San Francisco - How do users reconcile their traditional mainframe-centric networks with the distributed client- server model?
A variety of answers to this question were offered in vendor booths, conferences and company announcements here at last week's DB/Expo '92, an annual database show.
For some users, the solution is clear. "Since we cannot downsize fast enough, we need tools that integrate the micros with the mainframes," said Q. Marion Hansen, staff engineer for management information systems at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., which has about 3,000 Macs, 1,500 IBM PCs and compatibles and 1,000 Unix workstations. "Mainframes are not dying fast enough."
According to Hansen, some of the pieces are still missing. "We are looking for System 7 extensions and other tools that will make the transition [to client-server] less kludgy."
As expected, Apple rolled out VITAL (Virtually Integrated Technical Architecture Lifecycle), a blueprint for platform- independent client-server computing, to a fairly receptive audience.
"VITAL is analogous to IBM's SAA (Systems Application Architecture); [it's] a framework, not a product," said I. Jules Ghedina, a principal consultant with KPMG Peat Marwick in Montvale, N.J. "It takes a while to set in, but it's a component that corporations should consider when client-server architectures are a factor."
Other vendors making announcements were:
>IBM Corp. countered Apple's rollout with its own formula for successful client-server computing. IBM's guide calls for the use of multiprotocol routers and moving LANs from Ethernet, token-ring and Fiber Distributed Data Interface to the Fiber Channel standard, which is endorsed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for point-to-point fiber optic communications. IBM said that it will provide a Common Transport Semantics service that will allow applications to access the network's various transport protocols such as TCP/IP, and network management that will include support for SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) and Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP).
>Information Builders Inc. plans to ship a Data Access Manager (DAM) extender for Enterprise Data Access/SQL's Macintosh client in the third quarter. Although the company hasn't determined pricing, it said that PC extenders sell for $99. IBI expanded its clients to include Digital Equipment Corp., IBM, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Wang Laboratories Inc. machines. Users can now access data on servers running RS/6000 AIX, HP's UX, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s operating system, VMS and OS/2. IBI also announced two IBM relational database extenders, a software upgrade and 11 more vendor partners. Most of the new products are slated to ship in June.
>Red Brick Systems announced Red Brick Warehouse, a RDBMS that runs on the VAX and is modeled after IBM's Information Warehouse. Available now, it costs between $50,000 and $250,000. A separate Open Server Gateway, which is priced at $10,000 and is scheduled to ship in the third quarter, connects Macintosh, PC and Unix clients.
MacWEEK 03/30/92
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(MacWEEK, March 30, 1992) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Windows 3.1 open for business: Update can't match Mac
By Steve Michel
Redmond, Wash. - The Windows 3.1 onslaught has begun. Over the next few months, Microsoft Corp. will bombard the world with marketing campaigns extolling the virtues of the company's latest incarnation of Windows. With this blitz, it will be natural for Mac managers and users to wonder what the fuss is about and whether they're missing out on an important industry advance. Based on our look at a beta version, Windows 3.1 does include some significant changes to the best-selling MS-DOS shell, but generally, there's not much cause for envy, especially among System 7 users.
>New File Manager.
Windows 3.1's File Manager is a big improvement over the old one, with windows that can be divided into separate panes to show folders and files. Folders can be viewed in an outline view, and commands on the Tree menu let you expand and collapse outlines (unlike System 7, in which Command-key shortcuts and folder triangles are the only way to do this).
A nice feature of the File Manager (and of DOS as well) is the capability to apply filters to files. For instance, you can ask to see only files with certain extensions, or certain characters at the beginning of their names. It would be nice to have this capability in the Mac Finder.
One much-needed improvement is that the File Manager finally can recognize an unformatted disk and ask if you want to format it. You still must attempt to "log on" to a disk before the disk is recognized, and trying to do so from within any application other than the File Manager still gives you the "abort, retry" error dialog without the option of formatting, but it's a step in the right direction. In general, Windows and DOS aren't as aware of the hardware as the Mac's Finder is, so this is probably as close to Mac disk formatting as Windows is likely to get.
Windows 3.1's File Manager also supports "drag and drop" for opening files with specific applications. This is handy, but its usefulness is hindered by DOS' inherent lack of type and creator information in files, a feature Mac users have had since the beginning. For instance, we were able to drag the icon of an application onto the icon of the Notepad text editor, which opened it as an editable document. Making changes to such a file could be disastrous. On the other hand, Windows 3.1 does have drag-and-drop printing, a feature Apple promised for System 7 but didn't deliver.
>Making Windows snappier.
Microsoft is touting faster performance as one benefit of Windows 3.1. We didn't do rigorous testing with the beta, but we did notice an improvement over Version 3.0: Windows 3.1 is snappier, particularly when launching applications and opening documents.
Microsoft gave Windows this extra speed by writing routines that bypass DOS when accessing hard disks. Given the chaos of hardware in the IBM PC and compatible world, however, it shouldn't be surprising that many PCs will not be able to take advantage of this. We have had problems, and heard of more, on machines with non-standard disk controller boards. And modifying Windows to not bypass DOS means editing one of the dread ".ini" files, an unsettling proposition for many users.
>TrueType or hype?
Given the tortuous history of TrueType, the main question is whether Microsoft, along with a number of third-party font vendors, has been left holding the bag.
Owing to the greater range of printers in use in the PC world, TrueType stands to be a bigger success there than it has been on the Mac. This will be bolstered by the generally superior tools that Windows 3.1 gives users for managing TrueType. For example, you can maintain a substitution table that governs which PostScript fonts are substituted for which TrueType fonts when printing to a PostScript printer.
Windows ships with four TrueType fonts: Arial, Courier New, Symbol and Times New Roman, which correspond respectively to Helvetica, Courier, Symbol and Times in PostScript printers. Microsoft also is marketing a TrueType Font pack, containing 44 TrueType fonts.
>OLE.
Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) will be familiar to users of Microsoft Word 5.0, its Equation Editor and Microsoft Excel 3.0. It is in some ways analogous to System 7's publish and subscribe feature in that it provides a standard mechanism for live copying and pasting of information between applications. From that point on, however, the two approaches differ. In fact, there are a couple of major differences between OLE and publish and subscribe.
OLE primarily provides only for local interchange of information - that is, on a single machine. It doesn't include a way for live updating of information on different machines on a network, as does publish and subscribe; there's no mention of sharing information between computers in the OLE section of the Windows documentation.
For those who don't need to share information between machines, OLE has some advantages over Apple's method. First of all, an OLE transaction can be initiated by the target application for the data, not necessarily from the generator of the data (for example, from within Microsoft Word you can start Excel to create an object that will appear only in Word).
Another edge OLE has is that a publish and subscribe transaction between two programs always generates three copies of the data: the one in the publisher, the one in the edition file and the one in the subscriber. With OLE, only one copy of the data needs to be created.
It's worth noting that, as Microsoft Corp. has demonstrated with Word and Excel on the Mac, and as Aldus Corp. has shown with the connection between PageMaker and FreeHand, there's nothing preventing developers from delivering OLE functionality on the Mac using Apple events.
Windows 3.1 ships with five applications that illustrate how it's supposed to work - which is five more applications than Apple shipped to illustrate publish and subscribe. In addition to these five applications, two small utilities - Microsoft Draw and WordArt - can be called from within OLE-capable programs. Draw is a simple object-oriented draw program and WordArt lets you create fancy text effects, although it works only with its own built-in fonts. A final application, Object Packager, lets you create OLE links to documents created by non-OLE-aware applications. Unfortunately, Object Packager is confusing to use and understand; hopefully Microsoft can improve upon it.
>Multimedia features.
Windows 3.1 also includes a number of features that were previously available only as part of the multimedia extensions to Windows. These include Sound Recorder, Media Player and an enhanced Control Panel.
Sound Recorder works with sound hardware such as Creative Labs' SoundBlaster Pro board or MediaVision's ProAudio Spectrum board, allowing you to record sounds, much like System 7's Sound control panel.
Media Player is a standard player for multimedia files. It can display animation sequences, play sounds, access audio CDs in a CD-ROM drive and control videodiscs connected to a serial port. It's nice to have a standard tool for working with all these different multimedia devices and files, and one that the Mac sorely needs.
The Windows 3.1 Control Panel lets you add new device drivers for different kinds of hardware. A Sound control panel lets you associate specific sounds with various types of alerts and dialog boxes and can set your PC to chime at specific intervals. The downside of this capability is that it requires sound hardware, which is not usually part of a PC system.
>Other enhancements.
Microsoft has enhanced or fixed a number of other features. As Apple did with System 7, Microsoft improved its Setup program, making installation much simpler; the program is much better at recognizing specific hardware and installing drivers for it. However, more-advanced configurations still require editing of System.ini, Windows.ini and other files.
Support for old-style DOS programs is better with Windows 3.1. Documentation now includes sections for managers who need to set up systems for less-sophisticated users, and it provides more details on the formats of the myriad files that a Windows setup entails. Microsoft also has added a Startup Program Group to the Windows Program Manager; as with System 7's Startup Items folder, any items in this group are launched automatically when you start Windows.
All in all, Windows 3.1 appears to be a worthy upgrade. It's faster than 3.0 and has some major new features that will please Windows users, but Mac users won't be compelled to endorse Microsoft's latest offering.
MacWEEK 03/30/92
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(MacWEEK, March 30, 1992) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Apple monitor to listen, talk
By Neil McManus
Cupertino, Calif. - Dr. Doolittle talked to the animals. Mark "The Bird" Fidrych talked to baseballs. Soon you'll be able to talk to your monitor.
Apple reportedly is preparing a new series of color monitors equipped with built-in speakers and microphones for use with its voice-recognition technology.
The first Apple hearing and speaking monitor, due early next year, is a 13-inch color display with two built-in speakers, an Apple Desktop Bus port and two microphones, sources said. Apple's target price for the 13-inch display is $900. A 16-inch version is also reportedly in the works.
Apple's new monitors are designed to take advantage of the company's upcoming speaker-independent voice-recognition software. This software, code-named Casper, will let users control software through spoken commands and will read aloud typed text (see MacWEEK, March 2).
"People are going to take to voice input like lemmings to the sea," said Tony Bove, editor of Bove & Rhodes Inside Report on Desktop Publishing and Multimedia in Gualala, Calif. "People have a visceral reaction to voice input, because it's so easy to understand its benefits. You can use it for voice mail and to tell your computer what to do."
Christopher Duderstat, a machine designer in San Francisco, controls his CAD programs through voice input using Articulate Systems Inc.'s Voice Navigator II, a $795 hardware/software system. "It's nice not having to chase up to the top of the screen with the mouse for every command. It makes me more productive. I work about 15 to 20 percent faster with voice control," he said.
Apple's voice recognition will offer immediate benefits for disabled users who have difficulties with keyboards and mice. It also could win a variety of fans from the factory floor to executive suites. "Executives will love voice input because they're much more comfortable speaking commands than typing into a keyboard," Bove said. Users also will be able to call a Macintosh on the phone and tell it to fax them a report, he said.
Apple must address several technical concerns before releasing its voice-recognition products, sources said. The built-in microphones that come with the new monitors reportedly will feature technology to filter out ambient noise. In addition, Apple's voice-recognition software has to be refined to understand varying speech patterns.
Dartanyan L. Brown contributed to this report.
MacWEEK 03/30/92
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(MacWEEK, March 30, 1992) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Consumer bundle: Classic II, printer, apps for $1,000
By Andrew Gore
Cupertino, Calif. - Apple is expected to test-market a "firmware-based" Macintosh in the consumer-electronics arena this August.
In keeping with company CEO John Sculley's promise to deliver a consumer Macintosh this year, Apple plans to ship a Classic II without a hard disk, bundled with third-party applications and an Apple StyleWriter Printer for less than $1,000, sources said.
The consumer Classic will come with a completely new feature from Apple: The operating system and bundled software will be installed on ROMs plugged into the Classic II's ROM SIMM card slot, sources said.
This will allow the Macintosh, which will be configured with 4 Mbytes of RAM and a floppy disk drive, to start up and run a scaled-down version of the Finder without a hard disk drive.
Otherwise, the consumer Classic will come with the same 16-MHz 68030 processor, SCSI interface, AppleTalk connector and standard ports as its mainstream sibling, according to sources. Users reportedly will be able to use any Classic II compatible add-on and a full-blown version of System 7 by installing an internal or external hard drive.
Which applications will be included on the ROM SIMMs has not be finalized, sources said. However, users can expect to get an integrated software package such as Symantec Corp.'s GreatWorks and possibly a financial planner such as Intuit Inc.'s Quicken.
Currently, the StyleWriter retails for $399, and a Classic II with 2 Mbytes of RAM and a 40-Mbyte hard drive retails for $1,549.
According to sources, the consumer Classic probably will be test-marketed first. In August, Apple most likely will ship 5,000 units to be sold through Circuit City, an electronics chain based in Richmond, Va.
If that test is successful, users could see a full-scale shipment of consumer Classics in time for the Christmas selling season, sources said.
Apple had no comment.
MacWEEK 03/30/92
News Page 1
(MacWEEK, March 30, 1992) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Microsoft enters database den: Fox purchase hounds Borland
Companies vie for billion-dollar pie
By Jon Swartz
San Francisco - Bill Gates and Philippe Kahn worked overtime last week to put their best spin on Microsoft Corp.'s $173 million acquisition of database company Fox Software Inc.
Microsoft's largest acquisition may add more punch to its bid for a bigger slice of the $1 billion database market that Borland International Inc. dominates. But industry observers said Mac users should benefit from the PC industry's latest war.
"Microsoft will help establish the Mac database market [with the merger]," said Betty J. Lyter, an analyst at Montgomery Securities in San Francisco. "It's not as important [to Microsoft] as Windows and DOS, but it addresses a neglected market."
Mac users greeted Microsoft's acquisition with enthusiasm.
"It's great news. It's clear that the multiple platforms is where databases are going," said Gary Connor, executive director of the Macintosh Consultants Network in Modesto, Calif.
Mac database sales accounted for $43.6 million, only 5 percent of the North American Macintosh software market in 1991, according to the Software Publishers Association in Washington, D.C.
By contrast, 1991 DOS database sales were $351.3 million, or about 8 percent of the DOS market, SPA said.
>Microsoft.
The stock buyout of Fox fills the only noticeable gap in Microsoft's product line. Charles Stevens, general manager of Microsoft's Database Products Group, said that by the end of 1992, Microsoft will offer FoxPro 2.5 on four platforms - Mac, Windows, DOS and Unix.
Stevens said Microsoft's Cirrus for Windows, a "visual" relational database due in the second half of this year, would provide a user interface for all four FoxPro versions to access enterprisewide data.
Gates said Microsoft will "take pieces from FoxPro and build new engines across multiple platforms." According to International Data Corp. of Mountain View, Calif., DOS sales account for 80 percent of the database market. Fox, based in Perrysburg, Ohio, has an estimated 10 percent of the Mac database market and an 8.5 percent share of the DOS market.
>Borland.
The outspoken Kahn, chief executive of Borland, which controls 65 percent of the database market with dBASE and Paradox, said the Microsoft-Fox merger will only bolster dBASE's popularity. "We think it's great," Kahn said. "It's an obvious admission that Microsoft's database efforts have not done well."
Although the Scotts Valley, Calif.-based company has been tight-lipped about future Mac products, sources within Borland said the merger could prompt development of Mac versions of Paradox and Quattro Pro. The company is already preparing Windows versions for those programs, and Kahn has repeatedly said Borland is "OS neutral."
Under the acquisition, Fox President David Fulton and the company's 50-person technology development team will be moved to Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., headquarters. Some Fox employees will be offered jobs with Microsoft in Ohio and other locations. An unspecified number will be laid off, Microsoft said.
Louise Fickel contributed to this report.
MacWEEK 03/30/92
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(MacWEEK, March 30, 1992) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Digital Access' dialing interface transmits at 57.6 Kbps
By Nathalie Welch
Reston, Va. - Digital Access Inc. this month released a dialing interface to its Switched 57 system, a technology that enables users to connect Macs to any digital communications unit and transmit data at up to 57.6 Kbps.
The main component of Switched 57 is the SA-57, a 57.6-Kbps asynchronous-to-synchronous converter available in two configurations: a Mac RS-232 serial port version or a network interface version that requires a LAN gateway such as Shiva Corp.'s EtherGate bridge. The SA-57 converts the user's 57.6- and 38.4-Kbps asynchronous data to a synchronous 56- or 64-Kbps data stream for transmission across digital telecommunications circuits such as Switched 56 and ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), and digital data service (DDS) circuits. A data service unit (DSU) or ISDN terminal adapter is required for each SA-57.
Six new dialing options, as well as three previous non-dial, dedicated options, are now available. Users can choose an RS-232, V.35 or RS-449 synchronous port on their SA-57. They also can opt for either V.25bis in-band dialing (Switched 56) or an RS-366 (DDS 56-Kbps dedicated) dial feature. Prices are $595 to $695.
Shiva's $599 TeleBridge is required when using the SA-57 as a telecom server on a LocalTalk network. On stand-alone Macs, a serial interface card such as Creative Solutions Inc.'s Hurdler Serial Board, priced at about $300, is required to support 57.6-Kbps output. The Mac IIfx, which drives its serial port at higher speeds, does not need the additional card.
The SA-57 also has added support for the standard AT- command set and flow control functions. Mac users can use telecommunications packages such as Software Ventures Corp.'s MicroPhone II when dialing across high-speed connections.
The SA-57 comes in both desktop and rack-mounted versions.
Digital Access Inc. is at 11501 Sunset Hills Road, Suite 200, Reston, Va. 22090. Phone (703) 471-5010 or (800) 666-2325; fax (703) 471-4848.
MacWEEK 03/30/92
Gateways Page 14
(MacWEEK, March 30, 1992) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Sketch! returns to the Mac
Alias' 3-D illustration tool has a good feature set, but it needs improved performance to be a real winner.
By Phillip Robinson
Alias Research Inc. isn't news in the workstation world. It is both established and critically successful as a technology leader and the home of best-selling 3-D design software used for everything from automobile design to advertising illustration. Now Alias has come down to the Mac illustration arena with Sketch!.
Sketch! cannot read or write the same files as Alias' other applications, except for the ubiquitous DXF (Drawing Interchange File) format. But Sketch! does include some of the same foundations as the Alias workstation software, such as direct manipulation of 3-D models, use of NURBS (non-uniform rational B-splines) and extremely flexible rendering commands and options.
However, it would be too kind to say that Sketch! "runs" on the Mac II. A stroll is a more appropriate word, even on a fast Mac with lots of RAM.
Our first look at Sketch! in the fall of 1991 was nerve- racking. We were impressed by the frequency of system crashes. Sketch! at that point was not usable, and Alias wisely pulled it from the market for more work. Now it is available again, as Version 1.0.2. We're glad to report that the crashes are mostly history.
This new version crashed the system only during one unusual extrusion operation. Although we confirmed that particular bug, we did not have other crashes.
In addition to squashing bugs, Alias added vital redraw interrupt. In Sketch!, simple wireframe redraws can take a good part of a minute, even to highlight a selected portion of a model. Renderings can take from minutes to days. You can interrupt to change your Sketch! commands and settings, or you can move to other programs as Sketch! renders in the background - though you'll still have to wait at frequent intervals.
Alias' other concessions in this release of Sketch! were to omit the copy protection and to cut the price in half - to $995 - and provide a $1,000 refund to users who bought the product before it was pulled from the market.
>Creation.
The first step in 3-D sketching or design is to lay out a viewpoint from which to draw and some planes or axes to orient the drawing. In Sketch! you select measurement units and a View Size, which lets you set up the intended final resolution of a design.
Sketch! automatically presents a ground plane and has a tool that makes it very easy to create new planes for orientation. The View menu offers various points of view, such as Top, Front, Right, Back and Home (elevated), and you can place a view "object" and aim it.
You also can return to any recent view or save a view to return to at any time (the saved views appear on the menu). For each view you may adjust the angle (narrow to wide) and the focus (narrow to wide), which is more view flexibility than we've seen in any other 3-D program.
The zoom tool, inexplicably called Z'PR, does let you zoom, pan and roll but is quite awkward to use at first, compared with the separate zoom and pan tools in other design programs.
Sketch! also offers "gravity," a 3-D form of snapping to a grid. (Snapping in 2-D drawing forces new objects to be drawn at intersections, midpoints, centers or other set points on screen, giving a drawing far more precision than if you have to force such meetings manually.) You dictate the priority of the gravity for points, curves and surfaces, and whether the attraction will be weak, medium or strong. Then you're ready to put some objects on screen, from simple lines to curves to wireframe objects and surfaces.
Alias doesn't overwhelm you with tools, offering a freehand Pencil tool, along with Square and Circle tools. There's also the cutely named Curve-o-matic tool for creating straight lines, curves, arcs or any other shapes.
For making 3-D shapes, there are Sphere, Cube, Extrude and Revolve tools that transform 2-D shapes into 3-D objects, and
an Extrude-o-matic tool for sweeping Curve-o-matic surfaces into 3-D. The trick of the Extrude- and Curve-o-matic tools is that they deal in NURBS , a sophisticated type of curve and surface that has continuity at its endpoints.
An important aspect of Sketch! is that you draw and edit in 3-D perspective, not in 2-D, or in non-perspective projections, as is the case with most 3-D programs.
>Making modifications.
Move, Rotate, Pick-and-Place and Handle tools let you orient and align objects. The standard Mac Cut, Copy, Paste, Clear and Undo functions are available on the Edit menu, as well as functions for duplicating and cloning objects. This menu also lets you select lights, planes and views and provides information on any selected element.
Sketch! has a few unique tools, including a Putty tool for selecting an object handle and stretching that handle in any direction, and a 3-D Eraser tool, which is used to rub out parts of a 3-D object. These are not easy to use at first but are welcome additions.
You may group objects into Assemblies for editing as you like. Sketch! lets you view and edit "property sheets" for objects, lights, cameras and points of view, in a manner similar to the way you would edit a style sheet in a word processor. Sketch! "catalogs" can store any ideas or elements you might want to save, such as shapes, lighting conditions, materials, colors, points of view and so on.
>Rendering and results.
You can use the Navigate tool to move around and view your wireframe from all angles. Sketch! has a lot of power to fill and shade the surfaces of a finished scene. It lets you place spotlights and fill lights; use a sun as light; and specify the intensity, decay, drop off, beam angle and color of the light sources. You assign materials to the objects from a large list of textures and material appearances.
You also decide the repetition frequency and pattern of the material texture. (You may use Assemblies to have one object inherit the material of another, automating some of the material assignments.)
Sketch! offers five rendering qualities - Preview, Highlighted, Smooth, Ray Tracing and Photo-Realistic - with the ability to customize the edge smoothness, reflection and refraction in the final image.
Sketch! graphically displays the various highlighting choices on sample spheres, for the diffusion, reflection and highlight options you select.
You may place backgrounds on your designs before rendering, and Sketch! offers a unique command to match the perspective of your drawing to that of a background image you've brought in. This could allow you to place newly created objects into a scanned photograph, for instance, with much of the perspective matching automated (you'll need to look at it and make some manual adjustments).
If a rendered image isn't the only result you want, you may also export the design as a DXF file to work with it in a CAD program, or as an Encapsulated PostScript image to work with in Adobe Illustrator, Aldus FreeHand or other drawing programs.
You also can save the design as a StyleGuide file, a text file that includes definitions of the shapes, colors, materials, lights and points of view of a Sketch! image, in an English-like listing with precise numeric assignments. You can edit this file in a word processor and then read it back into Sketch!. Image files can be saved in PICT, Illustrator 3.0, TIFF or Alias' PIX formats.
>Almost a Mac program.
The manual says Sketch! needs at least a Macintosh II with 5 Mbytes of RAM and a 40-Mbyte hard drive, but don't believe it. On a Mac IIfx with 8 Mbytes of RAM, Version 1.0.2 often has too little memory to render.
Turning on 30 Mbytes of virtual memory, however, seemed to nicely circumvent this problem.
Processor speed also is a very significant concern. Opening a simple design of a tricycle took a minute and a half on our 8-Mbyte IIfx. Redrawing that design took from 15 seconds to 30 seconds - and the redrawing is a very regular occurrence.
Any time you edit anything or call up a dialog box, you'll watch a redraw. We can forgive a program that goes off into never- never land while ray tracing or rendering: Five, 10 and 15 minutes are expected for that, even hours for the highest- quality renderings (though it would be nice to get some sort of "time to wait" indication - Sketch! has none). But waiting 10 seconds here and 20 seconds there while slightly changing the design or browsing menus can be stupefying.
Versions 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 eliminated some of these redraws, but not all. You'll still find yourself watching 15-second redraws each time you change object colors, select materials or finish for rendering, or otherwise manipulate the model. It's a quandary that a program designed to bring functionality to average users lags even on a Quadra with 16 Mbytes of RAM.
Outside the United States and Canada, Sketch! uses the Eve copy-protection key from Rainbow Technologies Inc. of Irvine, Calif., which connects to the Apple Desktop Bus. Alias told us that the key was the cause of some of the problems we had in Version 1.0, which is a solid reason to deplore this type of protection.
>Conclusions.
Sketch!'s tools and menus aren't completely obvious, nor is the tutorial thorough enough, to make this program a breeze to use, but breezing into 3-D just might not be possible.
The features are certainly here: basic drawing and viewing, NURBS, superb rendering options, and wonderful background matching. The program is solidly usable, but it still has signs of being a first release.
Sketch! brings a real awareness of how complex rendering and solid modeling are, and how even the fastest Macintoshes are barely up to it. Other 3-D modeling vendors are in a race to release distributed rendering systems that will vastly accel- erate performance of their packages. Sketch! comes into this race late - as the tortoise. But if it catches up, it could become the Adobe Illustrator of the 3-D drawing world.
Score Card: Sketch! 1.0.2
Overall value Good
Performance Average
Features Excellent
Ease of use Average
Documentation/support Good
List price $995
On Balance
Sketch! brings Alias' workstation modeling tools to a Mac 3-D illustration package. Sketch! has drawing, lighting and rendering options that could keep you busy experimenting for days. Complete modeling is not easy, although basic operations, once learned, are fairly simple to perform. It allows you to save any element of a design in a "catalog" for later use, and it can read and write in multiple formats. Unfortunately, Sketch! pushes the limits of Mac performance, with slow screen redrawing and rendering even on the fastest, loaded Macs. With better performance, Sketch! could become a standard for 3-D design.
System 7 Compatibility
Balloon help Yes
TrueType No
Publish and subscribe No
Apple events No
32-bit addressing* Yes
*According to vendor.
Alias Research Inc. is at 110 Richmond St. E., Toronto, Ontario M5C 1P1, Canada. Phone (416) 362-9181 or (800) 267-8697; fax (416) 362-0630.
MacWEEK 03/30/92
Reviews Page 29
(MacWEEK, March 30, 1992) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Computer cable survival tips for corporate environments
Cable replacement is one of the many hidden costs of corporate computing. But with a little care, you can help safeguard your investment.
By Tara Knowles and Amy Bermar
Good cabling is like a good network; no one thinks about it until it stops working. And while most cabling is designed to last a computer's lifetime, something, somewhere, is bound to cause problems. Loose connections are often at fault. Other times, poor-quality cable routinely interferes with high- traffic transmissions. In almost every case, a little care and knowledge helps avoid potential trouble.
>User cable abuse.
User abuse is the No. 1 reason cited by network managers for persistent trouble with the cables connecting keyboards, printers and drives to the system. Because this cabling is almost always exposed, it's particularly vulnerable to damage.
"Nine out of 10 times if a computer doesn't work, it's because the cables have become unplugged from users moving the CPU around," said Ron Leighton, computer studio manager at Lintas:Marketing Communications, a New York advertising agency.
Wear and tear takes a daily toll on all cables, and anyone managing 50 or more Macs probably will replace at least some cabling every six months, said Brad Henson, network LAN manager for the Naval Air Warfare Center in Point Mugu, Calif.
>Mouse, keyboard cable care.
"Almost half the cabling problems I see are related to the mouse," said Peter Gawlocki, manager of Rent-a-Mac Inc., a Macintosh rental service in Boston. The weakest link is where the cable joins the mouse, because it bears tremendous strain from being flexed almost constantly.
Plugging the mouse into the keyboard instead of reaching around to the back of the machine relieves some of the pressure by providing up to 2 additional feet of length, Gawlocki said. This option is available on the Macintosh SE and later models.
Because so much of the tugging and pulling affects the connectors, they often become damaged, said Dan O'Malley, systems installation and maintenance supervisor at Applied Graphics Technology, a pre-press production company in Carlstadt, N.J. Loosening is commonly caused by jarring system cables and stretching cables too tightly while moving the printer or keyboard.
Even frequently disconnecting a keyboard can diminish friction in the connector and loosen the plug, said Rich Grafton, a technical consultant based in Sedbury, Mass. Grafton said that improperly re-plugging any connector, or wedging the computer against a wall, can bend or break the fragile connector pins.
Because keyboards and printers are moved often, wires within the cable can fray and lose their ability to transfer data. To prevent this, O'Malley said to make sure the Apple Desktop Bus cable connecting the keyboard isn't snagged or crimped by the CPU, and that the printer isn't moved if the serial cable is stretched tautly across a desk's edge.
And don't leave a cable strewn across the floor.
"Never, ever run cable under a carpet or leave it lying where people can step on it," said O'Malley, because the cable will almost certainly fray. "This seems like common sense, but it happens all the time."
>LocalTalk cable care.
Apple's LocalTalk cables present a unique set of problems, because the spring-loaded connectors are prone to coming loose, which can cause the network to crash, according to Michael Fox, president of Rebus Technology Inc., a CAD systems integrator based in Cambridge, Mass.
"We used LocalTalk connectors for a month and had problems with them coming loose after the cable was put in the wall," Fox said. "We switched to Farallon [Computing Inc.'s PhoneNET connectors], which are as easy to hook up as a telephone."
PhoneNET provides modified phone jacks that fasten securely to the CPU, said Henson, network manager at the Warfare Center. "We didn't save a lot of money," he said. "But we also didn't spend a lot of time crawling around the floor finding Apple connections."
>Cable suppliers.
AppleTalk cabling is the only cabling Henson stocks in advance; the Warfare Center buys the rest on an as-needed basis from a local supplier, which typically delivers the material within a week. Others, such as Leighton of the Lintas advertising agency, include all cable repair in an ongoing service contract and avoid stocking any materials.
Rebus' Fox, on the other hand, keeps phone and SCSI cable on hand, primarily to expedite small-scale expansion. He buys most cable through mail-order companies, which he estimates costs at least 20 percent less than retail.
While quality is especially important when buying high- capacity cables such as SCSI and Ethernet, few users said they worried about the quality of materials provided by mail-order companies.
"Most problems with network cabling show up immediately," said consultant Grafton, who tests all cabling before it's laid. "By testing, we screen out the poor-quality cables and eliminate most potential pitfalls." Other cables, such as the SCSI cable for the PowerBook notebook, are too new to have encountered many problems, users and vendors agreed.
Occasional buyers said it's difficult to determine whether third-party cables are top-quality.
"Although dealers know the differences between high-end Apple and less-expensive cables, very few understand the more subtle differences in quality," said Brad Bullough, vice president of technical services at System Connection, a Provo, Utah, manufacturer and distributor of computer cables and accessories. "In most cases, they don't want to become cable experts. So they have to trust the manufacturer to give them the kind of cable they need."
>What to look for.
Buying cable that complies with Apple specifications is the first step, and critical examination can distinguish good materials from inexpensive ones. For example, Apple specifies that SCSI cable should contain 19 twisted pairs; less-expensive alternatives may use 25 single wires. Double shielding is required; while Apple uses copper, the cheaper versions use aluminum, which doesn't conduct as well.
Ethernet cabling also should meet certain specifications, Bullough said. Dealers should know if it meets the certifications of the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers and if it can support up to 16 Mbps, which is identified by a "Level 3" stamp on the cable's outer jacket.
Users can confirm the quality of SCSI and video cabling by looking along the length of the cable for the fire rating listing provided by the Underwriters Laboratory Inc.
"If the manufacturer has taken the time to buy UL-listed cable," said Bullough, "the wiring inside is probably good."
An effective combination of buying cables carefully and paying attention to how they're handled on a day-to-day basis should help extend their life span.
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When blackouts strike and power peaks
By Tara Knowles and Amy Bermar
What travels down your cables can be even more important than what cables you use. Without proper grounding, power outages and electrical surges caused by bad weather or industrial mishaps can quickly wreak havoc with computer systems and networks.
A good-quality surge protector can protect data and hardware from sudden electrical peaks, while uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems provide a few minutes or more of backup power after the lights go off.
Surge protectors block currents greater than 120 volts and range in price from $10 to $800. Less-expensive models consist of a single component. Because these electrical gateways aren't always dependable, users with older wiring or unreliable power sources should invest in a more-expensive model, said John MacKay, regional sales manager at EFI Electronics Corp. in Salt Lake City, a manufacturer of surge suppression and UPS products.
The higher-end models, such as the Curtis Ruby from Curtis Manu- facturing Co. Inc., have parallel components that also filter harmonics, which is the distortion that occurs when surges are diverted, MacKay said.
UPS systems, such as the Model 25 PC Might UPS from Upsonic Inc., give a user at least six to 10 minutes to save information and shut down systems. Prices on these systems range from $200 to $1,795.
At the low end are standby systems. Current flows through unimpeded, and when the power fails the battery backup is activated. Key issues are how quickly the battery kicks in and the stability of its current. On-line UPS systems, such as American Power Conversion Corp.'s AP 1500, constantly monitor the power supply. While on-line UPS products can cost twice as much as standard UPS systems, they offer enhanced voltage control.
Product Info
American Power Conversion Corp.
AP 1500: $3,395
132 Fairgrounds Road, P.O. Box 278, West Kingston, R.I. 02892
Phone (401) 789-5735 or (800) 788-2208; Fax (401) 789- 3710
Apple
LocalTalk Locking Cable Kit (10 meter): $75
20525 Mariani Ave., Cupertino, Calif. 95014
Phone (408) 996-1010; Fax (408) 996-0275
Curtis Manufacturing Co. Inc.
Curtis Ruby: $99.95
30 Fitzgerald Drive, Jaffrey, N.H. 03452
Phone (603) 532-4123 or (800) 548-4900; Fax (603) 532- 4116
Farallon Computing Inc.
PhoneNET Connector: $59.95
2000 Powell St., Emeryville, Calif. 94608
Phone (510) 596-9000; Fax (510) 596-9023
Upsonic Inc.
PC Might: $199
1392 Industrial Drive, Tustin, Calif. 92680
Phone (714) 258-0808 or (800) 877-6642; Fax (714) 258- 0811
MacWEEK 03/30/92
Product Watch Page 39
(MacWEEK, March 30, 1992) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Strategic alliances play role in success
Electronics execs polled on strategies
By Jon Swartz
San Francisco - U.S. electronics industry executives are turning to each other and not the government for help in surviving a slumping economy and intensifying competition.
Alliances among U.S. electronics companies are accelerating, according to results from Electronics 92, a survey of 455 industry executives released last week by accounting firm Ernst & Young and trade magazine Electronic Business.
Nearly 90 percent of those polled said they were involved in one or more alliances with other companies in 1991. They said strategic partnerships - even with competitors - are now seen as one of the primary ways to remain strong.
"The saying about strange bedfellows is an appropriate one," said Charlie Federman of Broadview Associates, a Fort Lee, N.J., firm that specializes in mergers. "No single company is able to exist above the others."
Two-thirds of executives surveyed said alliances will play a key role in future business plans.
While computer leaders were split on what, if anything, the government could do to help them, 56 percent said Uncle Sam should make research and development tax credits permanent and reduce the capital gains tax.
More than 75 percent of company leaders surveyed said the recession affected their company's profits.
The survey also revealed that 84 percent of the executives thought advanced telecommunications and semiconductors will be the most promising technologies in the coming decade.
MacWEEK 03/30/92
Business Watch Page 22
(MacWEEK, March 30, 1992) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Knife: IBM must WIP it real good
Contrary to what you may have been led to believe by the mainstream media, not all surprises originate in Connecticut. Some of the surprises, for example, come from Apple's new partner in commerce, IBM. The Knife has discovered evidence of some new plans that are certain to raise a few eyebrows.
It seems that IBM has created a little marketing entity called Workstation Integration Project, or IBM WIP for short. The goal is to arm IBM's world-renown sales force with a software solution for every possible eventuality. Since some of these eventualities involve platforms of other origins, IBM has turned to third-party developers proposing that IBM label and market their products to IBM's corporate clients. And, since some of these other platforms are Macs, you can expect that eventually, probably by the end of the year, IBM WIP-labeled versions of some old Mac favorites will be peddled to the corporate world. Then again, skeptics will point out that the last time IBM tried private-labeling third-party application software it didn't realize very much success.
>World o' Unix.
If you're inclined to believe that what the world really needs now is another Unix standard, you'll be delighted to learn that Novell is developing an object-oriented version that will, of course, be called Univell. Think of it as Novell's own self-contained Taligent project. In any event, sources tell the Knife that the theme of the project is to develop a server- oriented environment for the networks of tomorrow.
It's getting harder by the day to talk about servers and Unix in the same sentence without mentioning what Apple's Enterprise System Group has been working on lately; namely, it's first computer. Sources close to the project tell the Knife that it will be an A/UX server product running on a souped-up Quadra- like box. A Unix server with an Apple logo may be just what a portion of the market is waiting for.
>Rocket time.
Radius has been quite proud of the multiprocessor potential of its NuBus-based Rocket accelerator since first bringing the product to market last year. The only problem was, it was all potential and no reality. That may change in May when Radius produces its own multiprocessor Rocket-based computer. What makes it all possible is a heretofore unprecedented licensing agreement Radius signed with Apple to allow Radius to incorporate crucial parts of the Mac ROMs in the new machine. Sources said it will be designed as a platform for pre-press applications. Prices are expected to start in the $10,000 to $15,000 range.
>Supershop.
SuperMac Technology finally is getting around to providing the first plug-in boards for the Thunder/8 and Thunder/24 video boards it introduced last year. SuperMac graced these boards with a proprietary connector called OpenSlot, designed to support the use of application-specific accelerators. The first OpenSlot accelerator will be a RISC- based card capable of propelling Adobe Photoshop performance into the big leagues. A formal announcement should be made no later than summer.
DiskPaper-less office. Reports have begun to reach the Knife that Farallon is at last getting ready to release DiskPaper, its oft-delayed print-to-disk product, sometime late in April. What got the Knife's attention was the discovery of a Windows version of DiskPaper under development. When you consider these two products together with the Windows version of Timbuktu, itself one of the worst-kept secrets in the industry, the possibilities for cross-platform mischief are enticing.
>Human interface departure.
There aren't too many people left at Apple with badge numbers in the double digits. Bruce Tognazzini, Apple's No. 1 human interface evangelist and owner of badge No. 66, has been a member of that elite club until last week, when he turned in his badge, said goodbye to Apple and headed into the sunset toward Sun Microsystems.
Unless your name is Sergei Krikalev, chances are you know something that could get you a MacWEEK mug. To find out, call the Knife at (415) 243-3500, fax (415) 243-3650, MCI (MactheKnife), AppleLink (MacWEEK) and CompuServe/ZiffNet/Mac.
MacWEEK 03/30/92
Opinion Page 90
(MacWEEK, March 30, 1992) (c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
