Newsbytes - Internationa…ews 1983 May to 1994 June/Newsbytes - International Computing Industry News 1994 Edition - May 1983 - June 1994 - Wayzata Technologies (5045) (1994).iso/mac/Text/Mac Text/1988/nb880216.243

Text File | 1991-08-18 | 63KB | 1,354 lines

[***][2/16/88][***]
APPLE'S UNVEILS UNIX OPERATING SYSTEM
CUPERTINO, Ca. (NB) -- Apple Computer has introduced a UNIX
operating system for the Macintosh II at Dallas' UniForum
convention, an international forum for the Unix community.
The new A/UX operating system is expected to be the boost
Apple Computer needed to propel it into federal buying circles.
UNIX is the most widely used operating system in Washington
and Apple has been trying to penetrate the lucrative federal
market for over a year.

A/UX can be purchased installed on an 80 megabyte hard disk in a
complete Macintosh II ensemble for $8,600 to $10,745, depending
on options.  Or current Macintosh II owners can purchase the operating
system with an upgrade "bundle" consisting of an 80 megabyte
internal or external Apple Computer hard disk installed with A/UX
and PMMU, and 4 megabytes of RAM.  That will run slightly less than
$5,000.

And for the first time, Apple has offered a comprehensive support
program.  Buy the hardware and you get free manual and software
updates.  Buy an enhanced support contract for $3,395 a year
and get access to a toll-free hot line direct to the UNIX gurus
at Apple.

[***][2/16/88][***]
NEXT APPLE INTRODUCTION: CD -ROM
CUPERTINO, Ca. (NB)╩-- Apple is widely expected to introduce its
long-awaited CD-ROM (compact disk read only memory) drive
on March 4 at the next Microsoft CD-ROM conference in Seattle.
Speculation has it that the device will cost about $1,500.
Apple will become the second major computer company to
introduce its own brand-name CD-ROM drive provided that Atari,
the first firm to offer a CD-ROM drive, keeps its promise of shipping
the drive this month, February.  No advance word on what programs will
initially be offered for the drive, but they are to be announced
at the same time as the drive's introduction in Seattle.

[***][2/16/88][***]
VIRUS ATTACKS MACINTOSH; HARMLESS "FOR NOW"
SAN FRANCISCO, Ca. (NB) -- Between February  6 and 8, some 40 or
so people downloaded a file from GEnie and CompuServe described
as a discussion of unannounced Apple products.  What they got
was an unannounced intruder in their system file and the first
known "virus" attack on a Macintosh which made headlines
around the world.

The virus program, created by MACMAG, a Canadian Macintosh
magazine, was designed to hide in a Macintosh system file until
March 2 at which time it would emerge and display a message
of peace.  Then it would erase itself.  But its apparently benign
purpose was not known until after two days of investigations
by the CompuServe user group staff who feared the program,
titled NEWAPP.STK, would destroy system files and data.  They
now report the program is "harmless" but the potential for
data destruction was clear.

The incident prompted two notable quotes from Bay Area computer
people, who couldn't be more apart in their reactions.

" It's a grand lesson,"╩said Kevin Kelly of WHOLE EARTH REVIEW.
"Maybe this will cut down on software piracy in the same way
that AIDS has clamped down on the sexual revolution."

Said Andy Hertzfeld, co-designer of the Macintosh, "As far as I'm
concerned, it doesn't have any malicious intent and is just some
people having fun.  I don't see why people are so uptight."

[***][2/16/88][***]
GEPHARDT CAUSES FLAP OVER MACINTOSH COMPUTER
CUPERTINO, Ca. (NB) -- Democratic presidential hopeful Richard
Gephardt won the Iowa caucuses but he didn't win any friends
here in Cupertino with a recent remark citing the Macintosh in
a talk about trade restrictions between the US and Japan.
Gephardt blamed the price difference between a Macintosh in
the US ($1,500) and a Macintosh in Japan ($3,100) on unfair
trade restrictions by the Japanese government.

The response was quick and sharp.  Apple Japan and Apple's
headquarters issued statements attributing the price difference
between the US and Japanese Macs to both the fact that the
Japanese Mac is costlier to make -- it has a Japanese language
feature -- and priced by Apple Computer itself, not the Japanese
government.  Apple admitted it has priced the Japanese Macintosh
at the price the Japanese market will bear.

[***][2/16/88][***]
BRAZIL KILLS ITS OWN MAC CLONE
CUPERTINO, Ca. (NB) -- Apple Computer is celebrating a victory in
its battle to beat back the only known clone of the Macintosh.
The government of Brazil has rejected an application by Sao
Paolo, Brazil-based Unitron to market a Macintosh 512K clone in
Brazil, on
the grounds that it is not original enough to receive government
approval.

The sudden  concern by the Brazilian government for the issue of
originality comes in light of the Reagan Administration's new
tariffs against Brazilian imports due to the Brazil's cavalier
attitude toward international copyright law.  It appears the
stick approach is working and another one can be chalked up
for the Gipper.

[***][2/16/88][***]
ASHTON-TATE ACQUIRES ANN ARBOR SOFTWORKS
TORRANCE, Ca. (NB) -- In a surprise move, Ashton-Tate has moved
into the Macintosh market in a big way with the purchase of Ann Arbor
Softworks and its Macintosh software including FullWrite Professional,
a word processor with built-in desktop publishing features, and the
FullPaint graphics package.  Ashton-Tate also unveiled two other new
products born of the wedding, Full Impact ($395), a spreadsheet with
word processor, report generator, and some desktop publishing features.
It will be available on July 31.  dBase  Mac RunTime, $795, allows
programmers to distribute dBase applications without buying the full
program.

Ashton-Tate's purchase of Ann Arbor Softworks, in the making for
months according to sources, could have been worth an estimated $30
million dollars although no price for the takeover was disclosed.

[***][2/16/88][***]
HEWLETT PACKARD CLAIMS HIGHEST PERFORMING WORKSTATION
PALO ALTO, Ca. (NB) -- Hewlett Packard has introduced an add-on
circuit board which makes its HP 9000 Model 825SRX workstation the
highest performing in the market, according to the company.  The
CPU upgrade triples the speed of the workstation to 2.0 MFLOPS from
1.0 million floating point operations per second.  That speed is said
to be 75% faster than competing workstations from Sun and Silicon
Graphics.  HP says the MIPS (millions of instructions per second)
rating for its upgraded systems has increased from eight to 14
(or 14 times the performance of the Digital VAX 11/780.)

The upgrade costs $10,000.

[***][2/16/88][***]
ATARI TO ENTER WORKSTATION MARKET AT HANOVER FAIR
SUNNYVALE, Ca. (NB) -- Atari will introduce a line of 68030-based
Unix workstations at West Germany's Hanover Fair computer show in
March, says Atari CEO Sam Tramiel in a published report.  Details
are sketchy (some of them you've read in our European reports) but
it's clear Atari plans to low-ball the price in order to gain a hold
in the workstation market.

In other Atari news, the firm has succeeded in getting court injunctions
against six Singapore firms accused of dealing in pirated copies of Atari
games.  Authorities seized more than $64,000 worth of pirated
games which reportedly arrived in Singapore via Taiwan.

[***][2/16/88][***]
WORDPERFECT PROMISED BY MARCH 21
OREM, Utah (NB) -- People who bought buggy beta versions of WordPerfect
5.0 at the MacWorld Expo probably won't see the real thing until some
time in March, according to the company.  WordPerfect charged buyers
$99 for a beta copy of the WordPerfect word processor at the
fair, that's one fourth the expected retail price of $395.  In fact this
is also the third MacWorld Expo in which the product has been promised.

Some 1,500 have snapped up the offer and are participating in the
debugging process.  Comments about bugs are being sent to WordPerfect
via the phone and electronic mail.

Meanwhile, WordPerfect is also planning to up its priced to dealers
five percent by March 21, the date dealers say they've been promised
the first shipments of WordPerfect 5.0.

[***][2/16/88][***]
NEW TECHNOLOGY PUTS YOU IN THE GAME SHOW SEAT
MENLO PARK, Ca. (NB) -- Millions of Americans have watched "Wheel of
Fortune, " "Jeapordy," and other games shows with a secret lust to be
more than a couch potato, but a participant.  A new start-up backed by
several heavyweights, including NBC,  hopes to make those wishes reality
for millions of Americans.  Interactive Game Network, funded by an
initial $1.6 million from NBC, United Artists Communications, and United
Cable Television, have created a hand-held computer which works
along with a televised game show.  The unit receives signals via the
FM radio band which correspond to questions or puzzles on TV.  The
responding viewer, after answering the game, can then "dump" the
contents of his unit to a receiving computer via the telephone lines.
Somehow after all this is done, anybody watching can be a winner.

The technology is still being perfected, but it at least has a track
record in Dataspeed, which provides stock quotes to PCs via
the FM radio band.  In fact the president of Interactive, David Lockton,
used to work there.

Don't give up that bridge game to wait for the new interactive game
shows, however. They're not expected to appear until 1990, at least.

[***][2/16/88][***]
IN BRIEF --

ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, Sunnyvale, will build a major research
laboratory in Santa Clara County by the end of 1989.  Speculation
had it that AMD's next development center would go the way of
Sematech -- to Texas -- but the rumors are now dispelled by this
official word.

GRID SYSTEMS CORP., Fremont, Ca., has introduced the first battery-
powered Unix and Xenix laptop -- the Gridcase 1530 laptop.  The
machine costs $4,695 plus $1,000 for the two operating systems.

HEWLETT PACKARD, Palo Alto, reports McDonnell Douglas Manufacturing
and Engineering has chosen HP as its UNIX system workstation vendor
in a reseller agreement that has a first year value of up to $20
million.  In addition, HP's business is also booming with a $16 million
order from Ford Aerospace for 767 of the same workstations.

LIVING VIDEOTEXT, Mountain View, Ca., is expected to introduce a
competitor to Lotus' Agenda for the PC next month, according to a
published report.  The product called GrandView is said to have
features not found in Agenda and will sell for $100 less -- $299.

MACWORLD, San Francisco,  is sponsoring a Macintosh art contest
with winners featured in MACWORLD's August 1988 issue.  The
contest features eight categories.  Information can be obtained by
contacting Shirley Gines at 415/978-3367.


[***][2/16/88][***]
THE NEW CRAY -- 2-3 TIMES FASTER, FULLY COMPATIBLE, $20 MILLION
MINNEAPOLIS, MN (NB) -- The newest model in the world's best-
selling supercomputer line has 2-3 times the power of its
predecessor, the Cray X-MP, and 30 times the power of the Cray 1
introduced in 1976. The price for the Cray Y-MP/832 is $20
million -- the Cray X-MP cost $14 million at its introduction in
1982. (That's steep as only Seymour Cray could make it -- perhaps
supercomputers should be defined more by their price tags than
their power.) The Cray Y-MP/832 has 8 central processors and 32
million 64-bit words of central memory. (Hence the 832.) The
clock cycle is down to 6 nanoseconds (6 billionths of a second),
down from 8.5 nanoseconds on the old models. Best of all, it's
compatible with all the old Cray X-MP software.

CONTACT: Gina Bonetti, CRAY RESEARCH, [phone]

[***][2/16/88][***]
THE GOOD NEWS ON CD-ROM COMES FROM USERS
CHICAGO (NB) -- Jack Dreiss of Arthur Andersen & Co., the Big
Eight accounting firm, says it's a competitive advantage to give
auditors a stack of rule books on CD-ROM drives inside laptop PCs.
Hospital emergency rooms are switching to CD-ROMs to get
Micromedex, Mead Data Central's poison control database, on CD.
Ken Shain's Geovision Inc. is making money selling U.S.
Geological Survey Maps as a $249 CD called "Windows on the
World." Lotus Development is making more money than anyone
repackaging data on corporations for bankers, brokers, and
investors. Meanwhile, in Japan there's a mounting CD audio player
glut which could turn into a CD-ROM drive price war aimed at
Hitachi, which owns the U.S. market through its OEM, Amdek.

Microsoft's 3rd annual CD-ROM conference in Seattle March 1-3 is
called "The Industry Emerges." Look for hypertext development
kits, Microsoft's multimedia dictionary on CD-ROM, plus the
usual raft of database owners and software publishers. If
something emerges as a "standard" user interface, CD-ROM will
exceed its 400% projected growth rate for 1988.

CONTACT: Jack Dreiss, ARTHUR ANDERSEN & CO., [phone]

[***][2/16/88][***]
MINNESOTA FIRM OFFERS INSTANT MAX HEADROOMS FOR MEETINGS
MINNEAPOLIS (MN) -- Interactive Personalities Inc. will, for
$4,000, turn your boring talking head into an exciting,
electronic Max Headroom-like talking head. You provide the
speech, they provide an actor and special effects computers to
distort the image into something riveting. The result can appear
live or on tape. There are 7 employees. For Honeywell, IPI
created a computerized salesman for a sales meeting, with a story
line saying this guy had been hit by lightning and sucked into
a computer system, as in the movie "Tron." For Harris/3M they
created a cross between Max Headroom and Rambo, called RamBox,
to appear as a cheerleader for a sales meeting.

Mr. Yaman told NEWSBYTES, "We're mostly entertainment people. Our
background is in sales meetings and trade shows. We don't use any
personal computers, but the computer equipment we use would be
familiar to TV producers. It's rack-mounted so we can take it
anywhere."

CONTACT: David Yaman, INTERACTIVE PERSONALITIES, [phone]

[***][2/16/88][***]
SHAREWARE GOES UPMARKET WITH ITS OWN MAGAZINE AND A CD-ROM
SUNNYVALE, CA (NB) -- The PC-SIG Library in Sunnyvale has one of
the world's largest collections of shareware, programs you can
use now and pay for later. PC-WRITE, the program used at
NEWSBYTES SOUTH, is an example of shareware. I can make copies
for friends easily and legally. If they like it they send in
money for the manual and support. Now shareware users (who own
IBM PCs or compatibles) have a regular place to turn, as PC-SIG
has begun publishing "Shareware Magazine." The magazine features
capsule reviews, columns and breathless features about how neat
shareware is. NEWSBYTES SOUTH talked recently to Chuck Botsford
of PC-SIG, who notes that the group is mainly a distribution
service. Chuck is publishing the group's whole library on a
single CD-ROM, for about $300. You can also get a printed index
and any individual programs from the library on floppy disks or
through dealers.

CONTACT: Chuck Botsford, PC-SIG, [phone]

[***][2/16/88][***]
UNISYS INTRODUCES NEW SUPERMINIS, FINANCIAL DATA SERVICES
DETROIT (NB) -- The folks from Uni-whatsis updated their line of
minicomputers running Unix System V with new entries in the
System 5000 and System 7000 series. The 5000s start at $24,500,
with operating systems starting at $1,750, for machines built
around the Motorola 68020 chip. The 7000 line tops out at
$295,000 for compatible machines which support up to 384
connections and are twice as fast as the machines they replace.

Unisys also introduced a financial information system for
stockbrokers called Snapnet. It was developed in a partnership
with Intelligent Quotation Systems Inc., Norwalk, CT, and lets
you connect stock quotes with office systems. Snapnet also has
windows so you can look at quotes, news, and client data all at
the same time.

CONTACT: John Cook, UNISYS, [phone]

[***][2/16/88][***]
MISSISSIPPI EMBEZZLER TURNS TO COMPUTER CRACKING
PARCHMAN, MS (NB) -- An embezzler serving a 30-year sentence in
the Mississippi State Penetentiary at Parchman is alleged to have
tampered with the prison's computer records, selling about
100,000 pounds of prison-grown cotton and trying to change his
own records to get an early release. The possible tampering came
to light as officials investigated a phony money order scheme in
which $50,000 in funny money was seized. (Prisoners obtained
small money orders, altered the figures on them and then sent
them to friends outside who cashed them.) Corrections
Commissioner Gene Scroggy told "The Associated Press" that the
suspect got a job as clerk in the prison industries program and
was given his own computer, plus access to the institution's main
system.

CONTACT: Ken Jones, MISSISSIPPI STATE PEN, [phone]

[***][2/16/88][***]
PECAN GOLDEN CHIPS

EDS, Dallas, a GM subsidiary, said it earned $323.1 million last
year on sales of $4,435.9 million, against profits of $260.9
million on sales of $4,379.4 million last year. Earnings per
share on the special "E" issue of GM common used to purchase EDS
was 85 cents, up 47% from 58 cents last year.

STAR TECHNOLOGIES, Sterling, VA, signed papers to buy GE's
Graphicon division, which makes high-performance 3-D graphics
processors. Graphicon is based in Research Triangle Park, NC, and
had revenues of $6 million last year competing with Tektronix,
Raster Technologies, Chromatics, and Megatek.

TANDY, Ft. Worth, said its January sales of $283.52 million were
up 6% over a year ago. (Rumors persist, however, that the Tandy
Computer Centers are not profitable.)

[***][2/16/88][***]
PECAN CHIPS

ARNET, Nashville, TN, released Modular Multiport, a serial port
with standard RJ-11 phone jacks instead of serial cables. It's
supposed to make connecting peripherals easy, and can handle data
at up to 56,000 bits/second.

CYB SYSTEMS, Austin, TX, will release its NovaNet in March. The
product lets PCs in a Novell network take on unassigned tasks
for the network when they're being used by users.

DATAPOINT, San Antonio, TX, unveiled its System V Network Server
Systems, for use with Unix-based systems. Prices start at around
$20,000 for processing speeds of 2.5-25 million instructions per
second (MIPS). They're based on Motorola 68020 and 68030 chips.

ELECTRONIC TEXT, Provo, UT, will release a series of American
literary classics on floppy disks. Each book will require a dozen
disks and will include WordCruncher, a program developed for text
indexing and retrieval, text analysis and linguistic studies.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Henry David
Thoreau, and Walt Whitman will be among those getting the floppy
treatment. Prices start at $90. WordCruncher costs $300.

The FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION dedicated a new air traffic
control computer in Atlanta built around an IBM 3083 mainframe,
with 10 times the processing power and 4 times the storage of an
older model. It's part of a 10-year, $15 billion modernization of
the U.S. air traffic control system.

INFOMART, Dallas, put Blaise Pascal (inventor of the mechanical
calculator), Chester Carlson (the Xerox machine), and the team of
William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter F. Brattain (the
transistor) into its Hall of Fame.

NCR, Dayton, announced token-ring network support for its Tower
supermicro, which runs Unix. The company's Tower File Server will
support both the MS-DOS based networks and the Unix-based Tower,
and costs $1,230.

NOVELL, Orem, UT, admitted it's got technical problems with its
new 386A file server and Ethernet cards. Chairman Ray Noorda told
financial analysts the problems will delay the products' shipment
dates and cut earnings for the current quarter.

WHITE CRANE SYSTEMS, Norcross, GA, added four new DOS utilities
and one transfer utility in the new version 1.5 of its Brooklyn
Bridge product, which moves data between laptops and desktops.
The price stays the same -- $130.

WORDPERFECT, Orem, UT, released DataPerfect 2.0, a new version of
its relational database, list price $600, and announced it will
charge $60 to update WordPerfect 4.2 users to the upcoming 5.0

[***][2/16/88][***]
AND FINALLY...UTAH PROFESSOR SAYS COMPUTER VIRUSES DON'T EXIST
SALT LAKE CITY, UT (NB) -- Professor Jan Harold Brunvand, an
expert on urban legends (apocryphal stories which everyone
believes) claims that the dreaded computer viruses reported in
NEWSBYTES don't really exist. Professor Brunvand, who is a
computer owner, says he's never seen one of these viruses, which
reportedly trash users' hard disks. He puts the virus in the same
category as the 1970s stories about women trying to dry the hair
of cats and dogs by putting them in microwave ovens.

("I've never seen a purple cow, I never hope to see one, but I
can tell you anyhow, I'd rather see than be one." ---Peter
Hardemann Burnett (and Joe Biden))

CONTACT: Jan Harold Brunvand, [phone]

[***][2/16/88][***]
WILL BRYDEN BE SAVED BY BELL?
OTTAWA (NB) -- Roderick Bryden, owner of Kinburn Corp. of Ottawa,
could lose some control of his high-tech and paper products
conglomerate in an effort to satisfy creditors.  Aiming to pacify
anxious lenders, Bryden has borrowed C$190 million from Bell
Canada Enterprises of Montreal to buy back shares in two
subsidiaries of Kinburn: SHL Systemhouse Ltd., a software
developer; and Paperboard Industries Corp.

If he can't pay Bell back within six months, with interest, Bell
will own the shares Bryden buys back -- 18.5 per cent of
Systemhouse and 38 per cent of Paperboard.  Such an outcome might
look good to BCE, which is a major player in high technology
through Northern Telecom Ltd., which it owns, and might find a
paper products company would fit well with its yellow-pages
publishing operations.

That of course isn't the desired outcome for Bryden, who has
financial problems as a result of the October stock crash.  His
problem is to satisfy his creditors -- to whom he had pledged as
collateral shares that lost considerable value in October --
while retaining control of his companies.  But without Bell's
help, he might have to sell shares in the subsidiaries to raise
money, thus giving up control anyway.

[***][2/16/88][***]
APPLE KICKS OFF BUSINESS FORUMS
MARKHAM, Ont. (NB) -- Apple Canada Inc. is wooing Canadian
business with a series of "business forums" in five cities this
month.  Apple says more than 10,000 people are expected to attend
the sessions in Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton, Montreal and
Vancouver.  The business forums will combine seminars, a product
expo, and a software showcase featuring third-party business
software for the Macintosh.

Registration for the forums is free.  Public sessions are in
Toronto on February 16, Ottawa February 19, Montreal February 22
and 23, Edmonton February 25 and 26, and Vancouver February 29
and March 1.

CONTACT: APPLE CANADA, 1-800-387-9683, ext. 50

[***][2/16/88][***]
TORONTO IS MULTINATIONAL'S WORLD AI CENTER
TORONTO (NB) -- Allied-Signal Corp., has 70 subsidiary companies,
144,000 employees and $12 billion (U.S.) a year in revenue.  The
aerospace, engineered goods and automotive parts firm is number
four in the world in patents received per year -- after IBM, AT&T
and General Electric.  Allied-Signal's corporate artificial
intelligence activities are centered here in Toronto.

Rainer von Konigslow, director of Allied-Signal Canada's Expert
Systems Center, says there are economic advantages to locating
the center in Canada.  His job is to help Allied-Signal companies
worldwide identify ways they can use expert systems, help them
build prototypes and then transfer the technology to the local
companies so they can take it from there.  The center, with a
staff of just four PhDs, has a number of projects under
development.  One completed project is an expert system that
helps Bendix-Avelex, an Allied-Signal subsidiary in Montreal,
overhaul the fuel control systems used in military aircraft.

[***][2/16/88][***]
TELECOM MARKET RIPE FOR ADD-ONS, RESEARCH FIRM REPORTS
TORONTO (NB) -- A study just released by International Data Corp.
(Canada) Ltd. says the market for call processing and voice
processing equipment is growing strongly.  That's in spite of a
flat market for telephone systems, the researchers say.  IDC
predicts sales of voice processing or voicemail equipment will
triple by 1992, and call processing equipment will increase 60
per cent.  Combined, the market will be worth about C$70 million,
according Joe Greene, manager of communications research for IDC
Canada.

IDC Canada is a subsidiary of International Data Corp.,
Framingham, Mass.

CONTACT: INTERNATIONAL DATA CORP. (CANADA) LTD., [phone]

[***][2/16/88][***]
NCR CANADA PRESIDENT BOOSTS FREE TRADE
WATERLOO, Ont. (NB) -- NCR Canada Ltd. "fully supports and has a
vital interest in the creation of an international marketplace
based on open markets without borders, tariffs or other
restrictions," according to Donald J. Albers, president of NCR's
Canadian subsidiary, based in Mississauga, Ont..

Speaking to an international group of economics and commerce
students in Waterloo, Albers backed the idea of a free-trade
agreement between Canada and the U.S. -- an idea which has
attracted support from the business community in Canada, near-
hysterical opposition from a sizeable part of the Canadian
population, and virtually no attention in the U.S.

"Setting aside fears about social or political domination,, the
real issue is how should Canadian firms do business to compete
effectively in the U.S. and around the world," Albers said.
"Effective competition is certainly what we must be sensitive to,
and continually strive for."

Albers joins IBM Canada President John Thompson and heads of
several high-tech industry associations here in his support for
the agreement.

CONTACT: NCR CANADA LTD., 6865 Century Ave., Mississauga, Ont.
         L5N 2E2, [phone]

[***][2/16/88][***]
BITS, EH?
-- UTLAS INTERNATIONAL CANADA, Toronto-based vendor of library
automation systems and information, has announced that the
University of Toronto has Utlas' new T/Series 50 Computerised
Catalogue and Circulation System up and running.  Utlas also
announced that the University of Regina in Saskatchewan will use
its M-100 Discon, which provides the Library of Congress
shelflist on CD-ROM, to put 300,000 library records into machine-
readable form.

-- CARLETON UNIVERSITY, Ottawa, hopes to acquire a second
parallel-processing computer soon.  The new computer, which would
make Carleton one of Canada's leading universities in parallel
processing, will be used first to help Bell Canada evaluate
switching systems, under a C$263,000 grant from the government's
University Research Incentive Fund and Bell Canada.

-- THE VANCOUVER TECHNOLOGY MARKET LETTER will fold unless the
business can be restructured soon.  Publisher David Roberts told
THE FINANCIAL POST recently his 10-month-old newsletter has
failed to attract enough subscribers to be viable.  He said
subscribers will get back 80 per cent of undelivered subscription
costs.

-- THE CANADIAN IMPERIAL BANK OF COMMERCE, one of Canada's major
banks, has bought 30 per cent of Star Data Systems Inc., a
Toronto company that provides stock quotes and other market
information through its electronic Starquote system.

-- SEQUENT COMPUTER SYSTEMS (CANADA) LTD. has opened new Canadian
headquarters at 4950 Yonge St., Suite 304, Toronto M2N 6K1,
telephone [phone].



[***][2/16/88][***]
JAPAN READY TO ENTER 16M-DRAM ERA
TOKYO (NB) -- Three Japanese chip makers including Matsushita,
Toshiba, and Hitachi, have developed a 16 megabit dynamic random
access memory chip. These next generation chips will be shown at the
International Solid State Circuit Conference (ISSCC) in San
Francisco on Feb. 17.  According to industry sources, Matsushita
and Toshiba have applied a trench method, while Hitachi has used
a stack method to develop these breakthrough chips.  However,
they are not the first makers to have developed a 16M DRAM.
Japan's telecom giant NTT has already developed the same capacity
chip, and introduced it at last year's ISSCC.

CONTACT: Matsushita Electronics, Oaza-Kadoma 1006, Kadoma-shi,
         Osaka-fu 571
         Toshiba, 1-1-1 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105
         Hitachi, 1-5-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100

[***][2/16/88][***]
EIGHT MAKERS JOINTLY DEVELOPED JAPANESE TRON PC FOR SCHOOLS
TOKYO (NB) -- Eight Japanese computer makers will supply its
jointly-developed prototype TRON personal computer to the
government-affiliated Computer Education Center (CEC) in Japan
at the end of this month.  These eight makers are Matsushita,
Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Sanyo, Sharp, Oki, Toshiba, and Sony.
The eight firms are also developing their own TRON PCs with
their own design.  It is said Matsushita will supply its
operating system for those makers' PCs.  Meanwhile,  four other
companies, including Hitachi, IBM Japan, Univac (Unisys)
Japan, and NEC, will supply CEC with their own prototype TRON PCs
for school use in March.

[***][2/16/88][***]
TOSHIBA'S 3.5-INCH 4M DISK
TOKYO (NB) -- Toshiba has developed a 3.5-inch 4-megabyte disk
drive, which is compatible with a 1-megabyte disk format.
Toshiba's disk drive is based on the vertical magnetic data-
recording method.  Toshiba has already shown its specifications
to six disk drive makers to encourage license production of the
4M disk drive.  Currently Toshiba's new disk drive costs twice as
much as the ordinary 1M disk drives.  But it is expected to get
lower when those undisclosed six makers start to produce the
product in the near future.

CONTACT: Toshiba, 1-1-1 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105

[***][2/16/88][***]
CRAY'S HIGH-END SUPERCOMPUTER DEBUTS IN JAPAN
TOKYO (NB) -- Cray Japan has announced sales of its latest
supercomputer the Y-MP in Japan.  The Y-MP has the maximum eight
CPUs, and an 8M main memory.  It has the processing speed of 4
giga floating-point arithmetic calculations per second.  That's
three times faster than Cray's top-model the X-MP, and 30 times
faster than the Cray 1.  The price is $21 million.

CONTACT: Cray Japan, Ichiban-cho-Eitowan Bldg. 7F, 6-4 Ichiban-cho
         Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102

[***][2/16/88][***]
INTEL CREATED JAPANESE MARKET DIVISION
TOKYO (NB) -- California-based major chip maker Intel has created
a special market division, called Santa Clara Micro Computer
Division (SMD) Japan Program, as the means to beef up its market
strategy in Japan.  Intel is already successful in Japan, but it
continues to try harder with the new division.  Meanwhile,
Intel's three-year propaganda program, Vendor of Choice, designed
to lure Japanese customers, seems to be working.  Intel says it has
produced high quality products to satisfy Japanese customers.
Now Intel's main goal is to become the most reliable supplier
for the Japanese users.

[***][2/16/88][***]
KOREAN MAKERS DEVELOPED 4M DRAM
TOKYO (NB) -- Three major Korean semiconductor makers and the
National Electronics Communication Laboratory have jointly
developed a 4 megabit dynamic RAM.  The samples were actually
produced by SamSung, Gold Star, and Hyundai.  Those firms and
the NECL initiated the chip development in October 1986. The
three makers will develop a volume production technology, and
expect to start volume production within the next year.

[***][2/16/88][***]
JAPANESE-EGA BUGS DELAY RELEASE OF AX PCs: RUMOR DEPARTMENT
TOKYO (NB) -- A rumor says the developers of the graphics adapter
for the AX-architecture PCs have been having a hard time completing
the product.  With this delay, the shipment of Sanyo's first AX
computer is still nowhere in sight. Sanyo's AX PC, which is compatible
with the IBM AT and supports a Japanese language feature, was
announced last fall.  And the company was planning to release it
around the end of last year.  But still, it has not hit the
market.  According to the rumor, everything except the Japanese
Enhanced Graphics Adapter (JEGA), which is an upper-compatible
version of Super EGA, has been completed.  The development teams of
Chips & Technologies (U.S.A.) and ASCII Corp.(Tokyo) seem to be
having repeated failures in the design of this graphics product.
So the actual release of the AX computers could be as late as the
spring.

Meanwhile, Sharp (Osaka) wants to release its AX-architecture-
based personal computer this May.  It all depends on the
completion of the JEGA.  Other makers are also crossing their
fingers in hopes they will get this graphic adapter soon.

[***][2/16/88][***]
GAME FANS CREATE R.P.G. FEVER
TOKYO (NB) -- Software venture Enix released Dragon Quest III,
the latest version of home computer-based role playing game, this
past Wednesday.  Early Wednesday morning, young people as
well as parents lined up in front of major discount shops to get
the software.  The Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education advised
each school not to let their students cut classes to buy the
software.  However, it was revealed that police took about thirty
junior high school students into custody in Tokyo that morning.

Dragon Quest III, priced at 5,900 yen or $46, is the concluding program
in the Dragon Quest series.  As many as 3.4 million units of Dragon Quest
I and II have been sold.  Enix expects to sell as many as 5 million
units of the new software.

CONTACT: Enix Co., Shinjuku Airisu Bldg. 7F, 8-20-2
         Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo

[***][2/16/88][***]
HITACHI'S NEW 32-BIT WORKSTATION
TOKYO (NB) -- Hitachi will release the top version of its 32-bit
engineering workstation, the 2050G, in April.  The 2050G has a
68020 MPU and supports Hitachi's Unix HI-UX/G.  Equipped with
large scale integration (LSI), the machine is capable of drawing
high quality three dimensional graphics.  The basic unit price is
4.71 million yen or $36,797.

CONTACT: Hitachi, 1-5-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100


<<< SUSHI BYTES >>>

READY-SET-GO IN JAPAN -- Apple Computer Japan and Letraset
(U.S.A.) are jointly marketing Letraset's Ready-Set-Go for the
Macintosh in Japan.  Seminars and exhibitions are being held to market
this software, which produces letter-quality English documents.
However, the Japanese users must wait longer to get complete
Japanese language fonts.

JAPAN'S PC EXPORT TO U.S. DECLINES -- The Japan Electronics
Industry Development Association says Japanese personal
computer exports to the U.S. dropped by 40% in the October-
December period last year.  Shipments to the U.S. were 42% of
total exports.  That's the first time that exports to the US have
dropped below 50%.

NTT SEPARATES ITS DATA SERVICE DEPT. -- Japan's domestic telecom
giant NTT has announced details of its new subsidiary, which
is an offspring of its data communication department.  The new
firm will have the capital of $78 million to $156 million, and
6,700 employees.  It will be set up in May.

OVER-HEAD PROJECTOR FOR PS/2 FROM SHARP -- Sharp, Tokyo, has
developed an LCD unit QA-50 as an overhead projector for IBM
PS/2 and the PC, XT, & AT.  Sharp will start selling them in the
U.S. at the end of February, and in Europe in July.

1M SRAMs DEVELOPED -- Fujitsu has developed a super-fast 1M
static RAM, which has an access speed of 18 nanoseconds.  The
samples will be shipped around the end of the year.  Meanwhile,
Hitachi has also developed a 1M static RAM.  The company will
release its samples at $390 to $547 on April 20.

TOYOTA AND NTT TIE UP FOR FA SOFTWARE -- Toyota Motor and a
Japanese telecom giant NTT have signed an agreement to jointly
create a company to develop factory automation (FA) software.
The new firm will develop top-of-the-line FA software,
applying mutual technologies.

ISDN MAY BE POSTPONED -- Japan's NTT was planning to start the
Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) in April.  However,
this schedule seems to be delayed since some defects were found
in the program.  Also, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunica-
tions advised NTT to lower the fee so that it won't hinder the
spread of ISDN service, a report says.

[***][2/16/88][***]
QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Chip fair market value (FMV) set up by the U.S.-Japan chip
agreement is wrong, and I oppose it.  With this "FMV," the chip
makers have not solved the root of their problem.  And computer
system makers are pushed to buy costly products."

-- by Gordon Campbell, President of Chips & Technologies
   (At the interview with the NIKKAN-KOGYO newspaper, translated
   by NEWSBYTES staff)


[***][2/16/88][***]
TALK OF IBM REPOSITIONING PRODUCTS    **** EXCLUSIVE ****
FRANKFURT, GERMANY (NB) -- IBM, in an effort to give necessary
impetus to its products, is planning a complete re-positioning of
its PS/2 product line as well as cancellations of some products
and introduction of new ones.

After spending time talking to IBM people around Europe, NEWSBYTES
has learned that IBM will also adjust pricing in order to close
price gaps which are currently being filled by clone makers.

The repositioning is as follows:

- The Convertible will be cancelled. Watch out for COMB to sell
the portables at liquidation prices (they already sell in the UK for $750).

- The IBM PS/2 model 25 will have a price of $995, down 25% from
today. IBM has found that users can still have the education-
popular Apple II for less than $1000, thus the change.

- The IBM PS/2 model 30 will be priced almost 20% lower, at
about $1400 for the floppy version and $2000 for the hard disk
version.

- The IBM PS/2 model 50 will be offered as a diskless workstation
for use under networks and with a faster hard disk -- it will cost
$2600.

- The IBM PS/2 model 60 will have a price decrease of about 10% to
around $4800 for the 40MB model and a similar drop for the 70MB
model.

- The IBM PS/2 model 80 will have a price drop of about 10% to
around $6400.

This means that the IBM product line will have prices of $995,
$1400, $2000, $2600, $4800, and $6400. There are two gaps, the $2600 to
$4800 and $4800 to $6400.

Two new products will fill these gaps. The new PS/2 model 40, which
will probably be a laptop and will have a 286 CPU, 1MB of RAM, a
3.5 inch floppy disk and a 20MB hard disk, will have a price of
$3200.  This puts it well within the Toshiba 3100 price range,
which has pretty much the same specs. The new PS/2 model 70 is a
cheaper 386 system which has the same specs as the model 80 but may
also be a laptop with a plasma screen, using technology developed
after IBM's own plasma screen which is available with its bigger
3090 systems. This model will cost around $5200.

Additionally, we have heard that IBM may offer a 25MHz of the model
80 to be called PS/2 model 90, if and only if a 25MHz 386 CPU is
available from Intel. Although other manufacturers uprate their
CPUs on a individual basis, IBM prefers to offer products that are
conservatively built.

Thus with these product changes, IBM may offer a more coherent
product line than it is offering today. In fact, I have heard that
IBM was "forced" in launching the PS/2 series before the whole
range was ready because of market forces and fighting within the
company.

Whatever happens, IBM will (according to sources) announce the new
products within the next few months, with some models to be shown
at the Hanover Fair, in Germany, next month. NEWSBYTES will be
there to bring you daily reports. Just remember, you heard it here
first!

[***][2/16/88][***]
APPLE ANNOUNCES NEW COMMUNICATIONS PRODUCTS FOR EUROPE
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (NB) -- Apple announced new communications
products for the European market. The products include support
for IBM's SNA architecture with MacAPPC and support for VAXes with
the latest version of AppleTalk, version 2.0

MacAPPC, which supports LU6.2, IBM's SNA architecture, is offered
for all Macs, Mac SE, Mac+ and Mac II. MacAPPC, is offered with
Hypercard, Apple's unique program switching system.

Apple Talk for VMS, offers Apple support for systems running on
Digital's VAX mainframes.

Other products developed by independent developers include Touch
OSI, a tool kit which uses the OSI (Open System Interconnect)
standard that offers Macintosh developers special communications
tools that adhere to the OSI standard. OSI, which is the main and
only competitor to IBM's SNA, has been adopted by most vendors
which do not have to be compatible with IBM. A few years ago, even
IBM suggested that they were going to follow OSI in the future.

Mac3270, by Simware of Ontario, Canada, is a program that offers
3270 emulation for Macintoshes which need to become terminals to
an IBM system network. The system uses a conversion system, called
SIM3278, which, when installed on the mainframe, performs the
necessary translation for the Macs.

[***][2/16/88][***]
TOSHIBA ANNOUNCES NEW LASER PRINTER
NEUSS, WEST GERMANY (NB) -- Toshiba, the giant Japanese computer
manufacturer which also leads the way in the laptop marketplace
(one of which is used to write this article), has released a laser
printer capable of 12 pages/minute speed and which offers 512K of RAM and
up to 750 sheets of input paper. Emulations include HP, Qume Sprint
11, Diablo 630, and Toshiba P351 as well as IBM graphics commands.

Parallel and serial ports and an expansion to 1.5Mb of RAM
completes this laser printer, which will cost about BF190000 (or
about $6000).

[***][2/16/88][***]
ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES ANNOUNCES FERRANTI AS BETA SITE FOR Am29000
LONDON, ENGLAND (NB) -- AMD, one of the five largest semiconductor
manufacturers in the world, announced that Ferranti, the large
British computer manufacturer, is to use the Am29000, the world's
fastest 32 bit microprocessor, for a new series of graphics workstations.

The Am29000 uses Reduced Instruction Set CPU or RISC technology to
deliver speeds of up to 25 MIPS (million instruction per second),
according to AMD. The chip has been announced for over two years,
but it has only been available recently. The competition is
the CLIPPER from National (previously Fairchild), the IBM RISC
chip, the Motorola 68040 (not available yet), and the 32532 also
from National.

[***][2/16/88][***]
COMPUTER BRIEFS...

NIXDORF computer expects to pay unchanged dividends for 1987.
Analysts and industry watchers expect a healthy increase in profit
when it is announced in late March...

 ...TELEFON AB ERICSSON received an order from Mexico's telephone
networks worth US $170 million. The contract calls for the supply
of digital and analog switches to Mexico's telephone company,
Telefonos de Mexico...

 ...SCHNEIDER SA, the French giant electronics company and the
largest competitor of Amstrad (although in the past the two
companies had an agreement governing the sales of Amstrad's systems
in Europe) announced that it owns 12.1% of Telemecanique, a French
maker of electronics products...

 ...Olivetti has won a contract worth $70 trillion Italian lire or
$50 million for the maintenance of Barclays Bank's computer
systems...

 ...ANT Telecommunications of Backnang, West Germany, became a
member of the Bosch group of companies. ANT will display
communications systems, alphanumeric paging systems and telecontrol
systems at next month's Hanover Fair...

 ...Computer Associates will make its Project software package
available under the OS/2 operating system. Project/2 will be
available by the summer...

 ...Microsoft, suffering from bugs in its C compilers, has announced
fixes. Version 1.0C of the Quick C package is available to correct
problems when running on a system connected to a Western Digital
controller and a new version of the C compiler will correct problems
with its linkage to PLINK from Phoenix...

SHOWS COMING UP (and covered by NEWSBYTES)...

 February 23rd till February 26th, MICROTEX, Brussels, Belgium
 March 16th till March 23rd, HANOVER FAIR, Hanover, West Germany



[***][2/16/88][***]
IBM BOARDS THE UNIX EXPRESS
RYE BROOK, N.Y. (NB) -- International Business Machines Corp. is
making a pitch for the UNIX operating system, joining a growing
bandwagon that now includes Apple Computer, Microsoft, and Sun
Microsystems. William Lowe, IBM's personal computer chief, told
reporters at the UniForm UNIX conference in Dallas that "IBM
pledges to achieve a leadership role in the high-performance UNIX
workstation world." The vehicle for IBM's venture into UNIX is
the IBM PC RT, the reduced instruction set PC that IBM announced
two years ago. By next year, Lowe said, IBM AIX-family
workstations (AIX is Big Blue's dialect of UNIX) "will have more
than four times the performance and memory of today's RT PC."

At the same time, IBM announced that the National Bureau of
Standards in Gaithersburg, Md., will develop conformance tests
for UNIX-based software. The tests will measure how well programs
conform to proposed UNIX standards developed by the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Development work will be
done on a PC RT running IBM's AIX.

Also on the IBM front, there are persistent rumors in the
industry that IBM may have some new PS/2 hardware ready for
display to the public soon. Big Blue is already scheduled to
unveil some new OS software for its mainframes. But some who
follow the company are also expecting some announcements from the
low end, including, perhaps, a couple of models filling in the
holes in the PS/2 line and maybe some upgrades of 80286 machines
to the 80386 processor.

[***][2/16/88][***]
BRAZIL WARNS THAT TRADE SANCTIONS MAY BRING DEBT DEFAULT
WASHINGTON (NB) -- Officials in Brasilia are warning that U.S.
trade sanctions to be imposed because of barriers to U.S.
computer software could disrupt sensitive negotiations aimed at
restoring the country's foreign debt payments. Brazil has over
$115 billion in outstanding international debt, but has not been
making payments for a year. Science and Technology Minister Luis
Henrique da Silveira told United Press International in Brazil
that "the (United States') unilateral action concerning our
informatics policy would represent an obstacle for the continuity
of our foreign debt negotiations." The U.S. announced $105
million in tariffs last November in retaliation for Brazil's
refusal to allow imports of Microsoft's MS-DOS software.
Recently, Brazil relented on MS-DOS 3.0 and other Microsoft
products. Washington has said it still plans to impose sanctions,
but has not announced what products will be taxed. "The delay is
almost worse than the actual levying of sanctions," da Silveira
said.

[***][2/16/88][***]
X WINDOWS WINS BACKING
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (NB) -- A dozen major computer companies are
ponying up $150,000 each to support development of Massachusetts
Institute of Technology's X Windows as a standard for multiple
displays on computer screens. MIT has been developing X Windows
for three years. A standard will make it easier to write software
that will run on a variety of machines, X Windows developer
Robert Scheifler says. Joining the X Windows consortium are IBM,
Digital Equipment Corp., AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Sony,
Apollo, CalComp, Sequent Computer Systems, Sun Microsystems,
Tektronix, and Xerox.

[***][2/16/88][***]
ON-LINE BACKS CONTROVERSIAL PRINCIPAL
FORT LEE, N.J. (NB) -- On-Line Software International has
announced its support for controversial high school principal Joe
Clark of Patterson, N.J., by offering $1 million in scholarships
at Clark's Eastside High School. Jack Berdy, founder and chief
executive of the mainframe software company, said On-Line is
sponsoring the scholarships because Clark is "responsible for
restoring order and instruction to the school. What Mr. Clark is
doing is a step in the right direction and takes a lot of
courage." On-Line will award up to $100,000 a year over the next
10 years to students with superior academic records who plan to
study computer-related fields in college or university. The
Patterson school board has locked horns with the outspoken Clark,
and attempted to fire him, but the On-Line gift appears to have
played a role in persuading the board to keep Clark at Eastside
High.

[***][2/16/88][***]
MORE CHIP TALKS WITH JAPAN
WASHINGTON (NB) -- U.S. officials have begun another round of
semiconductor trade talks with their Japanese counterparts, but
little progress is expected. The U.S. claims Japan continues to
renege on the 1986 promise to buy more foreign chips, while Tokyo
claims it is doing all it can, while Washington is foot-dragging.
U.S. officials are shooting for a 20 percent goal for Japanese
purchases of foreign chips by 1990, but Japanese officials say a
quota system is not workable. Japanese officials say the U.S.
companies won't make special-purpose chips the Japanese need.
They also charge that the chip makers are so overwhelmed by U.S.
sales that they don't have chips left to see in Japan.

According to the Japan Electronics Industry Development
Association, personal computer exports to the U.S. were down 40
percent in the third quarter of fiscal 1987, a result of the 100
percent tariffs the U.S. imposed as part of its chip war with
Japan. The trade group said exports to the U.S. market accounted
for 42 per cent of total exports for the October-December period,
slipping before the 50 percent mark for the first time.

[***][2/16/88][***]
AIR FORCE TO LIFT LAPTOP MORATORIUM
WASHINGTON (NB) -- The Air Force will lift a moratorium on
purchases of Zenith's Z-248 laptop, according to GOVERNMENT
COMPUTER NEWS. The Air Force imposed the moratorium because
Pentagon staff had already bought 225,000 computers on a contract
that called for only 90,000 sales. But a close reading of the
contract has convinced procurement officials that there is no
ceiling on the contract, the publication said.

[***][2/16/88][***]
MAPINFO DEBUTS PC MAPPING PROGRAM
TROY, N.Y. (NB) -- MapInfo, a new program from MapInfo Corp.,
will analyze information in existing databases and visually
display the results in a variety of map formats. The $750 program
allows users to load in data from the keyboard, or directly from
dBase III files. The program will then locate a data point at any
street address on the map, search for points within specified
boundaries, window the data to the screen, and determine the
latitude or longitude of any point on the map. The software runs
on PCs and clones and requires 640 K of RAM and a hard disk. It
will run with Hercules monochrome graphics, or EGA color
graphics. Digitized maps are sold separately from between $95 and
$2000.

CONTACT: MapInfo Corp., 200 Broadway, Troy N.Y., 12180, 1-800-
         FAST-MAP (In N.Y., call 518-274-8673).

[***][2/16/88][***]
THE ELECTRONIC LEG IRON
WASHINGTON (NB) -- Since January, the U.S. Justice Department has
been tracking seven parolees in Miami and four in Los Angeles by
computer. A device attached to the parolee's ankle sends a signal
to the parolee's home telephone. That, in turn, relays the data
to a Justice Department computer. When contact is broken,
officials then try to reach the parolee. If that doesn't work,
the probation officer investigates. The program costs $5 to $10
per day per person, says the department, while halfway houses
cost at least $30 a day. Justice will add an additional 50
parolees to the test this spring, and evaluate it in 18 months.
About 7,000 federal parolees would be eligible for the program if
it is fully implemented.

[***][2/16/88][***]
NEWS NIBBLES FROM AROUND THE REGION

SYMBOLICS INC. of Cambridge, Mass., has announced a management
shake-up, with the chief executive officer and chief operating
officer both fired. Symbolics, which makes computers for
developing artificial intelligence programs, has been in a
financial tail spin, running in the red for six quarters.

DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP. of Maynard, Mass., has settled a patent
infringement suit with EMULEX CORP. of Costa Mesa, Calif., which
claimed that Emulex disk and tape drives violated DEC patents.
Emulex counter-sued and both suits were dropped in the
settlement. Emulex agreed to license certain Digital technology,
for an undisclosed sum.

PRIME COMPUTER of Natick, Mass., has formed a team of managers to
integrate Prime's operations with those of COMPUTERVISION CORP.
of Bedford, Mass., which Prime has acquired. The head of the
management team is DAvid J. Collard, Prime vice president.

STAR TECHNOLOGIES of Sterling, Va., will buy GENERAL ELECTRIC
CO.'s three-dimensional graphics processor business, Graphicon,
for an undisclosed sum. Star supplies array processors to the oil
industry, the defense and aerospace markets, and to scientific
and engineering laboratories.

[***][2/16/88][***]
APPLE ANNOUNCES A/UX - UNIX ON A MAC II
Hemel Hempstead, UK (NB) -- In one of its better-kept secrets,
Apple last week launched A/UX, an implementation of the Unix
operating system for the Mac II series.

A/UX enhances the Mac II's role as a full-function workstation
and means that users now have access to more than 3,000 Mac
packages plus A/UX applications for tasks such as relational
database management - all from the same system.

Keith Phillips, Apple UK's managing director, sees the Unix
implementation as important for Mac II market penetration into
large firms, engineering and governmental markets where Unix is
already popular:

"A/UX and the intuitive Macintosh user interface will expand the
number of users who can take advantage of the Unix operating
system," he said.  "Apple's creation of A/UX has been driven by
requests from our customers in government, higher education and
other channels - it illustrates our commitment to important
standards and to helping our customers get the most out of their
multi-vendor environments."

CONTACT:  Apple UK, Eastman Way, Hemel Hempstead,
          Hertfordshire HP2 7HQ.
          Tel: [phone].

[***][2/16/88][***]
COMPANY SPY CASE COMES TO COURT
Luton, Bedfordshire (NB) -- When can you tap a telephone or modem
conversation?  The answer, according to a Luton Crown Court
Judge, is when the conversation takes place over a cellular or
cordless telephone link.

In one of the most amazing industrial espionage cases to come to
the UK courts in recent years, Judge Rodwell, QC, jailed Micheal
Anderson, a former policeman and owner of a detective agency, for
12 months last week.  Nine months of Anderson's sentence are to
be suspended.

The jury in the case, believed to be the UK's first prosecution
for telephone tapping under the 1986 Interception of
Communications Act, were told that the Dixons electrical retail
group authorised dossiers of information to be compiled on
several senior staff who defected to the Comet electrical retail
group.

In the course of the case, it was discovered that Anderson set up
18 inch acoustic concentrator dishes nearby key executive's
houses - an activity defined (amazingly) as perfectly legal.
Also defined as legal was the listening in to cellular telephone
conversations, although Anderson's act of bugging the executive's
home telephone land lines was deemed illegal by Judge Rodwell.

Also discovered during the case was that British Telecom had
previously hired Anderson to investigate unauthorised monitoring
of the UK's cellular network.  NEWSBYTES UK's enquiries on the
matter have revealed one London firm selling special dual
receiver units which, when plugged into a PC, allow conversations
on cellular frequencies to be monitored and, when the user
switches cells, the PC tracks the call and switches the receivers
in parallel.

It now appears that monitoring cellular voice and data calls is
legal under UK law.  NEWSBYTES UK wonders how long before
specialised CB-style monitors begin appearing on the market.

[***][2/16/88][***]
MANDARIN BUDGET SOFTWARE COMPANY DEBUTS
Macclesfield, Cheshire (NB) -- A major new software house, armed
with a budget of #1 million, has been formed by Europress, the
company behind MicroLink and the Database Publications' series of
magazines.

Mandarin Software aims to pitch into the competitive, but
lucrative, budget games market in the UK.  The company's first
release will by Time & Magik, a three-part trilogy from Level 9
software.  The package includes three of Level 9's better-known
adventures - Lords of Time, Red Moon, and the Price of Magik.

What makes Time & Magik unusual is its availability on no less
than 13 different micros.  These include all three Amstrad
machines, Atari's XL/XE and ST range, Commodore's 64 and Amiga
machines, the Apple II and Macintosh, Sinclair Spectrum and even
an MSX tape.

Mandarin's Chris Payne sees the new company as drawing upon
Europress's existing sales and distribution expertise.  "Unlike
many other publishers, we find ourselves in the position that we
don't have to push out titles to maintain cash flow," he said.
"It's our aim that the label will become synonymous with quality,
providing the Rolls Royce of software," he added.

CONTACT: MANDARIN SOFTWARE, Europa House, Adlington Park,
         Adlington, Macclesfield, Cheshire SK10 4NP.
         Tel: [phone].

[***][2/16/88][***]
UK USERS HAPPIER WITH COMPUTERS - REPORT
Sutton, Surrey (NB) -- The UK's mini and mainframe computer users
are happier with their machines than they were in 1986, according
to a report published by Computer Weekly and Datapro.

The report shows that IBM maintained its number one position with
more than 83 per cent of users recommending their system to
others, with 91.6 per cent saying the system lived up to
expectations.

ICL showed some improvement in 1987, with 89 per cent of users
willing to recommend their system, compared with 66.7 per cent in
1986.  Tail position is occupied by Amdahl.  Despite a leading
position in the 1986 survey and highly successful year in the UK,
the company had the lowest mainframe satisfaction index, being
considered the least reliable and having the worst documentation.

Full results of the survey will be published in April in two
books - Datapro/70 and the Datapro Report on Minicomputers.

CONTACT:  DATAPRO SERVICES SA, Rue St-Martin 9,
          CH 1003, Lausanne, Switzerland.

          UK Contact - Ann Hawkins - Text 100, Tel: [phone].

[***][2/16/88][***]
PROCOMM PLUS SHIPS - DEMO PACKAGE AVAILABLE
Columbia, Mo, USA (NB) -- After months of waiting, NEWSBYTES UK
finally got its hands on Procomm Plus, the long-awaited
commercial version of Procomm, the PC shareware comms package.

As expected, the package has several improvements over the
original shareware version which is still being marketed and
supported by the company.

To help push Procomm Plus, the company is distributing a demo
version of the package - Procomm Plus Test Drive - in the US.
The package is forbidden to be distributed outside North America.
NEWSBYTES UK downloaded the package from a UK bulletin board,
only hours after it was made available from Datastorm's public
BBS.  This only goes to prove the power of electronic
distribution.  NEWSBYTES can report that copies are also
available on BBSs throughout Europe.

Is the package worth buying?  NEWSBYTES UK doesn't do reviews,
but since the Procomm Plus Test Drive is available for download
for free from several sources, it's certainly worth a download.

* NEWSBYTES UK would like to have asked Michele Monaco, Datastorm
Technologies' customer service manager - or, for that matter, any
other spokesperson for Datastorm - how the company intends to
market the product.  Unfortunately, we can't, as several phone
calls over recent months have failed to elicit any response or
phone calls in return.  Let's hope the customers of Datastorm
fare a lot better and can get past Datastorm's enquiry desk.

CONTACT: DATASTORM TECHNOLOGIES, PO Box 1471, Columbia,
         MO, United States.

         Tel: [phone] (Voice)
              0101-314-474-8477 (Data)
[***][2/16/88][***]
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+ BRITBYTES - Bytes of news from around the UK... +
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

BRITISH OLIVETTI of London has secured a deal worth #3 million to
install its ORS-500 stock control and point of sale system in B&Q
retail outlets.  Customers of B&Q, the largest DIY (Do It
Yourself) retailer in the UK, will be able to design their own
kitchens and carry out other tasks on the 80386-based Olivetti
M380C PCs linked into the EPOS (electronic point of sale)
network.

CABLE AND WIRELESS has signed a contract with TELECOM EIREANN to
land a spur of the PTAT-1 transatlantic fibre optic cable in the
south of Ireland.  The deal, witnessed by Charles Haughey, the
Irish Prime Minister, will mean clearer and cheaper
communications with Ireland to and from Europe, the UK and US,
once the cable is in use towards the middle of next year.

DATAPHONE of Peterborough (0733-230240 - Dialcom 72:MAG95608) has
launched the Designer modem.  The #100 unit offers 300/300,
1200/75 and 1200/1200 half duplex baud rates and can be
controlled by computer commands or via a series front panel
switches.

The EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY has granted the IRISH REPUBLIC a #2.6
million contract for a national micro electronics research centre
(NMRC) at Cork.  Under the contract, the university college of
Cork will design and test space satellite chips.  The contract is
the first for the republic since it joined the ESA in 1974.

FOCUS MAGAZINES of London will launch a Z88-specific magazine
next month.  The first issue of the magazine, which is aimed at
users of Sir Clive Sinclair's innovative laptop computer, will be
free.  The magazine's editor is Francis Jago, who is currently
editor of Popular Computing Weekly.

FRONTIER SOFTWARE of Harrogate (0423-67140) is now shipping the
SUPRA 2400 modem.  The #199-95 mini modem is capable of 1200 and
2400 baud full duplex and is fully Hayes compatible.  Frontier is
bundling a 25-way serial cable, Compuserve and OAG starter kits
free with the package, which offers good value for money in the
UK's expensive modem market.

The ISLE OF MAN has issued a new set of coinage depicting modern
life on the island.  The 50 pence coin has a PC as its motif,
whilst the #1 coin depicts a cordless phone in celebration of the
island's telecommunications services.

The MERCURYLINK electronic mail company of London has added three
new services for its subscribers: Faxlink - an outgoing link to
Group 3 fax machines, Infocheck - an online credit reference
service, and gateway access to the OAG (Official Airline Guide).
Pricing on the services is in line with other UK Email companies.

MICROSOFT's Word 4.0 evaluation kit looks to have been a runaway
success.  Buyers of the #15 package have been told that existing
kit supplies are exhausted and that delays are expected until the
next shipment arrives later this month.  Hardly surprising,
considering the evaluation kit is a fully-working version of the
#300 Word 4.0 package.  The kit version is limited only in the
size of files it can create and edit.

[***][2/16/88][***]
UK EVENTS FOR YOUR DIARY

Event:         Computer Fraud Investigation and Security
               Implementation
Dates:         London - 14/15 March 1988
               Zurich - 17/18 March 1988
Location:      London - Cafe Royale
               Zurich - Hotel Zurich
Organisers:    IBC Technical Services - 01-236-4080

Event:         18th Electron & BBC Micro User Show
Dates:         18/20 March 1988
Location:      Manchester - UMIST
Organisers:    Database Exhibitions - 0625-878888

Event:         The 5th Offshore Computers Exhibition & Conference
Dates:         22/24 March, 1988
Location:      Aberdeen - Exhibition and Conference Centre
Organisers:    Spearhead Group - 01-549-5831