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/nb880712.264

Text File | 1991-08-18 | 57KB | 1,161 lines

[***][7/12/88][***]
MACINTOSH TODAY HAS NO TOMORROW
SAN FRANCISCO (NB) -- It's curtains for the weekly Macintosh news tabloid
MACINTOSH TODAY unless a buyer is found fast.  That's the message emanating
from the publication's staff, who say the last issue will most likely
be the issue of July 18.  Falling revenues from slow ad sales and intense
competition from MACWEEK, 50% owned by rival Ziff Davis Publishing Company,
are said to have doomed the tabloid recently.  An IDG spokeswoman told
NEWSBYTES that there would be some official announcement regarding the
tabloid's future next week.

MACINTOSH TODAY, published since August, 1987, is sent free to qualified
subscribers.  The publication is said to have a distribution of 50,000
per week.  MACINTOSH TODAY, in its short life, achieved a measure of
notoriety when it published confidential documents regarding an Apple laptop
computer earlier this summer.
[***][7/12/88][***]
BUT MAC GETS MORE BEEF FROM ASHTON-TATE
TORRANCE, Ca. (NB) -- While the Macintosh market may not be big enough
to support two weekly Macintosh-specific tabloids, it's clearly big
enough for Ashton-Tate to take it seriously.  Ashton-Tate has
established a new Macintosh Software Division which will employ up to 100
people in software development, sales, and marketing.  Just named
to head up the new division is Terence Garnett, a venture capitalist.
Edward Esber, Ashton-Tate chairman, had been heading the division
since its founding in February.  Fullwrite Professional, acquired from
Ann Arbor Softworks, is currently Ashton-Tate's flagship Macintosh product.

Meanwhile, Ashton-Tate is offering a special deal to those well-heeled
enough to attend its September developer's conference.  Sign up now
(registration $795) and receive any of the following:  dBase IV Developer's
Edition, Framework III, or two Macintosh products.  The conference
is slated for September 13 through 16 at the Century Plaza Hotel in
Los Angeles.
[***][7/12/88][***]
SYMANTEC WINS ROUND ONE OF BROWN BAG SUIT
SANTA CLARA, Ca. (NB) -- Symantec is claiming its first victory in a
battle with Telemarketing Resources, a.k.a. Brown Bag Software, over
its GrandView, a "personal information management" product.  Brown
Bag had sought a court injunction against sale of GrandView while
other issues of contention were settled, claiming GrandView is too
similar to its own copyright on PC Outline.  Both products were
written by the same programmer, John Friend, who is also named in the
lawsuit. The judge, however, refused to grant the injunction.

"I wasn't extremely hopeful," Sandy Schupper, Telemarketing's
chairman said of the judge's decision. "But I'm not surprised," he
told NEWSBYTES.

Boasts Gordon Eubanks, Symantec's president, "We have always
had complete confidence that we would come out the winners in
this lawsuit."

Now attorneys from both sides will hammer out other issues in dispute,
issues of contract violation and copyright infringement.  The
court case is particularly intriguing because it is before the same
judge hearing Apple's "look and feel" lawsuit against Microsoft
and Hewlett Packard -- Judge Robert P. Aguilar.  And it's also
being argued by one of the same law firms in the Apple case --
Fenwick, Davis & West of Palo Alto.  They're the people arguing
for plaintiff Apple Computer in its "look and feel" dispute.  But
in the Symantec case, they're arguing for the defense.

Comments Telemarketing Resources attorney John Sutton, putting it
bluntly, "Lawyers play both sides of the street."
[***][7/12/88][***]
BROWN BAG GETS 7-FIGURE CASH INFUSION
CAMPBELL, Ca. (NB) -- Despite the ongoing lawsuit against Symantec
(see above story), Telemarketing Resources, d.b.a. Brown Bag
Software, is undaunted in its reach for market share, and has
received a big boost in that direction from venture capitalists.
The one million-plus investment, from an unnamed source, will be used
to launch a major advertising campaign, says Sandy Schupper, chairman
of the firm.  "We'll begin substantial print media campaigns in the
major computer publications and non-computer enthusiast publications
and increasing our own direct mailings of our newsletter."  He also
said Brown Bag would actively "seek out products and companies to
acquire," and will expand the management team.

Brown Bag publishes six shareware software packages for the PC:
PC Outline, HomeBase, PowerMenu, Goal Seeker, RamTest, and MindReader.
It has offices in five European cities as well as the U.S.
[***][7/12/88][***]
APPLE MOVES TO REPLACE BUGGY NEW SYSTEM SOFTWARE
CUPERTINO, Ca. (NB) -- Within two months of its release, version 6.0
of the Macintosh system software is being revised.  Numerous
complaints of bugs have prompted Apple Computer to promise an
update, version 6.01, by the end of July, just in time for the
ship date of the new Imagewriter LQ printer driver.

Users complained that version 6.0 had glaring problems with sound
files, script editing, color palette files, and MultiFinder.
Consequently, according to Apple spokeswoman Cynthia Macon, there
are a total of 19 patches in the new system software.
[***][7/12/88][***]
BRODERBUND'S NEW VENTURE BRINGS JAPANESE GAMES TO U.S.
SAN RAFAEL, Ca. (NB) -- Broderbund Software has established a joint
venture with 11 Japanese software producers to make English-
language versions of their games and sell them here in the U.S.
The new company to be based in San Rafael, Kyodai Software
Marketing, is funded by $1.5 million from all 12 firms involved.

Look for the first 12 titles, available for IBMs, Tandys, Apple IIGS,
Macintosh, Commodore 64, and Amiga computers,  to be available
early next year.

The 11 Japanese partners are Pony Canyon, MAC Inc., T & E Soft, Xtal
Soft, Game ARts Co., Kogado Studio, Telenet Japan, BPS Inc., Micro Cabin,
Riverhill Soft, and Nihon Falcom.

"Because of the yen-dollar relationship, the costs of doing the work
in Japan are prohibitive," Doug Carlston, chief executive of Broderbund,
says, explaining why the joint venture will be in San Rafael, Ca., not
Japan.
[***][7/12/88][***]
PUBLIC FAX MACHINES DEBUT
SANTA CLARA, Ca. (NB) -- Need to fax a document somewhere but you
don't have a fax machine handy?  A Santa Clara firm has the answer -- public,
credit card operated, fax machines located at airports, hotels, and
other public areas.   The machines combine facsimile capability with a
standard voice telephone and operate similar to the system used by
automatic teller machines -- insert credit card, push a few buttons, and
your transaction is done.  "We paid a lot of attention to ease of
use," A. Wayne Luke, vice president of sales and marketing, told
NEWSBYTES.  "The public doesn't want to fool around with something
that looks like a computer."

The two big advantages to its fax booths are cost and privacy, he
adds.  A hotel recently charged Luke $18 to send a 4-page facsimile
document.  The PayFax booths charge only $8 for 10 minutes -- usually
more than enough to send four pages -- and $.80 for each additional
minute.  And at hotels an operator normally has to send the document
for you -- a big disadvantage if you're sending something private.
These units are self-operated.

FaxPlus says the first PayFax machines have been installed at
four Bay Area hotels, including the Holiday Inn Golden Gateway in San
Francisco and the Hotel Sofitel in Redwood City, California. By the end
of the year, some 1,500 units are expected to be operating in 20 U.S.
cities and 20,000 installed by the end of 1992.

CONTACT:  Carole Hoffarth, for FAXPLUS, 415/893-3000
[***][7/12/88][***]
IN BRIEF --

APPLE COMPUTER, Cupertino, Ca., is expected to announce a new flatbed
optical scanner, a 60 megabyte tape drive, a new monochrome monitor,
and a high resolution monochrome video adapter as early as August at
the Boston MacWorld Expo.  Also in the wings are a new version of
HyperCard, and a Mac SE with 2 megabytes of memory and a 40 megabyte
internal hard drive.

COMPUTERLAND, Hayward, Ca., is expected to announce an initial public
stock offering underwritten by Salomon Brothers and Merrill Lynch
this week.  Stay tuned. This one will be hot.

HEWLETT PACKARD, Palo Alto, Ca., has raised the prices of some
memory boards by 2 to 25%, blaming the price hikes on the current
shortage of DRAM chips.  HP says "drastic wholesale price jumps"
have occurred and it's forced to pass along its cost.  HP is the
latest to hike prices due to the chip shortage, following the
footsteps of DEC, Apple, Sun Microsystems, and others.

TOSHIBA AMERICA, Irvine, Ca., is now packaging Microsoft Windows/386
with its Intel 80386-based T5100 portable personal computer.  The
bundling of the Windows program with the $7,499, 14.6-pound portable
represents "a new level of performance," says Dan Crane, Toshiba
spokesman.


[***][7/12/88][***]
INSIDE THE TANGENT COLLAPSE -- PC MACBRIDGE LIVES
ATLANTA (NB) -- The collapse of Tangent Technologies a few weeks
ago is a cautionary tale for those are are funding a high-tech
start-up. Tangent was organized as a partnership under Roland
Bates, general partner. Its main assets were the design secrets
of its PC MacBridge product, a link between IBMs and Macintoshes,
which sells well. Bates, in order to get working capital, used
those assets as collateral for loans from Guy Rhoad, an Atlanta
investor. Guy died and his son Hal took over the assets. Then
Bates missed payments, and Hal foreclosed on Tangent's product
line.

"We've already been reselling and re-licensing a lot of the
properties that Tangent developed," Rhoad told NEWSBYTES last
week. Andrew Lewis of Daystar Digital, which makes the Novi
accelerator card for the Mac, is acting as Rhoad's agent in the
matter. (Rhoad is in the steel business.) Lewis says he is
licensing Tangent's secrets on a non-exclusive basis, mainly to
companies which formerly did business with it. "We are in the
final stages of completing agreements," he says. "Everyone's
coming out ahead in this."

Well, not everyone. Certainly Tangent's former employees, like
Executive Vice President Guy Mariande, aren't coming out ahead.
And Tangent's old customers, who now have to seek support from a
non-operating company, aren't coming out ahead, either. But
Tangent's competitors and OEMs should do well, and users will
find the PC MacBridge architecture offered as a generic solution
at a competitive price -- so they should do well in the long run
as well.

Lewis, by the way, says he started Daystar as a board assembly
operation in 1984, and began making the MacBridge board for
Tangent as a licensee. He decided to make his own proprietary
products last year, and decided to concentrate on the Macintosh
because the market looked profitable.

CONTACT: Andrew Lewis, DAYSTAR, [phone]
[***][7/12/88][***]
EFT MARKET CONTINUES TO CONSOLIDATE
ATLANTA (NB) -- I know what you're thinking -- what's an EFT
market? It stands for Electronic Funds Transfer, and you use it
any time you put your bank card into an ATM machine, or buy
something with a credit card. EFT providers handle the paperwork
for both merchants and banks and can make money three ways --
from the transaction charge on your bank statement, the float on
your credit card billings, and the discount (usually 3 per cent)
taken off the top when merchants are paid off. This is in
addition to what the bank makes -- annual fees and interest at
up to 20 per cent. Once an EFT provider gets the computer running
at 100-200 transactions per second, this business can become a
license to print money, even at 5 cents or less per transaction.

But service charges run both ways, on you and the merchant who's
running your card. National Data, Atlanta, which recently backed
off a merger with Medco Containment of New Jersey, run by Wall
Street sharpie Martin Wygod, did its bit July 6 by buying
Chemical Bank's merchant files. Chemical will be content to
collect float and annual fees from you, while NDC makes more
money from the merchants. Neat deal both ways. It won't change
much in the competitive balance, however. Two banking companies,
Visa and American Express (through its FDR) subsidiary still
dominate the business.

One other thing. In this business, interesting players can come
out of any business, not just computing. Unocal, for instance,
last week announced its gas stations are becoming merchants of
J.C. Penney, which got into EFT by running its in-store credit
card system. (Name another EFT heavy-hitter. Sears, of course.)
To consumers, all this means is you can buy gas with a J.C. Penney
card. (As to consumers, the NDC deal means nothing.) To Penney,
it means their computers can now handle transactions on Visa,
MasterCard, American Express and Discover.
[***][7/12/88][***]
NASA CALLS IN THE FBI IN SEARCH FOR SCORE VIRUS' CREATOR
HOUSTON (NB) -- NASA has asked the FBI to investigate the
computer virus which destroyed data on its personal computers and
apparently originated as the attempt by an ex-employee to get
back at his employer, Electronic Data Systems (EDS). EDS found
the virus fairly quickly and wrote "Kill Scores," a program to
eliminate it, but not before it spread over electronic networks
to NASA and other installations. Some officials believe Scores
spread as government workers swapped software disks. It's more
likely that the virus escaped from EDS' control during routine
online transactions before the company knew about its existence
and created a program to eliminate it.
[***][7/12/88][***]
ROBOTS ARE OK (WHEW)
BEIJING (NB) -- Xinhua, the Chinese news agency, passed along the
results of a study by its State Science and Technology
Commission, to the effect that robots make more jobs than they
displace. In the U.S., the study said, robots displaced 4,000
people but created jobs for another 12,794. Jobs are displaced by
what robots do, but jobs are created by designing, creating, and
servicing the robots, as well as handling the profits of the
robot's new owner. If these tea leaves are any indication, it
means China is going to get into robotics Real Soon Now, probably
buying the technology and making them in China.

Another important point -- advanced societies think that their high
technology gives them a lead. But other countries can learn high
technology as easily as low technology. Information has been
defined as a universal asset in the past. Attempts by the Reagan
Administration to define information as a national asset (by
forbidding foreigners use of U.S. databases, for instance) may be
more a move in the course of business than anything sinister.
[***][7/12/88][***]
INTERGRAPH EQUIPMENT DESIGNING SPACE STATION
HUNTSVILLE, AL (NB) -- Huntsville, as a technology center, is the
product of space research from the 1960s, so maybe this story is
a bit of going back to the roots. Intergraph, the CAD station
maker and booster of the Fairchild Clipper chip, has won a
contract from Boeing for graphics workstations to be used in the
design of the Space Station NASA wants to build in the 1990s. The
system will run off a Digital Equipment Co. (DEC) VAX with
Intergraph's Engineering Modeling System (I/EMS). Boeing will use
the equipment to desing the station's the living environment,
airlocks, and other things. Intergraph did $641 million in
business last year.
[***][7/12/88][***]
THE NEW HAND HELD BAR CODE READERS WILL BE SLEEKER
CHARLOTTE, NC (NB) -- The new Micro-Wand III from Hand Held
Products fits in your shirt pocket, weighs 1/2 pound, and can be
dropped 7 feet onto hard concrete without being damaged. It reads
bar codes on an 8-bit chip, with up to 128 Kilobytes of storage,
a serial connection so you can just plug it in to
telecommunicate, a 2-line, 16 character display and two battery
systems -- a 9 volt main charger and a lithium back-up. Want to
know more? Check out your Federal Express guy's bar-code readers
the next few months -- when you see one that doesn't look like
the others, you've probably found it. Or ask any Nielsen family -
- they're being used in the new People Meter audience surveys.
[***][7/12/88][***]
THE CHIP SHORTAGE SPREADS -- NOW IT'S DELL
AUSTIN, TX (NB) -- Last week NEWSBYTES reported that peripherals
maker Quadram was unable to satisfy demand for popular products
because of the memory chip shortage. Now we've learned that Dell
Computer Corp. is having similar problems. Some machines are on
6-week back-order, and prices have jumped $300 per machine due to
the chip shortage.
[***][7/12/88][***]
PECAN CHIPS

BEEHIVE INTERNATIONAL, Salt Lake City, UT, is buzzing about
restructuring everything to make it all work better, supplying
IBM 3270-compatible terminals. The highlight is that it's farming
out manufacturing to a French firm, Alcatel.

BELLSOUTH, Atlanta, signed a deal with The Telephone Organization
of Thailand to help it plan the country's computer development
for the next decade.

EQUIFAX, Atlanta, bought NATIONAL DECISION SYSTEMS, a provider of
databases and digital support services. The credit check and
insurance records checking firm took a minority stake in NDS in
1986. Equifax has spent $50 million on 8 acquisitions so far in
1988.

INTERACTIVE FINANCIAL RESOURCES, Atlanta, bought Realworld Corp.,
a Chichester, NH-based software company whose management believes
in Scientology. The programmers write accounting software for
small businesses.

TANDY, Ft. Worth, completed the acquisition of GRID SYSTEMS,
Fremont, CA. Grid makes fancy, speedy laptop machines.

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, Dallas, signed a 7-year technology exchange
with Altera Corp., Santa Clara, for Eraseable chips you load
software in and put onto any inanimate object to make it
"smarter" (EPROMs). The deal involves cross-licensing patents and
rights to some existing products on both sides.



[***][7/12/88][***]
HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION: SELLING AMIGAS
TORONTO (NB) -- Commodore Business Machines will be sending more
than 30 high school, college and university students to Amiga
dealers' stores across Canada this summer to demonstrate the
Amiga 500.  Commodore says its Amiga Action Team program will run
until August 31 and focus on retailers serving the home market.
The students will work in designated territories across the
country, where they will give demonstrations and training on the
Amiga 500 and participate in special promotions and trade shows.

All members of the Amiga Action Team have completed a
comprehensive training program on the features, software,
applications, operation, care and maintenance of the 500,
according to Commodore.  They've also had some instruction in
presentation skills, promotions and merchandising.

CONTACT: COMMODORE BUSINESS MACHINES LTD., 3470 Pharmacy Ave.,
         Agincourt, Ont. M1W 3G3, [phone]
         Fax [phone]
[***][7/12/88][***]
COGNOS SIGNS DISTRIBUTOR FOR POWERHOUSE PC
OTTAWA (NB) -- Cognos Inc. has signed a distribution agreement
for its PowerHouse PC application development software with M.B.
Foster Associates Ltd. of Chesterville, Ont.  Foster will have
non-exclusive distribution rights across Canada for PowerHouse
PC, which runs on IBM PC ATs, IBM-compatible 286-based and 386-
based micros and the IBM PS/2 Model 50 and up.  The software
works under MS-DOS or OS/2, Cognos says, and applications
developed with it can be uploaded to larger computer systems.
PowerHouse is available for a range of mid-range computer
systems, including Digital Equipment Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co.
and Data General Corp. machines.

CONTACT: COGNOS INC., P.O. Box 9707, 3755 Riverside Dr.,
         Ottawa, Ont. K1G 3Z4, [phone]
[***][7/12/88][***]
SUN LAUNCHES NATIONWIDE VAR PROGRAM
MARKHAM, Ont. (NB) -- Sun Microsystems of Canada Inc. has
launched a value-added reseller (VAR) program intended to give
Sun more presence in vertical markets and general-purpose
computing.  The company is recruiting Canadian VARs with
experience in Unix and technical backgrounds.  Sun Canada says
the move is aimed at moving its workstation technology into
commercial applications "not previously served by Sun."  In
short, it's the next step in heating up the competition between
workstations and high-end personal computers.
[***][7/12/88][***]
PCANADA SIGNS AS AMIGA VAD, LAUNCHES PICTUREPOWER IN CANADA
TORONTO (NB) -- PCanada Systems Inc. has become a full-service
value-added dealer for Commodore Business Machines Ltd. and is
now carrying the Amiga line of personal computers.  PCanada is
also offering a hands-on course, Introduction to the Amiga, that
includes an explanation of Amiga DOS, use of the computer and
basic maintenance and diagnostic skills.  And the company will
provide bulletin board support for the Amiga on its PCanada BBS.

PCanada has also announced availability in Canada of
PicturePower-HC, from PictureWare Inc. of Bala Cynwyd, Pa.  The
picture database system runs on IBM PCs, ATs and compatibles with
640K (a hard disk is recommended).  A complete PicturePower
workstation also requires a video camera, digitizer board and
graphics monitor.

CONTACT: PCANADA SYSTEMS INC., 265 Nantucket Blvd.,
         Scarborough, Ont. M1P 2P2, [phone],
         Fax [phone]
[***][7/12/88][***]
COMPANY TO COMMERCIALIZE RESEARCH COUNCIL'S SOFTWARE
TORONTO (NB) -- P-CAN Research Inc. of Toronto will commercialize
a distributed operating system developed by Canada's National
Research Council, reports the journal CANADIAN ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE.  The system, called Harmony, allows different
machines to communicate and work together real time.  Developed
by the NRC's Division of Electrical Engineering for real-time
control of industrial and automation equipment, it is said to
have many applications in industry, communications and aerospace
command and control.

CONTACT: Fred Joneidi, P-CAN RESEARCH INC., [phone]
[***][7/12/88][***]
LEASING FIRMS PLAN MERGER
VANCOUVER (NB) -- Zed Data Leasing Corp. of Vancouver and Tokamak
Leasing Corp. of [TK] have announced they will merge July 31,
combining their regional data communications rental and sales
operations into one national company.

The two companies say  they have combined revenues of C$2 million
and a customer base spread across Canada.  They handle the full
line of products from Gandalf Data Inc., Alpha power supplies and
line conditioners, and Clever Cable products.

CONTACT: ZED DATA LEASING CORP., [phone]
[***][7/12/88][***]
BITS, EH?
-- HARTCO ENTERPRISES INC. of Montreal is preparing to expand its
chain of MicroAge computer store franchises.  Hartco is
advertising for sales and technical support people, networking
specialists and service and repair technicians at locations
across Canada.

-- THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO in London, Ont., has
installed the third supercomputer to go into a Canadian
university.  It's an ETA 10P from ETA Systems Inc., a subsidiary
of Control Data Corp. of Minneapolis.  The University of Calgary
and the University of Toronto also have supercomputers, both from
Cray Research.

-- NOVATEL COMMUNICATIONS INC., Calgary-based maker of cellular
telephones, has licensed voice recognition technology from AT&T
for use in its cellular phones.  AT&T will develop the interface
between its technology and the NovAtel products.  The idea is to
make cellular phones respond to spoken commands -- a safer
arrangement for drivers than having to dial them by hand.

-- BELL-NORTHERN RESEARCH of Ottawa claims to have developed the
world's fastest implementation of the Rivest-Shamir-Adleman
algorithm, used to encrypt voice and data communications.  BNR
says the algorithm will be used to secure communications in
Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) applications.



[***][7/12/88][***]
NEC TO RELEASE LOW COST 32-BIT COMPUTERS
TOKYO (NB) -- NEC has developed two 32-bit, 80386-based personal
computers which are a breakthrough in price and performance in the
PC industry.  The PC-9801RA2 and the PC-9801RA5 come with
Japanese MS-OS/2 and Japanese MS-Windows/386.  Further, they can
run the PC-UX/V Rel 3.0 operating system which performs
multitasking and is multiuser.  The units' memory can be expanded
to 12.6 megabytes.

The PC-9801RA2 comes standard with two, 1 megabyte 5.25-inch
floppy disk drives (FDDs), and the PC-9801RA5, a 40 megabyte 3.5-
inch hard disk drive (HDD) and a 1 megabyte 5.25-inch FDD.  The
former will be priced at 498,000 yen or $3,700, and the latter,
736,000 yen or $5,500, with the release date in the middle of
this month.

CONTACT: NEC, 1-4-28 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108
[***][7/12/88][***]
JAPAN AND U.S. TEAM UP TO DEFEND ADA
TOKYO (NB) -- There is a move afoot to standardize the programming
language used in U.S. and Japanese defense circles.  According to
the NIKKEI newspaper, the Japanese Defence Agency and about 30
companies including Japan's telecom giant NTT, Mitsubishi, and
Fujitsu, have signed an agreement to jointly perform research on the
next-generation programming language ADA. They will establish a
study group as early as next month.

ADA was developed by the U.S. Department of Defence which has
adopted it as its official programming language. ADA is a ultra-
high level language which was created for large scale defense
systems in which parallel processing and exception processing are
featured.

CONTACT: Defence Agency, 9-7-45 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo
[***][7/12/88][***]
AMERICAN CHIP MAKERS BATTLE FOR TURF IN JAPAN
TOKYO (NB) -- Several American MPU manufacturers are slugging it
out for a lion's share of the Japanese microcomputer market.
The top two contestants are Motorola, which expects to see sales
of its 68020 microprocessor jump by six or seven times this year
compared to last.  Closely on Motorola's heels is Intel, hawking
its 80386, spurred on by brisk sales of IBM's PS/2 family of
computers.  The intense competition has caused some price cutting
despite the DRAM chip shortage.  The dealing price of the MC68020
has fallen to 20,000 yen or $150, which is half the price of
six months ago.  But 80386 has kept a steady price of 40,000
yen or $300 due to the shortage.  Intel's latest punch at Motorola
is its low-priced version of the 80386, the 80386 SX, which is
going for 30,000 yen or $220.
[***][7/12/88][***]
BIG SOFTWARE PROJECT GOING TO THE PHILIPPINES
TOKYO (NB) -- Tokyo-based data processing venture TSD has signed
a major software development agreement with Philippine Software
Associates (PSA) in Manila.  PSA is the Philippines' largest
software house, with 13 separate companies and control of 90%
of the software market in that country.  Making them even larger,
PSA will get one fifth of TSD's software development projects, a
contract estimated to be worth six billion yen in five years.

The reason for TSD's decision to entrust so much software development
to the Philippines is obvious -- cost.  It costs one tenth as much
for a software project to be performed there than in Japan, and
PSA also has an abundant supply of software engineers.

CONTACT: TSD, 1-31-4 Takadanobaba, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
[***][7/12/88][***]
<< SUSHI BYTES >>


FUJITSU TO DEVELOP IBM-LIKE 32-BIT BUS -- Fujitsu will develop an original
high-speed bus for 32-bit personal computers, reports the
NIKKEI newspaper.  Fujitsu has decided to take a different approach
from that of other companies cloning IBM's Micro Channel.  The
firm plans to introduce its clone only in Japan, according to the
report.

LABORATORY FOR FUZZY LOGIC EMERGES -- The Science and Technology Agency
has established a study group for fuzzy logic.   The group will perform
a year-long research study.  The fuzzy computer theoretically will
understand ambiguous data, such as human experiences, which other
kinds of machines cannot.

TV TELEPHONE TO BE RELEASED -- International Video Com, a subsidiary
of KDD, has released a TV/telephone system called the INVITE 64
overseas.  KDD developed the TV system, which can transfer voice and
moving pictures at 64 kilobit per second.   The system is designed
for use on integrated service digital network (ISDN) terminals, for it
has the same transfer speed as that of ISDN.

PC WHITE PAPER WAS ISSUED -- The Japan Personal Computer Association
(JPSA) has published an English version of its PC white paper, "Emerging
Personal Computer Opportunities in Japan Hardware/Software 1988."
It has seven chapters which describe marketing information for
hardware and software, standardization problems, support systems,
copyright, and so on.  Also, it contains a history of how
American companies, such as IBM and Lotus, have entered the Japanese
market.  The total 546-page PC white paper is priced at 400,000 yen or
$3,000.

OKI PARTICIPATES IN TRON PROJECT -- Oki Electric has signed an
agreement with G Micro Family, which includes Hitachi, Fujitsu, and
Mitsubishi, to jointly develop a 32-bit TRON microprocessing unit
(MPU).

NEC SINGAPORE TO START 1M DRAM PRODUCTION SOON -- The latest
production line of NEC Singapore will be completed soon.  To start,
monthly production of 256 kilobit dynamic RAMs (DRAMs) will be
doubled to 3 million, and 1 megabit DRAMs start at half a million
units per month.

FUJITSU WORKS OUT PC TACTICS -- Fujitsu has announced
compatibility between its personal computer FACOM-9450 and Work
Station G series.  Fujitsu is aiming to allow users of 9450 to talk
with G series users, and hopes to sell its FMR series to personal
computer users.

APOLLO ASSEMBLES SERIES 3000 IN CHINA -- Apollo Computer of the U.S.
has signed an agreement to establish a manufacturing facility in China.
The Chinese factory will assemble series 3000 PWS with production kits
shipped by the U.S. factories of Apollo.


[***][7/12/88][***]
EEC BLITZES DAISYWHEELS WITH 43.2 PER CENT LEVY
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (NB) -- Barely is the ink dry on the 33.4 per
cent levy on Japanese-produced dot matrix printers (imposed
earlier this year), than the EEC has slapped a provisional 43.2
per cent levy on Japanese daisywheel printers sold within the
European Economic Community.

Two Japanese companies - Juki and Tokyo Electric - will only have
to suffer a 12.4 per cent levy on their printers. These
companies, said the EEC last week, cooperated with the anti-
dumping investigation, and provided profit figures for officials
to view. Other Japanese daisywheel printer manufacturers have
not, say the EEC, cooperated and could face a final levy as high
as 58 per cent.

Why the levy? The reason, say EEC officials, is that Japanese
printer manufacturers have been dumping excess production in the
European markets. This has adversely affected European printer
manufacturers in terms of sales and future profits.
Currently there are only two main manufacturers in the EC,
Olivetti and Adler. Japanese daisywheel printer manufacturers
currently hold 74% of the European market.

The result of the levy isn't likely to be felt in the shops in
the UK and Europe for a few weeks, so, if you were planning on
buying a daisywheel printer, now could the time to buy...
[***][7/12/88][***]
EC PROPOSES TOUGH MEASURES AGAINST COPYRIGHT BREACHES
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (NB) -- The European Community (EC)
has proposed tough new copyright laws to the GATT trading body
which controls world trade.  The EC believes the problem of
copyright violation is rampant from video copying stores in
Japan to software copying emporiums in Southeast Asia.

The EC has proposed that all nations adhere to the rules
set down in the Berne Convention for the Protection of
Literary and Artistic works. It also adds its own set of
rules to make up for the various loopholes that scattered in the
Berne decrees, loopholes pertaining to criminal penalties for
those found to pirate, counterfeit or steal protected works.

Although most countries agreed with the proposals, most
developing countries think the new measures are too
stringent.  Brazil, to many a hotbed of piracy, has decided
against the tough, international copyright laws.  So it
may be a tough fight ahead.
[***][7/12/88][***]
EUROPEAN MINISTERS GIVE GREEN LIGHT TO COMMS PAPER
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (NB) -- The EC gave the green light to
the Communications Green Paper during its meeting in
Luxembourg. The European ministers adopted the following
points:

 - to develop an open Community-wide market for telecomms equipment

 - to create an open Community-wide market for telecommunications services

 - to intensify community measures regarding common standards in
 telecommunications

 - to further stimulate European cooperation at all levels between
 telecommunications administrations and others

 - to intensify applications of advanced communications for the less-
 favored regions

 - to establish single emergency call number accessible from all member
 states

 - to expand current high-speed links into a general, powerful
 telecommunications infrastructure

 - increase efforts to prepare high-definition television

The Commission considers the meeting of the telecommunications ministers
as the first step toward 1992, the year when Europe becomes a single
market, meaning there will be no borders and trade will be freely
conducted.
[***][7/12/88][***]
FORCE COMPUTERS ANNOUNCES OS/9 FOR ITS SYSTEMS
MUNICH, WEST GERMANY (NB) -- Force Computers has announced the
availability of OS/9 for its  16-bit and 32-bit systems.
Professional OS/9, as the system is called, uses a real-time kernel
which supports a full-feature development environment. It is an ideal
environment for the development of real-time applications. OS/9
provides a "ROMable" structure which can be used to develop real-time
embedded control applications. With the development environment
being compatible to the target environment, updating and
tuning of the application becomes a relatively simple task.

OS/9 combines new operating system concepts and real-time capabilities
using an architecture similar to UNIX. OS/9, similar to QNX (from
Quantum, Toronto, Canada), follows a complete real-time kernel which
today's UNIX just cannot do. In addition, OS/9, which was
written by Microware, has a UNIX-like user interface and file structure.
[***][7/12/88][***]
LATTICE ANNOUNCES SECRETDISK II AND COMPILER TOOLS
LONDON, UK (NB) -- Lattice, the C compiler company, has announced
two new additions to its product line, the Secret Disk II administrator
package and a set of compiler tools.

SecretDisk II is data security administrator which employs
a master key for encryption of sensitive data. The
password is operated during decryption when it is used to
reproduce the original data intact. "SecretDisk II gives
corporate users a new level of data security," said Wayne
Nartker, Lattice's marketing manager. "While SecretDisk II
protects the data, the SecretDisk II administrator
protects the users from the loss of encrypted information
due to a lost password or user mistakes," he continued.

The SecretDisk II administrator is priced at #395 and is
available from Lattice and its distributors around Europe.

Lattice also announced the Compiler companion, a program
which contains various UNIX-like tools for the MS-DOS
operating system. These include EXTRACT (extracts file
names from a directory), BUILD (builds files with commands
inserter with filenames), DIFF (finds differences in
files), LMK (lattice make utility) and many others. The
Compiler companion costs #79.
[***][7/12/88][***]
CHIP MAGAZINE NAMES SCHNEIDER PC1640 NUMBER ONE
MUNICH, GERMANY (NB) -- CHIP magazine, in its monthly best-
seller list, placed the Schneider 1640 as number one PC,
followed by the Amiga 2000, the Commodore PC20, and the
Commodore PC40. Thus Commodore currently holds the first three
places in Germany, thereby securing its place as the top
computer company in Germany.

The list continues with the Compaq Deskpro 286, the Zenith
EazyPC, the Atari Mega ST, the PS/2 model 60, the Tandon PCA and the
PS/2 Model 30, further confirming the dissatisfaction users have shown
about the new IBM products. You may remember that the PS/2 line used
to be number one, but after the initial euphoria, the PS/2 systems
have reached a plateau at number 8 and number 10 respectively.
[***][7/12/88][***]
AMD DOES NOT CONFIRM RUMOUR ON 24MHZ 286 CHIP
PARIS, FRANCE (NB) -- Advanced Micro Devices has refused to
confirm or deny a rumour that has been rampant concerning an
upcoming announcement of 20MHz and 24MHz 80286 chips.  An
Advanced Micro Devices spokesman told NEWSBYTES EUROPE previously
that the '286 could be pushed to a maximum of 50MHz by decreasing
MOS in the process lines.

However, it has since surfaced that the biggest problem in
increasing the speed are bugs that exist within the original Intel
design. It is for this reason that any faster versions will have to
be tested for a longer period than previously necessary. It is expected
that the 24MHz chip may be available towards the end of 1988.
Currently, Harris and AMD both offer 16MHz parts, the first can be
pushed to 20MHz (similar to Dell's new 286 system) while the latter can
be operated at a maximum of 18MHz.
[***][7/12/88][***]
EUROBITS....

    FORCE COMPUTERS has issued the second training
schedule for 1988. All the training is based in Munich and
covers their complete range of VME boards, UNIX and
computers languages. CONTACT: Force Computers,
Daimlestrasse 9, D-8012 Ottobrunn/Munich, West Germany....

    ...ASEM INDUSTRIA announced an IBM PC-compatible
system for industrial applications based on Eurocards. The
company also manufactures industrial cards including
analog and digital interfaces for the PC bus, and similar
cards for the Eurocard format. CONTACT: E. Benzoni, Via
Nazionale 21, 33010 Reana, Italy...

    ...COMMODORE COMPUTERS announced that the company will
be sponsoring the WHITBREAD AROUND THE WORLD yacht race for
1989 with a 17.56 meter yacht skippered by Bruno Dubois,
a Frenchman well known in nautical circles. The yachts are
set to leave on September 2nd, 1989 ....

    ...the 2480 x 3500 pixel EXACT 8000 display screen
which is able to reproduce 300 dpi laser printer quality
on screen, is now available in Europe. Manufactured by
FLANDERS RESEARCH INC. in New Jersey (USA), the product is
now available in Germany....

    ...the ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES vs. INTEL case on
whether AMD can distribute the 386 chip took a turn for the better
(or different) last week when the 64 year-old judge married a 28
year-old woman and flew off to Acapulco for the honeymoon.....

    ...just so that you know what is meant by modern board integration,
listen to this. The ETA SYSTEMS' (a subsidiary of CDC, Munich)  main
board, which holds the entire system, has 44 layers, 240 20,000 CMOS
gate arrays in 284 pin sockets which are bonded on the board, 26,000
interconnects with 1.6 miles of copper used, 43,000 through
holes (from layer to layer) all cooled in liquid nitrogen
at about 250 C below...

    ...TANDON is expected to announce in the next few months a PAC-type
hard disk system for the Apple Macintosh series. PACs are removable,
30MB "go anywhere" hard disks (even on UA flights) ...

    ...Believe it or not, a CHIP magazine survey (based on 6,000
readers)  has ATARI as the company from which most people would buy a
computer manual, ZENITH as the company with the best manuals, TANDON with
the best dealer service, ZENITH with the least problems, IBM with the
highest repair costs and COMPAQ with the most knowledgeable dealers...

    ...STORAGETEK announced three printers for DEC computers. The 5000/021,
5000/028 and 5000/050 are designed for DEC systems and offer 2,100 to
5,000 lines per minute output. In a related story, XEROX has chosen
StorageTek as its supplier for the 4980, tape cartridge system...

    ...POSITRONICA announced a VGA board that sports VRAM
for IBM PCs and compatibles. The V-RAM VGA board which is
built by Video Seven, offers a clock rate of 65MHz and
offers a maximum resolution of 720 x 540 in 256 colors...

    ...and finally, the Toshiba 1000 which is used to
create this NEWSBYTES EUROPE report has been enhanced with
the addition of a 2400bps modem that works anywhere in the
world. It is used to send this report to the office in San
Francisco with no missed characters.



[***][7/12/88][***]
MACINTOSHES RUNNING IN PARALLEL WITH LINDA *EXCLUSIVE*
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (NB) -- According to David Gelernter of the Yale
computer science department, researchers in Bogota, Columbia,
have put together a network of Macintosh SE personal computers
that runs as a parallel processing machine. What makes this
possible is a version of the parallel processing language, Linda,
that Gelernter developed at Yale. Gelernter told NEWSBYTES that a
Bolivian scientist will be visiting his lab in Yale to describe
the Mac project. Recently, scientists at Sandia National
Laboratory in New Mexico and California used Linda to link a
series of VAX computers, and outperformed the Sandia Cray-1
supercomputer on a modeling problem.

Gelernter says Linda is both machine and language independent. So
far, versions of Linda have been written to work with C, FORTRAN,
Lisp, and Modula II. Linda adds extensions to the language that
speed up communications and coordination in a program, through a
concept called "tuple space." Tuple space, he explains, is a bit
like a bulletin board, as opposed to conventional communication
in programs, which is more like a telephone. "You don't have to
dial a number or have an address, and you don't have to
synchronize with the recipient of the message. You can tack the
data to the bulletin board whenever you want, and the reader can
read it whenever he wants." Gelernter says he is convinced that
users soon will be linking personal computers into parallel
processing networks, and then crunching problems the previously
could only be handled on supercomputers.
[***][7/12/88][***]
650-MEGABYTE, REWRITABLE LASER DISK DRIVE COMING IN NOVEMBER
NEW YORK (NB) -- Advanced Graphic Applications Inc. plans to hit
the PC market with a 650-megabyte, 5.25-inch rewritable laser
disk drive around November, according to President Alan Goldrich.
Goldrich says the laser drive "will be a standard DOS device, or
a standard OS/2 device," and will be priced initially at $4,995.
Goldrich says his firm has been working closely with Olympus and
3M on the project, with the support of Sony, Maxtor, and Fujitsu.
The hardware will include the drive, the controller, and the
device driver and software will include a utility that allows the
user to partition the disks with no regard to the DOS limit of
32 megabytes.

"We have rewritten sectors over 1.5 million times," Goldrich told
NEWSBYTES, "and with no data loss or degradation. We have run
Flight Simulator on it, run it on networks. There have been no
problems." According to Goldrich, Advanced Graphic Applications
has been in business since 1984 and currently employs 50, most of
them engineers. "We are recognized as the premier driver and
controller manufacturer in optical technology," he said.

CONTACT: Advanced Graphic Applications Inc., 90 5th Ave., New
         York NY 10011, [phone]
[***][7/12/88][***]
PEROT VOWS "WARFARE IN THE STREETS" AGAINST EDS
WASHINGTON (NB) -- Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot is furious
following a decision by the General Services Administration's
Board of Contract Appeals to suspend his non-competitive contract
with the U.S. Postal Service. The cancellation came after a
complaint by Electronic Data Systems, the company Perot founded
and sold to General Motors. The contract to discover and
implement cost-saving measures at the Post Office has also
stirred criticism on Capitol Hill. Under the contract, Perot's
new firm, Perot Systems Corp., would get $500,000 for a 90-day
study of streamlining measures. Then Perot would share in the
cost savings as it worked with the Post Office to implement the
measures.

Perot angrily told the "Wall Street Journal" that he
now intends to compete directly with EDS for commercial computer
contracts. Perot is prohibited from launching a profit-making
business before December 1989 under the terms of his GM buy-out.
But the feisty computer executive said he would take on EDS as a
non-profit. "You're going to see warfare in the streets," Perot
told the newspaper. In the meantime, the Postal Service has asked
a federal appeals court to rule that GSA doesn't have
jurisdiction over Postal Service contracts. More fireworks to
come.
[***][7/12/88][***]
NYNEX CLOSES OFFICE OVER VDT LAW
NEW YORK (NB) -- New York Telephone Co., a division of Nynex
Corp., says it will close a 125-person directory assistance
operation in Suffolk County, Long Island, because of the county's
new VDT law. New York Telephone said in a statement that the
restrictions on VDT usage contained in the new law impose
"unnecessary costs" that will be passed on to customers. Thomas
Calabrese, the company's Long Island general manager, said other
company operation in Suffolk County will be looked at on a "case-
by-case basis as they come up." The county VDT bill, the first in
the nation, requires businesses with 20 or more terminals to
offer visual rest breaks, non-glare screen, and pay for eye care.

In the meantime, the Communications Workers of America, which was
a significant force in getting Suffolk County's law passed, has
moved its campaign for VDT relief to New Jersey. Public employees
from New Jersey are asking the state to protect them from hazards
of VDTs, and Vincent Trivelli, New Jersey political and
legislative coordinator for the CWA, accuses the state of foot
dragging. "They keep telling us they need more time to study the
issue," he said. "That's just not a sufficient explanation."
[***][7/12/88][***]
FEDS BEGIN DATA SECURITY PROGRAM
WASHINGTON (NB) -- Federal agencies, under the guidance of the
National Bureau of Standards and the National Security Agency,
have begun implementing a far-flung program aimed at protecting
the sensitive data in government systems. The massive effort is a
result of a new law enacted this year requiring agencies to
create training programs and awareness activities, identify
systems, and write a security plan for each system. The plans are
due at NBS and NSA by January 1, 1989. According to Stuart Katzke
of NBS, the security plans should help agencies guard against
break-ins by "hackers" and protect against computer viruses. Both
maladies have hit federal agencies recently, with breaches of
military networks by outsiders and the spread of the scores virus
through NASA and other computers.
[***][7/12/88][***]
NEW YORK TIMES DISCOVERS VIRUSES
NEW YORK (NB) -- "The New York Times" has published a story that
makes much of the fact that NASA has brought in the FBI to help
discover the source of the scores virus that has infected space
agency computers and migrated to other agencies as well. Both the
Associated Press and United Press International thought the
Times' piece was so newsworthy that they offered rewritten
versions, crediting the venerable NYT, or course. However, the
story has been written before, including in NEWSBYTES East weeks
ago. Guess you can fool both of the wires, some of the time.
[***][7/12/88][***]
CENSUS SHIPS SECOND CD ROM
SUITLAND, Md. (NB) -- The Census Bureau has sent 1400 federal
depository libraries CD ROMs containing 1982 retail trade and
agriculture data in Dbase format. Earlier the agency shipped the
libraries a CD ROM with other important census data. A private
vendor, Chadwyck-Healey Inc. of Alexandria, Va., is selling
Australian-developed software that will allow users to analyze
the Census data in several important ways, including mapping the
data block-by-block. The software, Supermap U.S.A., also has
sophisticated graphics capabilities. The price for a full-up
version of Supermap U.S.A. is $2,730.

CONTACT: Chadwyck-Healey Inc., 1101 King St., Alexandria VA
         22314, [phone].
[***][7/12/88][***]
EASY PASSAGE OF COMPUTER PRIVACY ACT EXPECTED
WASHINGTON (NB) -- Watch for quick House passage sometime this
summer of a bill to regulate the way federal agencies use
computer matches to ferret out fraud. The measure, "The Computer
Matching and Privacy Protection Act" (HR 4699), has passed the
House Government Operations Committee and is ready for floor
action. It is not expected to be a controversial measure and may
be put on the "suspensions calendar," which would streamline the
line. A similar measure (S. 496) has passed the Senate. The
Reagan administration supports the bill.
[***][7/12/88][***]
BYTE TO DO FIFTH IBM SPECIAL ISSUE
PETERBOROUGH, N.H. (NB) -- "Byte" Magazine, the flagship
publication of the personal computer business, will publish its
fifth annual IBM issue in October. The issue comes in addition to
the regular 12 monthly issues. "Byte" says the special issue will
have three sections: trends, technology, and techniques.
Publisher McGraw-Hill says that it will distribute over 400,000
copies of the issue in October, and will pass out copies during
Fall COMDEX. The ad closing date is August 24. "Byte" has been
publishing since 1975, the Stone Age of personal computers.
[***][7/12/88][***]
NEWS NIBBLES

APOLLO COMPUTER INC., Chelmsford, Mass., says it will show a
second quarter loss of $5 million to $8 million, due to slow
sales and problems with the firm's subsidiary in West Germany.

GTECH CORP., Providence, R.I., has won a $19.3 million contract
to supply computer services for the Colorado Lotto game. But the
contract was the bone of contention in a political battle between
Colorado House Speaker Carl "Bev" Bledsoe and Gov. Roy Romer.
State Lottery Director Sherry Harrington was suspended from her
job during the dispute, for allegedly attempting to influence the
state to avoid GTECH.

Arbitrators are holding secret hearings to draw the ground rules
under which IBM, of New York, must grant its bitter rival,
FUJITSU of Tokyo, access to the IBM operating system software for
its mainframe computers. The arbitration is part of a settlement
of a long-standing suit over copyright and patent infringement.

INTERLEAF, INC., Cambridge, Mass., has sold $1.2 million in
electronic publishing hardware and software to LEXI-TECH, INC.,
Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. It will be used in publishing
bilingual technical matter.



[***][7/12/88][***]
ALDUS FORMS EUROPEAN SUBSIDIARY
HAMBURG, WEST GERMANY (NB) -- Aldus Corporation has formed Aldus
Software, its third European subsidiary, to be based in Hamburg,
West Germany. The new company joins Aldus Europe in the UK and
Aldus Manutius in Sweden.

The formation of the new European division is to designed service
the growing desktop publishing community in West Germany,
according to Paul Brainerd, Aldus Corporation's president.

"Aldus recognises the growing market in Germany for desktop
publishing. By establishing Aldus Software, we can provide
enhanced support to more European customers and distributors,"
he said.

CONTACT: ALDUS EUROPE - 01-748-9898
         ALDUS CORPORATION - 0101-206-622-5500
[***][7/12/88][***]
ARGUS COMMUNICATOR DEBUTS
CHELTENHAM, UK (NB) -- BTV Electronic has unveiled an intriguing
product, the Argus Communicator, a self-contained BBS/electronic
mail system.

The #599 box of tricks attaches to a PC for reading and/or
editing of the system, but is able to act as a BBS (using a
suitable modem) in its own right. In addition to this, the
Communicator can process electronic mail and other tasks
requiring the use of a modem, leaving the PC to get on with other
applications.

The system includes 32K of system Rom and 32K (expandable to
256K) of battery-backed C-Mos Ram. This allows messages and/or
files to be received or transmitted to the modem and/or PC as
required, but makes the system independent of the PC in terms of
usage.

NEWSBYTES UK notes that it's possible to commission a BBS or
similar system for around the same price, but the Argus
Communicator does offer some intriguing possibilities.

CONTACT: BTV ELECTRONIC LIMITED, 15 St. Georges Road,
         Cheltenham GL50 3DT.       Tel: [phone].
[***][7/12/88][***]
OLIVETTI LAUNCHES DTP TRAINING AND HELPLINE
LONDON, UK (NB) -- British Olivetti has launched a desktop
publishing (DTP) training and help-line service. The service will,
says Olivetti, enable business people to get better value from
their investment in DTP products.

Olivetti's DTP scheme centres around a three-day intensive
training course taking users from basic skills through to
advanced use of Aldus Pagemaker or Xerox Ventura. The course will
include extensive training in advanced laser printer and scanner
design techniques, according to Sam Howle, Olivetti's training
and help-line product manager.

The bad news is that the courses are a bit pricey at #695 per
person, although services can still be purchased separately. A
one year subscription to the telephone help-line, for example,
costs #295.

CONTACT: BRITISH OLIVETTI TRAINING - 01-434-0831

[***][7/12/88][***]
NEC HIKES ITS PRICES - BLAMES DRAM CHIP SHORTAGE
LONDON, UK (NB) -- And as if the EEC daisywheel levy isn't bad
enough news (see NEWSBYTES-EUROPE), NEC has announced price increases
on several of its Pinwriter dot matrix and LED printer series.

The increases, which took effect from 1 July, push the P6 and P7
Plus printers from #599 and #765 to #649 and #839 respectively.
The LED-equipped LC866+ and LC890 meanwhile, rise #500 to #2,995
and #4,495 respectively

Why the price rises? "It all down to the massive increase in the
price of DRAM chips this past year," said an apologetic John
McGrath, manager of NEC's peripherals division. "The LED printers
contain between 1.5 and 3Mb of chips as a Ram buffer and that's
what has pushed the price up," he told NEWSBYTES UK.

As with the daisywheel price rises, the NEC printer price hikes
are effective from company end of the distribution chain, so
there's a good chance of snapping a pre-price rise unit within
then next few weeks. The good news is that the price of NEC's
Pinwriter P2200 and P9 units remains unchanged.

CONTACT: NEC UK, NEC House, 1 Victoria Road, London W3 6UL.
         Tel: [phone].

[***][7/12/88][***]
SWISS BANK COMPUTER FRAUD FAILS
LONDON, UK (NB) -- The Swiss Banking Group (SBG) very nearly
became 82 million Swiss Francs ($54 million) the poorer earlier
this month when three people were arrested in London and Nyon in
connection with a fraudulent computer bank transfer.

Officials at the SBG's Nyon, Switzerland, branch became
suspicious when a London-originated computer transaction for
Swiss Fr82 million failed security checks on 2 July. The
transaction was originated by a London clerk who was arrested
after her accomplices were discovered trying to withdraw the
money *in cash* from the Nyon bank.

Was it the computer security checks that saved the day for the
bank? We'll never know, as a veil of secrecy came down around the
attempted fraud almost as soon as it was reported. NEWSBYTES UK
could make do with 82,000 Swiss Francs, never mind 82 million...

[***][7/12/88][***]
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+ BRITBYTES - Bytes of news from around the UK... +
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

ADT (0628-320077) has unveiled the Justram series of Ram boards
for file servers and OS/2 PCs. The boards come in 2, 4 and 8Mb
configurations and can be expanded up to 16Mb. Pricing starts at
#983 for a 2Mb card, rising to #3,149 for an 8Mb card...

INMAC (0344-424333) has released the Intellicable, an automatic
serial cable connector which (says the company) interconnects 95
per cent of all possible serial (RS232) cable connections using
built-in logic circuits. No price is mentioned in the company's
release, but the unit looks simple enough...

MCI is said to be negotiating with CABLE & WIRELESS, the parent
company to Mercury Communications. If a deal is effected, then
the joint company will be able to offer cheaper inter-continental
communications between the US, Europe and the UK...

MEIKO (0272-277409) has sold a transputer-based supercomputer to
the Japanese government. The supercomputer is capable of an
astonishing 2,500 MIPS (million instructions per second) and can
be upgraded to 10,000 MIPS by the addition of add-in cards
containing four transputer chips. Pricing on Meiko's
supercomputers is not given in the company's literature (what a
surprise!)...

The MICROLINK E-Mail service (0625-878888) is pitching for PC
users to come online with a software trade-in offer. The company
is offering subscribers its PC Communications package for #9-00,
provided they trade in their existing Datatalk or Mirror II
program disks. The PC Comms package is, NEWSBYTES UK notes, the
communications module from Mini Office Professional, and is
actually a badged edition of Messiter's Transcend which sells
separately for #50...

TELECOM GOLD (01-403-6777) has added the ICC company database to
its list of gateways. The gateway costs #2-50 a minute to use. In
addition to this, the Profile gateway now includes The Times
group of newspapers in its myriad databanks which can be keyword
searched...