best product for high-end Web pro duction and site management applications.
print. The best packages provide profes sionally designed samples, templates, and sryle sheets, along with HTML guides, conversion tools, and reference resources to help you produce good-looking pages.
Depending on its content and com plexity, a page may require programming to developJava applets, ActiveX controls, Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts, server-side scripting, and database access.
Another important point involves the validity of HTML tags, references, and uniform resource locators (URLs). Bad or broken links mean a page won't do what its author intends (see the Tech Focus 'J\re Those Tags and URLs OK?" on page 120).
Siting the Pages
You must transfer new pages to a Web server using an FTP utility. This protocol ensures that directory and file structures and names are correctly mapped over the TCP/lP network. At this point, you must also consider security and access-control issues. Some authoring tools, such as FrontPage 97, have built-in security fea tures that a Web author must understand to use effectively.
Putting together and administering a site might seem alien to a Web-page author, but once you get beyond a few pages, it's important to consider them in context, not as stand-alone pages. The best Web-authoring tools come with built-in site-administration and database connectivity tools.
What Kind of Tool Am I?
What makes one Web-authoring package superior to others? In our tests, users favored flexible and versatile products thatletthem create lively, engaging, inter active, and dynamic pages. Some of the editors we tested-AOLpress, Emissary Desktop, FrontPage 97, HoTMetaL Pro, and Web Factory Pro Image-provide a WYSIWYG interface or something simi lar. Others, such as Aardvark Pro and HTML Builder, simply assist the author by plugging in the desired HTML tags
116 BYTE JANUARY 1997
HoTMetaL Pro's graphical window,
showing dialog boxes for inserted ActiveX controls.
In addition to its Webpage creation capabili ties, FrontPage 97 offers a wealth of site manage ment tools, in a variety of
formats, including a directory tree and a graphical site map.
The graphics editor included with
FrontPage 97 does a particularly good
job of presenting graphics-manipula
tion options in a simple and under standable format.
HoTMetaLPro's graphical/iconic handling of HTML tags is unique. While it's arguably easier than straight text, it's no substitute for page previewing, which is another option, or graphics editing.
NetObjects' Fusion gives the Web author a pow erful {if slow) new approach, with its PageMaker liketool palettes and style/dialog boxes.
The highly cus tomizable HotDog Professional shows off some of its capabilities. The two tabs at the rear, labeled HTML and Rover {the limited view er/browser included with the package), are the main Web page editing windows.
Aardvark Pro shows a typical text-editing win dow, but it's enhanced with a special wizard that simplifies the inclu sion of Java applets into the page.
P111111cat101111, Gav·r~n~ vorld.</1t:MT'></B>
<BR vtdth·lS\ al1qn· 1e; 1 ~
Everyone is making Web pages these days, and with authoring packages like these, it's much easier than it was just a year ago.
from a menu. These tag editors are fast and surprisingly useful. The WYSIWYG pro grams are sometimes limited, may lack the newest HTML features, need more system resources, and run slower.
WYSIWYG editors with a built-in pre viewer give a good idea of what the page will look like with a browser. HTML tag editors normally don't give feedback, rely ing instead on external Web browsers. Some editors, including HoTMetaL Pro and HotDog Professional, offer a com promise between the two approaches.
Although most users prefer a WYSI WYG editor, your choice should depend on what the package will let you do rather
than how it does it. Ease of use matters, but it's not as important as page-con struction potential. The better tool isn't always the easiest one to use.
Aardvark Pro
This intriguing package is, unfortunately, hard to recommend. It's a true HTML tag editor, providing efficient and cost-effec tive Web-page editing without needing extensive resources. While it's basically a single-function package, Aardvark Pro has extensive editing tools and utilities, includ ing Color Chooser and Tags Chooser, which let you point and click on a text col or scheme or insert a paired HTML tag.
The built-in previewer is convenient for checking the look ofa Web page.Aardvark Pro has wizards for creating a home page, tables, forms, and Java app lets.
But Aardvark Pro scored lowest for both ease of learning and use. It offers no HTML syntax checking, and it scored low est on validation/error checking.
AOLpress
America Online's AOLpress offers excel lent WYSIWYG editing and good docu mentation and support. It's easy to learn and use. It includes the M.inWeb site man agement tool and a handy HTML syntax parser. Because AOLpress is freely down-
JANU A RY 1997 BYTE 117
Software Lab Report 8 Tools for Weaving Your Web Site
WEB-PAGE AUTHORING TOOLS RATINGS
BEST OVERALL
Microso~ FrontPage 97
Serious toolsfor sitemanagement and <idministration make this aversatileprogram.
PRICE
TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATION
Microsoft FrontPage 97
$149
FBS Aardvark Pro 2.2
$59
AOL AOLpress 1.2
Free
Attachmate Emissary Desktop 2.0 $99
Sausage Software HotDog Professional
$100
SoftOuad HoTMetaL Pro 3.0
$159
FLFSoftHTMLBuilder 1,1
$29
TLC Web Factory Pro lmagel .1 $229
*****Outstanding ****Very Good
**** *****
* ***
****
****
****
***
*** *
**
***Good
*** ** ***
**Fair *Poor
EASE OF LEARNING
**** ** **** **** ***
*** *** ***
EASE OF
USE
**** ** *** ****
***
*** *** ***
VALIDATION/ ERROR CHECKING
*** *
**
**
**
OVERALL
RATING
***** * *** **** **
***
****
*
*
***
*
loadable, it's the most cost-effective pack age here. However, it's slower than other packages. Also, it has no graphics-editing capability and was prone to lock up on unsupported tags.
Still, for small businesses and individ uals who want to establish a presence on the Internet, AOLpress is an attractive prospect. We recommend it for small- to medium-size site applications.
sonal Web server, browser/previewer, spelling checker, thesaurus, and security and scripting support. FrontPage 97 cor rects most syntax errors, such as unpaired tags, during file import, but not when you enter tags manually. The package needs an explicit HTML syntax-checking tool.
For the beginning Web author, Front Page 97 isn't as straightforward as other WYSIWYG editors until you get used to its
Explorer-dominated interface, which is less intuitive than it might be. Also, the menu structures were sometimes illogi cally different between modules.
HotDog Professional
Can you take seriously a program named HotDog Professional from a company called Sausage Software ?Yes. This HTML editor has extensive tools and helper util-
Emissary Desktop
Attachmate's Emissary Desktop includes just about everything you'II need to create a Web page. It's also among the easiest to learn and use. Available in LAN and dial up versions, Emissary Desktop combines Internet mail and news, Web browsing, host access, file management, and task scheduling. It features WYSIWYG editing and an easy-to-use, customizable interface.
On the downside, its HTML editing and syntax checking are limited, and there's no graphics editing. Still, more than any other product tested, Emissary Desktop offers a complete Web-building package.
FrontPage 97
When Microsoft bought FrontPage 97 from Vermeer, it picked a winner. In our tests, FrontPage 97 was the clear front-run ner, excelling in versatility, graphics edit ing, and site management. It outscored the others in ease of use and learning and ver satility. It came in second in validation/ error checking.
FrontPage 97 is the most versatile of this group. It includes database access, Image Composer, Internet Explorer 3.0, the per
Four More for the Web
S kiSoft's Web Publisher 1.1 accepts word processing, HTML, or FrameMakerdoc uments that can contain images, tables, and OLE objects. It will automatically convert any image into GIF, build Netscape tables,create tables ofcontents with linksto headings, inter pret word-processing-style information, convert numbered and bulleted lists, and place signatures, mail-to uniform resource locators (U Rls), and corporate in-line images in documents. Web Publisher will also con· vert multiple documents in a single pass.
Quadralay's WebWorks Publisher and Harlequin's WebMaker 2.2 take FrameMaker documents and convert them into HTML. These tools let you design and maintain, in a single master, a complete documentation base that can produce both high-quality print media and electronic hypermedia tailored to Web distribution, including on-line help sys tems. HTML output from FrameMaker docu ments retains all the generated cross-docu ment and hypertext links, table of contents, and index navigation markers of the original.
Both WebWorks Publisher and Web-
Maker give you broad creative freedom to design layout styles. You can apply styles automatically with the click of a button. Both products take full advantage of FrameMak er's layout styles and let you define special· ized layouts for Web publishing.
Fusion 1.0,from NetObjects,is an object oriented authoring tool that integrates six components:SiteStructure,which creates a hierarchical map for designing and editing a site; PageDraw, a WYSIWYG page editor; SiteStyles Manager, a style-sheet editor; AutoSites, a library of dozens of professional designs; an asset manager, for referencing content objects and connecting to external databases; and a publishing engine, which gathers content and pages and converts them into complete Web sites.
Though our testers found Fusion a gem among authoring tools, it was very slow in staging and publishing Web pages before previewing. Designing the preview process a little more creatively would eliminate the problem. Fusion runs under Windows 95 and NT, and a Mac version should now be out
1 18 BYTE JANUARY 1997
8 To o l s fo r Wea vin g Your Web S it e Soft ware Lab Repo rt
F EA T U R ES
Aardvark Pro2.2
AOL.press 1.2 Emissary FrontPap HotDog
Desktop2.0 97
Professional
CPU, OS, MEMORY REQUIREMENTS
Minimum CPU
386
486
486
486
486
Wlndo"'!s ~ya.11
ti'
ti'
Windows 95/NT
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
ti'
MacOS 7.x
ti'
SunOS, IRIX
ti'
SE
Solaris,HP/ UX
ti'
SE
AIX, BSD
SE
RAM(M B)
8 (4forWin 3.1) 16 (12forWin95) 16 8 (16 for Win NTI 16
Disk space (M B)
2
1
55
15
MAJOR COMPONENTS
WYSIWYG editor
Full·function Web br~r
f/
Buil1'in HTML previewer
ti'
Web: pOl>li~her utility
ti'
Site managemeril utility
Web-page templates
ti'
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Built-in file manager
ti'
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ti'
I
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Specify.directory, brow.sei:s
ti'
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ti'
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ti' II'
.t,i,'
Save dbcument as text file ·
ti'
Import image file,single format Import image file, multipJe fqrmats
"'ti'
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Program includes wjzafds
ti'
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"'
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Checks for correctly formed URLs
Checks link int~rity when files.11re move
ti'
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GRAPHICS EDITING/MANIPULATION
Full-function graphics editor, scanning module
"'
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Import g~hics from multiple 1le formats
"'
ti'
Auto-conversion to GIF orJPEG Full control of image size
""''
"'
DISPLAY, VI EWING, PREVIEWING
Open multiple editing windows Open multiple preview Windows Edit and preview in same or
.",',
separate windows
""'' Separate only
"' "'
"'
~-
"'
"'
"'
SITE MANAGEMENT Structu ral or folder/file view of map Show all internal and external links Show broken links graphically Expand or collapse view Move pages from one site to another Add/delete/move pages.to a site map Can publish entire site or just pages
ti'
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(UJ=viautilities.
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Web
Prol.O Bullder1.1 Factory Pro
lmage1.1
486/33
386'
386
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J ANUARY 1997 BYTE 1 1 9
Software Lab Report 8 Tools for Weaving Your Web Site
l l d l l l · I Q· . ___ ities, including ActiveX support, though
it has no graphics editor. The user inter
T_E_S_T_l_N_G_ _
face is improved over earlier versions, with customizable floating toolbars, shortcut
Are Those Tags and URLs OK?
keys, a mini Web browser/previewer, auto
The strength ofWeb pages as a communications medium is their use of hyperlinks. What
saving, drag and drop, and easy insertion
makes Web documents less than useless air broken or incorrect links. To avoid this. a vari
of image and sound files.
ety of tools can help validate Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) documents by check
HotDog Professional uses multiple
ing them for syntax errors and integrity oflinks. Most HTML editors include such functions,
user-specified browsers to preview a doc
and tools are available on the Web to check documents against the latestHTMLspecifica
ument, enabling effective cross-browser
tions (try http://www.webtechs.com/html-val-svc and http://www2.imagiware.com
compatibility checking. The product is fast
/RxHTML). For a tool that checks for links to nonexistent resources, such as pages that have
and responsive, with features that appeal
moved, try http://wsk.eitcom/ wsk/dist/ doc/admin/webtest/verify_links.html.
to both novice users and veteran Web mas
It's important to test Web pages with several Web browsers to see that they look the
ters. Of the three HTML editors, HotDog
way the Web author/designer intended and that all hyperlinks are valid. It can also be
Professional is the clear choice.
important to test with browsers on various platforms to eliminate any incompatibilities.
HoTMetaL Pro
For example, one early version of the BYTE Site (http://www.byte.com) looked fine on most browsers excejlt for some Netscape versions on the Mac, where the colors became
HoTMetaL Pro is now a full-featured,
distorted and muddy.
powerful, and versatile program. It offers
both HTML and WYSIWYG editing, an
excellent graphics editor, and the best bility is limited, and as an advanced Web face that expands after you create a new
HTML checking, making it handy for Web authoring program, it should have some file or load an existing one. You can enable
masters who must test pages created by site management capabilities.
or disable roolbar elements for styles,
others. It excels at document conversion. In HoTMetaL Pro, you don't see
HTML Builder
headings, links, special characters,and HTML 3.2 extensions. The starting tem
straight ASCII. Instead, Web-page elements This simple, inexpensive, and efficient plate provides the basic HTML tags.
are surrounded by semigraphical HTML tags, which you can hide.
HTML editor is greatly improved over its earlier version. It's easy to set up and use,
Web Factory Pro Image
We found HoTMetaL Pro occasionally but functionality is limited.
A mixed bag, Web Factory Pro Image is
unstable. What's more, its publishingcapa
The program opens with a lean inter- easy to set up and use, with a flexible inter
PRODUCT INFORMATION
face, and efficient and capable HTML syn tax checking and validation. It opens
Aardvark Pro 2.2 $59 Functional Business Systems Fairview Park, South Australia, Australia fax: +61 8 8251 5648 http://www.ttngnet.com /aardvark/ Circle 1050 on Inquiry Card.
AOlpress 1.2
Free via download
America Online, Inc.
Vienna, VA
(800) 879-6882
fax: (J03) 918-1106
http://www.aolpress.com
Circle 1051 on Inquiry Card.
Emissary Desktop 2.0
$49 (dial-up), $99 (LAN)
Attadtmatc, Inc.
Bellevue, WA
(800) 426-6283 (206) 644-4010
fax: (l06) 747-9924
http://www.attachmatc.com
Circle 1052 on Inquiry Card.
FrontPage 97
$149
Microsoft Corp.
Redmond, WA
(206) 882-8080 · fax: (206) 936-7329
http://www.microsoft.com
Circle J053 on Inquiry Card.
Fusion 1.0
$495 NetObjects, lric. Redwood City, CA (415) 482-3200
fax: (415) 562-0288
http://www.netobjects.com/
Circle 1054 on Inquiry Card.
Web Factory Pro Image 1.1 '$229
Thunder & Lightning Co.
San Dicgp, CA ·
(619) 643-5550 fax: (619) 643-5553 http://www.tlco.com Circle 1058 on Inquiry Card.
HotDog Professional $99.95 Sausage Software, Inc. Doncaster, Victoria, Australia fax: +61 39 855 9800 http://www.sausage.com Circle 1055 on Inquiry Card.
HoTMetaL Pro 3.0 $159 SoftQuad, Inc. Toronto, Ontario, Canada (800) 387-2777 (416) 544-9000 fax: (416) 544-0300 http:l/www.sq.com Circle 1056 on Inquiry Card.
WebMaker 2.2 $99 Harlequin, Inc. Cambridge, MA (617) 374-2400 .fax: (617) 252-6505 web@harlequin.com http:{/wcbscrver.harlequin.com/ Circle 1059 on Inquiry Card.
Web Publisher 1.1 ...$495 SkiSoft Publishing Lexington, MA (617) 863-1876
fax: (617) 861-0086
http:{/www.skisoft.com/
Circle 1060 on Inquiry Card.
HTML Builder 1.1 $29 FLFSoft, Inc. Oak Creek, WI (414) 764-8666 http://www.execpc.com/-flfsoft Circle 1057 on Inquiry Card.
WebWorks Publisher $895 Ouadralay Corp. Austin, TX (512) 719-3399
fax: (512) ·719-3606
http:{/www.quadralay.com/
Circle 1061 on Inquiry Card.
paired HTML and preview windows for each Web page. You can edit in either win dow, and the corresponding action is reflected in the nonediting window when ever you make a change. But the product is unreasonably expensive, especially in view of its limited scope, and it doesn't even include a full browser. liJ
Tadesse W. Giorgis has tested network OSes, management products, and peripherals at NSTL for over five years. ¥011 can contact him at tadesse@nstl.com.
Evaluations in this report represent the judg ment ofBYTE editors, based in part on exten sive tests conducted by NSTL, foe., as doc14 mentedin a recent issue ofits monthly Softwa,re Digest. To purchase acopy ofthat report, with NSTI:s own evaluations and data, contact NSTL at 625 Ridge Pike, Conshohocken, PA 19428; (610) 941-9600; fax(610) 94t-99SO; on the lnterflet, editors@nstl.com. For a suf?-· scriptio11, call (UOO) 257-9402. BYTE maga zine andNSTL are both operating units ofThe McGraw-Hill Companies.
120 BYTE JANUARY 1997
We put the
·
(Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks according to original Berkeley acronym)
·
·
.l'1..ixStakTM - Maximum performance at a minimum price.
Inexpensive Cost Per Megabyte.
If you need the protection RAID has to offer, but the expense has been holding you
back, then Artecon's new desktop .l~tak is your solution. For about the same
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fits of RAID. By purchasing the RAID system to fit your needs, you can expand incre
mentally without the limitations cr cost of a pre-configured box. And .l~tak is
the only desktop RAID solution that offers the high availability and redundancy once
available at the more expensive enterprise level.
Removable, Redundant and Reliable.
.l~tak gives you the utmost in reliability with features like true hot plug remov able disk drives. Independent front-removab le power supplies and rear removable cooling fans provide both high avai lability and easy serviceability. Optional hot plug removable ~RAID controllers can be configured fcr dual failover provid ing you with the extra redundancy needed for mission critical applications. .l~tak supports RAID levels 0, 1, O+1, 3 or 5 for complete flexibility and opti mal performance in your environment.
1-800-USA-ARTE
http://www.artecon.com
Superior Price-Performance.
Don't let the low price of the r.========== ======;i
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t500
pact 3.5" form factcr. .l~tak tooo
1 ::.-~I
outruns the other RAID systems on the market with a 486-DX2
0
VOs Per Second - Maximum Reads
processcr resulting in extremely
fast transfer rates at all RAID levels. Fast-wide end-to-end interfaces, multiple drive
channels and custom ASICs contribute to maximum performance at a minimum price.
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With .l~tak, you can incrementally upgrade into the RAID system of your choice as your needs grow. From a single desktop unit to a powerful server configuration,
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So call Artecon today and see how we stack up!
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C irc le 236 on Inquiry C ard.
Together for the first time anywhere.
Introducing (drumroll)
Inferno"networking software...
a new Bell Labs innovation. First operating system that lets all kinds of devices chat or share info with each other over any network (Internet, telecommunications, LANS, et al) . Now video game can talk to computer; cell phone can access e-mail ; voice mail via TV, etc. (Really) Download Inferno from Lucent home page today - develop apps a.s.a.p. Could change the way you work - all together.
lucent
T··IeI
chnologies
labs lnnov·tfon·
t
600 Mountain Avenue Muaay Hill, NJ 07974- 0636
www.lucenr.com/lnferno
1-888-4-Lucenr
· ···, I
We make the things that make communications work:'
Circle 605 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS : 606).
Jon Udell
Move beyond the basics to take advantage of query by example, concept searching,
Search Again
and field indexing.
n my September 1995 column ("Web Search"), I showed
Sophisticated Searches
how to add basic indexing
and search functions to a Web site (see http://www.byte.com/art/9509 /sec9/art1.htm).The freely available tools I discussed there-freeWAIS (Wide Area Information Service) and Simple Web Indexing System for Humans (SWISH) have served the BITE Site well and con tinue to support thousands of searches every day. However, the site's growth in
0 BY1I Sita search fw CJberdog Jields tlis sit of domaents.
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The oU. titles lefet ID rides~
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size and complexity mandates a more sophisticated search capability than these basic tools can easily provide.
Therefore, I've been testing a number of indexing and search tools-Web
e _you llltDmatialJ issue aPIJ by~:)be~,ISaiiSt~ articles about Opmiloc.
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Glimpse, Verity's TopicSearch, lnMag
ic's DB/Text WebServer, Digital Equip
ment's AltaVista Private Extensions, Query by example is effective and trivial to operate. Unfortunately,
Excite for Web Servers (EWS), and the
many people never use it for more effective Web searches.
Microsoft Index Server (MSIS) . So far,
I've added search functions to the public products) has two main advantages only as an Internet Server AP! (!SAP!) DLL
BYTE site using the latter two engines. ease of use and remote access. Ease of use attached to Microsoft's Internet Infor
Here's how.
is a slippery concept. It's certainly true mation Server (US). To automate use of
Implementing EWS
that you can build your first index more its indexer, you would need to apply the easily when the tools needed to config technique I described in my November
Excite (formerly Architext) makes EWS ure and run the indexer are embedded 1996 column ("On -Line Component
freely available for several flavors of Unix in HTML forms that explain how to use ware")-discover the URL-based AP! im
and Windows NT; I'm running it on NT the rools. However, this interactive mode plicit in the Web interface and program
3.51. At its core are two stand-alone pro becomes a hindrance when you move ro that AP! using a library that gives scripts
grams-architextindex and architext from prototyping to production: That's the ability to "call" Common Gateway
search. You needn't touch them, though, because a URL-driven (uniform resource Interface (CGI) URLs.
Silly because EWS comes with Perl wrappers locaror) rool is far more difficult to inte
for them (and a copy of Perl 5 ro execute grate into scheduled and scripted batch
Claims
the wrappers). You needn'ttouch the Perl processes than is a command-line-driven Considering all that utter rigmarole, the
0 wrappers either, because they are in rool.
notion of just adding a command plus
x
~ turn wrapped in a layer of Hypertext With EWS, you can bypass the Web some arguments to your I etc/ c ronta b
w Markup Language (HTML) so that ad interface and use the Perl wrappers or un file (or its NT equivalent) seems rather
,3w. ministration as well as use of EWS is Web derlying programs directly. This method appealing. Also, the ease-of-use claim that
~ driven.
isn't documented, but at least it's avail some vendors make on behalf of their
The Web-oriented administrative style able . Other implementations foreclose Web-integrated solutions can appear
"§ of EWS and other second-generation that option entirely. Verity's freeware ver somewhat silly. Web-based control of
.x tools (including the Verity and Microsoft sion of TopicSearch, for example, runs indexers or other kinds of applications
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 123
Web Project Search Again
can be a useful adjunct to conventional methods, but it's not necessarily an appro priate replacement for them.
Advanced Indexing
If your site is even moderately complex, you probably won't want to just point an indexer at the Web server's root and let it rip.You'll likely have distinct subtrees that you want to index. Within those sub trees, you'll want to include some classes of files but not others. Some indexers (e.g., the Microsoft product) can't exclude files at all. If you want to restrict search results, you'll have to parse and filter them on the fly. That's doable, but it's complex and computationally expensive. If there are subdirectories and files you don't want people to find, it's best co leave them out of your index.
The firs. engine I implemented on the BYrESite, freeWAIS, has only a weak exclu sion mechanism. You can exclude wild carded filenames but not wild-carded paths. Because I need to do the latter, my indexing scripts for free WAIS are too ver bose. They enumerate long lists ofsubtrees for inclusion, rather than short lists of sub trees to include along with short lists of patterns to exclude.
SWISH is more agile. I can use the rule PATHNAME CONTAINS !MG to exclude the dozens of directories in which I store the HTML wrappers for BYTE Site images. These wrappers, which would otherwise be included in the index, contain hardly any useful text and are best left out.
If you're somebody who needs addi tional flexibility, EWS's exclusion mecha nism is even more agile. Unlike SWISH, EWS lets you describe excluded items not only with wild cards, but with full-blown regular expressions. Why would you need to do that?
Consider the BITE Site's conferencing application I discussed in last month's col umn, "Dual-Mode Conferencing." It gen erates multiple versions of each message
TOOL WATCH
Internet Music Kit
($49) Wildcat Canyon Software http://w-.wildcat.com/
Embed MIDI files on your Web pages for streaming playback using a Netscape plug-in or an ActlvcX control.
to support both frame-based and frame less viewing. However, you probably don't want to see two copies of each message in the search results list, so I decided to exclude the frame-based set. When I in dexed the conferences with SWISH, I found that Icouldn't differentiate between the two classes of files using simple wild cards. Fortunately, EWS's regular-expres sion capability solves this sort of problem neatly and quickly.
Best-Kept Secret
The odds are that if you've tried EWS on the BYfE Site or another of the sites where it runs, you've missed its best feature: query by example, or QBE (see the figure "Sophisticated Searches" on page 123). To try it for yourself, go to the BYfE Site and use EWS to search for Cyberdog. As you would expect, a list of clearly Web-related titles comes back.
What you might not expect, though, is that if you have used the default concept search setting, most of these articles won't
include the word Cyberdog. They will, how ever, contain sets of terms (e.g., browser, HTTP, and OpenDoc) that correlate sta
tistically with the few articles that mention Cyberdog. If you're interested in how OpenDoc relates to Cyberdog, or if you hadn't even known that it did, you will appreciate EWS auromatically making that connection for you. That's what EWS means by the notion of concept search and it's not even the best feature that users often don't get.
Here's the best feature: Click on the red or black icon that introduces one of the documents in the Cyberdog result set whose title includes the term OpenDoc. This action says: "Find similar articles." The new result set will contain many more OpenDoc-related titles. If the example didn't contain Cyberdog, the new result set will have taken you on a quite differ ent tack from the original query.
This refocusing mechanism can be incredibly useful when you ' re doing research. You naturally want to follow a branching path through conceptual space. After scanning a few of the articles in the OpenDoc result set, you might want to focus specifically on comparisons between OpenDoc and OLE.
If you click on the icon that goes with the likeliest candidate, EWS wiU return a third result set in which the OLE theme is more prominent. Every article on every search-results page is itself an implicit
BOOKNOTE
CORRA
AGuide to the Common Object Request Broker Architecture ($45) by Ron Ben-Natan Computing McGraw-Hill http://www.mcgraw-hill.com/
Auseful guide to interface definition language, object services. and object database management.
query-a single-click accessor of a set of related articles.
Once you discover this principle, it transforms how you explore a document collection. You don't have to worry about forming exactly the right search expres sion.Just seed the process with words that get you conceptually near what you're looking for and let QBE automatically feed statistical profiles back into the searcher as you click your way through a series of refinements.
It's brilliant, it's effective, and it's triv ial to operate, yet many users never dis cover QBE even though every search page says "Click on the red or black icons to search for similar articles." I know this because I hacked the Perl wrapper to log search terms. (I always do this because ana lyzing what people search fortells me a lot about what kinds of information we ought to be providing.) Fewer than 5 percent of the first several thousand EWS queries I logged were of the QBE flavor, and many of these were my own tests. Moreover, an informal poll of BITE staffers showed that while many had encountered EWS in their travels on the Web, none of them had dis covered QBE.
"It's a problem," agrees Graham Spen cer, chieftechnology officer for Excite. "In academic information retrieval, the aver age search expression is 12 to 15 terms long; on the Web, it's 1.5 terms." EWS con structs those 15-term expressions for you automatically when you use QBE. That users often don't realize this is partly a fail ure of user-interface design-the icons could be bigger, the instructions more prominent. But it's also a failure of expec tations. Web surfers accustomed to more
124 BYTE JANUARY 1997
NAME TITLE OROJINIZ.1!.nON PBONE
CITY/TOWN ZIP/POST.IL CODE E· MJIIL
BMI
r.u:
ST.ATE/PROVINCE COUNTllY
I Web Project Search Again
conventional search technology just don't expect EWS to do what it does.
Microsoft Index Server
As nifty as EWS is, it lacks four desirable fearures: a high-performance architecture, phrase and proximity search, field index ing and searching, and automatic index ing on demand. MSIS, though weak in some areas, offers these four fearures. To try it, you have to join a fairly exclusive club. MSIS doesn't just require NT and US; it demands NT 4.0 and IIS 2.0.
You're not prepared to obsolete a stable NT 3.51 production server justfor this pur pose? Neither was I, so I ran MSIS on a development server, pointed it at an HTML collection on the production server, and tweaked the result URLs to refer to acrual files on the production server instead of nonexistent ones on the test machine.
Both EWS and MSIS are running this way-as true distributed services off-loaded from the primary production server, linked to the site by means of URI.s. It's easy to create this kind ofdistributed search capa bility with MSIS, because it automatically finds and offers to index any virrual direc tories mounted on IIS. If the MSIS/IIS machine and the document server live in the same NT domain, MSIS can index the remote document server.
There's one catch, though. IIS needs a user name and password to mount the vir tual directory. After I supplied these cre dentials, browsers talking to IIS could read documents in and below that directory. But MSJS couldn ' t index them. Even though it runs as an !SAP! extension to US, it has its own notion of access credentials. I had to configure the IIS mount not just with a user name and password, but more specifically with a domain name\user name and password. Then it worked.
Implementing MSIS
For querying, MSJS uses the Internet Data base Connector model again. In this scheme, an HTML form refers to a query configuration (IDQ) file that names the index to search, enumerates which fields to return, and describes how to order those fields. The IDQ file also names an HTML template (HTX) fi le that will form at the query results. To redirect the result URLs to the production server, I replaced occur rences of <%server_name %> in the HTX file with w1~w . byte. corn.
As with the Internet Database Connec tor, you can use other predefined variables
Indexing and
Search Tools
Benefit
In general, the tools make it easier to ere·
ate first-time indexes of your site.
Problem The tools can become a hindrance when you go from prototyping to production.
Advice
Don't expect to find an ultimate do-every·
thing tool. Focus instead on tagging your data to organize search results In useful ways.
Products tested at the BYTE Site
WebGlimpse Verity's TopicSearch lnMagic's DB/Text WebServer Digital Equipment's Alta Vista Private Extensions Excite for Web Servers Microsoft Index Server
with a simple IF ... THEN syntax to refor mulate the result set (e.g., to chunk a long list of result URLs into a linked series of HTML pages). The HTX language is not powerful enough, however, to achieve the standard BITE Site presentation of search results. I use Perl to capture document titles emitted by SWISH, parse out an issue date field (e.g., February 1996), and sort in reverse chronological order.
Several areas of the BITE Site cry out for field indexing. In the Virtual Press Room, you should be able to do a field (rather than full-text) search for company and product names. In the conferences, similarly, you should be able to search author and sub ject fields. If you use meta tags to create fields in your HTML document headers, MSIS automatically uses them to create field indexes. For example, a VPR docu ment header looks like this:
<htrn l>< head>
<meta narne- "co mpa ny" cont e n t
"SunSoft ">
<meta na rn e- "pr~duct" co n t ent
"Java Workshop " >
When I indexed the VPR collection, MSIS constructed company and product indexes. To use them, I had to add this in cantation to my IDQ file :
MetaCornpany(OBTY PE _STRl - dlb5d3f0 -c0 b3 - llcf-9a92 · 00a0c908dbfl c ompa ny MetaProduct(O BTYPE
_S TRl = d lb5 d3 f 0 - c0b3-llcf - 9a92 · OOaOc9 0Bdbf l pro duc t
Then, I could issue the query
@MetaC ornpany SunSo f t
to find all SunSoft press releases. What a great idea! Field indexing adds a new di mension to the full-text indexing so com mon on the Web. It's rarely done for two reasons: Indexers often don't support it, and document collections often don't pro vide fielded content. Leveraging meta tags as MSIS does is the right way to advance the cause of field indexing. Other engines, including Netscape's Catalog Server and the high-end version of Verity's Topic Search, can also exploit meta tags.
Unfortunately, MSIS in its current form (version 1.1) can't read or manipulate the contents of these user-defined fields. So while you can search for SunSoft press releases, you can't write an HTX file that sorts the results by product name. And you can't even use the HTX file to print the val ues of the company and product fields.
The Ultimate Engine?
Basic though SWISH is, I continue to get a lot of mileage out of it. In my view, there's no perfect search engine. If you haven't indexed your site yet, don't get too hung up on choosing the ultimate do-everything tool. Focus instead on tagging your data in ways that let you organize search results in useful ways. Meta tags are a great way to instrument your content so that results returned from any search engine can be sorted by date or category. Once that's done, you can easily replace a basic search tool with a fancier one. Ill
]on Udell (Judell@blx.com) is BYTE's execu tive editor for 11ew media.
WHERE TO FIND
WebGlimpse (http://donkc;y.cs.arlzona.edu /webgllmpse/J Verity's ToplcSearch (http://www.verlty.com/) lnMaglc's DB/Text WebServer (http:l/www.inmagic.com/) Dlgital's AltaVista Private Extensions (http://altavlsta.software.dlgltal.com/) Excite for Web Servers (http://www.exclte.com/) Microsoft Index Server (http://www.mlcrosoft.com/lnternet/)
1 2 6 BYTE JANUAR Y 19 97
T housands of products and technologies are announced each year, but few manage to fu lfill the potential of their spec sheets. Yet every year, a select group of hardware and sofuvare delivers innovations that reset our expectations by allowing us to work in new ways. Each year, we honor those top-tier products with the BYTE Editors' Choice Awards. Awards of Excellence showcase technical in novation that sets a new standard for a product class. Awards of Distinction si ngle out products that are important from a technica l, features, or price standpoint. Awards of Merit go to products worth noting for an interesting feature or price. O ur award winners represent a breadth of technologies, yet all the honorees have something in com mon: T hey all continue to make computing exciting.
Awards of Excellence
Adobe PrintGear PosrScripr's younger cousin enables low cost dev ices to delive r high-quality out put. Adobe Systems, Mountain View, CA; (415) 961-4400; http://www.adobe.com .
Apple Cyberdog 1.1 Apple's Internet technology makes poinr and -click integration of Web content prac tical. Apple Computer, Cupertino, CA; (408) 996-1010; http: //www.app le.com.
Intergraph TD-410 with Intense 3D card Combine a dua l-Pentium Pro system and Inrergrap h's so phisticated 3-D accelera
ic Cap, Windows, and embedded appli cations. Metrowerks, Austin, TX; (512) 873 -4700; http://www.metrowerks.com.
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 The newe t NT is faster than its prede cessors, more agnostic about networks, and generous in the qua lity of Web ser vices it delivers in the standard package. Microsoft, Redmond , WA; (20 6) 882 8080; http ://www.microsoft.com.
Palm Pilot A svelte PDA that's smal l enough t0 carry around easily and a docking station that makes data sharing with desktop PCs prac tical. U.S. Robotics (Palm Computi ng Division), Los Altos, CA; (415) 949-9560; http://www.usr.com/palm.
Mar lborough, MA; (508) 460-2000; http: //w w w.s tratus.com .
Tekt ronix Phaser 550 The first network peripheral we rested with a Web browser interface. T his 1200 dpi color printer also d istinguishes itself with a 14-page-per- minure monochrome output mode. Tektronix, Wilsonville, OR; (503) 682-7370; http://www.tek.com.
Wall Data Salsa 2.1 A visual database development too l with clever object-oriented technology. Wall Data, Kirkland, WA; (206) 814-9255; http://www. walldata.com.
Awards of Distinction
Proxima Desktop Projector 41 OOZ A $J0,000 presentation "app liance" that combines Texas Instruments' Digital Light Processor andAdobe'sAcrobat. Proxima, San Diego, CA; (619) 45 7-5500; http: // www.prxm.com.
Adobe Photoshop 4.0 Image man ipu lation has never been easi er thanks to more sophisticated layeri ng capabilities. Adobe Systems, Mountain View, CA; (415) 961-4400; http ://w",rw .adobe.com.
tor and you ge t a performance leader in personal grap hics workstations. Inter graph, Huntsvi lle, AL; (205) 73 0-2000; l m p : //vvww.intergraph .co m.
Sil icon Graphics 02 workstation Aclever unified memory architecture effi ciently handles com pl ex video and graph ics; street prices start below $6000. Sili con Graphics, Mountain View, CA; (415) 960-1980; http://www.sgi.com .
Metrowerks CodeWarrior 10 A unified front end makes ireasy to deve l op applications for Be, Pa lm Pilot, Mag
Stratus Computer Radio PC Fault-tolerant Pentium Pro that suppo rts n-way clustering. Stratus Computer,
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 127
Editors' Choice Awards
Apple PowerMac 9500MP The first PowerMac to finally bring mul tiprocessing ro high-end applications. Apple Computer, Cuperti no, CA; (408) 996-1010; http://www.apple.com.
Apple PowerBook 1400 Multimedia on the road doesn'tget much better than this, thanks to the 1400's large display, CD-ROM drive, and easy expan sion capabilities. Apple Computer, Cuper tino, CA; (4 08) 996-1010; http://www .applt: . w m .
BeBox Inexpensive hardware plus a multi threaded operating system provide a great platform for multimedia development. Be, Inc., Menlo Park, CA; (415)462-4141 ; http://www.be.com .
Compaq Armada 4130T Highly configurable Pentium notebook means we can finally build the portable we want to satisfy our individual needs. Compaq Computer, Houston, TX ; (713) 514-0484; http://www.compaq.com.
Compaq ProLlant 5000 Best performance, best diagnostics among the firs t quad 200-MHz Pentium Pro systems we tested. Compaq Computer,
Houston, TX; (713 ) 514-0484; http: // www.compaq.com.
Digital Equipment FX!32 Brings fast Win32 emulation to Nf-based Alpha machines. Di gital Equipment Corp., Maynard, MA; (508) 493 -5111; http://www.pc.digital.com.
Digital Equipment Corp. AltaVista Search Intranet Private Extension Personal version of AltaVista engine for searching your PC or network files. Digi tal Equipment Corp., Maynard, MA; (508) 493-5111; http://www.pc.digital.com.
Digital Equipment Corp. and Advanced RISC Machines StrongArm processor An innovative processor that gives PDAs the horsepower they need for handwrit ing recogn ition an d other essential tasks. Digital Equipment, Maynard, MA; (508) 493-5111; http://www.pc.digital.com.
Digital Harbor WAV A $49 word processor for PowerMacs uses OpenDoc components to let you create sophisticated publications with embed ded images, diagrams, and charts. Digital Harbor, Lindon, UT; (801) 796-8213; http://www.dharbor.com.
IBM OpenDoctoolkltforWindows A key piece in the puzzle ro let indepen dent applets interact ac ross LANs and WANs. fBM , Armonk, NY; (914) 765-1900; http ://www.ibm.com.
1900; hrrp://www.ibm.com.
IBM ThinkPad 560 This easy-to-carry 4.1-pound package packs a riveting 12.1-inch color display.
IBM, Armonk, NY; (914) 765-1900; http://www.ibm.com. IBM OS/2 Warp 4.0 Combines an impressive mix of voice recognition, Java, and netwo rk manage ment capabilities. IBM, Armonk, NY; (914) 765-1900; http://www.ibm.com . Quarterdeck WebCompass A metasearch tool for scouring multiple indices. Quarterdeck, Marina de! Rey, CA; (3 10) 309-3700; http://www.quarrerdeck .com. Lotus Notes 4.0 New visual programming tools and Inter net connections make th is groupware leader a Web powerhouse. Lotus Devel opment, Cambridge, MA; (61 7)577-8500; http://www.lotus.com.
IBM ThinkPad 760 CD A pioneer with a 12.1-inch color displays includes a fast Pentium processor, quad speed CD-ROM drive, and MPEG-2 video playback. IBM, Armonk, NY; (914) 765
Lotus Domino Helps Notes developers create dynamic Web sites. Lotus Development, Cam bridge, MA; (6 17 ) 5,77-8500; http:// www.lotus.com.
BYTE Hall of Fame
w hen.BYTE announced its first editors' awards
in 1989, the lnternet community ~onsisted mainly of scientists and educators, the World Wide Web was still three years from launching, and high-end desktop CPUs r~n ata blazing 25-MHz. Today, our 1997 BITE Awards winners reflect a newworld of hardware, software, and communications.
The links benveen 1989 and today exist_in the products below; all past BYfE Awards winners that introduced innovations to change the face of computing.
Adobe Acrobat A lingua franca for electronic documents with easy text searching and hypertext links.
Adobe Photoshop The leader in image editing for Macs and Windows PCs.
Apple Sy~em 7 The Mac OS was synonymous with Gills, and System 7 continued the tradition with ease ofuse, m1e plug-and-play, and color matching.
Apple PowerBook Serles These notebooks define the standard for ergonomic mobile computing.
Apple PowerMac Apple's well-planned and suecessful leap from CISC to
RISC. The new Macs ra-n · existing 680x0-bast:d applica tions with PowerPC perfor- ' mance, and Apple sold more than a million systems in the first year.
Apple Quicklime The technology that helped turn audio and video into common data types.
DigItal Equipment Alpha A 64-bit RISC processor that made its debut at 200 MHz
128 BYTE JANUARY 19 97
8821428 $29.95
0570639-XX $45.00 Hardcover/Counts os 2
8820812 $29.95
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8820901-XX $27.95 Counts as2
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0296626 $29.95
0670196 $29.95
As a member of The Computer Book Club ···you'll enjoy receiving Club bulletins every 3-4 weeks containing exciting offers on the
latest books in the field at savings of up to 50% off the regular publishers' prices. If you want the Main selection , do nothing and it will be
shipped automatically. If you want another book, or no book at all, simply return the reply form to us by the date specified. You'll have at
least 1O days to decic;fe. If you ever receive a book you don't want due to late delivery of the bulletin, you can return it at our expense. And
you'll be eligible for FREE BOOKS through the Bonus Book Program. Your only obligation is to purchase 3 more books during the next 2
years, after which you may cancel your membership at any time.
BY197
'D'Phone: 1-614-759-3666 (8:30 am to 5:00 pm EST Monday-Friday) · ~ Fox: 1-614-759-3749 (24 Hours a day, 7 days a week)
II cord Is missing, write to:Tlle Computer Book Club®, A Division of Tile McGraw-Hiii Companies. P.O. Box Box 549, BlockDck. OH 43004-9918. All books are softcover unless otherwise noted. Publishers' prices shown. If you select a book that counts as 2 choices, write the book number in one box and XX in the next. A shipping/handling charge & sales tax will be added to all orders. ©1997 CBC
Ed ito rs ' C ho i c e Awa rds
MarketScape WebCD 1.0 The easy way to-create a Web site image on a CD-ROM for data dissemination and presentations. MarketScape, Colorado Sprihgs, CO; (719) 593-9890; http://www .marketsca pe .com.
Micro'soft SQL Server 6.5 Faster than version 6.0 with bet_ter admin istration tools than its closest competitors in our last roundup.Micros9ft, Redmond, WA; (206) 882-8080; http://www.micro soft.com .
Ross S PARCplug Small SPARC workstation that fits in two ha lf- height drive bays of a host PC and
Microsoft's File and Print Services forNetWare Make~NTservers work like NetWare3.12 file dnd print servers. M icrosoft, Red mond WA; (206) 882-8080; http://www .microsoft.com.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 The first Microsoft browser with enve lope-pushing technology. Microso.ft, Red mond, WA; (206) 882-8080; http: //www ,microsoft.com.
Microsoft Office 97 Shared code, suite-wide Visual Basic for Applications, and a new collaborative
NEC Versa 6030H One fast notebook, and one of the easi est to use. NEC Technologies, Itasca, IL; (630) 775-7900.
Netscape Navigator 3.0 One browser feanire short of the kitchen sink. Netscape Communications, Moun tain View, CA; (415) 254 -1900; http:// hom e.netscape .com.
Next WebObjects Pro Powerful cross-platform middleware for Web applications.Next Software, Red wood City, CA; (415) 366-0900; http:// www.next.com.
no communicates with the host via X Win
dow over fast Ethernet. Ross Tech l og}~ Austin, TX; (512) 349-3108; http ://www .ross.com.
Novell NetWare 4.11 The "Green River" upgrade delivers lnrraNetWare. Novell, Orem, UT; (801) 222-6000; http://www.novell.com.
Fri 11
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information manager keep this su ite ahead of the pack. Microsoft, Redmond, WA; (206) 882-8080; http://www.micro sofr.com.
Power Computing PowerTower 180 When this first PowerMac clone shipped, it included afaster 604 CPU than any Macs Apple was selling at the tirne. We consid er it a multimed ia author's dream machine. Power Computing, Round Rock, TX ; (512) 388-6868; http: //w\"'v .powercc.com.
Powersoft Opti ma++
RAD for Windows95 and t-..rr that's a drag
and-d rop dream for developers of client/server app lications. Powersoft, Concord , MA; (508) 287-1500 ; http: //
www.powerso~ . com.
Toshiba Satellite Pro 41 OCDT A fast, full-fearured portable with a pin point sharp color active-matrix screen. Toshiba International, Houston, TX; (713) 466-0277; http://www.toshiba.com.
Vinca StandbyServer 32
An adapter card for inexpensively ($2599) mirroring NetWare servers.Vinca, Orem, UT; (801) 223-3100; http: // www. vinca .com.
Awards of Merit
Acer AcerNote Nuevo Notebook with innovative power-saving technology. Acer, San Jose, CA; (408)432 6200; http://www.acer.com. continued
when the then-standard 486 introduced many to super
come -top.pelout ar 60 MHz. The . scalar architecture at ·a
Alpha continues to reign as a . petitive price.
-CPU_performance leader.
IBM ThinkPad series
Hewlett·Packard
With its dis t inctiveeras.er
LaserJet Si series
head pointing-device, this fam
The speed and sharp print ily of notebooks provides the
quality of this behemoth laser bellwether for performance
primer almost single-handed and dazzling displays in
ly' created the market for mobile devices.
wo.rkgroup printers.
lntel486
IBMRS/6000
The processor that incroduc.ed
.IBM' s RISC workstation an integrated FPU, on-chip
cache, and pipelining to the
xS6J~.i:i1ly. ·
· ·.
Intel Pentium
This.continuation of the x86
lineage doubled the perfor
mance of its predecessor and
helped Imel fight off attacks
from RISC competitors.
Lotus Notes 3.0 Thanks to its unique replicat ed message system, Notes became the standard for blending e-mail, conferenc
ing, and client/server datab~se i:ethn.ology fo i'-groupware.:'
Microsoft Office A business suite at its best with Word, Excel, Access and now
tools for fast publishing offll~s
on the Web.
M icrosoft OLE Custom Controls The Windows componeiit model opened up compo nenrware to a huge market of third-parry d~velopers.
130 BYTE JANUAR Y 19 97
This means you can run many of your VAX and MOTIF applications on the same hardware that runs Microsoft Excel or Word, Oracle, Adobe Photoshop; plus engineering and graphics applications such as Pro/
Engineer, Microstation, AutoCAD, Softimage and Lightwave.
Plus, Digital's FX!32 makes it possible to run 32-bit WIN95
and NT applications on the A lpha. Over the last 15
years we have designed systems for thousands of
satisfied customers including many prestigious insti
tutions. Our technicians are expert at configuring the four
Alpha operating systems we support.
System Performance
Microway understands the importance of balancing fast CPUs with equally fast caches, memory and peripherals. Microway's exclusive ZMB SRAM
cache, fed by a 288..bit ~, · -
wide memory system, boosts performance by up to 30%. Its 64-bit PC! bus is driven by a state-of-the-art Digital chip set that feeds 32 and 64-bit PC! sockets. To take advantage of these resources, Microway installs the best graphics and hard disk controllers available, including control
lers appropriate for 2 and 3D Graphics
Workstations and RAID powered Servers.
Numeric Performance
Microway produces one of the finest nu meric optimized compi lers - NOP Fortran. Since 1986, hundreds of applications have been ported to the X86 with it, including industry standards like MATLAB and ASPEN. Our latest RISC scheduler has a number of features that take advantage of the Alpha's quad-issue capability. Run ning on a 500 MHz 21164 that bursts at 1 gigaflop, a dot product kernel we use for compiler testing runs at a mind boggling 940 megaflops! !!
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Mr
crowaY-_®_________ Digi1al,Alpha,OpenVNMTS.EaxncdelDaingditaWlUorNdITXMTMMicDriogsitoafrl.. _7ie_c_h_n_:_~:.n..~-"'
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Corporate Headquarters: Research Park, Box 79, Kingston, MA 02364 USA· TEL 508-746-7341·FAX508-746-4678 www.microway.com, info@microway.com ·France 33 146229988 ·Germany 49 6997650001 ·India 91 806637770 Italy 39 27490749 ·Japan 81 64593113 ·Korea 82 25981623 ·Poland 48 22487172 ·United Kingdom 44 1815415466
Editors' Choice Awards
Apple Newton OS 2.0 Existing problems have been fixed , and this PDA OS offers bette r connectivity compared to earlier iterations. Apple Computer, Cupert in o, CA; (408) 996 1010; http://www.apple.com.
Asymetrix ToolBook II Instructor 5.0 The leader in multimedia authoring too ls.
Connectix VideoPhone 1.1 An easy-co-use and inexpensive package for basic videoconferencing. Connectix, San Mateo, CA; (415) 571-5100; http: // www.connectix.com.
Emultec Simulator Without programming, this innovative product lets you create sophisticated sim ulations for computer-based training or product demonstrations. Emulex, Costa Mesa, CA; (714) 662-5600; http://www .emu lex.com.
Hewlett-Packard Vectra XU 6/150 Best of the first dual-CPU 150-MHz Pen tium Pro PCs we tested. Hewlett-Packard, PaloAlro, CA; (415) 857-1501; http://www . hp.com.
Microsoft FrontPage Easy-ro-use development tool for less complex Web sires. Microsoft, Redmond,
... ·· - AcliveMovie Conl1ol Ob.eci
Cotolysl FTP Client Conllol
Common Diologs Control
Cuinlo Corltol
Dockoble ToolbOI Corltol
GridConUol
HO<Jts Control
lmdgelisl Control
WA; (206) 882-8080; lmp ://www.micro soft.com .
Asymetrix, Bellevue, WA; (206) 462-0501; http://www.asymetrix.com.
Borland C++ 5.0 Suite Major revision of a classic, with bundled products that take developers from pro ject inception ro deployment. Bo rland international, Scotts Valley, CA; (408) 431 1000; http://www.borland.com.
Canon inks Photorealisti<; inks for ink-jet printers improves reproduction of pborographs. Canon Computer Sy rems, Cosra Mesa, CA; (714) 438 -3000; bttp: // www.ccsi .canon. corn.
Cheyenne's ArcServe 6.0 Excels at file-level backup and resroration tasks. Cheyenne Software, Roslyn Heights, NY; (516) 484-5110; http://www .cheyenne .com.
Hewlett-Packard Deskjet 1600CM Network-ready color ink-j et printer with srunning output. Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, CA; (415) 857-150 I ; hrrp: // www .hp.com.
Innovative Software's OEW for Java Object Engineering Workbench provides a visual programming environment for Java. Innovative Softwa re Develop ment, Englewood, CO; (.303) 220-1500.
Macromedia FreeHand Graphics Studio 7 Four cross-platform grap hics program s that provide everything from illusrrarion and page design to 3-D modeling. Macro media, San Francisco, CA; (415) 252-2000; http://www.macromedia.com.
Microsoft Exchange Server E-mail on steroids. Microsoft, Redmond, WA ; (206) 882-8080; lmp://www.micro sofr.com.
Netscape LiveWire For content-rich development of complex Web-sires, LiveWire is especially effective when );Ou ream it wirh server-side JavaScript. Netscape Communications, Mountain View, CA; (415) 254-1900; http: // home.netscape.com.
Novell GroupWise 5 Significantly improved document rnan agemenr capabilities added ro messaging, calendaring, and scheduling tools . Nov ell, Orem, UT; (80 1) 222-6000; Imp: // www.novell.com.
Star Division's StarOffice 3.1 An office suite that is one of the first ro inregrare Web fearures. Star Division, Edina, MN ; (612) 943-1565; http: // www.stardiv.de.
Verilog's ObjectGeode Object-oriented CASE for the real world. Verilog, Bagnuex, France; + 33 l 665 7070.
Mic.rosoft Visual Basic · Visual programming for GUI
and Windows devel o pm.enr
reached a broad audience when VB arrived.
Microsoft Windows 3.x Overcoming earlier missteps, Windows 3.0 started a flood of applications and the desk
fop environment most users
live in today.
Microsoft Windows NT ··Win.dews with pree mptive
multitasking, multiprocessing, · . design needs of Pentium- and
and reliability for servers and .RISC-based systems. powe~·~ hungry workstations.
PCMCIA (PC Card) 2.0
Netscape Navigator
This specification first defined
Navigator has defined sophis how pocket-size cards wo uld
ticated fnterner browsers with support mod ems, printers,
multithreading capabilities and orher general 1/0 devices.
and multiple active panes thar
e nable efficienr di splay of Sun Microsystems Java
complex information.
An interpreted programming
langu age that is the newest
PCI Special Interest
best hope to fulfill the promise
Group PCI 2.0
o f delivered-on-demand soft-
PCl fulfills the local-bll s : ware thatrunsonstreamlined,
distributed sysrems.
Sun SparcStation 1 SparcSration and workstation became synon ymous for many people when Sun introduced this new standard for pr ice and performance.
Unix System V There 's srill no single stan dard for Unix, but System V version 4 came dose by uni fying Xenix~ SunOS , 4 .3 BSD, and System V.
132 BY TE JANUARY 1997
New hand-held Windows PCs truly synchronize with desktop systems. By Peter Wayner
At Last: Pocket PCs That Run Windows
or years, pocket organizers have lurked in a shadow world between mainstream PCs and stereo equipment, selling through gadget stores like Sharp er Image instead of CompUSA. Windows CE may change all that. Microsoft has stripped down 32-bit Windows to its bare essentials--creating an operating system small enough to run on a hand-held com puter. CE (once known as " Pegasus") may eventually run on many different small or embedded computers, but it is first being introduced to the world as the OS for palmtop computers. Itested three of the first CE uni cs, from Compaq, NEC, and LG Electronics (familiar for its Goldstar monitors). Of simi lar size and weight, all three have a simple clamshell design with a 480- by 240-pixel touch-sensitive black-and white LCD screen, a miniature QWERTY keyboard, one Type 2 PC Card slot, speak ers, and ROM-based Windows CE. All sell for around $500 with 2 MB of RAM (and 4 or 8 MB of ROM). l rested 4-MB models rhat go for around $650. Casio manufactures the Compaq unit and sells identical hardware, as the Cas siopeia, wirh a different software bundle. Hitachi will sell a version of the LG
* * IMPLEMENTATION
-;r
Electronics hand-held, which is powered by Hitachi's SH3 RISC CPU. Hewletr Packard and Philips are bringing out CE hand-helds, too (see "More Better HPCs" on page 134).
To distinguish CE computers from palmtops, organizers, and personal dig ital assisranrs, Microsoft is pushing rhe designation HPC (for "hand-held PC"), an acronym l will observe for breviry. This distinction might prove important, bur rhe current crop of HPCs offer many o f rhe same features as regular PDAs and palmtop organizers. They keep track of your appointmencs, phone numbers, and notes. Like some recent PDAs, HPCs can automatically synchronize this dara via serial port with software on your desk top system.
The big HPC advantage is Windows CE, stored in ROM. If you use Win 95, you'll feel right at home, from the bot tom-left Start button that grows into a menu tree to each application's close but ton in the upper-right corner. CE comes with downsized ve rsions of Windows applications rhar synchronize with their desktop equivalents.
The applications include rhe mosr sophisticated word processor and spread sheet I've seen on a pocket machine.
The HPCs' tiny keyboards will be a hin drance, bur you can browse and edit doc uments created by the desktop versions of the applications. (I quickly abandoned my effort ro write this article on one of rhe review units.) People are likel y to buy HPCs for organizing their lives, not for word processing.
But there are also interface differences appropriate to the small screen ofa hand held device. The Start menu doesn't build into a multilevel rree, for example, and there is no right mouse button to pop up context menus because you use a stylus (or a finger) :ind select by tapping. Unlike a desktop application, a good CE program is either minimized to the rask bar or max imized to fill the screen.
Memory also constrains the applica tions shipped with CE. Although they are
IMPLEMENT~ ION'
called Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, and Pocket Internet Explorer, the pocket ver sions have considerably fewer features than their full-grown siblings. For instance, Pocket Word will allow you to change the font or use the outliner, but it won't let you set the margins. The three small menus bear only a distant relation ship to standard Microsoft Word. Pock et Word is a fine application for an HPC,
* * * * * O u t s tand ing
**** *** * Very Good
Good
* * Fair
Poor
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 133
Compa ri son Pocke t PCs Run Windows
but the note processor on t he Apple New ton, fo r example, has almost as m uch in com mo n with Microsoft Word as does Pocket Wo rd.
The Web browse r is surpris ingly use ful, altho ugh it has few buttons and has to run on such a small screen. Its usefuln ess is a testa ment to t he brilli a nce beh ind H ypertext Markup language (HTML) and its all-e ncompassing app roac h to fi tting any local screen. O f course, you can run e your pages to the small display by mini mi zing th e gra phi cs a nd avo idin g a ny shades or colors that will be lost as they 're conve rted to fo ur levels of gray.
T he HPC design sets a new display stan dard fo r palmtops. The 480- by 240-pixel
screens are larger than most pocket orga nizers and look significantl y better than most, thou gh w ith fo ur gray levels and little or no backl ighting, they don' t com pare to the bright color displays of note book computers. But then, an HPC must be able to run for several days o n two AA batteries. The CE specificati on mandates so me mea ns of adjusting scree n contrast, either wi th the keyboard or with a wheel, which is preferable.
Typing on tiny keys wi th two fingers is tough, but Ialso fo und that the typical HPC clamshell case just isn't as comforta ble to use as either Apple's ~ewton o r USRobot ics' Palm Pilot. M y left thumb often grew tired from ho lding the HPC after o nly a few minutes of my right-finge r typing. As rid ic uled as th e N ewton was, I fo und myself wishing fo r its handwriting-recog nition abilities.
I a lso found it awkward to switch back and forth between th e keyboard and the stylus. My best soluti o n was to ho ld the clamsh ell in my le ft hand and the stylus between my right index finge r and thumb while typing with my right middle finger. I would welcome something like the new G raffiti software distributed with the N ewton and the Palm Pilot.
Size might also be a concern. Although they fit snugly in a suit jacket pocket, HPCs are large and heavy eno ugh to create a sig nifica nt bulge. It's not like carrying around a sleek cell phone.
With plenty of pocke t o rganize rs priced between $1 00 and $250, you might think twice about the cost of HPCs. The
screens of pocket machines are signifi cantly smaller, and these devices don't pre tend to run Wind ows 95 , but they t ake names, numbers, and notes and also syn chronize data witl1 a PC.
Tho ugh the th ree rev iewed HPCs are nearly interchangeable, Co mpaq's PC
Companion comes out on top in aesthet
ics. T he PC Companion's best fea ture is its
backl it screen, which extends the range o f
co ndi t io ns und e r w hich th e d is pl ay
remains usable. The PC Companio n's con
trast-adjustment wheel also helps you get
the most o ut of fo ur dim shades o f gray.
The price for bac kli ghtin g is increased
powe r consumptio n, so use it only when
you have to.
The PC Co mpanio n is Compaq 's ver
sion of Casio's HPC. [t's based on Hitachi's
SH3 processor. T he PC Companion takes
one PC Card device. The cradle provides
power charging, but you need to hook up
the separate serial cable for data synching.
Unfo rtunately, the unit's extern al stylus
ho lster leaves the stylus partiall y exposed.
rf you lose it, your $500-plus HPC becomes
significantly less useful.
co11ti1111ed
PROGRAMMING
Developing for Windows CE
MicrosofN1as designed theWindows !,':E API as a S!lb~et of the Windows 32-bit APL (;ippr~x-
.imately 25 percent o.fit). Au the basic calls are famlli;ir. If a programmer wants to put-up ~w[Q-.
dow or man-ip1.date th"screen,.then the data structures ;ind procedure calls will be exa·c~y
the same. Of CQurse th.ere are challenges. The s~r~eri of the target device is much sm~IJer,
and the bet.1avior ofthe'.windows is so.mewhatli~ltcd. DC'.(cliJpcrs must pay attention tl>-the·
iittle am~unt of availabJc RAM anlcurrent l ~~k:oi'color di~plays.
.
Windows CE is currently on several hardware.platforms. including Mips (NEC's VR 4101
and the R3900 core in f>hilips' chip set) and Hita<;hi's SH3. Lik-e NT, Windows-CE is isolated
· by a .hardw;lr.e '~bstractiJ>n layer.(H.AL), which-keel!~· l!>W-level·programmlng -to ·a m)ni~"1m. Manufact11rerS·dori~t have to spend time writing device drivers and·glue co.de. Programmers ·
arc writing CE code on NT desktop systems using simulation offhe CE environment '
Atthis time, ho.wever, developing for CE is an option available only to a select group. You
can't yet simply purchase a compiler.and an SOK and write yqur own applications. Corit~.ast
this with the US Robotics Palm Pilot. You can build programs for that hand-held machine
using Metrowerks' CodeWarrior 10, which comes with development tools for the Pilot and for
devices based on General Magic~s Magic Cap (see our CodeWarrior review on page 47).
1 34 BYTE J ANUA R Y 1997
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I
Comparison Pocket PCs Run Windows
The best part about the LG unit is its optional built-in modem. Somehow, the folks at LG Electronics found just enough room to add a modem with a stan dard jack on the side of the machine. This frees up the PC Card slot for other things. Of course, running a modem uses lots of power and should be done with care and a rechargeable battery pack, although the built-in device should be more power-con serving than a PC Card modem.
The LG is also alone in storing its sty lus securely inside the clamshell. You can activate the touchscreen with your fin gertip, but you have to do so very precise ly. Windows CE does have many keyboard shortcuts, but you don't want to try to edit text without a stylus.
I found the LG HPC's screen compara ble to the NEC MobilePro's but of course not as readable as the backlit Compaq PC Companion's. Though the LG HPC has no docking module option, it does have a built-in charger. You plug in the AC adapter if you' re using rechargeable batteries and attach the serial cable for synching with your desktop PC.
Hitachi has an HPC based on the LG model. It's comparable to the products we reviewed . Prices start at 5499 for a unit with 2 MB of RAM.
The most visible difference between NEC's MobilePro and the other two HPCs is its external power switch; it's out side the clamshell. The switch is lighted so it can also act as a visual alarm. While there may be something stylish about merging these two features, it creates a potential problem in that you can turn on the unit
accidentally. This risk is minimized by the fact that Windows CE is smart enough to turn off during periods of idleness.
The MobilePro has twice as much ROM as the other two units, though the benefit isn't yet apparent. Providing nei ther modem nor backlighting, NEC also has the most optimistic claims about bat tery life.
The stylus to the NEC is easy to get to and somewhat protected when the lid is closed. The lip parrially covers the stylus and keeps it from sliding out. lf this design were a bit more protective, it wou ld bethe best compromise between security and accessibil ity.
The MobilePro comes with a cradle. Unlike the Compaq or Casio docking cradles, the NEC cradle allows one-step docking. Plugging the MobilePro into its cradle connects both the AC adapter and the serial connection.
Noted with Pleasure
The HPC moniker is more appropriate than most in the world of computer hype. With Windows CE, these machines are just like PCs that you can hold in your hand. The Apple Newton, the Sony Magiclink, and the US Robotics Palm Pilot still come bundled with the attitude that they've been beamed in from Star Trek land. HPCs are
PRODUCT INFORMATION
eompaq PC o nij>anion $600
(2M&ofRAM)
Compaq Computer
Houston, TX (800) 345-151'8 http://www.compaq .com/ Circl~ 1109 on 1.n.q~hyCard.
LµHPC.
$650
[4MB 9fRAM, fax
mode.ml LG·Electronics .,.
Engjcwood Cliffs. NJ
.':t (201) 8i.6,.2000· .:,:~ii,,:~
http://www.lge.co!k~
Circle 11'1 0
·
on Inquiry Card.
NEC M,obilePro , · · ·
$649 (esti111ated '
street pdce)
(4 MB ofRAM, cradle) NEC Computer Sy~tems
, Mountain View, CA · (80Pl:~tf2-4.636 .··
(508J26~-80ilO
http://www.nec.com/.
Circle i111
·
on,Inquiry Caril.
more humble. They have a screen, a key board, and a stylus that acts like a mouse, and their sole job is to act like Windows 95. The screens may be small and gray, the keyboard tiny, and the stylus a pain to juggle, but the package is worth consider ing if you have to take your computer on the road. Even 7-pound notebooks can feel heavy when you walk through an airport
m with other luggage.
Peter Wayner is a BYTE co11s11 /ti11g editor. You can reach him at pcw @a ccess.dlgex.net or view his home page at http://www.access.
dlgex.net/ -pcw/pcwpage.html.
136 BYTE JANUARY 1997
With its newest NetWare upgrade, Novell confronts the intranet and the reality of TCP/IP. By Steve Gillmor
Dial 411 for Directory Assistance
he release of NetWare 4.11 and its companion product, IntranetWare (see the Tech Focus on page 138), marks an important moment in Novell's transition to Web-based technologies. This evo lutionary (.01) update, formerly code named Green River, integrates key third party utilities, strengthens NetWare's lead in directory services, and begins the perhaps-inevitable migration from No vell's proprietary IPX protocol to the In ternet's TCP/IP. Novell has emulated elements of Mi crosoft's Windows NT Server strategy in bundling a number of previously sep arate utilities with the core 4.11 server. For example, symmetric multiprocess ing (SMP) for as many as four processors, once available only from supporting hard ware vendors, comes ready to go; the im proved installation program automati cally detects additional processors, and you can purchase add-on SMP support for as many as 32 CPUs in one server. I found 4.11 's hardware detection to be vastly enhanced; it seamlessly detect ed a wide range of hard disks, CD-ROM drives, and LAN cards-even IDE devices. Although I wasn't using an EISA-bus serv er, the C-Worthy installation program asked for slot numbers for the EISA bus;
RATINGS
- 'n ;c,Hj(OLOGY
*,_ * *'' *
* IM PLEJl1'!.E,...:rA"JiON · ~ *« *
'PERFORMANCE
** * *
however, it seemed·happy with a random
response.
Novell has incorporated a subset of
Preferred Systems' popular DS Standard
tools, renamed DS Migrate, into NetWare
4.11. This aids modeling and printing and
simpli fies the migration of more com
plete NetWare 2.lx, 2.2, or 3.lx bindery
information to NetWare Directory Ser-
With the new NetWare Administrator, you can drag and drop between multiple directories.
vice (NDS). Server files are then migrat ed with the new File Migration utility, which can run from a Windows 3.lx or Windows 95 NetWare client. You can still use the DOS-based MIGRATE.EXE, but that legacy tool doesn' t include model ing functionality.
NetWare Administrator (NWAdmin) comes in both Windows 3.lx and Win 95 flavors and takes NDS to the next gener ation, for the first time allowing admin istrators to navigate among multiple trees and contexts using graphical drag-and drop editing. Now you can select any of the trees you're logged in to from the Set Context option in the View menu. Click the Tree icon, and you can view all the trees on the network; you can then graph ically select the context rather than hav ing to type it in.
User Templates allow you to specify defau lt values for new users. The Details On Multiple Users option enables you to modify existing property values for multiple objects in one step, and you can
configure NWAdrnin's toolbar to give you instant access to your favorite tools. NDS Manager (which is an enhanced GUI ver sion of Partition Manager) allows yo u to create and manage NDS repl icas across the tree; you can also update any or all servers to the latest NDS version across the network.
The improved NetWare Application Launcher (NAL) utility exploits NDS's object technology to streamline applica tion services. You can control access; de fine directory, icon, and command-line parameters; and define start-up scripts to house drive mappings, print captures, and other settings. Users simply click on the provided icon, and NAL sets up the workstation and launches the application according to the object's properties.
In termsofapplications, NetWare4.11 is much more robust in handling an ab normal end (abend) to a NetWare load able module (NLM) process. The server console now identifies the errant code or hardware problem; you can configure the
*****Outstanding ****Very Good *** Good ** Fair *Poor
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 137
Review Dial 411 for Directory Assistance
TECH FOCUS
INTRANET
--' ,\\{: ·~ .....
.·.~ ~..-.
. .. "
.
· What~s ah Intranet OS?
-.:.:·
NetWare Web Ser.ier leverages NetWare Directory Service-(NDS),
·What's the difference between a network OS (NOS) and an intranet giving administrators control over Web-browser access to documents
·OS? Nov~il cleariy:raiscs that quc:stion by selling two products: Its t~a- · ·based on·IP address. NOS authentication, or file-based directory-access
·ditional NetWare and the new lntranetWare, a superset of NetWare. rights. You can publish static documents for intranet or Internet access
Novell's answer is that NetWare incorporates five key services or write !;!ASIC or-Perl si;ripts to dynamically serve HTML pages in re
(file, print, directory, security, and management), to which Intranet sponse to browser requests. Two forms ofCommon Gateway Interface
Ware a.dds three more (messaging, Web publishing,,and wide-ar~~ (CGI) al'.1'.~upport~d-a remote; version (cl!lled RCGI), which ca~ run on connectivity) that give a network access t~ the'Internet,the Web;·and .. mul ti'p1~'-p1atforms, arid ·3 local version·(called LCGI), which must'be
local Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) pages. That defines the coded as a NetWare loadable module (NLM) for faster execution. Java
difference.
· applets and JavaScript round out the programming toolkit.
Thus, the lntranetWare package includes NetWare 4.11 but moves
Staridardizing on the Visual Basic-like NetBasic scripting tool
liey<ind it wit'1 Internet Access Server-which is.a bundling of Novell's )nakes it easier for developers to use NetWare; Novell's Net2000 APls
IPXfS.PX-fo-IP gateway, the Multiprotocol Router (MPR}, an ftp serv- expose NOS to access by ActiveX controls, PowerBuilder, Delphi, and
.er,~!Id N¢tscape'~ Navigator 2.01 brows~r. The IPX/IP gateway ser.v- other popular tools. The included NetBasic scripting interpreter can
· er. .allows·lex clients to access the Web without loading a TCP/IP stack tit~rid.Web-browser access from read-only to allowing more robust
on-each .workstation. Administrators can use NetWare Administrator interactive capabilities.
t~ t imfi!)Ure lnternet'access on both a port (Web~ ftp, ortelnet) and
.NetWare 4.1·1 and lntranetWare are available for the same price,
IP;:-addre~ basis.
so it makes little sense to buy the lesser product Once you've inst.alled
·:.) '4PR ii.ddressesl he el)lerging need for increased band.width, pro- IP serv.ices iii w'1atever combination.best serves your enterpris~; you
viding sof'.tware-based wide-area routing with WAN extensions, includ- can make on-line documentation available on the Intranet via No
i~g _ISO!", leased lines, frame relay,.and ATM lin'k$. ~II ftp services can vell's proprietary DynaText hypertext reader. The Internet Access Serv~r be confi~ured for anonymous access, and.the Netscape'Navigator Ii- softwal'e docu~entation ·is provided in HTML format, while the MPR"
cense can be applied to a more up-to-date version ofthe browser. and NetWare 4.t 1 text exists only in DynaText format. Both pa~kage~;contain·NetWare/IP 2.2 (with DJ:ICP su_j>port), N~t:.. · :·.- ' · .Whit hever product you choose, Novell has come a great distance
Ware Web Server 2.51, a·nd NetBasic for t he lnt~rnet. Configuring in adopting the requirements of both the Web and 32-bit Windows. N¢,tWa.~~JJP.requires some knowledge of the Dom~in Naming System .NetWar'e/IP and the IPX/!P.gatewayease-the·transition to TCP/IP,.while .
(DNS) and the Domain ~AP/RIP Service (DSS), butNetWare auto!llat- the enhanced Client32 tools seamlessly integrate NetWare ser.vices
ically migrates the settings on subsequent installations.
into Windows 9.~·s Network Neig,hborhood and other system utilities.
server to automaticall y shut down and re start, or yo u can manuall y halt th e co r rupted process and allow mo re time fo r cleaning up other tasks. N etWare is still vulnera ble t o poorl y written NLMs, but abe nd auto-recovery preserves mo re clues fo r isolating the problem.
File and print services a re improved in the new release. You can direct NetWare's file services to automatically compress files (selecting by fi le, directory, or volume), which can cut your disk requ irements in half. You can also direct N etWare to au tomaticaUy move certain data to less ex pensive storage devices (which is known as built-in hi erarchi cal sto rage manage ment) . T he new NPRINTER M anager al lows th e sharing o f printers attached to Win 95 workstations.
To Upgrade or Not?
N etWare is still a high-performance ve hicl e th at requires an on-staff mechanic. Even with imp roved auto-detectio n and configuration, this suite o f tools does not match Windows NT's user-friend ly look and feel. N etWare veterans will appreciate
NetWare 4.11 includes the NetWare Web Server and support for NetBasic.
the m any administrative enhancements, but more work needs to be done to make the intranet / lntern et tools an integral part of the environment.
N ovell is positioning N etWare 4. 1I as the solution for the significant percentage of its installed base that has no interest in Internet connectivity. Web Server is includ-
ed, however, to whet the appetite of those who recognize the need to wed an intra net with the Internet. With IntranetWare, N ovell remains a major player in the net work game.
NetWare sho ps will have no trouble with either version. The bundled applica tions alone represent a value of thousands of dollars; Web Server, fo r example, was previously priced at $1 595.
But M icrosoft, fresh fro m opening up N etscape's lock on the browser market, can be ex pected to continue adding val ue to NT Server. N etWa re's Achilles' heel re mains its lack of off-the-shelf applica tion support, and N ovell seems to be bet ting th e farm that futu re J ava applica tio ns will overtake Wi ndows. H owever, Microsoft's ability to blend its dominant desktop product line w ith its server tools creates a momentum that may prove to be
m impossible to blunt.
Steve Gillmor, w ho works at Southern Digital, Inc. (Charleston, SC), has extensive experience with net works and gro11pware. ¥0 11 can reach him at sglllmor@aol.com.
1 38 BYTE J AN U ARY 1997
Wall Data's Salsa lets nonexperts create database applications simply and quickly, and with minimal coding. By Russell Kay
Hot Sauce for Cooking Up Databases
alsa for the Desktop 2.2 is one hot package for creating Win dows database applications with a minimum of program ming, using a visual, object-oriented envi ronment. Wall Data built Salsa around an appealing notion: You do the things that people do well (describe your data and business objects) and let the computer handle all the down-and-dirty details of implementation. I used Salsa to create a database appli cation to catalog and cross-index an ex tensive record collection, down to the level of individual album tracks and songs, composers, and performers. I'd tried to create such a database four times before. However, l had given up because establishing and maintaining the complex many-to-many links was too hard to do with other tools. Salsa seemed like the first product that would let me do it with out going back to graduate school. You start by creating an object by drawing a box in the workspace, nam ing it, and dragging other objects, data elements, items, or groups into it. Salsa comes with a large number of common, predefined objects; many more are avail able in a series of specialized starter kits ($49 each, $149 for all 10). You can also roll your own. If you right-dick on an object or data item, an extensive prop erty sheet comes up for you to edit. For example, one pair ofproperties-so use ful that they're always visible as subscripts to the item name in the object box-is the minimum required (usually 0 or 1) and maximum permitted number of instances (usually 1or11). You link one object to another sim ply by dragging the header of the first into the body of the second. Salsa simplifies building complicated databases by assum ing that all relationships are bidirectional and many-to-many. I created the data model, established
the links, and clicked on TestDrive to cre ate the databases, forms, queries, and reports. While refining the data-input form to add a drop-down pick list for one particular field, Iwas startled to find that I'd reached and exceeded the limits ofSal sa's visual-programming capabilities and had entered a decidedly different world. System help messages directed me to cre ate an unbound control combo box, reset certain of its properties, and write some lines of code for the change event to link it to a bound control.
Bound and unbound controls? Change event? Code? Where and what were these things? By systematically trying all the menu options, I found the mysterious change event by clicking on Scripting under the Tools menu. After conquering that obstacle, I soon discovered, among other things, that Salsa is fussily case-sen sitive, differentiating between Stylebox .Addltem and Stylebox.additem (wrong). And I learned that there are easier ways to add pick lists than that which the help system suggests.
Previous versions of Salsa relied on a proprietary database engine. Now, Salsa can create Microsoft Access database files via Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), and other standard DBMS formats are in the works. In this version, you can use
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Complementing the $350 Salsa is a new $49 run-time version that lets you run and distribute a Salsa application, cre ate new data, build queries and reports indeed, you can change just about any thing but the underlying data model.
A few weeks after you buy Salsa, a
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technical-support person will call to arrange a 1-hour phone-support session to help you build an application and talk you through any rough spots.
On reflection, Salsa is both less and more than I'd hoped for. Less, because it doesn't perform magic and do what I was thinking-talk about unrealistic expec tations! More, because it helped me cre ate a complex application on which I'd previously given up.
When I approached Salsa with the perspective ofan unsophisticated user, to get a simple version of the application working well before adding the beUs-and whistles refinements, my applications came together smoothly and swiftly. This powerful and capable program let me do things I couldn't figure out with other database packages. Ill
Russell Kay, a BYTE technical editor, spent years as a dBase II programmer on CPIM sys tems. You can reach him at russell k@blx.com.
***** Outstanding ****Very Good ***Good **Fair *Poor
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 139
Jerry Pournelle
Another heat wave brings
near disaster to Chaos
A Hard Drive and a Manor-andJerry finds a Hot Santa Ana novel use for a CPU fan.
y novel Starswann is done, and my agent and my editor at Tor Books think it's the best
· ·1111 thing I've ever done. I'll stop
crowing any day now. Larry Niven and I expect to finish The Burning City about the first of the year. Clearly, my new work regime is working.
All this activity has stalled some com puter projects. I had hoped, with the help of Larry Aldridge of PC Power & Cool ing, to build a really fast twin-Pentium system from a Micronics motherboard
and install the new osi2Warp that sup
ports symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), bur it hasn't happened yet.
Even so, as a result of our experience with the Diamond Flower dual-Pentium Doubleshot 133 running Windows NT 4.0, I currently recommend a dual-pro cessor system as the upgrade of choice for everyone not running Windows 95 (Win 95) games. Don't try to speed up your old machine; get a new one and network your old one to it.
Dual-processor systems change the way artists think about graphics. David Em, one of the first fine artists to use com puter graphics, had some problems with his machine, so we lent him the Dou bleshot 133. He's been experimenting, watching the CPU usage meters while he manipulates large graphics images.
David finds that as soon as you have Adobe Photoshop render a large image, both processors are used 100 percent. This isn't so surprising; the astonishing thing is that you can do that kind of graphics on a desktop machine. Not long ago, you either used a Silicon Graphics workstation or learned to have lots of patience. David says that he experiments more: he's no longer intimidated by the long delays bet\veen concept and picture.
Even if games are a primary interest, you may be better off getting a good medium-speed dual-Pentium system rather than a very fast single-processor system. While NT 4.0 doesn't support Win 95 games, it does run a surprisingly large number of DOS and Windows 3.1 games. Moreover, monster hard drives are cheap, and with the aid of System
meaning that systems based on Digital rather than Intel architecture are an option worth considering.
Back in 1976,I paid $12,000for Ezekial, a2-MHzZ80with 64 KB of RAM, a 16-row by 64-column video board, a mono chrome monitor, two 8-inch floppy drives, and a 30-cps Diablo daisy-wheel printer. That machine's on display in
A good dual-processor system can change the way you think about graphics.
Commander and Partition Magic, you can setup a dual-processor system to boot in Win 95 or DOS for games such as Cru sader: No Regret, which just can't stand any kind of Windows. Any Pentium sys tem you're likely to get will be fast enough for most of those games; and if you can get modem games running under NT (some do, some don't), the dual proces sors can give you a decided speed edge.
While I recommend upgrading by ger ti ng a dual-Pentium system and net working it to your old system, there is another possibility: abandoning Intel for Digital Equipment RISC-chip systems. These systems run NT just fine, and you can add as many processors as you need. I recently was the keynote speaker at a computer fair in Albuquerque, where I spent some time with Fred Feagin ofThor Computers. I remember Fred as a space craft designer at the Jet Propulsion Lab oratory (JPL). He's now doing computer systems design.
Thor takes Digital RJSC machines and adds some engineering improvements. The result is reliable and incredibly fast. I don't yet know enough about these marvels, but I will soon. The cost is now down in the high-end desktop class,
the Smithsonian's History of Conunu nications and Computing exhibit. It's astonishing what that much money will buy today.
T
he Los Angeles Times bemoans t he
lack of trained graphic artists in the
U.S.The entertainment industry is forced
to import talent from overseas. What with the Internet, theme parks, TV com mercials, as well as films and TV shows, there's a big demand for digital artists and the schools aren't producing them.
The problem isn't computer literacy; it's artistic training. Apparently, we no longer teach any kind of artistic creativ ity in the schools.
The Times wants school reform. Per haps that's needed, although I wonder what artistic training kids will get from a system chat fails to teach a quarrerof them to read; but however effective school reform can be, it's going to take a while. I asked David what someone interested in a position in graphic arts might do in the meantime.
"Learn to draw," David said. "Don't worry about technique; pay attention to what you see. Once you learn to see things properly, the drawing will take care of
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 141
Chaos Manor A Hard Drive and a Hot Santa Ana
itself. " We then went on a hike up my favorite hill, where I realized I wasn 't see ing 10 percent ofwhat he saw even though we were looking at the same scene.
As for tools, anyone with a Pentium sys tem and a reasonable graphics board has most of what' s required . You should learn to use a drawing pad; Wacom makes a good one for a reasonable price. For soft ware, Caligari's trueSpace isa good begin ner 's program. By the time you run up against its limits, you' ll know whether this is something you really want to do. For that matter, everyone has a pencil and some paper, which is not only a good way to start, but a medium you'll have to learn to work with.
The computer graphics field changes like dreams; you can now do things with desktop systems that two years ago you couldn ' t do with any equipment in the world. That's going to continue; and as David is fond of pointing out, it's all new. There's no 2000 years of traditional ways of doing things to weigh you down.
I've often said you don' t need formal instruction to become a writer: you need
to write a lot and finish what you write. Apparently, it's also that way with art. Sure, training helps, but mostly you just need to do a lot of it. I'm sure the schools
Manager and assign that drive a letter. My Zip drive wanted to be drive E, displac ing the CD-ROM drive that resided there. Using Device Manager to assign E to the
If I boot up with a cartridge in the system, it's a horrible mess.
need reforming, but meanwhile, there are a lot of wonderful programs out there, like Broderbund's Kid Pix Studio, to give young people an early start.
Irecently said rather flippantly that "SCSI has a mind of its own." Several readers .have taken me to task for that. Perhaps they're right. What I should have said is there are a number of SCSI BIOSes out there, and they can behave rather differ ently, so one person's experience may not apply to another's problems.
Case in point: my trials with installing Syquest EZ135 and Iomega SCSI Zip car tridge drives and the consequent shifting of drive-letter assignments. On Cyrus, the Cyrix 6x86-P166 system, once you install the drive, you can go into Win 95's Device
CD-ROM drive does no good whatever. However, once you install the Zip drive,
you can go into Device Manager and reserve F for the Zip drive (even though the CD-ROM drive has that letter); reboot the system; and Bob's your uncle. The Zip drive will be F whether there's a cartridge in the drive on boot-up or not.
Alas, it doesn't work that way with Pentafluge, which is my older Pentium P 60 system. I can assign the Zip drive to be G (there's a Maxoptix T3 -1300 optical drive at E, and the CD-ROM drive is F), and if I boot up with no cartridge in the Zip drive, all's well; but if I boot up with a cartridge in the system, it's a horrible mess. Drives are displaced, and the Device Man ager becomes very confused. I am defi nitely better off not assigning the drive let
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A Hard Drive and a Hot Santa Ana Chaos Manor
ter and letting SCSI plus Plug and Play do their things.
The worst of it is that Win 95 doesn't have to assign drive letters to let you access a drive. Network Neighborhood lets you copy to and from a networked drive by name, no drive letter wanted. Unfortu nately, most software can 't access a drive that way.
The bottom line is that different systems behave in different ways. Mac users are fond of pointing out that they don ' t have problems like this: their drives have drive names, not letters. It's all true, too.
Following up on last month's disaster: the problem with Cyrus was definitely overheating in the Seagate Barracuda 4.2 GB hard drive. This is a good drive, but everyone I have consulted says you want to be careful about heat.
I learned the hard way. Just after I fin ished last month's column, it got cool enough in Los Angeles that I shut down the air conditioning. The Santa Ana winds blew up a couple of days later. These are hot winds. The temperature in my office gotto 100°F, by which time Cyrus was giv ing me disk errors every few seconds. When I opened the bezel on the front, the Barracuda drive was so hot I didn't want to touch it.
Leaving the bezel off allowed it to cool down a little, but then the CD-ROM drive wouldn'twork: withoutthe bezel in place, no air was being sucked in through the CD ROM slot. Replacing the bezel fixed the CD-ROM drive (once it cooled down), but then the Barracuda drive overheated again.
Computer designers give agreat deal of thought to heat flow, but there's a prob lem. Openings large enough for good ven tilation can leave gaps that will spoil the unit's FCC certification. Moreover, some people, in total defiance of the awful majesty of the FCC, nm their systems with the covers off. While that doesn't seem to do much electromagnetic harm-I haven't heard of airplanes crashing or firemen unable to communicate because someone hasn't put the cover on a Pentium system it does spoil the airflow.
I suspect I had got the wide SCSI cables our of place in one of my excursions into Cyrus. Cyrix has since changed their cable routing scheme because of this problem.
Replacing the Barracuda drive wasn't difficult-the Cyrix case is designed so that everything pulls out through the front
and you don 't have to disassemble any of the cage-but replacing the drive wasn't a permanent solution to the problem. The airflow around that drive is only adequate at best, and I worried that I'd merely have to displace a cable to cause some more overheating.
One possibility would be more airflow: replace the Cyrix power supply with one from PC Power & Cooling. I'll probably do that before next summer, but for the moment, I needed something less drastic.
After a bit of thought, I got Larry Aldridge to send me a CPU-Cool chip fan .
There's just room between the Barracuda drive and the front bezel to attach the fan and run the wire back to an unused drive power jack.
That seems to have done it. Even in the hottest weather, the Barracuda drive is only warm; the CD-ROM drive works fine; and Cyrus has given me no problems at all. I never did have any problems with heat in the box itself.
If you suspect you have temperature problems, or want to be sure you don't, think about getting a PC Power & Cooling CPU-Cool chip fan to cool your hard drive.
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JANUARY 1997 BYTE 1 4 3
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144 BYTE JANUARY 1997
Chaos Manor
Replacing your hard drive is no fun. It was a bit easier for me, because Cyrix preconfigured the drive by installing Win 95 complete with the Plus package before they sent it to me. Once I'd cooled off the original drive, I was able to peel off nearly all the software onto networked drives. The whole operation took less than a day,
boot up Win95 atall. lfyou'regoingtodo it, make a backup copy of SYSTEM.DAT. Also, be sure you have a DOS boot disk and a program like Norton Commander that will see hidden system files so that you can boot up in DOS and restore SYSTEM.DAT from a copy.
Next, go to Norton Utilities and Disk
If you have never used Disk Editor, this is not the time to learn it.
including all the retry errors until I figured out that I'd overheated the CD-ROM drive.
Alas, whoever configured the new drive for me told it that the system belonged to Jerry Pournel of BYTE Mazgne; which meant that when I installed Microsoft Office, it insisted on labeling all my docu ments that way.
Clearly, something had to be done. Unfortunately, neither Win 95 Help nor anyofmynumerousbookson Win95 had much information on how to change user names. Even Lenny Bailes'sBYTE Guide to Optimizing Windows, which tells how to get the Microsoft Windows 95 Easter egg, had little information on it.
I used Gopher to search all my files for the string "Mazgne," and found it in a First Aid safery file. That file can be edited, but editing it does no good at all. Clearly, the string was stored in hexadecimal for111at, not ASCII.
The books say that a program called REGEDIT.EXE comes with Win 95; it's in the Windows directory. There's not much information about using it, and all the books warn you to be extremely careful. I tried it a couple of times, but I wasn'tsure what I was doing, so I never saved any changes I made. However, it became clear that what I wanted was in a hexadecimal file called SYSTEM.DAT.
Eventually, I made two backup copies of SYSTEM.DAT and attacked that file with the Norton Disk Editor. It turned out to be easy enough to find the hexadecimal equivalent of the word Mazgne. A bit of study showed how the user and company names are stored, including what is used to terminate the string: it's an 01 fol lowed by blanks (00). I looked up the hexa decimal equivalents of the English letters Iwanted, used Disk Editor to fix my name and spell Magazine properly, terminated the strings with 01, and all's well.
Fair warning: you edit SYSTEM.DAT at your own risk. It would be very easy to muck up your machine so that you can't
Editor. If you have never used Disk Edi tor, this is not the time to learn it. Learn how to use it on game files or other stuff you don't mind losing.
Disk Editor will drop you into DOS mode. Now do OBJECTFILE and browse in the Windows or Windows.000 directory until you find the file SYSTEM.DAT. Let Disk Editor bring that in. Search for the string you noted earlier. !twill find it. Note that the end of the string has 01 followed by blanks (00). If you change the length of your string, you must terminate itwith that 01. Now make your changes by writing in the hexadecimal-number equivalents of the letters you want to insert.
If you have a mouse working (you may not, depending on the AUTO EXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files used to bring up DOS internally), you can go over to the little ASCII interpretation that Disk Editor puts out to the side and make changes there by typing in ASCII letters; be sure you are putting them exactly where you think you are, and that this is where they are sup posed to be. It's easy to make mistakes here.
Do it right. You can make the user Elmer P. Fudd and the company The Acme Corp., or whatever you like. When you have everything exactly the way you want it, with 01 as the last character in each string, exit Disk Editor with the save option.
Windows will come up. It will see that the date of the SYSTEM.DAT file has changed and will be unhappy. It will offer you the choice of proceeding even though it doesn't like to. Do that, and when it comes up properly, Bob's your uncle.
If all doesn't go well, boot up in DOS, copy the saved file back to SYSTEM.DAT, and start over. Good luck.
Some months are just a series ofdisas ters. Fortunately, many disasters are instructive.
The other day, Niven came over to work on our new book. He usually works with an elderly Cheetah 486 upgraded with
A Hard Drive and a Hot Santa Ana Chaos Manor
Intel's Pentium OverDrive. That system runs NT 3.51 because we haven't got around to installing version 4.0 yet. In a burst of zeal, I had attempted to disman tle that system and put in something faster for Larry, mostly for games, since the sys tem is plenty fast enough when running Word. I'd got as far as unplugging things when I ran out of time; so when Larry came over, I plugged things back in.
The result was that every time we put Word on full-screen, the machine screamed at me. When we'd minimize Word, the screaming stopped. I wasn't thinking too clearly: Iassumed it was the machine itself. I turned it off and attempted to move Cy rus, which sits on a portable stand, over to where Larry could use it.
This led to disaster: Cyrus, still running, fell about 3 feet to the floor. The bezels popped off the front, and the CPU-Cool chip fan I'd attached to the Barracuda hard drive hung out the front looking for all the world like an eyeball popped out of its socket. It really looked bad.
I turned the machine off, and we went to dinner. When we got back, I tried it:
no horrible noises, no blue smoke, but no video either. I put in a frantic call to Alex, who came over to help do a systematic checkup.
First things first: try a new video board. Still no video. Next, remove all the boards except the new video board.
Voila! The machine booted up, and, astoundingly, a surface scan revealed absolutely no problems with the hard drive. I still can' t get over that. The SCSI Zip drive, which had sat on top of Cyrus and thus fell even further than he did, also worked just fine .
The next step was to install the boards one by one. We soon found that the prob lem was the Creative Labs AWE32 CT-3600 sound board. Close inspection didn'tshow anything wrong with the board, but when it was in the system, Cyrus wouldn't boot. One of these days, I'll ship it back to Cre ative Labs and let them try to figure out what's wrong. I sure can't.
Fortunate ly, I had another AWE32 board. Unlike the CT-3600, this one had an IDE controller for a CD-ROM drive. That meant it needed another interrupt request
(lRQ), and while it was supposed to be Plug and Play, it wasn't. Win 95 insisted on assigning it almost anything except JRQ 5, but far too many DOS games are hard coded to expect the sound board at IRQ 5. Eventually, we got tl1e sound board set to IRQ 5 and installed a new SupraExpress 336 Sp with Analog Simultaneous Voice and Data (ASVD) internal modem. For some incomprehensible reason, Win 95 wanted to assign that to IRQ 15. You can't do that.
We spelunked into Device Manager. Deep in that well, we found a way to con figure the modem to "Configuration 000002," which assigns it to share COM 1.
It all works just fine now. The Supra Express is as good an internal modem as you'll find. It works with all the terminal and fax programs I have. I still mildly prefer external modems, because you can sometimes get into a siniation in which the easiest way to reset the modem is to turn it off. I wish modem companies would put a little Reset button on the back. In fact, though, I haven't recently had to reset the modem at all, and I sure can'tcomplain
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 145
Chaos Manor A Hard Drive and a Hot Santa Ana
about the SupraExpress's performance. It is fast, locks on through lots of line noise, and just plain works. Recommended.
As to why the Cheetah was screaming at us, when I plugged things back in, I man aged to plug the 21-inch Hitachi monitor into the wrong uninterruptible power sup ply (UPS). That didn't quite overload the UPS, but when we brought up Word, with a big expanse of white screen, that re quired just enough more power that it trig gered the UPS's overload warning. Clos ing Word or reducing the white-screen size
would reduce the power requirements just enough. Silly, but maddening if you're in a hurry and don't think things through.
The Cyrix system comes with a Matrox MGA Millennium, which is a very good video board indeed. However, after we dropped Cyrus on his head and weren't getting any video, we changed boards. That didn't turn out to be the problem the Matrox board works just fine-but it did give us the oppornmity to test the new Orchid Fahrenheit Video 30 board.
That sucker screams. It does 2-D and 3-D
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internal; $129; external, $149
Diamoriil Multi.media. ; .." Syste.nis,. Inc.
Vancriuver, WA
·1aoo)721~87n ·
(360) 604-1 ~ fax:(3~!J)6Q4-;140.1 :~. t littp://www.diamo'ndmm.coni
; Circle 1045 on.Inquirytard· ·:.>·:'~ .~ ·.'.;~,:<· ~··
movies really fast and really pretty.You can't believe how smoothly Duke Nukem, Doom, and Quake scroll.
Most of my work with computers in volves words and text, and, except for games like Doom, I honestly can't tell the difference between the Mattox, Diamond, and Orchid boards. They all show 2-D graphics in good resolution with steady pictures and high contrast. That doesn't mean there aren't any differences, or that they won't be noticed by people doing graphics work. I've arranged for David Em to test our graphics boards on the Dou bleshot 133. David does really complex graphic art and works these systems as hard as anyone can.
The shareware of the month is Visual
I DialogScript. This is a.scripting lan
guage, the successor to WinScript. You can use it to create all kinds of Wrndows dia log boxes and controls, some very elabo rate. It comes with both text and icon edi tors. An example of Visual DialogScript in use: a program applet that lets you browse through files and change their time and
· ·1s:c~ tile b!!Sf RAID price/perfor
·an<l:e in the industry. Raidtec is the af,fQlidifble, open, SC,Sl-to-SCSI hard ware RAID solution for complete data protection. Ideal for mission critical applications, document imaging & multimedia. It's time to re-visit the ultimate in high-availability storage. Contact Raidtec today at (770) 664-6066.
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· On-the-fly hardware parity generation eliminates read, modify, write-back performance overhead
· Single ended or differential · Downloadable flash firmware
· Rackable, stackable
· New EAM & Service Channel · Single SCSI ID
· Solid state·of-the-art load sharing power subsystem
· LCD control panel status display
THESTA. 'DARO INADVANCED MASS STORAGE SYSTEMS
Raldtec USA I05 Hembree Park Dr.o Suite C Roswell, GA 30076, USA Tel.: (770) 664-6066 FAX : (770) 664-6166
http://www.rndtec.com
Raldlec EUROPE Glen Mervyn House · Glanmire Cork, Ireland Tel.: (353) 21-821454
f AX: (353) 21-8216.54
Circle 1BO on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 181).
date stamps by drag-and-drop operations. Use this co create installation programs
or bui ld elaborate batch files that can tri gger at specific times. Stand-alone pro grams along with the run-time package can be freely distributed without royalties.
You can find out more from jmtech @netlink.co.uk, or you can download Visual Dialog.Script from http://www.netlink .co.uk/users/jmtech, or the CompuServe WINlITIL and WINSHARE forums.
The book of the month isJohn Keegan's Fields ofBattle: The Wars for North Amer ica. Like all Keegan's books, this is both readable and insightful. Fair warning: this is not an introductory work. You need passing familiarity with the American Rev olution and the Civil War. I have one quar re l: Keegan goes to great lengths to tell why geography has dominated the wars on this continent-but the book has almost no maps. To properly appreciate this book, you need a good historical atlas.
The computer book ofthe month is Ned Snell's Navigating the Microsoft Network. It includes a copy of Microsoft Internet Explorer and goes into interesting detail about tuning your computer, what you ' ll find on the Internet, and some tricks of the trade. Most Internet books are out of date by the time they're published ; this one is probably good for a year or so.
The game of the month is Strategic Sim ulations' The Age of Rifles. A DOS game, it plays well in Win95. It's a turn-based tac tical/strategic game with scenarios from just after the Napoleonic Wars to the turn of this century, including the American C ivi l War. The dominant fact of the age ofrifles was tbatunlike muskets, rifles had effecti ve ranges right up with a rtillery; well-dug-in riflemen could pick off the gunners faster than the gunners could return their fire. That's not always obvi ous in this game. It's still a lot of fun.
I' m heading overseas at the end of this month, so next month I should have some observations about computing in Eu rope, as well as a lot of data about graphics hard
ware and programs. Iii
jerry Po11melle is a scie11ce fictio11 writer and BYTE'sse11iorco11tributi11g editor. You can write tojerry c/o BYTE, 0 11e Phoe11ixMill La11e, Peter borough, NH 03458. Please include a self addressed, stamped envelope and put your address 011 the letteras well as 011 the envelope. Due to the high volume ofletters, j erry ca1111ot guara11tee a perso11al reply. Yo11ca11alsoco11tact him 011 the /lltem el or BfXatjerryp@bix.com.
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phone (573) 445-6833 fax (573) 445-9698 EUROPE Via Patrioti, 6-24021 Albino (BG)- ITALY
phone(035)773-464 fax(035)773-806
JAPAN IKEDA Bldg. #3,4f-11 2· 5, K'()mei-chou · Tsu-city,t,lllE 514 Japan phone (0592) 29-7504 fax (D592) 24·9723
With so many web sites popping up today. its hard to know which ones Net the best results. Especially if you're an advertiser looking to reach key Information Technology prospects.
Fortunately. the answer is close at hand. Its called The BYTE Site. and more computing influencers worldwide call it ··home" than just about any address on the Web.
The BYTE Site is the online version of BYTE magazine. the worldwide technical authority for computing experts. That means its chockfull of insights and information about the IT market from products to applications to trends . On The BYTE Site. visitors can instantly access every BYTE article published since 1993 through the BYTE Archive. Read all about the newest products and technologies in our Virtual Press Room. Share viewpoints with BYTE editors worldwide by on-site Email. Even download industry standard CPU test suites from our BYTEMarks benchmark service.
With features like these. its no wonder The BYTE Site logged nearly 150,000 visits this past January alone. and posted an overall repeat visit rate of 4 l %. Not surprisingly. its become equally popular among advertisers. Thats because The Byte Site offers such interactive marketing options as hot-linked AD-Action buttons to showcase product information. catalog listings and data sheets. Plus our Virtual Press Room where users can access the latest press releases from your company.
To learn more about The BYTE Site. call John Griffin. VP/Publ ishe r at 603 .924 .2663 . Or find him on The BYTE Site at http://www.byte.com. You'll discover reaching computing influencers worldwide is easy once you know where they live.
~
A Division o(TheMcGnnv-Hill Companies
THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY FOR COMPUTING TECHNOLOGY.
- . .,. . # ... .. ~ 11'11 · ·~""~· .. .
JANUARY 1997, VOL. 22, N0.1
BUYER'S GUIDE
Essential Products and Services for Technology Experts
Mail Order
Top mail-order vendors offer the latest hardware and software products at
the best prices. Page 150
Hardware/Software Showcase
Your full-color guide to in-demand hardware and software products, catego
rized for quick access. Page 166
Buyer's Mart
The BYTE classified directory of computer products and services, by subject so you can easily locate
the right product. Page 173
JA NU ARY 19 9 7 BYT E 1 49
Loop-back Plugs- 9-pin serial, 25-pin serial and 25-pin parallel plugs, used fo r e.xternal VO port testing.
· Get the best most accurate fun-sustem dlaonostlcs pac11age for an uour problem PCs.
· Low-Leuel Formats all hard drlues 1nc1ud1nu IDEs. Allows
re1ocat1on of Tracie o.
· worlls with anu PC regardless Of 0/S: DOS. Windows 95 &"'· 01s2. Unix. nouen. etc.
2 Micro-Scope
floppy disks- containing the best PC diagnostic tools on the market. Comes with both 3.5" and 5.25"disks to work with any PC.
Funu o;s lndeoendent
diagnostic sonware...
Callfor upgradepricing & complete newfeatures list!
MICRO-SCOPE Unil'ersal Computer Diagnostics was developed to satisfy the expanding need for accurate system diagnosis in the rapidly growing desktop computer market. Patterned after super-mini and mainframe diagnostic routines, MICRO-SCOPE runs independently of any standard operating system, and is therefore at home on any machine in the Intel world. Speed, case-of-use, and r;izor sharp ACCURACY are a few of the advantages that arise from this system independence. Jerry Poumcllc awarded MICRO-SCOPE & POST-PROBE the User's Choice Award in the May 1994 issue of B~1e Magazine, saying: "You nrune it, this tests it. If you maintain PCs you'll love it.··
+ LOW-LE\'EL FORMAT-Performs low-level fo rmat on all hard drives
including IDE drives. + TRUE HARDWARE DIAGNOSTICS-Accurate testing of CPU, IRQ's, DMA's, memory, hard drives, floppy drives, video cards, etc.
+ RELOCATES TRACK 0 on hard drives that suppon relocation. + IRQ
CHECK-Talks directly to hardware and shows VO address and IRQ of
devices that respond . + O/S INDEPENDENT-Does not rely on O/S for
diagnostics. Talks to PC at hardware level. All test~ are full function regardless
of O/S (i.e. Windows, Novell, U IX, O/S2) . + IRQ DISPLAY-Show bits
enabled in IRQ chip for finding cards that are software driven (Network, Sound
Card, etc.). + MEMORY DISPLAY-Displays any physical bit of memory
under I MB. Very useful for determining memory conflicts and available memory space. + AND MUCH MORE ...We don't have enough space here for everything this software can do!
Govt. Orders: NSN-7030-01-421-6459
can now tor soec1a1 rr1c1nu
1-800-86Q-8008
Complete Micro-Scope Manual- easy to follow testing procedures and detailed error code descriptions. See the feantres list at left to view some of the incredible wealth of testing capabilities this program contains.
Tri-State Logic Probe-works with Post-Probe and enables testing down to individual chip level.
Durable Zip-up Leatherette Carrying Case-all your tools in one organized easy to carry toolkit.
lmmoptional Tutorial and PC Trouble Shooting Videos-Call for titles and current prices. Awealtl1 of technical help at your fingertips.
Post-Probe Diagnostic Card when Post-Probe detects an error, a 2 digit BIOS code will display on the card telling you exactly what's wrong with your PC. I00%com patible with all ISA, EISA, Compaq and Micro-Channel PCs.
Micro-Channel Adapter Card (behind Post-Probe card) allows Post Probe to be used witl1 Micro-Channel equipped computers.
Extensive Post-Probe Manual-exhaustively complete, containing BIOS error codes for most PCs on the market. Look up the 2-digit error code in this manual and instantly diagnose your PC's problem. Also contains common chip diagrams, descriptions and complete troubleshooting tips.
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PC won't boot uo? Find out wnu last with our un1uersa1 POST card...
" This is the only card that will function in every system on the market. The documentation is extensive, and not only covers the expected POST
Codes for different BIOS versions, but also includes a detailed reference to the bus signals monitored by the card." -Scott Mueller from his globally recognized book, 'Upgradi11g & Repairing PCs, Seco11d Edi/ion'
+ Includes pads for voluncter to attach for actual vollage testing under load. + 4 LEDs monitor +5vdc -Svdc +12vdc -12vdc. + Monitors Hi & Lo clock and OSC cycles to distinguish between clock chip or crystal failure. + Monitors 110 Write and 110 Read to distinguish between write and read errors. + Accurately monitors progress of PO~'T for computers without POST codes. + Reads POST codes from any IBM or compatible that emits POST codes. lSA/EISA/MCA. + Compatible with Micro Channel computers. + Dip S\\~tch allows easy selec tion of 1/0 ports to read. + Includes TRI-STATE LOGIC PROBE to determine actual chip failures. + Manual includes chip layouts and det.'li.lcd POST proce dures for all major BIOSs. + AND MUCH MORE... call for more det.1ils.
Govt. Orders: NSN-7025-01-421-6467
micro Inc. 2000.
Makers ofProfessional PC Diagnostic Tools
1100 East Broadway, Suite 30 1, Glendale, California, USA 9120;
Toll Free: 800/864-8008 · Phone: 818/547-0125 · Fax: 818/547-0397
Web Site: http://www.micro2000.com
International Orders please call:
Micro 2000 Australia..............61-42-574-144
Micro 2000 UK ........... .. ......44-1462-483-483
Micro 2000 Amsterdarn ........31-206-384-433
Micro 2000 Germany............49-69-420-8278
C.o17tTigh1e 1996 Micro 2000, Inc. All Rlghb Rtsen-N. Circle 21 0 on Inquiry Card.
COMPAQ
http://www.computerlane.com
PC Companion
NEW
C120 2mb ram, 4mb rom. touch display .
C110+ 2mb ram,4mb rom. modem .
Ct 40 4mb ram. 4mb rom, touch display
Armada Notebooks
Armada 1t 20 P/100, 8/81 0MB, OSlN . . .. $1475 Armada 11 201 P/100, 818t0, Active . ..... . Scali
Armada41100 P/100, 8/tBO, CO, OSTN ... Scali Annada 4t20 P/120, 8/tGB, Active .. . . ... Scali Annada 41301 P/133, 811GB, Active ... .. . Scali
LTE Notebooks
LlE5300 P/t33 16/1.3GB, Active. . . . . $3699
LlE5300 P/133 1611.3GB, Active..... $4189
LTE 5380 P/133 16/2GB, Active . .. . . . $5260
LlE5400 P/150 16/2GB. Active . . ..... Scali
Deskpro 2000 Desktop
2000 P/100 B/1.2GB . . . . ... .. .. .. . S1099
2000 P/133 16/1.2GB . . .. . .. ...... $1599
2000 P61200 16/2.SGB+CO .... . . .. . $2550
2000 P6/200 1612.SGB+CD (MD . . .. . $2758
Deskpro 6000 Desktop
6000 61200 32/2GB, COS. .. . .. . . . . .. Scali
6000 61200 32/2GB, POS.. . . .... .. .. Scali
Professional Workstation 5000
Penluim Pro 200MHz
---.....,
32 or 64MB DIMMS, 2d or 3d Graphics, Integrated Ultra Wide SCSI controller,
2 or 4GB wide SCSI Drives, Integrated 10/100 Network card
[. . . $call for prices & dellvery
Compaq Servers
Proslgnia 500 Pentium 150MHz Proliant 1500 Petium t50/166MHz Proliant 250011 Pentium Pro 200MHz Proliant 2500N Pentium Pro 200MHz Proliant 2500R Pentium Pro 200MHz Proliant 5000 6/200 Pentium Pro 200MH z Proliant 5000 61166 Pentium Pro 200MHz Proliant 5000R 6/166/200 Pentium Pro
~. . .
**call us for Compaq Network/ Web/NT/llno1, Hard drive Upgrade,
Other Parts Solutions.* *
IBM
Thlnkpad 560 Models
TP 560 P/110 8MB/810MB..... ... .. . ... .Seall
TP 560 P/t33 8MB/1.08GB .. ....... ......Seall
TP 560 PtOO 8/BMB tl.3 OS ....... .... .Seall
Thlnkpad 365 Models
2625tE9 365XO P/t33 26251E9 365X P/t33 25153E9 365X P/t10 26154E9 365XO P/120 2625E3 365XO P/100 26156E7 365X P/tOO 26157E7 365X P/tOO 2625DEF 365XO P/t20 2615EEF 365XO P/110
8MB/1.35GB, CD ...~IO 8MBl1 .08GB . . ... ..$1541 8MBl8t0MB T . ....$2541 81.lBIBtOMB.CD ...$2730 8MB/8tOMB, CD .. .S235S 8/BtO t0.4 . . .... .St973 8MB18tOMB . . . . ..$1348 8MB/1 .08G8, CD ...$1964 8MBlt.08G8,CD .. $1539
Thlnkpad 760 Notebooks
TOSHIBA
NOTEBOOKS
Graphic Tablets & Art Pads
T11 0CS
?1100 8/810M8 Dual Scan ... . .Sc211
T200CDS P/100 8/810M8;CO, Dll!I Scan .Scali
T420CDS P/110 t611.3G881CD, Dual Scan Scali
T420CDT P/t10 t611.3GB+CD. Active ... .Scali
Tetra 5tOCDS P/1 33 t611.3GB. CD.DSTN .... .Scali
Tecra 5t0COT P/133 t6/t.3G8 CD. Active, . .Scali
Protege 600CDT P/150MH.1, t611.3GB,TFT ..... . ..Sc211
Tetra 720CDT P/133 1611.JGB. Active.CD ....Scali
Tetra 720CDT P/150 t611GB,Active, CD . . . .Scali
Summa Graphics
Surnmaskelch Ill 12x12 2BTN STYL . . ... 5239 Summasketch Ill PRO 12x18 4BTN . . . . . . . $460 Summagrid IV24x36 W/16 Button .. .... $1098 Microgrid Ultra 24x36 16BlN . . . ...... $2099 1<1icrogrid Ultra 36x48 16BTN .... . ..... S2498 Microgrid Ultra 44x60 16BTN .·.. ... ... $2898 · !o
...We also carry Toshiba Refurbi shed & Di scounted
WACOM
Models In Stock,
Artpadll 4X5 Ultrapen PC··· · ······ · ···· S144
call us for p rlces··~Rl·l Artpadll 4x5 Dabbler PC w/Ultra . ........ $166
Desktop Systems
f\l1Z II 12x12 wi\Jltra Pen PC/MAC . . ....· . $425
lnfinia Models
Anz II 12x18 wi\Jltra Pen PC/MAC . . .. . .. . S640 Anz II 18x25 w/Ultra Pen PCor MAC.. . . . $1790
7200 Pentium Peo 200 Mhz
7160 Pentium 166Mhz
7130 Pentium 133Mhz
1.6GB/2.0GB/3.1GB hard disk Bx CD ROM
Drive, 30 sound card,28.8 lax modem,
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catpure card, remote control DVD ready,
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r~
$stock
\19' **call us for prices**
' for complete dlscrlplion,
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Hewlett Packard
Adaptec SCSI Cards
To!al connect AVA·1515 kit. . . .......... .. S8t
AHA·2940 host adapter kit ........
. $131
PCi Master AHA·2940 kil .. . . . . . . . . . .. S223
Slim SCSI APA-1460 ... . . . .... . . ..... . St5t
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Recordable PinnacleRCO 5040 (internal) . .... .. . . . .. S824 Pinnacle RCO5040 (external) . . . .. ... .. . . $729 Creative Lab Busler COR-4210 ....... . $599
Printers
OESKJET 1600C OESKJET1600CM OESKJEl 340C OESKJET 400 OESKJEl 680C OESKJET 820CXL LASERJET 4MV LASERJET 4V LASERJEl 5 LASERJET SL·FS LASERJET SM LASERJEl SMP LASERJ El SN LASERJET SS I LASE RJ ET 5SIMX
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Scali Scali $2665 $3750
HP Desktop & Minitower Systems
Optical Hard Drive
PinnacleVertex 2.6GB (internal) . .. . .. S1345 Pinnacle Vertex 2.6GB(external). . . ... . . . $729
Panasonic 650 rewritableoptical . .. . ..... $499
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Red OR White
OR Upgrade
Nelware 3.114.1 511 0 user
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5/tOuser Intranet upgrade
S34 D/599
25/50 user Intranet upgrade $1015/1335
t00/250 user Intranet upgrade $187513335
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NETWORK ADAPTERS
& HUBS
3com pci
combo . . . .
. .. .S137
3comstacker II series 12 port 10base·l ...$505
3comstacker II series 24 port 10base-l .. .S864
3com 3c905-TX fast elhe ~ink xi pcl . . . . . . .$t 37
3com 3c905-lX 5-pack .... .. ...... ... .S8D4
Intel Express TX switching hub . . . . . . .. . . .Scali
Intel 100base-TX stackablehub . . . . . .. .. ·Scali
**We carry all kinds
of hubs,
routers,
. .)
network cards,
switches**
*'Call for
updated prices**
PCMCIA
PRODUCTS
Xicompc ce2 10bl credit earn adapter . . ...S136
Xicom pc ce2 10bc credit card adapter . .. .$171
Xicompc com·28bt modem+10·base·l .. ..S296
Megahertz 28.8 credit card modem . .. ... .$232
Megahertz Ethernet XJACK XJ108C . . . . . . .$t 49
Megahertz Ethernet XJACK XJ10BT . .. . .. .S106
Megahertz Ethernet XJACK XJ108l/020 ...S2150
**Call for updated prices.. . .)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hayes Accura 336 (external) .. . . . .......St39
Hayes Accura 336 (infernal) .... . . . ......$1 20
Hayes Accura336 (external) .. . . . . ..... .$239
Hayes Accura 336 (internal) .............$224
US Robotics 33.6k (internal) .UPGRADE·.St48
.... us Robotics 33.6k (external) .. .
S167
5600 USRobotics 33.6k Win Modem . . . . . . .S109
** a lso carry zoom,
Motorola, Practical
Call for updated prices**
JAZ & ZIP DRIVES
JPJ. tGB Ext SCSI PC/MAC Exil . . .. .. ...$459
JPJ. MAC 1GB5-Pak Cart.
. . ..$419
Thinkpad 760ED
Pentium 133/150MHz processor
16MB RAM 1.3/2GB disk
28.8 lax modem duplex phone,
CD ROM drive, 1.44 MB floppy drive
··call tor other Thlnkpad 760 Models**
IBM Deskttop & Mlnltower
IBM PC340
Pentium
IBM PC340 IBM PC360 IBM PC 750
I
133/ 150/ 166 MHz Pentium Pro
**Choice of CD ROM, Sound
Netserver Le Netserver Lh & Lh2 Netserver Ls & Ls2 Netserver Lx. Lx2 Netserver LXe
*'Call us for Price and Configuration**
5/10 user Intranet t0/25 user lnlrane1
$750/1 402 S24Bll/3340
Hard Ddves
. Special
Quantum.Uill"il SCSI-~ 2.1GB · · .. .···· ;,·. $402 .SeagateSm1621a 1.6GB IOE. : . .. .· ·.· . . ~223 Seagate Sl15230N 4.29GB.SCSl-2 ·· ··· · . ·$987 Seaga1e:~T41o_80N 9G8 ~t SCSl·2 ·. . . .-'$1965 Sea~ate'Sl32550N 2l14GBfast~SCSJ-2·...· Si\34
JPJ. MAC 1GBSingle Cart.. . .. ...· . . . ...$104 JPJ. PC tGB 5-Pak Cart. .... . . . . ··... .. .$419 JAZPC1GBSingle Cart... . .... .· . .....$104 ZIP PC 100MB Parallell Port . . .. . · ·. . ... .Scali ZIP PC tOOMB Internal SCSI . . ..··......Scali
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E-mail: ssolim01@sprynet.com or comlane@instanet.com
7500Topan ga Cyn Blvd., Canoga Pa rk . CA 91303
Hours: Monday - Friday 9-6, Saturday 10-5
1 5 2 B YT E JANU A R Y 199 7
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Authorized Service & Parts Center for
IBM, COMPAQ, TOSHIBA, HEWLETT PACKARD
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* * * * CALL FOR NOTEBOOK AND LAPTOP BATIERIES
Compaq , IBM, Toshiba, Epson, AST, Tl and Morell
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Epson AcllonNole 100, 866C , 880C- $134.00
NEC Yem E. y - $119.00
NEC Yem S-S119.00
T"hlba 110 and 400 -Call
TOlhlba 1900, 1910. 1950, 1960- $119.00
Toshiba Z400, 4700. 4100, 4900- $111.00
Toslllba 2100 Serles-$1Z1 .00
TOSHIBA LAPTOP MEMORY
MAXU . l"AAH
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310-539-0019 FAX: 310·539·5844
SECURITY WILL CALL WINDOW
NOW OPEN
1 · 8 0 0 - 4 3 3 - 3 7 1 6 CALL
TOLL FREE
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Prices & Avalllblllty ESTAB. Subject 10 Change Mon·Frl, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PST 1985 Without HoUce Sat. 10:00 a.m. to 1!1:00 noon
C ircle 226 on Inquiry C ard (RESELLERS: 227).
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FOREFRONT ForeFront Direct, Inc.
Circle 211 on Inquiry C ard.
18820 U . S . Hwy . 19 N . , # 215 Clearwater , FL 34624
Copyright <!:>1996 ForeFront Direct. Inc. All Rights Reserved . ForeFront CNE Self-Study Courso and ForeFront A+ Certification Self-Study Course are trademarks ol
ForeFront Direct. Inc. The loreFront Logo is a trademark of the ForeFront Group. Inc. All other trademarks are the properties of their respective holders.
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ForeFront Direct. Inc . Is a subsl:Jiary ol ForeFront Group. Inc.
Circle 216 on Inquiry Card {RESELLERS : 217) .
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System Commander is only $99.95 and comes with an unconditional 60 day money back guarantee. Get Free overnight shipping when you mention this ad. ·order it now and have it on your desk tomorrow morning!
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V Communications, Inc.
4320 Stevens Creek Blvd, #120-4BYT San Jose, CA 95129
408.296.4224 fax 408.296.4441
'When ordered before noon PST. No Salurday delivery. Slandald shipping oulsldc US. CA res . add $7.25 sales lax. Offer subjec11o change wi1hou1 nolice. All logos and product names are 1mdemar1<s of !heir respeclive companies. VISM.1C/Amex C1 996
If you want Ultra SCSI Perlormance use our Teflon Cables & Active Terminators.
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15B BYTE J AN U ARY 1997
Circle 212 on Inquiry Card {RESELLERS : 21 3) .
Tm:-::: l'rllllcls .....,...,... .. ,.......,.
· "r Slllcill lllldllt tw am r..i.n 111y1
If U.S. n·n1
talmcsalllltyodlalyltlalplglacVeI,.'..1111711.1.1.r.. "'
Embedded 486 CPU Card for
Panel PC Based System
1 tfhoer puasseswivieth ;.~·.
baclc plane
.~
(PIN 133250) ,
in Industria l
r
panel systems 1
that use heavy l
duty chassis
casing.
· 50MHz 486 · 4 MB RAM · 420MB hard drive · Double speed IDECO·ROM · Speakers
· Award BI OS · Compatible wflh
· 9600 bps lax/2400 bps modem · Cirrus logic 1MB VESA Local Bus SV6A card
lollowlng t68·pin P6A socket CPUs: 486SX/OX/DX2IOX4/5x86 (not included)
· 16·bit sound card · Enhanced 101-key keybOard · 2·button mouse · MS Worf<s"' 3.0
133241 Embedded CPU card ....................$299.95
· MS Windows" 3.11 for Wort<groups
Power Leap Upgrade Adapter
For 486SXIDXIDX2 to 586·100/120
· Supports 5V 486
motherboards only · 586·XXX chip
....__ _
not included
c:>o
· Supports 64·bit X86 compatible
· Ergonomic design · Removable palm rest · Dual connectors: keyboard 5·pln DIN,
· Computer care kit · Wei<Jht: 38.0 lbs.
132337 486DX multimedia system...........$599.95
133022 ISA plug & play 10BaseT card .......$29.95 Jameco 64·Blt PCI Local Bus
130235 ISA plug & play combo 10BaseT. 10Base2. 10BaseS............39.95
Graphics Accelerator Card
130251 PCJ combo 10BaseT
Upgradeable to 4MB
10Base2, 10Base5 ...........................59.95
Mustek 24·Blt Single Pass
processor with 16KB wrlte·back cache · 100 and 120MHz core speeds with 33. 40 and
50MHz bus options (BIOSwritten before1995, will only work with AMO CPUs) · Includes manual and 3.5" utility/lest disk
131941 Uporade adapter ror 586 CPU ........$49.95
PCMCIA Type II Combo BNC/UTP Ethernet Card
· Minimum requirements: IBM compallblo PC with 386SX, one type II PCMCIA socke~ BNC/UTP Ethernet connectivity, PCMCIA release 2.1 compliant card services
· 10Mbps speed in 10BaseTand 10Base2 lormal
132581 PCMCIA network card....................$99.95
Jameco Printer Card
2 Bl·dlrectlonaf Paraffef Ports
and trackball 9·pin serial connection
on one coiled cable
133760 Win '95 trackball keyboard ............$49.95
;11· IBM 89·Key Adjustable Keyboard .,~ .. ... : ~
. ...... . ... ..... . · t ~ . ,._ ,- -
· -,
'
~.. ..- ..·
· · ; · j .... : ·
· PS/AT style
D · Adjustable keyboard with standard QWERTY layout' · 12 function keys · Left and right set of cursor-movement keys · Erase-ease feature · Separate palm rests 132978 IBM 8!Hey adjustable keyboard....$44.95
2·BMultctoronsMofot9use
· Serial mouse · PC/XT/AT/ 386/486/
PS/2 and compatibles · Includes Microsoft" setup
Flatbed Color Scanner
· 600 dpl
· Minimum
system
require
ments: 386
PC, 4MB RAM,
DOS 3.3, Windows" 3.1.
(Windows" 95 compatible)
· full Twaincompliance for
direct scanning Into supported appllcallons
· IBM and Mac compatible
·Maximum document size: 8.5' x 11 .r
134455 Paragon 600 llSP scanners .........$279.95
COMPROTMDigital Camera
Provides plug·and·play
Windows· 95
compatible high resolution motion and still Image
capture in color! Designed to interlace lhrough
!he parallel port ol your PC .
_
134421 Digital camera.........................~...$219.95
· IBM 486 and up, PCI 2.0 compliant · 1MB DRAM standard on board; upgradeable
to 2MB or 4MB using (6) 256 x 16 DRAM · VGA. SVGA and multi-sync compatible 128805 PCI card. upgradeable lo 4MB .......S89.95
SPECOM Video· conferencing Card
With Vl:slanT/m11 Pro Software
This package olfers friendly and alfordable, easy to use desktop personal video cooferencing. Wttha PC and a modem, you can do document conferencing. If
~!~=~:!: ~ ;;~;: " diskette and manual
you use a DSVD
111860 2·button serial mouse....................$39.95
SmartCable RS232 Serial Cables
SCSI Hard
~-
modem, you can do voice conferencing, and adding a camera, actual two-way
I i i c:ne Drive Solutions
videoconterenclng! · Card has jacks for SHVS and
130542 fast SCSl·ll, 1.0568 ....................$409.95 camcorder connection ·Internet capability
130577 fast SCSl·ll, 2.160........................839.95 131844 Videocont. card w/ soltware ........$149.95
130593 fast & fast wide SCSHI,426B .....1129.95 33.6 kbps Data/Fax
Floppy Disk
Internal Modem ·
Drives
· 33,600 bps data
modem. 14.400/
9600 fax modem
· Fully compatible
wilh ITU·T V.42,
V42bis V.34,
V.32bis, V32,
V.22bls. V.21
23, MNP 2·5 and as a fax/modem commu· nicales with all ITU·T group 3 fax machines 1
1291i72 Internal 33.6 fax/modem .............$119.95
R.A.C.E.R. 11 ISA Diagnostic
Daughterboard
. The Real·TIme
'" ,,,. .....
ATIXT Computer
Equipment Repair card
Is aplug-In
diagnostic board that allows
~m
~
system users.
integrators and
developers to quickly
troubleshoot and Isolate component-level failures. Combines hardware and firmware (on·board
software) that will enable you to repair asystem
that Is up to 95% dead.
135116 ISA posVdlagnostlc card..............$499.95
with a Rose keyboard monitor switch
Streamline.your computer room by reducing excess equipment.
Access up to 256 CPU's from a single keyboard, monitor, and mouse.
S.erveView is our best-selling switch, has every feature you can imag ine, and installs in.minutes. Compare price, features, performance,
quality, and support arid you'll find Rose can't be beat. Call us to
discuss ~our application or to receive your free information kit.
P.O,'Box 142571 +HOUS'TtllN, TE><As '77274 ll;l.713J933-7673 + FAx 713/933-0044
~~,) RELEOCTRSONIECS
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A Division ofTheMcGraw·HiUCompa1tics
1 60 B Y T E JANU A RY 1997
Circle 209 on Inquiry Card.
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With decades of engineering and technical experience, our products and services are consistent with your expectations. For cost effective business solutions, call
800-795-1972
http://www.censuscomputer.com
Eli Census Computer, Inc Setting a higher standard Tel: (818) 839-2838 Fax: (818) 839-2837 email - sales@censuscomputer.com
II
Mon-Fri 9:00am-5:00pm P.S.T.
1111
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ---
16 2 BYTE JANUARY 1997
Circle 220 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 221 ).
Suddenly, everybody's switching.
OSCAR's user-definable system nomenclature lets you name servers anything you want, for a more intuitive sense of what's happening where.
View 8 systems - or use the mouse to scroll down to see up to 100*!
Get cross-platform keyboard, mouse and
monitor switching on-screen-instantly!
Introducing OSCAR"r", the industry'sfirst
terms. Now, you can input system names that
on-screen menu system offered on all switching
make sense to you right on the screen. So you
systemsfrom Apex PC Solutions, Inc.
can switch platforms and applications at the
OSCAR (On-Screen Configuration &
stroke of a key or click of your mouse.
Activity Reporting) allows you to select and
control all the systems in your data
Discover controlyou can count on.
center with a simple click of the
OSCAR firmware is installed in
mouse. Using a single keyboard,
all Apex PC Solutions' products.
mouse and monitor, OSCAR
With Apex's new password
lets you access a wide range of With mouse control, OSCAR offers security, OSCAR adds one more
hardware such as RS-6000,
switching at your fingertips. level of protection to your data
Macintosh®, SUN®and HP
applications.
9000. Then quickly view current
information and direct system connections.
Discover why everybody's switching to
Apex PC Solutions, Inc. Call us today
See it all -just the way you want.
1-800-861-5858 or (206) 402-9393.
OSCAR's intuitive, menu-driven commands
*when using SunDial TM
take you wherever you want to go, in your
http://www.apexpc.com
Innovation &
Technology
by Design
APEX"
l'CSCWOONS
20031142nd Ave. NE· Woodinville, WA 98072 · (206) 402·9393 · e·mail address: sales@pcsol.com
OSCAR and SvnDial are trademarks of Apex PC Solutions, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.
Come face-to-face with SeeQuest"' and turn your Windows based PC into a fun real time videoconferencing workstation .
SeeQuest is a complete package that includes the Connectix QuickCam"' camera, the Connectix VideoPhone'" software, complete user manuals, and a specially developed KidProof "' Easy Installation Guide. And SeeQuest's plug-and play hardware devices get you and your PC
up and running in no-time at all. Add to this picture, the award
winning Shark Baby Tiger"' Telephony/Modem Card with Digital
www .sh a rkmm.c o m
Circle 218 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS: 219).
Simultaneous Voice and Data (DSVD), and
you have a videoconferencing bundle of joy.
SceQucst is the videoconferencing solution
for both home and office. And comes complete
with the most advanced telephony features, like full
duplex speaker phone, fax, voice mail, paging
and caller ID.
So, just when you've got your phone
etiquette perfected, it's time to put on a
brave face . Order your SeeQuest
VideoConferencing Kit today.
Call 1-800-800-3321.
sHnRK
·ULT I .. · e f .a.
BLACK & WHITE
COLOR
S369.isRI' $479 MSRI'
JANUARY 199 7 BYT E 16 5
Add-In Boards · Bar Coding
Your Specialty
PCMCIA Headquarters
Bar Coding · Communications
Cele~i;ating .·.
LasedJtenc& I>th'ftaX
l[!l, I
If your needs are portable, Quatech has the solution. Our complete line of communication and data acguisition PCMCIA cards include:
1,2, or 4 Port Serial RS-232/422/485 PCMCIA Cards
Parallel Port/EPP PCMCIA Cards
Multi-Protocol PCMCIA Adapter Cards
Digital UO PCMCIA Cards
Analog Input and/or Output PCMCIA Cards
·.
IEEE 488.2 PCMCIA Interface Cards
For complete specifications on the above_pfll!iucts,call one of Quatech's
Jm expert sales engineerstoday at l-800-553-IJ70oremail sales@quatech.com.
Ask fora free copy ofQuatech's new Product Catalog.
':? GUATEC:H
.......Application to Solution
Cl1eck us out on the web: http://www.quatech.com
Circ le 82 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS : 83) .
Buy. .
Alliencan $295
join the party as we celebrate two hot new products!
LascrLite-the smallest portable laser bar code reader on the market!
vm
And DuraTrax-the first portable reader to fully integrate
Touch Memory" and bar code technology.
Call for your free information kit!
1105 N.E. Circle Blvd., Corvallis, OR 97330 541-758-0521 · Fax 541-752-5285 · http://www.videx.com c.ccm1
Circle 06 on Inquiry Card.
$249
CCDs and Lasers
and up
All undergo extensive tesHng to ensure
a trouble free purchase. Extremely fast
and accurate scan rates. Available in
decoded or undecoded models.
AMERICAl\I i=ll!1111 M I CR 0 5 Y 5 TE M 5, L T D
800 648 4452x300 fax 817 685 6232 · www.amltd.com
C ircle 84 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS : 85).
1 66 BYTE JAN UA RY 19 97
Circle 87 on Inquiry Card .
-~·~_..~~~7'~ ST*RVIEW · ·
c-*"(; Control up to 216 Servers
.,_q,'t'
~0~<M,;llllSe
with just 1 Monitor, Keyboard, and Mouse · Supports SVGA, VGA, and Mullisync Monitors · Keyboard or pushbutton CPU selection
i<lybolrd
· Autoboots Keyboards and mice (SV421)
· Cascadable
USA/Canada: 800-265-1844 (ext. 231)
Fax: (519) 455-9425 / lntemel E~Mail: mai/Ostanechcomp.com
http://www.startechcomp.com
StarTech
COMn.llll f'lOOUCTS
°''"'""''°" e_....nu1seeFmaxaotlroInnat1ernet or CaJI: (519) 455-9675 (H1. 231)
Vi.ul'Maaten:ardlAmertcan Espreas
Communications·Computer Telephony·Data Acquisition
Data Acquisition · Desktops
· Any mix of PCs; Mac, and Sun
· Keyboard/mouse emulation · AUTOSCAN · Front panel &
Hot key operation · Remote access to 150' · Desktop or rack mount · Over 50,000 in operation
MasterConsole®
Rock solid, reliable control
CALL TODAY! 800·RCl·8090 X 71
DISTRIBUTORS LOCATED WORLDWIDE
RCI Europe [31) 10 2844040
fax (31 110 2844049
RCI Taiwan (886) 2-218-1117 fax (886)-2-21a-1221
Mr.(. RCI
Raritan Computer, Inc. 908.874.4072 fax 908.874.5274
10-1 Ilene Cou rt, Belle Mead, NJ 08502 · sales@raritan.com · http://www.raritan.com
.'ll I>\\' \IO:'\EY-11 \CK (;ll \!{ .\:\TEE Fl I.I. 1-\ E \I~\\ \lm.\:\T\' Circle 88 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS : 89) .
FREE 1997 Instrumentation Reference Catalogue
The Nationa l Instruments 1997 catalogue features our new BridgeVIEWTMand Lookoutrn software packages for industrial automation. Other softwa re products incl ude LabVIEW®, LabWindows®/CVI, and H iQ®. In addition, our new line of IMAQTM products provides a complete imaging solution . Hardwa re products include GPIB, DAQ, VXI, and new seria l interfaces for industria l communications applications..
National Instruments
6504 Bridge Point Parkway · Austin, Texas 78730
(512) 794·0100 (800) 433-3488 (US and Canada) Fax: (512) 794-8411 E-mail: lnfo@natinst.com www: http://www.natinst.com
Circle 109 on Inquiry Card .
C ircle 111 on In q uiry Card.
..J 12 bit, 60 MSPS AID
..J 8 bit, 250 MSPS AID 2 GS/s for repetitive signals
..J Up to 16 Meg Memory ..J Extensive Software Drivers
CSLITE 8 bit, 40 MSPS $595
CS2125 8 bit. 250 MSP.S $4995
Cus.eso,-r1i2- _ 12 bjl. _ 60 MS_ PS $8.1.1.,95
Ga Ga
Gage Applied Sciences (U.S.) Inc.
- 1233 Shelburne Road, Suite 400
1-800-567-GAGE Soulh Burfington, VT 05403
Toi: (600) 567-4243 Fax: (BOO) 780-84 11
Alk for extension 3425
· ·mail: pfodlnfoOgage-applled .com web alle: http://Www.ga.go·appllod.eom
Fram OtQlm h l.Jn:led SbltM:
Q:irqct<lt91 ~ Sdenoes n:_ !5610 Bois Franc. McwltNI, OC. CaMda HolS 1AS)Tet(S1~1337~ Ftt (!14} 337-641 1
C ircle 108 on Inqu iry Card .
Circl e 93 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS : 94) .
JAN U ARY 1997 BYTE 1 67
Disk Drives · Industrial Computers
Industrial Computers
Embedded PC
Fits your applications and budget!
iscuitPC
386/486 Single Board Computer withSVGNLCD and more ...
· Ultra small size (145mm x 102mm)
· Supports all 486DX and 5186 CPUs
· Local·bus SVGA/LCD Interface
· Multi-port RS·232 and Ethernet communication
· Supports Solid State Disks
· PC/104 expansion
Circl e 120 on Inquiry Card.
Industrial PC Solutions
Call 800-800-6889 to receive a FREE 100
page Solution Guide for your OEM or system integration needs.
AovANTEOt
750 E. Arques Ave. Sunnyvale, CA 94086 408-245·6678, Fax 408-245-8268
Circle 113 on Inquiry Card .
http://WWW.·ppro.com E-M&JI: approCbppro.com
800-927-5464
A'1==1~u;.
1 68
2032 Bering Drive. S.ui ~. CA 96 131 Td (408) 452-9 200 · f.\x (408) 452- 92 10
Circle 117 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS : 118).
UYT E JANU A U Y 1997
Industrial Computers · Laptops a Notebooks
A large variety of
SBCs In stock
for fast delivery
· 486 AND PENTIUM CPUs
· UP TO 200MHZ SPEEDS
· PCI SCSI INTERFACE
· E-IDE INTERFACE
· SVGA VIDEO OUTPUT
· DUAL SERIAL PORTS
· /SA & PC/ BACKPLANES
CA LL TOL L FREE
1-888-RECORTEC
Tel: 1-408-734-1290
Fax: 1-408-734-2140
e-mail: info@recortec.com
http://www. recortec.com
RECDRTEC
1290 Lawrence Station Road Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Circle 1 15 on Inquiry Card .
Request our free
Product Catalog
· COMPUTERS
· ENCLOSURES
· KEYBOARDS
· MONITORS
· PRINTERS
· CUSTOM DESIGNS
CALL TOLL FREE
1-888-RECORTEC
Tel: 1-408-734-1290
Fax: 1-408-734-2140
e-mail: info@recortec.com
http://www.recortec.com
RECDRTEC
1290 Lawrence Station Road Sunnyvale, CA 94089
C ircle 11 6 on Inquiry Card .
Industrial Computers · Mass Storage
U.S.A. Made Rackmount Solutions
Over 40 models, sized from 1U through 6U, 17" to 2411 deep, p lu s rackmo unl S'\Vitches, monitors up to 20", & keyboards with or without trackballs.
Tri-MAP In ternation al, Inc. 4569-A Las Positas Road, Livermore, CA 94550 VOC: 510 447-2030 · FAX: 510 447-4559 · www.rackco.com
from THE
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C ircl e 114 on Inquiry Card .
Circle 1 0 6 on Inquiry Card (RESELLE RS : 10 7) .
0URLSTflR!
800-468-0680
www. qual1ta r.com
FAX: (818) 592-0116
TEL: (818) 592-0061
Circle 105 on Inquiry Card .
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 169
Memory/Chips/Upgrades · Miscellaneous Hardware Multimedia/CD-ROM · Programmable Hardware
1-800-394-4122 pe PRODUCTS
VISA & MasterCard accepted - Same day shipment! 408-638-9460 - 205 Apollo Way - Hollister, CA 95023
C ircl e 98 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS : 99) .
~ QQ~~ L J is a vertically Integrated design
and manufactu ri ng company specializing in compu te r enclosu res. d isk subsyste m enclosures and fully integrate d systems.
l!lllrlll
NEAl, N
CD LABELER KIT
(jJoreate you.r own aiit
work On 'Your CompJ1tep with easy-to-use NEATO Templates. (g)Print on Any Laser Print~r using NEATO pressure sensitive die~cut labels.
(3)Using the NEATO Label Device, apply labels...PERF.ECnY EVERY TIME/
CE:··~
App llca tor · IOO Labels - ,
Assort!d Colors · DesignExpress labels',.
Software for Windows · NEATO Label Design
Templates for MAC and PC
800-984-9800
NEATr 250 DodgeAve · East Haven, CT 06512 203-466·5170 ·Fax 293-466·51 78
InEurope: Ealing House, 33 Hanger Lane, London WS3HJ, UK
+44 (0)990 561571 · Fax-+44 (0)181 932 0480
See us at: http://WWW.neato.com
Circ le 1 02 on Inquiry C ard .
Canlral Praclically Anything. from SZ
Tower PC Enclosures Tower Drive Enclosures Rack Systems Rackmount Accessories CPU Cards and Backplanes Rackmount Drive and PC Enclosures Industrial PS2 Power Supplies Redundant N+ 1 Load Sharing Power Supplies
Phone: 1·702-356·5595
Fax: 1·702·356·636 1
Email: info@sligcr.com
Internet: hu p:l/www.s ligcr.com Postal: 1385GrcgSt.Sui1c 10 1 Sparks, NV 8943 1
11 0 BYTE JAN U ARY 1997
Circl e 1 00 on Inqu iry C ard
(RESELLERS : 101) .
1724 Picasso Ave. Davis, CA 95616 916.757.3737 916.753.5141 FAX http://www .zworld .co m
For immediate information, use our 24-Hour AuroFAX. Call 916.753.0618 from your FAX. Request catalog #18.
Circ le 103 on Inquiry Card.
Programmable HW · Security · Engineering/Scientific
Programming Lang uages/Tools · Security
MiniDriveTM 40 1/0 lines. ADC, UARTs, timers. LCDinterface. OEM boards $49
Software+Hardwars Development Kit includes:
DOS+BIOS , C library, samples, manual, cable, and one of the controllers.Program on PC, Down loadEXE file, Run standalone infinal
product. No hidden costs.
E&yto~il~GC++. Use
TEF1Ns21h controllets rrirhADC,DAC,soletrJil1
drivers, reley, PC·I041 PCMCIA, LCD, OSP motion control, 10 UARTs, 100 VOs.
Cusiomet boanis design. Save time and money.
~£RN 216F S1reet,S1e. 104, Dovis, CA956t6, USA
" Jj
Tel: 916-758-0180 · Fox: 916-758-0181
i t i llNC. Internet email:
J . . . .·J fstpo:~/ O/ lttpe.mne.ctcoomm.comte/mpOubn/eileco/tmem.aMTI
http://www.lem.com
C ircle 104 on Inquiry Card .
TheLuna- token from
Chrysalisis aPCMCIA·2
card that delivers encryption, decryption, and secure digital signaturefunctions. Independently certi· fied to FIPS 140-1 Level II, Luna is compatible with Microsoft'sCryptographic API, Intel'sCDSA AP!, and Nortel'sEntrust Supports DES, Triple DES, MD2, MD5, RC2,
~"''" ~ ~ RC4, SHA-1, and RSA PKCS#l I.Secure codes
'"on'ly"t"he"ca"rd"h' oooldreorlhhaosrna"cc'e'ss.The Luna
Developer's Kit includes documentation,
ch . , · · , , · · tech support, and the toolsto build
'd 1ffiN rysa1IS yo~e:z:~~C:::.ure
U...;, oltadem>tl< d ~· Al o<hor pn>Wct and comp.>ny nomos lilt tr>dem¥I> d ~ r"fJ'(1M haldtn.
C ircl e 1 1 0 on Inquiry C ard.
FREE E NGINEERING S OFTWARE C ATALOG
E11gi11eeri1lg Soft ware Dil-ect is
your #1 source for eng ineering
software ! The more than 1,000
Jlt'" products listed in thi s catalog
were developed by companies
1" and practicing engineers and
rep resent a vast resource of
tools that can help you get
~;'=~:;jidlj~ your job don e bett e r, more
··'
accurate ly, and more quickly.
98.9044
Sci ech So-Ytdi ..,,_..... 2525 N. Dstoo Avt. Cloiaigo, ll 60647. Tel 773.486.9191 Fax 773.416.9234 · HIClil info@sdtedi0o1.1- ·URL ·np://www.scif..W.l.ca11
Circ le 121 on Inqu iry C ard.
LF90
Delivers!
Speed. Dependability. Great Tech Support.
Create Fortran programs o r port legacy code to the PC with the most-productive, best-supported Fortran 90 language system.
Lahey Fortran 90
· Fortran-smart Windows Development Environment. · DOS, Wlndows3.1x,
h' ·Windows 95 and
, ,r,'ot NT Support.
DLL interfacesloVB, VC++, andBorland C++. · Slale-ol-the·Art Intel Pentiumand Pentium Pro Optimizations.
US $895
Educallu11al, multiple-cop)\ and site-lice11se p r-icing available.
Lahey Computer Systems, Inc.
865 Tahoe Blvd., P.O. Box 6091 Incline Village, NV 89450 U.S.A.
C ircle 122 on Inq uiry C ard (RES ELLE RS : 123).
"Run Client/§erver Applications §ecurely aver the Internet"
· Use the Internet as a secure virtual Wide Area.Network · Develop powerful Internet applications using 4GL tools · Use SQLWlndows,Vlsual Basic, Powerbullder, Delphi, C++·.. · Provides automatic data-stream encryption for all SOL data · Uses RSA security and Netscape's secure sockel references · Includes a complete enhanced version of SQLBase v6.1 · Transparent to users, developers and administrators
l Uae the Internet to securely access your cUenllsarvor applications
Use Client/server toola for
remote occeaa aolutlonsl
Pricingstarts at $1 ,595 for a5-userversion Call 1-800-486-DUNN ext. 405
http://www.dunnsys.com
' " '
-=tlRSA
~PTlou rll{_.111(
DUNN systems , inc.
Circ le 124 on Inqu iry C ard .
JAN U A RY 19 9 7 BYTE 1 71
Internet Services
Recruitment
Hiway Technologies offers convenience with our online order form and online domain registration. Hiway Systems are fast as we power your site with state of the art Silico n Graphics RISC based servers. We also blast your data to the internet over one of our fiberoptic T3 lines. Hiway provides reliability as we employ fully redundant servers, UPS and generator back-up and even redundant T3 connectivity o n two separate backbones.
I I. .
Reseller opportunities available at:
http:/,_.hway.net/reseller
Place your order at: http:/'-.hway.net 1 800 3J9-4929 (561) 989-8574 salesOhway.net
Hiway Technologies
THE WORLDWIDE LEADER IN WEB HOSTING
Circl e 125 on Inquiry Card (RESELLERS : 126).
oin in the excitement of our expansion.
MANAGEMENT
· SW Development Project Managers, Win/Mac/UNIX
· Network Project Managm · MIS Project Managers ·
STRATUS, PU!, UNIXJC, Ct+
OPERATIONS
· Network EngineeBIArcbitects · UNIX Systems Administrators · Newsroom Support Specialists · UNIX Ne1work Operators · Network Performance Analysts · Win/Mac Network Admin.
OTHER
· Win/Mac/UNIX Automated SW Testers
· Technical WriteBITrainers
DEVELOPMENT
· Macintosh, CIC++ Developers · Windows, CIC++ Developers · UNIX, CIC++ SW Developers · PUI, UNIX, CIC++ ProgrammeBI
Analysts · CJUNIX, SYBASE Developers · Sr. SYBASE DBAs · Sr. Research Engineers · SAS Programmer Analysts · C++Msual Basic Developer
Opportunities are currently available
in Northern VA, Needham, MA,
Elmsford, NY
and Newport Beach, CA
For consideration, please send or fax your resume, noting position of intmst, to: Ttchnologlis Recruiting, lltpL 80197, Ameria Om Inc, 12100 Sunrlst VaDey Drht, Rt!1oo, VA 20191. Fax: (703) 4534015; t·mail: applylus@aol.rom.Ex~ore the AOL ho111: pigc at W11'11'.10Lcum/anm/. Or,
3ca9l2l-o3?u0r0J.Woe abre H an eqou(8a0lt0)lineaAt opportunity m~loytr.
Your Future.
Now Available at America Online
AMERICA ONLINE
11co1ro11rro C irc le 80 on Inqu iry Card.
SOMETHING MISSING?
Complet eyour BYTEcollection by orderi ng Back Issues today!
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Spttialb.wa U.S. ~livffv S300. Fort19n 0dr.-ery $4.00 · 1990 lhrv 1996 U..S.Ddr1try S6.SO, fof r~nOtlrmyS8.SO, Canada &Mt.aeo S700 · AU iswa prior to 1990 U5. Ddrvtrv SJ.00. Fotc-ign C>:fr.'tfVS-400.(CJH f0t :rr.11tabil ·tvllkot pticninciudr: poilJCJt (USI. ~u rfatt mail lhweign). · AUctin+.s must be in U.S. fond.t. and drawn on a U.S. ba nk. Pk:Ul' mdi4.·:a1r which 1uun you would lilrtby c+ttdung (""1 lht:- boJ.:rs...Scnd n:quc.t.h with p:tymrnt lo :
~ Bade lu ucl, One Phoenix Mill Lane, Ptlcrborouqh, N.H.03§ 58, (603) 924-9281
City State
Zip
'tZ
A DiPisio11 o("/ 11cMcGro"'-Hi/l Co111pa11ies
1 72 BYTE JANUARY t9 97
THE BUYER'S MART is a uni9ue classiii~a \!'jlction organiZed by prod11cfoategpry tohelp r.eaders
loeale suppliers. Ea.Ch ad.has Inquiry
numbers to aid readers requesting information f~om'advertisers.
AD FORMAT: Each ad will be designed and lyP.Bset by BYTE. Do NOTsend lqgos or camera·ready artworK Advertisers should furnish
typewntten.cc:iP.Y.2~x~,!/11" ads · ban include·headlihe (23 characters · maximum), de~criptive te,xt (300 ·
characters is the maximum rilcom· mend~)· plus company name, aCldress, telephone and fax number. 2"x2 ~If ad has l))Ore ~ce for descnptrve text (850 charactets is t~e.maximum recommended). DEADLINE: ~d copy is due
BAR CODE
BAR CODE
Portable Reader
* AA Battery Operaled, 64K or 256K * Display messages and oplional voice messages
:i·, lell operalor what lo do. Messages are easily
recorded (like answering machine) in any language.This unil is EASY!
* Double duly as Non-portable Reader * 4x20 Supertwisl LCD Display, 35 Rubber Keys * 2 Buill-ln lnvenlory Programs or creale cuslom
* Download lables and Pick Llsls
* Wand, CCD, or Laser Scanner lnpul * Reads 2of5, UPC/EAN, 126, Code 39, etc. * 2 yea r Warranly on Reader & Wand
* 30 Day Money Back Guaranlee * 64K Complete wilh lnlegraled Laser- $1299 * 64K Complele with Steel Wand - $799 * Small Size and very long battery life
http:J/www.cruzlo.com/-wds
Worthington Data Solutions
3004 Mission S1ree1· Snn1a. Cruz, CA 95060
408·458·9938 · FAX 408-458·9964 800-345-4220
RF Terminal
Communlcales 2 way lo Serial Base Slallon from
400-1000 II. Easily covers 1,000,000 square feet 1·
16 lermlnals per base slalion. Keyboard, wand,
CCD or laser scanner Input 16 Seleclable lrequen·
cies. Small size and low weigh! 14 oz. w!lh batter· ies. Base Slallon-$645 Terminal $1095.
http:J/www.cruzio.com/-wda
Worthinaton Data Solutions
3004 MisSIOn Streel · Santa Cruz, CA 95060
408-458-9939 · FAX 408-459-9964
600-345-4220
Windows Bar Code Fonts
Add bar codes lo any font based Windows pro gram. Fonts designed for dol malrix, DeskJel and LaserJet Prinl Codabar, 2 of 5, Code 128, UPC/EAN and Code 39 inside your Windows program. TrueType fonls, bitmaps and melafile support included. Only $199.
Worthington Data Solutions
(408) 458-9938
(800) 345-4220
Bar Code Readers
Circuit Design Software for Windows
Easy-lo-use schematic entry, PCB design, and simu
for PC, XT, AT, PS/2, Macintosh
lalion software, slarling al S149 each. Complele PCB package with schematics, aulorouler. and layoul tor
and Serial Terminals
* Attaches as 2nd Keyboard, no soltware changes * Reads 2of5, 126, UPC/EAN, Code 39, etc. * Exlernal or lnlernal attachmenl on PC * Wand, CCD, Slot Badge, Magslripe or Laser
* Supports DOS, Novell, UNIX, Mac OS, elc.
2-layer c!rcuil boards. $399. Enhanced version wilh auloplacement, more symbol libraries, and up lo 16 layers. $649. CAM file outpuls.
Mental Automation, Inc.
54 15 136th Place, SE..Sellevue WA 98006
(206) 641-2141 FAX (206) 64!Hl767 BBS (206) 641-2846
http://www.mentala.com/
* 100+ Conligurable Oplions
lnquit¥ 451 .
* Supports USA and lnlernalional K6yboards
II
* 2 Year Warranly. 30 Day $ Back Guaranlee
CAD/CAM
* Direct From Manufaclurer * Top Rated by Independent Review * Complele wilh CCD Scanner - $399 * Complete with Laser Scanner - $655 * Complele Wand only Reader- $299
~c "!·?
CONTOURING MOTION CONTROL
Aj~~~~~f',?RTI $249
VERSION 3
VISA/MC
· Controls up to six step motors simultonoously.
· Unonr and Clrcular lnlorpolation.
· Now fonturos to accommodate machine control .
http:J/www.cruzlo.com/-wds
· Easy·to-use device driver. Super Manual.
Worthington Data Solutions
3004 Mislrion Stleel · Sonia Cruz, CA 95060
· CAD·CAM lnlortoco available.
Ability Systems
Cotporalion, 1'22 Arnold Ave. Roslyn. "" 11ioo1121s1657-038
408-458-9939 · FAX 408-4511-99154 800-345-4220
http:llwww.abilitysystems.com FAX: c2151657·7815
Inquiry 452.
Labeling Software
Fo r DOS and Windows wllh dol· matrlx, Lase rJet or
DeskJel. Easy WYSIWYG design. Any formaVsize. Mix
big leXI, bar codes, and PCX graphics. Formals tor AIAG ,
KMart, Sears, MIL·STD, Penneys, WalMart. File Input
LabelRIGHT for DOS-$279. LabelRIGHT lor Wlndows
$295. 30 Day Money Back Guarantee
Worthington Data Solutions
(408) 458-9938
80~345-4220
TG-CAO Professional, v.6.0
CAD Solutions Software
A 16 & 32 bll CIC++ Windows 95, Win NT & Win 3.1 CAD Developers Kit. The best in CAD/CAM software
kils. Free Demo and Technical Paper. Call 800·635·7760 or Fax 972-423-7288 or
hllp://Www.disksoft.com or E·mall disksott@ix.nelcom.com or BBS 972·881 ·9322 Dist Software, Inc. 109 S. Murphy Rd.. Plano, TX USA 75094
Inquiry 453.
CD-ROM
CD ROM, Inc.
CD·AOM, CD·A, Media, Jukeboxes, Towers, Titles & Production Services Unique Data Compression: CAl·X2 INC 500 Company, Established 1988
303-384-3922 Fax 303-384-3926
http://www.cdrominc.com
Inquiry 454.
Dr. Dobb's CD-ROM Library
The Software Professlonal's Essential Resource
Or. Dobb's collection of CD·ROMs helps today's programmers with lhe ever-increasing complexity of their job.
Featuring these CD-ROMa:
The Al StMnS Cram Course on CIC++ Essential Books oo AlgoriUwM and Oeta Structures Essenllal Books oo Graphics Progranvning
Essenllal Books "' Fi!8 Foonals Altematlve Prcganvning Languages Hands-01 PostSaipt PfOt18IMllng
$69.95 $59.95 $69.95
$69.95 549.95 $39.95
-ahotl Ind fullpc<>du<t dllalllrnlloble on...-- llle:
www.ddJ.com/cdrom/
Full, Unlimited Money-Back Guarantee! Call: (800) SD0-6797 Fax: (913) 841 ·2624
Email: ordors@mli.com
lnt'l: Use mail, fax, Email or call (913) 641-1631
Mall Ordata:
Or. Oobb'a CO.ROM Ul>rary 1601 West 23rd Sl. Suite 200, Lawr1nce, KS 66045-2700 USA
Inquiry 455.
JAVA - °"' ~~.....C.....D....·..R....O.....M.....S............... m.oo
WIN=A~~~~!!w':'~iC:,~ion......... ...... SJ0.00
WINSITE ..·. ......·.·.........·...·...·..... . ·..·.. . ....·· m .oo
UtiUtiei lor Windows J,1, NT, Windowi 9S. morel
HOBBES OSIZ .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .
.. ..... $35.00
esof5a~a~'~t\~0%li~~~~~~~~\~R6..... ......... us.oo
INTIORNETTOOLS .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
.. .. .. SJ~OO
NetworWflll IOOs & uUlttles SLIP & PPP
LINUX Dowlopo<'a R...,..n:o ............................ 125.00
Stoi:twao!, Red Hall. more!
UNUXlnstallation&GoalngSClll1odGuldo ................ $7.50
UN~m=· . . ... ...... . .. ... .. .......... ....... .... 145.00
CO Set & Install Guide. For btginn<rsl
llO<Hlff for LINUX - 100% Motif compatible GUI ... ...... 19'1.00
MOO-TIFF for F...SSD · 100% Moul compatible GUI. .. .. .$9'1.00
m. llOTHEA of PEAL ........................ .... .. ..... ..... SJS.00 Source & blnarits for UNIX. DOS, MAC
RUNNING LINUX .................. .. .... .. . . ............. 119~5
souii~l9c'O',;f'1!i.~Uf.2~~~.rv.ews. more.. .... sio.oo
STANDARDS - RFCs. IENS. ITUICCITT BlueBook .···... .·.. $30.00
TCUTK - s.ohw;rt 1odntklpX·Windowl.ipps. . ·.... ...··· .. ··. Sl S.00
TeX - lypt$tttir&lool' for 1Nthtmitk:al ft scitntifi< docs... . . . ... SJS.00
WOR~ O:~",.l\'3.0.it ~oo:ti.iei ................. .... $30.00
X-FtlES - Comp/m!OUotti for X11R6 a Xhtt86.. .. ....... .. ... $35.0D
Phone OnlefS t-$X>-l!OO~t3
Wur:apf
FaxOldefS: +1-520-516-9573
MC, VISAIAMEX
lnl'I Phone: +1·520-515-9565
Web Orders: www.lnlanagic.!Xlf11 E-mail: onle1s@inlomagic.oom
InfoMagic 11950 N. Hwy 89, Aag1111n, AZ 86004
Inquiry 456.
B UY E R ' S MA RT A DIRECTORY OF PRODUCTS AND SERVl'CES
CD-ROM
WALNUT CREEK CDROM
FneBSD 2.1 .5RocksolidBerkeley Unixtor PC w/s1t.
2disc set. easy lns1all. 6 mo updates ..............................$39.95
llnu1 Sl·cliware 96 4disc se~ St.ackware96 'DFACtAl· release
...
by Patrick Volkerdlng.lnlemet'stavolile
.... ...... ... ....$39.95
Clea MS Windows 2disc set. 19001Windows programs.
games. drivers. 1onts. shells, Sit. Indexes InGermani
Italian/French/English/Japanese. Ouar. updates.............$29.95
Hobbes OS/2 !000 MBFree/Sharewaredrivers, app·s.
etc. 0512 Mag·s product of theyearI 6 moupdates ..._.$29.95
Slmtel MSODS. 2 discs, premier Internet lechrical,
programmingFreelShareware....................................$29.95
Blaclihawtc - New Wrn. 95sharewarecollection.............$29.95
lnteme1 Info t3.400doc's. FAQs, FRCs, & IENs ..................$39.95
Music Worbhop Mu~c prog., midi,demos, elc...............$39.95
Pniject Gutenber; 560+ must-readworks of lllerature.
Each document IsInASCII format text.........................$39.95
Scientific library Technical shareware. DOSIWin................$39.95
POY·Ray Ray·tracing Images, s1t, document.ation..............$39.95
70+ titles about Wrndaws 95& NT, games,Tel,perf. ORZ!
Ham Radio. Music, Fonts. Royalty·tree images
Call for your FREE catalog today!
Alt our products have a llJll Gil ~llallil Qllll1JllU1
1-800-786-9907
4041 Pike Lane, S1e 0·215. Concord, CA 94520
+1 -51D-674-0783 Visa/MC/AMEI, Fax: +1 -51D-674-0821
orders@cdrom.com http://WWW.cdrom.com/
Inquiry 4~7.
DATA RECOVERY
The Leader in Data Recovery
· Expertise in virtually every operating system & media s1orage device.
· Emergency services wi1h calls answered 24 hours a day. Call for a FREE consultatlonl
ONTRACK DATA RECOVERY
Mpls ·LA· DC· London· Tokyo· Stuttgart 1-800-872-2599 · www.ontrack.com
Inquiry 461.
Don't pay thousands of Dollars! Download our
DO-IT-YO UR SELF
Data Recovery Software
TIRAM/SU.
We support DOS. DOSN/IN , and NOVELL fllo systems http:Jlwww.snafu.deluser-cgi·binlrecovery
hnp1/ourwor1d.compuserve.C<Jmlllomepagesldata_recovery Email: 101 457.14470 COfT1'UServe.ccm
The Virtual Data Recovery Company
.. Inquiry 462.
HARDWARE
HEWLETI-PACKARD
Buy- Sell - Trade
LaserJet
ColorPro
Dra ftPro
RuggedWriter
Electrostatic Plotters
DeskJet Draft/Master DeslgnJ et
We specialize In Demo & Refurbished Equipment
HP 9000 Workstations and Vec1ras also available.
Ted Dasher & Associates
4117 Sccond Avo.. S. Birmingham . AL 35222
Phone: (205) 591-4747 Fax: (205) 591-1108
(800) 638-C833
E-mail: salesOdasher.com
Inquiry 465.
INTERNET PRESENCE
" Virtual Web Hosting"
- ·YourName.com
$24.95/mo.
(800) 808-9241 I FREE "web" Page
http:J/PICK.NET RESELLERS Welcome
Inquiry 466.
CD ROM TOWERS &
JUKEBOX SERVERS FOR
ALL OPERATING SYSTEMS!
RAID NOW AVAILABLE
No Device Drivers/ MSCDEX needed, Complete Kit
Nelworl<s CD Roms, unlimited user license. DISCPORT.
uns, NONE BETTER AT ANY PRICE"
Call NOW: 1(800)482-1866 305-597-3980 http://www.jescdrom.com
lnq~\ry 458.
COMMUNICATION-VOICE/FAX
lnfoOnCall
Your Communications Solution
Customizable phone operator, voice mall box. and fax machine all Jn one! Create: Automated tech-support · Co. news by voice or fax
Product lls1s · Pager· and much more!
For OS/2. Win 95, Win 3.1, & DOS!
ITC Compuler Products (972) 594-8103
Downl oad the demo al www.lnfoOnCall .com
Inquiry 459.
DATA RECOVERY when l.T. Matters
· Ta pe , Optica l or C.D. Media · Accidental Overwriles · Hardware or Software Failure
VO GON
USA Eurape Germany
Tel 405-321 -2585 Fax 405-364-8242
Tel +44 (0) 118-989-0042 Fax +44 (O) 118-989--0040
Tel +49 (0) 1805-22-15-42
Fax +49 (0) 89-69-37-00-55
· lhquirY, 463:
v·
DATA/DISK CONVERSION
CONVERSION/DUPLICATION
Tape: 4MM. OIC. 8MM, DLT, 9-trk, 3480/90/90E
Disk: 3", 3'/1", 5'1<. 8"
CD -ROM
1·800·357·6250
Shaffstall Corporation
317-B4 2·2 0 n
7901 East 88th Street
Fax 317-842·8294
Indianapolis IN 46256 sales @shaffstall.com
Since 1973
http ://www.sh affst all.com
PROGRAMMERS' TOOLS
High-Speed xBASE Engine···
For C. C++. Java, Visual Basic and Delphi program mers . Get multi-user compatlbltity with FoxPro, Clipper and dBASE fil es. CodeBase Is porlable be1ween DOS , Windows UNIX. Mac and OS/2! Includes 100% roya lty- free clien t/serve r plus Ac11veX data support and a visual report wr~er!
FREE 30 day test drive!
Coll Sequiter Software Inc. for details.
Phone 403 437-2410
FAX 403 436-2999
Inquiry 467.
SECURITY
THE ULTIMATE SOFTWARE SECURITY
e STOPCOPY tnmily - UNCOPIABLE copy proloction e STOPVIEW softwa10 oncryplion e NETLIMIT network l.cense metering e DOS, Wondows (3.X, 95. NT) . Mac. 0512 , wppo<I
· Machlne T.o. lntomet Protoct.lon, CD-ROM Protoction. 5eria.lization. Dato & Execution Limitation, Rogbtrntion, Remote AuthenUcation. Concurrent User Limitation
· Our products destroy AL l of our competition
BBi Computer Systems, Inc.
14105 Heritago Lano, Silver Spring. MD 20906 800/TRHBBI · 800/87U·2224 · 301/871-10!14 · FAX: 301 /480·7545
E·1111t: bblllbblcs.com · Web: http:l/www.bblcs.com
Inquiry 469.
DATA ENTRY SOFTWARE
DATA ENTRY SOFTWARE
Full featured, heads-down data entry
with two-pass verification, edit language,
output record reformat, operator statistics,
key from images (NEW!), free tech support.
For PC, PC LAN, S/36, AS/400.
FREE 30 day trial.
Computer Keyes
Tel: 206-nG-6443
21929 Maka/I Rd.,
Fax: 200-n s.1210
W~. WA98020
USA: 800-356-0203
EDUCATION
S.S. & M.S. In COMPUTER SCIENCE
The American lnslitu1e For Computer Sciences ottors an In· depth homo study program to earn your Bachelor of Science at homo. B.S. subjects covo rod a.r e: MS/DOS, BASI C, PASCAL, C. C++, Data Fhe Processing, Data Slructurcs & Operati ng Sys tems. M .S. pr og ram incl udes subj ecl s in Soltwaio Enginee ring and Artillclal lntelligonco. Ada and Usfng Windows courses also avaitabie. Accred~ed Member : World Assoclnllon of Universllies and Colleges.
:-:. AMERICAN INST. for COMPUTER SCIENCES
2101·BY Magnolia Ave., Suite 200. Birmingham, Al 35205
1-800-767-2427
1· 205-323-6191
Cop's Copylock II
Professional software protection.
DOS, OS2, Win 3.1, Win 95, NT, Networks.
CD-ROM and Internet Security.
Known and used world-wide since 1984.
www.linkclata.com
LINK Data Security
lnt'I: + 45 3123-2350 Fax: + 45 3123-8448
DATA RECOVERY
We Can Save It!
All Platforms - All Storage Devices Proprietary techniques so advanced we
rescue data others simply abandon.
DRIVESAVERS
Restoring data since 1985
1-800-440-1904
415-883-4232
.· '
I 7«i; 8,p E, JA NUARY 19 9 7
HARDWARE
Pre-Owned Electronics, Incnt
THE Independent Provider, serving the Dealer,
Professional. Corporate, Govemmen1, and
Educational Buyer since 1985.
APPLE II" & MACINTOSH"
SYSTEMS· PARTS· EXCHANGE REPAIRS
Ctrllfora Catalog...800-274-5343
Office: 617-nB-4600 ·FAX : 617-n8-4848 125 MIDDLESEX TURNPIKE· BEDFORD, MA 01 730
Inquiry 464.
BUYERS COULD BE SEEING
YOUR AD HERE!
To advertise in the BYTE Buyer's Mart,
CALL Vivian Bernier TODAY at 603.924.2521
Fax: 603.924.2683
B UY ER ' S MART A DIRECTORY OF PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
SECURITY
CRYPKEY SOfTWARE llCENSING SYSHM
"Soltware Protection with HD hardware lock and NDdisk key CrypKey is 10Hwar1: copy protection that is:
· completely secure from any disk copy program
· perfect for CO·ROM or INTERNET distribution!
· cosl eflective, user friendly. and 100°/. guar1nt ee d
to satisfy!
CrypKey can increase you r software sales:
· upset! options and revels of you r software · lease or demo your software by runs or time · ena ble or up9rJde your customers ln.slantly by phone , IH or email!
Newt unique Ready -To-Try feature upon install allows 1trial period only per customer. Newt unique Add -On teature · add more options. levels. runs or time to existing llcenses. Newt Cryp Key lnstant-prolects In just 5 mlnulea with no soUJte code changes. CrypKey Is completely compatible with MS-DOS. MS-Windows 3.K. Wln32s. Wln95, Win NT. and manages networt licenses on all Novell and Microsoft operating S)"lem based networks. CrypKey Is produced by Kenonic Controls Lid. - software and engineering since 197<.
Ken onic Controls Limited
7115-l lth Streel Sou thEasl Calgary. Albe rta , Canada T2H 256
14031 258-6100 · lai; (403) 25&-610 1
lllTERllET crypieyi!ienonic.com
WEB: hr.p1/Wn.k!nonlc.convcrypkey.1:1m
Inquiry 470.
CRYPTo-801TM locks in your profits!
The Marx CRYPTO·BOX is the result of 10 years experience in ellectln software protection. · microprocessor controls ID codes, memory, dynamic
algorithm and high speed data encryption · remote access to passwords and counters · floating license control in a LAN with a si ngle key
MARX International, Inc.
20 hecutlve Par\'. West. Suite 2027. At~nt.t, GA 30329
1404) JZt-3020 1-800-MARX- INT FAX: (4041321-0760
Visit us on the web : www . marx .com
Inquiry 471 .
KEY-LOK IITM SECURITY
Software Piracy Prevention - Survival 14 years proves
ettectiveness. ActNe algorithm, programmable memo<y,
counters. date control, remote update. No ID on device.
Low pricing (e.g. $16.50 each tor 5).
No startup costs.
Also, ACCESS CONTROL systems and dosk drivolsystcm LOCKS
MICROCOMPUTER APPLICATIONS, INC.
3167 E. Otero Circle, Littletoo, CO 801 22 hnp://www.esn.ne!lkeylok
l ·BD0-453-9565 (303) 770-191 7 FAX: (303) 770-1863
Inquiry 472.
SOFTWARE PACKAGING
FREE SOFTWARE
PACKAGING CATALOG
Everything you will nood 10 Pnckago, Oistrlbuto, ond Ship Your Softwurcll From mw1uul~ ond binders to ma.Hore noo Bhlppors
LABELS · LABELS · LABELS
For your diskenes, plain o r custom printod dol marrix or laser printer ... lreo samples
···FREE CATALOG-·· Hice & Associates
8586 MonticoUo Or.. West Chester. OH 45069
Phone/Fax: 513-779-7977
Inquiry 473.
SOFTWARE/ENGINEERING
Analog/Digital Simulation!!
· Windows, NT, DOS
· Model Llbrarlea, RF, Power
· Powor Mac, Macintosh · More Than 5000 parts
· lsSPtc:E4 Real Time SPICE · Waveform A n11tyal1
· Mixed Mode Simulation · Full SPICE ptOllrams
· Schematic Entty
startlng at S95. Complete
1ntusoh · New AHDL Modeling Kil!! systems, S59S42595
~O. Box 710 San Pedro. CA 90733-0710 ·
(310)833-0710. FAX (310)833-9658
Call for your Froe Demo and inlofmat.lon kit.
Inquiry 474.
SOFTWARE/GRAPHICS
Become an
Imaging Expert!
AccuSoft On Line
www.accusoft.com
FREE lmageGearTM Demo Interactive Product Info
Glossary of Imaging Terms Your Resource for Imaging
AccuSoft Corporation
(800) 741·7130
TEL (508) 898-2770 FAX (508) 898-9662
Two Westborough Business Park
Westborough, MA 01581 USA
Inquiry 475.
SOFTWARErTRANSLATORS
Word Translator for Windows
· HoHter ffmslatloo of wonk & plomas from wi1hia YD"'....rdi""""""'OIP~
· H'!I' '""I' ol lmiaoO!les iodu1ing £mt &Weit
Europeon"l<m;di~ Com Aneriain &J11p11111t;
°' · User-de-~ - adlyourownenlries;
· Prim slort 11 ooly USS60 -ml. fu emoi ID< detdi!
CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY (dlalei@MJ1hoppei.co.ui)
Tel t-441119 567160· fn +44 1889 563548
Pork"-· Pork St. llttoxeletST14 711'., Engbid
http//""'1.net-ihopper.m.aVsohme/iJov'tranv'"inde1.htm
Inquiry 476.
,,
TELEPHONE OFFICE SIMULATOR
Telephone c/o Simulator
· PSX · CIO Sne voltages · Powor Ringing with pa1lerns · Olal codOs for elo responses · Cnll 10 (FSK) In many formats
· You can script call id, tone bursts, etc .
Whal do you need?
Dianatek Corporation
I 22 Koysor Stroot. North Sutton NH 03260-06 t 6
Voice: 603-927-4955
Fax: 603-927-4715
E·M1ll; dlanatek Oconknet.com
WINDOWS
FREE INTERNET
Free PPP, Gel On-Line lmmedialely. Telnel to other BBS"s. Suri the World Wide Web,
28 .Bk modems
I ·9I4·346·1777
All You Pay For Is The Call
lnq'uiry 477.
YOUR AD HERE
ADD COLOR IMPACT
TO YOUR AD IN THE
BUYER' s MART
For rates and details to start or upgrade your advertising
Vivian Bernier i~~' 603-924-2521
Fax: 603-924-2683
There Are 27S,000 Good Reasons to Advertise in the
BYTE Deck!
The BYl'E Deck mails to a select group of 275,000 BYTE subscribers who are proven direct market buyers. In fact, BYl'E subscriber surveys show that many readers prefer to buy through the mail order/ direct channel:
Direct Channel Preference for Purchases of:
Peri herals 83%
Com uter S stems 81 %
Software 79%
Networkin 6S%
Soun:r: 19');-1996 SUhsaibcrSludy
The average BYTE reader influences the purchase decisions of 107 others, works in a company with more than 1,000 etnployees, and influences more computer product purchases than any other person in his/her organization. The BYTE readership provides quality leads. Why settle for anything less?
Call Brian Higgins today at (603) 924-2596 or fax your order to (603) 924-2683.
1 n1J1~
Circle 478 on Inquiry Card.
JANUARY 199 7 BYTE 17 5
ADVERTISER CONTACT INFORMATION
To order products or request free information, call advertisers directly or send in the Direct Link Card by mail or fax Letthem know you saw it in BYTE!
INQUIRY NO.
PAGE NO. PHONE NO. INQUIRY NO.
PAGE NO. PHONE NO. INQUIR Y NO.
PAGE NO. PHONE NO.
A
91-92 ACISYSTEMS
167 888·618·6188
1114-195 ADVANCEDINTERUNK
90 714·894·1675
106-107 AEHOMECORPORATION
169 818·961 ·2499
1211-130 ALADDINSOFTWARE SECURITY INC
84 800·223·4277
127-128 ALADDINSOFTWARE SECURITY INC
143 800·223·4277
AMERICAON UNE
OUTSERT
10
AMERICAON UNE
TEC HNOLOGIES
800·392·8200
17
AME RICAN ADVANTECH
166 800800·6889
112 AMERICAN ADVANTECH
161 8008006889
113 AMERICAN ADVANTECH
161 8008006889
14-95 AMERICAN MICROSYSTEMS
166 800648·4452 ert300
132 AMERICAN POWER CONVERSIOll
18 800-BUY·APCC ext 8022
131 AMERICAN POWER CONVERSIOll
33 800BUY·APCC "'18022
AMERICAN POWER CONVERSION
32A·B 401-788·2797""
APEX PC SOLUTIONS
163 800861 ·5858
117-118 APPRO INTERNATIONALI NC 161 800927·5464
238 ARTECON
121 800872-2783
B
450 BIX
111 800895-4775
BYTE
148 803·924·2663
BYTE
190 603·924·2663
BYTE BACK ISSUES
1n 603·924-9281
BYTE CUSTOMER SERVICE
22 800232-2963
BYTE ON CD ROM
119 800924-662 1
BYTE SUB MESSAGE
22
BYTE WEBSITE
c
117 ltlp://www.byle=n/
98·99 CAUFORNIAPCPRODUCTSINC 170 800394-4 122
96-97 CAMELEON TECHNOLOGY INC 170 800440-7466
209 CARDI FF SOFTWARE
162 800659·8755
220-221 CENSUSCOMPUTER
162 618·839·2838
110 CHRYSAUS · ITS
171 613·731-6788
COMPAQ COMPUTER BOOK CLUB
55 128A· B
800·888·24 15
6 14·759 ·3666
COMPUTERBOOKCl.UB
129 614·759·3749
133 COMPUTERDISCOUNT WARE HOUSE
44-45 800959-4CDW
201 COM PUTERLANE UNLIMITED 152 800526·3482
134 COREL
21 613·728-0826 e11 3080
135-131 CYBEXCOMPUTER PRODUCTS CORP
52 205-43Q-4000
D
DELL COMPUTER CORP DELL COMPUTERCORP DELL COMPUTER CORP
37 CV-CVI CV-CVI
800433-5898 S00-626-4298 800·289·1470
DELL COMPUTER CORP (FlOOO)
CV·CVI 800666-1160
DELL COMPUTER CORP
CVll 800·678· 1710
DELL COMPUTER CORP
CVlll 800627·0660
DELL COMPUTER CORP (F l OOO)
CVll 800283·1420
DELL COMPUTERCOR P (F 1000)
CVlll 800·822·6072
DELL COMPUTER CORP
24·25 88 8·554·3355
1n-11s DISTINCTCORPORATION
142 408-366-8933
137 DISTRIBUTED PROCESSING TECH
46 407·830-5522
190·191 DRSOLOMON'SSOFTWARE 43 888·DRSOLOMON
138·139 DTKCOMPUTERINC
102 800289·23e5
124 DUNN SYSTEMS
171 80Q-486·DUNN e11405
F
222 FAIRCOMCORPORATION
17C>-171 ANSON
202-203 ARSTSOURCEINT'l
211
FOREFRONT DIRECT INC
196 FORTRESGRAND CORPORATION
147 573-445-6833 62 +39-2·6698-7036 153 714·448·7750 157 800-653·4933 39 800331-0372
G
108 GAGEAPPLIEDSCIENCES INC 167
184 GLOBETROTTERSOFTWAREINC 75
212·213 GRANITEDIGITAL
151
602 GREATER COLUMBUS
95
CHAM BEROF COMMERCE
161·169 GRIFANTECHNOLOGIES
145
800·567·GAGE ··13425
408·370-2800 51Q-471-6442 814·221 ·1321
800986·6578
H
125-128 HIWAYTECHNOLOGIES
172 800-339-HWAY
I
93·94 ICP ACQUIRE
167
IDT INTERN ET
165
INFORMATION BUILDERS 80NA4A·B
601-609 INFORMATION BUILDER S
81
231 INTEGRIX INC
98
141-142 INTERGRAPH COMPUTER
51
SYSTEMS
165-186 IOSOFTWARE
8·9
J
JAM ECO ELECTRONICS
159
JAVA RECRUITMENT
103
888-618-6188 800·689·9438 800·969·1N FO 416-364·2760 8003008288 800763·0242
800·458·0386
800831-4242
K
143·144 KJNGSTONTECH NOLOGY
31 888-435·5439
L
226-227 LA TRADE
122·123 LAHEYCOMPUTERSYSTEMS
603-604 LG ELECTRONICS
95
LIBERTY SYSTEM INC
158 310·539·5844"" 171 800548·4n8 113 201 ·816-2000 188 406·983·1127
605-606 LUCEtlTTECHNOLOGIES
122 888·4·LUCENT
M
MCGRAWH ILLNRI
BOA·B
210 MICR02000
150-151
204·205 MICRO SOLUTIONS COMP
155
PRO D
MICRO·INTERNATIONAL INC 189
162 MICRON ELECTRONICS
C11 · 1
160 MICRON ELECTRONICS
12 · 13
161 MICRON ELECTRONICS
72.73
MICROWAY
131
145 MINITAB INC
35
8 18·5 47·0397 "" 800·295 ·12 14
800·987·5667 800362-7306 800486·2059 800·723·2998 508·746·7341 814- 238·3280
N
109 NATIONALINSTRUMENTS
167
102 NEATO
170
235 NSTL
140
0
OSBORNEMCGRAW·HILL 182-183
p
185· 186 PHILIPSBUSINESS
77
ELECTRONICS
146-147 PINNACLEMICRO
148 PKWAREINC
79
206 POLYWELL SYSTEMS
161
182 POWEROUEST
2·3
223 POWERSOFT OPTIMA
29
800·433-3488 800984 -9800 610-941 -9 600
800822·8158
800·835·3506 714·789·3000 414 ·354·8699 800·300·7659 800379·2566 600·395·3525
105 82·83
Q
OUALSTAR CORP QUANTUM CORPORATION OUATECH INC
189 16-17
168
800468-0680 800·624·5545 80 0 553· 1170
R
120 RACKMASTER
188 800480-4384
180-181 RAIDTECCORPORATION
146 770-884-6066
228 RAINBOW TECHNOLOGIES
61 800852·8569
88·89 RCI
167 800·RCl·8090 e·t 71
115·116 RECORTEC INC 607 RICOH CORPORATION
169 888·RECORTEC 80NA3 800 544-8246
207·208 ROSEELECTRONICS
160 800333·9343
150-151 ROSSTECHNOLOGYINC
93 800ROSS·YES
5
611-612 SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS 121 SCITECH INTERNATIONAL 218·219 SHARKMULTIMEDlA 234 SILICON GRAPHICS
119 SI UCONRAX 100-101 SUGERDESIGNS 230 SOFTBANK/COMDEX 229 SOFTBANKICOMDEX
114 800933-4 110 171 800898-9044 165 8008003321 99 800636·8184
dcp1L5 168 8007008560 170 702·356-5595 125 617-433·1600 135 617·433·1600
17 6 BYTE JANUA R Y 1 997
ADVERTISER CONTACT INFORMATION
INOUIRYNO.
PAGE NO. PHONE NO.
188-189 SPOTTECHNOLOGY
90
STARTECH COMPUTE R
PRODUCTS
152 STATSOFT
51
166 800·265·1844 ext 231
89 918 ·749 ·111 9
T
111 TALKING TECHNOLOGY INC 167 800-945·4884
153 TEKTRONIX
23 800-835·6100 oit. 1358
104 TERN INC
171 916·758·0180
TEXAS MICROSYSTEMS INC 64A·B 800-627·8700
INQUIRY NO.
PAGE NO. PHONE NO.
176·1n TEXASMICROSfSTEMSINC
65 800·627·8700
164 TOSHIBA AMERICA INC
66·67 800·457·7777
114 TRl·MAPll'ITERNATIONAL INC 169 510-447·2030
v
218·217 VCOMMUNICATIONS
151 800-648·8265
86
VIDEXINC
232·233 VIEWSONIC
105·150 VIEWSONIC
VISIO CORPORATION
166 54 I ·758·0521
56-57 909·669·7958" "
107
800· 686 · 6b6~
15 800-24·V1SIOE27
INQUIRY NO.
w
PAGE NO. PHONE NO.
166· 169 WIBUSYSTEMSAG
601 WINBOOK COMPllTER COR PORATION
x
145 800·986·5578 11 800·468-07 12
224-225 XI COMPllTER CORP
z
108 714·492··6571 ""
103 Z.WORLDENGINEERING 163· 164 ZYXELUSA
170 9 I 6·757·3737 101 714·693-0808
BYTE ADVERTISING SALES STAFF
Lori Silverstein, National Advertising Director, 921 Eastwind Drive, Suite 118, Westerville, OH 43081,
Tel: (614) 899-4908, Fax: (614) 899-4999, /orisf@mcgrow-hill.com
NEW ENGLAND
CT, MA, ME, NH, NY, RI, VT, Ontario, Canada, Eastern Canada John Ferraro (617) 860-6221, (212) 512-2555 jferraro @mcgraw-hill.com Jeanne Beeson (617) 860-6349 jbeeson@mcgraw-hill.com The McGraw-Hill Companies 24 Hartwell Avenue Lexi ngton, MA 02173 FAX: (617) 860-6307
NEW YORK
NY Metro, NJ Michael Feinberg (212) 512-4811 feinbcrg @.mcgraw-hill.com Jill Pollak (212) 512-3585 jpollak@mcgraw-hill.com The McGraw-Hill Companies 1221 AvenueofAmericas-28th Floor New York, NY 10020 FAX: (212) 512-2075
SOUTHWEST, ROCKY MOUNTAIN AL. AR, LA MS, OK. TN, TX Bert Panganiban (214) 688-5165 bertpang @mcgraw-hill.com Brian Higgins (603) 924-2596 bhiggins @mcgraw-hill.com The McGraw-Hill Companies Mockingbird Towers Ste. 1104E 1341 W. Mockingbird Lane Dallas, TX 75247-6913 FAX: (214) 688-5167
MID An.ANTIC-SOUTHEAST NEW MEDINONLINE PRODUCTS DC, DE. Fl. GA, KY, MD, NC, PA, SC, VA, WV Neil Helms (404) 843-4777 nhelms@mcgraw-hill.com Kirstin Pihl (404) 843-4765 kpihl@mcgraw-hill.com The McGraw-Hill Companies 4170Ashford-Dunwoody Road Suite520 Atlanta. GA 30319-1465 FAX: (404) 252-4056
CENTRAL U.S.
IA, IL, IN, KS, Ml, MN, MO, ND, NE. OH, SD.WI Lori Silverstei n (614) 899-4908 lorisf@mcgraw-hill.com Paul Franchak (614) 899-4912 franchak @mcgraw-hill.com The McGraw-Hill Companies 921 Eastwind Drive, Suite 118 Westerville, OH 43081 FAX: (614} 899-4999
NORTH PACIFIC AK, Northern CA, HI, ID, MT, OR, Silicon Valley, UT,WA, WY, Western Canada RoyJ. Kops(415) 513-6861 rkops@mcgraw- hlll.com Lisa Farrell (415) 513-6862 lfarrcll@mcgraw-hill.com The McGraw-Hill Companies 1900 O'Farrell Street, Suite 200 San Mateo, CA 94403 FAX: (415) 513-6867
SOUTH PACIFIC Al., Southern CA, CO, NM, NV Beth Dudas (714) 753-8140 bdudas @mcgraw-hill.com Geanctte Perez (714) 753-8140 gperez@mcgraw-hill.com The McGraw-Hill Companies 15635 Alton Pkwy., Suite 290 Irvine, CA 92718 FAX: (714) 753-8147
PETERBOROUGH, NH OFFICE:
Sales FAX: 603-924-2683 Advertising FAX: 603-924-7507
BUYERS MART Mark Stone (603) 924-2533 stonem @mcgraw-hill.com BYTE One Phoenix Mill Lane Peterborough, NH 03458
BYTE Deck Bria n Higgins (603) 924-2596 bhiggins@mcgraw-hill.com BYTE On ePhoenix Mill Lane Peterborough, NH 03458
EURO-DECK Mark Stone-(603) 924-2533 stonem @mcgraw-hill.com BYTE One Phoenix Mill Lane Peterborough, NH 03458
INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING SALES STAFF
L Bradley Browne, International Soles Director, One Phoenix Mill Lane, Peterborough, NH 03458,
Tel: (603) 924-2501, Fax: (603) 924-2602, bbrowne@mcyrow-hill.com
UNITED KINGDOM, BENELUX
Jonathan McGowan jonmcgow@mcgraw-hill.com The McGraw-Hiii Companies 34DoverSt London WlX 4BR England Tel: +44 171 495 6781 FAX: +44 171 4956734
ISRAEL
Dan Aronovic rhodanny@actcom.co.il DARA International 41 Ravutski Ra'anana 43220 Isra el Tel: +972-9-7419544 FAX: +972-9-7481934
KOREA Young-Seoh Chinn JES Media In ternational 6th Fl., Donghye Bldg. 47-16, Myung ii-Dong Kangdong-Gu Seoul 134-070, Korea Tel: +82-2-4813411 FAX: +82-4813414
ITALY, FRANCE, SPAIN, PORTUGAL. SCANDINAVIA
Zena Coupe, Amanda Blaskett 101645.1710@compuserve.com A-Z International Sales ltd. 70 Chalk Farm Road London NW 1BAN England Tel: +44171 2843171 FAX: +44 171 2843174
GERMANY, SWllZERLAND, AUSTRIA JOrgen Heise jhcise @mcgraw-hill.com The McGraw-Hill Companies Emil von Behring Strasse 2 D-60439 Frankfurt Germany Tel: +49 69 5801 140 FAX: +49 69 5801 145
JAPAN
Hirokazu Morita Japanese Advertising Communications, Inc. Three Star Building 3-10-3 Kanda Jimbocho Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101 Japan Tel: +Bl 3 3261 4591 FAX: +81 3 3261 6126
BYTE ASIA-PACIFIC AUSTRALIA. HONG KONG, INDIA, INDONESIA, KOREA, MALAYSIA, PAKISTAN. PHILIPPINES, OTHER ASIA ANO PACIFIC COUNTRIES. SINGAPORE, TAIWAN Wciyce In weiin @mcgraw-hill.com Jennifer Chen jcnnchcn@mcgraw-hill.com #305 Nan king East Road, Section 3, 10th floor Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. Tel: +886-2-715-2205 FAX:+BBG-2-715-2342
Subscription CustomerService
U5. l ·B00-232-2983
Outside U5.+1-609-426-7676
For a NewSubscription
U.S. 1-800-257-9402
OutsideU5. +1-609-426-5526
JANUARY 1997 BYlE 177
INDEX TO ADVERTISED PRODUCTS
For free product information from individual advertisers, circle the corresponding
inquiry numbers on the response card! To receive information for an entire product category, circle the category number on the response card!
CATEGORY NO INQUIRY NO.
CATEGORY NO . PAGE NO. INQU I RY NO.
PAGE NO.
CATEGORY NO .
INQUIR Y NO.
PAGE NO.
HARDWARE
2
96-97 727-728
82·83
ADD-IN BOARDS
CAMELEON TECHNOLOGY INC FIRSTINTERNATIONALCOMPUTER JAMECO ELECTR ONICS QUATECHINC
170 40152
159 166
3 BAR CODING
84·85
AMERICAN MICROSYSTEMS
166
86
VID EXINC
166
4 COMMUNICATIONS
87
AMERICAN ADVANTECH
166
742·743 AXISCOMMUNICATIONS
81
201
COMPUTERLANE UNLIMITED
152
88·89
RCI
167
90
STARTECH COMPUTER PRODUCTS
166
60
COMPUTER TELEPHONY
111
TALKING TECHNOLOGY INC
167
6
737-738 108 109 82·83
DATA ACQUISITION
DI ETRICH GAGE APPLIEDSCIENCES INC NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS QUATECHINC
401514 167 167 166
5
91'92 220·221
138-139 727-728 93-94 141-142 160 161 162 725·726 235 206 119 116-1n 114 224·225
DESKTOPS
AC I SYSTEMS CENS US COM PUTER DELL COMPUTERCORP DELLCOMPUTER CORP DEL L COM PUTE RCORP DTKCOMPUTERINC FIRST INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER ICPACQUIRE INTERGRAPH COMPUTERSYSTEMS MICRON ELECTRONICS MICRON ELECTRONICS MICRON ELECTRONICS MITAC NSTL POLYWELL SYSTEMS SILICON RAX TEXAS MICROSYSTEMS INC TRl·MAPINTERNATIONAL INC XICOM PUTERCORP
167 162 37 24·25 CV·CVlll 102 4015 2 167 51 12·13 72-73 Cll· l 95 140 161 168
65 169
108
53 DIAGNOSTIC EQUIPMENT
211
FOR EFR ONTDIRECTINC
157
7
236 733-734 231 143· 144 95 204·205 146·147
DISK DRIVES
ARTECON CMD TECHNOLOGY INTEGRIXINC KINGSTON TECHNOLOGY LIBERTY SYSTEMl ~C MICRO SOLUTIONS COMP PROD PINNACLEMICRO QUANTUM COR PORATION
121 40156
96 31 168 155
16·17
76 INDUSTRIAL COMPUTERS
112
AMERICAN ADVANTECH
168
113
AMERICAN ADVANTECH
168
117·116 APPRO INTERNATIONALINC
168
120
RACK MASTER
168
115·116 RECORTECINC
169
119
SILICON RAX
168
114
TRl·MAP INTERNATIONAL INC
169
13 LAPTOPS & NOTEBOOKS
220·221 CENSUSCOM PUTER
162
COMPAO
55
201
COMPUTERLAN EU NLIMITE D
152
DELL COM PUTERCOR P
CV·CVlll
727-728 FIRST INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER
40152
MICRO·INTERNATIONAL INC
169
160
MICRON ELECTRONICS
12·13
161
MICRON ELECTRONICS
72-73
162
MICRON ELECTRONICS
CIJ.1
725·726 MITAC
95
154
TOSHIBAAM ERICA INC
66·67
601
WIN BOOK COMPUTERCORPORATION 11
23
106· 107 137 731-732 212·213 231 204·205 105
180·181
MASS STORAGE
AEHOMECORPORATION DISTRIBUTED PROCESSING TECH EXABYTE EUROPE GRANIT ED IGITAL INTEGRIXINC MICRO SOLUTIONS COMPPROD OUALSTARCOR P QUANTUM CORPORATION RAIDTECCO RPORATION
169 46 4015 27 158 96 155 169 16·17 146
15
96 · 97 202·203
226·227 741 150·151
MEMORY/CHIPS/UPGRADES
CAMEL EO NTECHNOLOG YINC
170
FIRST SOURCEINT'L
153
JAMECO ELECTRONICS
159
LATRADE
158
PRIME ELECTRONICE TRADING GMBH 4015 20
ROSSTECHNOLO GYIN C
93
98·99 737-738 100· 101
CALIFORNIAPC PRODUCTS INC DIETRICH SLIGERDESIGNS
170 401514
170
17 MODEMS & MULTIPLEXORS
163·164 ZYXELUSA
101
18
729-730 603-604 725-726 185· 186 611-612 155-156 232· 233
MONITORS &TERMINALS
GVC
CV
LG ELECTRONICS
113
MITAC
95
PHILIPS BUSINESS ELECTRONICS
n
SAMSUNGELECTRONICS
114
VIEWSON IC
107
VIEWSONIC
56-57
19
102 741 607 218-219 234
MULTIMEDIA/CD-ROM
MCGRAW HILL ONLINE
401527
NEATO
170
PRIME ELECTRONICETRADING GMBH 4015 20
RICOH CORPORATION
80NA3
SHARK MULTIME DIA
165
SILICON GRAPHICS
99
63
135·136 704-705 207-208 722-723
NETWORK HUBS/SWITCHES
CYBEXCOMPUTERPRODUCTSCORP
52
CYBEXCOMPUTERPRODUCTSCORP CVI
ROSE ELECTRONICS
160
SEHCOMPUTERTECHNIKGM BH
401514
64 NETWORKING
194·195 ADYANCEDINTERUNK
90
APEX PC SOLUTIONS
163
135·136 CYBEX COMPUTERPRODUCTSCORP
52
704·705 CYBEX COMPUTER PRODUCTSCORP CVI
231
INTEGRIXINC
96
207-208 ROSE ELECTRONICS
160
57 PCMCIA
202·203 FIRST SOURCEINrL
153
20
201 737 · 738 712-713 722·723 153
PRINTERS/PLOTIERS
COM PUTERLANE UNUMITED DIETRICH MINOLTAGMBH SEH COMPUTERTECHNIK GMBH TEKTRONIX
102 401514 401511 401514
23
21
127-128 708·709 104 103
PROGRAMMABLE HARDWARE
ALADDINSOFTWARESECURITY INC
143
FAST SECURITY AG
40155
TERN INC
171
Z·WORLD ENGINEERING
170
212-213 GRANITE DIGITAL
210
MICR02000
158 150· 151
16 MISCELLANEOUS HARDWARE
106·107 AEHOME CORPORATION
169
22 SCANNERS/OCR/DIGITIZERS
188·189 SPOTTECHNOLOGY
58
178 BYTE JANUARY 1997
INDEX TO ADVERTISED PRODUCTS
C ATEG ORY NO . INQUIRY NO.
CATEGORY NO PAGE NO. I NQU I RY NO .
CATEGORY NO
PAGE NO. INQUIRY NO.
PAGE NO.
59 SCSI/PERIPHERAL INTERFACES
733-734 CMDTECHNOLOGY
401S6
137
DISTRIBUTED PROCESSING TECH
46
212-213 GRANITEOIGITAL
158
180· 181 RAIDTECCORPORATION
146
52 SECURITY
129·130 ALADDIN SOFTWARESECURITYINC
127-128 ALADDINSOFTWARESECURITYINC
110
CHRYSALIS - ITS
708-709 FAST SECURITY AG
228
RAINBOW TECHNOLOGIES
188·169 WIBUSYSTEMSAG
84 143 171 4015 5
61 145
66
91-92
SERVERS
ACI SYSTEMS
106·107 AEHOMECORPORATION
113
AMERICAN ADVANTECH
112
AMERICANADVANTECH
220·221 CENSUS COMPUTER
DELL COMPLITER CORP
138·139 OTKCOMPUTERINC
93-94
ICPACOUIRE
208
POLYWELLSYSTEMS
178·1n TEXAS MICROSYSTEMS INC
167 169 168 168 162 24·25 102 167 161
65
24
132 131 73!1-740
UPS/POWER MANAGEMENT
AMERICAN POWER CONVERSION
18
AMERICAN POWER CONVERSION
33
PK ELECTRONICS
401510
67 WORKSTATIONS
91 ·92
ACISYSTEMS
167
194·195 ADVANCEOINTERLINK
90
113
AMER ICAN ADVANTECH
168
112
AMERICAN AOVANTECH
168
138·139 OTKCOMPUTERINC
102
93 . 94
ICP ACOUIRE
167
234
SILICON GRAPHICS
99
119
SILICON RAX
168
114
TRl·MAPINTERNATIONALINC
169
SOFTWARE
25
209 170· 171
BUSINESS
CARDIFF SOFTWARE
ANSON
26 CAD/CAM
224·225 XI COMPUTERCORP
27
172· 175 715 719
COMMUNICATIONS/ NETWORKING
DISTINCTCORPORATION
PERS OFTINC
VOCALTEC LTD
28 DATAACOUISITION
608·609 INFORMATION BUILDERS
162 62
108
142 401S19
11
81
68 DATA WAREHOUSING
608·809 INFORMATION BUILDERS
81
29
222 165·166 716-717
DATABASE
FAJRCOM CORPORATION IOSOFTWARE RAIMACORP
147 8·9 401515
30 EDUCATIONAL
711
LOGICPROGRAMMINGASSOCIATES 401S26
31
72o-721 711
121
ENGINEERING/ SCIENTIFIC
F& H SIMULATIONS
15
LOGIC PROGRAMMING ASSOCIATES 4015 26
ON TIME MARKETING
401516
SCITECH INTERNATIONAL
171
33 GRAPHICS
134
CORE L
21
69 INTERNET SERVICES
125·126 HIWAYTECHNOLOGIES
172
36 MATHEMATICAL/STATISTICAL
145
MINITABINC
35
152
STATSOFT
89
37 MISCELLANEOUSSOFTWARE
170·171 FINSON
62
73 NETWORKING
605-606 LU CENTTECHNOLOGIES
122
38 ON-LINE SERVICES
AMERICA ONLINE
450
BIX
125· 126 HIWAYTECHNOLOGI ES
IDT INTERNET
OUTSERT 181 172 165
39 OPERATING SYSTEMS
216-217 VCOMMUNICATIONS
158
40 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES{TOOLS
735-736 ALASKA SOFTWARE
401524
124
DUNN SYSTEMS
171
222
FAJRCOM CORPORATION
147
184
GLOBETROITER SOFTWARE INC
75
710
GREY MATIER LTD
37
165·166 IOSOFTWARE
8·9
122·123 LAHEYCOMPUTERSYSTEMS
171
711
LOGIC PROGRAJMMING ASSOCIATES 4015 26
MICROWAY
131
ON TIME MARKETING
401516
223
POWERSOFT OPTIMA
29
716·717 RAIMACORP
401515
168·169 WIBUSYSTEMSAG
145
41 SECURITY
129·130 ALADDIN SOFTWARE SECURITY INC
84
127·128 ALADDIN SOFTWARE SECURITY INC
143
190·191 ORSOLOMON'SSOFTWARE
43
124
DUNN SYSTEMS
171
706·707 708·709 196 228 168·169
EUTRON FAST SECURITY AG FORTRES GRANO CORPORATION RAIN BOW TECHNOLOGIES WIBUSYSTEMSAG
401512 40155 39 61 145
45 UNIX
222
FAIR COM CORPORATION
724
SUNBELT INTERNATIONAL
147 40159
46 UTILITIES
211
FOREFRONT DIRECT INC
210
MICR0 2000
148
PKWAREINC
182
POWEROUEST
157 150· 151
79 2-3
47 WINDOWS95
VISIO CORPORATION
15
601
WINBOOK COMPUTER CORPORATION
11
GENERAL
49 BOOKS/PUBLICATIONS
BYTE
148
BYTE
190
BYTE O NCO ROM
119
COMPUTER BOOK CLUB
129
DATA COMMUNICATIONS
24·25
DATAPRO
154
MCGRAWHILLNRI
80A·B
OSBORNEMCGRAW·Hlll
182·183
TELE.COM
16·1 7
50 RECRUITMENT
80
AMERICA ONLINE TECHNOLOGIES
172
602
GREATER COLUMBUS CHAMBER
95
OF COMMERCE
JAVA RECRUITMENT
103
75
133 202·203 710 701-702
MAIL ORDER
COMPUTERDISCOUNTWAREHOUSE FIRSTSOURCE INrL GREY MATIER LTD COMPEX INC
44-45 153 '17 55
51 MISCELLANEOUS
BYTE BACK ISSUES
BYTE BACK ISSUES
BYTE CETRA CONFERENCE
BYTE CUSTOMER SERVICE
BYTEEURODECK
BYTE Fl ELD SALES
BYTEFIUER
BYTE SUB MESSAGE
BYTE SUB PROBLEMS
BYTE WEB SITE
COMPUTER EXPO '97
PAAM '97
230
SOFTBANK/COMDEX
229
SOFTBANK/COMDEX
113 172 401528
22 114 401522 401511
22 401526
187 401516
122 125 135
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 179
EDITORIAL INDEX
For more informa tion on any of the compan iescovered in articles, colum ns, or news stories
in this issue, circle the appropriate inquiry number on the response card. Each page number refers
t o the first page of th e article or section in which the company nameappears.
INQUIRY NO.
PAGE NO .
INQUIRY NO.
PAGE NO.
INQUIRY NO .
PAGE NO.
INQUI RY NO .
PAGE NO.
A
Acer
401S3, 401S17, 127
Adobe Systems
127
1051 AmericaOnline
116
Apertus Technologies
97
Appl e Comput er
68, 127
Arbor Software
91
Aris Applications
401S3
Arts Video lnfographique 401S13
1038 Astra Research
184
Asymetrix
127
1052 Allachmate
116
AVM
40IS3
B
Be
127
Bissantz, Kuppers &Company
40IS3
Borland International
127
c
C-Cubed Microsystems
59
995 C3 Computer Telephony 401S23
1040 Canon Computer Systems 127,
184
Carleton
97
998 GAS
40IS23
Cellware
401S3
985 Chase Advanced Technologies
401S23
Chey enne Software
127
994 Com·EM·Tex
401523
1109 Compaq Computer 401S3, 127,
133
Computing McGraw-Hill
123
Connectix
127
Corel
26
Craftwork Solutions
49
D
978 DataCell
40!S23
Debian/GNU
49
1008 Decisioneering
184
Delix Computer
49
1002 Design Intelligence
184
1045 Diamond Multimedia Systems 141
1000 Digital Equipment
26, 42, 123. 127
Digital Harbor
127
DTM Data Telemark
401S3
1031 Dynamic Pictures
184
E
Emu lex
127
F
Featron Technologies 40IS17
First International Computer40IS17
1057 FLFSoft
116
1032 Fluke
184
1012 Forefront
184
Fraunhofer lnstitut ftir Arbeitswirtschaft und Organisation
40IS3
1011 FTP Software
184
Fujitsu
401S17
1050 Functional Business Systems 11 6
G
986 GeBE Peripherigeraete 401S23
1018 Globalink
184
1006 Griggs Productions
184
GVC
401S17
1030 GW Instruments
184
H
HAHT software
26
1059 Harlequin
116
Harte·Hanks Communications 97
Hewlett-Packard
127
1112 Hirschmann Network Systems
40IS23
HO Lernund
401S13
lnformations·systeme AG
IB M
401S3, 68, 91, 127
lnfoMagic
49
InMagic
123
Innovative Software
127
Development
Innovative Systems
97
lnteco
401S 13
1037 lntegrix
184
Intel
14, 127
Intergraph
127
lntraNetWare
127
!sys/ Devel opm en t
401S3
Iterated Systems
BONA 1
IXOS Software
40I S3
J
Java
63
K
1004 Kalyn
184
L
977 Leutron Vision
401S23
1110 LG Electronics
133
Lightslone Multiuser Systems
40IS3
Lotus Development
127
M
Macromedia
127
Market Knowledge
97
MarketScape
127
1010 McAfee
184
990 MediaScout Multimedia 401S23
1023 Mediatrix Peripherals
184
996 Megasoft
40IS23
Metra Engineering
40IS3
1001 Metrowerks
47, 127
1019 MicroHelp
184
1026 Micronics Computers
184
1044 Micronics Computers
141
/Orchid Technology
1053 Microsoft
14,2 6,53,68, 11 6, 123, 127, 137
1015 Midisoft
184
Miro
40IS3
MIT Moderne
401St3
Informations Technologie
Mitac International
401S 3, 401S1 7
Moss Micro
192
1033 Mutch America
184
N
NEC
40IS3
1111 NEC Computer Systems 133
NEC Technologies
127
NetConsult Communications401S3
NetManage
401S3
1054 NetObjects
116
1009 NetPro Computing
184
NetscapeCommunications 26,
127, 137
Next Software
127
1063 Novell
68, 127, 137
0
989 Oakley DataServices 401S23
993 Octopus
40IS23
OLiVR
BONA 1
Oracle
14
p
Packard Bell 1025 Parallax Graphics 1043 PC Power &Cooling
PC! 976 Philips Business
Electronics 1022 Pixera
Power Computing Powersofl Prism Solutions Progressive Networks 1035 Proxima 982 PSPPillokat Systeme
Q
1061 Ouadralay Quarterdeck
R
Red Brick Systems Red Hat Ross Technology
s
S.u.S.E. 1005 SalesLogix
Sand erso n CBT SAS Institute
401S3 184
14 1
127
401S23
184
127
127
97
BONA1 127, 164
401S23
116
127
91
49
127
49
184
40IS13
97
1055 Sausage Software
116
11 OB Seagate Technology
48
992 SiemensAnlagentechnik 401S23
1062 Silicon Graphics 26, 41, 68, 127
1014 Simware
184
1060 SkiSoft Publishing
116
1056 SoftOuad
116
1007 SoftShell International
184
Software AG
91
1003 Software Publishing
184
1020 s ~ss
184
Star Division
127
1024 STB Systems
184
1042 Strategic Simulations
141
Stratus Computer
127
Sun Microsystems 14,68, 127
999 Synopsys Scientific Systems
40IS23
T
997 TakeFrve Software
401S23
1036 Tandberg Data
184
1034 Tecmar Technologies
184
1021 Tektronix
127, 184
1029 Teleby1e Technology
184
1013 ThomsonSoftware Products 184
1058 Thunder &Lightning
116
Tobit Software
40IS3
Toshiba
401S17, 127
Training Direct
401S 13
TS Technische Software 401S3
Twinhead International
u
401S 17
1027 U.S. Robotics
127, 184
988 Ultima Electronics
401S23
Utimaco Safeware
40IS3
v
Vality Technology
97
VDOnet
BONA!
Verilog
127
Verily
123
Vin ca
127
Visual Analysis
40IS3
991 Visual GIS
401S23
VocalTec
BONA!
VR·Systems
401S3
w
1049 Wall Data
127. 139
Walnut Creek
49
Wildcat Canyon Software 123
WorkGroup Solutions
49
y
Yggdrasil Computing
49
z
1028 ZyXel Communications
184
IS pages appear only in the International odition. NA pages appear only in the North America edition.
180 BY TE JANUARY 1997
B. Y. 0. I. S. ~
(Bring Your Own Internet Service Provider)
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ALA BAMA Madison Madison Books & Computers PH: l OS-772-9250 FAX:20S-46 1-8076
ARIZONA Phoenix Computer library PH:601-547-0331
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Cupertino Computer literacy Bookshops PH: 408-973-99SS
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Sunnyvale Computer literacy Bookshops PH:408-73G-9955
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Denw
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CON NECTICUT New Haven Yale Co-Op PH: 800-ELl -YALE FAX: 103-772-366S
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GEORGIA Atlanta Oxford Bookstore PH:404-262-l333 FAX:404-364-2729
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ILLINOIS Naperville Books and Bytes PH:708-416-0102 FAX:708-416-0375
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Baston Charlesbank Bookshops PH:617-236-7442 FAX:617-236-7418
Burllngton SoftPro Books PH:617-27l-2919 FAX: 617-273-2499 EMAIL: books@ softproust.com
Cambridge Quantum Books PH:617-494-S042 FAX:617-577-7282 EMAIL: quanbook@world.std.com
Newton Highlands New England Mobile Bookfalr PH:617-527-5817 FAX: 617-S27-0113
MI CHI GAN llolamruoo Western Michigan University Bookstore Western Michigan University PH:616-387-3930 FAX:616·l87-3941
MINNESOTA Mlnneapolls . University of MN East Bank Bookstore PH:612 -625 -300S FAX:612 -62S -1861
NEW HAMPSHIRE Hanom Dartmouth Bookstore PH:B00-624-8800 (outside NH) PH:800-67S-3616 (in NH) FAX:603-643-S170
NEW JERSEY New Brunswick RutgersUniversity Bookstore PH:908-246-844l!
NEWMEXICO AJbUQUtf1/ut Page One, Inc. PH:sos-m-2026
NEW YORK Buffalo Village Green Bookstore PH :716 -884 -1100 FAX: 716-884-3007
Huntin~ton
Books evue PH:S16-171 -1442 FAX:S16-271 -S890
NtwYOlkOty Benjamin Bl>oks PH: 112-432-1103 FAX:211-431-1104
Coliseum Bookstore PH :112-7S7 -8103 FAX: 111-489-091S
J& RComputer World PH:m -732-8600
McGraw-Hill Bookstore PH:212-511·4100 FAX: 112-512-410S
New Yo1k University Computer Store PH :111-998 -4S91
Rochester Campus Connections IRIT) PH:716-47S-1S04
Village Green Bookstore 19S4 West Ridge Road PH :716-723 -1600 FAX: 716-723 -1669
Village G1een Booksto1e 716Monroe Avenue PH:716-461-S380 FAX:716-461-9333
Syracuse Syracu seUniversi ty Bookstore PH :315·443 -1654
OHIO Oevdond Business Outreach PH:216-34l!-1744 FAX: 116-348·0375
Dayton Wilkie's Downtown PH:513-223-2541 FAX:513-223-2869
Fairborn Wilkie's Fairborn PH:SH-429-1677
limo Readmore 217 Fla nd ers PH:419-225-S826 FAX:419-225-5S37
Readmore'sHallmark 3330 W.Elm Street PH:419-225-S826
Youngstown Youngstown State University Bookstore PH:116-742-l589 FAX: 216-741-314S
OREGON Beaverton Powell's Bookstoreal Cascade Plaza PH:503-643-3131 FAX: 503-641 -15S4
fJJgene Book Mark PH: S03-484-0S 11 FAX: 503-484-l1JO
Portland Powell's Technical Books PH: 503-128-3906 FAX:503-ll8-0505
PENNSYLVANIA Doylestown Village Green Bl>okstore PH:215-230-7610 FAX: 115-23().76lS
Erie The Erie Book Sto1e PH:800-252-3354 FAX: 814-4S6-2702
Philadelphia Bookstore of the University of Pennsylvania PH:215-898-4900 FAX:ZlS-898-6997
Pimburgh Book Center University of Pinsbuigh PH:412-648-1321 FAX: 412-648-1902
Scranton P:f:erback Booksmlth p :717-346-9161
RHODE ISLAND Providence Brown Bookstore PH:401-863-3168 FAX:401-863-223l
TEXAS Arlington Taylor's Technical Books PH:817-548-TECH
Austin UniveisityCo-Op PH :512-476-7211
Dallas Taylor's Te<hnicill Books PH: 214-239-TECH
Houston Brown Bl>ok Shop PH :71l-6S1 -3937 FAX:713-652-1914
VIRGINIA Blacksburg University Bl>okstore, Virginia Tech PH:703·231 -5991 FAX:703-231 -3410
Vitnna Computer Literacy Bookshops PH :703 -734 -7771 EMAIL: sales@tc.dbooks.com
WASHINGTON Bellevue University Bookstore PH:206-646-3300 FAX:106-646-3340
Pullman Studenn Book Corporation PH:S09-332-2537 FAX:509-332-8239
Seanle Tower Books PH:106-183-6lll FAX: 206-185- 21 88
Tacoma Tower Bl>oks PH:106-473-3362 FAX: 106-473-9141
WISCONSIN Madison University Bl>okstore PH :608-257 -3784 FAX: 608-257-9479
Miiwaukee Unlversily of Wisconsin Milwa ukee PH:414-229-4201 FAX: 414-229-6194
KEY=SF65BYL
/moduca iwtllisrm publitltirv
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.~. _-,....,,·,_,,_-.__--__,_·_.
. _. _.. _. _ . ... ~-
~~-_:.:~~ :-.:_::.§
i-publish $149.95
Circle 1002 on Inquiry Card.
Design Intelligence, Inc. Seattle, WA (206) 343.7797 fax: (206) 343-7750 http ://www.design · intelligence .com
Publi$11 py,.namic Docu~~rits~'-~
Producing_g_ooa·looki~g aocuments can be.a ·
slruggl~: which is why design templates and Wizards·are·a pppular y.1ay to
guide nondesigners through the process cittumingI deas into qom· '
palling proposals and reports. A new program for Wjndows 95,
called I-publish, seeks to improve on this process. < .
The i·publish"p~oghlfii (wllcl) is slated to ship in tlieseconci quar·
ter of this year) offe..St emplatesforall sorts ofdo~4r;n~ntsJ3U,tw~at' sets it.apart.is its b.uilt.;in·in~elligence. Rather than ti~11.1g \he_:st~tid ·; ·
approach that'l)lost-pi,ogramsoffer, i·publish temglafolf:°dyf\ami·
cally ch.~n9e ~s yot!,:as~ernble content. Fo~exa~pl~.~is]"b~~d"ropii'.:., p~otos, text,or dttiercpnt~ntintci.template "frames,ii~p~,~liS°~'a}lt~h· :';
matically fits informatiori·such·as captions and headlines;·doirigthe .
resizing and reformatting asy.ou go.
._
In addition, the expenise built into the program ensures that all
the elements relate to e,!!ch ot!ieras you add or delefe information.
And the program is smart enough to reformat a document for dit·
ferent applications.For example, ifyou create a newsletterforprint and tell i·publish yo~ want to post it on the Web, it will automatically,
put in Web-appropriate bullets and create necessary. links.
You can engage [n all sorts of what·if scenarios (~.g., changing
fonts·and colors} , ahd.i·publish will adjust everything·else in the .
docum,ent so the overall look remains professional and balancie}:L '
-JonPeJ>per
Business
Text and Numbers Become High-Impact Visuals
A COMPANION TO MICROSO FT OFFIC E, ActiveOffice (about $50) lets you highlight specific numbers or sec tions of text in a document, click
once in the ActiveOffice Gallery, and transform those numbers and/ or words into visual elements for presentations. Contact: Software Publishing Corp., Sanjose, CA, (800) 336 8360 or (408) 537-3000; http://www.spco.com. Circle 1003 on Inquiry Card.
just focus on a particular item. Contact: Kalyn Corp,, Los Altos, CA, (800) 595-2596 or(415) 948-5124; http :// www.ka lyn.co m. Circle 1004 on Inquiry Card.
Sales Automation
THE SALES LOGIX SALES INFORMATION SYS
tem offers contact, account, and opportunity management; group scheduling; territory management; word processing ; printing to pa per-based organizers; forecasting ; custom and built-in reporting; a client/server database; and an on line Sales Encyclopedia.The Client component, for remote, network, or stand-alone use, costs $395; the
Customize Project Status
WITHSCHEDULE INSIGHT ($189),YOU CAN vi ew personalized status informa tion from Microsoft Project sched ules across Windows-compliant networks. The program automati cally rolls up and partitions multi ple projects into fiveseparate sub ject categories: task, department,
Workgroup Client component, de signed for network use only, is $295. Also available are Mobile Connec tion ($295), Inform ation Server ($995), and Synchronization Serv er ($995) components. Contact: SalesLogix Corp., Scottsdale, AZ, (888) 643· 6400 or (602) 368-3700; http: // w w w.saleslogix.com . Circle 1005 on Inquiry Card.
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project, indivi.dual, and company. You can view all items of a subject at once in spreadsheet format or
Thrive in a Diverse Workplace
DESIGNED FOR ORGANIZATIONS ADJUSTING
to an increasingly diverse work force an d the globalization ofbusi ness, No Potential Lost consists of three CD- ROMs (set, $4500; indi vidual CD-ROMs, $1595 each). This
184 BYTE J AN UARY 1997
We preview Design Intelligence's i-publish, a program for producing professional /ooking documents; and the Tektronix Phaser 350, a color ink-jet printer.
training program helps you to es tablish a foundation for successful interaction and personal fulfill ment; shows you examples of en ergy-depleting and energy-en hancing actions; and enables you to assess situations at an organi zation, identify any problems, rec ommend changes, and see the im pact of those changes. Contact: Griggs Productions, San Francisco, CA, (800) 210 4200 or (415) 668-4200; http://u1111111.griggs.com. Circle 1006 on Inquiry Card.
Chemistry
Add Chromatographic Data to Documents
Now YOU CAN INSERT CHROMATOGRAPl11C data into word processors, spread sheets, and database files as OLE objects. Running under Windows 95 or NT, ChromKeeper ($99) also lets you edit the chromatograms
Macintosh
Visual Modeling
ANALYTICA FOR THE MAC ($795) SIM plifies model development. main tenance, and communications.The program's object-oriented dia grams, which contain bubbles and links, highlight key relationships between model variables. Intelli gent Arrays let you add or retract dimensions, such as time periods, product lines, geographic regions, and alternative plans, with mini mal changes to the model struc ture. Integrated risk and sensitivity analysis aids modeling situations with uncertain factors. Contact: Decisio11eeri11g, /Ile., Denver, CO, (800) 289-2550 or (303) 534-1515; http:!/ 111111111.decisioneering.coml. Circle 1008 on Inquiry Card.
Networking
Virtual IP Internet Gateway for NetWare
WITH VIRTUAL IP INTERNET GATEWAY FOR
NetWare (five-user license, $1055),
network administrators can trou
bleshoot, manage, control, and
· analyze users' access to intranet
resources and the Internet. The
program provides firewall protec
inside reports, presentations, or tion at the server level and allows
papers; magnify or crop out spe fora secondary server, which mon
cific peaks in achromatogram; edit itors the primary server's status. If
headers and footers; and change the primary server fails, the sec
font sizes, styles, and colors.
ondary server automatically be
Contact: So(tShell
comes active.
lntemational, Ltd., Grand
Contact: FTP Soft111are, Inc.,
]11nctio11, CO, (970) 242
Andover, MA, (800) 282-4387
7502; http://www
or (508) 685-3300;
.so(tshell.com.
http:/1111111111.ftp.com.
Circle 1007 on Inquiry Card.
Circle 1011 on Inquiry Card.
Manage NLMs
CONFIG CENTRAL (10-SERVER STARTER pack, $499), which supports Net Ware 3.12 and 4.1, snaps into No vell's Managewise and NWAdmin to minimize the time you have to spend managing and trouble shooting NLMs.The program high lights unexpected or problem NLMs and lets you remotely edit NCF files. Contact: NetPro Computing, Inc., Scottsdale, AZ, (800) 998 5090 or (602) 941-3600; http://www. netpro.com. Circle 1009 on Inquiry Card.
Network Security, Management Suite
MCAFEE ENTERPRISE (SITE LICENSE PER node for 1000 nodes, $125) bridges the gap between NetWare print and file-server LANsand Unix data base-and application-server WANs with a Windows NT-based view of the enterprise. The 10 modules included with the package share a common user interface, data dic tionary, scripting language, report ing, messaging, and communica tions protocols. McAfee Enterprise also integrates firewall, encryption, authentication, and antivirus pro tection under a centralized man agement console. Contact: McAfee, Santa Clara, CA, (408) 988-3832; http://www.mcafee.com. Circle 101 Oon Inquiry Card.
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Programming
Build Help Files from VB Projects
FoREVB ($89) LETSYOUCREATEHELPTOP ics that link to specific controls and forms in a user's Visual Basic proj ect and create help files when you set up your forms from within Visu al Basic. Alternatively, ForeVB can scan your entire project and create an outline help file. The ForeHelp VB Pack ($449) bundles ForeVB and the ForeHelp Help Authoring
System, which provides an envi ronment for adding additional WinHelp features to help files and instant WinHelp simulation and testing. Contact: Forefront, Inc., Boulder, CO, (800) 357-8507 or (303) 499-9181; http://www.ff.com. Circle 1012 on Inquiry Card.
Object-Oriented Ada Development
WITH 0BJECTADA FOR WINDOWS ANO ObjectAda for Unix, you can devel op complex technical applications, link Ada code with C++ applica tions and vice versa, and develop Internet applications by generat ing Java byte code. ObjectAda for Windows (Personal Edition, $245; Professional Edition, $595; Enter prise Edition, minimum five copies, $1495 per copy) includes the full Ada 95 core language and annex-
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 185
What's New Software
es, avisual GUI builder, Win32 bind ings, Winsock TCP/IP bindings, a Visual Ada source browser, Win Dbg/Codeview Multilingual De bug, and DLL import and export. ObjectAda for Unix ($8000) fea tures an Ada 95 compiler for Hew lett-Packard and Sun workstations, a debugger, asyntactic editor, and a browser. Contact: Thomson Software Products, San Diego, CA, (800) 833-0085 or (619) 457-2700; http://www.thomsoft.com. Circle 1013 on Inquiry Card.
Intranet Development Framework
THE TOOLS INctUDEDWITH SALVO VISTA (10 concurrent users, from US$7250) help developers build Web appli cations. The four tools specify rules; provide access-control manage ment, object-level security, and impact analysis; control the pre sentation of information to users; and provide identification of ac tive rules, information on current states, invocation history, and time stamped data. Contact: Simware, Inc.,
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, (800) 267-9991 or (613) 727 1779; http://www.simware .com/salvo. Circle 1014 on Inquiry Card.
The Web
Aud io E- Mail
A WINDOWS 95-STYLE TASK BAR, MIDI soft Sound Bar ($29.95) contains icons for point-and-click access to PC sound capabilities, such as volume, bass, treble, and balance, from the monitor desktop. You can record voice e-mail messages, to which you can add music and sound from Sound Bar's 14 MB of sound and music files. The package in cludes AT&T's WorldNet Service Internet-access software, two user licenses, and aLabtecAM-32 micro phone, which plugs into your PC's sound card. Contact: Midisoft Corp., Bellevue, WA, (800) 776-6434 or (206) 391-3610; http://www.midisoft.com. Circle 1015 on Inquiry Card.
Software Updates
A browser add-on that letSyou ~ranslate Span1sti, French; orG.erman
· Internet .sftes into Eng fish ancf vice.versa, Glob"alliil< Web Transla
tor 1.1-supportsMicro~ft's Internet EXplo_rer3.0aryd in~!udis.a Dic'"
·tionary Editor, whfati.le'ts You add new.terms. $49.95. ·' Contact: Globalink,.Inc., Fairf~ VA, (800)'255~:5660. dr
(703) 273-5600; littp://www..globalink.com.
Circle 1018 on lnquiry<!anl.
. With Unlnstaller 4,~ou"<!3J1 tell the progtam yqu. ne~di~!!r:.tai~:
., ~mountnfmemory a~i.l!t wilj find·it; you:~ait~reri:J6ve:a1 appli~ation ,
'from one PC ~nil copy i~1o anot~er PC;:iinil.you,carj:.delete:all·appfi-.,
cations in o~e folder wit~ one'action: $39:95. .,,., , ~ i, ' . ~, ,. ·.,;,
'.(]o,11tact: MicroHe/p, Inc., Marietta, GA, (SQQ); :Z.:i'l733.~2 or.
(770) 51 ~-0899; httpi//WtPUJ.miC1'.ohelp.co,,j,, · ' ·
Circle 101:9 on.Inquiry.Can!.
. .
SPSS 7.5 for,Windows·.a statistical package for Windows 95 and
Nt4.0, includes an ODBC query wizard; aStatistical Advi~r; tl)e abil
,ity to save results in JPEG or HTML formats; and an inter.nal'SCript
ing language. Base ~em, $695.
·Con.tact: SPSS, Inc., Ghicago, IL, (800) 543-2185 or(3n)
· 329~24.00; http://www.spss.com.
·
. ,q~le, l 029,O? ln9uiry Car.ii.
,.
HARDWARE
Accessories
Digital Camera
WITH THE PIXERA VISUAL COMMUNICA tion System, you can capture, ma nipulate, enhance, and manage 24-bit-color images in resolutions up to 1 million pixels. The Pixera Personal ($795) includes a digital camera system with fixed-focus and macro lenses; a PCI card or PC
Card; cable; and software. The Pix era Professional's ($1195) digital camera system features avariable focus C-mount lens, ranging from 1 inch to infinity. Contact: Pixera Corp., Los Gatos, CA, (888) 474-9372 or(408) 341-1800; http://www.pixera.com. Circle 1022 on Inquiry Card.
Network Audio Communications
MEOIATRIX'S AUDIOTRIX PHONE PACKAGE (US$495) includes aplug-and-play audio adapter and Texas Instru ments' TMS320C50 DSP; a hand set with on/off volume control, a headset connector, hands-free speaker operation, a built-in mi crophone, and abuilt-in amplified speaker; and customized CTI soft ware for Unix and Windows 3.1 x, 95, and NT. The Audiotrix device employs 16-to-1 ACELP hardware voice-compression technology; of fers 16-bit full-duplex stereo dig ital audio; and supports Microsoft Direct)( 3. Contact: Mediatrix Peripherals, Inc., Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada, (800) 820 8749 or (819) 829-8749; http://www.mediatrix.com. Circle 1023 on Inquiry Card.
Add- Ins
3-D Video Accelerator
WITH VELOOTY 3D WINDOWS (WITH 4MB of memory, $199; with 8 MB, $299), you get a 64-bit 2-D acceleration engine, a3-D rendering accelerator, and aDigital Video Engine delivered by the SJ ViRGE VX graphics-con troller ASIC.The card delivers up to 16.7 million colors and resolutions up to 1600 by 1200 pixels with re fresh rates up to 160 Hz. Contact: STB Systems, Inc., Richardson, TX, (888) 234 8750 or (214) 234-8750; http: //r11111111.st b.com. Circle 1024 on Inquiry Card.
Video for Sun Workstations
IFYOU USE ASUN ULTRASPARCORSPARC Station 5, 10, or 20 workstation, the Xl/ideo Xtra ($7995) may be foryou. The video-overlay card supports resolutions up to 1280by 1024pix els and lets you use your favorite frame buffer. NTSC video displays at60 fields per second and ata res olution of 640 by 480; PAL and SE CAM display at 50 fps and at a res olution of 768 by 576. Contact: Parallax Graphics, Inc., Santa Clara, CA, (408) 727-2220; http://www .parallax.com . Circle 1025 on Inquiry Card.
Pentium Pro System Board
TARGETED TO DELIVER RISC-LEVEL PER formance with Intel's 440FX chip set, the W6-LI (with sound, $746; without sound, $702) features 150 to 200-MHz Pentium Pro CPUs; En hanced IDE, PCI, and ISA expansion slots; Ultra Wide SCSI (up to 40 MBps); and optional 16-bit Sound Blaster-compatible sound. Contact: Micronics Computers, Inc., Fremont, CA, (800) 577-0977 or (510) 651-2300; http://www .micronics.com. Circle 1026 on Inquiry Card.
186 BYTE JANUARY 1997
· The BYTE Archive Two years of BYTE, more than 3,000 full-text articles, illustrations, and photos... all indexed for quick retrieval!
· The BYTE Network Project The BYTE Site... a living laboratory showcasing the best tools for building Web applications. Read about it in BYTE... try it out online!
· The Virtual Press Room Instant access to vendor press releases and white papers! Links to vendor web sites!
· BYTEMarks FREE Benchmark! Download the BYTEMark the benchmark with teeth!
· Direct Access to Advertisers Contact Byte advertisers DIRECTLY through the online advertiser index!
I., IJ 11 The BYTE Site.The World's OnlineTechnology Authority. ~ A Division ofTl1eMcGmw·HiU C0111panies
What's New Hardware
Connectivity
ISDN Terminal Adapter
THE OMNI TA 128 ISDN MODEM ($399) features two serial DTE interfaces,
so you can connect it as if it were two modems using a single ISDN line. The modem provides ISDN connection at 128 Kbps and gives youtheoptionofusingSTACcom pression over PPP, or V.42bis compression over V.120. Both options enable the Omni TA 128 to reach
optimal throughput speeds up to 460.B Kbps. Contact: ZyXel Co1111111111icatio11s, Anaheim, CA, (800) 255-4101 or(714) 693-0808; http://www .zyxel.com. Circle 1028 on Inquiry Card.
Contact: U.S. Robotics, Skokie, IL, (800) 877-2677 or (84 7) 982-5001 ; http://www
.llST.CO lll.
Circle 1027 on Inquiry Card.
Data Acquisition
Tektronix Phaser 350
(supports
Macs and PCs)
$3495 Circle 1021 on Inquiry Card.
Tektronix, Inc.
Wilsonville, OR (800) 835-6100 (503) 682-7377 fax : (503) 682-2980 http ://www.tek.com/color_printers/
.. ·: ->· . Phaser 350 Beats WJt' ·Plintel'S·
'.T.:OdaJl'a low-cost ~.;nk-je,t print~ f.feliyer high-q~ify out·
t 'Fput;buttheirapeecfisanother~'lliaramhywe-w,ereao
imp~ withthe Te!dronixf!lhaaer.360.Thbrsolitl-inkcolorprint·
erpl'O'iklea equivalenrorbetterspeedan<! outputquality,compared
., .to !?d:~fa fa~! color,l~r)P,rinters, bµt·w!.~~r~~~CR.n~en_\~n . e~.d
· ihe ·..rehapdityatalowercost;.
.. ·
.. . ..,.
fihaser'3oO's nilw t:iigh-apeect ~-Gator print ~~'pro·
duces'filll-oolor page& at 6 ~eaper.nilntrte. No color~ print· ercosting.anywhe)·enearthe3.f?O!s$349S~pricecantl.tHhat. .
oas.e Tektronix managed thi~ iipeed upgrade by-fl~ding eley~(.~Y,S to
' drop out dots (the resolution is 609 by 300' dpQ.witJ'(out ae·.:
ve~t.Y ~ctlng tht ptjntq~ity. True,¥.ou C:an noti~;a,diffe~nce
can depending on the type of document you print, but the color qual·
ity is still very good. If you need1he beSt COior, you opt~or the
4-ppm speed.
The Phaser 350 u8es folll' (GYMK) color ink stickil tllat ""88m·
ble wucrayons and·dmp into shape-Coded slots. Maintenance is
&!most nonexistent, and'setting up the 350 is-easier than .dealing
with color laser printers, which can be cumbersome and·some
timestemperamental. The Phaser350 alsoprintsonjust aboutany
fypecif paper.
-Joii ~
Industrial Surge Protection
DESIGNED TO PROTECT DATA-COMMUNl cation lines in industrial environ ments,Telebyte's Model 8022 ($145)
suppresses damaging transient overvoltage pulses caused by near by lightning strikes, power-line dis turbances, electrostatic discharge, and industrial load switching. The Model 8022 accommodates four wirenetworks using RS-232-based signals or other signals whose am plitude falls within +/-15 V. Contact: Telebyte Technology, Inc., Gree11/aw11, NY, (800) 835-3298 or (516) 423-3232; http://www.telebyte11sa.co111. Circle 1029 on Inquiry Card.
ISDN Parallel-Port Terminal Adapter
Network-Based Data Acquisition
AVAILABLEFOR NuBus MACS RUN NING System 7.0 and PCI- and ISA-bus PCs running Windows 95, instru Net places the analog electronics in boxes outside the computer and the noisy digital electronics inside the computer. A base instruNet sys tem (call company for prices) con sists ofacontroller board with a32 bi t microprocessor, 256 KB of RAM, and 10 counter/ timer channels; one
external data acquisition box; and
a cable.
Contact: CW Instruments,
Inc., So111ervil/e, MA, (61 7)
625-4096; http://www
.gwi11st.co111.
Circle 1030 on Inquiry Card.
THE DATABURST ISDN 128K PROVIDES uncompressed throughput of 128 Kbps and compressed data trans fer rates up to 512 Kbps. The inte grated NT-1 version ($279) provides direct connection to an ISDN wall jack; the S/T version ($239) is de signed for use with stand-alone NT 1sor PBXes.
Graphics
3-D Graphics Accelerator
BASED ON THE OXYGEN CHIP, ASCALABLE, pipelined 3-D graphics-rendering and texture-mapping processor, the Oxyg en 402 card ($4995) pro vides four Oxygen chips operating in parall el; 32 MB of synchronous DRAM ; resolut ions from 640 by 480 pixels to 1600 by 1200; color depths of 8, 16, or 32 bits per pix el; Gouraud shading and hardware dithering; and hardware z-buffer depths of 16 or 24 bits. Contact: Dynamic Pictures,
1 BB BYTE JANUARY 1997
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QUANTUM PHYSICS. TERM OR LIFE. THE INFIELD FLY RULE. CONVERGENCE.
Ah, we knew that last one would confuse you.
But then, which of life's complexities is tougher to
decipher than the Convergence market?
Where the need for expert Information Technology
solutions turns every decision into a Pass/Fail test.
It can all seem overwhelming. Until you discover
something nearly one million computing experts already
know. It's called BYTE, and within its pages
are the answers and insights IT decision-makers
trust to make Convergence a reality
...
instead of a nightmare.
Now, we're not saying BYTE can unravel all of life's mysteries. But if your company is in the Convergence market, or advertising to it, you'll find no one is more of
an authority on the subject.
The Infield Fly Rule? Hey, your guess is as good as ours.
Why do nearly one million computing experts worldwide read BYTE magazine every month? Because only BYTE delivers the global coverage and technical insights that illuminate Information Technology from problem through solution. That makes us something of an authority on the subject. And you something of a genius when you advertise in BYTE . For more information, call John Griffin, VP/ Publisher at 603.924.2663 . Or contact us at http J/www.byte.com
THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY FOR COMPUTING TECHNOLOGY.
Hardware What's New
Inc., Santa Clara, CA, (800) 464-3348 or (408) 327-9000; http://www.dypic.com. Circle 1031 on Inquiry Card.
Networking
Hand-Held Network Diagnostic Tool
Ii liter reservoirs for yellow, orange, magenta, cyan, green, and black ink. Tlie SpectraJet Hifi has 24-bit color addressing with a 300-dpi resolution in draft and final modes to create up to 16 million colors. Contact: Mutoh America, Inc., Phoenix, AZ, (800) 996-8864 or (602) 276-5533; http://www.mutoh.com. Circle 1033 on Inquiry Card.
Storage
Desktop RAID Subsystems for Spare and Windows NT
THE RDl0/25 ($17,500) PROVIDES UP to 25.2 GB of storage for Spare, UltraSparc, and Windows NT envi
Simi Valley, CA, (800) 826 3237 or (805) 579-1000; http://www.tandberg.com. Circle 1036 on Inquiry Card.
Systems
Notebook Has Removable MO Drive
You CAN VERIFY NETWORK CONNECTIONS and diagnose network problems with the Fluke OneTouch Network
Assistant. The device executes a series of cable- and packet-level connectivity tests and performs individual tests for hubs and NICs. Two different versions are available: a 10-Mbps Ethernet configuration ($3695) and a combination 10-/ 100-Mbps Ethernet configuration {$4995). Contact: Fluke Corp., Everett, WA, (800) 443-5853 or(206) 356-5500; http://www.fl11ke .com/11ettools/. Circle 1032 on Inquiry Card.
Peripherals
Six-Color Wide Format Printer
A PANTONE HEXACHROME INK-JET PRINT er, the SpectraJet Hifi (approxi mately $10,000) lets you work in formats ranging from 8''2 to 36 inches wide and up to 10 feet long. The printer comes with six 500-mil-
Multimedia Notebook Projector
WEIGHING ABOUT 11 POUNDS, THE l.JGHT book projector ($4999) provides plug-and-play SVGA image sup port and integrated video with di rect connection of video sources, such as VCRs and laserdiscs. The compact, rugged projector sup ports PCs and Macs and comes with an auto-switching power supply for U.S. and European electrical
outlets. The Proxima Cyclops re mote control lets you open files, click on hot buttons, and perform other mouse actions from any where in the room. Contact: Proxima Corp., San Diego, CA, (800) 44 7-7692 or(619) 457-5500; http://www.prx1n.com. Circle 1035 on Inquiry Card.
DDS-2 Tape Drive
OFFERING ADATA TRANSFER RATE OF 1.5 MBps, the Wang DAT 3800 (inter nal model, $1299; external model, $1460) features lOOXspeed-search mode, a fast SCSI connector, and a 1-MB data buffer.The 4-mm DDS 2 DAT drive provides 4GB of native storage and jumps to 8 GB when you enable the on-board hardware data compression. Contact: Tecmar Technologies, Inc., Longmont, CO, (800) 422-2587 or(303) 682-3700; http://wwiv.tecmar.com. Circle 1034 on Inquiry Card.
ronments. The subsystem includes a 32-bit embedded RISC-based processor; 16 MB of cache memo ry; six hot-swappable drives; and six dedicated controllers that in crease the data throughput to 133 MBps. It offers 0, 1, 3, 5, and O+ 1 RAID levels and a scalable 16- to 128-MB cache memory. Contact: lntegrix, Inc., Newbury Park, CA, (800) 300 8288 or(805) 376-1000; http://w1.vw.i11tegrix.com. Circle 1037 on Inquiry Card.
13-GB Tape-Storage Solution
UTILIZING TANDBERG DATA'S Murn channel Linear Recording tech nology, the MLR1 Tape Storage Solution (internal model, $2749; external model, $2949) features a Tandberg MLR1 tape drive; the Seagate Software Storage Suite for Desktop and Servers on CD-ROM, which is provided in English, French, German, and Spanish; a 13-GB Ima tion MLR Tape Cartridge, which has a 26-GB capacity with hardware data compression ; and cables for connection to 16-bitwide or 8-bit narrow SCSI connectors. Contact: Tandberg Data, Inc. ,
WITH THE PowERMEDIA Ill PLUS NOTE book's (from $2875) removable J'h inch read/write MO drive, you can store graphics and sound files, vid eo sequences, and large databases and run applications directly from the drive. The notebook comes with a 12.1 -inch TFT or DSTN SVGA LCD screen; a 75-, 90-, 100-, 120-, 133-, 166-, or 200-MHz Pentium processor; 8 MB of RAM, upgrad able to 16 or 32 MB; a 256-KB L2 pipelined burst cache; 2MB of EDO VRAM;an IRDAinterface;a PCCard slot; SRS 3-D surround sound; are movable 1.44-MB floppy drive; and a removable 1.0-, 1.3-, or 2.1-GB hard drive. Contact: Astra Research, Monterey Park, CA, (818) 293-1651; http://www .astro11ote.com. Circle 1038 on Inquiry Card.
PC with 12-Speed CD-ROM
THE TOP-OF-THE-LINE INNOVA MEDIA MT 9800 (about $3299) comes with a 200-MHz Pentium CPU, 32 MB of
EDO DRAM, a 3.1-GB hard drive.
a 12-speed CD-ROM drive, an Io mega 100-MB Zip drive, 3-D video/ graphics, wave-table audio with 1 MBofROM storage, and asix-but ton, eight-point directional game pad. The PC also includes a 33.6 Kbps SVD modem, stereo speakers, a 64-bit graphics accelerator with hardware-assisted MPEG playback, a 16-bit sound card with JD Spa tializer, a speakerphone, a micro phone, and an IRDA interface. Contact: Canon Computer Systems, Inc., Costa Mesa, CA, (714) 438-3000; http:// wu1tv.ccsi.ca11011.com. Circle 1040 on Inquiry Card.
JANUARY 1997 BYTE 1 91
You Can Start Developing Now
Moss Micra's Start Developing tool guides you down the Visual Basic path. By Rick Crehan
·1!1!11·· ne of the originalgoals ofVi
sual Basic (VB) was to simplify programming. (Remember,
lliiiliiiiiiiiilliil the acronym BASIC stands for
Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruc tion Code.) TI10se of us who were unable to tolerate the rigorsofC and C+ +could find refuge nor only in VB's visual inte grated development environment (IDE) but in the language's less complex syntax as wel l.
On the one hand, then, a tool like Moss Micro's Start Developing for Visual Ba sic (which is compatible with VB 3.0 and both 16- and 32-bit versions of VB 4.0) is a surprise. Why would I need something to simplify a thing that was supposed to be simple in the first place? On the other hand, Start Developing is no surp rise. Some activities are complicated no mat ter how hard you try to simplify them. Programming is one of them.
Starr Developing for Visual Basic com prises four main components. The first is its app lication wizard, which guides you through those first unsteady steps of con structing an application. A series of dia log boxes prompr you for the character istics of your application: Will it use a single- or multiple-document interface? What kind of database support (if any) will it require? Open Database Connec tivity (ODBC)? Jet? Would you like it to have a toolbar? The result is a function ing skeleton of a program to which you can begin arraching the flesh and muscle of application code.
The second component is a collection of"assistants," which are VB add-ins that eliminate much of the drudge work in volved with producing quality code. For example, the error-handlingassistantau tomatically inserts error-exit code into selected (or all, if you wish) procedures and functions in your application.
Another assistant collects project sra
tistics. For example, it identifies proce dures and functions lacking in error-han dling code. (Shame on you . You should have used the other assistant to put it there.) It also reporrs the average num ber of lines in a module, the average num ber of lines in a routine, and so on.
OFX modules are the third, and per haps most important, component ofStart Developing. These modules include a large collection of library routines that cover areas as fundamental as string ma nipulation (e.g., scanning a string of to kens separated by a delimiter; indenting, left-justifying, right-justifying, or cen tering lines; and more) to areas as specif ic as reading and writing the INI files or the registry.
Start Developing even provides a set of routines rharoffers a unified interface for dealing with !NI files and/or registry entries. There are also numerous routines for conquering ODBC either directly or chrough remote data objects (RDOs), as well as VB/SQL and Jet.
Given char the OFX modules represent a treasure trove of routines to draw from, it would be nice if you could simply dip into that trove at will. It's not that sim ple, but the documentation describes a roundabout way of "stealing" the rou tines. You just create a dummy applica tion using Starr Developing's application
WHERE TO FIND
Moss Micro
(714) 260-0300 fax : (714) 260- 0325 h t t p :l/www.mossmicro.com
wizard. The dummy application includes all the routines you want, so you can copy out whatever ones char you need. You have to be careful, however, because many of the rourines are interdependent. Fortunately, rhe manual gathers related modules together, so you don'tever have
to worry about interdependencies. Finally, there's Office Book, a kind of
miniapplication that you can, in turn, embed in your application. It's an ODBC based contact manager implemented as an OLE server. In truth, this seems a little our of place with the rest of the product, but if you need a contact manager any where in your product, here it is.
The benefits from this package come nor only from its software. Although ir covers only six pages, rhe manual's "Ten Laws for Visual Basic Development" is a must-read for all VB programmers. (A note to Moss Micro: Do the VB program ming community a favor and put these laws up on you r Web page.)
I noticed thar you can also find some of the features provided by Start Devel oping's assistants-auromatic error-code writing, function-header templates, and source code statistics-in MicroHelp's Code Complete Code Analyst and Auto Coder (see rhe July 1996 Codetalk). Bur this overlap detracts from neither prod uct. VB programmers can probably use
m more of this stuff, not less.
Rick Grehan is a senior technical editor for BYTE reviews. You ca11 reach him by se11di11g e-mail to rlck_ g@blx.com.
192 BYTE JANUARY 1997
The Dell Latitude LM P133ST. It looks like a notebook. Yet it performs like adesktop. Sounds like someone's going to have to start a new category! All thanks to PC World who started it
when they gave us their Best Buy award and said. "the Dell Latitude LM P133ST is a hands-down Best Buy for users looking for adesktop
P.~!"!~iHQ'!' replacement.'' A bold statement.
They also said things like it's the "fastest notebook we've ever tested." And "Pros: Large, crisp screen; terrifical ly fast. Cons: none'.' And to think they didn 't even get to its 128-bit graphics accelerator which gives you amazing graphic abilities that your desktop-laden co-workers will envy.
We could go onand on. They certainly did. But we'll let you get to a phone first.
iulil;Mij;I
800-678-1710
http://www.dell.com/buydel l
Mon-Fri 7am-9pm CT · Sat 10am-6pm CT Sun 12pm-5pm In Canada: call 800-233-1589
I I Keycode #01 176
· 64MB EDD Memory with ECC
· 256KB Internal L2 Cache · NEW 4.3GB Hard Drive l9.5msl · 20TD Trinitron ' Monitor (1 9.0" v.i.s..
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· Matrox Millennium 4MB WRAM Video Card · NEW12 XEIDE CD-ROM Drive · l.6G8/3.2G8 Travan TapeBackup
· MS ' Office 95 Professional wi th Bookshelf · MSOffice 97. Professional Edi tion
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Speakers with Subwoofer · 33.6US.Robotics Telephony Modem · MSOffice 95 Professional with Bookshelf · MS Office 97. Professional Edi tion
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DELL DIMENSION P200v
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· Microsoft Windows 95/MS PlusI CD/ 30 Days Free Support/ Dell Mouse
· 3 Year Limited Warranty with 1Year On-site Service
* Upgrade to 32MB SDRAM. add $139. * Upgrade toa 3.2GB Hard Drive(10.5ms}.
add $79.
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add $175.
* Upgrade to 512KBPipeline Burst Cache.
add $25.
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Business Lease: $74/Mo. Order Code #501202
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* Sound Blaster 16 Pt A/tee ACS-90 Speal
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FREE NortonNisio Express Software Suite includes Norton AntiVirus. Navigator and Utilities. and Visio Express 4.D.
!No~·d sto Jnt<i~le p< omol!Onal 0t1t 1ng 'Far a omoJete copy of 0 ..1 Gua r:rnecs er l1 m·:e:1 Wa114n: u oleaso \'t:ile Dell USALF . 22 1.: \\' 81acer Lane Suite O A!.stin iX 78758 t For a l1 m1te~ 1nne (Wtth aualify n~ pun::hasel 1ec1;:1ve a couoon tcr a l Ea111on upg:adc on COahc;rrelease from Mrtrasoh Call tcr details °'Busi ness leas,n; anJ r9e i:i by t cas1 ~g Grc11p, lr.c · ' Norron:'Vis10 f,press Soltv. are Suite 15 avatlab'e onty an Dell 01mens 1011 systems Pl..fCtlJied w11n thecombjnJttonof MSOl1 1ce ar Express 4 0 is an OE M version and a sunset of V s10 4 0 Sohwa1e may not incluce all documentauon andmayd1fter from 1eta1tvemon ' Systemwe1gt11 w11 nllcppyd:1ve m0011onsbJy ·'On·s1te semce p1o'r.ded Oy Bancl=c Service Corpora 11 cn On·site ce na1n rcmo1e locations · on-site se1vice fo r the Poweredge 2100 Server is ~rov1ded oy D1g1tal Equipment Co1por auonanti tsav;u table m29 metropol 1tan1reas * P11ces and soec1f1tat1ons validmlhe U.S. orlyand sub1ec1tochange w1thou1na11 ce. The In req1s1e1ea trademar\s and :tie lniel LAN Oes\ logo is a lr adem.ark of Intel Co1po1a1ton MS, M1crosoh, Wmdows andWindowsNT are register ed \l adem.11\ s of Mic rosofl Co:pora11on XJACKis a reg1s1crEd tradema rk of US Roh<l ti:s Mobile Commun1 [1ne1L 1nl a1e rEg s1erc1 traCemai ~s of 2Com Co1pora11on fon1tron is a re~ 1stereO uacema:.l al SonyCo1pQ1a11on © 1S96 Dell Ccmp~m Co1oorat1on All ·19h1s reser\ ed
ry Cache imsl ;or( 15.9"v.i.s...26dp) MB WRAM Video Card M Drive Upgrade Card !rs with Subwoofer ;ional with Bookshelf sional Edition
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3.5" Floppy Dri'1e (both included)or Opti onal 2nd Li-Ion Battery · PCI Bus wl!h t28-bit Graphics Accelerator · Integrated 16-bit Stereo Sound · Smart Lithium Ion Battery · lrOA 1.0 Standard Compliant · Touchpad · MS Office Pro 'or Windows 95 · 28.8 XJACK '/C3bled Modem · Leather Carrying Case · Under 7Pounds" · Extendable 1Year Warranty'
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mty with 1Year On
'RAM, add $139. ·erface Combo PC/
'Sound Card and !TS, add $89. >f Dn-site
Business Lease: $144/Mo. Order Code 1800060
133MHz PENTIUM PROCESSOR
DELL LATITUDE LMP133ST
· 12.r SVGA Active Matrix Color Di splay · 16MBRAM/810MB Hard Drive · 256KB L2 Cache · Options Bay accepts 6X CO-ROM.
3.5" Floppy Drive (both included) or Optional 2nd Li-Ion Battery · PCI Bus with 128-bit Graphics Accelerator · Integrated 16-bit Stereo Sound · Smart Lithium Ion Battery · lrOA 1.0 Standard Compliant · Touchpad · Under 7Pounds· · Extendable 1Yea1Warranty
* Upgrade to 40MB RAM, add $299. * Dell LatitudeLM Port Replicator. addS159.
· 11.3" SVGA Dual Scan Color Display · 40MB RAM/ 1.3GB Hard Drive · 256KB L2 Cacl1e · Options Bay accepts 6XCD-ROM.
3.5" Floppy Drive (both included) or Optional 2nd Li-Ion Battery · PCI Bus with 128-bit Graphics Accelerator · Integrated 16-bit Stereo Sound · Smart Lithium Ion Battery · lrOA 1.0 Standard Compliant · Touchpad · MS Office Pro for Windows 95 · Nylon Carrying Case · Under 7 Pounds' · Extendable 1Year Warranty
* 28.BXJACK/Cabled Modem, add S239.
Business Lease: $107/Mo . Order Code #800071
1DOMHzPENTIUM PROCESSOR
DELL LATITUDE LM PlOOSD
· 11.3" SVGA Dual Scan Color Display · 24MB RAM/1.3GB Hard Drive · 256KB L2 Cache · Options Bay accepts6X CD-ROM.
3.5" Floppy Drive(both included) or Optional 2nd Li-Ion Battery · PCI Bus wil h 128-bit Graphics Accelerator · Integrated 16-bit Steteo Sound · Smart Lithium Ion Battery · lrOA 1.0 Standard Compliant · Touchpad · 28.8 XJACK '/Cabled Modem · Nylon Carrying Case · Under 7 Pounds· · Extendable 1Year Warranty
· NEW Pentium Pro Server · 32MB Error Correcting Code (ECC) EDD
Memory (512MB Max) · 256KB Integrated L2 Cache · Integrated PCI Ultra/Wide SCSl-3 Controller · 2GB Fast/Wide SCSl-2Hard Drive
[7200RPM. BmsJ(12GB Max) · BX SCSI CD-ROM Drive · 3Com 10/100 PC! Ethernet Adapter · Intel' LANDesk " Server Manager v2.5 · 6 Expansion Slots: 3 PCI, 3 EtSA · 6 Drive Bays: 3 External 5.25"/3 Internal 3.5" · 3 Year Warrantyt with l Year Next
Business-Day, On-site· Service · 7 x 24 Dedica ted Server Hardware Tech
Support
* Microsoft Wi11dows NT Server 4.0
/ 10 Clien t Access Lice11ses} included at no extra charge t/1roug/112/31/96.
* Upgrade to 64MB ECC EDO memory,
add$649.
* Upgrade to a 4GB Fast/Wide SCS/-2 hard
drive. add $459.
BusinessLease: $144/ Mo.
Order Code 1250022
· Pentium Pro Ch ip-based Server
· Pentium Pro Chip-based Mini-Towers
Pentium Chip-based Mini-Towers
· Pentium Chip-based Notebooks
lo.
:a MS Oll1ce 97 P1olessiona l Mcrnsoft W1Muws 55 V1s10 ~1vrce maynol be ava dJble in I Inside lcg::i and Pen11umaTe tions Co1pora11on. 3Com and
Business Lease: S111/Mo. Order Code #80005 t
I N CLUDES
· ·
Business Lease: $96/ Mo. Order Code !800072
800-626-4298
http://www.dell .com/ buydell
Mon-Fri 7am-9pm CT ·Sat 10am-6pm CT Sun 12pm-5pm In Canada: call 800-233 -1589
I Keycode #01178 J
Besides its formidable 200MHz Pentium processor. this Dell Dimension comes with a powerful package of business sohware.. pre-loaded. Not games. Not fluff. Serious
stuff like Microsoft Office for Windows 95. The 32-bit virus protection of Norton P.~.11,iHIJI AntiVirus. The powerful file
management features of Norton Navigator. The data protection and recovery tools of Norton Utilities. And all the diagramming tools of Visio Express 4.0. It also comes with built-in Dell reliability, built-in Dell value. and guaranteed next-business-day on-site-' service. So order today. It may be the fastest way to get ahead in business yet.
Del.L
800-531-2751
http://www.de11.com/buydel I
Mon-Fri 7am-9pm CT · Sat 10am-6pm CT Sun 12pm-5pm In Canada: call 800-233 -1589
I I Keycode #01175
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