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/nb880816.269

Text File | 1991-08-18 | 66KB | 1,387 lines

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INFORMIX SUED BY INVESTORS
MENLO PARK, Ca. (NB) -- Informix Corporation, maker of relational
database software, has been hit by a class action suit from its
shareholders.   Informix stock has plunged 50 percent in value over
the last few weeks, prompting stockholders to cast a skeptical
eye over statements made by Informix officials recently.        The
suit charges the firm with making "false and misleading statements
in reports to stockholders" not only about its financial condition
but about its merger with Innovative Software of Lenaxa,
Kansas.

Informix' general counsel David Stanley, has stated that he thinks
the suit is without merit.

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NATIONAL SEMI LAYS OFF 450
SANTA CLARA, Ca. (NB) -- Citing a need to restructure its mainframe
and point of sale computer sectors, National Semiconductor has
launched a layoff of 450 workers -- 10% of the workers in that
division.       Along with the layoff comes news that the main new
product from that division, Datachecker System 3000, is being
cancelled.      National Semiconductor still makes most of its money
from its semiconductor operations where sales are thriving.

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NATIONAL SEMI SUES CYPRESS, CLAIMS TRADE SECRET THEFT
SANTA CLARA, Ca. (NB) -- National Semiconductor has been granted
a temporary restraining order against Cypress Semiconductor
following the filing of a trade secret theft suit against Cypress.
National is charging the San Jose-based Cypress, its
subsidiary Aspen Semiconductor, and a former Fairchild
Semiconductor employee, Narpat Bhandari, with stealing
technology for the so-called Aspect chip, a $7 million, five-
years-in-the-making semiconductor used in supercomputers and
military applications.  National Semi claims to have evidence
that more than 30 classified documents about the Aspect chip
were in the hands of Cypress and Aspen Semiconductor officials,
and that Bhandari publicly stated that the Aspect technology
is being used by Aspen Semiconductor.

The reason National Semiconductor is so concerned about the chip,
created by the former Fairchild Semiconductor, is that National
purchased Fairchild.    Says James Smaha, executive vice president
of National's Semiconductor Group, "Fairchild, and now National,
have invested major amounts of time, talent and dollars in
bringing this leading-edge process and products to the marketplace;
and we will not tolerate others' misappropriation of this same
proprietary information."

Cypress and Aspen officials have contended the suit is without
merit.  As for Bhandari, he cannot be located in order to serve
him with the restraining order.  Until the issue gets its day in
court, Cypress and Aspen have been barred by judicial order from
further development, manufacture or sale of the high-speed chips
that are the root of the controversy.

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DIGITAL AND APPLE OUTLINE JOINT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
CUPERTINO, Ca. (NB) -- With its distinctive ease of use, and "look
and feel" a thing of the past once Presentation Manager for IBMs
and compatibles comes along, Apple's next frontier is the mastery
of connections to other, diverse kinds of computer systems,
a must if the Macintosh line is to become a staple of international
business. Apple's progress in this area was evident at MACWORLD
(see special reports), but also in an announcement with Massachusetts-
based Digital Equipment.        Apple Computer and Digital Equipment have
finally unveiled their long-awaited plan to further integrate
the Macintosh and the Digital VAX VMS computer systems.  Presented
at a conference by over 30 engineers from both companies, the
plan outlines a joint framework with which Macintoshes and their
AppleTalk network are integrated with VAX systems and DECnet/OS
enterprise networks.    Developers at the conference, held in
Boston, will now be able to integrate the two kinds of computer
systems based on international standards.

The development program includes: wide-area routing for AppleTalk for
VMS, via DECnet tunneling and AppleTalk/DECnet gateway functionality;
a VAX-based AppleTalk Filing Protocol-compliant file server; print
services so that both kinds of machines can access PostScript printers;
network management functionality from both AppleTalk and DECnet
networks.       Terminal access and X-Windows support on the Mac; support
for SQL and CL/1 database access; support by Apple for Digital's
Document Interchange Format document content standards for document
interchange between Macintosh and VMS systems.

Apple and DEC expects to have end-user products and developer
toolkits in a year. The companies also announced that Digital's
field service organization will service Macs in selected locations.

The conference came amid rumors that Digital is about to
make another go at the personal computer market, where the
company has repeatedly crashed on the shoals of compatibility.
These rumors say DEC will unveil a personal computer based on
the MicroVAX that will run MS-DOS, Digital's own VMS operating
system, and even, perhaps, OS/2. No comment from DEC.

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MACWEEK SURVEY CHARTS TOP 200 MACINTOSH COMPUTER INSTALLATIONS
SAN FRANCISCO (NB) -- The largest installed base of Macintoshes in the
world is at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor where 6,000
Macs make up half of all computers on campus.   So says MACWEEK
which has just announced the results of a massive telephone
survey involving 5,000 phone calls to nearly 900 Macintosh sites
around the country.     Although universities make up half of the
200 sites with the most Macs, the magazine reports that the
Apple computer is "no longer a back-door phenomenon but an approved
item on organizations' buy lists."

Among the top 10 are two corporations, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.,
Aiken, South Carolina, with 3,000 Macintoshes among 8,000 total
PCs, and Northern Telecom, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina,
with 2,830 Macs among 9,000 total personal computers.

Perhaps the most significant find was at Electronic Data Systems
in Southfield, MI where Macintoshes make up a whopping 92
percent of all PCs in use.      There are 1,380 Macintosh computers,
or one for nearly all of the facility's 1,500 workers.

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NASTY NEWS FOR CLARIS
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Ca. (NB) -- As Claris attempted to make a big
splash at MACWORLD with a new computer-aided design package,
Apple Computer's software spin-off winced through some
unfavorable publicity in BUSINESS WEEK.  In an article titled
"Apple's Software Branch May be Headed for a Fall,"     BUSINESS
WEEK writer Richard Brandt points to the company's bloated
budget and staff (210 employees and 85 programmers), and its
significant failure to get a new, original product out the
door in its first 15 months.    Interestingly enough, most
of Claris' revenues still come from AppleWorks, a program for the
Apple II.

The magazine reports Apple will probably have a public
stock offering for Claris within the next year that will reduce its
82% stake in the company and "push Claris into the cruel, competitive
world."

In all fairness, Claris' first original -- well, sort of -- product
has hit the streets -- Claris CAD (see MACWORLD report).        It
was actually a joint effort of Claris programmers and C.A.S.E.,
a Cincinatti-based company which created Geodraw, a CAD
workstation application.        All Claris' other offerings have
either been updates of Apple programs or acquired through
mergers with or purchases from other companies.

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LITTLE FISH SWALLOWS BIG FISH:  CAL MICRO BUYS AMI
MILPITAS, Ca. (NB) -- In one fell swoop, tiny California Micro
Devices is suddenly in the major leagues of semiconductors, having
just purchased a company with sales five times larger than its own,
Gould's American Microsystems, Inc. of Pacatello, Idaho.        The
sale price was $70 million. While small, California Micro has
a stunning growth record, doubling its income from $10 million in
1986 to $21 million in 1987. Analysts expect to see the firm's
revenues skyrocket this year to $130 million.   But Cal Micro
has an appetite even larger than its financial future.  The company
purchased GTE's semiconductor division, Communications Systems Corp.
of Tempe,       Arizona, recently, for $14.5 million in cash.

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SUN TIES WITH FUJITSU TO SELL WORKSTATIONS IN JAPAN
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Ca. (NB) -- In a dizzying rise to the top of the world's
technical and engineering workstation market, Sun       Microsystems has
gained another major foothold in a deal with Japan's largest computer
company, Fujitsu. Fujitsu will market six Sun workstations in a
deal valued at some $280 million for Sun, which just recorded its
first $1 billion revenue year.  Currently Sun sells the most
workstations in volume, but Hewlett Packard sells the most in dollars.

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SOVIETS BRING RUBLES FOR SOFTWARE
SAN RAFAEL, Ca. (NB) -- Soviet officials, on a shopping trip to
Silicon Valley computer firms, have scored a big purchase from
MicroPro International, which has agreed to help develop of Russian
version of WordStar.    The technology-hungry delegation is seeking
software and hardware for the U.S.S.R., which by current reports
has only about 200,000 microcomputers compared to 20 million in
the United States.      But loosening of US trade restrictions with
the Soviets has allowed more software and hardware to pass behind
the Iron Curtain.

MicroPro says the Soviets will jointly develop and distribute a
Russian version of WordStar, still the most widely used word processing
program in the world with an estimated 3 million copies sold.

Other companies being visited by the 6 Soviet scientists include
California Microelectronic Systems and Databank Computer Corporation,
which plans to sell IBM-compatibles in the U.S.S.R.

Interestingly enough, MicroPro reports that the Soviet sale did not
come without a hitch.   The company was reportedly given implicit
orders by the FBI not to show any communications software nor
a computer based on the Intel 80386 microprocessor.

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VIDEO DISPLAY TERMINALS CAUSE EYE PROBLEMS, SAYS CLINIC DIRECTOR
BERKELEY, Ca. (NB) -- The director of the U.S.'s first clinic
dedicated to the study and treatment of vision problems related to
video display technology says regular VDT exposure may cause
eye focusing problems.  James Sheedy of the University of California's
School of Optometry VDT Eye Clinic says his study of 153 patients
revealed more of them to have problems focusing their eyes than "we
would normally see in a clinical population."   In addition to
problems focusing, the patients also suffer from eye fatigue and
other vision problems, he said.  Most of the patients were under
40 years old, twice as many were women as men, and all worked for
an average of 6 hours a day for more than four years at a VDT.

Sheedy suggests work at a VDT could be "changing the physiology of
the eye," in his report.        He suspects the problems are due to
several factors:        the glowing CRTs, the posture of the workers,
and the use of prescription glasses, specifically bifocals, in
many of the cases.      He acknowledges that the report is preliminary
and not strictly scientific.

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HEWLETT PACKARD BUYS 10 PERCENT OF OCTEL, FIRES AD AGENCY
PALO ALTO, Ca. (NB) -- Hewlett Packard chose the same week to
announce it is purchasing a 10 percent stake in Octel Communications
of Milpitas, Ca., a maker of a voice mail system, and to
say it has fired its ad agency, Leo Burnett USA of Chicago.

HP plans to integrate Octel's products with its own electronic
mail technology and to distribute the resulting products
mainly through HP's marketing network in Europe.        The purchase
price for the 10 percent share was $13.8 million.

Leo Burnett, meanwhile, loses the $20 million annual account it has
had since 1984. The main reason, according to Bill Lynch, chairman of LB,
is HP's decision-making process, one that involves "management
by consensus....(which in the ad business) doesn't always produce
the best results."      HP plans to announce its new agency within a
few weeks.

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IN BRIEF --

Mark your calendars. APPLEFEST returns to San Francisco September
16 through 18 with none other than Apple CEO John Sculley delivering
the keynote address, a signal of his support for the Apple II
community.      Call 1-800-262-FEST for information on exhibiting.

ATARI, Sunnyvale, Ca., reports disappointing earnings but a doubling
of sales compared to this time last year.       Income was down 59% to
$5.6 million even though revenue soared to $164.6 million, an increase
of 133 percent.  Atari blames the sour earnings on its Federated
unit which continues to lose money.

COMPUSERVE has won the arrest of San Jose youth Matthew Fox and two others
for allegedly illegally accessing its online network.   Compuserve says
Fox used credit card numbers of customers at a local Radio Shack store,
where he worked, to sign up multiple Compuserve accounts.       Compuserve's
ONLINE TODAY reports the losses could top $8,000.       Fox is being held
in the San Jose jail on $50,000 bond.

MICROSOFT, Redmond, Wa., has organized the next CD-ROM conference.
It's slated for Anaheim Hilton and Towers in Anaheim, California
for March 28-30, 1989.  Registration is $950, $750 if received
before December 15th of this year.      For further info contact Sherrie
Eastman at Microsoft, 206/882-8080.

SOFTWARE PUBLISHING CORP., Mountain View, Ca., has signed a letter of
intent to acquire Office Solutions of Madison, Wisconsin.       Terms
were not disclosed.     Office Solutions will provide SPC with OfficeWriter,
a word processing package for the IBM PC and compatibles.

SHAREWARE REVIEWS is a new disk-based publication from The Write Results
of Palm Springs, Ca.    It is a work in progress containing all the
reviews written by author David Batterson, whose reviews appear in PC
WORLD, MICROTIMES, COMPUTER SHOPPER, COMPUTER CURRENTS, and other
publications.   It is available on many BBSs and from mail order firms
that sell shareware.    Or contact Batterson at 619/323-3706.

TOSHIBA, Irvine, Ca., will bundle Borland's Sprint: The Professional
Word Processor with its T1200F/T1200FB laptop computers, which have
also been reduced in price by $300 and $200 respectively.       The offer
to bundle Sprint with the machines extends from August 1 through
December 31.

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THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE AT BORLAND AND APPLE
SCOTTS VALLEY, Ca. (NB) -- Lean, mean, machines aren't just made of
Silicon at Borland and Apple Computer these days.       They're also human,
thanks to the two companies' investment in new gymnasiums for their
employees.      Borland's new headquarters in Scotts Valley is now
equipped with an exercise facility designed for weightlifting and
aerobics.       (Laments one publication:       What, no more Toga Parties?)

Meanwhile down the hill in Cupertino, Apple has opened a new
Corporate Health and Fitness Center which combines fitness equipment,
preventative medicine labs, and consultation with comprehensive
health and recreational programs.       The facility weighs in at 17,000
square feet and is clearly the most ambitious attempt by a
Valley corporation to keep its employees happy and healthy.     Clearly
an Apple a day is not enough!

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WOZ TAKES DATE FOR PIZZA AND BOWLING IN ITALY
LOS GATOS, Ca. (NB) -- How much do you think you'd have to pay to
get a date with Steve Wozniak?  $200, $500?     $1,400?  Right.  That's
how much Ruth Shriber paid to the March of Dimes to get a date with
the Woz in a recent fundraiser.  The date will include pizza
and bowling, Italian style -- in Venice, Italy.  Shriber and Wozniak
will fly to Europe on the Woz's credit card to enjoy a four-day
visit.  Wozniak, a well-known philanthropist as well as Apple founder,
has retired from electronics to pursue personal interests -- at
least for a while -- and this was his first participation ever in
a bachelor-athon held by the March of Dimes charity.

Does Shriber, a landscape architect, have designs on the eligible
bachelor?       "He has a brilliant mind.       That's always attractive,"
she says.




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ATLANTA COMPUTER CURRENTS COMING
MARIETTA, GA (NB) -- Ken Lipscomb, former partner in a desktop
publishing service bureau here, has bought a franchise to bring
"Computer Currents" to Atlanta. The new publication will have
local content folded into a nationally-distributed tabloid, which
features NEWSBYTES reports prominently. Lipscomb will use Apple
Macintoshes to get his paper off the presses starting in October,
first on a monthly basis, then twice a month. There are four
"Computer Currents" editions now, in Washington, Boston, San
Francisco, and Los Angeles. All are company-owned. "This is their
first franchise operation," Lipscomb told NEWSBYTES. Lipscomb
will have "Computer Currents" sent to him electronically in the
form of Macintosh pages. He plans to use a local printer and a
Linotronic service bureau, giving the printer either film or
paper.

CONTACT: Ken Lipscomb, COMPUTER CURRENTS/ATLANTA, [phone]

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THE BATTLE TO ADD ONLINE FEATURES HAS BEGUN
ATLANTA (NB) -- The battle is on among online systems to add both
transactions services and editorial services to their systems.
CompuServe still leads the consumer information race, but Dow-
Jones has a lead in the business information race, and there are
bunches of comfortable niches all over the place.

But the idea of an Information Revolution is that it's supposed
to make information both more profitable, and more accessible.
DIALCOM is shopping for newsletters which can match the success
of its AIDS Alert, a $45/month service with daily alerts.
(Dialcom was also the first service to carry the "Presidential
Campaign Hotline," and had an exclusive on Democratic Convention
coverage.) GEnie Information Services, Rockville, MD, has just
announced that Modem Media, Westport, CT, would be bringing its
online shopping services to it, in a race to match the IBM-Sears
Prodigy press release for press release.

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CRAY SELLS ITS PROTOTYPE CRAY 3 TO PITTSBURGH CONSORTIUM
MINNEAPOLIS, MN (NB) -- In the earliest days of computing,
funding was raised first by the Army (they wanted a booklet of
trajectories for aiming artillery shells) and then, in commercial
applications, by the Bowie Race Track (for totaling horse-player
winnings) which bought a Univac years before the Philadelphia
company produced its first machine. In the supercomputer race,
apparently, you can still fund research with sales. On August 11,
Seymour Cray sold his first Cray 3 to the Pittsburgh
Supercomputer Center, a joint venture of the University of
Pittsburgh, Carnegie-Mellon, and Westinghouse Corp. The $25
million machine was ordered two years before it can be shipped.

Cray plans to use gallium arsenide chips in place of silicon to
speed electricity along, and has promised a machine which is 3
times faster than the ETA-10 of Control Data and 10 times faster
than the current Cray 2. "There's no reason to believe that we
will not be successful," Cray's director of marketing, Edward A.
Masi, told "The Associated Press." "But you never know until you
ship the product."

CONTACT: Gina Bonetti, CRAY RESEARCH, [phone]

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THE STORY OF A CHICAGO COMPUTER CRACKER
CHICAGO (NB) -- Herbert Zinn, Jr., 18, a high-school drop-out,
was charged by the U.S. Attorney in Chicago, Anton Valukas, with
being the mastermind behind the thefts of over $1 million in
software from government computers made by AT&T. Valukas admitted
Zinn committed these crimes years ago, as an under-16 juvenile,
and he could only be sent to prison until his 21st birthday if
convicted. Yet he called it the start of "an aggressive position
toward computer crimes."

Zinn told "The Chicago Sun-Times" that, since agents raided his
home last year and took his 3 computers and software, he had not
pursued his computing "with quite the same vim and vigor." He
nevertheless said he hoped to resume his schooling and become an
electronics engineer. Zinn drew the charges after being arrested
for cracking computers at at the Keller Graduate School of
Management in Chicago, Commodity Perspective Inc. in Chicago, and
AT&T computers at NATO's maintenance supply organization at
Burlington, NC, and Robins Air Force Base, Warner-Robins, GA. He
allegedly failed in attempts to rob the computers at the
"Washington Post's" accounts payable department, a hospital in
South Bend, IN, and other computers in Columbus, OH, Rye, NY, and
Pipe Creek, TX, according to "The Associated Press."

Zinn's only mistake, apparently, was bragging on his adventures.
He used the name "Shadow Hawk" on the Phreak Class-2600 computer
bulletin board in Texas, and left his phone number. An AT&T
investigator spotted it, and the hunt which climaxed August 9 was
on.

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GEOVISION ANNOUNCES MAP SUPPORT FOR MACINTOSH
NORCROSS (NB) -- Geovision, a CD-ROM developer which originally
created its "Windows on the World" map software system on IBM
equipment, is moving it to the Macintosh II. Founder Ken Shain
has not decided whether to write his own applications software
for the Mac II or work with another Mac developer. The company
currently sells a US Atlanta at 1:2 million scale and 4 state
maps (Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina) at twice that
resolution. Buy your first disk for about $1,000, including
software, and get subsequent disks for half that. Disk players
are extra.

Geovision is also going through the early phases of success. It
filed suit in the Northern District of Georgia to protect its
name from a Canadian company, SystemsHouse Graphics Ltd., and its
Aurora, CO based American unit. (Geovision says it incorporated
in Georgia in September, 1985, and SystemsHouse created a
subsidiary called Geovision in early 1986.) Finally, Geovision
announced it would make its system compatible with Hewlett-
Packard's New Wave environment, despite a pending suit against
New Wave by Apple.

CONTACT: Laurie Anderson, Geovision [phone]

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PECAN CHIPS

DCA, Alpharetta, GA, announced software for its MacIRMA boards
which will let Macintosh SE and Mac II computers access IBM
mainframe networks. It supports the C language and Hypercard. It
will ship sometime after September at about $195 retail.

DELL COMPUTER, Austin, TX, picked Chiat/Day of San Francisco as
its new ad agency.

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, Dallas, said Brian Nicholson of its European
operations has been elected chair of EDIFICE, one of the
upholders of the EDI data interface.


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CANADIAN TIRE TO INSTALL FIRST PRIVATE VSAT NETWORK
TORONTO (NB) -- Canadian Tire Corp. will install Canada's first
private very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT) satellite
communications network to link its 370 hardware and auto-supply
stores across the country.      Canadian Tire and Canadian Satellite
Communications Inc. (Cancom), which will supply the system,
announced the C$10-million deal August 9.

Thomas Moorehead, vice-president of Cancom, said the sale is "the
first deal of its kind in Canada," although such networks have
been installed in the U.S.      He hopes there will be more in
future, although he said no more announcements are expected in
the near future.        Earlier this year, Cancom announced a deal with
Co-operators Data Services Ltd. of Mississauga, Ont., which is
using VSAT dishes to communicate by way of a hub station that
Cancom owns.

Cancom, which is based in Montreal but has its executive offices
in Mississauga, Ont., is selling the satellite dishes for about
C$25,000 apiece to Canadian Tire.       The retailer will lease them
to its independent dealers across the country.  Transmission
frequencies on the Anik C2 satellite are also arranged through
Cancom.

CONTACT: CANADIAN SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS INC.,
         Executive Offices, 50 Burnhamthorpe Rd. W., 10th Floor
         Mississauga, Ont. L5B 3C2, [phone]

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ALL COMPUTERS PROMOTING NEW SOFTWARE, MEMORY MANAGEMENT
TORONTO (NB) -- All Computers Inc. has a new program, All TSRs,
that allows MS-DOS users to store their terminate-and-stay-
resident utilities in memory above the 640K barrier.    Mers Kutt,
president of All, says the software works with 4K-byte chunks of
memory to cram in the utilities wherever there's room in extended
memory.

All Computers is also doing a joint promotion with Microsoft
Canada.  Canadian buyers of Microsoft's recently upgraded Windows
2.1 will get a card entitling them to C$200 of the purchase of
the All Charge II Card, a device that lets MS-DOS use more than
640K of memory in an 80286-based computer.      The regular price of
the device is C$550.    The All Charge II is about the size of a
business card and plugs into the microprocessor socket on the
computer's motherboard.  The processor then plugs into the All
Charge II card.

CONTACT: ALL COMPUTERS INC., 21 St. Clair Ave. E., Toronto, Ont.
         [phone]

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HIGH-CAPACITY NETWORK LINKS WEST-COAST RESEARCHERS
VANCOUVER (NB) -- Three universities, two research facilities and
the British Columbia Advanced Systems Corp. have set up BCnet, a
high-capacity network linking scientists and engineers at the six
sites.

B.C. Advanced Systems Corp., the TRIUMF national subatomic
research laboratory, Microtel Pacific Research Ltd., the
University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University in
Vancouver, and the University of Victoria, can now exchange data
at high speeds over coaxial cable, optical fibre and microwave
links.  The links can also handle interactive video and connect a
terminal at one site to a computer at another.

The University of British Columbia computing centre hatched the
idea in 1986, and got initial funding from the Universities
Council of British Columbia.    That council has since been
disbanded.      The B.C. Advanced Systems Corp. provided the money to
finish the project.     There are plans to connect other research
facilities, including the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in
Victoria, in the future.

BCnet is a wide-area extended Ethernet network.  Coaxial cable
links the two Vancouver universities.   TRIUMF is tied in to UBC
with a fibre-optic connection, while the University of Victoria,
on Vancouver island, communicates through B.C. Telephone's
microwave facilities.

CONTACT: B.C. ADVANCED SYSTEMS INSTITUTE, Suite 405,
         3700 Gilmore Way, Discovery Park, Burnaby, B.C.
         V5G 4M1, [phone], Fax [phone]

[***][8/16/88][***]
CCINFODISC GOES INTERNATIONAL
HAMILTON, Ont. (NB) -- The International Occupational Safety and
Health Information Centre will offer a Canadian-developed compact
disk reference tool internationally.    CCINFOdisc, which consists
of 24 data bases, technical publications and information packages
on health and safety, was developed by the Canadian Centre of
Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS).

The CCOHS has also announced the completion of videotex training
packages in the native languages Inuktitut and South Slavey for
use in Canada's Northwest Territories.

CONTACT: CCOHS, 250 Main St. E., Hamilton, Ont. L8N 1H6,
         [phone], Telex 061-8532

[***][8/16/88][***]
SOFTWARE EVALUATION CLUB OWNER TO BE TRIED FOR FRAUD
TORONTO (NB) -- The owner of a Toronto store that rented copies
of commercial software to customers for evaluation will stand
trial for fraud, probably early in 1989.        Clubsoft International
Corp. was raided in April and its owner, James Leahy, has been
charged with seven counts of fraud over $1,000.  A trial date is
to be set December 5.

The courts have imposed a publication ban on evidence from the
preliminary hearing, and Leahy told NEWSBYTES CANADA, through a
Clubsoft employee, that he could not comment on the case.

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ANOTHER SIGN OF CP/M'S PASSING
TORONTO (NB) -- Canada Remote Systems, a large Toronto-based
bulletin board system, has decided to stop offering limited
memberships to users of the CP/M operating system.      The limited
memberships allow users without modems to order public-domain
software by mail.       Canada Remote says that because of the
diminishing importance of CP/M it will no longer offer CP/M disks
by mail.

Existing CP/M limited memberships will be honored until they
expire and CRS will continue offering CP/M software on-line for
as long as it's available.      But, sysop Jud Newell writes in the
CRS members' newsletter, the supply of CP/M software has slowed
to a trickle.

Canada Remote Systems started in 1977 as a purely CP/M-oriented
BBS, under the name Toronto RCP/M Systems.

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OTTAWA FIRM'S TOOL KIT BASIS OF CD-ROM PUBLISHING PACKAGE
OTTAWA (NB) -- Tools developed by Fulcrum Technologies of Ottawa
are the basis of LaserRetrieve, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s new
software for publishing and accessing information on CD-ROM.

Fulcrum spokesman David Dow said Fulcrum has sold its FullText
collection of CD-ROM software tools to a number of original
equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who have incorporated FullText in
their own products.     But he said Hewlett-Packard is the first to
package the tools in a product designed to let others publish
information on CD-ROM.

CONTACT: FULCRUM TECHNOLOGIES, Ottawa, [phone]

[***][8/16/88][***]
PACKAGE LETS COMPUTERS GO DOWN THE SEWER
TORONTO (NB) -- Chappell & Associates Inc. has announced a
software package to help municipalities get their sh... er,
manage their sewers.

The Storm and Sanitary Sewer Inventory Maintenance Management
System (SIMS) runs on IBM PC AT and PS/2 systems and compatibles.
It is available in single-user and multi-user versions, and
handles data collection, inventory information, work scheduling
and online inquiries.   The package can interface to computer-
aided design and drafting software.

A single-user version of SIMS costs US$8,995 and a multi-user
version US$12,995.      An entry-level version called SIMS Junior
costs US$3,795.

CONTACT: CHAPPELL & ASSOCIATES INC., 250 Consumers Rd., Suite
         1109, Willowdale, Ont. M2J 4V6, [phone],
         Fax [phone]

[***][8/16/88][***]
NEWBRIDGE ANNOUNCES NETVIEW COMPATIBILITY
KANATA, Ont. (NB) -- Newbridge Networks Corp. has announced its
4600 MainStreet Network Management Systems are now compatible
with IBM's NetView corporate network management software.

The 4600 MainStreet products manage and control digital backbone
networks of Newbridge multiplexers and high-speed digital
transmission facilities.        Compatibility means Newbridge networks
can now be managed through the NetView operator interface.

CONTACT: NEWBRIDGE NETWORKS CORP., 600 March Rd., Kanata, Ont.
         K2K 2E6, [phone], Fax [phone]

[***][8/16/88][***]
FINANCIAL BITS
-- INTEGRA SYSTEMS INC., Vancouver, lost C$1.26 million on
revenue of C$4.2 million in the year ended March 31, compared
with a profit of C$359,000 on revenues of C$3.8 million last
year.

-- MITEL CORP., Kanata, Ont., lost C$1.8 million in the 14 weeks
ended July 1, on revenues of C$101.6 million.   In the 13 weeks
ended June 26, 1987, Mitel lost C$10.1 million on revenues of
C$92.7 million.

-- ORACLE CORPORATION CANADA INC., Toronto, reported revenues of
C$19.5 million for the fiscal year ended May 31, more than
doubling 1987's figure of C$8.5 million.

-- TANDEM COMPUTERS CANADA LTD., Markham, Ont., made a profit of
C$17.3 million in the three months ended June 30, down from
C$24.9 million in the same period of 1987.      Revenues rose to
C$339 million from C$267.8 million.

[***][8/16/88][***]
BITS, EH?
-- APPLE CANADA INC., Markham, Ont., announced that a four-
megabyte configuration of the Macintosh II computer will cost
C$11,950, and a four-megabyte memory expansion kit will be
available in Canada for C$3,950.        Apple Canada also announced the
Apple Scanner with a Canadian retail price of C$2,795.

-- CLARIS CANADA, Toronto, has announced that Claris CAD will be
available in Canada in the fourth quarter of 1988 for C$1,199.
IGES and DXF translators will cost C$449 for the pair, and
MacDraw II owners can upgrade to Claris CAD for C$599.

-- MICROSOFT CANADA INC., Mississauga, Ont., has appointed Wendy
Thompson as customer services manager.  She will be responsible
for Microsoft retail products for MS-DOS and the Macintosh.

-- COGNOS INC., Ottawa, has released a native-mode version of its
PowerHouse Architect applications development software for the
Hewlett-Packard Co. HPPA 900 Series computers.

-- COMPUTER MAINTENANCE CO. INC. of Toronto, which services IBM
mainframes, was sold to the Sorbus subsidiary of Bell Atlantic
Corp. of Philadelphia for an undisclosed sum.

-- NORTHERN TELECOM LTD., Mississauga, Ont., announced the
appointment of Harry W. Johnson as vice-president of human
resources, Paul J. Myer as vice-president of public affairs and
Robert Neumeister as controller.

-- WESTBRIDGE COMPUTER CORP., Regina, has appointed D. Gavin Koyl
as chairman and Gerald B. Thom as president of the company.

[***][8/16/88][***]
APPLE PRESENTS NEW PRODUCTS IN EUROPE
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (NB) -- Apple announced a string of new
products for the Macintoshes, including a scanner, and a one
year update on Hypercard.  (Also see NEWSBYTES SPECIAL
MACWORLD EXPO stories on this and other Apple Macintosh product
news.)

The Apple Scanner, which measures 20cm by 35cm in a flat bed
format, offers 300 dpi resolution, SCSI port control, and companion
software. Images scanned can be printed by the LaserWriter and
can be transmitted by the AppleFax facsimile modem. Jean Louis
Gasse said at the unveiling ceremony "the scanner offers an
amazing price/performance ratio and is designed especially for
users of Hypercard."

Although the scanner is supplied with manuals, software, and a
power cable, a SCSI interface cable is not included and is
needed for connection to the host system.

Concerning Hypercard's year-later results, Apple Computer
announced that many companies in Europe have developed software
for it. One of our own subscribers, Mexsoft, which is Macintosh-
based, supplies freeware only on Hypercard format.

[***][8/16/88][***]
SIEMENS INTRODUCES NEW PCs
FRANKFURT, WEST GERMANY (NB) -- Siemens, the IBM of West Germany,
introduced a new series of 25MHz '386-based PCs. The PCD-3TS, which
offers a 25MHz '386 together with a 155MB hard disk and 2MB of RAM,
joins the 16MHz '386-based PCD-3T. The 25MHz 80386 system costs DM
25000 (about $13000) while the 16MHz system costs DM 15000 (about
$8000).

In addition to the above two systems, the company revamped the
line of PCs it offers. The PCD-2L is a '286-based 10MHz system
while the PCD-2M is a 20MB '286-based system for the low budget
Siemens user. They cost DM 5600 (about $3000) and DM 7500 (about
$4000) respectively. Most Siemens customers are Siemens accounts
who desire to buy PCs from the supplier of their mainframe
systems.

[***][8/16/88][***]
IBM WINS COPYRIGHT CASE IN ITALY
ROMA, ITALY (NB) -- "Il Messagero," Rome's morning newspaper, carried
a story on IBM's win against an Italian company which was
apparently copying IBM's Basic from the ROMs, changing about
3% of the code, and then selling it. In addition, the company, Bit
Computers SPA, was also found to be copying IBM's BIOS and also
changing about 5% of the code with the hope that it would be
different enough to be classified as such.

IBM thought otherwise and brought the company to court where Big
Blue demonstrated that the BIOS and the BASIC ROMs Bit Computers
was using were indeed copies of the IBM parts. BIT Computers
promised that there will no longer be deliveries of these
products to customers and did not have to pay any fines.

IBM has been trying to tell the market that anyone copying
IBM software or hardware will have to deal with IBM's legal
department. This is especially important now that its
PS/2 product line is appearing in clone format.

[***][8/16/88][***]
EUROBITS...

    ...POSITRONICA introduced a new monitor for the Mac II
computer. The display, which offers two 8.5" x 11" pages to be
shown on the screen at the same time, uses a 72hz refresh rate for
non-flicker performance. RADIUS TWO PAGE, as the display is
called, costs BF 113000 (about $3700)...

    ...IBM, amongst all of the usual endeavors, is looking into
the possibility of offering robots which will perform MEDICAL
OPERATIONS automatically. This new avenue in the field of
robotics will have to surpass the first hurdle -- people
will have to be convinced that being operated by a machine is
equal or better to being operated by doctors. Currently a
research program with California's Davis School of Medicine and
IBM offers body parts designed by computers for bone transplants
and implants...

    ...World's smallest PC is now in Europe. ADVANCED LOGIC
RESEARCH's FLEXNODE system, which runs a '286 at 20MHz or a '386 at
the same speed is housed in a long enclosure sized 13cm (height)
by 10 cm (width) by 30 cm depth. The systems offer 512K (286) or
1MB of RAM and can accommodate one hard disk. Prices in Europe are
not yet announced but should be around $2500 for the '286 and
$4000 for the '386...

    ...The latest in single board computers is the 386-20MHz
single board computer which includes everything except RAM. The
board, which is called 80386-AT-SLOT-CPU, is sold by IMPEC, a large
West German PC board manufacturer. It joins the AWESOME/EA and
the SILICON DISK cards which offer battery backed RAM and silicon
disk facilities respectively...

    ...In case you have not heard yet, Bill Gates has been
elected the Best Executive for 1988 as polled by the readers of
"Electronic Business" magazine. The "boy wonder" beat 12 other
candidates in the survey which polled 50,000 readers. Other
notables: John Sculley (microcomputers), John Young of H-P
(Computer based systems), Andrew Grove of Intel (semiconductors),
John Akers of IBM (for Mainframes) and Scott McNealy of Sun (for
Minicomputers)...
[***][8/16/88][***]
AND FINALLY......NEWSBYTES EUROPE WINS CASE AGAINST BELGIUM
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (NB) -- Two months ago, the data communications
account of NEWSBYTES EUROPE was disconnected due to non-payment.
The reason why the bill was not paid was because Belgium imposed
an extra 100% on the bill, this amount known as "non payment
provision," mainly an amount which the authorities here impose on
people that have high telephone bills as a guarantee of payment
for future bills.  NEWSBYTES EUROPE complained about this and
after one month the normal phone line was cut.  Here, as in many
other European countries, the phone company also controls the
data communications traffic.  Since NEWSBYTES EUROPE is compiled
by someone with European Community knowledge, NEWSBYTES EUROPE
wrote to the European Commission and presented the following
argument.

We used the competition clause in the Treaty of Rome (which set up
the EEC) which states that "within the European Community there
cannot be any company, for whatever reason, practicing an abuse
of dominant position." The case was handled by Peter Sutherland,
the Irish Commissioner responsible for competition matters.
Knowing the zeal Peter Sutherland has when handling abuses in the
European Business market, we felt quite sure for a win.

The win came in the form of a letter which stated that the
Belgian government will change the legislation concerning
the above problem and in the meantime will no longer disconnect
telephone accounts when a data communications account has not
been cleared.

This just goes to show that when an individual in Europe
has a problem because someone is abusing a dominant position, be
it pricing or anything else, the EEC will be happy to take up the
gauntlet as long as all the facts are presented.

    ...and finally, NEWSBYTES Europe which has now sobered up
after hearing the good news hopes that the second case taken
against the Belgian government, the imposition of 33% value-added
tax for Amateur Radio equipment, will also produce a positive (for
us) verdict. Let's hope!



[***][8/16/88][***]
YOU READ IT HERE FIRST/WEEK OF AUGUST 16, 1988

Copyright 1988/Written by W. A. Yacco, Exclusive to NEWSBYTES

In this week's installment...

 - IBM LAPTOP IN FIELD TESTS?...I'll never tell.

 - QUOTE OF THE WEEK...Yours truly falls off turnip truck.

 - APPLE SAUCE...Industry guru Jan Lewis slips in some on the way to Beantown.

 - CONIC SPLINES FOR THE PC?  WAIT JUST A MOMENT...Arts and Letters
   Editor is coming.

 - MASSES OF ART OF MASSES...INHOUSE Professional Art Library.

[***][8/16/88][***]
IBM LAPTOP IN FIELD TESTS?
SANTA MONICA, Ca (NB) -- A loquacious source has revealed that
Quarterdeck Office Systems and others, Microsoft was also named,
have a secret IBM microcomputer for testing development projects.
Officially, company spokespersons declined to admit to the existence
of the mystery machine but my guess would have to be that it's the
new IBM laptop computer.  If you know anything of these machines why
not give me a call.  I'd like to hear about it here first.

[***][8/16/88][***]
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
 . . . If you'd like to hear a hilarious story about the
investigative methods of the fourth estate, give Quarterdeck a call
and talk to Gary Saxer.  When I asked Gary about the foregoing
laptop rumor, he denied it completely.  But I was fairly sure of my
source.  So, I asked him if the machine uses a '286 or '386
processor.

He told me instead about an apocryphal internal memo warning the
Deckers about the methods employed by investigative reporters.  It
seems that, according to the memo, reporters will call Quarterdeck
and ask if they're still roasting babies at the Santa Monica
deckquarters.  When confronted with denials, the correspondent then
says all he really wants to know is the type of barbecue sauce being
used.  Gary had me on the floor.

[***][8/16/88][***]
APPLE SAUCE
SUNNYVALE, Ca (NB) -- Jan Lewis barely made it to her duties in
Boston as Mistress of Ceremonies for the HyperCard Mini-Conference
at MACWORLD EXPO.  It wasn't TWA or even an airline that almost
thwarted her plans.  No.  It was a baked apple.

Or, rather, a couple of Apples--as in Macintosh.  I don't want to
look like an Apple basher and, maybe, end up with a sticky sauce on
my face.  It's just that Jan's Mac II did go down a couple of days
before the show.  Apple, ever helpful, immediately shipped her a
replacement--which promptly also failed.  I can picture an image of
all those *Hypercard* stacks crashing down into a jumble of
screeching sound effects and graphic shards.

When it comes to successful gardening, some people have a green
thumb; the less-successful are said to have a brown one.  Someone at
Lewis Research must have a soot-colored hand--at least up to the
elbow.  Along with the two Macs, a copier also gave up its silicon
spirit, its gallium ghost, its arsenide avatar, the same week.  It
might be coincidence.  On the other digits, it couldn't hurt to put
Jan down for a hygrometer on her next birthday.  My guess is that it
was dry in Sunnyvale week before last, at least in the Lewis
offices.

The story has a happy ending.  Jan was able to recover the essential
twelve megabytes of presentation stacks through the compatible SCSI
port on her faithful SE.  See, it isn't Apple bashing after all.

[***][8/16/88][***]
CONIC SPLINES FOR THE PC?  WAIT JUST A MOMENT.  (PUN INTENDED)
DALLAS, Tx (NB) -- Imagine that you are standing on a long, slender
steel beam and deforming it with the force exerted by your mass.
Spline-fit algorithms describe the way such a beam would deform
under specific coefficients and moments.  Wait.  What's that got to
do with anything?  Well, it has plenty to do with desktop
publishing.   (It may also have something to do with your eating
habits.)


Many business-computer users are familiar with a special class of
these algorithms called Bezier curves.  They're the algorithms used
to define the curves in many of the fonts used by Postscript.
Actually, they can be used to define many curves besides those in
letters; they can also define the curves in art.  Don't take my word
for it.  Ask Computer Support Corporation, publisher of the Arts
and Letters software series.

Arts and Letters Editor will be the first graphics-editing package
for the IBM PC to feature conic splines.  Similar capabilities are
already available for the Mac in Adobe Illustrator.  Editor also
uses Bezier curves to size drawings to any scale required with the
same superior results obtained by outline fonts.  Encapsulated
Postscript output is available for transfer directly into Postscript
documents or the program can output directly to a Postscript device.
Expect to see the release in about six weeks.

[***][8/16/88][***]
MASSES OF ART OF MASSES
PEORIA, Il (NB) -- If Computer Support's editor doesn't have enough
art for you, consider looking at Kwikee INHOUSE Pal (Professional Art
Library) from Multi-Ad Services.  The Kwikee clip-art library has an
enormous array of art work in encapsulated Postscript files.

Why is the use of encapsulated Postscript files significant?  For
one thing, it makes it possible to put a huge library of graphics
(300 files) in a relatively small 20 megabytes of space (the
equivalent of approximately 25 floppies).  A similar benefit is
realized by users of Aldus PageMaker.  PageMaker incorporates
graphic files into the page rather than referring to the file on
media at the time of output.  Outlines save vast amounts of space
when compared to bit-mapped images.

The images were created by Adobe Illustrator and are available for
Mac or DOS machines.  Floppy $189.95; CD $149.95.  Multi-Ad Services
also publishes a quarterly art-work update service for printers
called Kwikee INHOUSE Graphics.  Contact Bob Mounts at Multi-Ad
Services, [phone].

The Kwikee entry goes to prove that conic splines are really
arriving for the PC.  It proves that CD applications are beginning
to come on line.  But mostly it proves that I'll do anything for a
pal, palindrome that is.  Tell them you read it here first.

[***][8/16/88][***]
SUPREME COURT WANTS TO GO ONLINE
WASHINGTON (NB) -- The Supreme Court has asked news services,
legal publishers, and legal database providers for proposals for
electronic distribution of the court's decisions. James Donovan,
the director of data system for the court, said the court wants
to make its opinions more readily accessible to the public, by
making them available via computer. "The court tentatively
contemplates a one to three year experiment with the period of
review based in part on the outside entity's investment," Donovan
said. The court wants proposals by November 14, and plans a
meeting for interested parties on September 29.

[***][8/16/88][***]
WHITE HOUSE TO EASE CHIP SANCTIONS
WASHINGTON (NB) -- The Reagan Administration has moved to relax
anti-dumping penalties in order to encourage sales of Japanese
DRAM chips in the U.S. The action is a bid to ease the shortage
of memory chips that has sent U.S. computer prices soaring in
recent months. The chip sanctions, applied in June 1986, were
supposed to stimulate U.S. chipmakers to increase production of
domestic memory chips. But that hasn't happened and U.S.
production of RAM chips remains quite low. Texas Instruments and
Micron Technology, the only two U.S. companies that sell DRAMs
on the open market, have been cleaning up during the shortage.

The action from Washington comes as the memory shortage is
beginning to show some signs of ending. Spot prices for 1-
megabit DRAMs have fallen to $37 in July from $47.50 in April,
according to Dataquest Inc., a market research firm in San
Jose, Ca.

Ironically, the chip crunch has even hit Japan, where NEC has had
quality control problems on its chip lines and Hitachi has been
slow to recover from an earthquake which damaged its chip-making
capabilities. According to the Associated Press, Toshiba, the
world's largest producer of 1-megabit DRAMS, sends more than 60
percent of its chips to the U.S., although the company's computer
unit in Japan is short of memory chips.

[***][8/16/88][***]
TWO MORE RESIGNATIONS AT LOTUS; FURTHER 1-2-3 VERSION 3.0 RUMORS
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (NB) -- Irfan Salim, vice president and general
manager of Lotus Development Corp.'s spreadsheet division, the
most important in the company, has resigned, citing personal
reasons. Lotus spokesman James O'Donnell says Salim's resignation
will have no effect on the oft-postponed release of Version 3.0
of 1-2-3. O'Donnell says the upgraded spreadsheet is still
scheduled to see the light of day in the fourth quarter.

Salim is the fifth vice president to flee Lotusland since March,
when Lotus's aggressive Chairman Jim Manzi forced out Senior Vice
President Charles Digate, expected to be Manzi's successor.
Digate had hired Salim to run international operations. He came
to the U.S. from Britain in November to take over spreadsheet
marketing.

Meanwhile, Lotus' marketing manager for Agenda, Conall Ryan,
has also resigned to join Steve Jobs' NeXT, Inc. in Palo Alto, Ca.
Reports say he feels his job is done at Lotus and is ready for
a new challenge.  "Agenda's launch is out there and it's
happening," he told the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE.  "The
opportunity to be involved with NeXT is too good to be true."

[***][8/16/88][***]
UNISYS, BETTING ON UNIX, ACQUIRES CONVERGENT
BLUE BELL, Pa. (NB) -- Unisys Corp. will acquire Convergent Inc.,
San Jose, Calif., for $350 million. The move provides further
evidence of Unisys's strategic decision to focus on the Unix
operating system as the software that will unify the Tower of
Babel that characterizes the computer industry. "Convergent will
become a cornerstone of our rapidly growing business in
distributed systems based on open industry standards and state of
the art networking technologies," said Unisys Chairman W. Michael
Blumenthal.

Unisys had a close relationship with Convergent prior to the
merger. Unisys has been reselling many Convergent computers, and
manufacturing others under license from Convergent. Convergent
also has important contracts to build Unix machines for resale by
other companies, such as Groupe Bull and NCR Corp. Unix system
have been Unisys's fastest-growing line of business. Sales of
Unix systems tripled last year to $500 million, and are expected
to his $800 million this year.

[***][8/16/88][***]
$3.6 BILLION IBM CONTRACT PUT ON HOLD
WASHINGTON (NB) -- The General Services Administration's Board of
Contract Appeals has put the $3.6 billion contract awarded by the
Federal Aviation Administration to International Business
Machines Corp. on ice pending an appeal by Hughes Aircraft
division of General Motors Corp. Hughes charges that the award
violated federal procurement regulations. Hughes was the
unsuccessful bidder in the four-year contest to win a contract to
modernize the FAA's air traffic control system.

In its protest, Hughes complains that IBM undercut its bid
because Uncle Sam allowed IBM to bid used computers, while Hughes
had to bid new gear. IBM says the charges are baseless. The
contract is important to both companies. Hughes had set up an
entire corporate division to bid on the project and may have to
lay off 250 workers. For IBM, the contract is a key in the
company's strategy for the RT engineering workstation, which will
be the backbone of the FAA system. IBM has said it expects the
new air traffic control system will use 12,000 to 15,000 of the
slow-selling reduced instruction set computers.

[***][8/16/88][***]
PEROT LOSES BIG IN POSTAL CONTRACT
WASHINGTON (NB) -- The Postal Service is dropping a major portion
of the controversial contract with Texas computer billionaire H.
Ross Perot, and will renegotiate the remainder of the contract.
"This was clearly a mistake that I hope is not too late to
rectify," Postmaster General Anthony Frank told two Senate
subcommittees. The second, and potentially most lucrative,
portion of the contract, which would provide for sharing the
savings of cost-cutting measures identified in the first stage,
will be opened to competitive bidding, Frank said, and Perot's
Perot Systems Inc. will not be a bidder.

Frank said he hoped that the first phase of the deal, a six-
month, $500,000 study of the agency to find ways to cut costs,
can be done by Perot. The General Services Administration's Board
of Contract Appeals has declared the contract "illegal" and
ordered it voided. The Postal Service is appealing in federal
court, and a ruling is expected soon. GSA got involved in the
contract after Electronic Data Systems, the computer firm that
Perot founded and sold the General Motors, filed a formal
complaint.

[***][8/16/88][***]
AMIGA PUSHES COMMODORE INTO MAJOR RECOVERY
WEST CHESTER, Pa. (NB) -- The technically nifty Amiga computer is
finally making a big impression on the bottom line at Commodore
International Inc. Commodore has reported a six-fold increase in
profits for the fourth quarter, and doubled earnings for the year
ended June 30. According to Chairman Irving Gould, U.S. sales
rose in the fourth quarter, the first time in two years. The U.S.
accounts for about 20 percent of Commodore's sales. According to
Commodore, the Amiga is selling well in corporate art and design
shops, where it is a strong performer in desktop presentations.

Commodore said fourth quarter profits rose to $12.2 million (38
cents per share) on sales of $215.2 million. The prior fourth
quarter say earnings of $2.1 million (six cents per share) on
revenues of $190.4 million. For the year, profits hit $55.8
million ($1.75 per share) on sales of $871.1 million, compared to
profits of $28.6 million (89 cents per share) on $806.7 million
in sales.

[***][8/16/88][***]
1ST-CLASS SIGNS ON INTEL
WAYLAND, Mass. (NB) -- Intel Corp. has signed a corporate license
for 1st-CLASS FUSION. The agreement provides for unlimited
distribution of the expert system development program on a
worldwide basis throughout Intel, according to Amy Metzenbaum of
1st-CLASS. The license is effectively immediately, according to
Metzenbaum. 1st-CLASS has been on a role lately in terms of
corporate licenses. Just a week before the Intel deal, the
company signed a similar license with Chrysler. Metzembaum says
this is coincidence, not the result of a major targeting of
corporations for licensing.

[***][8/16/88][***]
NEWS NIBBLES

Students applying to the UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND can now apply on
disk. The university will provide students with a disk that
contains all the forms of a regular paper application, as well as
the school's alma mater and the fight song for the Richmond
Spiders. The applicant then fills out the application on his or
her computer and mails it back to Richmond.

GENERAL COMPUTER, Waltham, MA., has officially changed its name
to GCC TECHNOLOGIES.  The reason is confusion -- several other
companies are named General Computer.  GCC makes Macintosh peripherals
including laser printers and storage devices.

BELL ATLANTIC'S SORBUS subsidiary, Philadelphia, has
acquired THE COMPUTER MAINTENANCE CO. (CMC), a privately held
computer service company in Toronto. No terms were disclosed. CMC
is the largest firm in Canada maintaining IBM mainframe
equipment. Sorbus is a leading U.S. independent computer
maintenance operation.

UNISYS CORP. of Blue Bell, Pa., has completed the first of three
major upgrades to the New York Terminal Radar Approach, which
will assist air traffic controllers in the New York City area,
who have to deal with traffic coming in and going out of Kennedy,
LaGuardia, Newark, and Islip airports.

IBM, SUMITOMO BANK CAPITAL MARKETS INC.,  and DECISION SOFTWARE
are developing a portfolio trading and risk management system for
the U.S. financial industry. The system, called Expert Trading
System, will be delivered first to Sumitomo in New York.

COMPUTER CONSOLES INC. of Waltham, Mass., is looking for a
suitor. No hostile takeover for the company that makes computers
and other gear mostly for the Bell Regional Operating Companies.
Chairman John Cunningham is looking for love. "If we have
leading-edge technology, I think we'll become the technology arm
of some larger company," he says.

DATA GENERAL CORP., Westboro, Mass., has joined the '386 chase.
DG has introduced the Dasher-386, with a base price of $5,735,
and aimed mainly at users of DG's minicomputers. The company has
also introduced a new low-end mini, the MV-2500 DC, with a price
of $30,000, and a new terminal priced at $440.


The PITTSBURGH SUPERCOMPUTING CENTER at Carnegie Mellon
University has ordered a Cray Y-MP supercomputer to replace the
center's X-MP Cray, and at the same time ordered a Cray III to
replace the Y-MP when the Cray III is available in late 1990. The
Y-MP cruises at 2.6 billion calculations per second, making it
one of the world's most powerful computers. The $25 million Cray
III will blaze at 16 billion calculations per second.


[***][8/16/88][***]
ATARI: SUPER-ST DUE?
MAIDENHEAD, BERKSHIRE (NB) -- Just when you thought it was safe
to buy an Atari ST or Commodore Amiga, along comes the rumour
mill with a super ST, capable of everything the Amiga does, but
with the ST's low pricing and wide software base.

According to the latest COMPUTER TRADE WEEKLY (CTW), the super-ST
will be capable of displaying 4,096 colours on-screen
simultaneously (the same as the Amiga) and support stereo sound,
as well as multitasking and fast horizontal and vertical
scrolling screens. And all this for #399.

What does Atari UK say to all this? Nothing. Atari UK MD Bob
Gleadow is quoted as knowing nothing about the machine. He did,
however, know a lot about the laptop ST (code name Stacey) when
NEWSBYTES UK talked to him at the last Atari computer show.

Let's look at the facts. Atari has developed prototypes of
several variations on the ST in the past. Some have made it to
market. Many haven't. Atari is, however, committed to the@ST
series which now has a wide software base, both in Europe and the
US. On this basis, the Super-ST is likely to be a souped-up
version of the existing ST, using 1Mb DRAM chips to provide memory
at lower cost, and feature improved graphics and sound - the
features it needs to meet the Amiga head on.

And what about the existing ST range? To accommodate the #399
pricing on the Super ST, NEWSBYTES UK predicts that the #100
price hike (to #399) of last February will be reversed, leaving
room for the Super ST to manoeuvre.

* CTW confirms NEWSBYTES UK's story of several weeks ago about
  the forthcoming $199 ST games console, based on the 520ST minus
  keyboard. The bad news for non-US readers of NEWSBYTES, that
  the ST games console looks like being restricted to the North
  American market only. Oh well...

CONTACT: ATARI UK, Atari House, Railway Terrace, Slough,
Berkshire SL2 5BZ.                      Tel: [phone].

[***][8/16/88][***]
DIXONS INTO PCS IN BIG WAY
LONDON, UK (NB) -- Dixons, the UK high street electrical
retailer, is moving into the PC market in a big way. Following
the group's latest financial results, which revealed that company
sales of PCs had increased by 50 per cent last year, Dixons is
devoting a lot more of its floor-space to business computers.

In addition, the group is looking to grab business from other
high street business computer chains with aggressive discounting
on several PC ranges, including the IBM PS/2 product line. A Big
Blue Model PS/2 Model 30, for example, drops #525 to #1,550 for a
mono, and #1,850 for a colour screen machine.

So you can't afford even these prices sir? How about a six
months interest free credit deal or a low-cost leasing plan if
the purchase comes to more than #1,000?

Hmmm... Dixons may not be the best place to get individual
customer service, but with discount prices and e-e-easy
payments, it could be a godsend for people on tight budgets.

CONTACT: DIXONS NATIONAL HQ - 01-952-7011.

[***][8/16/88][***]
DSC NESTAR BYTES INTO EUROPE
WEYBRIDGE, SURREY (NB) -- DSC Nestar, the UK arm of the US
computer networking specialist distributor, is branching into
Europe - the UK distributor has signed up second-stage
distributors in no less than 14 European countries.

Previously, Nestar networking products have been sold in Europe
via dealers and/or specialist chains. Now, the company has
effectively opened up the whole of Europe to its networking
product range.

Robert Thorpe, European general manager for Nestar, is pleased
with the expansion and sees Europe as a vast untapped market:

"We've traditionally concentrated our sales effort on the UK,
where we have full sales and technical support facilities. Our
strategy is now to work closely with distributors in order to
take up position as one of the leading suppliers in Europe," he
said.

CONTACT: NESTAR SYSTEMS, 1 Brooklands Road, Weybridge,
         Surrey KT13 0SD.             Tel: [phone].

[***][8/16/88][***]
TELENET/TYMNET CARTEL BROKEN IN THE US
LONDON, UK (NB) -- The problem with many of the smaller data
networks in the US is that, despite being cheaper than Telenet
and Tymnet, they don't conform fully to the CCITT X.25 standard.
Because of that, they're inaccessible to anyone outside of their
local call areas - unless you can stomach a long distance (or
even international) phone call.

Thanks to to some nifty footwork on the part of several
international packet switching networks, however, several of the
regional US Bell companies' data networks are now accessible via
any X.25 network. This includes Telenet and Tymnet in the US, and
IPSS/Mercury in the UK, as well as the myriad data network
providers around the world.

The networks (and their associated Destination Network
Identification Codes - DNICs) are as follows:


          Ameritech...                       3143
          Bell Atlantic...                   3142
          Nynex Infopath...                  3144
          Pacific Telesis...                 3145
          Pulsenet (Cincinatti Bell)...      3148
          Southwest Bell Microlink II...     3146
          US West Digipac...                 3147


What does access to these services mean for the average modem
user? In the US, it means that calls to certain online services -
provided you currently access via Telenet and Tymnet -  may be
cheaper. Outside of the US, it opens up an alternative network
path to the service which - in many cases - will not be
surcharged, as is the case with Bix, Compuserve and The Source.

For further information, check with your own online service
customer enquiry department.

[***][8/16/88][***]
WHO'S LISTENING IN TO YOUR PHONE CONVERSATION?
MENWITH HILL, NORTH YORKSHIRE (NB) -- Investigative journalist
Duncan Campbell has caused a stir in the latest NEW STATESMAN
magazine by revealing that the US's National Security Agency
(NSA) is to sink several tens of million dollars into expanding
its Menwith Hill facility near Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

What does Menwith Hill do? Currently it listens to world radio
transmissions. The expansion will take its operations into the
world of international telecommunications. Campbell alleges that
plans call for all international phone and data conversations,
both in and out of the UK, to be monitored by the NSA site.

Can they do this? Yes. The UK Home Office grants 'monitoring
warrants,' to prevent any embarrassing prosecutions under the
Interception of Communications Act. Appearing on NEWSBYTES UK's
local TV station, Campbell revealed that between 250 and 300
of these warrants are in use at any one time. Furthermore,
between 6 and 12 of those warrants are what are known as blanket
warrants. One warrant is sufficient to tap ALL international
phone calls in and out of the UK.

What Uncle Sam does with all those phone call recordings,
however, is anyone's guess...

[***][8/16/88][***]
+ BRITBYTES - Bytes of news from around the UK... +

APPLE UK (0442-60244) has confirmed that the UK price of its
Apple Scanner will be #1,250. There are no plans to launch the
Mac 4/40 (announced at Boston MacWorld last week) in the UK, however...

CAMBRIDGE COMPUTER, the supplier of Sir Clive Sinclair's Z88
laptop, is said to be reconsidering its decision to supply the
unapproved Datatronics modem with its machine. According to
COMPUTING magazine, the company is in discussions with Dataflex
Designs over its Stradcom pocket modem. The bad news is the
Stradcom pocket modem's price - #199, compared to #125 for the
Datatronics unit...

DATAFLEX DESIGNS (01-543-6417) is now shipping its #499 Biscom
modem. The Biscom is MCA (MicroChannel Architecture) compatible
and features all modem speeds between 300 and 2400 baud full
duplex. MNP level 4 error-correction is fitted as a standard
feature...

TANDATA COMMUNICATIONS (0684-892421) has released a 45-page book
for novice PC modem users. 'Data Communications on a PC,' costs
#2-50 including postage and packing...

SAGESOFT (091-284-7077) is issuing a spin-off book on pension
legislation to customers of its Sage Payroll software. The book
is free to users of Payroll, and #4-95 to anyone else. If you
wanted a cheap guide to pensions, now's your chance...

The TELEMAP GROUP (01-278-3143) is to expand its Shades multi-
user adventure game from Prestel to Telecom Gold, the UK Dialcom
E-mail affiliate. The expansion effectively doubles the number of
modem users with access to the service from 80,000 to 160,000...

WATFORD ELECTRONICS (0923-37774), the BBC micro specialist, is to
start selling own-brand PCs under the Aries label. The company
will sell PC-XT compatibles starting at #875, and AT-compatibles
from #975. THe firm is pitching at just under the Amstrad price
level and intends to launch an 80386-based series of micros
towards the end of the year...
====