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/nb880906.272

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[***][9/06/88][***]
IBM, APPLE EXPECTED TO ROLL OUT NEW MACHINES, FIRST 80486 SYSTEM DUE
SAN FRANCISCO (NB) -- Both Apple Computer and IBM may introduce new
microcomputers within weeks of each other this month, according to the
latest industry intelligence.  Apple is slated to bring out its first
68030-based Macintosh, the IIX, capable of multitasking and 32-bit
operation, either as soon as September 19 or as late as October.
Sources say the machine, Apple's most powerful to date, will come with a
standard 4 megabytes of main memory and several memory storage options
and will be priced around $7,000.  Aimed at the engineering workstation
crowd, the Macintosh IIX will run A/UX, Apple's version of the Unix
operating system.

And we're told IBM is preparing to introduce a PS/2 Model 35
as early as September 13.  Also, IBM has something called the PS
Portable in the wings, slated for introduction either at the same time
as the 35, or sometime in October.  The PS Portable is said to be
a portable version of the Model 70, the 386-based system.  Stay tuned.

Convergent Technologies, San Jose, Ca., will be the first on the
block with an Intel 80486-based system, according to Paul Ely, chairman
of Convergent.  The boss is quoted as saying the PC will be introduced
next year by parent company Unisys and will be employed mainly as
a networked Unix machine.

[***][9/06/88][***]
BIG BORLAND LAYOFF, NEW APPOINTMENTS
SCOTTS VALLEY, Ca. (NB) -- Borland International, taking steps to
cut costs, has announced that 90 workers are being laid off.  The
across-the-board cuts are expected to save the company up to $1 million a
month -- or at least that's the goal of Borland Chairman Philippe
Kahn.  The layoffs don't mean the company is in trouble.  Latest
figures show Borland had sales of $81 million, more than double
the previous year, for the fiscal year ending March 31.  But analysts
say its profit margins have eroded because it has not kept expenses
under control. Profits dropped from 16.5 percent in 1986 to 4
percent last year.

Accompanying the layoff was news that Borland has appointed former
Lotus and Microsoft executives to key positions within the company.
Stephen Kahn (no relation to Philippe) has been appointed Borland's
director of business development.  Kahn  is no relation to Philippe.
Microsoft's former manager for southwest OEM accounts, Stephen Green,
has been given the title of director of business development.

[***][9/06/88][***]
KAYPRO LAYS OFF 10% OF WORKERS
SOLANA BEACH, Ca. (NB) -- Kaypro Corporation has given walking papers
to 35 employees, 10 percent of the work force, as a result of sagging
sales.  The layoffs bring the number of workers to about 310, half
what it was in 1984.  A company statement blames "slower than anticipated
sales in the past few months due to a variety of market conditions,
including seasonal factors and the recent semiconductor shortage."

Things have not been going well for Kaypro for some time.  Its latest
financial report shows net sales for the last nine months are down
by a third from one year ago -- $58.9 million compared to $85
million in 1987.  The last nine months have also produced a net loss of
$4.4 million.

Regarding the PS/2 clone Kaypro's chairman bragged about introducing
earlier this year, it's still on the calendar for an introduction
this month, but whether it will in fact be released is a matter
of market demand, according to John Hentrich, the company's general
counsel.

[***][9/06/88][***]
ATARI SAYS IT WAS CHEATED BY FEDERATED
SUNNYVALE, Ca. (NB) -- Atari Corporation says it was misled by Federated
officers, Federated accountants, and Federated's investment bankers
when it was time to put money on the table for the line of
electronics stores last October.  Specifically, Atari alleges that
it was bilked out of $43 million; Atari claims Federated people overstated
the value of the chain's assets before the sale to Atari.

The dispute is in U.S. District Court in San Jose where Atari has
charged Wilfred Schwartz, Federated's former chairman, other company
officers, Ernst & Whinney accountants, and Goldman Sachs & Co. with
conspiracy to misrepresent the company.  Further, Atari says the
dedfendants engaged in a "pattern of racketeering activity" and is
entitled to triple the damage award if the court decides in its favor.

Despite its best intentions, Atari has failed to turn around Federated's
trail of red ink since purchasing the stores, and the chain's losses
continue to drag down Atari's own earnings.

[***][9/06/88][***]
SPARCS FLY AS TEXAS INSTRUMENTS FLIES INTO SUN
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Ca. (NB) -- Texas Instruments has become the second
major chipmaker in a week to announce that it has licensed Sun
Microsystems' SPARC microprocessor technology.  Matsushita announced
such an alliance this week, saying it will incorporate the design
into a line of its own workstations.

Texas Instruments in conjunction with Cypress Semiconductor, will
manufacture the RISC-based SPARC chip and related components to help
meet an overwhelming demand for them from other companies, and TI will
work on developing future versions of Sun's patented technology.

The alliance further supports Sun's goal of making its SPARC
technology the standard for a new generation of computers.  The
chip has already been embraced by a variety of companies for
incorporation into their workstations:  AT&T, Unisys, Fuji Xerox,
Xerox, and of course, Sun.  It is now being manufactured by
LSI Logic, Fujitsu, Texas Instruments, and Cypress.

[***][9/06/88][***]
NEXT GENERATION CD-ROM AIM OF SONY/PHILIPS/MICROSOFT ALLIANCE
REDMOND, Wa.  (NB) -- Microsoft has agreed to cooperate with NV Philips
of the Netherlands and Sony Corporation of Japan to extend the CD-ROM
format to include sound and lively graphics.  Currently, CD-ROM
only supports line drawings and text.  The three firms will work together
to develop what they're calling CD-ROM Extended Architecture or
CD-ROM XA for short.  Elements of CD-I, a format expected to begin
appearing in stand-alone consumer electronics this fall, will be
incorporated into CD-ROM XA.  The new format would also be capable of
running in a computer equipped with a CD-ROM drive or in a CD-I
player.

[***][9/06/88][***]
NEW MACINTOSH/DOS BOARD FOR THE MACINTOSH II
MILPITAS, Ca. (NB) -- PerfecTek Corporation is shipping the first
of its Mac/DOS II boards, peripheral boards which fit into a single
Mac II slot and enable the computer to use MS-DOS software in
addition to Macintosh programs.  The board comes configured with
one megabyte of memory which can be used when the board is not
running MS-DOS programs.  It also has a parallel printer port for
IBM standard printers, an RS232 communications port, disk conversion
and file transfer utilities, and a cable for connection of MS-DOS
machines to the Macintosh.  It's priced at $1,495.

CONTACT:  PERFECTEK, 408/263-7757

[***][9/06/88][***]
PROGRAM ALLOWS HANDICAPPED TO TYPE ON ATARI XE WITHOUT KEYBOARD
LOS ANGELES, Ca. (NB) -- ANALOG COMPUTING magazine has a program that
allows the handicapped to type without using a keyboard.  Author
John Pilge says of the program, which appears in the magazine's
September issue, "As long as a person can make two inches of
movement they can type a letter."  The programs work using either
a joystick or trackball to select characters to form words.  Disk
and printing commands are also possible.

The program is called JOYTYPE and will be in the public domain
after October 2, 1988.  The program must be typed in on an Atari
XE computer.

CONTACT:  ANALOG COMPUTING, 213/858-7100

[***][9/06/88][***]
IN BRIEF --

ASHTON-TATE, Torrance, Ca., says its second annual developer's conference
is slated for next week at Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.  The
September 13-16 event features seminars on the latest in dBASE IV
development, and opportunities in Framework II, dBASE Mac Run Time and
Full Impact, as well as sessions on SQL Server.

ATARI, Sunnyvale, Ca., will sponsor the coming Tangerine Dream tour
to demonstrate its strength in the MIDI music market.

CLARIS, Mountain View, Ca., has announced a fall promotion which bundles
every copy of MacWrite 5.0 sold between September 6 and December
31 with Software Discoveries' MergeWrite, a mail merge utility.

HEWLETT PACKARD, Palo Alto, Ca., will begin servicing other companies'
computers in a new service organization.  The Multivendor Support
Organization is being offered to companies in need of service
contracts.

ROLM is now a company of the past.  The last of the signs were taken
off the Santa Clara company past week, replaced with IBM, the new
name.


[***][9/06/88][***]
BELLSOUTH ANNOUNCES ITS GATEWAY SERVICE TEST
ATLANTA (NB) -- BellSouth Corp. announced its Transtext Universal
Gateway (TUG) August 31. It's designed as an easy, cheap way to
get into distant services like Newsnet, as well as specialized,
local services BellSouth will develop. But the announcement was
made in Washington, not Atlanta, and spokesmen admitted the
company only "hopes" to reach "about 300" users in a "controlled
introduction." Even on Friday BellSouth spokesmen in Atlanta were
still fighting to catch up with Washington's words.

So why announce now? Insiders suggest politics are to blame.
Specifically, the move by Reagan Administration officials to get
Judge Harold Greene to either let Baby Bells like BellSouth sell
information and terminals, or get Judge Greene off the case. As
Probe Research senior research analyst Peter Bernstein told NEWSBYTES,
"Information businesses need a compelling service," which will move
people to buy PCs for communication as they now buy fax machines.
An electronic Yellow Pages, through which you could create lists,
should be that compelling service, Bernstein says. He recalled seeing
U.S. Congressmen introduced to Minitels and CompuServe, and how the
solons looked amazed at the $3,500 price tag (including a PC) for
the latter against the greater functionality (especially for
directory assistance) of the former.

Three of the initial offerings are locally-based. NEWSBYTES
talked to two such IPs. Lupe Eichelberger of Piedmont Hospital
says she'll just be updating health tips weekly, answering
electronic mail, and keeping files on the hospital's regular
services. "We're looking at it as something we want to do as
public relations," she said. "They're looking at it as marketing
research." Steve Johnson of the "Fulton County Daily Report" said
he wants to send BellSouth data and have them turn it into a
database from which he can profit. "Every day we print foreclosure
notices, new business licenses, incorporation notices, mortgage
deeds, construction permits. It's not valuable in one week -- but
if you can search it in 6 months or a year, it's valuable."

Johnson also wishes "to help law firms set up an automatic search
procedure so that anything mentioning a law firm will be cited to
them through an electronic mailbox. Right now they have to scan
the paper manually - 30 or 40 pages worth." The operative word
here is wish -- the Daily Report service is vapor at this
writing.

The complete list of initial IPs on TUG: Local -- The Alliance
Theater, ComLine Atlanta, Piedmont Hospital. National -- Chat-
Line, CompuStore, Market Watch, NewsNet, Travel Plus.

CONTACT: BELLSOUTH, [phone]

[***][9/06/88][***]
KNIGHT-RIDDER CLOSES PURCHASE OF DIALOG
MIAMI (NB) -- Knight-Ridder closed the most ambitious online
purchase of the year August 31, the $353 million acquisition of
Dialog Information Services Inc. from Lockheed Corp. Dialog was
first developed 20 years ago as the "Remote Console Information
Retrieval System (Recon), a NASA system for tracking information
on the Apollo moon shot. The first Dialog passwords were issued
in 1972. In 1987, Dialog had revenues of $98.1 million, net
income of $9.2 million, and 92,000 subscribers in 86 countries
accessing 320 databases. The systems' search software is
intimidating to newcomers, but it's also a powerful Structured
Query Language (SQL), all the rage among database mavens.
Dialog's CD-ROM business is included in the sale, as is its Dial-
Net network.

As noted by NEWSBYTES when this sale was first announced, there
are real opportunities for Knight-Ridder, best known as a
newspaper chain, in the Dialog acquisition. Operations can be
tightened, and real synergy is now possible with K-R's VuText
(newspapers) and MoneyCenter (financial trading data) systems.
Lee Ann Schlatter of Knight-Ridder told NEWSBYTES that Dialog and
VuText, which is based in Philadelphia, will now be a single
division reporting to a K-R officer in Kansas City, MO.

CONTACT: Lee Ann Schlatter, KNIGHT-RIDDER, [phone]

[***][9/06/88][***]
ONLINE COPYRIGHT ISSUES EXTENDING TO GRAPHICS FILES
ROCKVILLE, MD (NB) -- Ezra Shapiro noted last week in "MacWeek"
that before you download that cute piece of graphic art from
CompuServe or Genie onto your Macintosh, think! You could be
violating copyright. A recent survey by Shapiro found literally
hundreds of copyrighted pieces of art -- including images from
"Sports Illustrated" swimsuit issues -- sitting around waiting
for copyright violators. System operators are stuck between the
copyright law, which demands that they clear out illegally copied
images just as they clear out illegally copied software, and the
need to stay competitive.

NEWSBYTES contacted CompuServe (the largest collector), GEnie,
and The Source and asked what they plan to do about it. "At this
point they're still considering what to do," said CompuServe
spokesman Dave Kishler on September 2. "Images are a relatively
new medium for file transfer."

"We recognize there's a problem," said Bill Louden, general
manager of GEnie. "We've had a policy since 86 that material
scanned from magazines may violate copyright and that users must
show due diligence. Very few do that. The problem we have is my
SYSOPs are experts in Macintosh software, and can recognize a
software copyright violation. But they don't have the expertise
to spot the tens of thousands of images that exist. When a
copyright holder contacts us, we will remove things immediately."
Users, system owners, and copyright holders all have to share
policing of graphic files, Louden concludes.

[***][9/06/88][***]
FIRST PRODUCT OF SANDIA RESEARCH ONLINE IN SOUTH CAROLINA
KNOXVILLE, TN (NB) -- NEWSBYTES talked to Kenneth Cross, vice
president-systems division of Perceptics Inc., Knoxville, TN.
Perceptics, one-third owned by Westinghouse, Pittsburgh, PA,
installed a 1,024-node supercomputer at the University of South
Carolina in Columbia, which turned it on in July. On September 2,
"The Associated Press" ran a story in which an Atlanta consultant
accused the University of buying a $3.3 million lemon.

Pish-tosh, says Cross. "We are discussing manufacturing" the
parallel processing machine, which is based in part on research
reported by NEWSBYTES at the Sandia Laboratories in Albuquerque,
NM.  The hardware works fine, although there was a slight problem
with one software interface, now corrected. "Trevor Hicks isn't
qualified to say what he says. No one checked him out," Cross
says. (NEWSBYTES tried but failed to reach Mr. Hicks. There was
no number for him in Atlanta, which AP identified as his home.)

Even if Hicks were right about technical problems with the USC
Perceptics box, Cross notes, the first of anything is going to
have some bugs. The real news here, he concludes, is how fast
parallel-processing technologies are coming to market and
redefining what a supercomputer is.

CONTACT: Kenneth Cross, PERCEPTICS [phone]

[***][9/06/88][***]
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS ANNOUNCES NEW NUBUS CHIP SET
DALLAS (NB) -- Texas Instruments is working hard to drum up board
developer support for its newest chips, a three-chip NuBus
instruction set it says will make creation of Macintosh II
expansion boards easier and less expensive. TI did all this Mac
work because it also uses the NuBus in its Explorer workstation
and System 1500. It refined the basic NuBus technology from
MIT. The new chips act as "traffic cops" for signals going among
computer boards, which control input, output, and extra
processing. "The TI chips allow a designer to shrink board space
required for interfacing to the computer bus from 9 square inches
to 3," said strategy marketing manager Brian Kelly, giving
designers more board space for applications. The new chips also
require less power to run than previous designs. Pricing will
start at $45-50 per set.

CONTACT: Sheree Fitzpatrick, TI [phone]

[***][9/06/88][***]
THE LATEST JAPANESE PURCHASE IS GOULD
ROLLING MEADOWS, IL (NB) -- Gould Inc., a minicomputer and chip
maker which also does Defense contracting through its NavCom
subsidiary, agreed to sell to Nippon Mining Co. for $1.1
billion August 30. Gould, originally a battery maker, tried and
failed under former Chairman William Ylisaker to become a giant
electronics and defense company. It had been selling units and
suffering losses over the last few years. "The Wall Street
Journal" got this reaction from Smith Barney analyst H.P. Smith:
"Hallelujah! I've been following this company for 10 years, and
it's been straight down the tubes in terms of stock price." A
Nippon Mining tender offer for Gould stock began Friday,
September 2.

Nippon Mining plans to sell NavCom -- the Defense Department
refuses to do business with foreign contractors. But it will keep
the business that makes copper foil for circuit boards. Still,
the deal is subject to review by President Reagan under the Trade
Bill signed a few weeks ago. (Separately, Gould sold its anti-
submarine warfare unit on August 29 to Martin Marietta for $117
million.)

CONTACT: Gerald Corbett, GOULD, [phone]

[***][9/06/88][***]
PECAN CHIPS

BRAZIL refused to change its constitution and eliminate
discrimination against foreign-based companies, with the nation's
Constituent Assembly rejecting U.S. pressure to do so by a count
of 193-126. Last year, a Brazilian company announced a Macintosh
clone while Brazilian authorities were denying Apple Macintosh
import licenses.

DCA, Alpharetta, GA, got in deep doo-doo with stock analysts
after announcing sales and earnings for the quarter ending
September 30 will be 15-20% short of June's $68.3 million and
$11.3 million. The stock price dropped from about $30 Monday to
about $21 Thursday, putting the kibosh on stock-based
acquisitions for now.

FOUNDATION WARE, Cleveland, OH, released version 2.1 of its
Vaccine program, which includes a memory-resident module designed
to intercept an attempt to write directly to hard drives, a
frequent source of infection.

HAYES MICROCOMPUTER, Norcross, GA, has quietly released a new
version of its Smartcom II communications program. The old
version couldn't dial old Hayes 300 baud modems, and its VT52
emulation was bug-ridden.

LOUIS HARRIS, New York, released a survey showing 78% of U.S.
office workers now have PCs on their desks, with data entry
(71%), access to online databases (69%) and word processing (56%)
the most popular applications, followed by spreadsheets (45%),
statistical analysis (43%), order entry (31%), and graphics
(27%).

MSA, Atlanta, laid off 230, half in research, and closed a 50-man
facility in North Carolina. The company turned down a takeover
offer from Computer Associates Inc. a month ago, and fired
president William Graves two weeks ago.

ZENITH, Glenview, IL, announced that Brookhurst Partners, owners
of 6.1% of Zenith's common, has been talking  to a possible buyer
of Zenith's computer business. A tender offer for the whole and a
split-off of the money-losing consumer electronics division,
including the computer business, is a possibility.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Fax exports are the number one priority with Japan Inc -- it's
the business equivalent of the VCR."

                                Peter Bernstein
                                senior research analyst
                                Probe Research
                                Cedar Knolls, NJ

[***][9/06/88][***]
YOU READ IT HERE FIRST/WEEK OF September 6, 1988
Copyright 1988/Written by W. A. Yacco, Exclusive to NEWSBYTES

In this week's installment...
- THIS WEEK'S SPREADSHEET ENTRY: 1-2-3/3 @ 9/6...1-2-3 Roll-Out
                                                  Announcement

- HOW DO YOU KEEP AN ELEPHANT FROM CHARGING?...DOS gets nearly
                                                one full megabyte.

- ZIFF DAVIS SLICKS THE HICKS...Part Two


- SOFTSCRYBE SHIPPED SANS SIGNALS...Advance Vision Research's
                                     Postscript Interpreter

- COLORIX ESCAPES...Latest VGA Software Ships From Rix


THIS WEEK'S SPREADSHEET ENTRY: 1-2-3/3 @ 9/6
CAMBRIDGE, Ma (NB) -- A well-placed source inside Lotus has assured
me that this week will begin with an important announcement about
1-2-3, release 3.  According to my source, Tuesday will see first
light reach a plan of the product's roll-out.  Recent reports in the
press have appeared to be preparing the market for a slip in the
product's fourth-quarter schedule.  However, my source denies that
there will be any delay.  In particular, he denies widely suspected
problems in squeezing release 3 into DOS's 640KB.


HOW DO YOU KEEP AN ELEPHANT FROM CHARGING?
TORONTO, On (NB) -- However Lotus is solving its memory problems,
the ALL Charge Card seems unlikely to be involved.  Some people at
Lotus are reportedly looking at the Canadian hardware memory manager
but there doesn't seem to be a high level of excitement.  Too bad.
Other application developers bumping into memory constraints are
actively interested.  Quarterdeck found the board so enhanced the
utility of Desqview that it is marketing the board directly.

I plugged a Charge Card into my AT (another version, the ALL Card,
is available for 8088-based machines) and it instantly boosted my
system's real DOS memory from 655,360 bytes (640KB) to 983,040 bytes
(960KB).  The card doesn't have any memory of its own but manages
all of the memory in a system.  Extended memory can be used to
backfill below the 1MB boundary, to become EMS or EEMS, or to hold
all of a system's TSR software.

Installation does not require a slot because the card plugs between
the motherboard and MPU.  In a few cases, installation can be a
little tricky but ALL Computers, Inc. has a variety of converters to
accommodate virtually any physical constraints imposed by a
computer's layout.  I required a special cable to reach my socket
but the installation was still easy.

Many utilities are also supplied with the hardware.  One of them
lets me see exactly how memory is being use by the system.  Another
lets me drop real memory back down to 640KB in the case of
compatibility problems.  Compatibility can easily be an issue due to
the relocation of video memory and the typical ill-behaved video
management of a great many programs.

However, a large number of software solutions are provided.  For
those supported programs like 1-2-3, with the greatest need, the
card is ideal.  For users who can no longer work on an essential
spreadsheet because more than 640KB is required, it is the answer to
their prayers.  Whatever you do to keep such an elephant from
charging, don't take away its ALL Card; it'll just lose its memory
instead.  Contact ALL at [phone].


ZIFF SLICKS THE HICKS--Part Two
BOSTON Ma (NB) -- Last week I criticized Ziff-Davis' questionable
practice of marketing "PC Computing" by offering a "free" diskette
when they really zeem to be charging zubscribers $3 for it.  Well,
$12.95 would ztill be more than a fair price for the new book
without a diskette.  In fact, it's unlikely that most publishers
could afford to give away a magazine as well produced as "PC
Computing" for zo little, even without the diskette.  Ziff is
basically buying a list of zubscribers to prime the pump for its
advertisers.

Unfortunately, this could be zubject to misinterpretation as
dishonesty, rather than contemporary marketing ethics.  It would be
a pity if zome of the blame rubbed off on the editors rather than
zolely on marketing where it belongs--especially for Editor in Chief
Jim Seymour, one of the most respected people in our industry and
perhaps its most believable columnist.  Ziff zhould make a better
effort to preserve every appearance of integrity for the zake of its
editorial credibility.

Meanwhile, I've begun to receive a third zubscription addressed to
my business.  I have no recollection of ordering it and a bill
hasn't arrived either.  It may be that zome of "PC Computing"'s
400,000 zubscriptions were zent complimentarily to recipients drawn
from qualified lists.  I think I'll wait a few more days before
zending in that check.


SOFTSCRYBE SHIPPED SANS SIGNALS
SAN JOSE, Ca (NB) -- Advanced Vision Research began shipping
SoftScrybe last week without a formal announcement.  The program is
a software implementation of a Postscript Interpreter that allows
users of AVR's MegaScan system to print Postscript files on the
least expensive of laser printers.  Any laser using a Canon CX or SX
engine can be driven by the system which connects directly to the
printer's video port.  Because it interfaces directly with the video
controller, MegaScan eliminates even the need for a simple serial or
parallel interface card.

With the addition of the new SoftScrybe software, the printer can
create documents with integrated text and graphics without its own
Postscript controller.  The image is created right in the MegaScan
system's own memory which resides on its MegaBuffer card in the
computer.  The actual work is done by the computer's own 80286 or
80386 processor.

At the Seybold conference in Santa Clara this month, AVR will
announce a replacement for the MegaBuffer.  When not printing, the
TIGer card will make its memory available for EMS applications.  Two
megabytes will be standard with up to eight optional.  The TIGer
board also features PCL emulation for H-P Laserjet compatibility.


COLORIX ESCAPES
IRVINE, Ca -- I've just had a chance to look at the new VGA software
from RIX that I mentioned here a few weeks ago.  RIX also sent me a
couple of their new demo programs.  I tested the stuff on a '386
system with a VGA Wonder card from ATI and NEC's Multiscan Plus.
ColoRIX VGA Paint is phenomenal.  VGA hi res (640 by 480) in 256
colors is like real video--not that artificial looking stuff that
most PC users have always settled for in the past.  Living things
look alive.

Higher resolution modes are supported if you've got the hardware:
600 by 800 with 256 colors or 1024 by 768 with 16.  Or, if you've
got a PS/2 model 50 or higher, a special 360-by-480 mode gives you
256 colors--with nearly 3 times the pixels of the standard 320-by-
200 mode--without requiring a hardware upgrade.  If ColoRIX and VGA
equipment doesn't make you go blind from delight, you may at least
finally forget the nightmare of CGA.

[***][9/06/88][***]
DEALERS, RESELLERS TO GATHER
TORONTO (NB) -- Computer dealers and value-added resellers (VARs)
will gather in Toronto this week for the VARDEX trade show.
About 60 exhibitors have signed up for the two-day event, to be
held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre September 7 and 8.
They will exhibit products from PC components to minicomputers.
In conjunction with the show, the Corporate Information Group of
Dallas will run seminars on selling techniques and customer
service.

CONTACT: REED-MCGREGOR EXHIBITIONS, INC., 800 Denison St.,
         Unit 7, Markham, Ont. L3R 5M9, [phone],
         Fax [phone]

[***][9/06/88][***]
DEVELCON GETS FEDERAL, PROVINCIAL AID FOR NET DEVELOPMENT
SASKATOON, Sask. (NB) -- The Canadian federal government and the
Province of Saskatchewan will give Develcon Electronics Ltd.
C$8.2 million over the next three years.  Develcon will use the
money to help develop a data networking system based on the Open
Systems Interconnection (OSI) model.  Plagued by losses the past
few years, Develcon hopes the project will put it back in the
forefront of data communications.

Altogether, developing the Develcon Strategic Networking
Architecture is expected to cost C$14 million.  The federal
government's Western Diversification agency will provide C$4.7
million through its Industrial and Regional Development Program.
Saskatchewan's Science and Technology ministry will chip in C$3.5
million.

The Strategic Networking Architecture will be designed for local-
area, wide-area and metropolitan-area networks.  Develcon expects
to sell it to large corporations, universities and governments.

CONTACT: DEVELCON ELECTRONICS LTD., 856 51st St. E.,
         Saskatoon, Sask. S7K 5C7, [phone]

[***][9/06/88][***]
STARTUP IN GOOD FORM WITH NEW PRODUCT
TORONTO (NB) -- So much for the paperless office.  Delrina
Technology Inc.'s first product is a software package that
creates business forms.  President Mark Skapinker noticed many PC
users were designing business forms with high-powered desktop
publishing programs.  He thought an easy-to-use package just for
forms would be a good idea.  So he developed Per:FORM.
Dataquest, the U.S. research firm, backs up his hunch, predicting
electronic forms will be nearly a $3-billion market by 1991.

Per:FORM runs on MS-DOS computers with at least 512K bytes of RAM
and uses Digital Research Inc.'s GEM graphic interface.  It sells
for C$324.95 in Canada, US$259.95 in the United States.  For a
limited time, Delrina is offering a Mitsubishi mouse with the
software for $59.95 (US$39.00).  The company says it has
established distribution channels throughout Canada and the U.S.

CONTACT: DELRINA TECHNOLOGY INC., 10 Brentcliffe Rd., Suite 210
         Toronto, Ont. M4G 3Y2, [phone]

[***][9/06/88][***]
CELLULAR CARRIER TO GO PUBLIC
TORONTO (NB) -- Cantel Inc., the national independent cellular
telephone company, has  filed a preliminary prospectus for an
initial public stock offering.  No date has been announced for
the offering, but company spokesman Paul Preston said the
offering is "basically a fast-track thing" and the offering
should take place quite soon.  The offering is expected to be
some 1.25 million shares at about C$40 a share, making a total
offering of approximately C$50 million.

Rogers Communications Inc. of Toronto, best known for its cable
television business, controls nearly half of Cantel at present.
The company serves about 90,000 customers in 24 Canadian cities,
competing with the cellular operations of the regional telephone
companies.

CONTACT: CANTEL INC., 40 Eglinton Ave. E., Toronto, Ont.
         M4P 3A2, [phone], Fax [phone]

[***][9/06/88][***]
FEUD OVER CALL-NET SERVICE CONTINUES
TORONTO (NB) -- Bell Canada disconnected telephone lines used by
Call-Net Telecommunications Ltd. on August 24.  Call-Net uses the
lines to provide about 800 customers with long-distance services
coupled with call-detail recording.  Call-Net has maintained
that's an enhanced service, which it can offer under Canadian
law.  Bell argued -- and the Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) agreed -- that Call-Net was
mainly interested in reselling long-distance service in
competition with Bell.

Call-Net had been told a year ago to change its service.  On
August 18 its last extension ran out, but Bell agreed to keep the
lines working while its people met with Call-Net to plan the
transition to a different kind of service.  Bell spokeswoman
Linda Gervais told NEWSBYTES CANADA that Bell decided Call-Net
was not negotiating in good faith, but stalling for time.  So
early on the afternoon of August 24, Bell told Call-Net its lines
would be disconnected at five that day.  They were, but they were
reconnected a couple of hours later when the CRTC ordered Bell to
give Call-Net a reprieve.  Some customers in Montreal didn't get
full service back until the next day because of technical
problems, Gervais admitted.

[***][9/06/88][***]
BITS, EH?
-- LANPAR TECHNOLOGIES INC., Markham, Ont., is laying off 47
people and closing the terminal-making plant of its subsidiary
Northern Technologies Inc. for a month.  The latest layoffs bring
the total staff cuts since June to 115, leaving 270 people at
Lanpar and Northern.  Lanpar makes personal computers and
distributes computer products.

-- GEAC COMPUTER CORP., Markham, Ont., is buying Advanced
Libraries and Information Inc. of Honolulu.  Geac and Advanced
Libraries both sell library automation systems.

-- PARADYNE CANADA LTD., a Richmond Hill, Ont., communications
vendor, has named NCR CANADA LTD. as its nationwide third-party
service organization.

-- NCR CANADA LTD., Mississauga, Ont., announced its Synergy
Program, aimed at better relationships with distributors, value-
added resellers, software houses and consultants.  The Synergy
program is being announced in all countries covered by NCR's
Pacific group, including the U.S. and Australia.  Spokeswoman
Virvee Tremblay said NCR Canada's program is more all-
encompassing than those in most other countries.

-- DATA GENERAL (CANADA) INC., Mississauga, Ont., has named Dexco
Computer Systems Ltd. of Montreal as a value-added reseller.
Dexco plans to buy about C$750,000 worth of DG equipment per year
for use in the Dexco Legal System, an office automation package
for law offices.

-- DELL COMPUTER CORP., Austin, Tex., is opening a Canadian
subsidiary in Richmond Hill, Ont., just north of Toronto.  Dell
has just appointed D. Bruce Sinclair president of the subsidiary.

[***][9/06/88][***]
MATSUSHITA LICENSES SUN'S SPARC TECHNOLOGY
TOKYO (NB) -- Matsushita has announced that it will begin
production and sales of powerful SPARC-based engineering
workstations (EWSs) as a result of its liaison with AT&T and Sun
Microsystems. Matsushita has licensed Sun's SPARC technology for
its coming engineering workstation, a 32-bit Unix-based machine
with a data processing speed of 10 million instructions per
second.

Production of the workstations is expected to be divided between
Matshushita's Japanese factory and Longmont, Colorado-based
Solbourne Computer, of which Matsushita owns 52%.  Matsushita
has already invested $12 million in Solbourne and plans to
invest another $39 million soon.  Solbourne is expected to expand
Sun's SPARC technology by developing a 64-bit SPARC microprocessor
within two years that will also be capable of speeding along at
a lightening-fast 50 million instructions per second.

Matsushita's decision to team up with Sun and AT&T comes at a
time when the struggle for leadership in the UNIX market is
reaching a peak.  Sun and AT&T are pitted against an alliance of
IBM, DEC, and Hewlett Packard to come up with the next standard
UNIX operating system.  Matsushita has chosen to side with Sun
Microsystems and AT&T despite the fact that UNIX-rival IBM
commands a large percentage of Matsushita's sales (to the tune of
over 50 billion yen or $370 million a year).  Matsushita is
currently supplying personal computers to IBM and will soon supply
laptop PCs to Fujitsu (see SUSHI BYTES) on an OEM basis.  Sun
supplies its EWSs to Fujitsu on an OEM basis, too.

CONTACT: Matsushita,  1006 Oaza Monma, Monma-shi, Osaka 571

[***][9/06/88][***]
GET THE FEEL OF A NEUROCOMPUTER ON YOUR PC
TOKYO (NB) -- Century Research Center (CRC), Tokyo, will release
Japan's first neural-net simulator for personal computers, called
the RHINE, next month.  The RHINE is said to provide the same
data processing "feel" of a neurocomputer on a personal computer,
simulating such facilities as pattern recognition and learning.
It is expected to be useful for applying to image, pattern, and
speech recognition systems.

The RHINE, will run on NEC's PC-9801 series, and will be priced at
75,000 yen or $550.  The ambitious firm will also develop RHINE
for Sony's workstation, the NEWS, and a version for Cray
supercomputers.

CONTACT: Century Research Center, 3-6-2 Hon-cho, Nihonbashi,
         Chuo-ku, Tokyo

[***][9/06/88][***]
ONE MEGABIT DRAM MAKERS TOSHIBA & OKI TEAM UP
Tokyo (NB) -- Toshiba is reportedly supplying its 1 megabit DRAM
chips to Oki for assembly, whereupon Oki is exporting the
assembled products to IBM, according to industrial sources.  The
exact procedure and quantities involved are not known yet, but
the alliance is significant because it is the first attempt for
one megabit DRAM makers to work in cooperation, and to ship their
product to a foreign company.

IBM has been producing DRAMs by itself and has also purchased them
from Japanese makers based on long term contracts, but the dealing
companies have never been publicized.

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

[***][9/06/88][***]
MICROSOFT TO RELEASE OS/2 PROGRAMMING SOFTWARE
Tokyo (NB) -- Microsoft, Tokyo, will release two language programs
for developing OS/2 software, C Optimizing Compiler 5.1 and
Macro Assembler 5.1.  Both programs have the Codeview feature with
which the software can diagnose its own mistakes while programming
is in progress.  The software developed by these programs can be
also installed on MS-DOS.

The ship date for the programs is the end of October; the price
for C Compiler will be 98,000 yen or $730, and Macroassembler,
40,000 yen or $300.

CONTACT: Microsoft, Marketing-division, Izumikan-Sanbancho Bldg.,
         1F, 3-8 Sanban-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102

[***][9/06/88][***]
NEC'S 1M DRAM PRODUCTION TO SKYROCKET
TOKYO (NB) -- NEC has launched an aggressive production schedule
for one megabit DRAM chips, aiming to manufacture 12 million
1M DRAMs a month by 1990, an amount which equals its previous peak
production of 256K DRAM chips.

To meet this goal, NEC plans to introduce new chip production
lines in Kansai and Yamagata NEC, and present production of Kyushu
and Yamaguchi NEC will be increased to 5 million from 3 million
a month.

Meanwhile, NEC also intends to expand 1M DRAM production overseas;
NEC Semiconductor UK will increase its present production
of 500 thousand units per month, and NEC Singapore will start
production early next year.

CONTACT: NEC, 1-4-28 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108

[***][9/06/88][***]
CASIO COMPUTER WITHOUT OPERATING SYSTEM CREATES PANIC
Tokyo (NB) --  Casio Computer's Automatic Data Processing System
is giving rise to panic in the industry.  Competing computer
makers complain that they have too little information about the
system and that it is quite hard to get the details.  NEC's
spokesman said to reporters, "We don't know what the system is all
about, but we will let our engineers look into the manual or spec
as soon as it is released."  The specifications, says Casio, are
to be released by year's end.  Other companies, including IBM
Japan, had no comment.

Casio Computer says it has developed a revolutionary new computer
process that does not require an operating system.  Called the
Automatic Data Processing System (ADPS), actual data operates the
computer without operating systems nor application programs.

Merely from input of various data from a keyboard, ADPS can
construct a database and, at the same time, output the information
according to a predetermined configuration.  It is the hardware
alone which processes the data, not software.  Data is the entire
content of the system's memory and data is replaced whenever new
information is entered via the keyboard.

Casio has not revealed more details of the machine, but promises
to announce an ADPS office computer this October.

CONTACT: Casio Computer, 2-6-1 Nishi-Shinjuku,
                         Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 163

[***][9/06/88][***]
<< SUSHI BYTES >>

NTT TO REALIZE PRODUCTION OF 64M ULTRA LSIs -- Japanese telecom
king NTT has created "synchrotron radiation beam (SR) units"
in its LSI Laboratory, located in Atsugi, Kanagawa.  The units
consist of ultra electric conductors and are expected to
facilitate production of over 64-megabit next-generation ultra
LSIs.

HIGH CAPACITY FLOPPY DRIVES -- 3.5-inch floppy drives are now
capable of storing more and more information.  Sord Computer,
a member of the Toshiba group, is marketing a four megabyte floppy
drive, the FD-35441, for Toshiba's laptop PC, J3100 series.  The
units costs 99,800 yen or $740.  Major floppy drive maker Y.E.
Data is expected to announce a similar high capacity drive, but
claims its compatiblity with present disks.  The YD-740 is
expected to ship within a month with mass production slated for
November.  The price will be the same as Sord's.

FUJITSU TO RECEIVE OEM SUPPLY OF LAPTOP PCs -- Fujitsu has
announced that it will receive an OEM supply of compatible laptop
PCs for its FMR series from Matsushita and will market them this
fall.  Fujitsu and Matsushita's alliance should infringe upon the
monopoly of NEC in the personal computer field.  Since last year,
Matsushita has provided software and the BIOS,, indispensable for
the development of FMR series-compatible machines, to Fujitsu.

CD-ROM EXTENDED ARCHITECTURE TO BE DEVELOPED -- Sony and Philips
in Holland, with the assistance of Microsoft in the U.S., have
signed an agreement to develop CD-ROM extended architecture
(CD-ROM XA) format.   The new format enables CD-ROM software to
use data such as characters, pictures, and sound on CD
Interactive Media (CD-I) systems and general-purpose personal
computers.  Sony and Philips promise to release the draft spec by
year's end and the final spec next year.

FILE CONVERTOR FROM BASIC TO C -- Japan Data Development, Tokyo,
has developed software which automatically rewrites
BASIC-programmed data to C language in cooperation with PFU.
The software can rewrite a program for personal computers into
one for Unix-based workstations.

FASTEST 16-BIT PROCESSOR --  NEC has commercialized its  16-bit
floating point operation processor uPD 72291, and it will ship
samples in October.  Combined with the company's 16-bit MPU
V33, the processor can realize the world's fastest operation of
3.9-mega FLOPS, which is ten times faster than other processors.

DATA TRANSFER SPEED UPGRADE FOR LAN -- Daiwabow Data System,
Osaka, has released a personal computer network system, the PI NET
II, an upgraded version of its original PI NET for LAN.  The
PI NET II connects personal computers using optical fiber cables,
and can connect as many as 130 units of NEC's  PC-9800 series.
Additionally, PI NET II has realized a data transfer speed up to
10 times faster.   The exclusive communication unit PI-636-2 is
priced at about 200,000 yen or $1,500.

ONE-SIDED LD SINGLE -- Laser Vision Association Pacific (LVAP) has
completed the format for a one-sided, 10cm radius, "LD Single" in
cooperation with Philips in Holland. The new LD Single is
thinner (from the previous 2.5mm to 1.2mm), so exclusive adaptors
will be necessary.  The production cost is less than that
of the previous two-sided LD Single, so the price promises to be
2,000 - 3,000 yen or $15 - 22.  The new disks will be released in
Japan in October.  Philips will soon submit the format to the
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in order to
standardize the format worldwide.

[***][9/06/88][***]
RELAXATION OF TRADE SANCTIONS DOUBTFUL  *EXCLUSIVE*
WASHINGTON (NB) -- Although Japan has asked for relaxation of the
$165 million in trade sanctions that remain as part of U.S. chip-
dumping penalties imposed last year, the request isn't likely to
be granted. A State Department source told NEWSBYTES that the
timing of the request -- the middle of a very tight U.S.
presidential race -- isn't good for Japanese interests. The
official noted that it was the Republican Reagan Administration
which imposed the penalties. "Lifting the sanctions would give
the Democrats an opportunity to bash the Republicans for being
soft on Japan, costing U.S. jobs," the official said. "That
charge may not hold water substantively, but it works
politically. The White House isn't going to do anything that
might hurt [Republican Presidential Nominee] George Bush." Wide-
ranging trade talks have been going on between Japan and the U.S.
for some time, most recently in Hawaii. The U.S. imposed $300
million in sanctions against Japan in April 1987, but dropped
$135 million of the penalties two months later. The sanctions
have been a sore spot in U.S.-Japan relations ever since.

[***][9/06/88][***]
IBM SAYS GOODBYE TO THE M-A-S-H CREW
NEW YORK (NB) -- Lord Geller, the advertising agency that put
Charlie Chaplin and the crew from M-A-S-H to work hawking
International Business Machines computers, has been fired by IBM.
Lord Geller has lost a competition for the IBM account, which
the firm had held since 1979, to Lintas: USA and Wells, Rich
Greene, both of New York. Lintas, a division of the Interpublic
Group of Companies, will handle IBM's PS/2 personal computer
advertising. IBM is said to spend more than $100 million a year
on U.S. advertising.

Big Blue decided in June to review its advertising program after
six key executives of Lord Geller, including Chairman Richard
Lord and President Arthur Einstein, left the company in March
complaining of the management style of WPP Group PLC, the British
firm that owns Lord Geller. The defectors took a number of Lord
Geller employees with them to form a new firm, Lord Einstein.
Lord Einstein, Lord Geller, D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, and
Grey Advertising were the unsuccessful competitors in the
competition for the IBM account.

[***][9/06/88][***]
VULTURES BEGIN TO CIRCLE LOTUSLAND
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (NB) -- Lotus Development Corp. can hardly be
happy that the company has made the front page of the WALL STREET
JOURNAL. The paper's long profile casts deep shadows on Wall
Street darling Lotus, noting that "there is trouble in Lotusland
and critics are pinning much of the blame" on Chairman Jim Manzi.
Stock prices at Lotus have plunged as the new version of the
company's staple, the 1-2-3 spreadsheet, is being ridiculed as
vaporware. The article cites Manzi's personally brash and
abrasive style as a factor in the declining Lotus image. Also
hurting the company, says the article by William Bulkeley, is the
reliance on just one product. Last year, the spreadsheet
accounted for two thirds of the company's $396 million in sales.

Elsewhere on the Lotus beat, the company plans to introduce a
better version of its T-A-C software by the end of the year.
Introduced in 1986, T-A-C is designed to moved data between
personal computers and mainframes. Lotus says the new version,
Release 5.0, will be easier and faster to use. Got a spare
$40,000? That's what it will cost.

[***][9/06/88][***]
NEC UNVEILS 386SX MACHINES
BOXBOROUGH, Mass. (NB) -- NEC Information Systems Inc. has rolled
out two personal computers based on the slimmed-down Intel 386SX
processor. The 386SX has a 32-bit processor with a 16-bit data
path, making for faster computing than the 80286, at less cost
than the 80386, with only a slight performance degradation over
the heftier 386. The new NEC machines are the PowerMate SX, a
desktop unit, and the PowerMate Portable SX. Both have 16-mHz
clocks and two megabytes of RAM. The PowerMate SX with one floppy
(either 1.2MB 5.25-inch or 1.44 MB 3.5-inch drive), 42-megabytes
of hard disk, and a keyboard retails for $4,495. The Portable SX,
same configuration, is $6,595. The SX is available immediately
and the portable will be out later this month.

[***][9/06/88][***]
THE "GREENEING" OF GATEWAYS
WASHINGTON (NB) -- Federal Judge Harold Greene's ruling last year
that regional Bell operating companies could operate gateways to
electronic data offered by others is bearing fruit. U S West Inc.
has just begun a six-month market test in Denver. BellSouth Corp.
plans an Atlanta test of a gateway that will allow users to reach
several services with one phone call. (See NB-SOUTH.) Southwestern Bell
plans a gateway experiment soon. Nynex this fall will roll out a
test in Burlington, Vt., Bell Atlantic plans an experiment for
October, and Pacific Telesis wants a trial of gateways next year.
Anybody heard from Ameritech?

U S West's experiment, started September 1, allows Denver
customers to access a regional version of General Electric's
GEnie system, headquartered in Rockville, Md. Denver users can to
tap into about 40 national and local services and data bases
through a "1+976" phone number billing system. The cost is 25
cents per minute, all day, everyday. There is no subscription
charge of monthly minimum.

[***][9/06/88][***]
GSA REFUSES TO DISCARD HUGHES BID PROTEST
WASHINGTON (NB) -- The General Services Administration's Board of
Contract Appeals has refused an IBM motion to throw out a bid
protest filed by Hughes Aircraft. At stake is a $3.6 billion
Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control contract and,
perhaps, the fate of IBM's entry into the hot workstation market.
The GSA board also said Hughes, a unit of General Motors Corp.,
could add further details to its protest. Hughes charges that IBM
jacked up the prices on items it was supplying Hughes which would
be used in the system Hughes was bidding against IBM. GSA
suspended the contract award pending an investigation of Hughes'
charges. With stakes this high, watch for further fireworks on
this story.

Big Blue also has troubles in other bidding venues. Amdahl Corp.
and National Advanced Systems have challenged a $6 million
contract awarded to IBM without competitive bidding. The state
says the contract to double the capacity of the state's General
Government Computer Center in Lakewood was an extension of a pact
it signed with IBM two years ago, so bidding wasn't necessary.

[***][9/06/88][***]
MCI OFFERS EXPRESS FOR MACS
WASHINGTON (NB) -- MCI Mail has gotten together with Apple
Computer and Dow Jones to create Desktop Express, designed to do
for Macintosh users what Lotus Express does for the PC world --
allow exchange of formatted text, spreadsheets, graphics, or
desktop-published documents over MCI Mail. MCI is offering the
program to subscribers of MCI Mail for $99. The retail prices is
$149. PC users with Lotus Express will be able to send Lotus
spreadsheets, with graphics, to Excell users on a Mac with
Desktop Express.

CONTACT: MCI Mail Customer Support, 800-444-6245.

[***][9/06/88][***]
COWBOYS ON EVEREST WITH COMPUTERS AND E-MAIL
BOSTON (NB) -- When the Wyoming Centennial Everest Expedition,
informally known as Cowboys on Everest, attempts to scale the
world's tallest mountain this fall, they will use a laptop
computer and satellite dish located at their 17,600 foot base
camp to send and receive scientific data via Omnet's Sciencenet
E-mail service, based in Boston. The E-mail system will also
transmit some of the expedition's finding to Penn State
University, where meteorologists will use it to construct weather
models of a portion of the Himalayas. The base camp dish will
also channel phone calls and video. The cowboys also have a fax
machine donated by a Japanese company happy to bear the
distinction of the first fax from Everest.

[***][9/06/88][***]
NEWS NIBBLES

UNISYS CORP., Blue Bell, Pa., is reducing prices between two and
19 percent on its Personal Workstation-2 family of computers.
Unisys also said its is knocking down prices on three hard disks
and the EGA display available for the machines.

DATA GENERAL CORP., Westboro, Mass., has agreed to sell its
Singapore printed circuit board plant for $13 million to a local
management group. The deal has the backing of Prudential Asset
Management Asia, a merchant banking unit of Prudential Insurance
Co. of America.

COMPUTER CORPORATION OF AMERICA, Cambridge, Mass., database
software developer, has worked a deal with CROWNTEK INC.,
Toronto, that will turn over CCA to its employees over a period
of years. Crowntek currently owns CCA and will continue to be a
key investor.

INTERLEAF, Cambridge, Mass., says its publishing systems can
produce documents that comply with CALS, exacting Defense
Department standards for documenting defense systems. Interleaf
demonstrated how its systems meet CALS at a recently TechDoc
conference in San Diego.


[***][9/06/88][***]
AMSTRAD: STAND BY FOR NEW PC PRODUCT LAUNCHES
BRENTWOOD, MIDDLESEX (NB) -- 13 September has been earmarked by
the trade as the date when Amstrad will unveil something new.
What that something is, everyone is guessing at.

NEWSBYTES UK has been doing some digging and reckons that Amstrad
will launch a new low-end PC (the Sinclair Professional PC), as
well as announce a new PC-2000 series.

The Sinclair Professional PC is said to be the PC equivalent of
the Atari 520STFM. Pricing it at #299, the machine sports a 3.5
inch drive, colour monitor and 512K of system Ram. Look out for
CGA graphics compatibility (four colours, not the eight seen on
Amstrad's existing CGA PC range), and a bundle of free games
within that price point.

The PC2000 series meanwhile, will centre around a choice of 80286
and 386-based chassis, all of which will use 3.5 inch floppies.
Various configurations will be announced, ranging from a circa
#1,000 80286-based system, through to a circa #3,000 80386-based
system. The 80386-based PC will, say NEWSBYTES UK's sources, be
priced above the cheapie 386 boxes currently on the market. This
appears to indicate a change in Amstrad's strategy and a possible
pitch at the power user/specialist user market-place.

So, Mark 13 September in your diaries as Amstrad (as well as
IBM's - see next story) day.

CONTACT: AMSTRAD PLC, Brentwood House, 169 Kings Road,
         Brentwood, Essex, CM14 4EF. Tel: [phone].

[***][9/06/88][***]
IBM RUMOURS A-GO-GO
LONDON, UK (NB) -- 13 September has also been earmarked as a
possible launch date for a new IBM machine, the PS/2 Model 35.
Best reports to date suggest an old XT/286-based chassis packaged
as an up-market Model 30. The advantage of using an XT/286 bus is
that both 8 and 16-bit software can be run.

Why a Model 35? Sales of the Model 30 have been dipping of late,
now that the Model 50's and upwards have come on-stream. Sources
also suggest that, despite production of the old PC-AT having
ceased at IBM"s Greenock, Scotland, plant, the demand for the old
beastie is still there. Even Big Blue must follow consumer's
demand, it seems.

Pricing? Look out for a #1,000 price point on the Model 35.
That's competitive enough to keep the clone makers working
overtime, but with profit margins sufficiently high to keep the
IBM dealers happy.

CONTACT: IBM PRESS OFFICE, IBM South Bank, 76 Upper Ground,
         London SE1 9PZ. Tel: [phone].

[***][9/06/88][***]
OUT WITH TIME CARDS, IN WITH PLASTIC
LONDON, UK (NB) -- Harvester Systems, a small but growing London-
based company, has released SAMS, which it reckons is one of the
cheapest employee time-checking system on the market

SAMS stands for Staff Attendance Monitoring System and is based
around the P250 commercial version of the Psion Organiser II
handheld computer. The Psion kit, including magnetic card reader
and software, costs #895. When linked to a PC-based system
(costing #1,800), SAMS can cope with up to 50 staff and generate
up to 40,000 different reports, according to Tim Lambert of the
company.

"We know of no other system like it. It's a lot cheaper than
comparable systems costing #15,000 or more," he told NEWSBYTES
UK. "The PC-based data can also be ported over to mainframe
system, if required, so it will integrate nicely with payroll
programs," he added.

But will it give out the satisfying Ker-CHUNK that conventional
time recording systems have, that is the question...

CONTACT: HARVESTER INSTALLATION SYSTEMS LTD., Martin House,
         84-86 Grays Inn Road, London WC1X 8AE.
         Tel: [phone].    Email (Dialcom) 72:MAG32213.

[***][9/06/88][***]
UK SURVEY SHOW DEALER SALES FALLING; DIRECT SALES RISING
LONDON, UK (NB) -- Computer survey specialist Romtec has come out
with its quarterly report on the state of the UK's computer
market, and the results reveal that microcomputer dealers are
under threat from above and below.

The Romtec survey says that 87.7 per cent of all micros passed
through indirect distribution channels such as dealers and
computer stores. This compares with 95.1 per cent this time last
year. Only 35.4 per cent of micro sales actually passed through a
dealer's hands - much lower than was previously thought.

From above, some micro dealers are now being threatened by
minicomputer specialists moving down to micro levels in a bid to
attract more trade. Minicomputer dealers and VARs (value added
resellers) accounted for 31 per cent of sales in the latest
survey, compared with 24 per cent this time last year.

The reason for the trend towards direct manufacturer/user
selling? According to Romtec, it's down to firms such as Dell
Computer Corporation selling aggressively in what the report
calls a commodity market-place.

CONTACT: ROMTEC - 0628-74242

[***][9/06/88][***]
COMPUSERVE HIKES ITS INTERNATIONAL CHARGES 150 PER CENT
COLUMBUS, OHIO (NB) -- Compuserve, the US-based online service,
is raising its charges from 6 September. For US-based users the
increases are tolerable. International users accessing via the
Computer Sciences Corporation network currently pay $20 an hour
surcharge. From 6 September they will pay $50 an hour. That's
right, 83.3 cents a *minute*. From the UK, the new rates mean
it's cheaper to simply dial direct to the US.

CSC service is available at 300,1200 and 2400 baud in major
cities around the world. The advantage of using the network is
that subscribers don't need to pre-register with a national
telecoms authority - they just dial up and use the service.

After a lot of transatlantic phone calls (NEWSBYTES UK
never knew there were *so many* departments at Compuserve),
we finally reached Dave Kishler at Compuserve's HQ. Kishler
says that the charges "reflect what the network providers
charge us."

NEWSBYTES UK attempted to contact the Computer Science
Corporation. No-one in CSC's UK or US offices knew about the
Compuserve contract. With a contract generating $50 an
hour, maybe they'd better bone up on a few facts.

In the meantime, anyone who accesses Compuserve via CSC has
better watch out - $50 an hour will really make a dent in your
budget. Any CIS or CSC representatives on the other side of the
CRT care to comment about the rate hike?

[***][9/06/88][***]
E-MAIL SCALES NEW HEIGHTS
MOUNT EVEREST, TIBET (NB) -- If you thought E-mail was for big
city use only, think again, as a small group of US climbers
intend to use electronic mail to keep in touch with home
whilst climbing Mount Everest.

Using a laptop PC, mini-generator and satellite dish from their
17,400 foot high base camp, the climbers intend to beam the data
signal up to a geo-stationary communications satellite over the
Pacific and back down to an earth station at Yamaguchi, Japan.
From there, the signal will link into the telephone network back
to Boston, where it will fed into Sciencenet, the Science-
oriented electronic mail system.

"We'll need to be communicating large amounts of numbers and some
formatted material," said Carol Tierney of Omnet, the company
which operates Sciencenet for its 2,300 subscribers. "E-mail is
the cheapest and simplest way to do that," she added.

Not that the Wyoming Centennial Everest Expedition is wasting the
satellite dish. Plans call for the team to beam fax, video and
telephone signals back to the US via satellite, but E-mail will
be able to negate the time differences involved.

CONTACT: OMNET - 0101-617-265-9230
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+ BRITBYTES - Bytes of news from around the UK... +
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ADOBE SYSTEMS (Amsterdam - 575-3193) has launched ADOBE
COLLECTOR'S EDITION, a graphics library for Adobe Illustrator
users. The #110 package contains 100 borders and more than 300
dingbats (whatever a dingbat is)...

ANAMARTIC (0223-440055), Sir Clive Sinclair's wafer scale
integration company, has had a #6.5 million second-stage cash
boost. The investment comes from a consortium of companies led
by Barclays Bank and Tandem Computers. The money will be used
to begin production of Anamartic's wafer-based storage systems,
which are scheduled for launch next year...

A-SOFT (0386-553153) is busily promoting a new game for the Amiga
called SEX VIXENS FROM SPACE. The game features deadly sex ray
guns and a spaceship called Big Thruster. Would it surprise
you to learn that Big Thruster is piloted by Captain Brad
Stallion. No? I didn't think it would...

MIRRORSOFT (London - 377-4837) is now bundling Art Director for
the ST, along with its sister program, Film Director, for a
combined price of #49-99. Both packages used to sell for #54-98
each...

PAPERBACK SOFTWARE (0277-229509) has teamed up with RHONE POULNEC
SYSTEMS to offer a 'free' copy of its VP Planner Personal to
buyers of 5,000 20-packs of RPS disks (cost #39-95). VP Planner
Personal reportedly features most of the facilities of the
original VP Planner spreadsheet, which retails for #99-95...

SBC (0582-402545) has launched NET-2, a 1.25 Megabit networking
card that emulates Novell and PC-Lan file record locking. The
#675 networking system is claimed to be better than cheaper (and
slower) serial port-based systems...

The Shades online adventure is now available to all TELECOM GOLD
users. The service costs 4.5 pence a minute extra during off-peak
Gold periods, and is free (i.e. no surcharge) during peak periods
(M-F 8am to 7pm). Further details of Shades on 01-278-3143.
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