Practical-Computing-1987-04-S-OCR.pdf - World Radio History

APRIL 1987 Volume 10 Issue 4 £1.50

FOR BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL MICRO USERS

THE NETWORK EFFECTSPECIAL The 68020 colour Macintosh II

HARDWARE Nimbus VX-386 Husky HawkSOFTWARE Write Now Smalltalk AT

FEATURES Do dealers play fair?

The secret of Borland's successis "Quality, Speed, Power, & Price"

We're one of the biggest softwarecompanies in the world-and we gotthat way by making "Quality, Speed,Power, and Price" essential charac-teristics of every Borland softwareprogram. Look for Borland software-then look no further.

Turbo Pascal' 3.0Turbo Pascal has become the de facto worldwidestandard in high-speed Pascal compilers. Describedby Jeff Duntemann of PC Magazine as the "Languagedeal of the century," Turbo Pascal is now an evenbetter deal-because we've included the mostpopular options (BCD reals and 8087 support). Younow get a lot more for a lot less: the compiler, acompletely integrated programming environment,

and BCD reals and 8087 support! Minimummemory: 128K.

Turbo Tutor ° 2.0The new Turbo Tutor can take you from "What'sa computer?" through complex data structures,assembly languages, trees, tips on writing longprograms in Turbo Pascal, and a high level ofexpertise. Source code for everything is included.New split screens allow you to put source text in thebottom halt of the screen and run the examples in thetop halt. There are quizzes that ask you, show you,tell you, teach you. Minimum memory: 192K.

Turbo Graphix Toolbox*Includes a library of graphics routines for Turbo

Pascal programs. Lets even beginning programmerscreate high -resolution graphics with an IBM,.

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Toolbox in-cludes all thetools you'llever need forcomplex

businessgraphics, easywindowing,

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to memory. It comes complete with source code,ready to compile. Minimum memory: 192K.

Turbo Database ToolboxA perfect complement to Turbo Pascal, because itcontains a complete library of Pascal procedures thatallows you to search and sort data and build powerfuldatabase applications. It comes with source code fora tree sample database-right on disk. Minimummemory: 128K.

SUPERKEYS PERFECTCOMPANION

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Turbo GameWorksaTurbo GameWorks is what you think it is: "Games"and "Works." Games you can play right away (like

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arid Go-

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All the secretsand strategies

of game theoryare there for you to learn. You can play the games"as is" or modify them any which way you want.Source code is included to let you do that.Minimum memory: 192K.

Turbo Editor ToolboxRecently released, we call our new Turbo Editor

Toolbox a "construction set to write your own wordprocessor." Source code is included, and we alsoinclude MicroStar, a full-blown text editor with pull -down menus and windowing. It interfaces directly withTurbo Lightning to let you spell -check your MicroStarfiles. Minimum memory: 192K.

Sidekick°Instant Desktop Management!

Powerful desktop management program and the#1 best seller for the IBM PC. SideKick includes

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which means SideKick is always there ready to reactwhen you need to do something, call someone, orfind out something in a hurry. And it does all thiswhile you run other programs. Minimum memory:128K.

SuperKey "Turns 1000 Keystrokes Into 1!If you use SideKick, you need SuperKey. They'redesigned to work together-and work for you.SuperKey's an amazing keyboard enhancer for yourIBM PC and compatibles. With easy -to -write macros,you and SuperKey can turn 1000 keystrokes into 1.Minimum memory: 128K.

Notepad and Calculator Window over Lotus 1-2-3

Traveling SideKickIt's the electronic organizer for this electronic age.Neither you nor your secretary need to face 1987with old-fashioned 1887 diaries. Traveling SideKickhas everything they have-and a lot more. (Unlikedusty old diaries, Traveling SideKick doesn't "expire"at the end of '87, because it's electronic and goodfor '88, '89, '90 and on and on and on.) It's a pro-fessional binder, a software program, and a reportgenerator-a modern business tool that prints yourever-changing appointments in daily/weekly/monthly/yearly form. (If your schedule changes hourlyTraveling SideKick handles the changes instantly.)Whether you use your own personal computer orhave someone's help with that, Traveling SideKickis the smart new way to take your computer withyou-without taking your computer with you.Minimum memory: 256K.

Turbo LightningSolves All Your Spelling Problems!While you use SideKick, Reflex, Lotus 1-2-3, andmost other popular programs, Turbo Lightning proof-reads as you write! If you misspell a word, TurboLightning will beep instantly, and suggest a correctionfor the word you just misspelled. Press one key, andthe misspelled word is immediately replaced by thecorrect word. And if you're stuck for a word, TurboLightning's thesaurus is there with instant alternatives.Minimum memory: 256K.

Reflex° and Reflex Workshop'No matter what business you're in, if you use Lotus1-2-3° or dBASE" you need Reflex and the newReflex Workshop to give you all the tools and viewsto see what your numbers mean. The new Reflex1.1 with expanded memory support allows you tomanage huge databases of up to 8 megabytes ofRAM, 32,000 records, and 250 fields per recordwith "Reflex Lightning Speed." The Reflex Workshopgives you a wide range of analytical tools written forspecific applications like Finance/Accounting, Admini-stration, Sales and Marketing, and Production andOperations. You can use the tools "as is" or mod-ify them to suit your business needs. Minimummemory: 384K.

Lightning Word WizardTechnical Reference Manual For TurboLightning!An important addition to Turbo Lightning, LightningWord Wizard includes fascinating and challengingword games like "Akerue" (try reading that back-wards), "That's Rite," "CodeCracker," "CrossSolver,""MixUp," and "FixUp," to name some of them.Lightning Word Wizard introduces you to the "nutsand bolts" of Turbo Lightning technology, and givesyou more than 20 different calls to the Lightningengine. Minimum memory: 256K.

PASCALThe Ultimate

Pascalpaolepment Environment,

Step-by-step tutorial, demo programs with source code included!

Borland's new Turbo Prolog isthe powerful, completely natural

introduction to Artificial IntelligenceProlog is probably one of the mostpowerful computer programming lan-guages ever conceived, which is whywe've made it our second language-and "turbocharged" it to createTurbo Prolog. -

Our new Turbo Prolog, the naturallanguage of Artificial Intelligence, bringssupercomputer power to your IBM"PC andintroduces you step-by-step to the fascinatingnew world of Artificial Intelligence. And doesall this for an astounding £69.95.

Turbo Prolog is toProlog what Turbo

Pascal is to Pascal!Our Turbo Pascal astonished

everyone who thought of Pascal as"just another language." We changedall that-and now Turbo Pascal isthe de facto worldwide standard, withhundreds of thousands of enthusiastsand users in universities, researchcenters, schools, and with profes-sional programmers, students, and

hobbyists.

You can expect at least the sameimpact from Turbo Prolog becausewhile Turbo Prolog is the mostrevolutionary and natural program-ming language, it is also a completedevelopment environment-just likeTurbo Pascal.

Even if you've neverprogrammed before,our free tutorial will

get you started right awayYou'll get started right away

because we have included a com-plete step-by-step tutorial as palof the 200 -page Turbo PrologReference Manual. Our tutorial will

take you by the hand and teachyou everything you're likely toneed to know about Turbo Prologand Artificial Intelligence.

For example: once you've com-pleted the tutorial, you'll be able todesign your own expert systemsutilizing Turbo Prolog's powerfulproblem -solving capabilities.

Think of Turbo Prolog as a high-

speed electonic detective. First youfeed it information and teach it rules.

Then Turbo Prolog "thinks" theproblem through and comes upwith all the reasonable answers-almost instantly.

If you think that this is amazing,you just need to remember thatTurbo Prolog is a 5th -generationlanguage-and the kind of languagethat 21st century computers will useroutinely. In fact, you can compareTurbo Prolog to Turbo Pascal theway you could compare Turbo Pascalto machine language.

Turbo Prolog 1.1Technical Specifications

Compiler: Six -pass compiler generatingnative in -line code and linkable objectmodules. Contains a linker that is com-patible with the -PC -DOS linker. Largememory model supped. Compiles over2500 lines per minute on a standardIBM PC.

Interactive Editor: The system includesa powerful interactive text editor. If the

compiler detects an error, the editor auto-matically positions the cursor appropriatelyin the source code. At run-time, TurboProlog programs can call the editor, andview the running program's source code.

Type System: A flexible object -orientedtype system is supported.

Windowing Support: The system supportsboth graphic and text windows.

Input/Output: Full I/O facilities, includ-ing formatted I/O, streams, and randomaccess Tiles.

Numeric Ranges: Integers: -32767 to32767; Reels: 1E-307 to 1E+308.

Debugging: Complete built-in tracedebugging capabilites allowing singlestepping of programs.

Memory: 384K required.

a- 4,4 BORLANDINTERNATIONAL

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You get the completeTurbo Prologprogramming systemfor only £69.95

You get a complete Turbo Prologdevelopment system including: The lightning -fast Turbo Prologincremental compiler and the inter-active Turbo Prolog editor

The 200 -page reference manualwhich includes the step-by-stepTurbo Prolog tutorial.

The free GeoBase natural querylanguage database including com-mented source code on disk-readyto compile. GeoBase is a completedatabase designed and developed

around U.S. geography. It includescities, mountains, rivers, and high-ways, and comes complete withnatural query language. Use GeoBaseimmediately "as is," or modify it tofit your own interests.

So don't delay-don't wastea second-get Turbo Prolog now.L69.95 is an amazingly small priceto pay to become an immediateauthority-an instant expert onArtificial Intelligence!

if Tinto Prolog Is goingllke mad. John Wien, Softest, MC

Borland's Turbo Prolog has ousted

Lotus 1-23 as the highest volumeproduct ...

ificaoSoope Magazine

Borland products include Turbo Basic; Eureka. The Solver; Turbo Pascal Numerical Methods Toolbox; Turbo Prolog, Turbo Pascal, Turbo Pascalfor the Mac; Turbo Tutor; Turbo Editor Toolbox, Turbo Database Toolbox. Turbo Graphic Toolbox, Turbo GameWorks, Turbo Lightning, LightningWord Wizard. Reflex The Analyst, Reflex la One Mae, Reflex Workshop. SideKick, SideKick for The Mac. Traveling SideKick, and SuperKey-af

which are trademarks or registered trademarks of Borland International, Inc or BorlandiAnalWica, Inc. Traveling SideKick is not in any way

associated with Traveling Software, Inc of Seattle, Washington

Lotus 1-2-3 is a registered trademark of Lotus Dekelopment Corp dBASE is a registered trademark of Ashton-Tate Microsoft Word and MS-DOSare registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. MultiMate s a trademark of Mullimate International Corp Random House is a registered trademark ofRandom House, Inc. CP/M O a registered trademark of Digital Research, Inc IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines.

Corp. Copyright 1986 Borland International BE -1001

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Copies Product Price Totals

Turbo Prolog 469.95 _

R- eflex: The Analyst 99.95 £ _- Reflex Workshop 69.95 _- Reflex 8 Reflex Workshop '149.95 _._Upgrade to 1.1

8 Workshop" 69.95 £

- Upgrade to 1.1- 10.00 -T- urbo Pascal

w/8087 8 BCD 69.95 £ -T- urbo Pascal (Amstrad) 59.95 £

T- urbo Pascalfor CP/M-80 49.95 £

T- urbo Database Toolbox 49.95 £

-- Turbo Graphix Toolbox 49.95 _

_ Turbo Tutor 2.0 29.95 S. -T- urbo Editor Toolbox 49.95 £ -T- urbo GameWorks 49.95 _T- urbo Lightning 69.95 _

.._ Lightning Word Wizard 49.95 -

T- urbo Lightning 8

Lightning Word Wizard 99.95 _

Sidekick 69.95 ___ Traveling SideKick 69.95 £ _

Sidekick 8Traveling Sidekick 125.00

__SuperKey 69.95 -

Turbo Jumbo Pack 245.00 £ _

Outside UK add £ 10 per copyAdd VAT

Amount enclosed £

Prices include shipping to all UK cities.

Carefully describe your computer system:

Mine is: -8 -bit _16 -bit

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International Postal Money On*.'Limited Time Offer-Expos 1-3-87"roe most return you Reflex disks.

NOT COPY PROTECTED60 -DAY MONEY -BACK GUARANTEE

II gotten 60 days of purchase you find Mal Its product doesof perform in accordance we, of/ Clans, call et/ CuSlofnef

service depanment and we will grey anange a return

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A4

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A leading publisher of business software, Sagehas a complete range of products for the IBMPC, Amstrad PC1512 and other compatibles,including accounting programs and communica-tions software - at value for money prices.

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COVER FEATURE

THE NETWORKEFFECTOnce again, this is supposed tobe the year in which networksfinally take off. If this time theyreally do it will be because astandard is emerging at last. Welook at that standard, how it isbuilt up, and how othermanufacturers arelearning to live with it

85

INSIDE

Nimbus VX-386 British80386 micro - page 40.

AT clones Three cheap IBMcompatibles - page 46.

,3111611919/.21111911111111111111611510001300111111012111 rtp.org

El:30000 011:1111111111,ARICVmoan .013111=f1111%1

k..211 CIO .r.a

Husky Hawk - page 53.

"PRACTICALCOMPUTING

APRIL 1987 CONTENTS

COMPETITIONYour final chance to win one of the many prizesin our £20,000 competition

30

MACINTOSH IIGlyn Moody looks at the machine everyone hasbeen waiting for, with a 68020 processor,colour and expansion slots

34

NIMBUS VX-386The first British 80386 machine that runs underDOS. Steve Malone tries out the latest microfrom Research Machines

40

CHEAP ATsThe low price of AT clones make them a temptingproposition, even as a first purchase. Ian Stobietests three of them

46

HUSKY HAWKBest known for its rugged Hunter portable, thisBritish firm has now come out with what may bethe smallest micro ever

53

WRITE NOWEasy -to -use Macintosh word-processingpackage with powerful formatting features.Carol Hammond reports on this so-calleddocument processor

56

dBASE ADD-ONSMike Lewis samples the many packages nowavailable to enhance the standard database

61new!

SMALLTALK ATSome people think it will be the environment ofthe future: Steve Malone gets to grips with morethan a language

64

LOW-COST WPThe advent of the Amstrad PC has led to a floodof cheap word processors for it. Susan Currantries some out

68

WHAT DO DEALERS DO?Carol Hammond reports on what happens whenyou approach dealers for advice on buying anew system

72

CORPORATE TIE-UPSMany of the world's biggest computer andcommunications companies are joining forces.Steve Malone finds out why

77

PROGRAMMERS ATWORKHow do you set about writing 1-2-3 or dBase?The men who did it explain when, how and why

78

Mac II & Mac SE Additions tothe Apple family - page 34.

NEWS

WHICH COMPUTER?NEWSShow report 10HARDWARE NEWSDEC's minicomputer on adesk 14SOFTWARE NEWSBorland Sprint wordprocessor 1 5

OPEN FILE

TURBO PASCALDOS Menu 105BASIC UTILITYPartial screen clear 109

REGULARS

EDITORIALAt your work stations 7FEEDBACKYour lettersCOMMS LINKFighting a losingbattle 19SOFTWAREWORKSHOPA way with words 21CHIP -CHATAnother turn of thewheel 27LEGAL STATEMENTSLotus goes to war 28TOP 10Spreadsheets 99BOOKSAre humans robots? 103

PRACTICAL COMPUTING April 19875

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At Altos Computers, we have refined this principle into aseries of different and tailor-made business solutions. So successfulhas this strategy been, that our multi-user systems are now widelyused throughout all areas of industry, across all parts of the globe.

If your company wants the correct tools to achieve similarsuccess, you too should be talking toAltos. Cut out the coupon below andwell put you on the road to success. riitzol]

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TORI IA LEDITORIAL 01-661 3633 Telecom Gold 81:RPL002 D EDITOR GLYN MOODY DEPUTY EDITOR (Production) JOHN LIEBMANN ART EDITOR HUGH ANDERSON

ASSISTANT EDITOR IAN STOBIE SENIOR REPORTER STEVE MALONE REPORTER/SUB-EDITOR CAROL HAMMOND CONSULTANT JACK SCHOFIELDADVERTISING 01-661 3612 I> ADVERTISEMENT MANAGER NITIN JOSHI 01-661 3021 ASSISTANT ADVERTISEMENT MANAGER NEIL MARCHANT 01-661 8626

ADVERTISEMENT EXECUTIVES KATE SCALLY 01-661 8425 JANET THORPE 01-661 3468 MIDLANDS AND NORTH 061-872 8861ADVERTISEMENT PRODUCTION CONTROL JACKIE PERRY 01-661 8649 BRIAN BANNISTER 01-661 8648 ADVERTISEMENT SECRETARY LYNN DAWSON 01-661 3612

CLASSIFIED SUSAN PLATTS 01-661 3033 PUBLISHING DIRECTOR SIMON TIMM

ENTER THE WORK STATIONThere will be a new buzz phrase around in 1987: the workstation. The term itself is not new, of course. It has already

been commandeered many times by maufacturers desperate togee up their boring terminals or salvage yet another ineffectualattempt at office automation. But the latest incarnations willbe different and will be more like the highly successful CADwork -station systems from Sun and Apollo. More important,the name on the badge will be that of leading players like IBMand Apple.

The reason for the new phrase is the usual one: linguisticdevaluation. When the term "personal computer" was firstcoined - by Apple, even though IBM got the most mileageout of it - it was a concept. It summed up perfectly the leapthe first micro pioneers had made. It implied that this wasyour computer - not the company's, not the DP depart-ment's, but your very own. To have one was.to be singled out.

Things have moved since then. An eight -bit 64K personalcomputer is not as impressive as it once was; even the IBM PC,especially in its guise of the Amstrad PC, is beginning to look alittle cheap. It no longer has the cachet which made ambitiousexecutives fall over themselves to be seen using one. And thesuccess of the PC has proved its downfall from the viewpoint ofthe manufacturers. The more PCs sold, the more competitionthere is, the lower the price and the lower the profit margins allround.

In response to this, micro manufacturers have resorted to aclassic marketing ploy: bring in a whole new range of modelsabove the old ones. To a certain extent this is what successiveupgrades were meant to be, but they failed because there wasinsufficient differentiation between the machines. Themarket perceived no radical shift, and so would not tolerateany great hikes in price. The lack of any radical changes alsoensured that it was simple for the competitors to move in andundercut the new models just as easily as they undercut the oldones.

Enter the work station. This is not the result of meretinkering with the casing, but signals a genuine change ofapproach. The name itself bespeaks the altered climate. Noneof the "personal" nonsense; these are work stations and theemphasis is on work and business. The key to the work -stationconcept is the integration of your work with the company'sbusiness. Correspondingly, at the heart of the work station liesa new generation of powerful processors like the 80386 or68020, driving high -resolution colour graphics interfacestogether with extensive communications links to largersystems.

In the case of IBM's work stations, it is likely that the newmicros due out this year will show just such a shift towardsuser-friendly power in the form of advanced graphics andmainframe connectivity. IBM will benefit from this in anumber of ways. Apart from the new emphasis on serious,high-level, high -cost computing, work stations will allow theincorporation of proprietary elements like IBM micro -to -

mainframe comms software, held in ROM as standard. Thiswould go a long way to shutting out the clone makers. It alsohas the enormous plus of moving the micro back into thedomain of the DP manager. The decline in IBM's dominanceof the computer market has gone hand in hand with a similarweakening of the traditional DP fortress. It is in both theirinterests to fight back, and a work station approach could bethe weapon to do it.

Like IBM, Apple has a lot to gain from the work stationapproach of power plus connectivity, and the powerful newApple Macintosh II previewed on page 34 of this issue willhelp it on its way. Its open architecture will allow third -partymanufacturers to produce a range of communications cards,making it ideal for hooking up to bigger systems. And alreadyApple has announced that an add-on allowing data compati-bility with MS-DOS disc drives and an Ethernet card are underdevelopment.

The Mac II proclaims Apple's seriousness. There are stillsome executives who see the Macintosh as little more than avery neat toy: the Mac II work station will dispel this impres-sion once and for all. It is an interesting coincidence that Hew-lett-Packard has announced a minicomputer which uses thesame 68020 processor, which runs 50 percent faster, but costssome 400 percent more. By emphasising links to large systemsApple will lock the new machines into the grown-up corporatecomputing world.

Connectivity to IBM systems will obviously be a vital part ofthis. But even more interesting is the possibility that theseApple work stations will find their way into DEC installations.DEC is growing rapidly and broadening its corporate base.The only thing it lacks is a totally user-friendly image for itsmachines. Apple, on the other hand, has user -friendliness inabundance. But is does lack the deep penetration of majorcorporate accounts achieved by DEC. Put the two together andyou have quite a devastating combination and perhaps thedefinitive work -station solution for the 1990s.

EIYEARS AGO...Commodore Business Machines is about to upset the microcomputerapplecart with the introduction of a "universal microcomputer".The new machine will be capable of running software originallywritten for rival machines.

The universal microcomputer will initially be able to emulate theApple, Tandy and IBM microcomputers, thus opening up themachine to a large sector of the microcomputer software market. Itwill feature as an option on the Commodore 64, using plug-inmodules. The beauty of the move is that it means Commodore userswill now be able to implement packages developed by rivals, afterthey incurred the expensive development costs. The target price ofthis machine will be under $1,000, grossly under -cutting theopposition.

PC Volume 5 Issue 4

PUBLISHED by Reed Business Publishing Ltd, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM25AS. Tel: 01-661 3500. Telex/grams 892084 BISPRS G. DISTRIBUTED by Quadrant SubscriptionServices, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS. SUBSCRIPTIONS: U.K. £19.50per annum; overseas £36.00 per annum; selling price in Eire subject to currency exchange fluctuationsand VAT; airmail rates available on application to Subscriptions Manager, Quadrant SubscriptionServices, Oakfield House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, Sussex RH16 3DH. Tel: (0444) 459188.

PRINTED in Great Britain for the proprietors Reed Business Publishing Ltd by Ben Johnson & Co. Ltd,Dunstable. Typeset by Lithotype Design, London EC1. © Reed Business Publishing Ltd 1987. ISSN0141-5433. Would-be authors are welcome to send articles to the Editor but we c nnot undertake toreturn them. Submissions should be typed double-spaced, and should

REinclude a disc of any program. Every effort is made to check articles and BUSINESSEDlistings but we can accept no responsibility for errors. PUBLISHING

PRACTICAL COMPUTING April 1987 7

N E X T M 0 N T H

How to make sureyour Printer doesn't

slow your PCdown.

_ .itteIXT.

sr.

BUFFER

aMegabuffer, your Printer canslow down the rate your PC outputs tothe rate your Printer prints. Turning a 5minute print file into half -an -hour.

Which means that the PC can be out of action for long periods.Merely outputting. With a Megabuffer the PC outputs at topspeed into the Megabuffer memory, the PC is then released forfurther work and the Printer prints at its own rate from theMegabuffer memory:

. Allows you to use your PC more Can emulate special plotter handshake protocols Compatible with most computers, printers and plotters: IBM,

OLIVETTI, AMSTRAD, HP, ACT, SHARP and many more Data buffer and interface converter in one Reported time savings of 2x to 50x Lets two PCs output to two printers Pause, 'reprint Page' and

multiple copy facilitiesFull range of memory sizes forevery application 64K £180,128K£216, 256K£278,512K £388, 1MB £556

MEGARUFFER

...and how to getthem all talkingEliminate miles of spaghetti and all those 'T' and 'X' switches witha simple Megaswitch which allows your PC to instantly connect toa selection of printers and plotters.

MEGASWITCH S - RS232 Selector Connects any of 5 inputs to any of 2 outputs Universally compatible - works with all baud rates and

handshake arrangements LED indication of data flow Use it with a Megabuffer for additional time saving £99

INPUT IC pcsUP TO gis,

7 7

OUTPUT OS PRINTERSUP TO PLOTTERS11 Decoy Road, Worthing,West Sussex BN14 8NDTelephone (0903) 213131Telex 87515UK delivery £3, cables from £15, VAT extra.

MEGASWITCH AP -Parallel Data Selector Connects any of 4 inputs to

any of 2 outputs Can automatically switch to

any channel supplying data Can drive two printers

simultaneously Universally compatible -

works with all standardcentronics computer andprinter interfaces

Use it with a Megabuffer foradditional time saving £149

RINGDALEPERIPHERALS


HARDWAREIBM portables are definitely the flavour of

the month, so we look at several of thelatest. And while ink -jet printers have hada chequered past they have recently takenon a new lease of life. Can they work with

ordinary paper, and will they supplantother technologies? We assess the latest

models.

SOFTWARE

As the boundaries between desk -toppublishing and word processors becomeblurred we review Lotus Manuscript, oneof the new breed of document processors.

We also take a look at Foxbase, a low-cost dBase III clone with additional

features.

PROGRAMMINGWe start a new series presenting a set of

free utilities for you to use. Over thecoming months we will be offering pop-upnotepads, calculators and a host of other

useful programs.

FEATURESHot-line services: are they worth

money? Find out how much hand -holdingyou get and how useful it is.

SPECIAL SECTION

MICRO -TO -MAINFRAME LINKSThe micro is growing up and DP

departments are having to come to termswith it. We explain the various techniques

for hooking up your micro to thecorporate mainframe, and the

implications and issues this latestdevelopment in connectivity raises.

TOP 10

BUDGET SOFTWAREThe best of the cheapest business

programs around.

Don't miss the May issue of

"PRACTICALCOMPUTING

On sale at W H Smith and all good newsagents after 15 April.

Contents may vary due to circumstances beyond our control and ore subjectto change without notice.

8PRACTICAL COMPUTING April 1987

FEEDB ACKToshibaTHE articles on Toshiba productspublished in your January issuehave generated some welcomeenquiries, but unfortunately theyhave been directed to the wrongaddress. In the feature on lap -topcomputers, Toshiba's address isgiven as Frimley. Toshiba has infact moved from Frimley, and thecorrect address is now: ToshibaInformation Systems (U.K.) Ltd,International House, WindmillRoad, Sunbury -on -Thames,Middlesex TWIG 7HR.

In the article on 12in. Wormdrives you did give the Sunburyaddress, but any enquiries forthese products should in fact bedirected to: Office ElectronicProducts Group, Toshiba Europa(I.E.) GmbH, HammerLandstrasse 115, D-4040 Neuss 1,West Germany.

GILES FRASER,Infopress,

London EC4.

Looking ahead?IN CONVERSATION with aprofessional using a wordprocessor I asked how she got on,staring at a VDU all day. Shereplied that she rarely looked atthe display except to makeoccasional checks: her eyes wereoccupied mainly with her inputsource document. I realised thatthe case was very similar with me,as indeed it must be with themajority of users.

Yet so many system designsgive pride of place to the VDUby placing it on top of the systembox, a few inches from theoperator's nose! How much moresensible it would be to have thespace immediately about thekeyboard available as a repositoryfor the working document. Theonly penalty would be in havingto have the screen a few inchesfurther away, or slightly angled toone side.

M J HOSKEN,Bury St. Edmunds,

Suffolk.

PortfolioI READ with interest the article onthe Portfolio program in theFebruary issue of your magazine.

For those readers who are toolazy to load the program or whoare not using a PCW-8256compatible machine, but possessa spreadsheet program, a simplerand quicker method exists.

I have been using Supercalc 2and an Apricot Portable toupdate my portfolio daily. Thistakes me about 10 minutes andconsists of entering the previous

In our Feedback columns readers have theopportunity of bringing their computingexperience and problems to the attention ofothers, as well as of seeking our advice or makingsuggestions, which we are always happy toreceive. Make sure you use Feedback - it is yourchance to keep in touch.

WRITE TO:Feedback, Practical Computing, Quadrant House,

The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS

KERMITWORLDWIDE

IT HAS been gratifying to see the increased awareness of the Kermitfile -transfer system following the various articles and letters inPractical Computing. However, to avoid disappointment, I wouldlike to remind people of the distribution position.

We act as the U.K. distribution centre and we are very happy tosupply Kermit on tape and - for a small range of machines - ondisc to people in the U.K. and Eire. However, we do not undertaketo supply it to anyone outside these countries because we just haven'tthe manpower resources to do so. Anyone wanting Kermit in the restof the world should contact the main distributors in New York: theaddress is Kermit Distribution, Columbia University Centre forComputing Activities, 612 West 115th Street, New York, NY 10025.

That said, there are two exceptions. Anyone can use our on-lineservice by dial -up or network. Also as we originated the Kermit forthe BBC Micro, we'll supply this version only to anyone in the world,but we have to charge for handling and media. Those interestedshould write for details or phone us on (0524) 65201, extension 4881;no telex messages please.

ALAN PHILLIPS,Kermit Distribution,

Department of Computing,Computer Centre,

Lancaster University,Lancaster LA! 4YW.

day's closing share prices. For methis is about 30 entries, the dateand the Financial Times 30Index, together with the previousvalue of my holdings.

The column headings are:ShareNumberPrice eachCostCurrent Price and ValueDividendYieldGain or Loss% ReturnThis nicely fills an A4 sheet.

The cells contain the formulaeto calculate the new total value ofeach holding, or to subtract thecost from the new value to givethe gain, etc.

My bottom lines tell me howmuch I have made or lost in the24 hours, the total paper value,my overall percentage return andsome indices showing how I haveperformed against the FT 30Index.

The beauty of a spreadsheet is

that it can be tailored to fit yourneeds, throwing up theparameters that are selected.Another spreadsheet maintains aweekly record of the sharemovements and also calculates13 -week moving averages. These Iplot manually. A thirdspreadsheet contains a record ofall my transactions complete withgains or losses and running totals.

R L WEAVER,London N14.

CommissionaireWE READ with interest your reviewof the Comart Quad andBromcom QC in the January issuebut were disconcerted to see thatyou wrongly attributedCommissionaire to DigitalResearch, when it is a product ofIntelligent Micro Software Ltd.

We do not know when youpreviously came into contact withour product but if your previousexperience was with version 1then we would draw your

attention to the new facilitiesoffered by Commissionaireversion 2, especially the multi -sitemail facility and the new diary.

D CROCKER,Intelligent Micro Software,

Byfleet,Surrey.

A blank linewith EchoA BLANK line in MS-DOS 3.1 and3.2 can be obtained with the line

ECHO.There must not be a spacebetween the letter 0 and the fullstop. This works from the consoleor with any word processor I haveso far tested.

COLIN BRUNGER,Brunei.

VP -InfoAS A bespoke software housespecialising in databaseapplications, ICS has recentlybeen involved in the evaluationof a number of databaseprogramming languages. Ourmethod of evaluation does notrely on straightforwardbenchmarking, but consists oftaking an existing dBase IIapplication and translating it tothe language under test. We thenmake comparisons on the basis ofease of development andmaintenance, speed of operation,etc.

Applying this method to VP -Info, our initial results were indirect contradiction to your own:skips forward and backward werealmost instantaneous, as wereamendments, finds and additionsto a 1,000 -record file with twoindexes. In particular, the speedwhen rewriting the screen wasquite incredible.

We then transferred our testprogram from the Future FX-50on which we had been workingunder C -DOS to a North StarDimension. The results werequite the opposite at first, untilwe tried the

SET SNOW ONcommand. It would appear thatVP -Info detects the presence of agraphics adaptor and, on theassumption that it is of the typewhich generates snow,implements its own method forsynchronising video updates. Ifyou are prepared to live withvideo snow, or if your graphicsadaptor does not have thisproblem, using the Set Snowcommand makes a tremendousdifference to the performance.

ROGER ASH,Ideal Computer Systems,Kingston upon Thames,

Surrey. [a


AMIGA A-2000ONE OF the machines hidden awayfrom the prying eyes of the generalpublic was the first of the nextgeneration of Amigas. Interest-ingly enough it still uses a- 68000rather than a 68020 as its base pro-cessor; however, the machine isdesigned to be easily upgraded.There will also be an A-2020model which will have the 68020 asstandard.

RAM starts at 1Mbyte, and canbe expanded up to 2Mbyte on themotherboard and 8Mbyte withcards. There is room for two 3.5in.drives - floppy or hard - and one5.25in. drive. The dual Amiga/IBM approach is further reflectedin the internal slots: there are threeAmiga slots and four eight -bit IBMslots.

This hybrid approach is clearlyaimed at allaying fears about thelack of general applicability of theAmiga A-2000 in business. At the

same time it preserves themachine's advanced graphics capa-bilities. Co -processing is verymuch the order of the day, andTransputers are another possiblefuture enhancement. Commodoresays that it will be possible to cutand paste between the Amiga andIBM environments.

Perhaps the most impressivefeature of the machine is the likelyprice. At the time of going to pressthis was thought to be about£2,000 for a system including ahard disc.

Commodore was also showing arange of video products. A genlockdevice for use with interactivevideo was on show from AriadneSoftware. The cost is £430; a framegrabber costs £699. Details areavailable on 01-960 0203. Also onshow was an Amiga linked up to aPolaroid Palette presentationsystem.

Lasers at lower costEPSON is launching its first laserprinter, the GQ-3500, in May. Atthe show the machine was hiddenaway inside the Epson stand, pro-bably to prevent it diverting atten-tion from products that areimmediately available.

Aimed primarily at word-processing users, the GQ-3500 is avery compact machine with a maxi-mum speed of six pages a minute.The price is still to be announced,but is likely to be very keen - pos-sibly under £1,500. For moreinformation contact Epson U.K.,Dorland House, 388 High Road,Wembley, Middlesex, UB8 2XW.Telephone: 01-902 8892.

Citizen's Overture 110 goes onsale in April and costs £1,995. It isfaster than the Epson offering,with a maximum speed of 10 pagesa minute, and has a 250 -sheetpaper tray as standard against theEpson 150. Further information isavailable from Citizen Europe,Wellington House, 4-10 CowleyRoad, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB82XW. Telephone: (0895) 72621.

Among the more expensive laserprinters at the show were two from

10

Texas Instruments, the Omnilaser2108 and 2115. Both thesemachines are Postscript com-patible so they would be wellsuited to desk -top publishingapplications. They also supportHPGL, making them capable ofemulating plotters for CAD /CAMwork.

The Omnilaser 2108 costs£5,195 and has a maximum speedof eight pages a minute, while the£7,195 Omnilaser 2115 can get upto 15 pages a minute. They comecomplete with the appropriateinterfaces to enable you to connectthem to either IBM or AppleMacintosh systems.

Contact Texas Instruments atManton Lane, Bedford MK417PA. Telephone: (0234) 270111.

THIS YEAR's show at Birmingham's NationalExhibition Centre clearly demonstrated the shift up-market which has occurred over the past year. Evenlow-cost PC clones were notable by their absence.he exception, of course, was the Amstrad PC,hich occupied one of the prime positions in the hall.aking their place were a number of AT clones,long with the first smattering of 80386 machines.Printers followed the same pattern. Everyone, it

eemed, had a laser printer on display, most ofhem costing around £2,000. Several scanners

were in evidence, reflecting the gradual emergenceof complete text input and output systems.

In contrast to all the new hardware, there waslittle software on view. This reflects the current state

f the industry, which is waiting for developmentsn the hardware front to settle down before the nextig wave of software comes through. All in all thehow confirmed that 1987 should be a year of solidchievement for the micro industry.

Amstrad PC add-onsTWO new peripherals fromAmstrad were of particularinterest. The first is the DMP-4000wide -carriage printer. It claims200cps in draft mode and 50cpswhen printing NLQ. It is 136characters wide, comes with tractorand friction feed, and uses astandard parallel Centronicsinterface. The cost is £349.

Also launched at the show wasthe PC Card Modem which, as itsname suggests, is an internalmodem card. It provides both

V-21 300/300 baud and V-231,200/75 baud standards. It hasautodial and auto -answer and isHayes compatible.

The software which comes withit is Datatalk, offering viewdata, atelephone directory for up to 128numbers, Xmodem and Kermitprotocols. The modem is fullyapproved and costs £149. Detailsfrom Amstrad, Brentwood House,169 Kings Road, Brentwood, EssexCM14 4EF. Telephone: (0277)230222.

Sinclair on the move with Z-88SIR CLIVE SINCLAIR has bouncedback into the limelight with alap -portable computer.Priced at a few pennies under£200, the Z-88 measuresapproximately 12in. by 8in.by lin. It is based around aCMOS Z-80 eight -bit pro-

cessor and contains 128K ofROM and 32K RAM,expandable to 3Mbyte.

The display consists of aneight- by 80 -character LCDfeaturing the latest super -twisttechnology. The interfacesprovided with the machineare three cartridge ports, aZ-80 expansion bus and anRS -232 port for printerconnection. No disc -driveoption has so far beenannounced.

The operating system forthe Z-88 is proprietary toCambridge Computer and iscalled C -DOS. Also bundled

with the machine is a suite ofapplications includingspreadsheet, word processing,database, diary/calendar andcalculator. BBC Basic is alsobuilt-in. All software is heldin ROM.

The Z-88 is to be sold bymail order. CambridgeComputer says that it willbegin shipping machines tocustomers from the beginningof April.

For further informationcontact Cambridge Computer,Sidney House, Sussex Street,Cambridge CB1 1PA.Telephone: (0223) 312216.


APRICOT JOINSTHE 386 CLUBAPRICOT has launched its IBM-compatible 80386 -based micro.The new machine, called the Xen-i386, is expected to become avail-able in the early summer.

The new micro will be availablein two versions. The Xen-i 386/30is fitted with a 30Mbyte hard discand 1Mbyte of RAM as standard.This is the base configuration cost-ing £2,999. The only other modelso far announced is the Xen-i386/45. It has a 45Mbyte hard discdrive and comes with 2Mbyte ofRAM as standard. The 386/45model is priced at £3,999.

At first glance, the system unitlooks identical to that of the earlierXen-i models. But where the80286 -based Xen-i machines hadan external power supply the newmodels have an internally fittedunit. The keyboard has also beenaltered and is now compatible withthe IBM ATE layout. Apricot hasfinally abandoned the micro -screen; its functions are now sup-ported by a pull -down window onthe main screen. Two floppy -discoptions are available: a 1.44Mbyte3.5in. unit or an AT -style1.2Mbyte 5.25in. drive.

The Xen-i 386 series retains thehalf -height backplane expansionconfiguration pioneered by theXen-i. By using its full expansioncapabilities memory can be expan-ded to 8Mbyte.

In order to make use of the extramemory Apricot is to supplyMicrosoft's new expanded memorymanager, known as EMM / 386. Aswell as providing the usual bank -switching techniques, the systemuses the advanced 80386 memory -management unit and the chip'sVirtual 8086 mode to provide anextended DOS area to 846K. LikeCompaq, Apricot has provided autility on its 80386 machine tocopy the BIOS ROM into fastRAM.

In a bid to move the Apricotbrand name further up-market,the company has also announcedthe Apricot VX - not to be con-fused with the Research Machines8036 machine of the same name -based around the Xen-i 386. Anexternal sub -system provided withthe VX series supplies either70Mbyte, 157Mbyte or 268Mbyteof hard -disc capacity. Up to foursub -systems can be daisy -chainedtogether, giving a maximum capa-city of 1.8Gbyte. The VX sub-system can also be configured tosupport a variety of LANs via theApricot Network pack. Theyinclude Xenix-Net, Token Ringand Ethernet .

Further details are availablefrom Apricot plc, 111 HagleyRoad, Edgbaston, BirminghamB16 8LB. Telephone: 021-4561234.

SCANNERSSEVERAL new input scanners were in evidence at the show, designed forhandling both graphic images and text. Hewlett-Packard introducedits Scanjet, a £2,000 flat-bed A4 scanner intended mainly for desk -toppublishing applications. The flat-bed design means that artwork isnot damaged by being fed past rollers, and also makes it possible toscan images from bound books.

The HP Scanjet can scan at the same resolution as most laserprinters, 300 dots per inch, and will turn continuous -tone images suchas photographs into 16 levels of grey. The HP stand was decked withslogans announcing the formation of an HP alliance with Aldus andMicrosoft to attack the IBM desk -top publishing market, and theScanjet was in use with Aldus PC Pagemaker. For information on theScanjet contact Hewlett-Packard, Enquiry Section, Eskdale Road,Winnersh Triangle, Wokingham, Berkshire RG11 1DZ. Telephone:(0734) 696622.

Canon is releasing optical character recognition software for itsexisting roller -fed IX -12 scanner. This enables you to read typewrittendocuments directly, converting the page placed in the scanner into aWordStar, Word Perfect or ASCII file for subsequent word processingor desk -top publishing use.

With the OCR software the IX -12 will cost around £1,550 when itgoes on sale in March or April; the scanner on its own is £1,100. Theconversion process takes about two or three minutes per page. Small -size typeset material cannot be read accurately, but most commontypewriter founts are supported. For details refer to Canon (U.K.),Canon House, Manor Road, Wallington, Surrey SM6 OAJ.Telephone: 01-773 3173.

Compact CompaqCOMPAQ COMPUTER unveiled its new Portable III machine on the firstday of the show. Three versions have been announced. The model 1has no hard disc and is priced at £3,250, while the model 20 features a20Mbyte hard disc and costs £3,950. The final version in the range isthe model 40, which has a 40Mbyte hard disc and a £4,395 price tag.

The Portable III measures 8in. by 10in. by 16in. and weighs 181b.The 80286 processor is clocked to run at 12MHz. Compaq has fittedthe machine with 640K of RAM, expandable to 6.6Mbyte on themotherboard. Also provided as standard across the range is a 5.25in.floppy -disc drive.

The most striking feature of the Portable III is the built-in plasmascreen. Compatible with the IBM Colour Graphics Adaptor (CGA),the screen is claimed to be the first to support shading and highlight-ing of text.

Further details from Compaq Computer Ltd, Ambassador House,Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SQ. Telephone 01-940 8860.

Software roundupTHIS YEAR'S SHOW was not particulary notable for software launches,with most of the major packages on display having already receivedcoverage in the computer press. What activity there was took placemostly on the spreadsheet front.

Lifetree Software, the company responsible for the Volkswriter wordprocessors, launched Words & Figures. At £99 this package provides aspreadsheet closely compatible with Lotus 1-2-3 along with a built-inword processor. Details are available from Lifetree Software (Europe),Lowndes House, The Bury, Church Street, Chesham, BuckinghamshireHP5 1HH. Telephone: (0794) 772422.

CSD launched Silk. This £295 spreadsheet is again compatible withmost Lotus 1-2-3 commands, but aims to be easier to use. Formulaecan be specified with keywords rather than cell ranges, for example.Further information can be obtained from CSD, Unit B11, ArmstrongMall, Southwood Summit Centre, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14ONP. Telephone: (0252) 522200.

Integrated 7, a seven -function all -in -one package which itselfincorporates a good Lotus -style spreadsheet, is now being imported byNeric Automation. Priced at under £80, Integrated 7 offers goodgraphics and a powerful database function. Contact Neric Automation,Gunsell Lodge, Wood Lane, Tugby, Leicester LE7 9WD.

Software Publishing was showing off its new PFS Professional Planspreadsheet, along with the latest version of Harvard Project Manager.PFS Professional Plan costs £299. It can read Lotus files and has thingslike keyword formulae and the usual high-grade easy -to -use PFSinterface. Harvard Total Project Manager II costs f475. For furtherdetails contact Software Publishing Europe, 85-87 Jermyn Street,London SW1Y 6JD. Telephone: 01-839 3864.

Tekware had several CAD and presentation -graphics packages ondisplay, among them the new Graph Station. This £560 package willread Lotus files directly, and lets you quickly regraph data when youmake alterations in the underlying spreadsheet. Details from Tekware,Palladium House,139-141 Worcester Road, Hagley, West MidlandsDY9 ONG. Telephone: (0562) 882125.


Whatever the make ofyour computer,a Fujitsu printer

willpower it up.

-±4D X2T2.4:031

r

Just plug in and begin.Fujitsu printers are hardware and software compatible with

almost every single computer system on the market today.Which means that when you buy a Fujitsu printer, all you

need do is plug it into your computer, and then plug it into thewall. And off you go. Nothing could be simpler.

It's not so simple with some other makes of printer. So becareful when you shop.

Fujitsu printers are not only plug -compatible with anycomputer you might find, they're also the highest quality andmost reliable printers you can buy.

That's because they're made by Fujitsu, which is the largestand most respected computer maker in Japan.

To learn more about the surprising quality, reliability - andvariety - of Fujitsu printers, please send in the coupon below. Orwrite to: Fujitsu Europe Ltd., Royal Trust House, 54 Jermyn St., LondonSW1Y 6NQ, England.

Japan's No. 1 computer maker FUJITSU

DL2400 DX2100 DX2200 SP320I'd like to know more about Fujitsu printers.

Please send information on the following: SP830 (Daisy wheel) SP320 (Daisy wheel) DPL24 (24 pin dot-matrix) DPL24C (24 pin dot-matrix, colour) DL2400 (24 pin dot-matrix) DL2400C (24 pin dot-matrix, colour) DX2100 (9 pin dot-matrix, 80 col.) DX2200 (9 pin dot-matrix, 136 col.)

DPL24

Name:

Title:

Company:

Address:

City: Country:

Phone: Fax:

Fujitsu Europe Ltd. Royal Trust House, 54 Jermyn St., London SW1Y 6NQ, England. Phone: (44-1) 408-0043L

1

O

3

wJcircle 105 on enquiry card -

N W S

Transputerfor IBMINMOS, the Transputer-manufacturing subsidiary ofThorn EMI, is reported to havewon a $21 million contract fromIBM. The order is said to be for theG-170 graphics -based version ofthe Transputer.

The normal price for thesedevices is in the region of £50 each.Translated into the size of theorder, this means that at least274,000 G -170s would have beenordered; with the big discountsIBM is sure to have obtained evenmore devices will have beeninvolved.

Neither IBM or Inmos is willingto comment on the deal or what itmeans for future IBM products.

Intellaunches80386boardINTEL has released the Inboard386/ AT, an accelerator boardwhich puts the power of an 80386processor into a standard AT. Thechip runs at 16MHz and hassockets for both the 80287 and80387 maths co -processors.

To boost performance, Intel hasfitted high-speed cache memoryon to the board. The Inboard386 / AT can be fitted with up to1Mbyte of 32 -bit RAM. Up to3Mbyte can be supported by usingpiggybacked RAM boards.

Extra extended memory is util-ised by MS-DOS via the IntelExpanded Memory Manager, dev-eloped by Microsoft. It is essent-ially an 80386 version of the LIMEMS specification which hasproved popular for the PC and ATranges; it allows additional mem-ory to be banked into DOS's1Mbyte address space.

Also bundled with the card iscontrol software to allow the userto take advantage of the chip'svirtual 386 mode.

Prices for the Inboard start at£1,740. With the additional1Mbyte memory the price rises to£2,230. The prices do not includethe necessry cabling to the 80286socket on the motherboard, whichcosts an extra £195. The piggybackRAM boards cost an additional£630 for 1Mbyte and £1,110 for2Mbyte.

For details contact First Soft-ware, Intec 1, Wade Road, Basing-stoke, Hampshire RG24 ONE.Telephone: (0256) 463344.

HARDWARE

DEC'S MINION A DESKIN RESPONSE to the upward mig-ration of microcomputers to theminicomputer arena, DEC, theminicomputer giant, has foughtback with a four -user version of itspopular Microvax range priced atunder £10,000.

The Microvax 2000 is a reduced -capacity version of the Microvax II.It uses the same processor andfloating-point chip set as theMicrovax II but can only supportup to 6Mbyte of RAM and142Mbyte of disc storage. Themachine has a 5.25in. 1.2Mbyte

floppy -disc drive and a 71Mbytehard disc built-in. Hard -disc cap-acity can be doubled by the use of asecond external 71Mbyte harddisc.

The price of the Microvax 2000 is£7,571 for the hardware. The costtogether with a four -user VMSlicence at £2,080 brings the cost to£9,651. The price does not includeterminals. Further details fromDigital Equipment Company,DEC Park, PO Box 110, Reading,Berkshire RG2 OTR. Telephone:(0734) 868711.

HARDWARESHORTS

Oliveiti has reduced theprices of its range of PCs. Atthe top of the range, thereductions are up to 15.5percent. Details from 01-7856666.The first Concurrent DOS386 products are beginningto emerge. Among the first inthe field is TechnologyConcepts Limited, which isoffering the operating systemwith its multi-user systems forbetween four and eight users.Details on (06333) 72611.Cambridge ComputerGraphics has claimed a firstby incorporating the newTexas Instruments 3401032 -bit graphics chip into a PCcard. The card will be knownas the Xcellerator. It has aresolution of 1,024 by 768pixels and a palette of 16million colours. Details on(0223) 214444.Xitan has begun distributionof Torrington's three -buttoncordless mouse. The ManagerMouse uses an infrared linkwith a PC and uses smallwheels instead of theconventional ball. Furtherinformation from (0703)871211. Pronounce is a voice -inputsystem which is designed toreplace up to 255 keystrokeswith a single word from a128 -word on-line vocabulary.Phone Electrone on 01-4292433.

IBM increases memoryand speed of RTIPCIBM HAS announced a series of en-hancements to its Risc-architecturemachine, the 6150, otherwiseknown as the RT/ PC. Thecompany claims that the new feat-ures double the amount of possiblememory and run the machine twoto three times faster.

There are three models in thenew range: the 115 desk -top andthe 125 and B-25 floor -standingmachines. Each of the newmachines contains the AdvancedProcessor Card, which utilisesdirect memory access, buffering

and an improved hard -disc formatwhich speeds transfer between thedisc and main memory. Also in-cluded is a 20MHz Motorola 68881maths co -processor and 4Mbyte ofmemory. Total memory expansionfor the new models now goes up to16Mbyte.

The new systems will alsofeature Aix version 2.1, IBM's pro-prietary version of Unix. Furtherdetails from IBM (U.K.), PO Box31, Birmingham Road, WarwickCB34 5JL. Telephone: (0926)32525.

Canon ATcompatibleCANON has added an AT com-patible to its range of products.The A-200EX HD -40 follows thevalued -added route taken by mostJapanese manufacturers. TheA-200EX is equipped with 640Kof RAM, a 1.2Mbyte floppy -discdrive and a 40Mbyte hard -discdrive. The machine has a switch -able clock speed, enabling themachine to run at either 6MHz or8MHz.

Fitted with serial and parallelports as standard, the A-200EXHD -40 has six AT expansion slotsand two PC slots. The computer isavailable with either monochromeor colour monitors, and prices startat £4,250. For further details con-tact Canon (U.K.), Canon House,Manor Road, Wallington, SurreySM6 OAJ. Telephone: 01-7733173.

14 PRACTICAL COMPUTING April 1987

N W SSOFTWARE

BORLAND SPRINTBORLAND took the unusual step ofannouncing a half -finished pro-duct during a visit by PhilippeKahn to steady the nerves ofmarket analysts. Even moreunusual is the fact that the newSprint is a mainstream word-processing product. It is notablefor its ability to mimic other pop-ular word processors like WordStarand Word Perfect. Although theinterface remains different -obviously with an eye to avoiding"look and feel" legal battles -the command structure can bemimicked.

Sprint also offers some featuresof its own. For example, multiplefiles, multiple windows and multi-

ple rulers can be opened simul-taneously on -screen. Up to 24 filescan be accessed at once.

Sprint automatically saves doc-uments as you work on them,using the periods when you are nottyping. This means that if thepower suddenly fails you lose atmost a few seconds' work. The pro-gram also has extensive support forlaser 7rinters, including the Post-script language. Subject indexes,tables of contents, footnotes andcross references are all standardfeatures.

If any of these features soundfamiliar it is because Sprint hasbeen written by the authors of thevenerable Final Word package,

which had a number of similarabilities. Sprint is expected in thesecond half of the year, and willcost $195. No U.K. price has beenannounced.

Borland also gave some detailsof its upgraded Sidekick Plus, aswell as releasing a Toolbox forTurbo Prolog. Other releasesinclude version 2.0 of Sidekick forthe Macintosh, which now in-cludes an outline processor andspreadsheet. Both products cost£69.95.

For more information on allBorland products contact BorlandInternational (U.K.), 1 GreatCumberland Place, London W1H7AL. Telephone: 01-258 3797.

DigitalResearchfirst with80386DOSDIGITAL RESEARCH has won the raceto get a version of DOS for the80386 processor out to thecustomers. The new version,known as Concurrent DOS 386, isalready with some equipmentmanufacturers and has beendemonstrated on a number of80386 -based machines. Amongthe firms who have adopted thenew operating system are Jarogateand Comart.

Concurrent DOS 386 retainsmany of the features of the earlierversion of Concurrent DOS. It iscompatible with MS-DOS version2 and Concurrent CP/ M formatsand supports multi -tasking andmulti-user activities. It also supports the LIM EMS expanded -memory specification.

Beyond that, ConcurrentDOS -386 can directly address4Gbyte of memory, within whicheach 8086 application can beassigned up to 1Mbyte of RAM.Digital Research says that use ofthe 80386's internal registers tokeep track of pages of informationleads to no reduction in processorspeed even if the pages are dis-tributed throughout memory. Upto 255 tasks can run concurrently inthis way, although for the presentlimitations will be imposed by thehardware.

Further information fromDigital Research, Oxford House,Oxford Street, Newbury, Berk-shire RG13 1JB. Telephone:(0635) 35304.

dBase III Plus add-onsASHTON-TATE has announced aseries of add-on products for dBaseIII Plus. They are dBase Pro-grammer's Utilities, dBase Toolsfor C Programmer's Library, dBaseTools for C Graphics Library, anddBase Tools Pascal Programmer'sLibrary.

The Programmer's Utilitiesinclude over 35 dBase and DOSutilities, including programs for

dBase database repair, recoveryand analysis. The C programsallow compiled C functions to becalled and executed, includingthose for producing graphical out-put. The Pascal library performssimilar functions for thatlanguage.

All four products are priced atf89 each and can be purchasedfrom Ashton-Tate dealers.

SOFTWARESHORTSVersion 3.1 of Smart hasbeen released. It includesmulti-user capabilities. Detailson 01-223 3876.A utility called Glue allowsyou to transfer graphicsbetween Mac packages. Thecost is £49.95. More on(0706) 217744.Adobe Systems hasannounced a new range ofdownloadable founts, makinga total of 111 typefaces nowavailable. Details on 031-5583333.dBase II is available for theAmstrad PC. The cost is £119,and it is available from FirstPublishing on (07357) 5244. RM/Cobol-85 has beenreleased for MS-DOS. It costsa mere £1,155. Moreinformation on (0992) 24981.Springboard Publisher is adesk -top publishing programfor the Apple II family. Itcosts £129.95, and isavailable on (05806) 4278.An interface to linkBOS/Writer with theLiberator lap portable hasbeen announced. The price is£100. Details on 01-8312926.

Security softwareTHREE packages dealing with datasecurity have been announced.Maint is a disc organiser withoptional encryption. It also offerspositive file deletion: that is, filesare overwritten, not just removedfrom the directory. The cost is

£49.50, or £99.50 with encryption.More details from Sophos Partners,20 Hawthorn Way, Kidlington,Oxford OX5 1EZ. Telephone:(0865) 853668.

Datalock comps from Ferrantiand offers passwords, audit trailsand encryption. The cost is £65, or£145 with encryption. More detailsfrom Ferranti Computer SystemsLimited, Wythenshawe Division,Simonsway, Wythenshawe, Man-

chester M22 5LA. Telephone:061-499 3355.

Protec is a similar packageoffering access control andencryption. The cost is f170, and itis available from IPE Corporation,37b New Cavendish Street,London W1M 8JR. Telephone:01-794 8343.

Ingresfor PCsINGRES is one of the most popularrelational databases for minis andmainframes. A version has nowbeen released for micros whichallows information to be swappedacross easily between differentlevels of systems.

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c...3?"-%r -,:.14,t:0-

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C 0 M M SBY JACK SCHOFIELD

N K

FIGHTING A LOSING BATTLEBRITISH TELECOM'S PIECEMEAL APPROACH TO DATA COMMUNICATIONS MAY LEAVE THE U.K.

VULNERABLE TO ATTACK BY ITS INTERNATIONAL COMPETITORS.

C ince privatisation British Telecom hastsi pushed ahead into computerisation anddata services. This is more than updating itsvast number of ancient mechanical tele-phone exchanges with System X digitalswitches. BT is trying new markets at last.

For example it has bought the inter-national Dialcom electronic -mail network,following its success with Telecom Gold. It istrying to start a value-added services net-work, Vascom. It has produced a decentreasonably priced telephone work station,the Qwertyphone, to supplement theTonto, which came out of the Sinclair QL viaICL's One Per Desk. It is computerising itsdirectory -enquiries system. Most recently ithas opened an on-line version of ElectronicYellow Pages, and launched a Photo Video-tex system. It is pioneering in both the newX.400 message -handling systems, and Inte-grated Services Digital Network. It is goingto pioneer the use of credit-card sized opticalstorage using the Drexler Lasercard.

With all these developments BT is mobil-ising its resources, like an army marching offto war. This commercial war will be foughtover the international communicationsarena. Its foes are AT&T and the Belloperating companies, Ericsson, ITT, theEuropean telecomms suppliers, Japan'sNTT and many more, all competing invarious shifting alliances. All seek worlddomination.

From this point of view it isn't veryimportant whether BT engineers work anine -day fortnight or who pays for the 999service. These questions seem vital to unionsand politicians whose views stretch littlefurther than Tower Hamlets, but if this viewprevails then U.K. Ltd really is done for.

International communications, data andvalue-added services are the next big thing.If BT loses the way the Rover Group lost toFord and General Motors, or the way ICLlost to IBM, then you can forget aboutBritain holding its position as a nation in themiddle of Division Two.

The problem with marching an army offto war is that the first batallions are welldown the road before the ones at the backare even called to attention. BT has just thisproblem, which is why certain areas ofapparent inactivity should not bother usmuch. What is of more importance is

whether the batallions at the front aremarching in the right direction. I'm not surethat they are.

While BT is entering new markets,offering new services and pushing forwardwith new ideas, I cannot understand what its

strategy is. Is it simply hoping that lots ofminor successes will somehow add up to aviable share of the market? Or is it stillworking on a grand design?

It seems that the French have a granddesign, expressed through a series of con-crete aims, and that these aims are rightwhile BT's are wrong. First, the Frenchrecognise that data communications are thehighways of the future, so France has builtan integrated highway system calledTranspac. Second, people need terminals toaccess Transpac, so it is installing them inhomes at a rate of over 1,000,000 a year.Third, there has to be some sort of applic-ation to bring the system into use.

The French answer for the general publicis the directory -enquiries service. Peoplewith Teletel terminals can use them to lookup phone numbers. Businesses use thesystem for local government and commercialcommunications. In some areas you can fillin financial statements and various applic-ation forms on-line, instead of using paper.

None of this is as unprofitable as it mightsound. Directory enquiries are free, butwhen you use Transpac for other services thecharges appear on your telephone bill. Thecalculation is that within four years these payfor the cost of the terminal.

Of course there are vast savings on the costof printed directories, which provide a long-term benefit even after the system is runningprofitably. There are further savings ondirectory -enquiries staff. With the gov-ernment services, the data entered by bus-iness users can go straight into databases,instead of having to be typed in. Ex-periments have also shown increased eff-iciency as fewer forms are filed late or filledin incorrectly. The exercise is also valuable inbuilding up computer literacy.

Installing vast numbers of terminalsmeans they can be produced very cheaply.Having millions of users creates a hugemarket for on-line services: the Frenchsystem is growing by an average of three aday. This is building up a strong group ofinformation -technology suppliers, hardwaremanufacturers and software firms who cancompete on the world market.

By contrast, BT has Prestel, a videotexsystem which assumes the user has a mod-ified television set and a keypad telephone.Prestel has failed. Second, it has TelecomGold, which is an ASCII service licensedfrom Dialcom. While this is accessible viaPacket Switch Stream (PSS), the U.K. equiv-alent of Transpac, the provision of PSS portsin most parts of the country is lamentable at

best. Third, it has just started the ElectronicYellow Pages, but this is shackled to thePrestel format, and although it is free it doesmean phoning a computer in Reading.Fourth, BT has a range of network services,but if you know the difference between PSS,IPSS, Multistream, - Bpad, Epad, Rpad,Spad, Tpad, Vpad, Kilostream, Mega -stream, IDA, ISDN and Vascom then youprobably work for BT. Fifth, BT is spendingover £80 million on directory -enquiries com-puters, complete with data lines from fourmain computer centres, but only its ownoperators have access so you phone theoperator who asks the computer and thentells you the answer!

Now the better informed can argue thatthe French system is not as simple as I'vemade out, while BT's systems are not as con-fusing. My point is slightly different: theFrench present a clear strategy, while BTdoes not present anything clearly and doesnot appear to have a strategy at all.

Nor am I suggesting that BT shouldsuddenly start installing millions of freeterminals in people's homes. My point isthat it is clearly right to put the digitalnetwork at the centre of your com-munications strategy, and it is wrong to puta lot of separate computers at the centre oftheir own restricted networks, especially ifthey cannot even talk to one another. If bothgovernment and industry are going to havetheir own separate networks too, this justmakes it even worse.

If an army has a winning strategy it canafford to lose some battles along the way.Not everything the French have done hasbeen right. However, if an army's only strat-egy is to win by winning the minor battles itis likely to lose in the long run, because everydefeat is a setback.

Looking at BT from this point of view isnot reassuring. Prestel has been a flop. BT'sdirectory -enquiries installation seems tohave been a shambles. Telecomsoft spent alot of money buying other software houses,like Beyond, without getting much in theway of saleable product. Hotline hasadopted what I think is the wrong approachin charging a very high price up front andoffering only a limited range of data. As forthe Electronic Yellow Pages, this is the worstdesigned database I have ever accessed.

No doubt there are problems, waking upa sleepy old giant through privatisation. Butif I knew where BT was going and what itwas trying to do, I would feel more con-fident about the future. As it is, I fear theworst.


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BY MIKE LEWIS

A WAY WITH WORDSBORLAND'S TURBO LIGHTNING AND WORD WIZARD PACKAGES CAN BE USED TO SIMPLIFY A LOT OF

WORD -ORIENTATED PROGRAMMING TASKS.

Anybody trying to write a word -basedprogram faces a major snag. Whether

it is a simple word grid or a full-blownScrabble game, the program needs some wayof knowing if a given combination of lettersmakes a legitimate English word. Nobodyhas yet come up with a programmablemethod of distinguishing meaninglesscharacter strings from genuine vocabulary.To work properly, word -orientated softwaremust have access to a dictionary.

Of course, there is nothing unusual aboutcomputer -readable dictionaries. Every spell-ing checker has one. The trouble is that it isnot usually possible to get at them fromwithin your own programs. The internal lay-outs of the dictionaries are not generallypublished. Because they come in a highlycompressed form, rather than as straightASCII files, there is no way that producers ofthird -party software can take advantage ofthem.

Recently, however, a number of productshave appeared which aim to overcome thisproblem. The best-known is Borland In-ternational's Turbo Lightning. As well as avery respectable dictionary - up to 85,000words, depending on disc space - thispackage also sports a sizeable thesaurus. Butits most interesting feature is its openarchitecture.

Turbo Lightning is really three productsin one. First, there is the software that is seenby the end -user: the memory -residentspelling checker and synonym finder. It isdesigned to work on top of otherapplications and is accessed via a set of pull -down menus and hot keys. Then there arethe actual reference files - the dictionaryand thesaurus - with hooks for any otherlists that might be published in the future.

Between these two there is the layer ofsoftware that is of most interest to theprogrammer: the Turbo Lightning engine.This is the gateway through which ordinaryprograms can get at the Lightning referencefiles. The engine is memory resident andconsists of 16 function calls for interrogatingand searching the dictionary, for findingsynonyms and sound -alike words, for work-ing with word tokens, and quite a lot more.

Calling the Turbo Lightning engine issimilar to calling the ROM BIOS. WhenLightning is installed, it takes over interrupt16 hex, the BIOS keyboard interrupt. To callthe engine, you issue an Int 16H with aspecial signature in the AH and BHregisters, and a function code in BL. Toavoid interfering with normal keyboardoperation, any calls that do not follow this

write(DictWords10);until length:DictWord)=0;

end;

DedicateLightning(false);end.

WORD FINDERprogram WordFinder;

(Finds all cards that can be made fromPascal, Turbo Lightning (TL), and Word

($1 ENGINE.WW

typeWord=string(321;

constKeyWords Word...SOFTWARE";KeyLen=8;MinLen=3;

var

DictWords Word;Key1ndxs integer;DummyReply: boolean;CurrLetters char;

a given word or phrase; needs TurboWizard - all published by Borland)

the Word Wizard library for TL}

(the starting word - this is just an example)(length of the key word)(minimum length allowed for derived words)

function LettersMatch(test,targetsWord): boolean;(returns true if the test word can be made fro

var

LetPos, is integer;fail: boolean;chs char;

begin1t=1; fails=false;while (j<=length(test)) and not fail dobegin

chiupcase(test(ii);LetPossopos(ch,target);if LetPos>0 thentarget[LetPos]:="

elsefails=true;

js=j+1;

end;

LettersMatchs=not fail;end; (of LettersMatch)

begin (main program)DummyReplys=LightningPresent;DedicateLightning(true);for Keylndxs=1 to KeyLen dobegin

CurrLetters=KeyWordIKeylndx1; (extract the letter)DummyReplyt=lnitRangeSearch(CurrLetter,MinLen,KeyLen);

(set parameters for TL search)

letters of target word)

(extract the next letter)(look for it in the target)

(if found, delete it fro target)

(otherwise, the test has failed)

repeatDictWordsGetNextWordlnRange;

(initialise TL work areas)(stop user getting at TL directly)(for each letter in the keyword)

(get next dictionary word that conformsto these parameters)

if length(DictWord))0 thenif LettersMatch(DictWord,KeyWord) then

(print if it can be made fro keyword)(empty TL word means end of search)(end of current letter)(release TL for user)

pattern are forwarded by the engine to theBIOS.

For example, if you wanted to look up acertain word in the dictionary you would callthe engine with function 01 specified in BL,and with DS:SI pointing to the word. IfTurbo Lightning finds the word, you will getback its physical address within thedictionary and also its unique 24 -bit serialnumber. These details are passed via an area

of memory called the Data InterchanrTable.

Not all programmers, of course, likeworking with registers and interrupts, evenif their high-level language allows them todo so. To help them out, Borland haspublished Word Wizard, containing amongother things a Turbo Pascal toolbox forcalling the Turbo Lightning engine. Itconsists of around two dozen Pascal

(continued on next page)


OFT TIN ARE WORK SHOP(continued from previous page)

functions and procedures which roughlymatch the tasks performed by the interruptcalls.

Word Wizard is also the main source ofdocumentation for the interrupts. But youdo not need to understand these details inorder to use the Pascal routines, nor do youhave to code in Turbo Pascal if you are happyto call the interrupts yourself.

To illustrate the use of the Turbo Lightn-ing engine I decided to use the WordWizard library to write a simple word -puzzlesolver. The sort of puzzle I had in mind is afamiliar one: given a word or short phraseyou have to see how many words of three ormore letters you can derive from it.

The obvious approach is to generate everycombination of at least three letters that canbe made from the starting word, then tocheck each of them against the dictionary.But this would involve some horrific pro-gramming. Just rearranging the letters inevery possible way would require a complexiterative or recursive process, even beforeyou consider the need for strings of differentlengths.

There would also be the problem ofrunning time. Suppose that you started withan eight -letter word and you generated everyeight -letter combination; for each of theseyou then took the first seven letters, then thefirst six, and so on down to three. You would

have ended up with nearly a quarter of amillion words to look up, many of whichwould have been duplicated.

Fortunately, there is a better way. Giventhat there are around 85,000 words in theLightning dictionary, it is faster to look upevery one and to test it against the startingword than it is to attempt to find all possiblecombinations of the letters. It is also a gooddeal easier to program.

In fact you can do even better. The TurboLightning engine allows both direct andsequential access, as well as combinations ofthe two. Thus you can go straight to the firstword that begins with a specified letter andproceed sequentially until this initial letterchanges. You therefore only need to retrievethose words that start with each differentletter from your starting word.

This is the strategy that I adopted for myword -finding program, the complete listingof which appears on the previous page. Ituses just four of the 16 routines from theWord Wizard toolbox. The library itself iscontained in a separate Include file namedEngine .WW.

The first routine called is LightningPresent and simply performs internalinitialisatidn. Init Range Search is used toestablish the starting letter for subsquentlookups. The searches can be further refinedby specifying a minimum and maximumword length. Get Next Word In Range then

returns each word in turn that meets thesecriteria. When the search is complete thefunction returns a zero -length string.

Remember that Turbo Lightning is

memory resident and is designed to be usedat the same time as other programs. If theuser of my program tried to get at Lightningdirectly, via its pull -down menus or hotkeys, there would be a risk of the engine'sinternal pointers going adrift. To preventthis you have to call Dedicate Lightning todeny ordinary user access.

To test the program I chose the startingword "software." This resulted in 18,140words being retrieved from the dictionary,200 of which provided correct solutions tothe puzzle. If any of the letters in mystarting word had been repeated theprogram would have needed a test toprevent the same letter from being usedtwice to initialise a search.

Proper nouns are usually disallowed inthese puzzles, but the Lightning dictionaryhas over 1,600 of them. My program foundthree, as well as quite a few abbreviations.The dictionary is of course American; wordswith British spellings would not be found.

The program certainly ran fast, taking lessthan one minute on my Olivetti M-24.Accessing the dictionary takes about twomilliseconds, and you can do a sequentialpass of the entire file in under threeminutes. Dia

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Its incredibly low price includes amonitor, disc drive, keyboard, word-processing software and a printer.

And with the 8256 you don't justget quantity, you get quality too.

A high speed RAM disc facilitymeans you can store and retrieve infor-mation instantly.

The high resolution, green screenmonitor can show 90 columns and 32lines of text at the same time.

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AMSTRAD PCW 8256Amstrad, PO Box 462, Brentwood, Essex CM14 4EF.

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T

ANOTHER SPIN OF THE WHEELALTHOUGH THE JAPANESE ARE CURRENTLY CLEAR LEADERS ON THE WORLD CHIP MARKET

CONDITIONS ARE CHANGING IN A WAY THAT COULD FAVOUR THE EUROPEANS.

japanese chip manufacturers now occupythe top three positions in a ranking

based on annual semiconductor sales world-wide. This is worrying a lot of people in theU.S., not least those in the Pentagon. Ex-pected soon is a high-level Defense Depart-ment task force report, whose findings, instandard defence industry fashion, havealready been made widely known.

The report will warn that unless the U.S.semiconductor industry can find a way toregain its previous position of world leader-ship in the design and manufacture ofadvanced memory and microprocessordevices, then the whole basis of present U.S.defence strategy will be threatened. Thatstrategy has traditionally been based on thereassuring assumption that the numericaladvantage of certain potential adversariescan be more than offset by the techni-cal superiority of U.S. weapons andequipment, a superiority based largely onadvanced electronics and hence semi-conductor leadership.

Already a high percentage of the semi-conductor chips used in new U.S. militaryequipment is of overseas origin - mainlyJapanese. Since Japan is now one of theUnited States' closest allies this may notseem like a particularly worrisome problemfor the Pentagon, but unfortunately it is notquite as simple as that, as the report reminds

4 us. Chip technology is the driver for allelectronic design innovation. If Americanindustry starts to lose revenue from theleading -edge technologies which it hasdominated since the 1950s, then there willbe a resulting lack of incentive and invest-ment in vital downstream technology such asavionics, computers and telecommun-ications. In effect, the U.S. will become afollower, not a leader.

Over the last two years U.S. chip makershave sustained huge losses. Japanese manu-facturers have virtually ousted theirAmerican counterparts from the RAMmemory market and might before longachieve the same dominance in micropro-cessors.

The authors of the Pentagon report cert-ainly have a valid case, but I think they maybe in danger of overstating it. In doing sothey are no doubt egged on by U.S. chipmanufacturers: they have a lot to gain fromany national initiative to regain leadership,especially one involving a healthy dollop ofgovernment funding.

Leaving aside the worries of the U.S.defence community, the performance ofJapan's chip makers certainly appears spec-

tacular. According to a recent Dataquestsurvey NEC's turnover increased by 33percent in 1986, while Toshiba's rose by 54percent and Mitsubishi's by 84 percent. Bycomparison Intel's three percent reductionand Motorola's 11 percent increase lookdecidedly tacky.

But there is a catch. During the year thevalue of the Japanese yen rose by about 40percent against the dollar, which of coursehelped to push up the reported turnoverfigures for the Japanese companies ascompared to their U.S. competitors. Therising yen has also triggered off a recession inJapan, and Japanese chip makers are nowfaced with fierce competition from Koreaand Taiwan. Even U.S. and Europeanmanufacturers will find it easier in thefuture to sell their chips to Japanese equip-ment manufacturers if the yen continues torise.

Japanese domination of the memory fieldover the past two years was achievedby ferocious price cutting, described asdumping by many critics. This strategy hascertainly gained the Japanese market share,but only at a heavy cost in profitability. Nowthat the battle is over, the Japanese plan tomake big profits from a monopolisticposition has been thwarted by the dramaticrise in the value of the yen, and this couldsend the seesaw off in the other direction byencouraging competitors to re-enter themarket.

In Europe there is already a renaissanceunderway, although it hardly poses a majorthreat to the Japanese at present. In 1986 theJapanese share of the European chip marketwas already beginning to decline, and thereare signs of increasing optimism and deter-mination among major European semi-conductor manufacturers such as Siemensand Philips. The U.K. company Plessey,which up to now has been nothing morethan a tiddler in the international semi-conductor league, has startled many byopening a new £10 million sub -micron fab-rication line which is aimed at taking a worldlead in advanced CMOS chip technology.

Plessey has plans to beat the rest of theworld into the use of four -level metal andtrench isolation, coupled with one micronline geometries. By 1989 it plans to bemanufacturing chips with gate densities ofup to 6,000 gates per square millimetre andup to 250,000 gates per chip by 1989.Current CMOS technology manages about50,000 gates per chip and uses only twolayers of metal interconnect. The new fab-rication facility at Plessey's Caswell Research

Centre will be equipped with the latest inchip manufacturing equipment, including a£3 million Perkin Elmer Aeble direct -write -on -wafer E -beam machine, which willeventually allow geometries down to 0.7micron to be achieved.

This impressive initiative from Plesseyhas, paradoxically perhaps, been madepossible by its long-standing expertise in HFbipolar technology. While not itself thestuff of which headlines are made, this- ex--pertise has provided some of the necessarytechniques to build tomorrow's world-beating CMOS chips with densities at leastdouble those of other processes with thesame feature sizes.

With 250,000 gates on a single chip, de-signing the chips themselves could become amajor problem. The currently acceptedthroughput rate for computer -aided designis about 300 gates per person week, whichwould mean that a chip based on the Plesseytechnology could take over 15 person yearsto design. In a rare example of timelyindustrial and governmental co-operation, aproject to increase dramatically CADthroughput to handle the design of to-morrow's big chips is soon to be announcedas part of the Alvey Programme.

Plessey will have a part in this project,along with other major U.K. electronics andCAD companies. The aim is to develop anew computer -based design methodologycalled silicon compilation, which will beable to increase designer productivity to10,000 gates per person week by 1989 - justin time, it would appear, to handle the firstdesigns using Plessey's new CMOS process.This is all splendid stuff, and combined withthe increasing acceptance of the InmosTransputer as a world -class 32 -bit processorfamily, it augurs well for a revival in theU.K.'s semiconductor fortunes.

But the recent opening of a new chip dev-elopment facility at Caswell and theimpending launch of a new CAD initiativeare not enough in themselves. By 1989 allsorts of new delights may be available fromJapan, and even the battered U.S. chip pro-ducers can be assumed to have a trick or twoup their sleeves. The Plessey process mayseem less than revolutionary when pro-duction wafers finally hit the streets.

Another danger is that the new tech-nology will find a quick and lucrative marketin advanced U.K. defence programmes, andthis may be pursued to the detriment of anyrisky sales drive in the commercial sectorwhich could put the U.K. back on the worldsemiconductor map. PC


T E MBY ANNE STAINES

N T S

PAYING THE PRICELITIGATION IS SO EXPENSIVE THAT FEW IF ANY CASES CONCERNING SOFTWARE ARE COMING TO

COURT. THE RESULTING UNCERTAINTY IN THE LAW IS BAD FOR SUPPLIERS AND USERS ALIKE.

AFlorida lawsuit in which the pro-ducer's liability for defects in his com-

puter software was to be tested for the firsttime has been dropped, leaving users nonethe wiser on this important issue. LotusSymphony user James Cummings hadclaimed that faults in the progam had costhis business $250,000; he has now with-drawn his action in negligence and breach ofcontract.

This news is not surprising. It wasgenerally thought that Cummings hadtaken on a steep uphill struggle in suingLotus. There appeared to be factual weak-ness of his own case, and many expertsagreed that Cummings' problems with thesoftware stemmed from uneducated userather than any intrinsic fault in theprogram. In addition, his chosen terrain wasnot only rough but totally uncharted.

Cummings had to establish three essentialpoints. First, he had to establish that com-puter software is goods rather than services;the law in the U.S., as in the U.K., imposesa higher degree of care on providers of theformer than the latter. Lawyers can arguethis point until the cows come home. Thenthere was the question of the degree ofperfection a user can reasonably expect of asoftware package. The concepts of merchan-table quality and fitness for purpose areadopted as yardsticks by the UniformCommercial Code in America, and in theU.K. by the Supply of Goods and ServicesAct 1982. They are notoriously difficult toapply to software.

Finally, Cummings had to rebut Lotus'sclaim that in any event the program was notcovered by statutory warranties relating toquality or fitness for purpose, these havingbeen expressly excluded by a clause in theshrink-wrap licence. So much doubtsurrounds every one of these issues that it issmall wonder Cummings withdrew.

Lotus's response to the news was charac-teristic of the company, which threatens tobecome as well known as an internationallitigant as it is as a software producer. "Wespare no effort and never compromise whendefending the quality of our products orprotecting our legal rights." The words ofLotus's Vice -President are not just bravado.With a turnover last year of $225 millionLotus can arguably afford to treat this self -defensive legal policy - as well as itsoffensive counterpart - as an investment.

In pursuit of the latter, Lotus has justserved one writ against a Vancouversoftware -rental company called SoftsaveInformation Services Inc., alleging infringe-ment of Lotus's copyright in 1-2-3 andSymphony. As reported last month in thismagazine, it is also suing another U.S. soft-ware developer, Paperback Software. Asignificant feature of Lotus's success in itsoffensive legal strategy is its willingness toestablish common cause with other softwareproducers and trade organisations. Forinstance in its action against Softsave, co -plaintiffs include Ashton-Tate, Microsoftand Lifetree Associates. In the U.K. Lotusplays an active role in the Federation AgainstSoftware Theft.

Computers have introduced a completelynew set of problems to the law. The uncer-

tainties surrounding practically every aspectmean that simple cases are few and farbetween. In legal terms, of course, com-plicated means expensive, and consequentlycomputer law is increasingly the sole pre-serve of the big guns. What chance has theindividual or small-business user in thisgame?

In theory no user, however small, shouldbe deterred from commencing or defendingan action at law if they are sure that they arein the right. But between theory andpractice lie months - or more probablyyears - of anxiety and expense. The result islegal stalemate and an increasing amount ofuncertainty that can only be resolvedthrough litigation.

Within the legal profession a consensus isgrowing that both users and smallercomputer businesses need a cheap andcheerful legal service to conciliate and act asarbiter when disputes over computer lawarise. In the U.K. the Society of Computersand Law, comprising mainly solicitors, is

currently trying to organise such a scheme.But it seems to be attracting less financialsupport both from government and the pro-fessional bodies of the computer industrythan it deserves. Quite independent of thesemoves, the Data Protection Registrar is

espousing the same theory by stressing hisrole as Ombudsman, which he sees as a wayof helping people resolve their data protec-tion problems without the daunting andexpensive experience of litigation. These arehopeful trends for computer law as well asfor users. For everyone's sake, let's hopethey continue. PC

WE SPARE NO EFFORT AND NEVER

COMPROMISE WHEN DEFENDING THE

QUALITY OF OUR PRODUCTS OR

PROTECTING OUR LEGAL RIGHTS

0 Lotus28 PRACTICAL COMPUTING April 1987

"One day, all microswill be built this way"The Guardian -26th JUNE 1986

Zenith Data Systems introduces the Z-181, a brilliant, award -winning lightweight computer with the most readable, full-size screen.

To further quote Jack Schofield of the 'The Guardian' ...

". . . the Z-181 will be very attractive to salesmen, journalists,academics and others who want to pack an office powered computerin a briefcase. It should also appeal to top executives who don't wanttheir desk dominated by a ton of old metal - the Z-181 can be slippedinto a drawer when not in use

Many thousands of Zenith Z-181 computers are already used ingovernment and major organisations all over the world. Now, Zenithproducts are available here, too, through a nationwide network ofauthorised computer dealers and systems houses.

Before you go for a portable - talk to Zenith!

For a colour brochure, post the coupon or call 0800 444124

The world's leading manufacturer of PC compatibles

circle 115 on enquiry card -

-Z -181

'Personal' Business ComputerFull-size screen, internal modem, dual 31/2"

disk drives, 640KB RAM, weighs underl2lbs.

"Far more readable than any other LCD screen onthe market?' Practical Computing October 1986.

"Not a better portable in its class . . . a superiormachine." The Times 2 December1986.

datasystems

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FIRST PRIZE

1 TRIP TO CALIFORNIAIn conjunction with Altor Ltd, Practical Computing is organising the firstBritish Turbo Pascal programming competition. The total value of the prizeswill be £20,000, with a first prize of a week-long trip to California.THE COMPETITION is open to anyone whohas written software using Borland's TurboPascal language; professional programmersare not excluded. Any kind of program, old ornew, may be submitted provided the copyrightis owned by the entrant. This applies equallyto commercial, published and unpublishedprograms.

The aim of the competition is to find the bestexample of programming in the Turbo Pascallanguage. A number of criteria will be used inthe judging: the use of Turbo Pascal features;style of coding; performance and efficiency ofthe finished program; user interface; and thebasic idea behind the application. The judgeswill also take into account any other aspectsthey feel important. Nevertheless, entrants areencouraged to submit programs of whateverkind, even if they might appear to be lacking insome of the above categories.

Programs do not have to be finished appli-cations; useful routines and utilities are accept-able provided they can be tested by the judgeson their own. Commercially available third -party toolboxes may be employed, but theiruse must be clearly signalled.

REQUIREMENTSENTRANTS must own the copyright of any pro-grams which they submit. As well as a hard -copy listing, there must be a disc containingsource files, executable programs and otherrelevant files. It must be accompanied by ahard -copy document not more than 500 wordslong describing the program, its aims, specialfeatures, etc. and specifying any sections of the

30

program that are not the entrant's copyright.Entrants will be disqualified if their descriptionexceeds the 500 -word limit. Submissions mustbe complete Turbo Pascal programs which canbe run as they stand by the judges - with theassistance of commercially available third -partytoolboxes if necessary, though these must beclearly signalled by the entrant.

Copyright will remain with original owner,but it is a condition of entry that Practical Com-puting will have the right to publish illustrativeportions of the winning entries.

THE PRIZESFirst prize: A trip for the overall winner toBorland's headquaters in Scotts Valley, Cali-fornia. There the winner will meet PhilippeKahn, head of Borland. All travel and accom-modation costs for the week will be part of theprize. The total value is approximately £5,000.Second prizes: There will be 10 secondprizes, some of which may be awarded by thejudges for those programs which show parti-cular merits in one or more of the categoriesmentioned above. Each second prize willconsist of a complete set of all Borland pro-ducts, for both the IBM PC and Macintosh.These are Reflex the Analyst, Reflex Workshop,Turbo Prolog, Turbo Pascal, Turbo DatabaseTutor, Turbo Graphix Toolbox, Turbo Tutor2.0, Turbo Editor Toolbox, Turbo Gameworks,Turbo Lightning, Lightning Word Wizard, Side-kick, Travelling Sidekick and Superkey.Third prizes: 50 Borland T-shirts and mugs.

£20,000 BRITISH TURBO PASCALPROGRAMMING OMPETITION

THE JUDGESTHE FINAL stage of the judging will be carried out by four judges: Barry Clark, Mike Lewis, IwanWilliams and Ian Stobie. In all matters concerning this competition, the editor's decision is final.

DR. BARRY CLARK is a lecturer PothologicaBiochemistry at Glasgow University. He has specialistexperience in fast -access multi-user databases, networkingand laboratory -instrument interfacing with emphasis onthe user interface.

MIKE LEWIS is best-known to Practical Computingreaders for his software reviews and Software Workshopcolumn. He is also an independent computer consultantspecialising in financial applications. He uses Turbo Pascalfor about 30 percent of his work. He has beets in computingsince 1964.

1. The competition is open to all readers of PracticalComputing normally resident in the U.K., except foremployees of Reed Business Publishing Ltd or Altar Ltd,the judges, or the families of any of these.2. Each entry must be accompanied by an officialentry form or photocopy, completed in ink and mustconform to the requirements set out opposite.3. Completed entry forms should be posted to the ad-dress shown on the entry form, to arrive not later than31 May 1987. Envelopes should be clearly marked"Turbo Pascal Competition" in the top left-handcorner.4. The editor of Practical Computing is the final judgeof the competition. No correspondence can be enteredinto regarding the results, and it is a condition of entrythat the decision of the editor is final.5. The winner will be notified by post and the result ofthe competition announced in the first available issue ofPractical Computing. Copyright remains with the holderbut Practical Computing reserves the right to use illus-trative examples from winning entries without payment.Entries and discs cannot be returned.6. The first prize is a trip to California for one weekfor one person, including a visit to Borland'sheadquarters in Scotts Valley. Each of the 10second prizes will consist of all the BorlandInternational products current on 1 January1987. Third prizes will consist of BorlandT-shirts and mugs. Each prize will beawarded to the individual named onthe relevant entry form. No cashsubstitutes will be offered.

IWAN WILLIAMS is art experienced PC user and software reviewer. He is in charge of the Special ProjectsDivision of the Scottish Development Agency, which usesIBM PC and 3270 PC equipment. His particular interests liein business -productivity software, and he has written exten-sively on such topics as word processing, fit - 'al analysisand corporate planning.

IAN STOBIE is Assistant Editor r. a/ Computing.Before joining the magazine he was a professionalcomputer programmer for five years. with experience oflarge DEC and IBM systems as well as PCs. One of his lobson the magazine is selecting software packages far review.as well as regularly writing reviews himself.

This entry formshould

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31

FROM CLIVE SINCLAIR ...THE NO -COMPROMISE

IZ88 COMPUTERIT MEASURES LESS THAN AN A4 PAD.

IT WEIGHS LESS THAN 21b,IT COSTS JUST

.95fVA1 p&p

RAM expandable to 3 Mbytes...

Word-processing and spreadsheet built in, plus time- anddata -management systems...

Revolutionary supertwist LCD display...

0 Completely self-contained - yet talks and listens to your IBM...

There has never been a computer like the Z88.It's an extraordinarily powerful

machine which offers word-processing,spreadsheet, and a set of time- anddata -management tools in a single, highlyportable package.

At £199.95, the Z88 is supplied with32K resident RAM. Extra 32K costs under £20- extra 128K under £50!

And heavy users will be able to expandthe RAM to an astonishing 3 Mbytes, usingplug-in RAM cartridges.

For printing text or data, the Z88connects directly to most popular RS232 -compatible printers, while for permanentstorage the Z88 employs removable solid-stateEPROM cartridges - no tape to break, nodelicate disc to damage.

Though the Z88 is a powerful, full -

facility, self-contained computer, it also acts asan extension of an office micro, connectingdirectly to allow exchange of text or data.

For every personal computer user, theZ88 offers a comprehensive specification in apackage of unparalleled portability.

Robust, solid-stwyneare and.NIorrige cartridges.

ETHE FACILITIES OF THE Z88RAM Resident 32K, around 15K available(enough for around 2,000 words). Extra RAMavailable in 32K or 128K cartridges, up to three

of which can be plugged into the Z88 to give atotal of 416K (enough for a 200 -page novel).1 Mbyte cartridges available shortly. A built-in

capacitor or the mains adapter preserves datain RAM while batteries are changed.

Permanent storage Where other machinesrely on cassette recorders or disc drives, theZ88 uses solid-state EPROM - ErasableProgrammable Read -Only Memory -

cartridges, with very rapid electronic accessand absolute reliability. Up to three EPROMcartridges can be plugged in: 32K and 128Kcartridges and ultra -violet eraser are availablenow. 1 Mbyte cartridges available shortly.

RS232 -compatible port offers:Printing RS232 cable connects the Z88 topopular printers. Cables can also be made upfor virtually any RS232 -compatible printer.Text- and data -interchange Resident softwareformats data for IBM-compatible micros with51/4" or 31/2" disc -drives. If your micro can run

such popular programs as Wordstar, Lotus1-2-3 or WordPerfect, you can exchange textand data between it and the Z88. Cable andsoftware available now.

Modem allows text- and data -transmission bytelephone.

Power supply Optional mains adapter, or 4AA batteries. (CMOS technology allows about20 hours active computing - or about a year oflife for RAM if machine is switched off).

Dimensions 11, x 8,/," x -/s"; weight: under 2 lb

Full QWERTY keyboard offers 'silent', moving short -travel keys. Foldaway foot raises the Z88 1212° forcomfortable viewing and typing.

E1ADVANCED INTEGRATEDSOFTWARE PACKAGEThe operating system of the Z88 is uniqueto Cambridge Computer Ltd, supporting asits main in-built software an advancedsoftware package, adapted by ProtechnicLtd for the Z88.

The Z88 automatically preserves datain RAM when switched off.

The software is a set of spreadsheetand word processing applications, with a

sophisticated help function, designed fromthe first as an integrated package whichallows text to be run within a spreadsheet,or a spreadsheet to be run within text.

Word-processing facilities includemulti -column layout, global search andreplace, and embedded calculations, as wellas all the normal word-processing activities.The display shows such commands as bold,italics, underlining, and page breaks.Spreadsheet includes text -handling andsorting.

Other built-in software includesdatabase selection; calculator; free -formdiary, calendar, real-time clock and alarm.

An outstanding feature of the Z88 isits ability to switch between tasks within anapplication, and between applications,without the need to save, exit the package,or restart on return.

While computing a spreadsheet, forexample, it is easy to switch directly to thediary, and then go straight back to thespreadsheet - which immediately carries onfrom the point it had reached.

STATE-OF-THE-ART SUPERTWIST LCD DISPLAYSupertwist technology represents the state of the art in liquid crystal display. Its massiveincrease in contrast ratio and viewing angle give a dark blue on grey display thatsurpasses CRT screens.

1 21. 'Topic bar'- seven general menu options, each supported by function menus.2. Work area displays 8 lines by a full 80 characters.3. Unique screen map shows complete page layout, updated automatically as work goes on.4. Section displays machine status ( e.g battery strength. )

3

111 HOW TO ORDERThe Z88 is available only by mail order. The

FREEPOST coupon lists the components ofthe Z88 system currently available.

The Z88 itself comes supplied with 32KRAM built in, a comprehensive manual,

sectionalised to suit both novices andcomputer experts, and a carrying case.

Your order will be acknowledged withinformation on the likely despatch date.

If you're not happy with any item youreceive, return it in original condition within10 days of receipt for an immediate refund.

Every item is covered by a one-yearguarantee, and will be repaired or replacedfree of charge if faulty and returned withproof of purchase date.


CAMBRIDGECOMPUTERL9,Cambridge Computer Ltd, FREEPOST, Cambridge, CB4 1BR

IBM 711/ of International Business Machines.Wordstar TO of MicroPro. Lotus TM of Lotus Development.WordPerfect TM of WordPelfect.

1711ORDER To: Cambridge Computer Ltd, FREEPOST, Cambridge, CB4 1BR1Please supply Z88 system components as shown below.

ITEMQTY

PRICEEACH £ TOTAL £

Z88 COMM 'TER 229.95

MAINS ADAPTER 9.95

RS232 PRINTER CABLE(Cable supplied with 25 -way D connector.. Making up othercables is simple: full dealer instructions in the manual.)

9.95

I/O SOFTWARE/CABLE for IBM transfer. Softwareto be supplied on tick as applicable

14.95U 5V-.. disc (Full instructions included)

31/2" disc (Full instructions included) 14.95

MODEM 99.9532K RAM CARTRIDGE 19.95

128K RAM CARTRIDGE 49.95

32K EPROM 12.95

128K EPROM CARTRIDGE 49.95

U/V ERASER FOR EPROM CARTRIDGE 29.95

POSTAGE, PACKING AND INSURANCE 7.50

All prices include VAT @ 15% Total £

1 enclose cheque/money order for £ payable to Cambridge Computer Ltd.Ei Tick box if VAT receipt required.

Name PLEASE PRINT

Address

Postcode PRC 704

PREVIEW

MAC SE & MAC HAPPLE'S NEXT GENERATIONBy Glyn Mouth

With theMacintoshconcept nowsecurelyestablished,Apple is movingforward with afurtherenhancement tothe originalmachine and abrand-newversion based onthe powerful68020 chip.

Apple has announced that it willlaunch more products this year thanin the previous 10. No less than 30

products are currently scheduled for release;even allowing for some falling by the way-side this represents a huge shot in the armfor the company and, more importantly, forthe Macintosh concept.

Some of the new arrivals will be littlemore than minor upgrades, like increased -capacity hard discs; there will also be notableomissions, such as the portable Macintosh,which is not likely to be released until atleast 1988. But at the heart of this flurry ofactivity will be two key machines, the Macin-tosh SE and the Macintosh II. The first will

eventually take over as the baseline Macin-tosh machine. The latter represents the firstof the next generation of Macs.

The Macintosh SE - or System Expansion- is, as its name implies, a straight upgradeof the standard Macintosh Plus. It runs thesame 68000 at 8MHz. The main externalchange, apart from details of styling and thenew platinum colour scheme first used onthe Apple II GS, is the twin disc drives. Oneof the drives can be a 20Mbyte internal Win-chester. The mono screen size remains a true9in. measured diagonally. There are twoserial ports, an SCSI port for external harddiscs and a new back-up tape streamer, asound port, and a mouse port.

Some performance enhancement -Apple claims around 10 to 25 percent - hasbeen achieved by the use of gate arrays. Inall, 19 chips have been squeezed down on toone custom chip. The space saved is givenover to perhaps the most important additionon the Mac SE: an expansion slot.

When the Macintosh was first launched inits impoverished 128K version it turned itsback on the open architecture which hadmade such a big contribution to the successof the Apple II. Many of the Mac's earlyproblems were to do with these inherentlimitations, and much ingenuity was wastedon getting over these obstacles rather thanextending the boundaries of the machine's


capabilities. With successive releases Applehas addressed most of the problems of theinitial design: disc speed and capacity havebeen improved, memory greatly expanded,a hard disc was eventually launched, andnew expansion ports allowed third -partymanufacturers some scope to add features.

Now Apple has done the decent thingand gone a long way to helping suchdevelopments by adding a real expansionslot. The bus chosen is the Euro DIN bus; ituses a three- by 32 -pin connector and ties into the full bus of the 68000. This means thatadd-ons can if necessary take full control ofthe machine or carry out functions indepen-dently of the main processor. Apple justifies

the apparent parsimony of providing onlyone slot by pointing out that the SE eitheralready contains most options needed or hasother means of satisfying them.

For instance, the hard disc plugs straightinto the motherboard, and extra memorycan be inserted into the special single in -linememory module (SIMM) slots. The machinecomes with 1Mbyte RAM as standard, whichcan be upgraded to 4Mbyte once the price of1Mbit RAM chips falls sufficiently. Memorywill be increased simply by swapping in thenew chips.

Apple says it will be encouraging third -party suppliers to produce a wide range ofadd-ons using the expansion slot. One

III PREVIEW

Left to right: Twogenerations ofMacintoshes - the MacPlus, Mac II and Mac SE.The inside of the twolatest micros reveals theircapacity for expansionslots unlike the closedarchitecture of the MacPlus.

product it will be bringing out itself is a cardwhich will support a standard 360K 5.25in.IBM drive. This is the first tangible evidenceof Apple's recognition of the opposingworld of Big Blue. It does not intend to gothe whole hog and offer full-blown IBMcompatibility in the way that the MacCharlie add-on attempted to do - see theNovember 1985 issue of Practical Com-puting. Instead it will content itself withdata compatibility, where data from an IBMpackage can be pulled across and used on theMac. Ultimately Apple intends bringing outa 3.5in. dual -format disc drive which canhandle both Macintosh and IBM discs.

Not that Apple has set its face against full

(continued on page 37)


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PREVIEW

(continued from page 35)

IBM compatibility. Already there is a third -party supplier working on an 8086 cardwhich will plug into the expansion slot. Theonly disappointment is that it will take overthe whole Macintosh environment: therewill be no pull -down windows within DOS.

The ability to exchange data with dif-ferent worlds is one of the key new featuresof the Mac SE. In addition to data compati-bility with DOS and IBM there will be linksavailable to Ethernet, thus linking up withthe world of Unix and DEC. The serial portsnow offer synchronous transfers, allowingvery fast comms to a wide range of externalsystems.

All these changes and options indicatethat Apple is targeting the corporate marketmore than ever. Backing this up will beadditions to the Appletalk local areanetwork. For example, a file -server systemand a card to allow IBM PCs to be hooked onto the network have been announced. Totake account of these developments therehave been a number of additions and modi-fications to the Mac's Finder, including anoption to signal the presence of a file server.Overall, the ROM has been doubled in sizeto 256K, and doubtless it contains otherfeatures which we shall learn about in duecourse.

Some of the additions surface in theControl Panel. To allow for the extradevices, some of the functions have beengrouped together under new icons. Now youcan install things like light -pens simply bydropping the appropriate item in to thesystem folder.

One benefit of this approach is that youcan use different keyboards with the SE. Thebasic model is the same as that found on theApple II GS. It connects to the Mac via theApple Desktop Bus also used on thatmachine. The mouse can either be daisy -chained through the keyboard or plugged inat the back of the machine. The alternativekeyboard is designed to cater for those whoneed something more IBM -like. It is basedon the new RT-type keyboard, which itself is

similar to the standard DEC terminal key-board. It has 15 function keys, a cursor padand a numeric pad.

All in all the Macintosh SE offers few sur-prises. Even the price is pretty much par forthe course: around £2,400 for the twin-

floppy version, and less than £3,000 for the20Mbyte hard -disc system are our bestguesses at the time of writing.

To clear some space at the bottom end,the 512K Mac will be allowed to fade awayand the price of the Mac Plus reduced to£1,995. It does not take clairvoyance topredict that the Mac Plus will eventually bedropped in its turn, leaving the Mac SE asthe entry-level system. Apple expects the SEto inherit the increasing success of the MacPlus, whose sales seem to be gaining instrength every month.

While this will almost certainly be true forpersonal and small-business users, I believethat in the larger companies its success willbe eclipsed by that of its bigger sibling, theMacintosh II. This name was clearly chosenwith care and bestowed with reverence byApple. Just as the Apple II for so longformed the backbone of the company'sproduct range and the mainstay of itsfinances, Apple must be pinning its hopeson the Mac II for the next five years.

Unlike the SE, the II is no mere upgradebut a radical redesign. Gone is the neat,upright design characteristic of the Mac-intosh. Instead Apple has produced aconventional three -box design of monitor,keyboard and system unit, though theresemblance to other conventional systemsends there.

The Mac uses a 68020 running at 16MHz;the 25MHz version now available was passedover because of the cost of support chips.The entry-level system comes with 1Mbyteof RAM, expandable up to 8Mbyte cur-rently; larger memory chips will take this upto a maximum of 128Mbyte. One internalfloppy disc comes as standard. Obviouslywith a machine of this power you would becrazy not to use a hard disc, and Apple offers20Mbyte, 40Mbyte and 80Mbyte options.

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Some of the additions to the Mac's Finder are apparent in the new Control Panel.

SPECIFICATIONMACINTOSH SECPU: 68000 running at 8MHzRAM: 1Mbyte, expandable to 4MbyteROM: 256KDisc storage: one 800K 3.5in. floppyas standard; second floppy or 20Mbytehard disc optionalDisplay: 9in. 512- by 384 -pixelmonochrome screenKeyboard: choice of Apple II GS styleor 105 -key model with 15 function keysInterfaces: two Apple Desktop Busconnectors for keyboard, mouse, etc.;two RS -232 ports; external disc interface;SCSI interface; sound port; expansionconnectorSize: 345mm. (13.6in.) x 244mm.(9.6in.) x 277mm. (10.9in.)Weight: between 7.7 kg. (171b.) and9.5kg. (211b.), depending on discsinstalledHardware add-ons: external discdrives; IBM-compatible 5.25in. floppy -disc cardSoftware in price: nonePrice: twin -floppy version £2,400;20Mbyte hard -disc version, under £3,000Manufacturer: Apple Computer U.K.,Eastman Way, Hemel Hempstead,Hertfordshire HP2 7HQ. Telephone:(0442) 60244Available: now

The entry-level hard -disc version comes witha 39ms. access 40Mbyte unit. The hard -discsystem will cost around £4,500, and thesingle -floppy version £3,500.

Like the SE, the Mac II is notable for itsexpansion capabilities. There are six slots,which perversely use a bus and card designcompletely different from the other newmodel. The bus is based around the Nubus,also used by Texas Instruments for one of itsLisp machines. It has the same edge con-nector and allows a similarly completecontrol over the system as the Euro DIN buson the Mac SE. So once more, processes canbe underway in the background without theMac II needing to be aware of the fact.

Apple has modified the Nubus standardslightly, and added what it calls a softpower -on feature to the power supply. Thatis, power to the machine can be switched onby software running on the machine itself.For example, with the mains power switchedoff a modem card with its own on -boardbattery power could listen along a wire untila triggering signal was received. Whentriggered, the software would switch on thepower supply and then run the main part ofthe program; this might download a file to



PREVI EW(continued from previous page)

disc, for example. Once finished, the unitwould power itself down.

To turn the machine off you choose theShutdown command from the Specialmenu. Once the system has been shut down,it signals that the power may be removed.This kind of precaution is particularlyimportant where hard discs are involved. Asimilar soft power on/off system is providedwith the Mac SE.

In another move towards the standard PC -type design one of the Nubus slots is takenup with a video board. By slotting in diff-erent boards, both from Apple and third -party suppliers, a range of monitors can besupported, including larger screens andcolour. There will be two standard Appleoptions initially: a 12in. monochromescreen and a 13in. RGB screen. Both willhave a 640- by 480 -pixel resolution com-pared with the Mac's current 512 by 384.This automatically allows more to be dis-played on -screen, provided that the softwarehas been written to the standard Macintoshrules.

The video cards come with their ownvideo processor and RAM. With 256K ofvideo RAM it is possible to have 16 colours,using four bits per pixel to represent thevarious combinations; an extra 256K pro-vides four more bits per pixel and so 256colours. The colours can be chosen from atotal of over 16 million different shades. Onmono screens the colours appear as theequivalent number of grey levels.updated version of Quickdraw allows thenumber of bits per pixel to be set.

At the time of this preview, the only MacII in the country was a mono version. How-ever, judging by the Apple II GS - which iseffectively a low -end colour Mac - theeffect of using colour on a 68020 machinewill be highly effective and totally addictive.In time, no one will contemplate usinganything else.

Not content with turbocharging thegraphical aspects of the Mac, Apple has goneon to include a new sound chip. For thepresent this does not do very much. But itsspecifications are such that it could be a keyelement of future Macintoshes - the MacIII and above.

The new custom chip, designed courtesyof Apple's shiny new Cray supercomputer,has four channels, stereo capabilities and animpressive 44kHz sampling rate. Apple'schip was made with speech in mind; thehigh sampling rate will allow very high -quality output. Now that the visual mouseand windows interface is firmly established,Apple clearly sees voice input and output asthe next hurdle to clear.

More relevant to today's business usersare the peripheral cards planned by Apple.Once again, there is an MS-DOS card, alongwith an Ethernet card. Apple says that it willbe launching its own version of Unix SystemV version 3 to go with it, though the detailsof the interface have yet to be settled. Let ushope that, like Torch with its Triple Xmachine, Apple manages to salvage some ofthe Mac's user-friendly approach in the face

SPECIFICATIONMACINTOSH IICPU: 68020 running at 16MHz; 68881maths co -processor as standardRAM: 1Mbyte, expandable to 8Mbyteon board; expandable to 2Gbyte usingexpansion slotsROM: 256KDisc storage: options include 800K3.5in. floppy, 20Mbyte, 40Mbyte and80Mbyte hard discsDisplay: 12in. monochrome monitor,640 by 480 pixels; 13in. colour monitor,640 by 480 pixels; up to 256 colours orshades of grey from a total of 16 millionshadesKeyboard: as for Macintosh SEInterfaces: two RS -232 serial ports;SCSI port; two Apple Desktop buses; sixNubus internal expansion slotsSize: 475mm. (18.7in.) x 366mm.(14.4in.) x 140mm. (5.5in.)Weight: 10.9kg. (241b.) to 11.8kg.(261b.) depending on configurationHardware expansion: externaldrives, Ethernet card, MS-DOS floppy -disc cardSoftware in price: nonePrice: single -floppy version, around£3,500; with 40Mbyte hard disc £4,500Manufacturer: Apple Computer U.K.,Eastman Way, Hemel Hempstead,Hertfordshire HP2 7HQ. Telephone:(0442) 60244Available: July

of the user -hostile Unix. In addition to theseoptions for connectivity, there are twoRS -232 ports and an SCSI pon. This is inaddition to an internal port for a secondfloppy disc.

In operation the Macintosh II looks justlike any other Mac, which is just as well. It isundeniably faster, especially in scrollingoperations. Superficially it did not lookquite as fast as the Prodigy 68020 boardwhich we reviewed in February's issue ofPractical Computing. Where the Mac IIreally scores is in computationally intensiveapplications.

A 68881 maths co -processor is includedon the machine as standard. For packageswhich are written according to the StandardApple Numerics Environment (SANE) themaths co -processor will automatically beinvoked. Even greater performance gainscan be achieved by writing specifically forthe 68881, but this does lock the softwareinto this implementation, whereas SANE issupposed to guarantee future upgradability.Apple will also offer the 68851 memory -management unit chip as an optional extra,

which should also speed certain applicationswritten specifically for it.

The Macintosh II is an exciting machinenot so much for any technical innovations -most of it is pretty standard stuff - butsimply because Apple seems to have gotmost things right. It is a significantly morepowerful machine than its predecessor, it isopen and it is reasonably priced. In part-icular, the cost differential between theMacintosh II and the markedly inferior SE issufficiently small to be ignorable forcorporate purchasers. I can therefore seemany Mac Its being sold to larger com-panies. The Mac II also overcomes two trad-itional objections to the earlier Mac range:that it was grossly underpowered and, lessfairly, that its compact styling made it looklike a toy. The more old-fashioned three -boxapproach may paradoxically endear it to theconservative business community far morethan the earlier Mac's svelte lines.

Above all, the Mac II is exciting because itallows Apple to capitalise on its growingsuccess with the earlier Mac line and to rein-force its position as a viable micro alternativeto IBM. This is important not just for Applebut for the rest of us too. The stronger Applebecomes, the more fruitful the competitionbetween the two architectures will be.

As well as offering a powerful work stationwith excellent connectivity for the corporatemarket the Mac II should prove attractive ina number of other areas. The Unix optionand the sheer number -crunching abilities ofthe machine will make it popular in uni-versities. It will be interesting to see what ex -Apple co-founder Steve Jobs produces forthe same market.

Just as important for Apple will be thewhole new world of computer -aided designand engineering applications. The 68020with high -quality colour graphics makes itideal for drafting work. The current leadersin this market, Sun and Apollo, both havemachines which have much in common withthe Mac II - except the price. Given thegrowth in this sector, there is probably roomfor Apple and the others, though Sun andApollo will presumably need to movefurther up-market in the light of their lackof competitiveness.

CONCLUSIONS The Macintosh II is the first of the next -generation Macs. It is built around a 68020,offers colour, a bigger screen and six ex-pansion slots. It is a high-performance work station with amaths co -processor as standard, and comes inthe conventional three -box format. The Mac SE is an upgraded version of theMac Plus, which it is likely to replace in duecourse. Apart from offering the facility to install twointernal drives, including one floppy, the SE'smain advance over the earlier machine is theprovision of one expansion slot. The Mac II is likely to prove popular notonly with general business users, but also withuniversities and those involved in CAD anddrafting work. For Apple the prices are very reasonable;in particular, the 40Mbyte hard -disc version ofthe Macintosh II is very good value.


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PREVIEW

NIMBUS VX-386GRADUATING WITH HONOURSBy Steve Malone

With its 80386 -based micro, Research Machines is leaving behind the sheltered safety of theeducational world to fight it out with the leading AT -compatible business machines.

Research Machines is a company thatis little known outside the realms ofeducation. Since its inception in

1977 it has developed a series of machinestargeted mostly at academic needs. The kindof features required in education -graphics, networking and rugged con-struction - have all been met by ResearchMachines products, from the 380Z to theNimbus PC.

Until now, none of the machines has beenIBM compatible. With 70 percent of its bus-iness in the educational sector, ResearchMachines has escaped the dictates of theconventional business market and has stillmanaged to sell machines. However, theIBM standard has now become so universaland the software base so overwhelming thatit would be foolish not to launch an IBMcompatible. Research Machines has there-fore introduced the Nimbus X range.

There are currently two models in theseries. The Nimbus AX -286 is an 80286 IBMPC/ AT compatible. The second model,which we look at here, is the NimbusVX-386. Both machines follow the samepattern of construction; the only differencebetween them is in the plug-in expansioncards on which the processors are situated.This makes it very easy for users of the AXmodel to upgrade to the VX, and pre-sumably to even more advanced processorssometime in the future.

The VX machine we looked at for thispreview was a pre -production model. Assuch, some of its detailed features may havealtered by the time production versionsbecome available. However, ResearchMachines says that barring any major tech-nical hitches the current machine will be theone reaching the dealers in April, althoughby then the company expects to have opt-imised its performance.

THREE -BOX FORMATFollowing the vogue of the moment, the

Nimbus VX-386 is an 80386 -based IBMPC/AT-compatible computer. To the reliefof its existing Nimbus user base, thecompany has made sure the X range is alsoNimbus compatible. The Nimbus VX-386 isin the usual three -box format, with thesystem unit measuring 440mm. by 410mm.by 158mm. The demands of the ATstandard mean that the VX-386 is con-siderably larger than the earlier Nimbus, but

careful internal design has allowed it to besomewhat smaller than the standard ATclone.

At the back of the machine are the power -supply socket, the expansion slots and serialand parallel ports. The front of the machinesports the diagonal air vents characteristic ofthe Nimbus PC. There are also severalindicator LEDs to signal power, hard -discactivity and clock speed. Customers will beoffered a choice of disc drives. The VX-386can be fitted with IBM -standard 5.25in. or3.5in. half -height floppy drives. Adoptingthe 3.5in. drive will enable you to runNimbus software and the increasing amountof 3.5in. IBM software that has been con-verted for the Toshiba 3100 and the IBMConvertible.

Because the Nimbus PC conformed to theMS-DOS disc format the machine is alreadydata compatible with the Convertible. Withthe launch of the new machine, Nimbusdata is directly usable by the new X range inIBM mode. The preview machine wasequipped with both types of drive in a stack,at the bottom of which was a 40Mbyte harddisc. By stacking all the storage devicestogether Research Machines has been able toreduce the dimensions of the system box.

The keyboard is of the same manufactureand feel as the earlier Nimbus PC. ResearchMachines offers an IBM PC or PC/AT-compatible keyboard for the VX.

It is striking how empty the inside of thesystem unit appears. Behind the stacked discdrives is a 135W power supply. This is con-siderably less beefy than the 190W or 200Wunits that have become customary in ATcompatibles. Research Machines says thatthe big power supplies are only necessary ifyou are using a lot of the expansion buses forthings like the printer port and video circ-uitry. As most of this is fitted as standard onthe motherboard, the potential drain on thepower supply is that much less.

The left-hand side of the computer isgiven over to six full-length expansion slots.The motherboard, while running almost thefull depth of the system unit, occupies lessthan half the width, with most of the circ-uitry hidden underneath the power supply.Mounted on the motherboard is theserial / parallel interface circuitry, the floppy -disc controller and a Paradise PEGA-2 videochip, one of seven custom chips fitted to thecomputer.

The PEGA-2 chip has been chosen byResearch Machines for quite specific reasons.It is register programmable, which meansthat the programmer can set the resolutionand character size of the chip. This enables itto emulate the Enhanced Graphics Adaptor(EGA), Colour Graphics Adaptor (CGA),Monochrome Display Adaptor (MDA) andmonochrome Hercules graphics card. Just asimportant, the PEGA-2 can also be con-figured to emulate standard Nimbus PCgraphics.

Research Machines sees computer -aideddesign (CAD) as a promising area for the Xseries. To exploit this potential it isintending to offer an ultra high -resolutiondisplay with the systems. It will include aseparate video board and monitor which willsupport up to a 1,280- by 1,024 -pixeldisplay with either 16 or 256 colours.

CRAFTY PIGGYBACKINGFive of the six expansion slots currently

provided with the Nimbus VX are of the16 -bit AT type, and one is an eight -bitslot. The phrase "currently provided"isimportant because Research Machines hasdone something rather crafty with the slots.At present there is no standard for 32 -bitslots; nor is one likely to emerge until IBMreleases its own 80386 -based machine.Research Machines is acutely aware of thepossibility of getting caught out by pro-viding a non-standard 32 -bit bus, and soonly two of the 16 -bit expansion slots arefitted on the motherboard itself. The re-maining four are piggybacked on to themotherboard. This means that when IBMdoes release its machine Research Machinescan implement the new standard with theminimum of fuss. Just as important, itmeans that users can too, simply byplugging in a new piggyback bus.

Two of the slots were occupied on the pre-view machine. One of the slots containedthe hard -disc controller, which can supporttwo drives. The other slot held the processorboard. The 80386 processor runs at thestandard 16MHz but can be switched downto 8MHz from software. The processor boardis among the first to have an extra socket forthe 80387 maths co -processor when iteventually becomes available in productionquantities.

Four of the Nimbus VX-386's sevencustom chips are proprietary Research



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PREVIEW

(continued from previous page)

Machines gate arrays; two of the others arepart of Faraday's IBM chip set. ResearchMachines says it chose the Faraday chip setrather than the more popular Chips & Tech-nology set because the Faraday set uses fewerchips and runs at 12MHz rather than10MHz.

The Nimbus VX-386 is equipped with2Mbyte of RAM as standard, expandable to16Mbyte. In the absence of MS-DOS 5.0,Research Machines has provided firmwaresupport for the Lotus Intel Microsoft Ex-panded Memory Specification (LIM EMS).The memory chips are surface mounted onto a piggyback board which clips on to theprocessor board. Research Machines says itplans to manufacture 1Mbyte, 2Mbyte,4Mbyte and 8Mbyte cards for the VX-386; itwill be possible to stack three such boardssideways on to a single processor board.

Research Machines chose to use standarddynamic RAM (DRAM) chips in the con-struction of the Nimbus VX-386, ratherthan the faster static -column RAM chips fav-oured by Compaq. There are several reasonsbehind this decision, one of the mostimportant being the price. Once you startfitting static -column chips in your computeryou cannot then add ordinary DRAM chips,and static -column RAM chips are about fivetimes the price of DRAM.

Using ordinary DRAM chips means intro-ducing wait states into the system. This iswhere the processor is made to hang aroundwhile the memory accesses are completed.To operate without wait states access timesneed to be 55ns. or better; the NimbusVX-386's DRAM, on the other hand, canonly manage an access time of 120ns. In itsdefence, Research Machines told us that theCompaq Deskpro 386 does not run entirelywithout wait states either.

2K ROWS OF RAMThe Deskpro 386 achieves no wait states

by holding 2K rows of RAM open to createfaster access. Research Machines says thatthis is fine in theory, but in practice memoryaccesses are likely to be across the wholerange of memory rather than in simple 2Krows. The company claimed that tests it hascarried out showed the Compaq Deskpro386 had a true wait state of about 1.7;Compaq says the figure is 0.8.

Intel was aware of the nuisance of waitstates when it designed the 80386, and as acompromise incorporated within the chipthe capacity to handle high-speed externalcache memory. The idea behind cachememory is that 90 percent of processor timewill be occupied running five percent of thecode. Therefore, if you store that often -usedcode in very high-speed static RAM you willachieve marked increases in performance.

As far as we are aware, Research Machinesis the first company to include the idea of ex-ternal cache memory into the design of its80386 computer. A 64K static RAM boardwill be interfaced to a 32 -bit ResearchMachines bus running from the processorboard; this was not available at the time ofthe preview, but the company says that the

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SPECIFICATIONCPU: Intel 80386 running at 16MHzRAM: 2Mbyte dynamic RAMpiggybacked on processor card; 64Kstatic RAM cache memoryMass storage: 5.25in. half -height1.2Mbyte floppy or 3.5in. 720K floppy;choice of 40Mbyte or 140Mbyte harddiscsInterfaces: one RS -232C and oneparallel printer port; option for built-innetworkingDisplay: compatible with EnhancedGraphics Adaptor, Colour GraphicsAdaptor, Monochrome Display Adaptor,Hercules graphics card and Nimbus PCgraphicsPrice: £4,995 for 40Mbyte version,£7,995 for 140Mbyte versionManufacturer: Research Machines,Mill Street, Oxford OX2 OBW.Telephone: (0865) 249866Available: April 1987

cache memory will have an access time ofbetween lOns. and 2Ons.

If you are going to market an IBM-compatible computer you need an IBM-compatible BIOS. The Nimbus X seriesBIOS is Research Machines' own design. Itneeded to maintain compatibility not justwith IBM but also with the Nimbus PC. Wewere unable to perform a complete set ofsoftware tests on the BIOS, but the com-puter does appear able to run both IBM andNimbus software. Among the IBM packageswe saw running on the VX-386 wereAutocad, Lotus 1-2-3 and Sidekick.

While we were trying Sidekick it threw upa bug of which Research Machines was pre-viously unaware. The program could beinvoked by pressing Ctrl and Alt togetherbut it would not respond to the double -Shifthot -key combination. This is a minor prob-lem which Research Machines says will befixed before shipments of productionmachines begin. Apart from that Sidekickbehaved perfectly normally.

On production machines you will be ableto choose whether you want the machine torun in IBM or Nimbus PC mode on power -up. The computer will configure itself to themode of your choice under MS-DOS, and inorder to allow this to happen ResearchMachines is having to write its own version ofMS-DOS 3.2. The customised version ofDOS was unfinished at the time of the

preview so we booted the computer using aversion of PC -DOS 3.1 to run some bench-marks.

The Nimbus VX-386 produced a NortonSysinfo figure of 18.0 or 18.7, the twofigures being thrown up at random duringrepeated runs of the program. ResearchMachines said this inconsistency was partlydue to PC -DOS and partly because themachine sometimes encountered a pageboundary which slowed things down. Wewere reminded once again that the machinehad not yet been fully optimised. But eventaking the lower figure of 18.0, the VX-836is among the fastest performers we have en-countered among AT compatibles.

Bearing this in mind we ran the BasicBenchmarks. They came up with an averageof 2.1 seconds, slightly behind the CompaqDeskpro 386 time of 1.9 seconds. When thecache memory is implemented there couldbe a dramatic improvement in benchmarktimings too. We were unable to get anymeaningful results from the BagshawBenchmarks as the disc drives had yet to beoptimised.

With the Nimbus X series, ResearchMachines has moved away from its previouspolicy of only selling direct to customers. Atthe time of writing it was actively recruitingthird -party dealers and VARs. This, morethan anything else, indicates a willingness tomove from a niche position in the edu-cational market towards the sound ofgunfire in the corporate marketplace.

How well Research Machines will do inthis market is as yet unclear. On the day ofthe launch we would have predicted themachine would do very well indeed. TheNimbus X series maintains ResearchMachines' reputation for quality design andrugged engineering and is priced £500below the Deskpro 386. But two days laterApricot launched its Xen-i 386 at under£3,000 for the entry-level system. This putsit some £2,000 below the announced priceof the VX-386 - although without takinginto account Research Machines' famous 30percent educational discounts. This is adirect threat to RM's VX-386, as the newXen-i is likely to compete for the lucrativelocal and national government contracts,where buying British is encouraged. Fromwhere we stand an all -British battle royalappears to be just over the horizon.

CONCLUSIONS The Nimbus VX-386 is an 80386 -basedmicro. It represents Research Machines' entryinto the IBM-compatible universe while main-taining Nimbus PC compatibility. While incorporating custom chips to keepcosts down in the areas where it sees thestandard surviving, Research Machines hasleft its options open concerning future movesby IBM. The card cage idea - shades of he 380Z! -whereby the processor is fitted on to a remov-able card, provides an upgrade path for usersand an insurance policy for the manufacturerin the event of any drastic changes dictated byIBM. Research Machines is entering the big time.We wish it well.


WordPerfec_- _''ary.Spe volumes forsoft are integration.WordPerfect Library

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At the moment Datel operates to 77 countries,and you can read the full details in the Inter-national Datel Handbook.

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REVI EW

CHEAP AT CLONESWORTH TAKING THE RISK?By Ian Stobie

AT clones are still a lot more expensive than a basic PC so there is much more at stake when youare thinking of buying cheap.

you can easily save £1,000 whenbuying an AT -compatible system.This is the kind of money you save

by eschewing the big -name suppliers andgoing for a lesser -known brand. To find outwhether the cheaper models are up toscratch we looked at three systems fromElonex, Bristol Micro Traders and Walters.They range in price from £1,295 to £1,790for a working system with 20Mbyte hard discand monochrome display.

Like the IBM PC/AT itself, all AT -com-patible systems are basically card cages. Byadding different cards you can get a widerange of different configurations. This flex-ibility is one of the advantages of the IBMstandard, but it does make price comparisondifficult. As our price reference point wedecided on a general-purpose businesssystem with monochrome monitor andHercules -compatible display card, 640K ofRAM, one 1.2Mbyte floppy, a 20Mbyte harddisc and MS-DOS. This setup would cost£1,790 from Walters, £1,596 from BristolMicro Traders and £1,295 from Elonex.

Walters offers several AT clones, in-cluding a standard -sized desk -top machineand a transportable model. We looked atthe latest, the Baby AT, whose main claimto fame is its small size. It is indeed a verycompact unit, measuring 17in. wide by16in. deep, which is a good deal less thanthe standard clone or the IBM PC/ AT itself.

Like all the machines we looked, the BabyAT is assembled largely from Taiwanesecomponenets with the main board also fromTaiwan. Build quality on the Waltersseemed good, with the casing fittingproperly round the machine and the discdrives and other components correctly ass-embled and working straightaway. Despiteits small size there is room inside the systembox for eight expansion slots and four drives.The power supply is rated at 192W, so it isnot unreasonable to assume that you couldhave two hard -disc units and two floppies inthe box. We had a floppy and one 20Mbytehard disc.

Six of the expansion slots have the full16 -bit AT -standard bus, the other two beingeight -bit PC/XT-style ones. This is also thecase with the Elonex and Bristol Micromachines: the internal layout of all three ATclones is very similar. Normally you woulduse up two or three slots straightaway for adisc controller, a display card and output

ports. All three clone suppliers offer mono-chrome display cards which are Herculescompatible, and this is well worth having asmany graphics packages use the Herculesstandard.

The Walters monochrome card has a par-allel printer pon on it too, so you only needtwo slots to take care of discs, display andprinter. Of course, if you also need anRS -232 port for your printer or for a modemyou would need to add another card. On ourreview system we in fact had an EGA -compatible colour -display card and a high -resolution colour monitor, which wouldtogether add £500 to the cost of the system.

The high -resolution colour monitor sup-plied by Walters with the EGA card is made

WALTERS BABY AT

PC VERDICT ,..<4., .-0 4.,

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-

Performance Ease of use U MDocumentation III

Value for money

E Compact and well built, but the harddisc is fairly slow. Worth a look.

by TVM in Taiwan. You can switch itbetween full colour and amber or green,which some people prefer for text work.There was slight barrel distortion at theedges of the tube, but in general the resultslooked very good with the graphics packageswe tried. Rather unusually, there is a coolingfan inside the monitor which made a slighthissing sound. The fan inside the mainsystem box was noisier, and seemed a bitworse than on some of the more expensivemachines we see, but it was not unaccept-able.

Walters and Bristol Micro Traders bothsupplied identical keyboards from the sameTaiwanese supplier. The layout is not thenew IBM type with 12 function keys alongthe top, but the older AT -style layout with10 function keys arranged vertically at theleft-hand side. It is a good keyboard, with anice positive typing feel. It may not be very

robust though: we managed to knock theright Shift key off the Walters keyboardwithin a few days.

Bristol Micro Traders quotes a price of£999 for its AT -compatible system, theMicro 286. However, this is for a single -floppy system with no display or MS-DOS;for our hard -disc based reference system theprice would be nearly £600 more. Our initialimpressions of the Micro 286 were not at allfavourable. We were supplied with a unitwith 20Mbyte hard disc and twin floppies.The two floppy drives were of differentcolours, neither of them matching the maincasing, and one of them did not work at all.We regularly got error messages when usingthe other floppy drive, though it wouldusually work on the retry.

General build quality did not seem verygood. When we opened up the system box,the combined parallel printer and Hercules -compatible monochrome display cardseemed badly bent. However, it did workand Bristol Micro Traders sent us anotherone when we rang up. We had the mono-chrome display on our system, which pro-vided satisfactory results. The parallelprinter port, contained on the same board,also worked without trouble.

The Elonex machine, the PC -286 Turbo,was the cheapest of the bunch and it gen-erally struck us as the best value of the three.The system box is about the same size as theBristol machine or the IBM PC/ AT itself. Itis quite well styled, and build quality is asgood as on the Walters and better than theBristol offering.

The keyboard differs from the othermachines. It has a shallower feel with lessresistance in the keys, but it is not un-pleasant to type on and seems fairly robust.The layout is again generally like the olderIBM AT keyboards, but there is an extra setof cursor keys immediately to the right of thespace bar.

We had a system with an EGA -com-patible colour display and monitor, whichcosts an extra £395. This is less than Walterscharges for the upgrade. In general not onlyare basic Elonex system prices lower, but theoptions also work out cheaper. On oursystem we had an extra 2Mbyte of RAMinstalled in order to run Smalltalk, whichwould set you back only £275.

The display looked fine. Elonex suppliedan effective but rather bulky Casper high -



REVI EW

SPECIFICATIONS

BRISTOL MICRO 286CPU: 80286 running at 6MHz, 8MHz or10MHz; optional 80287 maths co-processorRAM: 512K expandable to 1Mbyte onmotherboardExpansion slots: six AT -style slots andtwo PC -type slotsDiscs: one 1.2Mbyte floppy as standard;system box has enough room to house fourdrivesDisplay: 12in. monochrome monitor withHercules -compatible monochrome displaycards costs £189; colour monitor withCGA-compatible card £368; high -resolution colour monitor with EGA -compatible card £648Keyboard: early AT -style with 10function keysInterfaces: one RS -232C serial port andone parallel printer portDimensions: 533mm. (21in.) x 419mm.(16.5in.) x 152mm. (6in.)Price: £999 for base system with 512KRAM, keyboard and one 1.2Mbyte floppydrive; MS-DOS 3.2 costs £59Manufacturer: made in TaiwanU.K. supplier: Bristol Micro Traders,Systems Group, Maggs House, 78 QueensRoad, Bristol BS8 1QX. Telephone: (0272)298228Available: now

ixanA/44111\\%\

ELONEX PC -286 TURBOCPU: 80286 running at 6MHz, 8MHz or10MHz; optional 80287 maths co-processorRAM: 640K expandable to 1Mbyte onmotherboardExpansion slots: six AT -style slots andtwo PC -type slotsDiscs: system box can house four drives;typical configuration is one 1.2Mbytefloppy drive plus one hard disc of up to80MbyteDisplay: 14in. monochrome monitor withHercules -compatible monochrome displaycard; colour monitor with CGA-compatiblecard costs extra £175; high -resolutioncolour monitor with EGA -compatible cardcosts £395 extraKeyboard: early AT -style with 10function keysInterfaces: two RS -232C serial ports andone parallel printer portDimensions: 533mm. (21in.) x 432mm.(17in.) x 152mm. (6in.)Software in price: MS-DOS 3.2Price: £1,295 with keyboard, 640K RAM,14in. monochrome monitor, one 1.2Mbytefloppy -disc drive and one 20Mbyte harddiscManufacturer: made in TaiwanU.K. supplier: Elonex (U.K.), RaysHouse, Stonebridge Park, North CircularRoad, London NWI 0 7XR. Telephone:01-965 3225Available: now

WALTERS BABY ATCPU: 80286 running at 6MHz or 8MHz;optional 80287 maths co -processorRAM: 640K expandable to 1Mbyte onmotherboardExpansion slots: six AT -style slots andtwo PC -type slotsDiscs: system box can house four drives;typical configuration is one 1.2Mbytefloppy plus one hard disc and up to80Mbyte of hard -disc spaceDisplay: 14in. monochrome monitor withHercules -compatible monochrome displaycard is fitted as standard; CGA-compatiblecard and colour monitor costs extra £200;EGA -compatible card and high -resolutioncolour monitor costs extra £500Keyboard: early AT -style with 10function keysInterfaces: one parallel printer portDimensions: 432mm.(17in.) x406mm.(l6in.) x 152mm.(6in.)Price: £1,280 for base system with 640KRAM, keyboard, 12in. monochromemonitor and one 1.2Mbyte floppy drive;MS-DOS 3.2 with GWBasic £65Manufacturer: made in TaiwanU.K. supplier: Walters International,Matrix House, Lincoln Road, CressexIndustrial Estate, High Wycombe,Buckinghamshire HP12 3RD. Telephone:(0494) 32751Available: now


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EREVIEW


resolution monitor built in Taiwan. A par-allel printer port is incorporated into theEGA board, and we had trouble getting it towork. But this problem aside, we werehappy with the Elonex.

The Walters Baby AT offers you a choiceof two processor speed settings, 6MHz and8MHz. Both the Elonex and Bristol Micromachines offer an even faster 10MHz. Thestandard IBM PC/ AT goes at 6MHz, andthis speed is worth having in case of troublewith the faster speed, for instance whenloading copy -protected software. On theWalters you switch between speeds using abutton on the front of the machine, whichseems to work even when the machine isrunning. We used the faster speed rout-inely, but did have problems printing. At8MHz we would lose characters at random;switching to 6MHz when printing cured theproblem.

The clock rate on the Bristol system cansupposedly be set by the user from the key-board. You are supposed to have a choice of6MHz, 8MHz or 10MHz but how you act-ually achieved this was not documented; ingeneral documentation was not one of thesystem's strong points. On ringing BristolMicro Traders we were told how to do it, butwere also told that our system was perm-anently set to 10MHz.

BENCHMARK RATINGSAll three machines did well on our

standard Basic Benchmarks, which measurethe speed of the system at running inter-preted Basic programs. The Walters at8MHz in fact turned in the same timings onall eight routines as the Bristol running at10MHz, showing that clock speed is noteverything. The average time for the Bristoland Walters machines was 3.4 seconds -faster than both the Compaq 286 and theIBM P.0 / AT itself. The Elonex was thequickest at this test, turning in a very fast 2.7seconds.

With the Elonex you have the option of6MHz, 8MHz and 10MHz clock rates, butyou can also get the processor to operate withno wait states at the top speed for maximumperformance. With most AT systems theprocessor periodically has to suspend its act-ivities to allow the transfer of data to or frommemory to be completed. This is a waitstate. Obviously having zero wait states givesyou better performance, but for this to bepossible the RAM chips used in the systemmust be fast enough to keep up. The Elonexdoes use fast RAM, and we ran it successfullyat 10MHz with no wait states with a widerange of software.

Another measure of speed is provided bythe Sysinfo routine in the Norton Utilitiespackage. It checks out the speed of registersand memory using machine -code routines,and reduces them to a single feature, scaledrelative to the IBM PC. At their top clockrates both the Walters and Bristol machinesturned in figures of 10.3, meaning that theyare over 10 times as fast as the IBM PC at per-forming the Norton routines, and nearlytwice as fast as the IBM PC/AT itself. The

Elonex again proved yet faster, turning in11.5.

The PC/ AT runs at 6MHz, and if ourclone machines work internally in a similarway then they too should return the sameNorton Sysinfo figure when set to thisspeed. Both the Elonex and Walters did.

In most practical applications the speed ofthe discs matters more than the speed of theprocessor, so we used the Bagshaw DiscBenchmarks to check out the hard discs onthe three machines. On this test the Bristolcame out well, its figure of 54.5 secondsbringing it close to the PC/ AT itself andwithin striking distance of some of the moreup-market clones. The Elonex returned a

BRISTOL MICRO 286

IC VERDICT.,0

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Performance

Ease of use UDocumentation CiValue for money

E A good spec let down by poor buildquality. When you add everything up itis not all that cheap.

ELONEX PC -286 TURBO

lc: VERDICT% ,:k.7r0 , °0 0

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6-7k,

Performance

Ease of use IIIDocumentation IIValue for money

E Cheap, well built and a goodperformer.

respectable 61.9 seconds, while the WaltersBaby AT proved a disappointment with aslow 116.5 seconds.

We were able to run a wide variety of bus-iness software on all three machines, thoughit is always possible something we did not trywould not run. The key component inensuring compatibility is the BIOS softwaresupplied in ROM, which clone makersusually buy in from a specialist supplier. Onthe Walters machine the BIOS was suppliedby Phoenix, a leading American specialistwhich supplies the BIOS used by most up-market clones and virtually ensures com-patibility. Bristol's Micro 286 uses BIOSchips supplied by Award Software, anotherwell-known American BIOS maker, which isalso a good sign.

It was not possible to tell who had writtenthe Elonex BIOS. The two chips themselveswere anonymous and the copyright state-ment which comes up when you boot thesystem appeared to have had the nameblanked out. This doubtful BIOS is really

the only black mark against the machine,although it should be stressed that inpractice we had no trouble getting softwareto run on it.

The documentation supplied with thethree machines varied widely. Bristol MicroTraders came off worse: you get slim tech-nical booklets for the various option boardsbut no general setting -up guide oroperations manual. Walters comes with aring -bound user's handbook that coverssetting up and DOS. Unfortunately it iswritten in bad Taiwanese English and is fullof vague generalities.

However, both Bristol and Walters sellyou MS-DOS separately, and although thismeans extra expense it also means you getMicrosoft's professionally written guide forMS-DOS and Basic with these two systems.You still lack the hardware information,but for an experienced user who feels con-fident setting up the system without docu-mentation this is not a serious disadvantage.

Elonex's documentation is probably thebest. Here you get MS-DOS in the price, butnot Basic. The MS-DOS manual is printedin Taiwan, but it appears to be properlylicensed from Microsoft and includes thestandard text. You also get a fairly sub-stantial users guide; it wanders off into gen-eralities sometimes, and describes the wrongkeyboard most of the time, but providescorrect and intelligible information on mostaspects of the system.

If you can afford it you would probably dobest to get your first AT -compatiblemachine from a major supplier - if not IBMthen a good -quality clone manufacturersuch as Apricot, Compaq, Epson or Olivetti.Once you have general AT experience thehardware quality of the best of the low-costclones seems good enough to be worthgiving them a try.

CONCLUSIONS Walters' Baby AT is physically the neatestof the machines and comes from the best-known supplier. Apart from a problem withthe printer card our machine worked verywell. However, it is the most expensive of themachines tested, and in performance terms itwas let down by a slow hard disc. Bristol Micro Traders' Micro 286 was whatwe feared a low-cost clone would be like. Ourmachine was a mess to look at, it came with in-adequate documentation and it had a serioushardware fault. We were not impressed withthe presentation generally. However, thehardware itself is not bad: it has the fastesthard disc of the lot and a swift processor. Alittle more trouble on the part of the distributorcould turn it into a good product. Elonex's PC -286 was the best of the bunch,and the cheapest. It was the quickest, with anunusually fast processor, and gave acceptablehard -disc performance. Options such as thedisplay on our review system are very keenlypriced. Documentation and build quality wereacceptable. Elonex's machine is worth themoney, despite the problems noted in the text. All these machines were weakest in thingslike documentation and their general pres-entation. Failings in this area could well reflecta generally poor standard in other aspects ofsupport - something it is hard for a magazineto evaluate.


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ASPECT can read data from and output data tomost other systems including accounting packages,spreadsheets and word processors. It has a reportgenerator of such power and flexibility that this alone canjustify purchasing ASPECT.

For the increasing number of organisations that arerecognising the importance of linking their microcomputerstogether ASPECT is available in a multi-user version withthe appropriate file and record locking facilities.

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ASPECT costs £400 + VAT for a single user version and £950 + VAT for thenetwork version*. A limited record version is available for £40 + VAT and this amountwill be deducted from the price of the full version if one is purchased later.

ASPECT is available from Microft Technology Limited, The Old Powerhouse,Kew Gardens Station, Kew, Surrey NV93PS, or from many dealers. For furtherinformation telephone 01-948 8255.* This allows up to 5 terminals on the network. A further £100 + VAT is payable for each additional terminal.

The database management system.ASPECTis a Trade Mark of Microft Technology Limited and is a British Product.



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Modifiable Accounting £499Nominal Ledger3 years totals by month. Budgetting bymonth. Multiple departments/profit centres.Up to 10 Rates of VAT. Post to previousperiods and reclose. Financial statementwriter. Up to 5 bank accounts. Detailedhistory files.Purchase LedgerEasy to enter invoices. Recall last nominaldistribution. Pay invoices automatically orby hand. On-line account enquiry. Fullsupplier history and ageing reports. Realtime updates.Sales LedgerInvoicing and sales analysis. Easyadjustment of current ledger entries.Statements, aged debt reports, bad debtletters, daybooks etc. Define individualcustomer history.

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"Combination of good, basic menu drivenfacilities with powerful programming toolsmake it excellent value for money, especially fornovices wanting to learn, and developerswanting economical runtimes systems".(Personal Computer World)"On a value for money basis, this must be oneof the most attractive databases on themarket". (Accountancy Magazine)"TAS manages to pack plenty of power into itssmall price. It performed well in our tests andyou can quickly write dense and efficient codefor custom applications". (PC Magazine)"There is no doubting that TAS is a verycapable oroduct-it handles serious -sizedapplications and does so with speed."(What Micro Magazine)

System RequirementsTAS Modifiable and Advanced Accounting

runs on any IBM XT, AT and true compatiblewith a hard disk and at least 384KB RAM.A version for Concurrent CP/M is also availablewith a different specification.

Money Back GuaranteeThe package you receive contains a sealed

and an unsealed set of floppy disks that is fullyoperational but can only save a limited numberof records. This allows you to evaluate thecomplete working system at your leisure.Provided the sealed set remains unopened andall goods are in a good condition and returnedto us within 30 days, we will refund yourpurchase price less handling and a 100/0re -stocking charge.

Act Now!Order Your Copy Today or send or phone

for more information to find out how TAS can beyour 100% accounting solution.

TASMI Please send me the following items:

More information:TAS Plus @ £99:

TAS Plus Developer £199:

TAS Plus Modifiable Accounts @ £499:TAS Plus Advanced Accounting @ £799:Add handling & shipping @ £6:Add 15% VAT

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Card NumberCard Expiry Date:Card Name:Card Address:

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A VAT Invoice will be included in the parcel Enclose acompany letterhead if Invoice name and address need

EllLt o be different from card name and address

- - - ME IIIII IIM- circle 123 on enquiry card -

DOT MATRIX PRINTERSEpson LX86-The Best Seller in the World £195.00Star NL10-The Number Two Seller -Best Spec £210.00Star NX15-The New Wide -body NL101 £291.00Panasonic 1080 100cps & 80 col -A Hot Seller £145.00Epson FX105+ -The Old Favourite £389.00Epson FX85+ -IBM Made This One Famous £289.00Epson LO800 Letter Quality -24 Pin Printhead £428.00Epson L01000 Letter Quality -24 Pins £571.00Epson LQ2500-This one is really goods £725.00Epson SO2500- Ink your jet with this one, £999.00Epson FX800 -Brand New! £324.00Epson FX1000-Brand New' £415.00Epson EX800 300cps & 80 column -Super Fast £385.00Epson EX1000 300cps & 136 column -Super Fast £517.00Star NB15-The big, up-market Star 24 -pin £699.00Juki 5510-A Best Seller £270.00Star SR15 200cps wide carriage -Good Buy £375.00Seiko -she MP1300AI-300cps! (EX800 clone) £302.00MP 165 -Cheap Fast and Good Quality £170.00

MP 200-132 Column 200cps1 £260.00MP 201-132 column 200cps £295.00NEC P5 -Heavy -Duty Office Favourite' £780.00NEC P6 -Good Buy £411.00NEC P7 -Worth a Look £449.00Oki Microline 182 -The Number 2 Brand max)Oki Microline 192 -Perennial Favourite £299.00Oki Microline 193 -Worth A Look £369.00Oki Microline 293 -Worth A Look £60000Citizen MSP-15 160cps & 80 column £329.00Citizen MSP-25 200cps & 132 column -Try It £289.00

DAISY WHEEL PRINTERSOuendata DWP1120-The Best Seller-20cps £145.00Juki 6100-20cps £227.00Juki 6200 30cps £407.00Juki 6300-40cps £660.00Juki 6500-60cps £899.00Brother HR35 £739.00

COLOUR PRINTERSOkimate 20 Thermal Printer £159.00Juki 5520 -The Market Leader -Fast' £340.00Epson JX80 £350.00Epson EX -Series Colour Upgrade Option £55.00

PLOTTERS, DIGITIZERS & LASERSNew Oki Laser £1700.00HP Laserjet Plus £2299.00Cherry A3 Digitizer £475.00Roland 880A Plotter -Best Value A3 Plotter £645.00Epson Hi -80 Plotter -Best A4 Plotter £309.00

QMS K8 Laser £1695.00

PRINTER ACCESSORIESIBM -Compatible Centronics Parallel Cable (Round) £11.50BBC Centronics Parallel Cable (Ribbon) £7.50Serial cables Made to Order £20.00Two -Way Printer T -Switch £35.00Fan -Fold White Paper, 11in long, 1000 sheets £6.9980 Col Printer Stands £21.75132 Column Printer Stands £29.00Adjustable Floor -Standing Printer Stands £80.00

EPSON PCEpson Taxi PC, 256k RAM, Single Floppy £466.00Epson Taxi PC, 256k RAM, Double Floppy £539.00Epson Taxi PC, 256k RAM, 20mb Hard Disk £870.00Epson Taxi PC, 256k RAM Upgrade £99.00Epson PC+ 640k RAM, Single Floppy, Video Card ... . e899.00Epson PC+ 640k RAM, Double Floppy, Video Card £1005.00Epson PC+ 640k RAM, 20mb Hard Disk, Video Card £1199.00Epson AX -20 AT 640k RAM, 1.2mb Floppy, 20mb HD £1799.00Epson AX -40 AT 640k RAM, 1.2mb Floppy, 40mb HD E2249.00

All Epson PC's and PC-r's require monitors and all PC's requireMonitor Adaptor Cards.

COMPAQCompaq Portable II Model 1 £1872.00Compaq Portable II Model 2 £1947.00Compaq Portable II Model 3 £2547.00Compaq Portable II Model 4 £2772.00Compaq Deskpro 286 Model 2 £2536.00Compaq Deskpro 286 Model 3 £3019.00Compaq Deskpro 286 Model 4 £4185.00Compaq Deskpro 286 Model 20/640Id1 FD/20 MB £2161.00Compaq Deskpro 386 Model 40 £4050.00Compaq Deskpro 386 Model 70 £4499.00Compaq Deskpro 386 Model 130 £5622.00Compaq 286 Dual -Mode Adaptor £150.00Compaq 286 EGA Colour Adaptor £372.00Compaq 286 Mono Dual -Mode Adaptor £162.00Compaq 286 EGA Monitor £413.00Compaq 10MB Tape Back -Up Option £436.00Compaq 40MB Tape Back -Up Option £516.00

Our trained staffare always ready

to serve you!

AMSTRAD PC£436.00£539.00£601.00£69300£776.00£873.00£940.00

DISKETTES

Amstrad 1512 Single Floppy, Mono MonitorAmstrad 1512 Double Floppy, Mono MonitorAmstrad 1512 Single Floppy, Colour MonitorAmstrad 1512 Double Floppy, Colour MonitorAmstrad 1512 10mb Hard Disk, Mono MonitorAmstrad 1512 20mb Hard Disk. Mono MonitorAmstrad 1512 10mb Hard Disk, Colour Monitor

SKC 5.25in DS/DD 48tpi (IBM -Compatible) Diskettes... £1.00 eachSKC 5.25in DS/DD 96tpi (AT -Compatible) Diskettes £1.80 eachComputer Express Branded 5.25in DS/DD Diskettes £1.00 eachTDK 3.5in DS/DD Diskettes £2.99 eachComputer Express Branded 3.5in DS/DD Diskettes £2.25 eachOlivetti 525 DS/DD 48tpi Demo Diskettes £1.70 each

Amstrad 1512 20mb Hard Disk, Colour MonitorAmstrad 1512 SD Mono with 20mb Upgrade

£1037.00£799.00 COMMUNICATIONS

Amstrad 1512 SD Colour with 20mb UpgradeUpgrade any 1512 to 640k (including labour)

£969.00£26.00

Micracle WS4000 V21 -V23 Modem £135.00Da-Com DSL 2123 AD/Hayes £225.00

Amstrad PCW 8256 £37400 Sage Chitchat Comms Pack (Modem/Software/Cable) £299.00Amstrad PCW 8512 £47003 Crosstalk IV Comms Software £99.00

Sage Chitchat Comms Software £85.00One -To -One Electronic Mail Subscription £20.00

MacDOUGALL PC's RS232 Serial Modem Cable £15.00

MacDougall 286 AT 640k/RT Clock/8mz/Single HARD DISKS, ADD-ON BOARDS,360k Floppy/MonoMacDougall 286 AT 640k/RT Clock/8mziDouble360k Floppies/Mono

£69900

£799.00CHIPS

64k dRAM chips (nine to make 64k) £1.15 each256k dRAM chips (nine to make 256k) 150 Ns £300 each

MacDougall 286 AT 640k/RT Clock./8mz/20mbHD Mono Monitor/Port £99900

8087 5mz Maths Co -Processor £120008087 8mz Maths Co -Processor £175.00

OLIVETTI PC 80287 Maths Co -Processor £229.00AST Six Pack Plus 64k memory Multifunction Card £197.00

Olivetti M24 Single Floppy Base Unit/640kOlivetti M24 Double Floppy Base Unit/640kOlivetti M24SP 20mb/Single Floppy Base Unit/640kOlivetti Monochrome MonitorOlivetti 83 or 102 -key KeyboardOlivetti MS DOS/GW-Basic PackOlivetti Colour MonitorOlivetti M28 512k/20mb Hard DiskOlivetti M28 512k/40mb Hard Disk

£1060.00£1148.00£1618.00

£169.00£120.00£51.00

£400.00£1884.00£2392.00

Oubie Six Shooter Multifunction Card 64k memory £150.00Intel Aboveboard with Ok installed £325.00Plus Hardcard tomb £350.00Plus Hardcard 20mb £595.00Oubie 20mb Hard Pack £450.00Mountain 20mb Mountain Card £659.00Seagate 20mb Hard Disk with WD Controller & Cables £350.00Hercules Colour Card £100.00Ram Cards Ok, 256k, 384k, 512k CallHercules Mono Graphics Card ma®

Special Offer: Hercules Mono Plus Graphics Card £189.00

Olivetti M24 with 640k, 7 -slot Bus Converter Monitor, Clone Hercules Card £85.00MS-DOS/GW-Basic, Keyboard, NEC or Seagate 20mb Mouse Systems Mouse with Pop -Up Menus & PC Paint £125.00

Hard Disk £1635.00 Microsoft Bus Mouse £135.00M24SP Complete System (Monitor/Keyboard/DOW) £1934.00 Summa Mouse with Gem Collection £189.00

MONITORSKAYPRO PC Dyneer 12in 12MHI Mono Monitor with Tilt/Swivel Stand £100.00

Kaypro 286i AT 640k, 20mb HD, Mono Monitor, Dos 32..Kaypro 286i AT 640k, 20mb HD, Colour Monitor, Dos 32.Kaypro 2000 Portable 768k RAM, 3.5in fd

£1549.00£1749.00£800.00

Taxon K16SV860 16in Ultra High EGA Colour Monitor £699.00Taxon K12SV3 Supervision III Colour Monitor £359.00Eizo ER8030M 14in High -Resolution Colour Monitor £319.00

Kaypro 2000 as above, but with larger screenOptional Base Unit for Kaypro 2000

£1018.00£498.00

Eizo ER8042S 14in Ultra -High Res EGA Colour Monitor.. £465.00ADI 14in Mono Monitor with Tilt/Swivel Stand £120.00

IBM -COMPATIBLE SOFTWARETOSHIBA TOP 20

Toshiba T3100 Lap Top £2750.00 Wordstar 2000 Release 2 £230.00Toshiba T2100 Lap Top £1800.00 Delta 4 £295.00Toshiba External 5.25 Disc Drive £335.00 Dbase III Plus £330.00

Framework II Ver 1.1 £316.00Lotus 1-2-3 Ver 2.1 £229.00

ATARI HARDWARESupercalc Ver 4 £197.00Smart System £365.00Word Perfect Ver 4.2 £257.00

Atari 520STEM 5005 RAM, disk drive, TV Modulator £318 Microsoft Word Ver 3 £280.00Atari 1040STF with Mono Monitor, 1mb RAM, disk drive... £550.00 Multimate Ver 3.31 £20700Atari 1040STF with Thomson Colour Monitor £775.00 Multisoft Accounts Per Module £280.00Atari 1040STF with Atari SC1224 Colour Monitor £775.00 Open Access £265.00Atari SF314 1mb Floppy Disk Drive £155.00 Pegasus Account Per Module £175.00

Atari SH204 20mb Hard Disk Drive £557.00 Psion Ch £30.00Cumana CS354 1mb Floppy Disk Drive £129.00 Quaid Software Copywrite (Back up Protected Software).... £39.00Cumana CS358 double 1mb Disk Drive Unit £234.00 Robo-Con, Cad -Cam £1000.00Atari 520STM, 500k RAM, no Disk Drive, TV Modulator.... £215.00 Lotus Symphony Ver 1.1 £339.00Atari SM125 High Resolution Monochrome Monitor £115.00 Javelin £350.00Thomson CM36512AR Colour Monitor (ex demo) £250.00 Psion Xchange £26000Atari SH1224 Colour Monitor £307.00

ALTERNATIVE LOW-COST IBM -COMPATIBLE AMSTRAD SOFTWARE

ATARI TOP 20 SOFTWARERainbird Starglider £19.00

VP Planner by Paperback Software £63.00VP Info £64.00

Computer Concepts Fast Basic £7700 Borland Sidekick £49.00Flight Simulator II £37.00 Gem Collection £99.00Arena Sports Simulation £23.00 Sage Bookeeper £85.00Modula-2 Development System £69.00 Sage Retrieve Database £85.00Modula-2 ST Toolbox £36.00 Sage PC Planner Spreadsheet (Lotus Clone) £85.00Prospero Pro Fortran 77 £106.00 Sage Desk -Set £59.00VIP Professional (Lotus Clone) £139.00 Sage PC -Write Word Processor £85.00Metacomco Lattice C Compiler £71.00 Sage Accountant £127.00Metacomco Macro Assembler £36.00 Sage Accountant Plus £160.00Metacomco Pascal Compiler £64.00 Sage Payroll £85.00Migraph Inc Easy Draw £107.00 Sage Financial Controller £250.00Rainbird Soft The Pawn £18.00 Personal Word Perfect £149.00Microdeal Time Bandit £21.00 Word Perfect Junior £80.00Chipsoft ST Accounts £10700 Microsoft Word Junior.. £62.00Cashlink Accounts £242.00 Wordstar 1512 £62.00Mark Williams C Compiler £128.00 Multiplan Junior £62.00Atari Fastcom £37.00 Supercalc 3 £62.00World Games Simulation £29.00 Amstrad Reflex £62.00Megamix C Compiler £113.00 Migent Ability (integrated package) £85

All prices exclude VAT and delivery. Prices are correct at the time of going to press although they are subject to change withoutnotification. Official purchase orders welcome. Full back up and support. Open Monday to Friday 9am-6pm. Open Saturday 10am-4pm.

FOR FULL PRICE LISTPLEASE CALL

TELEPHONE ORDERSWELCOME

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PREVIEW

HUSKY HAWKTHE FIRST PICOCOMPUTER?By Glyn Moody

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This ultra -light hand-heldportable packs a lot of powerinto a very small space.

Husky Computers might almost be theparadigm of a moderately successfulhigh-tech British company. It is

content to remain small, and to producespecialist products which serve its nichemarket well - in this case that of lap port-ables for use in hostile environments.

But even companies with well -establishedsuccesses need follow-ups. Apart from con-tinuing tweaks to its long-standing Hunterrange, Husky has been conspicuous by itsabsence from the. ranks of those who havebrought out new computers in recent years.No longer: the Husky Hawk has arrived.

The machine is an ultra -light CP /M -typelap portable. It weighs in at just 750g., andcosts a rather heavier #'895. The Hawk'sdimensions are 8.25in. by 5.75in. by 1.4in.Inevitably there are penalties for such ex-treme miniaturisation. The display is a

HUSKY HAWK

PC VERDICT ,.-0'

Qo i--' 0Performance III II IN

Ease of use U Documentation .Value for money

Expensive unless you really need atiny micro.

reasonable eight lines by 40 columns but thekeyboard is tiny and cramped.

Husky has gone some way to avoiding theproblems of small keyboards by no longerusing the square grid pattern of keys foundon the Hunter. It adopts a more con-ventional QWERTY layout, though on ascale suitable for a five -year -old. As a result,

touch-typing is out of the question, andeven two -finger typing requires con-centration. The keys are square with smalldimples, and in use they got stucksometimes.

One reason the keyboard is so small is thatthere is a separate numeric keypad. Thisdoubles as a cursor pad as on the IBM PC.Husky has made some effort to follow theoverall layout of the IBM keyboard as far asthe auxiliary keys are concerned. None-theless, some of the positions are notobvious. Most serious is the placing of theReturn key where you expect the Shift key;on several occasions I pressed the wrong one.

There are three ports: one for general add-ons, another for a modem and comms, andthe third which is principally for an externalfloppy -disc drive but can also be used forcomms. Internal storage is provided by 352Kof battery -backed RAM. Husky advises re-charging the internal battery at least onceevery month when the machine is not in use.

The LCD has backlighting as an option,but to conserve batteries the default is to use



REVIEW


ambient lighting. Also to save power, thescreen switches itself off after a presetinterval if no input has occurred. With thebattery -backed RAM to store the last state ofthe machine, the Hawk is designed to beswitched on and off as and when it is

needed. Switching it on returns you to yourprevious working position.

Most of the inside of the machine is takenup by RAM and ROM. The ROM holdsthe Disc Emulation Operating System(DEMOS), which is based on CP / M 2.2, to-gether with Locomotive Basic and a fewother system files. There are a few jumperleads on the board, suggesting the design isnot quite finalised.

When you switch the machine on you arepresented with a Husky welcome screenfollowed by the usual CP /M -type A>prompt. There are two internal RAM discs,A and B, and the external floppy which isaddressed as drive C. The battery -operatedexternal drive, which costs £295, is made byBrother and uses 3.5in. discs. Unusually thecapacity is only 100K: this is the price paidfor extra ruggedness.

Unfortunately when we were copying afile across from the RAM disc to this drive,the Hawk hung up completely and resistedall attempts to reboot. There is a Resetbutton, accessed by poking a paperclip orsubstitute through a small hole in the baseof the unit, but this failed to work. In theend it was necessary to use a system

SPECIFICATIONCPU: Z-80 work -alikeRAM: 352KROM: 128KDisplay: eight lines by 40 columnsKeyboard: miniature QWERTY withnumeric keypadPorts: two comms ports and externaldisc -drive port; optical linkSoftware in price: DEMOS,Locomotive Basic, text editorHardware add-ons: modem,external disc drive, Homebase unitSize: 210mm. (8.25in.) x 146mm.(5.75in.) x 36mm. (1.4in.)Weight: 750g. (1.651b.)Price: £895Manufacturer: Husky ComputersSupplier: Husky Computers Ltd, POBox 135, 345 Foleshill Road, Coventry,West Midlands CV6 5RW. Telephone:(0203) 680612Available: now

simultaneously, and then switching themachine on and off to clear the problem.

Running the standard Basic benchmarksproduced an impressive average time of 7.2seconds - twice as fast as the IBM PC whichis a 16 -bit machine against the Hawk's eightbits. Partly this is due to the excellent Loco-motive Basic, which is based on thatsupplied with the Amstrad PCW-8256.

The Hawk comes equipped with functionkeys, invoked using the Control key with the

on offer

are displayed on the bottom line of thescreen. In Basic you get the usual assign-ments; in DEMOS, they handle the commssettings, the clock and so on.

Husky is offering a number of add-ons togo with the Hawk, including a modem andbattery -powered thermal printer. A Home -base is also planned which will allow you todownload information without having toplug in a modem. Instead, optical con-nections are made from the Homebase unitto the underside of the Hawk.

The Hawk emerges as a well though -outproduct. It is easy to use apart from theproblem with the disc, and packs a lot ofprocessing power into its compact form. Butlike all lap portables, the Hawk remains aspecialist machine. Indeed, vertical marketspromise to be one of its main areas ofapplication. The truly personal computerwhich can be taken home, to the office or tothe shops, remains a dream. These ultra -light machines - the so-called picocom-puters - are still waiting for the dev-elopment of several new technologies,notably in screens and input.

CONCLUSIONS The Husky Hawk is probably the smallestCP/M-type portable around.II Although its screen has good legibility, thekeyboard is very cramped and not suitable fortouch-typing. If you require a very lightweight compactmachine, the Hawk will meet most needs,

are cheaper solutions. Pa

110111if "'"'"TMICRO -RENT DO MORE!

H -PLASERJET

£58 PER WEEK *

TANDON

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IBM PC AT

£77PER WEEK*

Micro -Rent do more than offer you the bestrental deals on microcomputers. They rentprinters, hard -disk systems, monitors -even somesoftware! They offer impartial advice on the bestmachines for your purposes, and provide trainingfor both beginners and specialists, to help youmake the most of your micro.

Micro -Rent - the complete rental service -saves you time and money, and solves yourproblems fast.

Buying? Ex -rental machines oftenavailable at reduced prices.

*Prices quoted are based on 3 -month rental. excluding VAL

MICRO -RENTSt. Marks Studios, Chillingworth Road, London, N7

APPLE APRICOT IBM PC & XT OLIVETTIMACINTOSH TANDON SIRIUS COMPAQLASER PRINTERS DESK -TOP PUBLISHING

- circle 125 on enquiry card 4 -- PRACTICAL COMPUTING April 1987

FREE SOFTWARE?SPECIAL SELECTIONS FROM THE PUBLIC DOMAIN (0344) 86 3020

Well, almost free. We don't charge for thepublic domain and user -supported softwarebut there is a small service charge of £12 perdisk to cover promotion costs, selection,testing, copying, etc. We have disks for MS-DOS, and CP/M. Mail and telephone orderonly.

Out of thousands of programmes wehave collected we bring you a SELECTION OFTHE BEST that have been carefully testedand documented. They'll run on a widevariety of computers that will accept 5%"disks

MS-DOS programmes are aimed at theIBM-PC and close compatibles. Documenta-tion is included on the disks where required- often it is very extensive.

MS-DOS

Disk No. GAMESM1020 + : MORE GREAT TRIVIA - Twodisks with categories for science and nature,entertainment, sports and recreation, andgeneral. £20.

M1021+: EAMON ADVENTURES - A twodisk sophisticated adventure with a menudriven facility to design your own games.Requires Basic, £20.

M1022: SUPER COMPILED GAMES (2)Good arcade -type games, including Kong,Striker, Spacevade, Life2 and Frog.

M1023: GREAT BASIC GAMES More thana dozen, including Wizard, X wing, Combat,Mars, Racecar, CIA.

M1024: 'PHRASE CRAZE - An entertainingquiz -type game. Asks you part of a phraseand requires you to complete it.M1025: AMULET OF VENDOR - Adven-ture with graphics. 20 levels of play againstmany monsters and powerful magic.

M1026: 5 TEXT ADVENTURE GAMES - ofdifferent types, including a murder mystery,horror, pirate, etc.

M1027: SUPER HANGMAN - Highlyacclaimed. Large vocabulary and includesquotations, riddles and music.

M1028: SUPER COMPILED GAMES (3) -Another excellent selection. Includes Flight -mare, Solitare, Jumpjoe and more.

M1030: PROVOCATIVE PICTURES 11) - Acollection of naughty pin-ups.

M1031: WILLY THE WORM A high qualitygame which allows you to build your owngame board.

M1036: MAHJONG An outstandingAustralian programme of the Chinese cardgame with good graphics.

UTILITIESM2016: MENU SYSTEMS - Some of thebest menu generating programmes we couldfind. Run programmes from YOUR menus.

M2017: DVORAK KEYBOARD - TheDVORAK layout offers greater efficiency inplace of the standard keyboard.

M2018: MEMORY PROMPT A memory -resident utility that prompts you with the cor-rect syntax for DOS commands, BASIC A,Turbo Pascal, Debug and Edlin.

M2019: EXTENDED DOS UTILITIES Substi-tute utilities with more features.

M2020: PC -TOOLS Utilities to browse,darken, dump, compare, merge, page, print,delete, format text, with C source.

M2021: UNIX COMMAND SHELL- Controlyour programmes with commands similar tothese available in Unix.

M2022: DOS MANAGEMENT - An effi-cient environment for managing your opera-ting system, with help screens.

M2023: BATCH LANGUAGE ENHANCE-MENT More features and control whencreating bat files and modifying them.

M2024: CODE BREAKER for those with aninterest in deciphering codes/ciphers.

M2025+: DOS EXTENSIONS - A two diskset of enhancements for Dos. f20.

M2026: CALTECH UTILITIES - A specialcollection with printer commands, pop-uptables, graphics characters, bad sector fix,hex file editor, directory utilities, ansi.sys &echo replacement.

M2027 + : EXECEPTIONAL FILE & DOSUTILITIES A two disk collection of manypowerful tools - such as fast format, alarmclock, disk wipe, display colour as shades ofgrey, file sorter, text reader, line counter,read squeezed library files, create files frommemory, digital clock display, dos syntaxreference, cursor speed-up, create secretdirectories, etc. £20.M2028: ENHANCED CONSOLE DRIVERMany time saving and convenience featuresby controlling keyboard and screen.

WORD PROCESSING ANDPRINTING

M3013: PRINT QUALITY ENHANCER Use astandard dot matrix printer for high qualityprinting and formatting.

M3014: SIDEWRITER prints outputsideways to fit wide reports onto a page.M3015: SUPER KEY -DEFINERS Createmacros that can insert blocks of text with asingle keystroke. Two top programmes.

M3016 + : WORDSTAR UTILITIES Utilitiesthat expand the power of Wordstar and makeit easier for you to use. £20. Two disks. Wellworthwhile.

M3017: PRINTING PREVIEW See whatyou'll be getting before you print.

M3018: DIAGRAM AND TEXT EDITOR -Combine text with diagrams.

GRAPHICSM4009 + : GRAPHICS FOR LOTUS/SYM-PHONY Two disks with special displayfeatures to improve the presentation of 123/Symphony datagraphs, slide shows. £20.M4011: GRAPHICS -ICON CREATOREspecially suits creation of symbols and logo-type characters.

M4012: TALK ILLUSTRATOR An easy -to -use programme providing bold lettering andether features for slide presentation.

M4013: PAINT -TYPE GRAPHICS Uses slabsof colour, shading etc, for its effects. Re-quires coloured monitor.

LANGUAGES(For tutorials, see Education Section)

M84: PROLOG NEW VERSION 1.8 is nowavailable.

M5017: SPRITES AND ANIMATION FORTURBO PASCAL Source code and instructionfor programming with animation/sprites.M5018: BASIC AIDS (3) Has special pro-grammes to remove numbers from your Basicprogrammes and to restore them.

M5019: TURBO TOOLS Numerous smallTurbo Pascal programmes that illustrated thebook "Complete Turbo Pascal".

M5021: SCREEN GENERATOR A new aidfor designing screens in Basic.

M5022: WINDOWS FOR BASIC AND 'C' -A collection of functions that give window-ing capability to your programmes.

M5023: CROSS ASSEMBLER - Xasm letsyou use your computer to develop program-mes for other computers, especially the Z80.

M5024: TOOLS FOR TURBO PASCAL -convert and manipulate dates, display, editand validate data entry fields.

M5025: TURBO PASCAL DEBUGGER - AnInteractive debugger with pop-up help, for-matters etc. Invaluable.

M5026: MACRO -ASSEMBLER - Manyhave been waiting for this. A fine choice.M5028 + : ASSEMBLER ROUTINES/UTIL-ITIES 3 disks with dozens of time -savingroutines, teaching examples and aids. £30.

M5029: BASIC SUBROUTINES LIBRARY.

COMMUNICATIONM108: QMODEM 2.2 latest update is nowavailable.

M6010: PROCOMM ver.2.3. A many -featured Modem Comms programme that isreceiving wide critical acclaim overseas.

M6011: COMMUNICATION UTILITIES -Supplementary tools useful for Qmodem Pro-comm, Kermit and PCTaIk.

BUSINESS/CALCULATION,M122: SPREADSHEET - Up-graded_virsion121 of Freecalc. Suitable for home andbusiness. Needs enhanced graphics such asHercules, or colour monitor.

M126: STATISTICAL ANALYSIS A verygood Multiple Correlation programme (com-piled) has been added to the disk. Many othertests and analyses included.

M128 + : INTEGRATED PACKAGE A fastand sophisticated integrated spreadsheet/word processor/data base/graphics. 3 disksfor £30 instead of £36.M7019: RETAIL POINT OF SALE Control ofstock/debtors/invoicing.

M7020 + : STATISTICAL TOOLS Utilities todetermine sample sizes and confidence inter-vals, perform randomisation tests, generaterandomisation plans, calculate distributions,and more! Two disks £20.M7021 +: LOTUS UTILITIES/WORK-SHEETS Print formulae, install EGA, preparetext for input into worksheets, set up 640Kvirtual memory, install on hard disk, etc. 2disks £20.M7022 + : INCOME AND EXPENSETRACKER which records input of operationsand has a reporting system. 2 disks £20.M7023 + : SINGLE ENTRY ACCOUNTING -general ledger, accounts receivable, ac-counts payable, inventory, payroll anddepreciation. Two disk set £20.

M7024: PAYROLL SYSTEM Comprehen-sive, menu -driven system for small tomedium-sized companies.

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DATA BASE MANAGEMENTM143 + : FAMILY TREE New version -4 -of Genealogy on Display is now available.Two disks £20. Charts family relationships.M8012: LABEL PRINTING Print labels for allsorts of uses, as'well as control mailing lists.

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M9502: SPORTING ADMINISTRATION -helps those running sporting events to keeptrack of scores/results, match opponents,print reports, etc.

M9503 + : BIBLICAL QUOTES - A two diskset of 14800 cross-references to 7956verses of the new Testament. £20.

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El SOFTWARE REVIEW

WRITE NOWDOCUMENT PROCESSORBy Carol Hammond

As easy to use as Macwrite, but with plenty of formattingfeatures, this package could do the job of a DTP program forsimple documents.

The publisher of Write Now, T/ Maker,claims that it is "the next step in wordprocessing". It is certainly one of a

new breed of packages that lie somewherebetween a conventional word processor anda desk -top publishing (DTP) package in thetasks they set out to perform. Write Now is asophisticated word processor which allowsyou to copy text or pictures from otherapplications, insert footnotes and divide thepage into multiple columns. It is facilitieslike these that make it suitable for pro-ducing simple presentation documents, andallow it to encroach into the realms of DTP.

T / Maker calls Write Now a "documentprocessor", but the label you attach to apackage of this kind is probably irrelevant.As word processors become more soph-isticated the concept of DTP may become athing of the past. What is interesting aboutWrite Now is that it is a powerful wordprocessor with many of the features youmight wish were in Macwrite. It has anumber of other capabilities which make itsuitable for producing reports and suchlikewithout recourse to a full-blown DTPpackage, which you may not have the ex-pertise or time to use to its best effect.

Write Now comes on two discs. One con-tains the Write Now application, dictionary,a Mac System Folder and three examplefiles. The other contains a System Folder, arestricted version of Write Now, an examplefile and the Translator utility which you useto transfer files into Write Now from otherapplications.

When you open Write Now it lookssimilar to Macwrite. There is a menu bar, aruler and a title bar at the top of your textwindow and a scroll bar down the side.Unlike Macwrite it has a horizontal scrollbar, allowing you to type in a document thatis wider than the window. Write Now hasseven pull -down menus, compared toMacwrite's six.

Write Now's text window can bepositioned so that the ruler peeps out abovethe document window just enough for youto see the tab and margin settings. To act-ivate the ruler you click on it to reveal fourtext -alignment boxes and a box to set thespacing between lines; you adjust linespacing to a specified number of points,which gives you finer control than Macwrite.Each paragraph has its own ruler settings,

which means that ruler changes only applyto selected paragraphs, not necessarily to anentire document. I found using the rulerrather fiddly, as I did adding headers andfooters.

To set up headers and footers you go tothe View menu, which allows you to viewthe page, headers and footers, and foot-notes. When you are working on a page youare usually in the View Page option. Youput page numbers into headers and footersby choosing Insert Page # from the Formatmenu. You can choose different arrange-ments for even- and odd -numbered pagesby clicking on the two buttons marked Evenand Odd.

WRITE NOW

PC VERDICT A.,

c.,'':..,.0

c,- (-- c° ,<;-'0 k., ,,0 -.. 0 *s T 0 S.,

Performance

Ease of use

Documentation 1.1

Value for money

LI Something more than a plain wordprocessor but without the features of afull DTP program.

.-.

You can choose exactly where to positionheaders and footers by selecting Show Spacefrom the View menu. Non -printing char-acters in a document, plus other items whichwould normally be invisible, such as hardReturns, tabs, the bottom and top of theheader and footer regions, are shown by acombination of dots and arrows. This is part-icularly useful when setting up forms, forexample, as it allows you to see exactly howmuch space is where.

Show Markers will show where headers,footers, time, dates and so on are, rep-resenting them with symbols. You may wantto use Show Markers to see where things areon the page to make your document easier toread.

Footnotes can consist of pictures or text,and can be numbered automatically if youwish, according to where they appear in text.If you move, copy or delete a footnote the

SPECIFICATIONDescription: word-processing programsuitable for producing simple documents;incorporates 50,000 -word spellingcheckerHardware required: 128KMacintosh upwardsCopy protection: nonePrice: £165Publisher: T/Maker of Mountain View,CaliforniaU.K. supplier: Mac Serious Software,17 Park Circus Place, Glasgow G3 6AH.Telephone: 041-332 5622Available: now

remaining footnotes will automatically berenumbered. Footnotes appear at thebottom of the page separated from the bodyof text by a line.

As supplied, the Write Now disc containsonly the Calculator desk accessory and theChicago, Monaco and Geneva founts in avery limited selection of sizes; there is simplynot room on the disc for anything more.This can prove a problem if you are usingonly a single -disc system. However, we didfind that we could delete the system folderfrom the Write Now disc and run it in con-junction with a separate startup disc.

The Font Size menu lists eight sizes fromnine point to 48 point; using the Smallerand Larger options you can increase anddecrease sizes one point at a time to achievefount sizes from four to 127 point.

The Style menu offers eight text stylesplus Subscript and Superscript to move textup or down. Using the correspondingkeyboard commands allows you to make fineadjustments to text or pictures by movingthem up or down one point at a time. Onewelcome feature of Write Now is that itoffers a large number of command -keycombinations which duplicate options fromthe pull -down menus.


INSOFTWARE REVIEW

la File Edit Uiew Format Font FontSize Style1 12 13 I 14 I 15. 16 . . .

WN/user group

pcapril

I 1:13Tue, Feb 24, 1987 You can look through magazines and

bulletin -board systems (13135) particularly if theyVie

dedicated to your

machine as sometimes they list user groups or at least mention them. It

is also worth trying the Association of Computer Clubs which holds the

addresses of the various groups which contact it, not all of which are

software or hardware specific groups but could be dedicated to a

programming language for example.

Page 3

Show Space will show items that would normally be invisible, and S

it is refinements such as these that makeWrite Now a pleasure to use. Obviously a lotof thought has gone into providing extrafeatures. For example, you can have as manydocuments open as the amount of memoryavailable will allow, and Cut, Copy andPaste between them. To flip between doc-uments you just select Send Behind from theView menu.

To change the fount of an entiredocument you just choose Select All fromthe Edit menu. You can insert soft hyphensusing the Hyphenate command from theFormat menu. Write Now follows sensiblerules when it comes to hyphenation, andwill break words where there are hyphens,soft hyphens and dashes, but not at minussigns. The Format menu also offers you theoption of normal or hanging indents at thebeginning of a paragraph, and allows you toinsert the time and date within a document.

When you save a document you canchoose to Save or Save/ Compact to conservedisc space. The Compact option is certainlyworth choosing: we found that saving a disccompactly reduced the size of a 23Kdocument down to 15K. The only draw-backs are that saving takes slightly longerand you lose the backup copy that WriteNow otherwise makes automatically.

To access the backup copy you chooseRevert to Backup from the File menu. This isa handy option if you have saved a doc-ument by mistake or under the wrong name.You can also choose Revert to Saved, whichtakes you back to what your document waslike before it was last saved.

FIND AND REPLACEWrite Now's Find and Replace command

is also fairly sophisticated. You can searchthe whole document or restrict the search tothe areas before or after the insertion point.You can choose to search only for entirewords that match the specified text, or forwords that only match the exact appearanceof a word that includes accents, upper-casecharacters, quotation marks and so on. The ?symbol is available as a wild -card character,but you have to insert a ? for every missingcharacter - a fairly cumbersome procedurethat is hardly worth the effort required touse it.

The inclusion of a 50,000 -word spelling

a File Edit Uiew Format Pont FontSize Style12 13 14 15 16 17

WN/user group

pcapril«,

191(3-You.canlook,throughmagazines.and,

bull etin-board.systems 41385),parti cularly f .they.arededicated-to.your

machine4ssometimes,theylistusergroups.or at least mention -them. It-

is.also.worth.trying the-Association.of Computer.Clubs.whichholds.the.

addresses -of ,the-various-groupswhich.contact-it,-not.all ,of -which.are

softwareorhardware-specific-groups-but,couldbe-dedicatedto-a.

programming language,f or -example. 1

<:ILDP ji:NPage 3

how Markers will represent dates and times by symbols.

checker within Write Now would also seemto make it an attractive option. The versionwe had was an American one, though theBritish distributor, Mac Serious, said that anEnglish dictionary would be available inMarch. Meanwhile it is possible to customisethe dictionary as you require. The spellingchecker offers the facility to Find, Ignore,Guess, Learn and Forget words. It is dis-apointing in its handling of plurals andpossessives. For example, it rejected"group's" and "clones" giving "groups"and "clone" as its guesses.

You can import files from other applic-ations using the Translator, which convertsMacwrite and Microsoft Word documents toWrite Now format. It will also convert WriteNow documents to text -only files, and viceversa. We found importing Macwrite doc-uments no problem, though the position ofsome features such as decimal tabs are notexactly the same.

GRAPHICSYou can transfer graphics into Write Now

via the Clipboard. We imported a chartfrom Cricket Graph, and by printing out onan Imagewriter 2.3 with a colour ribbon wewere able to incorporate a coloured chartinto the Write Now document. Pictures canbe cut, copied or pasted and positioned justlike text. Inserting extra line spacing orReturns before or after a picture will adjustits position vertically. To resize a picture youdouble-click on it and then use the mouse toexpand or contract it. You can also make apicture fatter or thinner than the original,using the Option key.

Before printing you will probably want togo to the Page Setup command on the Filemenu. It is here that you specify the numberof columns you want to print in; up to fourcolumns per page are allowed. You can alsospecify the width of the binder margins andwhether they should alternate, which isuseful when printing double -sided docu-ments. You can specify the starting pagenumber; by setting it to zero you can havean unnumbered title page.

It is also from the Page Setup dialoguebox that you can set the mysterious PageWrap factor. The manual describes the PageWrap factor as "The height of the tallestline that may continue from one page to the

next . . . If, in any paragraph that may crossa page boundary, you increase the linespacing beyond 24 points, or insert text or apicture taller than 24 points, you shouldprobably increase the Page Wrap factoraccordingly." This means if you have sometext in 48 point then it may well be cut inhalf if it comes at the bottom of a pageunless you adjust the Page Wrap factorappropriately.

I found the reasoning behind the PageWrap factor rather hard to grasp, and feltthe program should do the job auto-matically. Write Now offers the facility tokeep all the lines of a paragraph on the samepage, or allow them to cross a page - whichyou may need when setting up a form, forexample. Perhaps that has something to dowith it. In any case, I did not find that themanual cast much light on why the PageWrap factor is needed.

The Write Now documentation takes theform of a single 178 -page spiral -boundmanual. A lot of the material was scatteredabout rather unsystematically; it could havebeen better organised. It includes notes andtips to use as you go along, which is useful,but it is a pity they could not also besummarised in one place. Most of the infor-mation I required was there, but often theexplanations read like an Act of Parliamentand required several readings before I couldget the gist of what was going on. However,on the whole this is not a problem since youcan use most of the package's featureswithout referring to the manual, whichsometimes makes things sound moredifficult than they really are.

CONCLUSIONS Write Now is certainly an advance on aconventional word processor. It provides a lotof useful features and is very suitable for pro-ducing presentation documents. The package could do with some honingand refining to make it even easier to use, andthe spelling checker and wild -card facilitiesneed improvement. Write Now could well prove adequate forsimple DTP applications. It may not have thedetailed features of a full-blown DTP package,but it is much easier to use, and by giving theinexperienced less rope to hang themselves itcould well produce a more attractivedocument.


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8088-2 8MHz/4.77MHz SWITCHABLE 8 SLOTS Id LEGAL LICENSEDBIOS CLOCK/CALENDAR & BATTERY ON BOARD 640K RAM(EXPANDABLE TO 1MB ON BOARD - 640K RAM FOR DOS AND 384KRAMDISK) 2 x 1.2MB HIGH DENSITY 'AT' TYPE DRIVES (XT FLOPPY ISONLY 360K!) OR 1 x 1.2MB FLOPPY AND 20MB HARD DISK HI-RESMONO GRAPHICS CARD WITH PRINTER PORT SERIAL RS232 PORT COMPACT SIZE: 390 362 153mm - HI-RES MONO MONITOR

AT TYPE KEYBOARD 360K DISKETTES CAN BE READ AND WRITTENONTO IN 1.2MB DRIVE AND FILES CAN BE COPIED BETWEEN 1.2MB &360K DISKETTES AND VICE VERSA (EVEN IBM 'AT' CAN'T MANAGETHAT!) LICENSED MS DOS 3.2 AND GWBASIC RELEASE 3.2AVAILABLE (f50)

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LIBRARIESThe following libraries provide extra functions to dBASE Programs.They all provide facilities which are not available under thestandard dBASE package. They are all RAM resident and areaccessed via the dBASE CALL function.

TAOS 1 £59Our own Suite of powerful addons for both dBASE and CLIPPER.Functions available in the areas of: -

Pull down Menus Window Scrolling Password Protection Phonetic Coding Environment Testing Cursor Control.

Programmers Library £89From Ashton-Tate with Source Code in C or PASCALFunctions available for -

Array Handling Financial Statistical Mathema tica!

Graphics Library £89From Ashton-Tate with Source Code in C.Functions available for: -

Bar Chart Line Char Pie Chart Arcs Circles Polygons Lines

,yh

DEVELOPMENT AIDS

Programmers Utilities £89Corrupt data recovery Program cross-referencing Communications Save & restore screens Screen clock + many more.

AdvancedProgrammers Guide £25.95For dBASE II, dBASE III & dBASE HI PLUS.

No serious programmer should be without this valuable referencematerial. Includes many details on internal dBASE structures andmany programming tips.

CONSULTANCY SERVICESWe can offer dBASE programming services for IBM andcompatible users, AMSTRAD 1512 & AMSTRAD 8256.

We are also prepared to write special functions in 'C' which may beaccessed by dBASE or CLIPPER.

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Technical support is available for £320 per annum. Valuableinsurance against program disruptions. 1987-1988 subscriptionsclose on the 31st May 1987.

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SOFTWARE SURVEY

dBASE III ADD-ONSBEES ROUND THE HONEYPOTBy Mike Lewis

With Ashton-Tate'sestablished database -

management packagethriving, the market forproducts to make life easier forits users continues to expand.

with Ashton-Tate now claimingover 1,000,000 users of dBase IIand III, it is not surprising that

the market for dBase add-ons continues toboom. Since we last surveyed this scene inApril 1985, scores of new third -party prod-ucts have appeared, all aimed at making lifeeasier and more productive for users ofdBase in general, and dBase III in particular.

For many of the makers of these packagesthe most fruitful area has been in trying toreduce the drudgery of typing dBase IIIprograms. One of the more successfulofferings in this category is Salamanca Soft-ware's Expressbase III, a sort of shorthandversion of dBase III and III Plus. You write aprogram in the Expressbase language, type itin with your usual editor, run it through atranslator, and end up with normal dBasecode.

At its simplest, Expressbase lets youabbreviate common verbs and keywords: forexample, AB for Append Blank. But youcan also use it to pull in chunks of programtext from a library, generate Say/Getcommands from a screen image and transfercode from other programs. It has a built-incross-reference lister, and it can expand andcontract dBase keywords and produce auto-matic indentation. Used to the full it couldwell cut the number of keystrokes needed totype the program by 70 percent or more.Apart from the need to learn the abbrev-iations, its main drawback is the extra trans-lation stage.

Of course, a top-quality editor or WPpackage can provide at least some of thefeatures of Expressbase, especially if itsupports keyboard macros. One of the betterprogrammers' editors is Brief. This has amacro facility that is so powerful that it islike a programming language in its ownright. With some effort you can use themacros to turn Brief into what is, in effect,your own personally designed editor.

Brief's authors at Solution Systems havewritten a set of macros that convert Brief intoa highly intelligent editor geared specificallyfor dBase III and III Plus. The product iscalled dBrief and, like Expressbase, it cangenerate whole chunks of program code

dBCHART ( Graph Package for dBASE ) FILE NAME : C:SAMPLE .ASC

I.Column 2.Stacked Column 3,Deviation 4,Line

5,Step 6.Pie

fr

Select Chart No.:1

7,Donut 8,Pictograph

f,I:Draw f,2:Window f.3:Previous f.4:Pict.Sgmbol f.5:Help f.6:Print f.?:Color

Select chart number from 1 to 8 and then press [Return]

Wordtech's dBChart supports eightstandard charts, which you select from apictorial menu.from abbreviated commands. It also lets youtype repetitive statements through a sort oftemplate, so that you only have to enter theelements that are different in each line.

If you already have Brief and you do a lotof dBase work, dBrief will be an excellentinvestment. It is not as liberating as Express -base, but it does not need the intermediatetranslation stage. In fact you can run youredited program - and most other softwaretoo - from within Brief without quittingyour current document.

Some of the features of dBrief andExpressbase can also be found in dAnalyst, adBase II file tidier and pretty printer.Among other things, it will indent a

program, expand or contract dBase key-words, change their case, remove excessspaces, and output a cross-reference list.One of dAnalyst's useful tricks is its abilityto print lines down the left edge of a listing,so emphasising the program's blockstructure. This can also highlight any struc-tural errors, such as a Do -While without anEnd -Do. Another of its outputs shows thetree structure of all the program files andprocedures within an application.

Running dAnalyst is straightforward, allits options being driven from pull -downmenus. These are self-explanatory, which isjust as well because the manual is very

skimpy. My biggest problem was that theoptions that were supposed to run externalprograms and display file directories did notwork.

If using even an Expressbase style of short-hand is too much for you, perhaps youshould consider an application generator.Several have been published for dBaseII/ III, but Bytel's Genifer is probably themost powerful. It is centred around its ownset of databases, which hold details of allyour files, fields, menus, help screens,forms, and report layouts. Thus you canspecify a field's default value and its val-idation details, and Genifer will use thisinformation wherever necessary in the gen-erated system.

Unlike most packages of this type,Genifer is not restricted to flat -file appli-cations. You can use it to set up relationalsystems, including those whose databaseshave parent -child relationships. You alsohave control over such issues as whetherduplicate keys are allowed, or whethersearches on partial keys will succeed.

However, Genifer can ultimately onlyproduce standard filing applications, con-sisting of file updating, enquiries andreports. It cannot generate, say, anaccounting system which involves postingtransactions to a master file. But given thatalmost every dBase application involvessome form of database maintenance, it doesprovide a good starting point.



MSOFTWARE SURVEY


Another popular area for dBase add-ons isgraphics. Wordtech's dBchart is a programthat creates eight different types of chartfrom dBase II and III databases. It outputs tothe screen, so you need a colour/ graphicsadaptor. It can also print the charts on anEpson -compatible printer.

Running the program is a two -stage affair.First, you go into dBase and use a .Prg filesupplied to extract the relevant figures fromthe database. Then you invoke dBchart itselfto generate the charts. You can customisethe output by selecting colours, hatchingstyles, etc. dBchart can also be used in-dependently of dBase, since the inter-mediate data file is straight ASCII and cantherefore be typed with a text editor.

One of dBchart's more interestingoutputs is a histogram in which the bars aremade up of little pictures. You can choosefrom a library of 26 of these. Six are pre-defined and include symbols for a car, houseand phone. For the rest, you use a built-inpicture editor to create your own designs,each of which is built on a 16 -by -32 grid.

An alternative approach to graphics istaken by dGE, from Bits per Second. This isa set of machine -language routines that canbe called directly by a dBase III program.There are 28 functions in all, ranging fromlow-level primitives like drawing lines andarcs, to complete pie charts and histograms.

Although dGE is not as easy to use asdBchart, it does allow a developer to in-tegrate graphics into an application. It also

gives you more control over the finished pro-duct. dBchart is fine for the occasional chart,but its two -stage approach could be anuisance.

Another product that is based on callablemachine -language routines is Taos Toolsfrom The Art of Software. This is a mixedbag of functions, including routines to turnthe cursor on and off, generate Soundexcodes, set up scrollable windows, test pass-words, and find such details as the size of themachine and the amount of free RAM. Itsbiggest module allows you to add pull -downmenus to a dBase program.

The package does have some rough edges.The pull -down menu routine does notrestore the screen after the menus are closed,and the cursor function does not workproperly with a monochrome adaptor. Thereis no proper manual, just a text file of hastilywritten instructions. But the product stillrepresents excellent value. Given its lowprice, it would probably be worth buyingeven if you only needed one of its functions.

Finally, there is a new compiler for dBaseIII Plus, from Wordtech Systems. Quick-silver has all the features of Wordtech'sexisting dBIII Compiler, plus an optimiserthat produces Microsoft -style object mod-ules; they can be linked with either astandard linker or an overlay linker likePlink -86.

The result is an .Exe file that runs notice-ably faster than one compiled by the dBIIICompiler alone, and an order of magnitudefaster than under dBase III Plus. In one in-

formal test I obtained a speed-up factor ofsix to one. This probably puts Quicksilverahead of Clipper in terms of executionspeed, although both products suffer fromlengthy compile -link times.

Quicksilver is highly compatible with thedBase III Plus language, but it also sportsmany new features. The best of these is itsextensive windowing commands. It also hasDOS interrupts and user -defined functions.A compiler switch lets you hide the Quick-silver -specific commands in comments sothat the program will run under dBase.

SUPPLIERSExpressbase III £125, SalamancaSoftware Ltd, 64 More Close, St. Paul'sCourt, London W14 9BN. Telephone:01-741 8632BriefldBrief £275, dAnalyst £79.95,In Touch, Fairfield House, Brynhyfryd,Caerphilly, Mid -Glamorgan CF8 2QQ.Telephone: (0222) 882334Genifer £295, Bytel Corporation, 32Broad Street, Wokingham, BerkshireRG11 1 AB. Telephone: (0734) 791737dBchart £99, Quicksilver £599,Micro Minder Consultants, 68 UpperRichmond Road, London SW15 2RP.Telephone: 01-870 7431dGE £120, Bits Per Second, 17 GuildfordRoad, Brighton, Sussex BN1 3LU.Telephone: (0273) 727119Taos Tools £49, The Art of Software,262 Hayling Road, South Oxhey,Watford, Hertfordshire WS1 6QA.Telephone: 01-421 4206

IEEE488TECHNOLOGY THATHITS THE MARK Interface system for IBM-PC/XT/AT/IC and all compatible

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El SOFTWARE REVIEW

SMALLTALK ATTHE DADDY OF 'EM ALLBy Steve Malone

Smalltalk gave rise to the mouse and icon interfaces of the Mac, Windows and Gem. Now it iscommercially available to run on an AT as a programming language in its own right.

miost people have heard of Small -talk. Since the launch of theApple Lisa and Macintosh

machines in 1983 and 1984, Smalltalk hasbeen a byword among the microcomputercognoscenti. Despite this, few peopleactually know what Smalltalk is, and evenfewer have seen it working.

The origins of the language, like manyother developments in computing, lie in theXerox Palo Alto Research Center (Parc).Research into human learning processes ledto Smalltalk as the ultimate in easy -to -learnlanguages. It introduced the concept of theobject -orientated program and included thefirst mouse and icon user interface. As such,it is the ancestor of the Macintosh,Windows, Gem and the rest.

Although originally confined to a handfulof single -user minicomputers, Smalltalk isnow available for the masses in the form ofSmalltalk AT. This is a Xerox -licensedversion of the language for the IBM PC/ ATand compatibles. The possibility of portingSmalltalk to the AT has been around forsome time, but it is only in the last year or sothat it has become commercially feasible.

AT INSUFFICIENTA simple AT is not enough to support

Smalltalk AT. To run the system you need atleast 1Mbyte, or preferably 2Mbyte of RAM.When we received the package, we made themistake of trying to install the program onan AT clone with a mere 640K. It informedus there was not enough room on the disc,which was rather confusing as there was12Mbyte free on the hard disc. It was only acall to Smalltalk Express that put us right.We eventually installed Smalltalk onElonex's PC -286 Turbo - reviewed on page46 of this issue - fitted with 2.64Mbyte ofRAM.

You run Smalltalk from the DOS promptbut the program takes over from DOS andruns the 80286 CPU in Protected mode. As aresult it is able to whizz about a lot fasterthan it would if kept to 8086 Real mode.

As well as the megabyte of RAM you needseveral other bits of hardware. First, youneed an EGA card or equivalent to be able tocope with the bit -mapped graphics sup-ported by Smalltalk. You also need aLogitech three -button Genius Mouse orequivalent; a simple two -button Microsoftmouse will not do.

Finally, your AT needs to be equippedwith a printer port. Smalltalk discs are notcopy protected but you will be unable to runthe program without a special device, knownas a software sentinel, which plugs into theprinter port. It has a female end to it so thatyou can still plug in your printer cable in thenormal way.

When running, Smalltalk presents thewindows, icons and pull -down menus madefamiliar by its progeny. If you are used toGem or the Mac you should have noproblem using the scroll bars, windows andselections. Each of the three mouse buttons- called, from left to right, Red, Yellowand Blue in Smalltalk nomenclature - has adifferent function. In general, the Redbutton performs the usual window and itemselect, while the Yellow and Blue buttonsproduce pop-up windows with additionalglobal features, like Close Window, Cut andPaste. In addition, the three keys performdifferent tasks while manipulating the scrollbar which appears whenever the mousepointer moves into a window.

The opening screen is dominated by theSystem Browser window. It is through thiswindow that the user can access any of thefiles resident in Smalltalk, and at this pointyou begin to realise why you need 1.5Mbyteof disc space and 1Mbyte of RAM. There areliterally dozens of files making up theSmalltalk environment.

SPECIFICATIONDescription: object -orientatedprogramming environment with mouseand icon user interfaceHardware required: IBM PC/ATcompatible with at least 1Mbyte of RAM,EGA display card or equivalent, Logitechthree -button mouse or equivalent andprinter port.Copy protection: discs can be copiedbut security sentinel must be in place inthe printer port before the software willrunPrice: £995 for commercial customers,£395 for academic customersPublisher: Softsmarts Inc. ofWoodside, CaliforniaU.K. distributor: Artificial IntelligenceLtd, Intelligence House, Merton Road,Watford, Hertfordshire WD1 7BY.Telephone: (0923) 47707Available: now

One of the best things about the system isthat the kernel, windowing and graphicscommands are all available as source code,allowing you to tinker with the system.Letting a naive user loose on the source codesounds alarming, but Smalltalk providesbackup files in a separate window, so mosterrors are recoverable. While we wereplaying about with the kernel it seemedremarkably robust.

SIMILAR TO LOGOThe only features of the language you

cannot play about with are a set of primitiveswhich provide the machine -level interface,and are the foundation on which all otherparts of the system are built. Most of thesefiles are constructed in terms of other files,which provides a clue to the philosophybehind Smalltalk. In many ways, the use ofrecursion and primitives to build up pro-cedures which can be used to create otherprocedures is very similar to Logo, thelanguage from which Smalltalk was derived.

Smalltalk files are organised via a setof sub -windows within the SystemBrowser.The main window is divided intosix smaller windows. There are four windowsacross the top, with a smaller window in thesecond box and a large window covering thebottom half of the System Browser. Youselect a file from the System Browser bymoving the mouse pointer to the top left-hand window containing the Class Cat-egories, and selecting one of the categories.This will cause a list of Class Names toappear in the second window. Once againyou select an item, causing another set ofitems to appear in the third window,Message Categories, and so on.

When you have selected an item in thefourth window, the Message Selectors, thesource code for that file appears on the lowerhalf of the screen. This is the Edit window,where you can examine and, if necessary,alter the contents of the file.

Execution of a file is performed byselecting the Do It option on the Yellowbutton's pop-up menu. Sometimes it maybe necessary to type in other parameters, orto view the output of a program. All this isdone within the System Transcript window,which lies behind the System Browser onentry to Smalltalk.

One of the nice things about Smalltalk,which we have seen adopted by other


III SOFTWARE REVIEW

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anguage developers like Metacomco, is thatonce you have typed in a command there isno need to do so again. To re -execute thecommand all you have to do is highlight thecommand recorded in the System Transcriptand select Do It. The technique can beextended to the source code itself. You canembed the execution commands ascomments in the source code; simply byhighlighting the comment and selecting DoIt the program will run.

Object -orientated programming, thebasis of Smalltalk, is conceptually verydifferent from the likes of C and Pascal.Each of the files within Smalltalk can be con-sidered as a procedure - known as a methodin Smalltalk - and performs a specifiedfunction. In order to get output from themethod you do not have to define the datastructures. Rather, you pass a message to it,telling the method - an "object" if you aretalking in theoretical terms - what it needsto do. In many cases it is unnecessary even togive Smalltalk a set of default parameters, asit will try and work out a sensible set ofdefaults while it is processing.

HIERARCHICAL FILINGThe object is much more powerful than its

source code suggests because of the hier-archical nature of the filing system. Anobject has at its disposal all the informationabout the nature of its class. For example, anobject on a branch from the root classGraphics has all the necessary informationconcerned with drawing pixels on a screenwithout it needing to be defined by the pro-grammer. All the user has to do is, forexample, tell the object to draw a windowand the object will use the knowledge of itsclass to create the desired effect on thescreen.

A message consists of a number of ex-pressions: the receiver, the selector and thearguments. The receiver is the object towhich the message is targeted, while theselector is the command directed at thereceiver. The arguments are parameters usedby the selector.

There are three basic types of messagewhich can be passed to an object. A unarymessage is one without an argument; it con-sists of a receiver and a selector and can beconsidered as a simple command to anobject. The second type of message is the

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Left: You enter commands in the SystemTranscript window. Right: The SystemWorkspace window catalogues what youhave done.

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binary message. Here the message has asingle argument and a selector. In this typeof message, a particular type of selector,known as a binary selector, is used. Typicallyit will be an arithmetic operator and is usedto associate the receiver with its argument.

The final type of message is the keywordmessage. As you might guess, it consists of anumber of keywords. The keyword messageis made up of a selector and one or morearguments. Using these basic message typesany Smalltalk program can be constructed.

Although all of this might sound a bitcomplicated, Smalltalk AT is very easy to useonce you get the hang of it. The concept ofthe object -orientated language came aboutby research into the ways humans think, noton the whim of the Parc development team.While programmers used to conventionallanguages might find it hard to grasp at first,the beginner will probably find its syntaxeasier to pick up than most other languages.

The environment is remarkably flexible,and supports powerful debugging tools suchas step -through operations and the ability toexecute sections of code independently ofthe rest. The Smalltalk compiler works onthe basis of interpreting lines of semi -compiled pseudo -code, rather like Pascal p -code .

The fact that it is basically an interpretedlanguage gives Smalltalk AT both itsgreatest strengths and its biggest weakness.On the one hand, Smalltalk code is very easy

and very quick to write, run, debug andrerun; you do not have the long andinvolved compilation process characteristicof Pascal or C. On the other hand, the wholesystem seemed to us a bit on the slow side,even though it was running in Protectedmode. This is due in part to the hardware.Despite the improvements made over thepast couple of years, the EGA card is stilltoo sluggish to support fast bit -mappedgraphics.

The other reason for the lack of speed lieswithin Smalltalk itself. Because the entirebasis of the language is to pass messagesfrom one object to another, it is possible towrite some very roundabout code to achievea goal. A Smalltalk programmer we spoke toadmitted that this was true, but pointed outthat the idea is to get a working programrunning quickly. When the program isrunning properly you can then turn yourattention to optimising the code by lookingat the possibility of short cuts.

So who is Smalltalk aimed at? Obviouslyit has a place in academic institutions as ateaching aid. The U.K. distributor, ArtificalIntelligence, recognises this and providesvery generous discounts for academiccustomers. Out in the business communitySmalltalk is probably of less use. Thelanguage is not good for developing low-level code as it lacks C's pointer structures oreven an equivalent of Basic's Peek and Poke.What Smalltalk is very good at is developingfast, usable source code from the methodsalready provided, and it is an excellentsystems -development or modelling tool.

CONCLUSIONS Smalltalk AT is a fully licensed version of theXerox programming language. The sheer size and performance require-ments of the environment makes heavydemands on the hardware: an AT with 1Mbyteof RAM, a hard disc and an EGA card is reallythe minimum you can get away with. The size of the system also affects the user.Although Smalltalk is intended as an easy -to -use language you need to absorb a lot ofinformation before you can start pro-gramming effectively. Smalltalk is conceptually different frommost other languages in its approach toproblem solving. Yet once understood, it pro-vides a fast method of developing largesystems programs.


Pull your finger out.

Buy an"Epson SQ2500 printer.

The new Epson SQ2500 is so quiet, you can use it in your officeand you won't know it's there.

This is because it doesn't whack the characters onto the paper;instead, it softly shoots on astonishingly accurate microdots of ink.

The SQ2500 will improve the efficiency of your office in otherways too.

It can print an amazing 540 characters per second in draft (at12 c.p.i.), and even whizzes along at 180 c.p.s. in correspondence -quality mode (also at 12 c.p.i.).

Changing between the five letter -quality fonts takes virtually notime at all. You simply press one or two buttons on the LCD 'Selectype'panel on the front of the machine.

And of course, it comes with a powerful 8K buffer as standardto free your computer for other tasks even more quickly.

Furthermore, the SQ2500 is exceptionally reliable - even foran Epson. In fact, each of the 24 nozzles on the print head will shoot2,000 million dots before it needs replacing.

It is also extremely flexible. It can produce graphics as well astext, has an IBM character set and a range of paper feed options availablein case you have a large volume of printing to do.

The price of the near -silent SQ2500 is £1345.00 (RRP exc. VAT).This may be more than an ordinary printer costs - but then, silenceis golden.

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SOFTWARE REVIEW

CHEAP IBM WPHOW LOW CAN YOU GET?By Susan Curran

There are some gems to befound in this batch of low-priced software, but you haveto watch out for the rubbish.

There has to be something crazy about asoftware field in which superficiallysimilar programs are sold for prices

that vary 20 times or more. But it's true:while the top IBM WP packages are stillselling for over £450 some of their newestrivals come in at under £25. Here we look atfive of the cheaper competitors in an over-crowded field: Tasword PC, Trustwriter, PCWrite, Microsoft Word Junior and BusinessWriter.

Once upon a time, Tasword was a rathernice, cheap program for the Spectrum. Nowit is also a nice, cheap program for the IBMPC and compatibles - just £24.95including VAT. This price includes a mail -merge feature; a spelling checker is

promised but is not available yet. You canbuy a demo disc for £2, half of which isrefundable if you decide to buy the fullprogram.

Tasword is supplied on a single floppydisc with a neat and comprehensive 63 -pageA5 manual in a plastic folder. The manualincludes a short tutorial on the mail -merging; there is a long general tutorialdocument on disc. An index would havebeen a help, but there are help facilities on-screen which you can switch on and off.

With the help off, Tasword uses just twolines at the bottom of the screen for systeminformation, including a ruler. It scrollssmoothly both vertically and horizontally,and will accommodate documents up to 256characters wide. Margins can be changed atany time, and the program will rememberup to 10 rulers, which can be recalledinstantly. Margin settings are not, however,saved within the text, nor is text auto-matically reformatted to new settings.

Reformatting to narrower margins mustbe done with care. There are several form-

atting commands, and choosing the wrongone may corrupt text. Formats also have atendency to destroy indents at the start ofparagraphs. Like earlier Taswords, this oneallows you to type notes, numbers, etc.within the margins. There are a variety ofinsert commands, including a push -forwardinsert mode, but this is recommended onlyfor occasional use, and not as the defaultmode.

Printer control codes, including under-line, are reproduced in the text and are notexecuted on -screen. Otherwise, the programhas a clean -screen display. Justification isechoed on -screen. Line spacing is handledonly through the print menu, so it would betricky to alter it within a document.

Only one document can be edited atonce, though it is possible to view a seconddocument without exiting from the onebeing edited. Text is held in RAM only; theprogram will use all available RAM and willhandle quite long documents. Documentscan be merged together, and there are foursix -line notepads which can be used foradditional text; the contents of the notepadsare saved with the program. There is also agood macro facility.

All the usual commands are there, thoughsometimes in rather limited forms. There arevariable tabs but not decimal ones; blockmove, copy and delete, but only oncomplete lines of text; and single -lineheaders and footers. Search and replace willsearch for a single word only, though thereplacement can be longer; it has a case -sensitive option. There is also a ratherselective undelete. Most commands areaccessed from function keys, sometimes inconjunction with Shift, Control and Alt. Ifound them reasonably easy to use.

Tasword is a very customisable program,and it is possible to alter and save many ofthe default settings. Though the programcomes up with an editing screen, a singlecommand gives access to a main menu withits Load, Save and other file -handlingoptions. This automatically displays adirectory; it is also possible to log on to a

Ta sour d just .cation can be eccentric. It tends toremove the second space after- full stops, and insertsfill --in spaces elsewhere in the line. But i.t scores insupport for extra characters 1 ke a and /3 and it has a-full range of printer enhancements including italic

and a L .E?ci riot.on Epson type printers.

Tasword supports extra characters and a full range of printer enhancements.

different drive or directory. Tasword alsomakes WordStar -type .Bak backups.

The program will automatically paginate,but it advises you not to combine auto -pagination with manually forced pagebreaks. Printer support is largely of the do-it-yourself type, with the program presetwith Epson codes. It is very versatile, andyou can set it up to send a wide variety ofcontrol codes and alternative characters to aprinter.

The mail -merge routine is sophisticated.It uses named record fields, can handle key-board input, and also provides conditionalprinting on greater than or less than, andAnd/Or criteria. Alas, it does not reformattext, so inclusion of variable fields in con-tinuous text is at the user's risk.

TASWORD PC

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Error trapping is not all it might be, andvery occasionally the program dumped meback in DOS, losing all my text. But aij inall, this is an impressive little program whichcan be recommended to the hard -up or tovery occasional users of WP. Tasword is part-icularly suitable for those prepared to dabblewith printer controls and the like in order toextract maximum performance.

Trustwriter costs £49.95 including VATand is very obviously designed for existingWordStar users looking for a cheap programfor their home -based Amstrad. But what isone to make of a WordStar -type word pro-cessor that comes with just 45 A5 pages ofmanual, most of them barely half full oftext? It sounds depressing even before youload it.

Though there is a learning file on disc, theTrustwriter manual is lamentably in-adequate for teaching anyone WordStar -type word processing from scratch. Thelearning file, though quite well designed,far from fills the gap. Trust Software offers


IIISOFTWARE REVIEW

SPECIFICATIONS

TASWORD PCDescription: word processor withmail -mergeHardware required: IBM PC orcompatible with at least 128K RAMCopy protection: nonePrice: £21.70Publisher: Tasman Software,Springfield House, Hyde Terrace, LeedsLS2 9LN. Telephone: (0532) 438301Available: now

TRUSTWRITERDescription: word processor with mail -mergeHardware required: IBM PC orcompatible with at least 128K RAMCopy protection: nonePrice: £43.40Publisher: Trust Software, Unit 811,Armstrong Mall, Southwood SummitCentre, Southwood, Farnborough,Hampshire GU13 ONP. Telephone:(0252) 522200Available: now

MICROSOFT WORD JUNIORDescription: word processor with mail -mergeHardware required: IBM PC orcompatible with at least 192K RAM; twodisc drivesCopy protection: yes; one backupdisc is provided; program can beinstalled once only on to a hard discPrice: £60.80Publisher: Microsoft, Excel House, 49De Montfort Road, Reading, BerkshireRG1 8LP. Telephone: (0734) 500741Available: now

PC WRITEDescription: word processor with mail -mergeHardware required: IBM PC orcompatible with at least 256K RAMCopy protection: nonePrice: £99Publisher: Quicksoft of SeattleU.K. distributor: Sagesoft, NEIHouse, Regent Centre, Gosforth,Newcastle upon Tyne NE3 3DS.Telephone: 091-284 7077Available: now

BUSINESS WRITERDescription: text editor/wordprocessorHardware required: IBM PC orcompatible; 256K RAM recommendedCopy protection: nonePrice: £20Publisher: S&S Enterprises, 31 HollowWay Lane, Amersham, BuckinghamshireHP6 6DJ. Telephone: (02403) 4201Available: now

imited 90 -day support; for more hand -holding you have to pay £25 a year.

There are few good reasons for pickingTrustwriter unless you know WordStaralready, so I'll concentrate on the differ-ences. Trustwriter looks much like an oldWordStar in which the underlining is notechoed on -screen. The usual top -of -screenmenus are absent, but rudimentary helpfacilities are provided in a superimposedwindow. There is no on -screen ruler, just anote of the margin positions. These areadaptable, but the tabs are fixed at eight -column intervals. In the old WordStarfashion, margin positions are not saved with

files, so you must check your margin everytime you reformat text.

Cursor movement uses the good oldWordStar diamond, with the IBM cursorkeys installed as an alternative. The generalediting commands are fairly WordStarstandard. Trustwriter has a proper Insertmode, but does not automatically reformattext. It effectively combines WordStar'sdocument and non -document modes.

The program works fast in normalediting, but like its original it becomes veryslow when moving around large files. It canhandle files too large to fit into RAM.

There are no numeric text markers. There

is no way at all to get a disc directory on-screen, even on the initial non -documentscreen. There is no way to log on to an alter-nate directory or disc. There is no way tohide control symbols in the text. There is noindication of page breaks on screen.

A very few of the standard WordStarfailings have been circumvented. The awful^OG indent command has been replaced bya bizarre but reasonably effective indentingarrangement. Its main limitation is that youcannot automatically indent numberedparagraphs. There is an Undelete buffer.Another oddity is an Adjust command thatshifts lines or blocks of text to the left or



ESOFTWARE REVIEW


right; it can only be used on whole lines, notto make up for the tab limitations.

Trustwriter includes a fairly ambitiousmerge facility with named fields, and theopportunity for user input during a run.Printer support is abysmal. For the FX-80and the IBM Graphics Printer it is poor; foranything else it is non-existent. There issome scope for defining your own driver,but as Trustwriter is totally non -custom-isable this is a poor option. In all, thisprogram is as far below WordStar as NewWord was above it.

PC Write originated in America fromQuicksoft as a shareware program: try itfirst, buy for $75 if you like it. When youknow that, Sage Software's price of £99looks less than generous. The price includes90 -day support; for longer support you mustpay out another £30.

PC Write comes on two floppies andconsists of separate editing and print -formatting programs, both divided betweenthe two discs. It is always necessary to save afile to disc before printing it, but otherwisethey are quite well linked.

PC Write is a heavy kind of program: fullof commands, with a hefty manual that is allsmall print and serious technical infor-mation. I found it rather daunting. There isso much to remember, and the on -screenguidance tends to be confusing rather thanhelpful. Though the manual has an index itis poorly arranged and it is difficult to findthe information you need quickly.

The initial menu/system line can list anyof nine different keyboard statuses and 17edit statuses. It is full of little symbols whichdrastically affect the way the programbehaves on -screen. It is entirely unclear howto get to menus with, for example, thespelling checker on them, and all too easy toland up in menus which deal with Highbitsand other technical stuff. I found it hard toremember even the basic sequences whichsave files or exit without saving. With long-term regular use these problems wouldpartly disappear, but PC Write certainly isnot a program for the occasional user.

To start the editor, you must specify anold or new file to be edited. It is not easy toaccess a directory at this stage, though theprogram does offer two different directoryfeatures.

PC Write's text formatting is defined bycommands in three different files: the textfile, the edit format file and the print format

file. Some types of format commands,similar to WordStar dot commands, canappear in any one of them, as you choose.This gives great flexibility to experiencedand confident users, but is very confusing tothe newcomer. Rulers seem to appear anddisappear when you try to change them; for-matting instructions in one file may be over-ridden by those in another, so what you seeis not necessarily what you get.

All this should not detract from PCWrite's merits. It has a proper push -forwardInsert mode, for example, with Overwriteavailable as an alternative. Justification isechoed on -screen and there is an option toreformat automatically. Care is needed heresince PC Write does not distinguish forcedfrom natural line breaks, so reformatting cancause havoc with tables unless precautionsare taken. Reformatting is not instan-taneous, though it is reasonably fast.

The screen can be split vertically into twowindows, and either two parts of the samedocument shown, or two different doc-

TRUSTWRITER

P(VERDICT A...

0 4.,

Performance

Ease of use

Documentation MI NI

Value for money

El Even WordStar aficionados shouldnot have to put up with this.

PC WRITE

1VERDICT0 k,

0 -. 0,r- 0 k,

Performance

Ease of use III UDocumentation M

Value for money

7 A great program for hackers, butimpenetrable for casual users.

uments edited. Only one document is heldin memory at any one time, so switchingbetween windows is rather slow.

All the usual editing commands arethere, plus macros, detailed sequences foraccessing alternate characters and printenhancements, including colours on colourprinters and different fount sizes. Theprogram measures margins in inches, not incharacters. There are indexing and foot-noting, and excellent headers and footerswhich can be multi -line, and left/centre/right justified on the same line.

The rather complicated arrangement formail -merging involves input and outputtemplate files as well as data files. It willaccept keyboard output, and will reformattext on request. There is also a spellingchecker, which will do an automatic checkduring text input, or check whole doc-uments or single words. Its procedure forworking through a document doing a checkentirely defeated me. I still have no idea howyou are supposed to make corrections otherthan the suggested one, and there seemed tobe no way to tell it to ignore a word for therest of the check.

What isn't there? Not much, thoughthere is no background printing, no mathsfeatures, no columnar features. Page breaksare not echoed on -screen, and though thestatus line indicates how far through the fileyou are, as a percentage of the total, page,line or column positions are only shown ifyou specifically request them. New pages,when forced, generate only a confusing littlesymbol, and not a clear page line. Lines withtabs are not justified, so you have to startparagraphs with spaces instead.

PC Write is enormously customisable andhas excellent support for a huge range ofprinters, including a wide range of cartridgeand downloadable founts on Laserjets. All inall, this is the perfect hacker's program. Itspower and flexibility are unquestionable,but secretaries and occasional users may findthat too many of the powerful features arebeyond their reach.

After the flakiness of the real cheapies,Microsoft Word Junior has a comforting sol-idity about it. This is the kind of programyou just know will not crash or corrupt yourtext. It comes on two protected discs and it isrecommended for use only on dual -discmachines. Considering the price of the bigWord, £69.95 is a snip for this version,which is very recognisably the same. Cornershave been cut with the packaging but the

PC Write calculates its margins in widths, not.

character positions, so changing the font widthmeans that.

tab indents align perfectly.very wide range of fonts are available

and ready defined for supported printers,411 ri CZ' 1 ILA. 1121 I. ru C:41 -cTik r-- ,E .F.? 11-1!

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PC Write offers a wide range of founts in variable widths, though its formatting proved to be unreliable.


SOFTWARE REVIEW

Microsoft WordJunior willformat cleanlyeven when yourdocumentcontains amixture offounts.

Word junior offers a good range of print enhancements,including italic type, MUCUS and stri-kethr-mmh. It's notpossible to send other codes to the printer, however. it;

-sai.F.D. ER. fr--- ETiiti. 1. oThr-3, a-- ET:1. sa Esii? n.....t f.E1.

.sis the program's ability to justify text consisting of different sires of

font. A special printer-oriented display shows lineendings as they will be printed.

program itself has most of Word's normalfeatures.

Word's hallmark has always been its high-tech orientation, and this version too worksmuch better with a mouse than without one.It will display 43 lines of text with a suitablegraphics board. Printer support has beenslashed, though it is still adequate for cheapprinters. There is a rough approximation tobackground printing but no queueingfacilities.

The program will support up to eightwindows, edit documents simultaneously,and handle footnotes, multiple columns oftext and decimal tabs. The screen is

profligate on system space, with a border allround every window and a full menu at thebottom which Word Junior does not let youhide, leaving only 19 lines for text.

Word is the very opposite of a do-it-your-self program. It does your formatting foryou, in response to instructions you give.Ask for a line between paragraphs and it willdo it; ask for a particular margin size and itwill calculate it. The only annoyance is whenthe command structure proves to have gaps,and there is no DIY way to circumventthem. The program persistently doublespaced on my printer, for instance, whichalways adds its own linefeed to a CarriageReturn unless sent an initialising code.There proved to be no way within Word tosend such a code.

The formatting is outstanding. Measure-ments can be given with great precision, ininches, centimetres, character positions orpoints. Text in different sized founts is per-fectly aligned, and all varieties of indent-ation are fully supported. There is micro -space justification on a few supportedprinters, and there is even automatic hyphenhelp. Finished document layout with thisprogram can be extremely professional.Adapting layout is much easier than withmost other programs, whatever their price.

There is also a glossary feature forstandard paragraphs. The big Word extendsthis approach into style sheets which summ-arise detailed formatting instructions fordifferent types of document. They arehorrendously complicated, and it is no greatloss that they are missing from Junior.

Junior will not compile an index or a tableof contents, and it is lacking Word's fancyoutliner. A more serious omission is thespelling checker. It has, however, retainedthe mail -merge feature, which includes Ifand Else commands. All in all, Word Junioris outstanding value. LAN and laser -printerusers should stick with the biggie, but for

WORD JUNIOR

Pc VERDICT0 k,

0- .' 60 \c,

Performance 0 M

Ease of use Documentation III IN

Value for money M 0El No speller, but otherwise a greatprogram for editing and formatting.

BUSINESS WRITER

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k,00 k,0

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Performance

Ease of use M

Documentation

Value for money

E Too little, too cheap.

most of the rest, a mouse, Word Junior and aspeller package will beat the oppositionhollow.

Business Writer is the kind of word pro-cessor that powers up with wordwraptoggled off. The kind that never auto-matically reformats text; that beeps in mid -indent when the line of text is full; thatnever, ever lets you access a disc directory;that has no printer driver at all, not even adefault FX-80 one. It would have looked un-impressive even in the days of Dragon 32

word processors; for the IBM/Amstrad andcompatibles it is beneath consideration.

The program comes on a single unpro-tected floppy disc. The text of the manual isalso held on the disc in a document field andyou print it out yourself. When loaded theprogram comes up with a totally blankscreen: no ruler, no system information, nonote of the help key, no nothing. Just acursor, and text if you are loading an old file.It is possible to see a ruler or rudimentarysystem information, but only when you arenot actively editing. The few help screensavailable are not context sensitive.

The program is not directly customisable,but you can determine initial settings fordifferent types of document via a templatefile. There are no menus, only directcommands, using a mixture of function keysand alphanumeric keys. Some functions areduplicated to provide a rudimentary echo ofthe WordStar command structure.

Commands which require user input arehandled by blanking the line containing thecursor, and producing a little double -arrowprompt. There is no verbal prompt, noconfirmation of which command you havedesignated, and when a command cannot becarried out there is no explanatory message,just a rude little beep.

The precautions against accidentaldeletions are rudimentary, and there is noUndelete facility. It is possible to find andreplace text in a very basic way with no casesensitivity or wild cards. Documents can bepaginated, but once only. If you edit thedocument afterwards you must remove allthe page -end symbols by hand before re -paginating.

On the plus side, Business Writer doeshave variable tabs, decimal tabs and somearithmetic facilities. It will justify and centretext and range it right, and will cope withdocuments up to 255 columns wide. Screenresponses are speedy, and vertical scrolling issmooth. Horizontally it doesn't scroll: itjumps.

Printer support is virtually non-existent.It is possible to print either designatedblocks of text, or paginated documents.There is no way within the program tospecify the printer port. Text is sent, as it issaved on disc, in a basic ASCII string. Thereare no print -control codes built into BusinessWriter at all - not even underline codes. Tosend codes to a printer you have to insert thefull Escape codes every time they are used,which destroys the formatting.

CONCLUSIONS Prices really have dropped drastically, andit is now possible to get a good word processorfor under £1 00. But none of these is as goodall round as Word 3.0 o. 'Nerd Perfect 4.2.Serious users can still justify paying the extrafor a top -class program. Price is still only a very rough guide to per-formance. As far as performance goes, I'drate these word processors in ascendingorder: Business Writer, Trustwriter, Tasword,PC Write, Word Junior. When, oh when are the top -end pricesgoing to drop to match the fall at the bottomend of the market? ria


DEALERS

Dealers are stuck in the middle. Onthe one hand they have to providethe customers with what they want;

on the other they have to sell what the man-ufacturers give them to stock. Along theway the dealer tries to make a profit andkeep both parties happy. But what a

customer needs is not always what a dealerhas to sell. The most the customer can hopefor is a fair deal.

We decided to test out how differentdealers would handle the same customerwith the same problem. The firms we chosewere picked from advertisements in thecomputing press and cover a broad spectrumof dealerships, from High Street stores to themore opulent showrooms ofthe West End. We app-roached them incognito,and for that reason we havenot named any of themsince they were not told thattheir responses might laterbe reported in PracticalComputing.

Each dealer was asked torecommend a system tocomputerise a solicitor'soffice in which 10 peoplewould want to use thesystem: three secretarieswould be using their microsmost of the time for wordprocessing; a receptionistand a cashier would bedoing some word pro-cessing; and five lawyers would from time totime want to use spreadsheets and accessclients' files, which would be transferred onto the computer. We did not want totransfer our accounts on to computer, butwe wanted the ability to link up our accountsto the setup at a later date.

I posed as someone sent out by the boss tofind out what hardware and software wouldbe needed, and how much it would cost. Aswell as wanting to see what the dealerswould try to sell us we were interested infinding out how they would react to such afar-reaching request from an individual withno apparent experience of computing andno immediate purchasing power.

My first stop was at a small High Streetstore which sold a variety of micros,including IBM, Compaq, Olivetti andAmstrad machines. The salesman I spoke tospent about 10 minutes explaining what wecould do. His story was that the price of thesetup would be dictated by the software. Hesuggested buying a special package forsolicitors which could cost up to £10,000,depending on how many modules of thepackage we might need. He pointed outthat it would be cheaper if we bought moregeneral packages and then customised themourselves or got the dealer to do it. Trainingwould be available at an extra cost.

For the hardware he recommended thatwe buy a network. He said that this woulddiscount what he called the Amstradsolution; he claimed that Amstrads couldnot be used in a network. Instead he rec-ommended IBM-compatible equipment,

which would mean we could have a networkthat would allow us to interchange data andkeep prices down by sharing printers and soon. He was non-commital about whichmachines to plump for, saying there wasabout £50 difference between the machineson offer.

The next stop was at a slightly largerdealer where, once again, a salesman recom-mended a network and extolled the meritsof IBM. He recommended the G/ NetGateway LAN, IBM PC / ATs with an IBMPC/ ATX as a file server, a Hewlett-PackardLaserjet printer and on the software sideAshton-Tate's Multimate with a Qed 2appointment manager. The bill could come

ANINNOCENTABROAD

Carol Hammond recounts her experiences whenshe approached a number of dealers for advice on

how to computerise a typical professional office.

to £25,000, depending on how easy it was toinstall the network and whether we optedfor extras like training and tape streamers.

The salesman spent around half an hourexplaining exactly what a network was. Herecommended a network solution on thegrounds that a series of stand-alonemachines would prove more expensive andwould not allow us to share printers and soon. He also suggested that there were waysof sharing software like Lotus 1-2-3,although you were not really meant to andthat whether you actually did so was a matterof conscience.

These two dealers were typical of the moreup-market outfits I visited insofar as theytried to sell me networks. It could be that theadvent of low-cost clones has forced dealersto push IBM as the ideal network solution.Nobody explained to me that you couldcarry a disc across to another micro and haveall your printout done at once, and only twoof the more up-market dealers explainedthat you only really need a network if

The more opulent theshowrooms I visited, the

slicker the salesmenbecame and the more

elaborate and expensivetheir solutions to my

problem.

everyone has to access the same files at moreor less the same time. The IBM was beingsold very much on the strength of its provenreliability and success, though one dealerdid admit that he thought Compaqs werebetter because you got more bells andwhistles for the same price or less.

The more opulent the showrooms I visitedthe slicker the salesmen became and moreexpensive their solutions to my problem. Ifound that we could soon be expected tospend over £30,000, including training andmaintenance. The idea of Big Blue as aprofessional outfit was projected well bythe persuasive, besuited though slightlyanonymous -looking salesmen trying to sell

me its products.The message from those

selling less expensive cloneswas somewhat different. Inthe tackier surroundings ofthe busy stores I visited thestory was much more alongthe line: "Why pay two tothree times as much for anIBM when you could buy acheaper and faster IBMcompatible." These outletsdid not sport the designerlighting and elegant fittingsof the more up-marketfirms, nor would I be off-ered a seat and a cup ofcoffee. But neither werethe price tags of themachines on offer quite

so high. Of course, such dealers cannot offerthe support of the large outfits.

One salesman did try to sell me an Atari520ST complete with K -Spread spreadsheet,Trimbase database and First Word word pro-cessor. I was told the Atari's Gem operatingenvironment would make it easier to usethan an IBM PC and I would not need anytraining. Since the shop's business -computer section proffered only Ataris andthe Commodore Amiga - which he saidwas good for simple word processing,graphics and sound, but not business -there was little else he could do.

In fact one salesman went so far as tosuggest I try a couple of other dealers which,unlike his store, offered networking, so thatI could at least consider it. He was alsocareful to point out that with some of thelarger dealers we could end up paying out alot of money without knowing quite what itwas for. He recommended Word Perfect as aword processor but thought it also worththinking about the Framework integratedpackage. As far as hardware was concernedhe cited Epson and Olivetti as producinggood -quality, reliable machines, and theToshiba T-3100 as a fast and powerfulportable.

One thing I was disappointed by was thesalesmanship of the two Apple dealers Ivisited. The physical surroundings weretrendy enough, but the Apple salesmenwere casually dressed and even more casualin manner compared with the smart IBMtypes. In one shop I had to wait about fiveminutes for anyone to appear, which left me


DEALERS

wondering whether they ever lost any MacPluses or software to the voluminous rain-coats of passers-by. When I was eventuallyserved I was told to be careful of the wirechair I was about to sit on in case it snappedon me.

In the other shop the salesman could notdemonstrate the computer he was usingbecause it had been configured to work withan Arabic keyboard and now he could notget it to recognise English, so we had tomove to another machine. Neither of thesepoints is vital, but I sensed that no IBMdealer would use dodgy chairs, and that anIBM salesperson would have a slick excusewith which to whisk me off to anothermachine. It is just such trivial considerations

that help to inspire confidence and create amood of professionalism. Could this explainwhy there are not more Macs on corporatedesks?

When it came to explaining the technicalmerits of the Mac the salesmen also fell shortof my expectations. I asked what the differ-ences betwen IBM and Mac machines were,and why I should choose the Mac universe. Iwas told that the machines were based ondifferent operating systems, that the Macwas easier to use and required no training,and that it was also a matter of preference.When I enquired why the screen was black -and -white not colour I was told that thehigh -resolution screen would be much morerestful on the eyes for people doing a lot ofword processing, and that they would not

want colour because that would causeflicker. I wonder how they are going to sellthe new colour Mac.

Something most of the dealers I spoke tohad in common was an apparently poorregard for the Amstrad, which they dis-missed as only good for word processing andbest suited for home use. They all claimed tobe wary of it, and all said they had heardtales of machines being returned to the dis-tributors. One cited problems with the harddisc and others criticised the keyboard; oneeven held up a keyboard and bent it aroundto show how flimsy it was.

Most of them thought the lack of after -sales support provided by Amstrad was sus-picious. One said his firm would never stockan Amstrad machine as it was destined to gothe way of the Sinclair QL. It is hard to resistthe thought that these objections are a caseof sour grapes on the part of the dealers. Thedealer's profit margin on an Amstrad willnot be high, and the dealer is also goingto be in the front line when it comesto handling customers' complaints andqueries.

One thing that impressed me about mostof the dealers was that they took the troubleto speak to me and give me some advice.Only in one of the flashiest dealers was I toldthat no one was available to speak to me.The assistant pressed a leaflet in my handand said that I would have to make anappointment.

Another up-market dealer was ratherabrupt when I refused to give the telephonenumber or address of the firm I was meant tobe working for - my stock excuse was thatmy boss did not want salespeople ringinghim. The treatment I got after this was muchfrostier. The salesman told me he could notwork with such vague information and thatmy boss would have to come down himselfor pay a consultancy fee of £50 an hour forthe saleman to visit him.

One dealer I had chosen proved elusiveuntil a phone call revealed that the supposeddealer was in fact a computer -equipmentbroker or price monger. The man I spoke tosaid he was unable to give advice or demon-strations but suggested I went round a fewdealers, get them to demonstrate somesystems, and then come back to him for agood price on the setup which I eventuallychose. He also cited the Amstrad as beinggood value for money.

However questionable the morality of thebroker's advice may be, it certainly does payto shop around. What sort of dealer youchoose will depend as much on the size ofyour bank balance as on what you need. Up-market dealers may offer more in the way ofbackup services that will give you peace ofmind, but they may also be better equippedto convince you that you need it.

It is worth remembering that dealers areout to sell you what is in their showrooms -people do not go to a Volvo dealer and comeout with a BL car. But comparing what diff-erent dealers have to say is a good way ofhelping to make up your mind. It will costyou nothing as long as you remember toleave your cheque book at home.


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INDUSTRY TRENDS

While good ideas count, marketing clout is worth more. SteveMalone reports on how companies are joining forces to

improve their position.

HANGINGTOGETHER

Although it might be difficult tobelieve at times, manufacturers inthe data-processing industry are

willing to form alliances with other com-panies to each other's mutual benefit. Thereasons why they do this are manifold, yet inthe alliances which have been formed overthe past few years some patterns haveemerged.

The companies involved are hardly ever indirect competition with each other. Forexample, it would be hard to imagine IBMand DEC forming an alliance. Rather, theseagreements usually involve two or threedifferent companies with their own spec-ialities joining together where their interestsoverlap. Deals are sometimes struck ascompanies close ranks in the face of fiercecompetition.

One of the earliest and most successfulcombinations was formed in 1983 betweenthe U.S. communications giant AT&T andEuropean office -equipment manufacturerOlivetti. Both companies were in pretty poorshape in terms of success in the micromarket. The IBM PC was sweeping theboard, and non -compatible micros such asthe Olivetti M-20 and AT&T's 7300 werebeing trampled in the rush.

In Europe, Olivetti was among the first tobow to the inevitable and introduce acompatible micro, in the form of the M-24.Yet for the machine to be a success, Olivettialso needed a bridgehead into the U.S.market. AT&T, on the other hand, badlyneeded an IBM-compatible micro to offeralong with its, established minicomputersand data -communication services. As aresult of the Olivetti linkup AT&T is sellingthe M-24 as the 6300 series.

Bob Garrett, Marketing Manager ofOlivetti U.K., takes up the story. "Theagreement was signed in December 1983and came into effect in January 1984. Theagreement covered not just products; therewere also financial arrangements and collab-oration in the development of micros, minisand systems. The M-28 came about by com-bined developments and so did Starlan."

The results of the collaboration have beenimpressive. Garrett went on: "The 1985figures show that just under 200,000Olivetti machines have been sold in the U.S.under the AT&T name, while the figures arejust over 200,000 under the Olivetti namefor the rest of the world.

"The development of PC productsrequire greater and greater resources, so it ispreferable if costs are shared. We also haveaccess to Bell Laboratories, which isimportant for theoretical research - forchips and so on."

Although the tactical decisions to formsuch linkups may vary, the strategic purposebehind the deals can be summed up in threeletters: I B M. Compared with IBM, almostevery other company is a minnow. With thecost of new launches rising all the time,many businesses feel they have to get biggerto compete with IBM's multi -billion dollarresearch budget.

The most striking recent example of thisthinking led to theformation of Unisys fromthe union of Burroughs and Sperry. The newcompany is now reckoned to be the secondbiggest computer company in the world -much to the chagrin of DEC.

Lotus Development is another companywhich has made a series of arrangementswith other organisations. One of the bestknown has resulted in a memory -expansiontechnique to allow additional data storagewithin a Lotus spreadsheet. This becameknown as the Lotus / Intel / Microsoft Ex-panded Memory Specification (LIM EMS).

Lotus spokesman Phil Peters told us: "Wewere looking to introduce a new version ofLotus 1-2-3, which the world now knows asversion 2. We wanted the new version tocontain a bigger matrix, and rather thandevelop our own we decided to co-operatewith the chip manufacturer and theoperating -system vendor to make the spec-ification. We seem to have made the rightdecision. The LIM specification is now thebest known of all the expanded -memoryformats."

It is in the U.S. where the majority of suchalliances are made. Over the past year or so

L/We do on -goingreviews and talk to lots ofdifferent companies about

lots of different things.What becomes fruitful is

only the tip of theiceberg.

there has been a distinct move towards com-puter companies forming loose allianceswith communications businesses. A pointerto the way things are going can be seen inthe development of the U.S. market. Peoplethinking about upgrading their computersdo not just look at the software base; theyalso look at what is available in the way ofpublic databases and communications.

Lotus in its guise of a service company, hasrecently concluded a deal with U.S. elec-tronic -mail carrier MCI -Mail. The two com-panies signed an agreement to work togetheron a product called Lotus Express. The ideais that Lotus users can log into their MCImailboxes, download information and logout again. All this goes on in the back-ground so that the user can be carrying onwith something else.

While manufacturers are conscious ofwhat the market wants, there are evenbigger stakes to play for. It has been recog-nised for some time that developments haveled to the convergence of data and commun-ications technologies. The ISDN systemsappearing would seem to confirm this.

Apple made a statement of intent lastSeptember when it announced a jointventure with Northern Telecom, one ofAmerica's largest digital -communicationscorporations. The agreement provides forthe support and development of productswhich will allow Apple's Macintoshes to runon Northern Telecom's private branchexchange (PBX) systems. The NorthernTelecom PBXs work with the Mac to supportlocal area networking and email.

This move provides Apple with anopening into the American corporatemarket. Perhaps more importantly, it allowsthe Mac to communicate with machinesfrom a number of other manufacturers, in -including IBM and DEC. Mary Ainsworth ofApple told us: "This is the only deal of thiskind, but we do on -going reviews and talk tolots of different companies about lots ofdifferent things. What gets underway andbecomes fruitful is only the tip of theiceberg."

While IBM has, at least temporarily, lostits command of the corporate micro sector,there is a window of opportunity for othermanufacturers. But in order to have anyimpact even the largest companies will needto join forces. Alliances will be a feature ofthe industry for many years to come.


PROGRAMMERSAT

WORKMicrosoft has just brought out a book calledProgrammers at Work in which Susan Lammersinterviews 19 leading programmers - peopleresponsible for such programs as Lotus 1-2-3,dBase and the Postscript PDL.

We have arranged to publish some extractsfrom the book, which is nearly 400 pages longand a fascinating read. The interviewees talkabout program design, the companies they haveworked for or set up, and developments in thesoftware industry generally.

Here we concentrate on the act of program-ming itself - how the guys actually write thecode. We have edited some of the replies to fitthe more compressed format of a magazine.

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GARY KILDALLONE OF the best-known personalities in thepersonal -computer industry, Kildall dev-eloped the CP / M operating system andfounded Digital Research. He was the mainprogrammer/ designer of DR Logo, andrecently he has been working on softwareconnected with CD-ROM.

On working method: I follow very definiteprocedures which work for me, though theymay not work for other people. I start withdrawing the data structures, and I spend alot of time thinking about them. I also thinkabout what the program has to go throughbefore I start writing code.

Once the data structures are developed, Istart writing small chunks of code that Iimprove and monitor along the way.Checking them as I go assures me that thechanges I make are localised; and if I haveproblems, I discover them immediately.This whole process of iterative improvementrequires speed, so for me at least, it's veryimportant to have fast edit, execute, anddebug cycles. This method doesn't work aswell on a mainframe or a card -batch systembecause you can't make small changes andcheck them out.

I rarely use comments, except at thebeginning of procedures, and then I onlycomment on the data structure. I don'tcomment on the code itself because I feelthat properly written code is very much self -documented. Once I get the algorithmsdown, I start writing code directly on themachine. I don't even write it on a piece ofpaper before it goes into the computer; itjust doesn't seem necessary.

The actual coding process has always beena little scary for me because I don't know ifI'm writing the right code, nor do I knowwhat I'll write next. It just seems to comeout. Sometimes I realise the code's notexactly right, but I also realise intuitivelythat it will relate to something else - it willfactor out and become right even if I don'tknow exactly how at the time I'm writing it.The magical part is that, at some point, all atonce the whole thing comes together.

On working routine: My pace varies duringthe development of the program. At somepoints, the code gets explosive and I haveeverything inside my brain at one time; allthe variable names and how they relate toone another; where the pointers start andwhere they end, disc access, et cetera. Allsorts of things go on in my brain that I can'tput on paper simply because I'm alwayschanging them. I'd spend more time writingthan I would coding, and I'd never get theproject done in a reasonable amount oftime.

When the data structures are so new, theyrequire intense concentration to keep themorganised in your head. So at this point inthe process, I'll usually start at 3a.m. andwork until maybe 6p.m. Then I'll havedinner, go to bed early, get up again prettyearly in the morning, and keep banging onuntil things are calmer.


INTERVIEWS

During the calm times, when my pace ismore relaxed, I come up with solutions forthe next phase. When I'm trying to solve aproblem that has a series of steps, I takethem in order; one at a time - step A, stepB, then step C. I've tried, but I just can'twork on C until B has been completed.

Extract from John Warnock's notebook onPostscript characters.

JOHN WARNOCKTOGETHER with Chuck Geshchke, JohnWarnock developed Postscript, the page -description language used in the AppleLaserwriter and other powerful outputdevices. Postscript is at the heart of the desk-top publishing boom. Before that Warnockwas at Xerox Parc, like many of the peopleSusan Lammers interviewed.

On working method: I think a lot before I doanything, and once I do something I'm notafraid to throw it away. It's very importantthat a programmer be able to look at a pieceof code like a bad chapter of a book andscrap it without looking back. Never get tooenamoured with one idea, never hang on toanything tenaciously without being able tothrow it away when necessary; that shouldhe the programmer's attitude.

I don't know if there's a single set ofthings. Don't bind early; don't ever makedecisions earlier than you have to. Stay anorder of magnitude more general than youthink you need, because you will end upneeding it in the long term. Get somethingworking very quickly and then be able tothrow it away.

Learn from small experiments rather thanlarge ones. Don't go into a two-year dev-elopment with nothing coming out in themiddle. Have something come out every twomonths, so you can evaluate, regroup, andrestart.

Also, never make an assumption that youknow something somebody else doesn'tknow. There will always be some smart guywho will come along and figure out a betteralgorithm, or figure out an easier way of per-forming some task. One of the tricks of thetrade is to recognise this early, adopt itquickly, and exploit it without having a

"not -invented -here" hangup about doingit your way.

I once heard that any programs you writereflect the organisation in which you work.Adobe was started as a very small companywith about a half dozen people. The codewas written by a half dozen people and thestructure shows it. Certain parts belong toperson X and certain parts belong to personY, and they all have their own character andtheir own interfaces.

On the other hand, IBM is a huge organ-isation and their code is convoluted, withself feedbacks and different strategies thatreflect separate divisions of the company. Afairly standard rule is that if you want tokeep something simple, then the organ-isation that develops it has to be simple.

CHARLES SIMONYICHARLES SIMONYI is the man responsiblefor Multiplan, and the main pro-grammer/designer on Microsoft Word andExcel. Before joining Microsoft Simonyiworked at Xerox Parc, where he developedan innovative text editor called Bravo.Simonyi is by origin a Hungarian.

On working method: The first step in pro-gramming is imagining. Just making itcrystal clear in my mind what is going tohappen. In this initial stage I use paper andpencil. I just doodle, I don't write code. Imight draw a few boxes or a few arrows, butit's just mostly doodles, because the realpicture is in my mind. I like to imagine thestructures that are being maintained, thestructures that represent the reality I want tocode.

Once I have the structure fairly firm andclear in my mind, then I write the code. I sitdown at my terminal - or with a piece ofpaper in the old days - and write it. It'sfairly easy. I just write the different trans-formations and I know what the resultsshould be. The code for the most part writesitself, but it's the data structures I maintainthat are the key. They come first and I keepthem in my mind throughout the entireprocess.

The knowledge of the best algorithms isthe science, and the imagining of the struc-ture is the art.

On readability: All the code that I havewritten since about 1972 has been writtenwith certain naming conventions that arepopularly called "Hungarian". You canimmediately recognise all the code that hasbeen written under my influence, includingMicrosoft Word and Multiplan, Bravo, andmany others written with those conventions.

It's called "Hungarian" as a joke. Thejoke is that the program looks so unread.able, it might as well be written inHungarian. But it's a set of conventions thatcontrols the naming of all quantities in theprogram.

If you were to break up a program, put itinto a grinder, and then sort the pieces, youwould find that the bulk of the program is innames. If you just write, "apples +

oranges" , the name "apples" is six char-acters, the operation " + " is one character,the name "oranges" is seven characters, fora total of 14 characters. Only one character,the plus sign, had to do with the operation.So to me it seemed logical that to make animpact or improve things, I would try toimprove the greatest bulk - and that wasthe names. "Hungarian" is a way of almostautomatically creating a name from the pro-perties of the named quantity. So if youhave a structure with certain properties,instead of giving it some arbitrary name andthen having everybody learn the association,between the name and the properties, you'use the properties themselves as the name.

On clean listings: I think the listing gives thesame sort of pleasure that you get from aclean home. You can just tell with a glance ifthings are messy - if garbage and unwasheddishes are lying about - or if things arereally clean. It may not mean much. Justbecause a house is clean, it might still be aden of iniquity! But it is an important firstimpression and it does say something aboutthe program. I'll bet you that from 10 feetaway I can tell if a program is bad. I mightnot guarantee that it is good, but if it looksbad from 10 feet, I can guarantee you that itwasn't written with care. And if it wasn'twritten with care, it's probably not beautifulin the logical sense.

But suppose it looks good. You then pickdeeper. To understand the structure of a


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INTERVIEWS


program is much, much harder: somepeople have different opinions about whatmakes the structure beautiful. There arepurists who think only structured pro-gramming with certain very simple con-structions, used in a very strict mathematicalfashion, is beautiful. That was a very reason-able reaction to the situation before thesixties, when programmers were unaware ofthe notion of structuring.

JOHN PAGE

PAGE is the only one of Susan Lammers'interviewees who is British, although he isnow based in the U.S. Page wrote PFS Fileand was one of the founders of SoftwarePublishing Corporation.

On working method: I sit down and workout what I want the program to do. Then Imentally map out the components. I tend tozoom in first on the pieces where I think I'vegot problems and try to understand them.This looks hard, that looks hard and theseother pieces are just normal files and oldhash tables. Once I've dealt with the hardparts in isolation - maybe by writing a littleprogram just to prove out some theory - Ihave a level of confidence about the wholeprogram. I have pieces that are either a pieceof cake or very difficult, but I know how I'mgoing to handle them all. Then I can goabout structuring the program before I startimplementing it.

I have to believe that what I want to do isachievable, otherwise I can be very dis-tracted. I've seen some immature pro-grammers who are so frightened aboutreaching the end goal, they just zoom in onsome piece of the program and just startwriting. They back into the program from arelatively minor position.

Once I've sketched the structure, I workon each piece in turn and define the inter-faces between them. I don't like to have anagging feeling that I'm designing some-thing but don't know if a crucial componentcan be built. It gives me the willies, stops mefrom having the confidence level to proceedvigorously on the project.

When I went back to programming [aftera period in management at Hewlett-Packard] I was forced to rely purely onmyself. That was a shocker. It was kind offrightening - I wondered if I could stillwrite programs. But it's like riding a bike -you don't ever forget; you just pedal off intothe sunset.

On working routine: You have to say to allyour relatives, "Look, I'm going to be gonefrom six to nine months. I'll be here phys-ically, but I might as well not be. I'm goingto be working on this thing and I'll beabsent-minded. I want you to understandand tolerate that and I promise to make it upto you when I get to the other end." If youhave loved ones it's important to comethrough on that promise. Working so hardcan be devastating to your marriage and toother relationships.

On concentration: You constantly try tohold the state of the entire system you'reworking on in your head. If you lose themental image, it takes a long time to getback into that state. It's like being an air-traffic controller who has nine planes in hismind and knows exactly where they're allgoing. Distract him by asking him when hisshift is over and he loses those planes. Inprogramming, a big complicated model isvery efficient once you're in the groove. Ifyou get out of it, you've got to work on itquite a while to get back in.

C WAYNE RATLIFF

RATLIFF wrote dBase H, which was orig-inally called Vulcan. At first Ratliff sold theprogram by mail order on his own, but helater came to a marketing agreement withGeorge Tate and joined Ashton-Tate.Ratliff was the main programmer/ designeron dBase

On working method: I do a lot of changing.I like to make an analogy between writingcode and sculpting a clay figure. You startwith a lump of clay and then you scrapeaway, add more clay, then scrape awayagain. And every now and then you decidethat a leg doesn't look right, so you tear itoff and put a new one on. There's a lot ofinteraction.

The ideal module should be a page long.If it grows beyond a page, I have to decide,now what is it I'm doing here? How manyseparate things am I working on? Shouldthey be broken down into separate modules?Part of the elegance, and the balance, is thatat a certain level, in this layer -cake hierarchyof a program, all the modules should beabout the same weight, same size, sameduty, and same functionality.

When you have a good balance theprogram becomes maintainable. It's asthough you've discovered some basicphysical underlying principle and im-plemented it. When things get really out ofbalance, you know something is wrong.There's probably some inherent fault thatmakes it out of balance. Generally, when Iget this feeling that something's out ofwhack when one module is just too big, Ithink about what I'm doing, and I reorientor rejuggle the pieces.

On the appeal of programming: A programis a lot of fun at the very beginning, whenyou first have ideas about what it can do.Those ideas grow very rapidly. You havesome little spark, and then you keep tackingother capabilities on to it. When thateuphoria fades and you have to start coding,it gets tough.

The moment of programming I enjoy thevery most is when I get something almostcomplete. I try it for the first time, it failsmiserably, and it continues to fail untilabout the 100th time, when it does prettygood. There's a peak experience there,because then I know I've got it. I just have toapply a little more elbow grease to weed outthe rest of the bugs.

JONATHAN SACHS

SACHS is the man who wrote Lotus 1-2-3.Together with Mitch Kapor, who was moreon the marketing side, he set up Lotus, nowthe biggest micro software house -by ahair's breadth ahead of Microsoft. In 1984he left Lotus to develop software independ-ently. Manuscript, which we review nextmonth, is his first major product under thenew setup.

On working method: First, I start out with abasic framework, which I keep adding to.Also, I try not to use many fancy features in alanguage or a program. For example, thetext editor I use is a derivative of one I wroteat MIT 15 years ago. It has only a few simplecommands, but it has everything that I

need. It's written in C now, so I take it withme on every new machine. I don't like usingany tools or programs I didn't write myselfor that I don't have some control over. Thatway if I don't like some part, I can change it.

Some people are very good at optimisingevery instruction. They can make one littlepiece of code extremely tight. At the otherend, some people think only about the algo-rithm and the actual implementation. I'msomewhere in the middle. I'm not that goodat writing extremely tight code. I've foundover the years that if you write that way,every time you have to make a change, youhave to unravel the whole program and writeit over again. But if you back off just a bit,and code very tightly few spotswhere it's important, it's a lot easier tomaintain the program once you've finishedit.

The methodology we used to develop1-2-3 had a lot to do with the success of theproduct. For instance, 1-2-3 began with aworking program, and it continued to be aworking program throughout its dev-elopment. I worked largely in isolation atthe time. I had an office in Hopkinton,where I lived at the time, and I came to theoffice about once a week and brought in anew version. I fixed any bugs immediately inthe next version.

This was the exact opposite of thestandard method for developing a bigprogram, where you spend a lot of time andwork up a functional spec, do a modulardecomposition, give each piece to a bunchof people, and integrate the pieces whenthey're all done. The problem with thatmethod is you don't get a working programuntil the very end. If you know exactly whatyou want to do, that method is fine. Butwhen you're doing something new, all kindsof problems crop up that you just don'tanticipate. In any case, our method meantthat once we had reached a certain point inthe development, we could ship if wewanted to. The program may not have hadall the features, but we knew it would work.

These extracts have been taken fromProgrammers at Work by Susan Lammers,published by Microsoft Press,ISBN 0 914845 71 3. It is distributed in theU.K. by Penguin Books, price £12.95.

80PRACTICAL COMPUTING April 1987

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WHO'S GOT THEAUTOMATIC T -SWITCH?

For several years manual data switches haveestablished themselves as a cost effective item inthe time they save in reconfiguration, simply bythe rotation or pushing of a switch.

However, with the autoswitch, once connectedyou need never touch it again.

Autoswitch has the ability to connect severaldata sources up to two printers or a number ofterminals to a modem etc.

Switching is obtained either on a demand basis(first come, first served) or a simple typedinstruction directly from your PC's keyboard orembedded in the print data to select whichperipheral you require to use.

When using autoswitch with several PC'ssharing a common peripheral an in-built 10second time-out feature prevents users fromattempting access at the same time, with theability to scan an entire system 10 times persecond.

The reliability of solid state circuitry and foraround the price you would expect to pay for amanual switch. Why get left behind!

Available in RS232 or centronics versions.

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INTERFACE SYSTEMS, OF COURSE.PRICES FROM £120

Price quoted excludes VAT

Interface Systems Unit 11 Conqueror Industrial Estate Moorhurst Road Castleham Hastings SussexTel: (0424) 52682 Telex: 265871 (MONREF G) Quote Ref 83: CRD 0038

Available from:Farnell Electronic ComponentsCanal RoadLeeds LS12 2TUTel: (0532) 636311

Clwyd Technology LtdHambro HouseVinters PlaceLondon EC4V 3BATel: 01-236 1543

A > Line DataspeedDevices Ltd3 Auburn Road, BlabyLeicester LE8 3DRTel: (0533) 778724

NorthamberUnit B5, Lion Park AvenueChessingtonSurrey KT9 1FTTel: 01-391 2066

circle 137 on enquiry cardPRACTICAL COMPUTING March 1987

TECHNOLOGY SO ADVANCED...MEMORY 512Kbytes RAM (520ST-M, FM) 1024Kbytes RAM (1040ST-F) 192Kbytes ROM 128Kbytes external plug-in ROM option

ARCHITECTURE Motorola 68000 Central ProcessingUnit (CPU) with a clock speed of 8MHz

16 -bit external data bus 32 -bit intemal data bus 24 -bit address bus 8.32 -bit data & address registers 7 levels of interrupts 56 instructions 14 addressing modes 5 data types DMA (Direct Memory Access) real time clock as standard

GRAPHICSfull bit -mapped display palette of 512 coloursUsing Atari Monitory (on 520 & 10401: 640.400 high resolution - monochrome 640.200 medium resolution - 4 colours 320..200 low resolution - 16 colours 80 column text display (40 col low mu)Using Domestic TV (on 520).- 640x200 medium resolution -4 colours 320.200 low resolution - 16 colours 40 columns x 25 line text display

SOUND AND MUSIC 3 programmable sound channels frequency programmable 30Hz - 125KHz programmable volume wave 6 dynamic envelope shaping programmable attack, decay, sustain. release Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) MIDI allows connection of synthesisers etc.

MOUSE high precision 2 button control free with 520ST-FM/10405T-F non slip ball motion sensor removable ball for easy cleaning

STANDARD SOFTWARE GEM desktop 0 TOS operating system ST BASIC Interpreter/language system

imputiourpin- MIDI out .. (5 pin DIN) 31.25K baud MIDI in (5 pin DIN) 31.25K baud audio out . 1.0V DC peak to peak, 10K ohm audio in ... 10V DC peak to peak, 10K ohm RGB monitor 1.0V DC, 75 ohm mono monitor . 1.0V DC, 75 ohm mono horizontal scan rate 35.7KHz mono vertical scan rate .. . ... 71.2KHz sync 5V DC (active low) 3.3K ohm modem/serial RS232C, 50 to 19,200 baud floppy disk hard disk

250 Kbitsis11.3 A4bits/s

mouse standard Atari connectorstandard Atari connector

joystickcartridge port 128K capacity RF output (520ST-FM) for TV use

OPERATING SYSTEM TOS wiM GEM environment in ROM hierarchical file structure with

sub -directories and path names user interface via GEM, with self

explanatory command functions multiple windows + icons window resizing, re -positioning and erasing drop down menus (selected by mouse) GEM virtual device interface

COMMUNICATIONS RS -232C aerial modem port 8 -bit parallel printer port MIDI port (also for networking use) V752 terminal emulation

KEYBOARD standard OWERTY typewriter format 95 full stroke keys 10 function keys 18 key numeric keypad cursor keys variable auto -repeat & key click response keyboard processor reduces CPU overhead

IT'ONLY FROM SILICAFinally, there's a personal computer that not only solves problems like other computers, but also solvesthe one problem that other computers have created. Affordability. Silica Shop are pleased to present theST range of personal/business computers from Atari. The ST was designed utilizing the most recentbreakthroughs in semiconductor technology, producing a personal computer that performs tasks withfewer parts. Which means it costs less to make. And less to buy. The latest ST computers now includebuilt in power supplies and built in disk drives. The TOS operating system end GEM window environmentare now on ROM chips which are already installed in the ST keyboard. This enables automatic instantbooting when you switch on. Silica Shop are pleased to offer the complete Atari ST range. Our mail orderdepartment is situated in Sidcup and we have 4 retail outlets at Sidcup, Orpington, Lion House(Tottenham Court Rd) and Selfridges (Oxford Street). We have eight years experience of Atari products.longer than any other UK company, and are well established as the UK's No.1 Atari specialist. With agroup turnover of over £5 million and in excess of 70 staff. we provide unbeatable service and support. Weprovide several facilities which you will find invaluable during your Atari computing life and most of thesefacilities are available ONLY FROM SILICA. We suggest that you read through what we have to offer.before you decide where to purchase your Atari ST.

FREE STARTER KIT - Only From SilicaWhen you purchase any Atari ST keyboard, you will:not only receive the best value tor money computeron the market, but you will also receive the following from Atari Corporation as part of the package

' BASIC Language Disk ' BASIC Manual ' ST Owners Manual TOS/GEM on ROMIf you buy your ST from Silica Shop, you will also receive.

NEOchrome - colour graphics program 'lst Word - Word ProcessorIn addition, we at Silica would like to see you get off to a flying start with your new computer, so we haveput together a special ST STARTER KIT worth over 61 00, which we are giving away FREE OF CHARGEwith every ST computer purchased at our normal retail prices. This kit is available ONLY FROM SILICAand 4 aimed at providing users with a valuable introduction to the world of computing. We are continuallyupgrading the ST Starter Kit, which contains public domain and other licensed software. as well as books.magazines and accessories all relevant to ST computing. Return the coupon below for full details.

DEDICATED SERVICING - Only From SilicaAt Silica Shop, we have a dedicated service department of five full time Atari trained technical staff. Thisteem is totally dedicated to servicing Atari computer products. Their accumulated knowledge, skill andexperience makes them second to none in their field. You can be sure that any work carried out by themis of the highest standard. A standard of servicing which we believe you will find ONLY FROM SILICA. Inaddition to providing full servicing facilities for Atari ST computers (both in and out of warranty), ourteam is also able to offer memory and modulator upgrades to ST computers.1Mb RAM UPGRADE: Our upgrade on the standard Atari 520ST-M or 520ST-FM keyboard willincrease the memory from 512K to a massive 1024K. It has a full 1 year warranty and is available fromSilica at an additional retail price of only £88.96 (=VAT = 6100).TV MODULATOR UPGRADE: Silica can upgrade the 1040ST-F to include a TV modulator sothat you can then use it with your TV set. This is an internal upgrade and does not involve any untidyexternal boxes. A cable to connect your ST to any domestic TV is included in the price of the upgradewhich is only £49 (inc VAT). The upgrade is also available for early 520ST computers at the same price.

THE FULL STOCK RANGE - Only From SilicaWe aim to keep stocks of all Atari related products and our warehouse carries a stock of E'h million. Weimport many software titles direct from the USA and you will find that we have new releases in advance ofmany of our competitors. Unlike dealers who may only stock selected titles, we have the full range. Inaddition, we carry a complete line of all books which have been written about the Atari ST. A range aswide as ours is something you will find is available ONLY FROM SILICA.

AFTER SALES SUPPORT - Only From SilicaRest assured that when you buy your ST from Silica Shop, you will be fully supported. Our free mailingsgive news of releases and developments. This will help to keep you fully up to date with what's happeningin the Atari market. And in addition, our sales staff are at the end of a telephone line to service all of yourAtari requirements. If you purchase an ST from Silica and would like any programming or technicaladvice, we have a full time technical support team to help you get the best from your computer. Becausewe have both the staff and the systems specifically dedicated to providing after sales service on Atari STcomputers, we are confident that our users enjoy an exceptionally high level of support. This can bereceived ONLY FROM SILICA.

FREE CATALOGUES - Only From SilicaAt Silica Shop, we recognise that serious users require an in-depth information service, which is why wemail free newsletters and price lists to our ST owners. These are up to 48 pages long and are crammedwith technical details as well as special offers and product descriptions. If you have already purchased anST and would like to have your name added to our mailing list, please complete the coupon 8 return it tous. The information service is available ONLY FROM SILICA.

FREE OVERNIGHT DELIVERY - From SilicaMost orders are processed through our computer within 24 hours of receiving them. Most hardwareorders are sent by the overnight METRO courier service FREE OF CHARGE to customers within the UK.This method helps to ensure minimum delay and maximum protection.

PRICE MATCH - Only From SilicaWe hope that the combination of our low prices, FREE UK delivery service, FREE Starter Kit and FREEafter sales support, will be enough to make you buy your Atari equipment from Silica Shop. If however,there is something you wish to purchase, and you find one of our competitors offering it at a lower price,then please contact our sales department, providing us with our competitor's name, address andtelephone number. If our competitor has the goods in stock, we will normally match the offer (on a 'sameproduct - same price' basis) and still provide yqu with our normal free delivery. We realise that we are notthe only company who will match a competitor's price. However, if you come to us for a price match, youwill also De entitled to our after sales service, including free newsletters and technical support. This

Lmekes our price match promise rather special, something you will receive ONLY FROM SILICA. We don'twant you to go anywhere else for your Atari products. So shop at Silica, the UK's Not Atari Specialist.

rSIDCUP (& Mail Order) 01-309 111111-4 The Mews, Hatherley Road, Sidcup, Kent, DA14 4DX

LONDON 01-580 4839Lion House (1st floor), 227 Tottenham Court Rd, London, W1

LONDON 01-629 1234 ext 3677L Selfridges (1st floor), Oxford Street, London, W1A lAB

AFF NIMBLEThe affordability of At ad computers is reflected In the price of the520ST-M keyboard, which is a mere 6259 (inc VAT). This version ofthe ST comes with 512K RAM, as well as a modulator and lead fordirect connection to any domestic TV. The price does not include amouse. In addition, when you buy your 520ST-M from Silica, youwill also receive the FREE Silica 'ST Starter Kit'. During 1987, manysoftware houses will be producing games software on ROM cart-ridges, which will plug directly into the cartridge slot on the 520ST-M keyboard, giving instant loading 'without the expense of purchasinga disk drive, With the enormous power of the ST, you can expectsome excellent titles to be produced. making this the ultimate gamesmachine! If your requirement is fora terminal, then the 520ST-M canfulfill this role too. Leads are available to connect the ST to a varietyof monitors, and with the imminent introduction of terminal aoftwareon ROM cartridge, the ST provides a low price terminal for businessuse. If you wish to take advantage of the massive range of disksoftware available for the ST range, you will need to purchase a diskdrive. Atari have two floppy disk drives available, a ,h Mbyte model£149 and a 1Mbyte model £199. Full details of these drives, as wellas the Atari 20Mbyte herd disk are available on request. If requiredat a later date, the mouse may be purchased separately.

520ST-FMThe 520ST-FM with 512K RAM and free mouse, represents a furtherbreakthrough by Atari Corporation in the world of high power, lowcost personal computing. This model is the latest addition to the STfamily, and is not only powerful, but compact. It is priced at only£399 (Inc VAT) a level which brings it within the roach of a wholenew generation of computer enthusiasts. When purchased from us,it comes with the FREE Silica 'ST Starter Kit' see paragraph on theleft. To make the 520ST-FM ready for use straight away, Atari havebuilt into the keyboard a ih megabyte disk drive for informationstorage and retrieval, allowing you easy access to the massive rangeof disk based software which is available for the ST. This newcomputer comes with all the correct cables and connections you willneed to plug it straight into any standard domestic television set.You do not therefore have to purchase an Atari monitor. If you dorequire a monitor however, these are available with the 520ST in thefollowing money saving packages:

520ST-FM Keyboard Without Monitor - 099 (inc VAT)520ST-FM Keyboard t High res mono monitor - 6409 (Inc VAT)520ST-FM Keyboard t Low ms colour monitor - £598 (Inc VAT)520ST-FM Keyboard v Med res colour monitor - (inc VAT)

Because the 520ST-FM has its own power transformer built into thekeyboard, there are no messy external adaptors to clutter up yourdesk space. You are left with only one mains lead, serving both thedisk drive and the computer. You couldn't ask for a more stylish andcompact unit.

E399A

rFor the businessman and the more serious home user, Atari havetheir most powerful model, the 1040ST-F with 1028K RAM. This lowcost powerhouse can be introduced into a business environment asa stand-alone system, or can support a mainframe computer as aterminal. The 1040ST-F not only features twice as much memory asthe 520ST-FM. but also includes a more powerful built-in disk drive.The drive featured on the 1040ST-F is a one megabyte double sidedmodel. The extra memory facility of the 1040ST-F makes it ideal forapplications such as large databases or spreadsheets. Like the520ST-FM, the 10405T -F has a mains transformer built into theconsole to give a compact and stylish unit with only one mains lead.The 1040ST-F is also supplied from Silica Shop with a free softwarepackage and 'ST STARTER KIT'. In the USA. the 1040ST-F has beensold with a TV modulator like the 520ST-FM. However, for the UKmarket, Atari are manufacturing the 1040ST-F solely with businessuse in mind and it does not currently include an RF modulator, thismeans that you cannot use It with a domestic TV (Silica Shop dooffer a modulator upgrade for only £49). The 1040ST-F keyboardcosts only 6599 (inc VAT) and, unless a modulatorupgrade is fitted, will require en Atari or third party monitor. Thereare three Atari monitors available and the prices for the 1040 withthese monitors are as follows:1040ST-F Keyboard Without Monitor - 6569 (inc VAT)1040.ST-F Keyboard High me mono monitor - 6699 (inc VAT)1040ST-F Keyboard Low res col monitor - VW (Inc VAT)104047-F Keyboard t Med res col monitor - E896 (inc VAT)The 1040ST-F comes with a mouse controller and includes 1Mbyteof RAM. It has a 1Mbyte double sided disk drive and mains trans-former, both built into the keyboard to give a compact and stylishunit, with only one mains lead.

90104,

ATARI

411111 MI OM IN NM INN NM MI I= MIN MI IMO 1=1 II*To: Silica Shop Ltd, Dept PC 0487, 1-4 The Mews, Hatherley Road, Sidcup, Kent, DA14 4DX

I PLEASE SEND ME FREE LITERATURE ON THE ATARI ST Mr/Mrs/Ms Initials: Surname:

Address:

Postcode:IDo you already own compuier

If so, which one do you own?

4IN so om El mi mi um IN um um>*0

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UTILITIESO 66 GINACO54 polished routines writ-ten in basic for any beginner or experts.0 133 ULTRA -UTILITIES 4.0 recoverlost files, modify sectors, etc.O 245 ULTRA -UTILITIES FILES UNS-QUEEZED.O 405 PC-DESKMATES Better than allof the rest of the memory residentdesktop utilities.O 273 BEST UTILITIES All of the mostrequested utilities on one disk.O 478 HARD DISK UTILITIES A collec-tion of the best in the library.O 414 UNPROTECT Various routines todisconnect protection schemes.O 376 PATCHES make back up copiesof some of the most popular commercialprogrammes with this collection.El 507 PC -SPRINT Software and in-struction on how to cheaply speed upyour system 2-3 times.

EDUCATIONE 403 PC -TUTORIAL A great introduc-tion to DOS. 105 PC -PROFESSOR Learn Basic theeasy way. One of the best tutorials onBASIC. 254 PC -DOS HELP type "help" forthe DOS command you forgot.5 320 TOUCH-TYPE Advanced typetutor.

WORD PROCESSORSE 78 PC -Write 2.4 a fully featured wordpi ocessor.5 415 W -ED LETTERWRITER WordProcessor -editor. Controls letter processing.5 480 PC -OUTLINE Outline and organiseinformation, much like Thinktank.

DATABASE PROGRAMMES5 5 PC FILE III most popular databaseprogram.O 398 ESIE EXPERT SYSTEM Artificialintelligence shell to build a custom knowledge -base. 503 RELIANCE MAILING LIST Keepstrack of multiple lists, sorts and prints byspecific group - good for custom mailing.

FINANCIAL PROGRAMMESO 423 PROJECT MANAGEMENT handles

over 1,000 tasks with CPM[01 430-431-432 ANALYTICALC DISKS 13)Complete spreadsheet, database, graphics,word processor- fast!

COMMUNICATIONS0212-334-621-622 RBBS 14.1 A bulletinboard classic. 14 disks)L 310 QMODEM the fastestcommunications programs you can buy at anyprice.

O 493 PROCOMM Communications withXMODEM, KERMIT, ASCII protocols,supports, IBM -3101, DEC VT52/103, ADM -3and ANSI.MANY GAMES AVAILABLEDEALER ENQUIRIES WELCOME

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GRAPHICSE 344-345 PC -KEY DRAW A ColourGraphics system. Lots of demonstration files.Li 418 PC -GRAPH Allows user to creategraphics from PC -File report files.

MATHS AND STATISTICSE 89 EPISTAT 3.0 Statistical analysis ofsmall to medium-sized data samples.El 508-503 STATISTICS TOOLS Factorexperiments, "FORGET -IT" plots,simultaneous confidence intervals,randomisation tests, expected mean squares.

LANGUAGESEl 148 XUSP 1.4 Lisp language interpreter.

417 PROLOG VERSION 1.7 Completewith editor and documentation. 409, 410 SNOCREST BASIC two diskset. Real basic interpreter. Can be used with amulti-user system.El 424 PASCAL COMPILER Written in

Turbo Pascal.0! 510 VISIBLE PASCAL COMPILERLearn to programme PASCAL

SPREADSHEETSE 199 PC-CALC Fabulous 123 work -a -likefrom the author of PC-File.E 406 FINANCIAL PROGRAM LotusworksheetE 301-303 Lotus financial and budgetingapplications 13 disk set)

LATEST ADDITIONS0, 522 INSTANT RECALL memory resi-dent programme that stores and retrievesa wealth of information.E 523 SIDE WRITER Print your largespreadsheets sideways on the printer.5 528 NEW YORK WORD The mostpowerful wordprocessor we have; all thestandard features plus automatic index-ing, table of contents and foot -noting.E 568 PC -PROMPT Memory residenthelper for DOS command and syntax. 576 PC:TICKLE The perfect reminderfor appointments and 'thing to do' list.5 577, 578 C TUTOR Perfect for thosewanting to programme in C.5579, 580 PASCAL TUTOR Learn toprogramme in PASCAL in the convenien-cy of your own home.C 598 DISKTOOL Like Norton's;recover erased files, -or fix darnadged files.E 838 AUTOMENU Create professionalmenus, without all the hassle.5 611 BLACKBEARD Theprogrammer's editor for writing code in

PASCAL, C, or FORTRAN.

CI QUICK START EVERYTHINGFOR THE NEW USER, includes

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USER GROUP ENQUIRIESWELCOME

MEMBERSHIP. AVAILABLE0007

New MULTI-USERINTEGRATED ACCOUNTS PROGRAM

Just £99.00 + VATMULTI-USER MICROLEDGER II

Written by accountants!

For Amstrad PC1512, IBM PC, IBM AT, Apricot, Apple, Jarogate Sprite, Ferranti,most IBM compatibles 16 bit, MS-DOS/PC-DOS computers in fact most multi-user, single user and networked systems including 8 bit CPM+ machines.

Not a cheap cutdown. But an extremely powerful British accounts program tried and proven in 100'sof sites and used as a teaching standard by leading computer training establishments. Built in file andrecord locking. Easy to use and configure. Menu driven throughout. 80 column printer only required.Plain or headed paper.[ ] Sales and Purchase Ledgers: Up to 1000 accounts each; open item, auto and manual cashmatching with balance forward; printed batch numbered audit trail. Auto vat. Any time reportsinclude statements, remittance advices, debtor & creditor year to date. Rapid screen enquiry. Autoupdates nominal ledger.

[ Nominal ledger: Analyse the business completely. Up to 250 accounts; Powerful analysis of userselected accounts such as job number, sales area etc. Anytime reports (with optional accruals andprepayments) include trial balance, profit & loss, balance sheet, vat, individual nominal accounts.Data to disk capability for spreadsheet, wp or database analysis.[ ] Complete cash book and analysis including petty cash program!An extra £47.00 + vat buys Multi -User Microledger II+ Sales invoicer and stock control.[ ] MultI-User Sales invoicer & Separate uncoated delivery notes: A must for telesales!Immaculately produced on plain or headed paper linked to sales ledger and stock control olus free nonstock items. Gross profit per invoice; optional invoice discount, carriage and variable vat rates.Separate delivery.[1 Stock control: Automatic adjustment. Up to 1000 items. Management & valuation reports show,sales pricing, unit year to date and period sales with individual item movements and gross profitcontributions. 2 sale prices allowed.[ I Demonstration Disk L10.00 + vat (refundable against order). Try before you buy! Please send cheque with computersystem details.

[IA tall length training video is available of the entire program as an additional aid to the comprehensive manual. f 15.00+ Vat.

MULTI-USER MICROLEDGER IIFrom: Data Marketing Limited

18 Cardiff Road, Luton, Beds. LU1 1PP, UKTel: (0582) 458806. Telex: 946240 (Quoting Ref: 19011700)

Dealer & Export Enquiries WelcomedAvailable soon in Arabic and other languages.ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED

All software and hardware mentioned are covered bytrademarks of the companies of origin.


MANUAL & AUTOMATIC DATASWITCHES AND BUFFERSFULL TWELVE MONTHS GUARANTEE

"PRINTERSHARER" Several Micros to one Printer"PRINTERCHANGER" one Micro to. several Printers"PRINTERCROSSOVER" Two Micros to two Printers

PARALLEL PRINTERSHARERSOLID ANUAL SR23X

Model Pins Ways Price R432XBPS3 26 3 £60 SR29XBPS3C WITH INTERLINKS £75 SR2CXBPS6 26 6 £110BPS6C WITH INTERLINKS £140APS2 36 2 £75APS3 36 3 £85 PB64IPS2 25D(IBM) 2 £70 PB64-2IPS3 2513(IBM) 3 £80 BF64U

BF64DPARALLEL PRINTERCHAROER

SOLID STATE MANUAL PB256BPC3 26APC2 36 2 £75APC3 36 3 £85IPC2 25D(IBM) 2 £70IPC3 25D(IBM) 3 £80

SERIAL PRINTE AAAAA ER/CHANGERSR232 250 2 way £55SR233 25D 3 way £65SR234 250 4 way £75SR43 5DIN(BBC) 3 way £40SR292 9D(Mac) 2 way £52SR293 9D(Mac) '3 way £59SR2C 5DIN(//c) 3 way £40

AUTOMATIC PRINTERSHARERAPS2A Parallel 36 pin 2 way £110APS3A Parallel 36 pin 3 way £115IPS2A Parallel 25D(IBM) 2 way £95IPS3A Parallel 25D(IBM) 3 way £110SR234A Serial 25D 4 way £245

LEL PRINTERCROSSOVERSOLID STATE MANUAL

BPX 26 2X2 £70APX 36 2X2 £95IPX 25D(IBM) 2X2 £85

SERIAL PRINTERCROSSOVERSerial RS232 -25DSerial 5 pin DIN9 Pin D. (Mac)5 Pin DIN (//c)

:7

£70£45£62£45

LEL PRINTER BUFFER/SHARERInput OutputParallel Parallel 64K £140Above with 2 way switch £185Universal -64K expandable £220Parallel Parallel 64Kexpandable with 2 printer ports £249Parallel Parallel 256K £190

PB256-2 Parallel Parallel 256Kwith 2 way switch £235

MULTIPORT BUFFERSBF64MD-PP 4 Parallel input

2 parallel outputwith 256K buffer £345

BF64MD-4S 4 Serial input2 Serial outputwith 256k buffer £415

ACCESSORIESKSM101 Serial to Parallel

Converter with PSUKSM104 Parallel to Serial

Converter with PSUKSM108 Dataflow Booster

Centronics withPUSKSM109 Dataflow Booster

Serial RS232 -V24 with PSUKSM110 Multi -Link Serial

Switch Selectable Cable

CABLES (BM Long)KPC104R Ribbon cable 36 pin -36 pinKPC104F Flex cable 36 pin -36 pinKPC105 Flex for IBM 25 pin -36 pinKPC106 Flex (25 lines) 25 pin -25 pinKPC101 Flex (12 lines) 25 pin -25 pin

£65

£70

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NETWORKINGSYSTEMS HAVEHITHERTOBEEN A FREE-FOR-ALL OFINCOMPATIBLECOMPETINGPRODUCTS,BUTSTANDARDSARE NOWBEGINNINGTO EMERGE.STEVEMALONEEXPLAINSWHAT THEYARE ANDHOW THEYWORK.

THENETWORK

EFFECTSales of networks are booming. Largecorporations are connecting their PCstogether at a great rate, making this one ofthe major growth areas in information -technology investment. Much of thecurrent interest in networking is un-

doubtedly due to the City's Big Bang last year.Businesses needed to be able to connect with the StockExchange databases and were prepared to spend moneyon the terminals and cabling required.

Investment in this kind of technology has been adecisive step in the development of networking systems.Not so long ago, the prime reason given for officenetworking was resource sharing, but this is no longerthe case. Now the prime consideration when buying anetwork is for fast and efficient communicationbetween employees and information sources outside thecompany.

The explosion in the popularity of LANs is also aresult of the gradual, albeit piecemeal, emergence of acredible standard. This has allowed software houses todevelop programs to a single network configuration,rather than having to write drivers for a dozen differentnetworks. Meanwhile, purchasers have developedsufficient confidence in the nascent standards to investin the technology.

The principle behind current standardisationmovements is the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI)model. It has been adopted by the majority of nationalstandards governing bodies, and is backed by theInternational Standards Organisation (ISO). Countriesthroughout Western Europe, as well as the U.S. andJapan, have all adopted the OSI model as the basisfor network communications. While a completeimplementation of the OSI model is some way off, it isthe eventual goal worldwide.

The second major advance towards a networkingstandard occurred in 1984 when IBM and Microsoftunveiled the first components of their joint strategy.The two legs on which IBM PC networks are constructedwere MS-DOS 3.0 and the Net BIOS hardwareinterface.

DOS 3.0 was the first version of the operating systemto contain networking primitives, and as it was releasedIBM announced the PC -Network Program - aproprietary version of MS -Net - which contained NetBIOS. IBM has declared Net BIOS to be the basisaround which all future PC networking systems will bedeveloped. It is fitting Net BIOS in ROM within thePC -Network, and has subsequently adopted Net BIOSemulation for its Token Ring network.

The emergence of these standards has not come amoment too soon. Corporations with an eye to thefuture are having their new office blocks built withnetwork cabling and access points built-in. The systemsare there and increasingly the user base is there. All thatis required is for the software houses to come up with theapplications.

THESEVEN -LAYERMODEL

The OSI model does not attempt to define what thecomponents of a network should be. It simply sets outthe way the various parts of the network should fittogether. It divides a network into seven layers. The top-most layer - the one the end -user sees - is layer 7,called the Application layer. It is connected in turn tothe Presentation layer, the Session layer, the Transportlayer, the Network layer, the Data Link layer, andfinally, at the deepest level to layer 1, the Physical layer.

The OSI model defines a standard interface betweeneach layer and the layers above and below it. The modeldoes not much care what goes on within the layer as longas it presents the right face to its neighbours. This allowssoftware and hardware manufacturers to developcompeting products within a layer. Customers canchoose which of the products on offer is most suitablefor them and can mix and match them accordingly, withimplementations of the different layers coming fromdifferent suppliers.

Level 7. The Application layer. This is the top -mostlayer of the model and is the one with which the userinteracts. It contains the application software andoperating -system shell. It also provides some commonservices such as file transer and terminal support.Level 6. The Presentation layer. This is the interfacebetween the application and the network. It providesany data conversion that may be necessary from a localapplication into a form which is suitable fortransmission through the network.Level 5. The Session layer. This level handles thereception and transmission from a local station on to thenetwork itself, and controls the synchronisation oftraffic on the network. It will monitor for collisions onthe network and deals with recovery from any collisionsthat occur.Level 4. The Transport layer. This layer is concernedwith addressing the nodes on the network. It also checksdata integrity and the protocols required to transmitinformation over the network.Level 3. The Network layer. This layer provides the

THE 051 MODEL

LAYER

7: APPLICATION

6: PRESENTATION

5: SESSION

4: TRANSPORT

3: NETWORK

2: DATA LINK

1: PHYSICAL

FUNCTION

COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES

APPLICATION -TO -NETWORK INTERFACE

MESSAGE DELIVERY AND RECEPTION

NETWORK ADDRESSING

INTER -NETWORK CONNECTIONS

HARDWARE INTERFACE

HARDWARE SPECIFICATIONS

interface which enables different networks tocommunicate with each other. It manages switchingand routeing between different networks to providegateway functions.Level 2. The Data Link layer. This is thehardware/software interface which also maintains thetransfer and control of the data over the communicationlines and provides error correction. Attributes such aswhether the system will be of the token -passing orcollision -detection format are defined here.Level I. The Physical layer. The deepest layer is thenetwork hardware itself.

The concept of the OSI model has been accepted foralmost a decade, but until recently it has been morehonoured in the breach than the observance. Part of thetrouble has been that OSI standards so far adoptedhave been market -led. The only hard-and-faststandardisation has been for layers 1 and 2. Here thestandards committees have simply adopted existingproducts as the standards.

With no such standardisation at the higher layers, theOSI model is still in some disorder. Much of the troubleoccurs in layers 3, 4 and 5 where different manufacturershave made their own interpretation of the model andhave supplied non -compatible systems. This situation ischanging, with the emergence of the IBM Net BIOS as ade facto standard for the middle layers.

Life is not made any easier by the fact that somefunctions are not restricted to a particular layer but canbe achieved by several layers. An example here is innetwork -to -network communication. Although it is

strictly the preserve of layer 3, the Network layer, thisonly really applies if the networks use dissimilar softwareas, for example, in communications between MS -Netand Ethernet. If the two communicating networks areidentical the Data Link layer (layer 2) can be used, as noconversions or high-level data checking needs to beperformed. Data can be transmitted across the networkby the Data Link repeating the message until it is

accepted by the server. On the other hand, if the twonetworks use different hardware some kind of protocolconversion is required, and this is performed by layer 4.

The Reference Model for OSI is published as ISO7498. It is available in the U.K. as BS 6568 from TheBritish Standards Institution, Sales Department,Lindford Wood, Milton Keynes. Telephone: (0908)320066.

FILE SERVERSWhen introduced, networks were principally used as

a method of sharing disc resources. The quick and dirtymethod of doing this was to convince the computer thatany hard disc it had access to was local rather than ashared resource. The trouble with this method, knownas the disc -server environment, becomes apparent whenyou have a number of users on the network. Each usercan access the hard disc directly and at any time. Becausethe network ends up as a free-for-all, data integrity andmulti-user file management are very difficult tomaintain,

The file -server concept was introduced to sort out thisproblem, and has been an important factor in thedevelopment of networks. With a file -server system, amanagement program is placed between the workstations and the shared hard disc. The file -serversoftware can regulate the traffic and manage the files to


provide an efficient service both to the users and thehard disc.

Networks are full of potential bottlenecks. To takeone example: in order to send information from a PCwork station to a file server, the local PC has to constructa packet of information in a form in which it can betransmitted and understood by the file server. The timethis takes depends on the speed and type of theprocessor used by the work station itself. It is alsodependent on the efficiency of the operating system increating the information it sends to the network. Otherfactors are the width of the network interface bus andthe speed of transfer to the NIC.

The NIC provides the physical link between the PCand the network cabling. A wide variety of types of cardare available, each with its own characteristic cablesupport, cable -access type, etc. Features that canimprove performance include the provision of an on-board processor to handle the I / 0, a wider bus toincrease the transfer bandwidth to the PC, and sharedmemory access. Under this last system the NIC and thePC set aside an area of memory accessible to both, whichhas the effect of avoiding the delays which occur whentransferring data from NIC buffers to main memory andvice versa.

Another obvious improvement to an NIC is toprovide a large on -board buffer. Commonly 512K isprovided and there are also 1Mbyte and 2Mbyte systemsavailable.

Another of the bottlenecks is in cable access. Whilemaintaining MS-DOS and Net BIOS as standard, IBM iscurrently offering two solutions which represent verydifferent philosophies in dealing with the problem.They are enshrined in the PC -LAN program and TokenRing.

PC -LAN is a contention cable -access scheme, oftenreferred to as a carrier sense multiple access withcollision detection (CSMA / CD) system. It works bymonitoring the network for activity, and transmittingits message if the NIC detects no traffic. If anothermessage happens to have been transmitted at exactly thesame moment the two data streams will collide anddestroy each other. The collision is detected by the workstations, which will instantly cease transmission. EachNIC will then listen to the network and wait for acessation of traffic before trying again. Most networksbuild algorithms into each work station to delaytransmissions by varying amounts so that two stationswhich have already collided will not attempt to re-transmit simultaneously.

Under PC -LAN, once the server NIC has received theinformation it sends an acknowledgement to thetransmitting work station. If the station receives noacknowledgement it transmits the information again.Because they have no central organisation CSMA / CDsysems are unsuitable for big networks. The number ofcollisions and subsequent retransmissions on the netincreases with the number of stations, so the system verysoon becomes overloaded.

In the Token Ring system a packet is passed fromstation to station. If a station wishes to transmitinformation, it changes a bit on the token to give itcontrol of the network. The station is then able totransmit the data along the cable. The amount of datathat can be transmitted in a single token round islimited to prevent stations with large amounts of data totransmit from hogging the system. Token Ring isdiscussed further on page 88 of this issue.

When it comes to the practical installation of anetwork, much is dependent on the Physical layer.

Cabling can make up half the cost of installing anetwork, so it is important to get it right. Whendeciding to install a network, the customer mustconsider how long the cables are going to need to be,how many users will be involved and how heavy thetraffic will be. It is also important to consider the extentto which the network is expected to expand in thelifetime of the system. For example, twisted -paircabling is cheap, but can only support a limited amountof traffic. If major expansion is envisaged for thenetwork it is worth buying a more expensive layout withtemporary slack in the system, rather than having to pullthe whole lot out and start again in a couple of years.

There are three major classes of networking cable.The cheapest cable is the twisted -pair type, commonlyused in telephone leads. Twisted -pair cabling is veryflexible and therefore easy to install. On the minus side,it is unsuitable for transmission rates above 1Mbit/s.and is restricted to a cable length of 500 metres unlessyou fit boosters.

The second class of cable is the co -axial cable, whichcomes in two major types. Baseband systems use asimple transmission of data down the line, while themore advanced broadband system transmits datasuperimposed on a carrier frequency. The broadbandsystem is more efficient and can support longer cableruns than the baseband type, although it is moreexpensive and requires more maintenance.

The final type of cable is fibre -optic. It is a very fast,highly efficient system, which will not decay like themetal -based cables. The major drawback with fibre -optic systems at present is that they are wildly expensive,and much of the technology is still in the developmentstage. You might also have difficulty in interfacing itwith existing networks.

MS-DOS & NET BIOSOrder was brought to networking when IBM and Microsoft unveiled the PC -Network program and DOS 3.0. The foundation of the PC -Network program isthe Net BIOS software held in ROM on the IBM Network Interface Card (NIC).Net BIOS covers layers 3, 4 and 5, and became the de facto standard for PCnetworks as other manufacturers stated that they would support it.

Like the PC ROM BIOS, Net BIOS is IBM copyright. Third -partymanufacturers therefore have the task of emulating the operation of Net BIOS.Emulation is usually provided in software, with third -party NICs providing thenecessary hardware hooks to the Net BIOS emulation program.

Further standardisation was provided by the realease of MS-DOS 3.0, whicheffectively implements layer 6 by supplying the interface between applicationprograms running on a work station and the network itself in the form of theNIC board installed in the computer.

Versions 3.0 and higher of MS-DOS contain a number of functions designedto allow communications with a network. They are called via interrupt 21 hex.Once this interrupt has been invoked by the network it can issue calls to theoperating system to lock and unlock records, open shared files and redirectdevices to the network.

Interrupt 21 is the gateway between MS-DOS and Net BIOS, and providesstandardisation at the Presentation layer. This layer is supported by MS -Net,with the use of the Microsoft Redirector to provide the interface between thetwo programs. When an application wishes to access a file on the server it issuesinterrupt 21; this is received by DOS, which recognises the information asbeing intended for the network and passes it to the Redirector

The Redirector then builds a Server Message Block (SMB), which is passed toNet BIOS and thence to the server. The SMB can only communicate with NetBIOS, so third -party manufacturers have had to emulate the Redirector. Thereare a number of programs on the market which emulate the proceduresoutlined here. One of them, Novell's Netware, is examined in detail on page95 of this issue.



87

LOOKINGTO THEFUTURE

IBM'S TOKEN RING IS BECOMINGTHE STANDARD LAN SOLUTION.STEVE MALONE REPORTS ON

HOW IT WORKS.

oken Ring is seen by IBM as its flagshipLAN product to take it into the 1990s. Assuch, Token Ring is designed withsufficient flexibility, speed and power toprevent it becoming obsolete in the 10 to 15years that the cables themselves are ex-

pected to last. The transmission speed of the system is4Mbit/s, and up to 260 work stations, or nodes, can beconnected to the network, although this is not anabsolute limit.

The layout of Token Ring is a star ring as shown in thediagram below. The logical structure of the system is ofa uni-directional ring with information passing fromone work station to another down one wire and outagain on another. The wires to connect one work stationto the network go via a central box known as an accessunit. In this way, the input and output leads can bebundled together in a single cable.

The hub of the Token ring is the 8228 multi -stationaccess unit. This is a box with eight interfaces fitted,each supporting one work station. Two plug sockets arealso fitted to each 8228 unit, enabling them to be daisy -chained together. The units are designed to be mountedtogether on a 19in. rack. Configuring the network issimply a matter of patching the cables to whateverlayout is required.

The components inside the access unit are almost allrelays and capacitors. IBM says this - dare we say - oldtechnology has been fitted to the units because it is wellunderstood, easy to maintain and extremely reliable.An IBM spokesman said that as far as he knew only two

TOKEN RING NETWORK LAYOUT

The multi -station access unit of the Token Ring networkprovides a central control point for maintenance.

access units had failed in the world - both of them in

the U.K.The type of cable used with Token Ring does not

matter a great deal. The network is a baseband system,and can use anything from a simple twisted -pair cable-as used in telephones - up to high-performancefibre -optic cable. It is even possible to use a

combination of cables to optimise installation andperformance.

Apart from the cables and the access unit, you alsoneed adaptor cards which plug into your PC or otherdevice. When Token Ring was launched, it was crit-icised in some quarters for being limited to the PC

IBM has produced adaptor cards for arange of its equipment, including the RT / PC,industrial computers, and minicomputers such as theSystem 36 and the newly announced 9370 range, as wellas linking systems to giant IBM mainframes.

Details of the adaptor card have been published toallow other manufacturers to produce compatiblesystems. The chip set providing the Token Ring inter-face is available from Texas Instruments. This meansthat adaptors can be provided for other manufacturers'computers which will enable them to hook into a TokenRing network.

The operation of Token Ring differs considerablyfrom Ethernet -type CSMA /CD networks which havedominated the office environment so far. Rather thanthe free-for-all permitted by CSMA / CD networks,order is brought to the Token Ring system by the trans-mission of a token, which is a 24 -bit packet ofinformation that is passed from work station to workstation on the network. Data can only be sent throughthe network via the token.

The Token Ring network is managed by a workstation known as the monitor. This machine will gen-erate the token, ensure that it is circuiting the networkcorrectly and retransmit a new token if necessary. Anymachine can act as monitor as all the circuitry and soft-ware required is built into every Token Ring networkinterface card. Typically, the role of monitor will beassumed by the first machine switched on to thenetwork. As there will be no token on the network, aftera period of time the machine will begin to generate itsown automatically.

The monitor technique is important in maintainingthe integrity of the system. Token Ring is designed tosuit large corporate users; they would be unhappy if theentire system crashed if the monitor NIC went off-line.If the monitor does go out of action, this will be recog-nised by the network and another machine can auto -



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matically issue a new token and take over as themonitor.

The drawback with the retransmission solution is thatit introduces a delay into the system. IBM says that thiswill be typically 2.5 bits. To compensate for this, IBMhas added three bits on either end of the token so thatthe monitor can rectify the problem by shifting the bitsas they arrive from the network. This makes the token30 bits long, although only 24 of them are significant.

The delay is the factor which governs the size of thering. With each work station introducing a delay to thesystem, more than 260 stations may produce a delaylonger than three bits, which makes it impossible for themonitor to recover the data stream. IBM says it is poss-ible to add more machines to the network but cannotguarantee its performance.

One of the prime requirements of Token Ring is thatfaults can be isolated and recognised swiftly and effic-iently. Fault diagnostics start before a work station logson to the network. The work station checks whether theline to the access unit is performing properly by sending1,500 2K frames down the line.

Because the work station interfaces on the 8228 unithave closed relays, the frames will be sent back down tothe work station. If the registered error rate is within aspecified limit the station sends a 5V burst down theline, opening the relay and connecting the station to thering. Otherwise a local error message will report that logon failed.

The work station NAC will then send a message to thenext station along the ring. The frame contains theaddress of the NAC. This address will be logged by the

receiving work station as being the address of the nearestactive upsteam neighbour (NAUN).

If a work station begins to malfunction, or a breakoccurs in the line, the first station to recognise this willbe the next one downstream from the token. It willregister a fault because a token either comes in garbledor not at all. When this occurs the station will issue abeacon frame which consists of the work station's ownaddress and that of its NAUN. The information willtravel around the network until it arrives at the NAUN,which will recognise the address at fault as its own andwill remove itself from the network without interferingwith the working of the system.

The suspected node will then perform self -testingroutines similar to those performed prior to logging on.If it finds all is well, the work station will reinsert itselfback into the system. Meanwhile, if the downstreamstation continues to receive faulty data, it will concludethat its own receiving equipment is at fault and will logoff the system.

This method allows faults to be located precisely, sothat you do not have to inspect the entire system to findout where a breakdown has occurred. You can takeadvantage of this when there are two rings goingbetween the access units. The second ring is part of thebuilt-in redundancy of the unit. If one of the cablesbecomes severed the other will come into play, allowingthe network to continue functioning while the fault isrepaired.

Although 260 nodes is an awful lot of work stations,this may not be enough for the 1990s where IBM fore-sees network nodes numbering in thousands. To caterfor the demand, IBM has introduced the Network

HOW TOKEN RING WORKS

If one work station wishes to send information toanother it waits until the token arrives from its neigh-bour on the LAN. The adaptor card changes a bit on thetoken, giving it command of the network so that noother work station can transmit during the operation.

network adaptor card has an address numberbuilt in which is licensed from IEEE. This means thateach adaptor card can be addressed specifically byanother. IBM claims to have licensed around 14 millionof these addresses. When a node wishes to transmitinformation to another work station, it includes thetarget machine's network interface card (NIC) addressand its own into the token.

The token is then retransmitted over the networkfollowed by a stream of data from the source machineand a check sum, which is part of the token, at the end.

token travels to the next machine, which checkswhether the target address corresponds to its own. If itdoes not, the token and data stream is retransmitted bythe work station to the next machine downstream. Theinformation does not simply pass through the workstation but is retransmitted so that the token and itsinformation is repeated at each work station. When thetoken and data stream arrive at the target work station,the receiving machine buffers the information followingthe token, adds a check sum and passes it on to thenetwork along with the data stream.

The token will eventually arrive back at the sourcemachine, where it will be reset to allow another work -station to control the network. The source device willalso remove the data stream and verify the check sum. Ifit is incorrect, the data will be retransmitted.

0 0i I-----1

CDEach

TOKEN

TOKEN ARRIVESAT STATION

TRANSMITTEDFROM STATION

WITH DATASTREAM

0

CDThe

0

TOKEN ANDDATA ARRIVE AT

TARGET

TARGET BUFFERSDATA AND

RETRANSMITSWITH CHECK SUM

0 0

CD CDTOKEN AND

DATA RECEIVEDAND CHECKED

BY SOURCE

IF ALL ISWELL, DATA ISREMOVED AND

TOKENRETRANSMITTED


Adaptor II, an NIC capable of acting as a bridgebetween two rings. To create an effective bridgebetween two rings you need a dedicated PC/XT orPC / AT. This might seem an expensive solution, butwhen you are talking about hundreds of PC workstations perhaps one more here or there does not mattermuch.

Addressing stations across a bridge is a variation ofordinary ring addressing. A station sends a token anddata stream out around a ring. If the message is notpicked up by one of the stations on the ring, themessage is retransmitted, picked up by the bridge andpassed over to the second ring. It is transmitted aroundthe second ring as normal until it reaches the destinationwork station. This method of addressing obviates theneed for large address tables to be held in each machinewhich constantly need to be updated.

If there is a lot of traffic on both rings it might beadvisable to have two bridging stations connecting therings. The reason for this is that one or other of thebridging stations might be busy with something else.When the source machine gets its token back it will logwhich bridge was used for the transfer. From then on itwill send the information directly to the target stationvia the station which is the quickest route.

Token Ring can operate with up to seven suchbridges. However, with careful planning this obstacleneed not arise. One of the best implementations ofmultiple rings is to use a backbone. This is a ring con-sisting entirely of bridging machines. A typical imp-lementation might be where you have a large officebuilding. The backbone would transmit data betweenfloors while there might be smaller rings to service eachdepartment or office. Using suitable gateways, it is poss-ible to us a high-speed Token Ring backbone connectedto low-cost or existing Ethernet -type departmentalnetworks.

In designing Token Ring, IBM appears to have goneto some lengths to ensure the system will survive to the21st century. The provision for extension, patching andfailure all while the system is running shows a long-termcommitment to the LAN market. For everybody's sakelet's hope IBM has got it right.

SPECIFICATION

Network speed: 4Mbit/sMaximum number of nodes; 260Hardware prices: PC Adaptor I £568; PC Adaptor II£653; 8228 access unit £621Software prices: Net BIOS £33; Network Manager£1,229; PC -Local Area Network £108; Token RingBridge Program £1,229Manufacturer: IBM U.K. Ltd, 389 Chiswick HighRoad, London W4 4AL. Telephone: 01-995 1441Available: now

WORKINGWITHINTHE IBM 0

STANDARDJUST AS MICRO MANUFACTURERSCAME UP WITH CLONES TO TAKE

ADVANTAGE OF THE IBM PCSTANDARD, SO THEY ARE HAVING

TO MIMIC IBM WHEN THEYPRODUCE NETWORKS. GLYN

MOODY REVIEWS THE CURRENTSTATE OF PLAY.

There are parallels between the dev-elopment of the local area network and thepersonal computer itself. In the early daysof micros, confusion reigned as eachmanufacturer offered its own usuallyincompatible solution. Purchasing dec-

isions could lock you into what subsequently turned outto be a complete cul-de-sac, so although sales pro-liferated, there was a general feeling of unease through-out the industry and among users.

The appearance of IBM PC changed all that.Whatever the pros and cons of product itself, its pricingand the way it was sold, it did bring the microcomputerindustry to its senses. Today's huge software base andaggressive pricing are largely due to the creation of theIBM PC standard.

It is still early days for local area networks. Differentmanufacturers trumpet the virtues of their own systems,and until recently it has been hard to gain an impressionof where the market is heading.

The OSI model explained on page 86 offers hopeof some interchangeability of products betweencompeting systems. At the moment it remains littlemore than a hope: some of the layers of the model haveyet to be defined, and not all of the industry hascommitted itself to adhering to standards when theyemerge.

In the meantime some standards are beginning tocome through. The dominance of MS-DOS means thatany future networking standard will have to be able towork with it. In practice this means working with MS -Net and Net BIOS. Furthermore, as Steve Maloneexplains in the preceding article, the appearance IBM'sToken Ring network looks like creating another de factostandard like the PC itself; it should in turn bring abouta similar rationalisation of the marketplace.

This can only be good news for the user. But it poses aproblem for manufacturers competing with IBM: howdo they work within the new standards withoutsubmitting to them completely? A case in point is



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Olivetti, which has established itself as one of the mostsuccessful clone makers, and is evolving a comparablestrategy to deal with what it sees as a key new area.

In one sense working with the MS -Net and TokenRing standard is simply an extension of ordinary IBMcompatibility. True compatibility means being able toaccept and use add-ons such as LAN cards, for instance.But since the whole area of networks is in such a state offlux, companies need to take a pragmatic approach. Forexample, network products could come through whichthrow up small incompatibilities in what had hithertoappeared to be an completely compatible clone.

Such problems can usally be sorted out by makingmodifications to the ROM BIOS. However, dependingon compatibility to cater for networking is clearly onlyhalf a solution because companies would still be relyingon IBM for the LAN hardware. Fortunately the existenceof the Net BIOS standard allows different networksolutions to be adopted while still remaining within themainstream LAN universe.

Starlan clusters workstations round local hubs. Upto 1,000 stations can be linked.

Net BIOS is to networks what ROMBIOS is to PCs.

MS-DOS

ROMBIOS

PCHARDWARE

MS -NET

NET BIOS

LANHARDWARE

System software has to emulateIBM's Net BIOS standard.

NETWORKED SOFTWARE

V

NET BIOSIBM

TOKEN RINGHARDWARE

DRIVERS

V

NET BIOSOLIVETTI

STARLANHARDWARE

The similarity between cloning the IBM PC andcloning IBM's network is illustrated in the diagrambelow. Just as the ROM BIOS allows MS-DOS softwareto run on non -IBM machines by emulating thebehaviour of IBM hardware, so a suitable Net BIOS willallow software to run on networks other than thestandard Token Ring.

This is the approach Olivetti has adopted for itsStarlan network. It is based on a proprietary systemdeveloped by AT&T, with which Olivetti has closelinks. As its name suggests, it uses a star topology.Individual work stations are connected to a central hub;the spokes of the hub can also connect to other hubs,allowing for a maximum of around 1,000 users. Oneadvantage of the star topology is that if one system goesdown, it does not take the whole network with it. Theapproach used for sending data over the network is theCSMA / CD technique.

Clearly, Starlan's approach to networking is differentfrom that on the IBM Token Ring. However, by writinga version of the Net BIOS with drivers to cope withStarlan, the same software can be run on both networkswithout the user ever being aware of the difference. Inaddition to the greater resilience of Starlan Olivetticlaims that it is cheaper than many rival solutions -typically £700 to £750 per node. However, it is slower,running at 1Mbit / s. against IBM's 4Mbit / s.

Olivetti also has an earlier network product, 10 -Net,which was designed before Net BIOS was released, so itwas completely incompatible in its initial form.However, compatibility with MS -Net has now beenadded, and there are plans to introduce Net BIOScompatibility at a later date.

The progression from simple MS -Net to full NetBIOS compatibility will probably closely map a similarshift in programming techniques. At the moment,programmers writing network software are content towork directly with MS -Net. This is equivalent to writingprograms which work with MS-DOS but avoid makingcalls direct to the ROM BIOS. But for some purposes it isnecessary to move below the MS -Net layer and makedirect calls to the Net BIOS. This allows certainfunctions to be carried out more easily, just as programswhich go directly to the PC's ROM are often faster. Thepenalty you pay is that such quick and dirtyprogramming locks you into the specifics of the NetBIOS; any upgrades will require recoding. Sticking withthe insulating layer of MS -Net ensures that yourprograms are protected from all such details.

The existence of such strategies of progressive com-patibility indicates the growing maturity of the LANmarket. The success of the clone approach in thepersonal -computer sector holds out hope that networkscould evolve in a similar way, with correspondingreductions in cost and advances in technology. Once afully fledged standard has evolved, people can thenbegin to consider whether that solution offers any realbenefits.


NOVELL NETWAREFOR STAND-ALONE MICROS THE CHOICE OF OPERATING

SYSTEM IS ALL BUT AUTOMATIC, BUT FOR NETWORKSYSTEMS THE CHOICE IS LESS CLEAR. STEVE MALONE

LOOKS AT ONE OF THE LEADING CONTENDERS.

ilVithout doubt, one of thebiggest -selling networkoperating -system programs isNovell's Netware. The rangeof machines it caters for spansthe IBM PC and Apricot

families, with systems for the Wang PC and AppleMacintosh promised soon. Netware has also been con-figured to run a wide range of third -party networks,including Arcnet and Omninet. While Novell's claimsof setting a de facto industry standard are perhaps alittle premature, Netware as a hardware -independentsystem is certainly the one the rest are chasing.

The program can be configured for both main kindsof office LAN configurations - that is, token -passingrings and CSMA /CD systems. The version of Netwarewe looked at was based on a CSMA /CA network;although there are differences between the two formats,for most practical purposes they can be consideredidentical.

The configuration consisted of a dedicated PC / ATfile server connected to several IBM PCs and AmstradPC -1512 work stations on a linear bus system. Thecables used were the standard co -axial variety. Thetransmission rate on the review layout was 3Mbit /s.

One problem arising with Netware is the hardwareintegrity. If a spur cable is pulled from the back of awork station or the co -axial cable is cut in any way, theentire network will hang up. This should not be aproblem in the normal course of events, providing thehardware installaton has been performed sensibly.However, it does leave the system vulnerable to theproverbial electrician's drill.

Care needs to be taken when installing a new workstation on the network while it is running. The spur hasto be fitted to the computer network interface card

Left: The Supervisor can alter the privileges of eachuser. Right: The electronic -mail command menu.

before being attached to the main bus. Doing things theother way round will hang up the network.

No more than 100 users can be attached to a singlefile server. This is partly the fault of Novell Data, whichconsiders that if you are fitting more than 100 workstations together you ought to pay for a second Netwarelicence. But for most customers, it is more of a theor-etical rather than practical limit as the amount of trafficwould quickly overwhelm the current generation of PC -based file servers. Novell Data also says that up to fiveshared printers can be hooked into the network.

Part of the continuing success of Netware has beenthat while it pre -dated the introduction of MS-DOS 3.1and Net BIOS, Novell was one of the first companies tointroduce Net BIOS emulation into its network soft-ware, including the range of network calls availablethrough interrupt 21h. In addition, Novell has main-tained its earlier Extended Function Call Set, whichincludes peer -to -peer communications and printing.The result is that the current generation of Netware iscompatible with earlier versions and with softwarewritten to run on Net BIOS.

Another example of how Netware extends thefeatures available under MS-DOS 3.1 is the number oflogical drives supported by the program. While main-taining drives A -E as local in accordance with MS-DOSpractice, Netware can support a further 21 drives, up todrive Z. This is in contrast to MS-DOS, which supports atotal of only 16.

Network security and data integrity are of paramountimportance when developing network software.Netware has a host of features intended to prevent un-authorised access to sensitive files. The most importantelement is the security of the server. One of the majorproblems with MS -Net is that you can boot the serverusing an ordinary floppy -disc version of DOS. Once thesystem is booted, it is possible to investigate thesensitive files on the hard disc simply by examining thedirectories. Netware gets round this by formatting the

NetWare System Configuration V2,130 Thursday February 5, 1987 4:36pm

User SUPERVISOR On File Server DEM

User Names

FRANI

GERALD

GUEST

HELENA

LAMEBRAIN

SUPERVISOR

vailable Topics

User Information

nge Current Ser

e Server Inform

up Information

tem Login Scrip

r Information

u'ameG64!FRilinged To

Login Script

Password

Security Equivalences

Trustee Assignments

User ID

ELECTRONIC MAIL SYSTEM COMMANDS

CLOSE

DIRECTORY

EDIT

HELP

LIST Mail

LIST Memos

LIST Users

OPEN

PUT

QUIT

READ

REMOVE Mail

REMOVE Memos

SEND

VIEW

For further information, position the selection bar on one of the topics below

and press the ENTER key; press the BACXSPACE key to view the previous screen.

EMS Concepts

n er Iiew a o is

Help Explanation EMS Editor

.s a ,ues ion sc 'e are o '.1 s em



95

(continued from previous page)hard disc to its own configuration, so that the operatingsystem will be unable to recognise the fixed disc even ifyou boot the server with a floppy -based version of DOS.

This technique provides an insight on how Netwarearranges itself. On power -up, DOS is downloaded intothe local work station, where it resides for the remainderof the session. DOS is interfaced to Netware's Net BIOSemulator, which in turn passes information to and fromthe Novell network manager on the file server. MS-DOStherefore remains local to the work station while thenetwork is run entirely by Netware.

For the ordinary user, security begins when a workstation is booted. Before any access to files is permittedyou have to log on with the option of passwords.Normally this will log you on to the local file server. Ifyour system has a number of file servers linked togetherit is possible to log on to one of those. This is achievedby adding the name of the file server into the log -onsequence, in a variation of the directory Path format.For example, to enter a remote file server the entrywould be

LOGIN SALES/FREDwhere Sales is the name of the file server and Fred is theuser name you wish to log into.

The 26 possible drive names are used as forms ofdirectories which provide pointers to files on the harddisc. Thus logging into one drive letter will allow youaccess to a number of files, together with associatedprivileges, while another drive letter will give you adifferent set.

One of the major features of Netware is its ability tosend a file to two file servers simultaneously. This allowsrecords held on different servers to be updated simul-taneously. More importantly, if you have the cash to doso, you can have mirrored servers, each performing thesame task. If one goes down, for whatever reason, theother will continue functioning.

Governing the entire system is the Supervisor. This isa default user name which has full access to all the files,passwords and other information on the system. One ofthe most powerful commands available to Supervisor isSyscon. This allows the Supervisor to alter the privilegesof each user and the names and passwords.

One of the best features of Netware is the no-non-sense way in which this is done. The utility is entirelymenu driven, with on-line help constantly availablefrom the fl key. This enables someone who is not part-icularly familiar with computers to operate the system.

Each user has access to a number of files. Access tofiles is supplied to users via Syscon in the form of so-called trustee rights. There are eight such rights avail-able on each file, including such things as the ability toread or write to a file, open new files and search direct-ories. There are other rights allowing the user to permitothers access to directories, or to modify attributes suchas setting files to be sharable or non-sharable.

The Supervisor can allocate privileges to a group ofusers. For example, each member of the sales depart-ment could have the same access to all relevant files, andwhen a new member enters the department all therequired files and trustee rights will then be assignedautomatically.

Within your own area it is possible to organise yourown files. As well as logging on to two servers at once,you can map files locally from one logical drive toanother or set up paths to and from directories.

Though Netware had been configured to run on avariety of network interface cards Novell Data Sysemshas also introduced its own network interface card

(NIC). Introduced at the beginning of March, the Elitecard is a clean NIC in that none of the software protocolshave been built-in. Novell will supply you with theROMs which allow the card to run at a variety of baudrates for either a token -passing or CSMA / CA format.

Novell says the advantage becomes apparent when abusiness wishes to upgrade its network system. Insteadof having to throw the network cards out and start allover again, the customer can simply fit the new ROMs tothe cards at a fraction of the price. The Elite card also hassupport for Gateway operations, either synchronous,asynchronous or X-25. This will allow you to hook on toa network and communicate with a mainframe througha single card. The basic Elite card costs £395; the ROMsare extra.

SPECIFICATIONDescription: non hardware specific local areanetwork programCopy protection: key card required for system tooperateNumber of users: 100Price: £2,100 for Netware operating system, includingprint utility and comms softwarePublisher: Novell Inc. of Orem, UtahU.K. distributor: Novell Data Systems, 78-82 St.John's Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN4 9PH.Telephone: (0892) 37833Available: now


TORUSTAPESTRY

WITH THE NETWORKING SYSTEMTAKEN CARE OF THERE IS STILL

THE PROBLEM OF THE TOP-LEVELOPERATING SOFTWARE THAT THE

ORDINARY USER SEES. IANSTOBIE LOOKS AT AN EASY -TO -

USE SOLUTION.

Despite regular reports of boomingnetwork sales, it is still difficult tobelieve that everyone is furiouslycabling up their offices. LANs are reallyquite hard to understand, let alone toset up and use. In the IBM world, Torus

is the company which has most obviously set out totackle this issue. Torus now has over 10 percent ofnetwork sales through U.K. dealers, according tomarket research company Romtec. It is regularly inRomtec's top four LAN suppliers, and in December1986 - the last month for which figures are available- it got to second place behind Novell. Torus is one of

companies. It was setup in 1983 with the aim of producing office -orientatednetwork products for the IBM PC. It now employs 60people at its U.K. headquarters in Cambridge.

There are three main Torus products. Torus Tapestryis network software that runs on top of Token Ring, PCLAN or other hardware compatible with Net BIOS. IBM(U.K.) is among the distributors for Tapestry. TorusIcon is a hardware/software combination which putsTapestry software together with Torus's own Ethernet -based interface cards and cabling. Finally, TorusNetware is software licensed from Novell put togetherwith Icon hardware.

With the IBM Token Ring bandwagon starting toroll, Tapestry looks like becoming the most importantproduct. It is a network operating system, the keysystem component responsible for controlling users'access to resources on a network. Compared to otherIBM network software, Tapestry is very user friendly,with a graphics -based interface and plenty of context -sensitive help. It comes with several office -productivityfunctions built-in, including electronic mail.

Torus Icon is aimed at people who prefer one -stopshopping, with less opportunity for finger -pointingbetween different suppliers if things go wrong. Fromthe outside it looks identical to Tapestry, butunderneath is Torus's own hardware. Torus Netware isaimed at more experienced system builders. Thecombination of the Icon Ethernet hardware - which at10Mbit/s. is faster than Token Ring - and Novell'ssoftware gives a very high-performance network.However, you have to do without the friendly interfaceprovided by Torus Tapestry or Icon software.

According to Torus marketing director BernieAllenstein network users divide up into two broadgroups. Those in the first group know from the outsetthat they need to run multi-user software. They want touse a shared database or multi-user accounting software,

for instance. For these users it is a straight choicebetween a network of PCs or a dedicated multi-usersystem. The networked PC option is attractive because itlets you run up-to-the-minute MS-DOS software. Bycomparison, much of the software available fordedicated multi-user systems is old-fashioned andexpensive, and the choice is much more restricted.

The second group of users are looking for less easilydefined productivity gains. These people may alreadyhave many PCs in their organisation. By linking themtogether they are hoping to get better value from them,sharing physical resources such as printers and discs, andperhaps also gradually integrating tasks that arecurrently worked on separately.

Allenstein sees the second group as eventually havingthe most potential. "The best growth prospects are inoffice productivity. Multi-user is really a specialistapplication appropriate to perhaps five or 10 percent ofadministrative workers." But for the office -productivitymarket to take off, LANs must be made easier to use.And the benefits must be made much clearer to users.Allenstein sees the market as too technology driven."Manufacturers have still not properly turned thetechnology into products. It still requires a clever user tosee the opportunities of using the things."

This is where Tapestry and Icon come in. They aim totackle the ease -of -use issue with a straightforwardmenu -driven approach concealed behind a Mac- orGem -like system of icons. So that the user can at leastsee one obvious benefit of a network straight away theybundle in good electronic -mail facilities.

Both systems, in fact, look identical to the user.a machine connected to the network

you are asked to enter your name and password. Thatdone, up comes the main menu of the system, which inTorus terms is called the home screen.

The home screen contains eight icons. You select bycursoring over the icon and hitting Return, or by typingin the initial letter. At the top left are In Tray and OutTray, used by the local electronic -mail system. Next tothem is the Communications icon used for linking tothe outside world through services like Telecom Gold orPrestel, or through a gateway to a remote mainframe ormini. The Telephone icon activates a telephone book,which you can use for looking up phone numbers, or fordirect dialling if you have an autodial modem attachedto your machine.

File Manager gives you access to the sort ofCAPS

272K Bytes free .FILE MANAGER. Active Drive: A

Backup Diskmom

mom

opy File

Transfer Files

Rename Files

Set Drive

4 .

4 C f

4 f

Format Disk

Examine File

Print Files

Discard

rtitHome

Tag File(s) to Copy

Filename: Time Filed: Size(Kb)

1 AUTOEXEC.BAT 6/05/84 4:88pm 8.4 1

11A AUTOLOAD.EXE

COMMAMD.COM

. CONFIG.SYS

" D1SKDRV.COM

. DRILIER.EXE

EXAMPLE.1

: EXAMPLE.2

' HOLIDAY!

27/84/84

8/83/83

9/84/84

4/83/84

18/85/84

6/85/84

6/85/84

14/05/84

9:46am

12:80pm

5:48pm

3:89pm

4:46pm

4:08pm

4:88pm

8:49am

1 Help 2 Lock Up 4 File Index

2.7

17.3

8.1

3.9

32.4

8.4

8.4

8.6

14

Filename

; KEYBLIK.COM

MESSAGE

A PHONEDIR.PHN

SCROLL

SETUP.DAT

9 Tax All

File Index: ATime Filed: Size(K11)

8/03/83 12:00pm24/05/84 10:34am24/05/84 10:32am14/05/84 8:41am6/05/84 4:42pm

10 End Tagging

1.2

8.3

12.9

1.9

0.4

File Manager lets you do housekeeping tasks normally done by MS-DOS.




housekeeping tasks normally done with MS-DOS:backing up a file, copying discs and so on. The sharedCabinets icon gives you access to whichever disc driveson the network your password entitles you to; Cabinet isthe Torus word for file server. One of the strengths ofTapestry and Icon is that you can have any number offile servers on the network.

Network Printers obviously lets you print. If yourapplication software does not let you choose printerseasily it is necessary to make a copy for each printer typeyou wish to support: for example, laser printer with70 -line A4 page length, or matrix printer with 66 -linepage length.

Application contains all your other MS-DOSsoftware, which can be single- or multi-user. It generallyruns in the normal way. Multi-user software such asSmart, Open Access II or Rbase System V provideswhatever level of file or record locking the applicationpackage itself supports. Net BIOS is the part of thenetwork which handles file and record locking, soTapestry just passes on the applications requests to thenetwork layer beneath.

When several people are running single -user softwareat the same time there is obviously the danger of morethan one user trying to get at the same file. When thishappens Tapestry detects the clash, locks the seconduser out, and displays a message on your screen tellingyou who is already working on the file. But there aresome problems. Most memory -resident pop-upprograms like Sidekick do not work with Icon orTapestry; you lose some functionality.

Mail is the most obvious gain. To send a message youselect the Out Tray and hit Return. The standard Torustext editor comes up, and you type in your text. Theeditor supports the basic word-processing functions,including block moves. You can enclose an ASCII textfile directly into your message as you type. Other sorts offile - for example, spreadsheets or program files - youcan send attached to the message.

Your recipient knows they have an incoming messagebecause their machine will bleep and a one -line alertmessage will appear briefly on their screen, whateverapplication they are in. If they are away then they will bealerted next time they sign on to their machine: the InTray icon on their home screen will now contain anenvelope.

The mail function will also show you whether yourmessage out has been read yet. Recipients get the choiceof discarding messages they have read, leaving them intheir In Tray or copying them to a file. Pretty much thesame system, with the on -screen editor, is used forTelex. One machine functions as the telex server forevery user on the network. However, Telex is an option;it is not included in the basic price of the system.

To make a network easy to use involves simplifyingthe task of the network manager as well as of theordinary users. The network manager has the job ofrunning the network, and with some systems this can bea tedious task. Tapestry/Icon management utilitiesgenerally use the same screen-based approach as themore public side of the system. The network managerallocates users to machines, sets up libraries of commonsoftware and generally tunes the system. If messages pileup on the mail server, for example, the networkmanager can sort and view the messages and set thesystem up to discard by date or other criteria.

Security is based on the same combination of username and password. When the system is first set up youspecify which machine is to run the network -

24 May 1984 NONE SCREEN.

1.1In Tray Out Tray

Thursday 111:

Cmmounications Telephone

rile Manager Shared Cabinets Network Printers Applications

111211111132=111\

Torus Tapestry's home screen. The Gem -like userinterface makes Tapestry easy to use.

management tasks which are the most critical. You canthen physically secure the system.

The Torus approach allows you to distribute theburden of running the network across several machines.You can set up any machine with a hard disc as a fileserver, and connect printers or modems to any machineto make them printer or comms servers. Server tasks runin the background, so you can use the machines forrunning normal applications when you are not actuallytinkering with the server settings. This is important forsmall networks of three or four machines, where youwould not want to lose the use of a PC. On a biggernetwork it might make sense, for performance reasons,to take a heavily used disc server out of routine use.

Torus Tapestry, the software -only system, costs £495for the network manager and £300 for each additionaluser. To this, of course, you have to add the cost of thecabling and the network hardware, which can be anysystem compatible with Net BIOS. Icon, the all -Torussolution, costs £1,490 for the network manager pack,and £895 per additional machine. Each pack contains anadaptor card, documentation and a copyable systemdisc; the manager pack comes with an additional systemdisc and utilities.

To this you also need to add the cost of cabling.Ethernet -based systems have a rather undeservedreputation for high cabling costs. For most smallnetworks, with cable runs between machines of under100 metres, you can use the cheaper 500 thin Ethernetcable. It costs 60 pence per metre for the cable itself or£18.50 for a 10 metre length with connectors. The cableis quite flexible, so it should not be expensive to install.For a typical office network of four or five users cablingcosts are negligible - probably under £100. Longercable runs up to 500 metres require more expensivethick Ethernet cable. With yet longer runs things reallydo get expensive, as you need to put repeaters on thecable at about £1,000 a throw.

Is this all cheap enough? The traditional multi-usermarket does not appear to be particularly price sensitive.But the supposed market of people interested innetworks for productivity reasons surely is. If users are tobe tempted down the network path for hard -to -quantify productivity gains, the price must bereasonable. With all costs considered, it cannot be muchmore than the cost per user of a good up-marketsoftware package, say £650 maximum. After all, to theuser the supposed productivity benefits of networkingare on a par with the supposed gains of using aspreadsheet. Looked at this way, networks are justanother application, and still a rather expensive one.Torus may well have cracked the IBM usability barrier,but the price barrier remains.


SPREADSHEETS

Despite the many recent advances inmore specialised types of applicationsoftware there must be very few users

around who do not use a spreadsheet atsome time or another. This rather humblebreed of software has been with us since thefirst days of microcomputing. Yet it con-tinues to go from strength to strength, withno sign of its popularity waning.

The spreadsheet's best-known applicationis in the world of financial modelling. Itsability to try out a variety of solutions toimpending financial problems safely off-line using the What -If? facility has un-doubtedly contributed most to its success.But there have been other useful appli-cations too. It has proved useful in scientificand engineering environments, whererepetitive calculations can be solved simplybe entering data into preset boxes, and thenprinted out straightaway in a professionalformat.

The advanced cell -formatting techniquesoffered by spreadsheets for text as well asnumbers also make it an ideal choice for pro-ducing large text -based tables. Setting upthe table and incorporating later changescan be done far more quickly on a spread-sheet than they can on even the most power-ful word processor.

BUDGET CONSCIOUSAs far as advances in spreadsheet tech-

nology are concerned, the last year has beenrelatively quiet. As with other areas ofapplications software, the biggest waveswere caused by the launch of the AmstradPC -1512 and the consequent round of pricecutting, to provide a budget -consciousmarket with suitably priced packages.

This has given Supercalc 3 and Multiplan,two rather dated spreadsheets, a new lease oflife. Multiplan was upgraded a few monthsago, but rather than ditch the old packagealtogether Microsoft had the brilliant idea ofrepackaging it, adding a "Junior" tag to thetitle to distinguish it from its up-market bigbrother, and promoting it as the answer toan Amstrad owner's prayers.

Much the same can be said about Super-calc 3.1. It is now no less than two issues outof date, having been superseded by both 3.2and 4. All the best bits have been cut out,such as the large matrix and sidewaysprinting, but unlike Multiplan Junior it isgood value judged on its graphics cap-abilities alone.

The Amstrad has also brought about somemore innovative spreadsheets. Kuma'sKspread 2 is the first spreadsheet to use the

PIt was spreadsheets that gave

micros their initial boostinto the business world. DavidBarlow looks at the survivorsfrom the old days, and at the

newer products that havebrought with them some new

ideas.

Gem Desktop environment to good effect.It has a very similar feel to Macintoshpackages like Excel and Mindsight, butsuffers from documentation of a qualitymore suitable for home computers. CrackerIII, an upwardly mobile package thatactually originates from the home -computermarket, is one of the first spreadsheets tomake use of the Amstrad's 16 -colour high -resolution mode. It is distributed byNewstar Software. Ironically, Newstar alsolooks after the U.K. distribution of VP -Planner, an immensely powerful Lotus 1-2-3work -alike which, from a business user'spoint of view, puts Cracker well into theshade though it retails at a mere £30 more.

There is something of a question markhanging over the future of 1-2-3 work-alikes, as Lotus is currently dragging soft-ware houses Paperback Software and Mosaic- originators of VP -Planner and Twin res-pectively - through the U.S. courts forbeing just that little bit too similar to 1-2-3.Some informed opinion suggests that Lotusmay be wasting its time, as there is noquestion of piracy of program code. Thesimilarities are confined to data -file compat-ibility and the command structure, not theuser interface.

POWERFUL REPORTINGOne rather unusual spreadsheet also

stands to get a new lease of life from theAmstrad. FT Moneywise, having now lost itsbacking from the Financial Times, has beenrenamed Moneypower. It uses a system ofpages to enable users to find their way roundthe overall model, and also includes one ofthe most powerful reporting facilitiesaround. At its new price of £99 includingVAT it should provide real competition tosome of the big names in the Amstradspreadsheet camp.

At the top end of the market uoth Lotusand Supercalc continue to ask silly prices for

their flagship products. In the States, Lotushas just announced a $40 version for theeducational market, and this act is sure tohave worldwide implications. When theprice of Lotus moves so will that of Supercalc4, as these packages are in a head -to -headbattle for the corporate customers.

Although hardware specifications con-tinue to improve, there are still only a fewspreadsheets that can make use of memoryover the limit of 640K imposed by MS-DOS.Such a facility is still regarded as somewhatexotic, even though it is impossible for mostspreadsheets to get anywhere near theirtheoretical maximum size within 640K ofmemory.

The Macintosh now has two of the bestspreadsheets within its stable. Excel andMindsight both make full use of the still un-surpassed Macintosh interface. The onestandard PC operating system that untilrecently did not have a truly modern spread-sheet to its name was Digital Research'sConcurrent DOS. However, Grafox hasrecently announced Quintet, an integratedsoftware suite featuring pull -down menusand full -colour graphics.

SUPPLIERSExcel, Multiplan Microsoft, ExcelHouse, 49 De Montfort Road, Reading,Berkshire RG1 8LP. Telephone: (0734)500741Farsight SK Micro Systems, St. MichaelsHouse, Norton Way South, Letchworth,Hertfordshire SG6 1 PB. Telephone:(0462) 679331Javelin Ashton-Tate (U.K.), 1 BathRoad, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 1 UH.Telephone: (0628) 33123Logistix Grafox, South Bank TechnoPark Building, 90 London Road, LondonSE1 6LN. Telephone: 01-922 8807Lotus 1-2-3 Lotus Development (U.K.),Consort House, Victoria Street, Windsor,Berkshire SL4 1 EX. Telephone: (0753)840281Mindsight Package Programs, 91Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HW.Telephone: 01-633 0121Smart Spreadsheet InnovativeSoftware, Southampton House, 192 YorkRoad, London SW11 3SA. Telephone:01-223 5008Supercalc 4 Computer Associates,Edinburgh House, 43-51 Windsor Road,Slough, Berkshire SL1 2EQ. Telephone:(0753) 77733VP -Planner Newstar Software, 200North Service Road, Brentwood, EssexCM14 4SG. Telephone: (0277) 220573


EXCELSOMETIMES referred to, some-what unkindly, as the 1-2-3 ofthe Macintosh world, Excel is atleast similar in offering apowerful spreadsheet, a bus-iness -graphics module and adatabase. Of course, Excel getsa head start over 1-2-3 by beingable to reap the full benefit fromthe Macintosh user interfaceand mouse. But even judged onits own technical merits it is animpressive package. Maximummatrix size is 16,384 rows by256 columns with over 80 pre-programmed functions coveringarithmetic, statistical and fin-ancial applications. The macrofacility is particularly impressive,with its own procedural lang-uage. There are 42 differenttypes of pre -designed businesscharts available and finalpresentations can be enhancedby the multi -fount letteringcapability of the Macintosh.Excel also includes support forlaser printers.

PRICE: £395

FOR: Macintosh interface.Ease of use. Graphics.AGAINST: No IBM versionyet. Expensive.

FARSIGHTTO ALL intents and purposesFarsight is a 1-2-3 work -alike,but in common with mostexamples of this software breedit has a personality of its own. Inthis case the spreadsheet is aug-

mented by a simple but effectiveword processor, which supportsheaders, footers and varioustype styles, and has a rudi-mentary mail -merge facility. Theuser interface is substantiallymore advanced than 1-2-3,using pull -down menus andwindowing facilities to the full.Cut -and -paste operations withinthe windows allow a file to bemoved or copied from one sub -directory to another. Filescreated under 1-2-3 load andrun normally under Farsight.Maximum spreadsheet size is auseful 256 rows by 2,048columns. The only area whereFarsight falls down is its lack ofany graphics facilities.

PRICE: £99

FOR: Pull -down menus.Handy built-in word pro-cessor. Windows.AGAINST: No graphics.Documentation.

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Microsoft's Excel benefits from the easy -to -use Mac interface.

JAVELINTHIS IS a spreadsheet with adifference, being something ofa compromise between thepowerful procedural modellerspopular in the minicomputerworld and the simple, easy -to -use PC spreadsheet. Javelindoes not restrict you to rows andcolumns as it relies on the usernaming all the variables andthen defining the relationshipsbetween them. Javelin appliestime periods such as days,weeks or months to eachvariable and works intelligently:for example it knows that Feb-ruary comes after January.Completed models can beanalysed through 10 differentviews, including the diagram,formula, table, chart, quickgraph, notes, errors, macro andgraph view; there is also a work-sheet view, which is the closestyou get to the conventionalrows and columns spreadsheet.

Javelin is an advanced packagethat rewards users prepared tospend a little time getting used toits unusal approach.

PRICE: £595

FOR: Powerful multi -viewanalysis tool. Error -checkingcapabilities.AGAINST: Expensive.Takes a while to learn.

LOGISTIXANOTHER package that offerssimilar facilities to 1-2-3, thoughit uses a different commandstructure. But it is easier to use,has better graphics and includesa handy sideways -printing utilitysimilar to the one provided inlater versions of Supercalc.Maximum spreadsheet size is

1,024 columns by 2,048 rowscoupled to a database that canhandle 1,023 records with amaximum of 64 fields. Logistixalso includes a time -man-agement facility coveringresource allocation, taskscheduling, critical -path projectplanning and Gantt charts.Graphics facilities are up topresentation standard and thepackage makes excellent use ofcolour -display systems.

PRICE: £100

FOR: Powerful spreadsheet.Time -management facilities.Graphics.AGAINST: Needs power-ful hardware. Less well -established than some of thecompetition.

LOTUS 1-2-3NOW a microcomputer legendof WordStar proportions, 1-2-3continues to sell in hugenumbers mainly - likeWordStar - on the strength ofits reputation rather than on its


SPREADSHEETS TOP 10

absolute technical merits. It hasnow been bettered in almostevery area by cheaper pack-ages, but none can match itsmassive user base or the cottageindustry that has grown up tosupply useful add-ons. Version 2of 1-2-3 supports the LIMextended -memory standard,enabling much larger spread-sheets to be built, and has avastly improved range of func-tions. It has, however, found itdifficult to maintain data -filecompatibility with the earlierversion 1 a.

PRICE: £395

FOR: An accepted industrystandard. Availability ofuseful third -party add-ons.AGAINST: Poor valuewhen compared with 1-2-3work-alikes.

MINDSIGHTLIKE Excel, this package is onlyavailable to run on a Macintoshfitted with a minimum of 512Kand a second disc drive. Inmany ways similar to Javelin,Mindsight is no ordinary spread-sheet. First, variables arenamed and then the relation-ships between them are spec-ified in a simple English formularepresentation. The spread-sheet does not appear until allthe relationships are solved, andeven then data cannot bechanged directly in the cells butonly in the formulae. As youwould expect of a Macintoshprogram, graphics are well inte-grated; it is possible to split thescreen to display the formula,the spreadsheet and a graphsimultaneously. The number ofdifferent types of chart that canbe displayed is not up to Excel'sstandard.

PRICE: £150

FOR: Novelmodelling. Usedisplay.AGAINST:tected. Limited

approach toof Macintosh

Copy pro -graphics.

MULTIPLANMULTI PLAN version 2 is the full -power version featuring amaximum spreadsheet size of4,095 rows by 255 columns. It isalso considerably faster than theearlier version, now designatedMultiplan Junior. Macros havealso been added to bring it intoline with the likes of 1-2-3 but itstill lacks any form of graphics.Unchanged is the reliable andconsistent Microsoft commandline and the extensive and

MICROSOFT

For Personal Computers Runningthe MS-DOS Operating System

powerful use of windows.Despite all these improvementsMultiplan only requires 128K ofmemory to run. Multiplan Juniorhas a smaller spreadsheet of just255 rows by 63 columns but stillsupports colour and allows youto have up to eight windowsopen at a time.

PRICE: £150;Multiplan junior £70

FOR: Use of windows.Consistent user interface.AGAINST: No graphics.Junior now looks dated.

SMARTSPREADSHEET

BOTH the spreadsheet anddatabase modules of the Smartintegrated suite are goodenough in their own right to takeon many dedicated packages.The spreadsheet can accomm-odate up to 9,999 rows by 999columns and uses the sparse -matrix technique to make themost economical possible use ofmemory. Cells can contain up to15 digits or 99 characters; aspecial screen can be called upto enter formulae, which can beup to 1,000 characters long. Upto 32 different spreadsheets canbe active at a time. Transferringdata from the spreadsheet to the

integrated graphics module iseasy, and data can be displayedin any one of six graphicalformats. Completed graphs canbe annotated with suitable titles,axis names and notes.

PRICE: £395

FOR: Powerful spreadsheet.Well -integrated graphics.Can be expanded by buyingfurther modules.AGAINST: Expensive.

SUPERCALC 4SUPERCALC 4 and Lotus 1-2-3are now battling it out for sup-remacy in the corporate spread-sheet market. On technical meritSupercalc must be judged com-fortably ahead, but as yet it hasnot built up such an impressiverecord of sales. Maximumspreadsheet size is 9,999 rowsby 255 columns and, as inSmart, data -compaction tech-niques optimise its use ofmemory. The user interface is

compatible with earlier versionsbut has recently been modified

to look more like 1-2-3. Infurther attempts to woo 1-2-3users comprehensive data -filetransfer utilities are provided toconvert Lotus format to Super-calc 4 format and vice versa. Itsgraphics facilities are easier touse than Lotus's as it is notnecessary to exit the mainprogram. A handy sideways -print utility is included.

PRICE: £396

FOR: Easy to use. Goodgraphics. Excellent docu-mentation and support.AGAINST: Expensive. Notas many third -party add-onsas.1 -2-3.

VP -PLANNERA MOST impressive 1-2-3 work -alike that offers full file andcommand -line compatibilitywith Lotus. The user interfacedoes not look the same, how-ever, as the command line hasbeen moved to a more suitableplace at the foot of the screen.What sets VP -Planner apart areits powerful database facilities,which include a traditional flat -file system as well as animmensely powerful three-dimensional database cap-ability. Both systems offer a highdegree of compatibility withdBase III. VP -Planner alsoboasts a powerful macro facil-ity and a Lotus -compatiblegraphics module.

PRICE: £86

FOR: 1-2-3 work -alikespreadsheet. Powerful dBasefile -compatible database.Superb value.AGAINST: No direct U.K.support.


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STILLA LOTTOLEARNGlyn Moodysamples some of thecurrent offeringson Al.MOST books on artificial intel-ligence are based on the premisethat a computer could, at least intheory, be intelligent. As the titleof Is Man a Robot? suggests, theauthor Geoff Simons is tacklingthe problem from the other end.He wishes to show that looking athumans as cybernetic systems witha central, programmed controlunit provides us not only withinteresting explanations for manyhuman traits but even insights intosome deeper questions.

This is not a book for theists. Atone point the author opines: "thereligious view is a superstitiousirrelevance." The basic threadswhich run throughout arehumanism, materialism and deter-minism. For example, the firstchapter presents an exhaustive -and rather exhausting - list ofrobots down through the ages.This is followed by a chapter on theModels of Man which eventuallysuggests that humans are machines- and more specifically, that theyare robots.

The next chapter marshals somesupporting evidence by looking atthe physical aspects of the body.Most of the points have been madebefore. For example, that the bodyis programmed by its genes, justlike a computer, and that the cellsand the body itself exist in a stablestate of balance or homeostasis,just like cybernetic systems.

A chapter on programmingexamines in more detail howaspects of human life could beunderstood as a result of pro-gramming. In addition to theworking out of the geneticmaterial, mentioned both at thecellular level and in terms of theultimate physical characteristics ofthe body, there is some consider-ation to how we are programmedby our environment. Many basicpsychological theories can beframed in a program -like form.The author suggests that sleep, stilllargely a mystery to researchers, is a

form of program clearance. Just asmainframes need maintenanceand updating, so might the brain.

Few people would object to suchan approach if it was happy to re-main at this level, offering a fewlateral thoughts on how the bodyworks. Unfortunately Simons hasbigger fish to fry. He suggests thathumans are not only like robots inthe way they function but thatthey are robots. From this, he takesit as axiomatic that any notion ofsoul goes straight out of the win-dow. However, that does leave a

ARTIFICIALINTELLIGENCE& ROBOTICS

number of thorny questions whichform the bulk of the remainder ofthe book.

For example, if we are deter-ministic machines, what happensto free will? That went with thesoul, according to Simons. How-ever, he attempts to console anyrobots out there who might feel alittle bereft by pointing out thatthe concept of choice is prettywoolly anyway. By free choice wemean something like: "I wouldhave chosen differently if I hadwanted to." But this begs thequestion whether you can choosewhat you want.

Simons also points out thataccording to his robotic theory,humans are still making choices.But instead of appealing to somehigh-falutin' will, decisions aremade by virtue of the deep -codedprograms within us which arepartly genetic and partly environ-mental. These are so deep that weare unaware of any cogs grinding atall; it just feels as if we made adecision. As Simons puts it:"Choice occurs when a system dis-criminates between competinginformational pressures."

What about creativity - howcan machines write symphonies?This argument against a machine'screativity is normally applied to

IntelligentMachineryTHEORY AND PRACTICE

Edited by Ian Berson

ARTIFICIALINTELLIGENCEoppikatkets in the future ofsoftware engineering

BOOKREVIEWScomputers which fail to write Beet-hoven string quartets. As Simonspoints out, since most humansnever write them either, they toofail the creativity test. Emotions,too, can be found in machines -provided you see them as feedbackloops and homeostatic states. ForSimons, emotions are simply deci-sions about broad objectives whichare then attained using logisticsdeveloped by the tactical decision -making of reason. Similarly,personality can be thought of as abehavioural matrix.

The most interesting part ofSimons' argument is in relation toethics. If we are just machines sub-ject to deterministic laws, how canwe be held responsible for ouractions and, more importantly,why should we be punished? It isat this point that Simons' argu-ment seems weak. Accepting thatthere is no point in punishing amachine which was only obeyingorders, he then goes on to espousean extremely liberal prison policy.He would do away with prisonaltogether and rejoices in this un-expected bonus from his theory,though he concedes that such apolicy makes society difficult.

What he fails to accept is that hisearlier stated position on the dualinfluence of genes and environ-ment, along with his generalcybernetic theory, do in fact pro-vide a justification for some formof restraint, if only to provide alittle deterring input to thoserobots with anti -social tendencies.It is a pity that at this point Simonsseems uninterested in examiningthe consequences of his theory ingreater and more practical depth.

Whether or not you subscribe tohis central thesis this is a fascin-ating book. Its maverick viewpointmakes it thoroughly thoughtprovoking as well as amusing.

A far more conventional rompthrough the highways and bywaysof artificial intelligence is providedby James Brules book ArtificialIntelligence: Theory, Logic andApplication. Its introductionstates that it is for the "open-minded, but as yet uninformed



1110 NO

B 0CD0K

ARTIFICIALINTELLIGENCETHEORY, LOGIC AND

APPLICATION

At the end there is a brief sectionon Al and society. The book is wellwritten, and although slighlyheavy -going at times it is wellworth the effort for the insights itgives into how the professionals inAI are tackling the problems.

Another book in the same seriesfrom Ellis Horwood, ArtificialIntelligence: Applications in thefuture of software engineering, isaimed at fellow practitioners and isof less general interest. It also

some general articles by RichardEnnals it has little to recommendit.

After all the jargon, the Diet -ionary of Artificial Intelligenceand Robotics might seem just thejob. But I find it hard to see whothis book is aimed at. Experts willfind its content obvious, andhardly anyone else is going to belooking up phrases like "incre-mental integrator". Sadly, thereare not even many amusing wordsREVIEWS begins to dip its toe in the murky

infor the casual browser. Among its

"bang(continued from previous page)

,,,,., BP crwaters of Al jargon and -crowdtalk.

4,000 entries only -bangrobot" caught my attention. It is

business person." It offers a verydown-to-earth and practicalapproach to what is going on in theAl world.

First there is the obligatory tourof landmarks like the Turing Test,Eliza the psychiatrising computer,Parry the psychotic computer, andexpert systems like Prospector andMycin. The next chapter is calledTheoretical Foundations, and tellsyou everything you wanted toknow about undivided middlesand syllogisms. Thereafter, thebook looks at specific areas of AIsuch as knowledge representation,graph searching and pattern recog-ninon. It offers simple examples,complete with Basic programsimplementing the principles.There is a good chapter on the

three most popular AI languages,Lisp, Prolog and Pop -11. Overall,the book is sometimes a little toospecific, and lacks the moregeneral details. But what it does, itdoes well.

A different approach again isoffered in Donald Michie's OnMachine Intelligence. Written byone of the founding fathers of AIin this country it is at once authori-tative and accessible. Its approachis quite some way from the popu-list journalism of the previous twobooks, and follows closely the con-terns of the academic world. Thusthere are three main sections,one on computer game -playing,another on intelligent robots, andone on the mechanics of cognition.

Such opaque academese reachesnew depths in IntelligentMachinery: Theory and Practicewhich is a reworking of a series ofpapers presented at a conferenceheld at Cambridge. Apart from

STILL A LOTIs Man a Robot? by GeoffSimons. Published by John Wiley,£14.95. ISBN 0 471 91106 2Artificial Intelligence:Theory, Logic andApplication by James F Brule.Published by Tab Books Inc.,£11.50. ISBN 0 8306 0471 5On Machine Intelligence byDonald Michie. Published by EllisNorwood, £29.95. ISBN 0 74580084 XArtificial Intelligence:Applications in the future of

also expensive at £14.75 for a

200 -page paperback. Unfor-tunately this kind of pricing andthis kind of book seems to begenerally indicative of the Alworld, which has a lot to learn. IN

TO LEARNsoftware engineering by DPartridge. Published by EllisNorwood, £25. ISBN 0 85312 753 0Intelligent Machinery:Theory and Practice edited byIan Benson. Published byCambridge University Press,£17.50. ISBN 0 521 30836 4Dictionary of ArtificialIntelligence and Robotics byJerry M Rosenberg. Published byJohn Wiley, £14.75 paperback,£31.85 hardback. ISBN 0 47184981 2

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0 P E N FILE.0 pen File offers programming tips and software to

key in. We welcome submissions from readers. Weare interested in business programs for any of the mainmachines such as IBM, Apple, Amiga, Atari 520ST, BBCand Amstrad PCW-8256. We are also interested inapplications written in dBase, or for standard spread-sheets like 1-2-3. Utilities are also welcomed.

Submissions should include a brief description whichexplains what your program does and how it does it. Thisshould be typed with lines double-spaced. The programshould be printed with a new ribbon or at double -intensity; the width should be between 75mm. and90mm., or between 105mm. and 135mm. Also include adisc of your program.

Please send your contributions to

Open File, Practical Computing, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey 5M2 5A5.

DOSMENUA routine that sets upan option menu withinMS-DOS, presented

by HarveyThomas.

THE batch commands of PC -DOS

and MS-DOS provide a number of

useful and powerful features,

but there are some annoyingomissions. Among them is the

ability to perform conditional

branching dependent on the

response made by a user to a

question asked in the middle of a

batch file. With such a facility you

could, for example, write simple

menu -selection routines entirely as

a series of batch commands within

MS-DOS itself.

The Choose program presented

here aims to provide just such a

facility. It is invoked by a

command line of the form

choose prompt to user respl resp2

resp3 . . .

where -prompt to user" is a.

delimited string; any printable

delimiter may be used. The

elements resp1, etc., are the

allowable responses that the user

may make; upper- and lower-case alphabetic characters are

considered by the program to be

equivalent.


LISTINGecho offclstype choose. optCHOOSE ' Choose an

option 'abcdif errorlevel 4 goto I abel 4if errorlevel 3 goto label3if errorlevel 2 goto label2if errorlevel 1 goto Isbellecho SOMETHINO NASTY HAPPENEDENDBATCHiiabel1ECHO OPTION A SELECTEDENDBATCHelabel2ECHO OPTION B SELECTEDENDBATCHI abel 3

ECHO OPTION C SELECTEDENDBATCH;label4ECHO OPTION D SELECTEDENDBATCH

PASCAL

LISTING 2. CHOOSE.0 PTDEMONSTRATION OF MS-DOS MENU

A -B -C -D

Choose option ASelect option BRequire option CDesire option D

Your selection letter must be followed by the Enter key

LISTING 3. CHOOSE

($c-) (disable ctrl/break)Program Choose;

A program to assist decision making in PC/MS-DOS Batch filesSyntax is ;-

CHOOSE 'PROMPT TO USER' Respi Resp2 Resp3

where the delimited string (' is used as an example) is used toprompt the user, and Respl, Resp2 etc are the allowable responsesthe user can make (no distinction is made between upper and lowercase letters). The program sets the MS-DOS ERRORLEVEL on programtermination to either 0 (which means an ERROR inparameters to CHOOSE), or the number of the response selected(Resp1=1, Resp2=2 etc>.

Current restrictions: 25 responses, maximum length of each responseis 6 characters. At least two responses specified on command line.

Harvey Thomas. July 1986

constMAXRESPLENGTH=6;MAXRESPONSES=25;

typerespstr=string[MAXRESPLENGTH];

vari,J,x,ylinteger;cmdlineastring(127) absolute cseg:$80;prompt,wordistring[127l;resp:array [1..MAXRESPONSES1 of respstr;anslrespstr;delim:char;

procedure uprespstr(var strespstr):(convert string s to upper case)

verI.:integer;

beginfor i:=1 to length(s)

end;do sCili=upcase(sCi]);

beginif paramcount<3 then halt(0);i:=1;prompts=cmdline; (copy DOS command line)while prompt[il=" do delete(prompt,1,1); (remove leading blanks)delimi=promptC17;prompti=copy(prompt,2,1ength(prompt)-1);i:=pos(delim,prompt);if i=0 then halt(0);prompt;=copy(prompt,l,i-1);

(now look for the DOS parameter that ends with the delimiter)wordl=paramstr(1);delete(word,1,1);i;=1;while (wordElength(word)) >delim) and (i<=paramcount) dobegin

ie=i+1;word:=paramstr(i);

end;

)

(must be 3+ DOS parameters)

(remove 1st delimiter)(seek 2nd delimiter)(error exit if not found)(remove 2nd delimiter)

(listing continued on next page)


OPENP" C L

ILE(confinuedfrompreviouspage)

When the user selects a validoption the Choose programterminates, setting the DOSErrorlevel to the number of theresponse. The first option after theprompt string is 1, the second2, etc. The program will notterminate until a correct responseis entered unless the command linewas entered incorrectly, in whichcase the program terminates withErrorlevel set to zero.

For effective use, it is of coursenecessary to know how to testthe DOS Errorlevel. The DOScommand

IF ERRORLEVEL 8 GOTO ALABELwill cause control to transfer to theline following the label Alabel,if the immediately precedingprogram terminated with an exitcode or Errorlevel of 8 or greater. Itis therefore sensible to test the exitcode from the highest possiblevalue down to the lowest, ratherthan from the lowest to thehighest.

Listing 1 shows Select.Bat, abatch file used to control simplemenu selection. The routine usesType to display the body of themenu as this is much faster thanrepeated Echo commands. The fileChoose.Opt is shown in listing 2.The dummy batch procedureEndbatch is used to terminate

LISTING 3. CHOOSE

(listing continued from previous page)

(remaining DOS parameters are the allowed user responses)if i>(paramcount-2) then halt(0);ji=0;repeat

j1..J+1;respEj i.mparamstr(i);uprespstr(resp(j3);

until (0.paramcount) or (j.41AXRESPONSES);

(put the prompt up)write(prompt);xs..wherex;yi=wherey;

(user must have 2+ choices)

(convert to u/case)

(save screen position

(loop until we get a valid response)while TRUE dobegin

gotoxy(x,y);clreol;bufleni..MAXRESPLENOTH;read(ans);uprespstr(ans);

(see if response is valid)for is=1 to j do if ans=resplil thenbegin

writeln;halt(i);

end;write(^G)1

end;end.

for response)

(clear any previous response)

(set response to u/case)

(sets DOS ERRORLEVEL)

(beep on invalid response)

processing of a particular option; itis much faster than jumping to alabel at the end of the batch file.Endbatch.Bat is simply a singleblank line.

The response to Choose could beinput redirected from a file gen-erated by an earlier program. Some

very complex batch jobs could beset up in this way.

Choose is written in TurboPascal and is shown in listing 3. Itshould be easy to follow as it takesadvantage of some of the built-infunctions and procedures providedby Turbo Pascal.

For those who do not possessTurbo Pascal or who do not wish tohave to key in the program, copiesof Choose for 5.25in. MS-DOSdiscs can be obtained by sending£5 to Harvey Thomas, 1 WestlecotRoad, Swindon, Wiltshire SN14EZ.

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PARTIAL SCREEN CLEARNeil Booth explains how to clear an area of your screen from within a Basic program.

ONE of the problems facing anyonewho programs in Basic on an IBMand who wants their programs tointeract with the user by means offriendly and uncluttered screendisplays is screen clearance. Notwhole screen clearance, which isachieved by use of the CLScommand, but partial screen clear-ance. This is clearance to the end ofa row, or to the end of the screen,or of a designated window withinthe screen.

Basic provides no commandswhich will achieve these endsdirectly. To clear to the end of aparticular row, for example, youmust use a command such as

PRINT SPACE$ (X)

where X is 80 minus the value ofthe current cursor column. To clearto the end of the screen from aparticular screen location, you usethis command followed by acommand such asFOR 1=1 TO 1:PRINT

SPACE$(80):NEXT Iwhere J is the number of wholerows to be cleared, Likewise, toclear a window in the screen from,say, column 14 of row 6 to column

34 of row 15 you must use a routinesuch asFOR 1=0 TO 9:LOCATE 6+1,

14:PRINT SPACES(21) :NEXT IThis is all unnecessary, for there

are at least two fast and effectiveways of carrying out the desiredoperations from within a Basicprogram. One solution lies in theuse of the alternative screen andkeyboard driver, ANSI.Sys, whichis provided as a file on the standardDOS disc. When DOS is firstcalled on booting up the system,standard drivers governing screen,keyboard, disc drives, etc., areautomatically loaded. But if a

Config.Sys file containing thecommand

DEVICE=ANSI.SYSis placed on the disc from whichbootup takes place, data sent fromthe keyboard to the screen ispassed through the ANSI.Sysdriver instead of the standardconsole driver.

Data is handled in much thesame way as it would be handledby the standard driver, except thatadditional commands in the formof Escape sequences may be given,

LISTING 1. ANSI.SYS METHOD

10 REM SWITCH OFF SOFT KEYS AND DEFINE INTEGERS20 KEY OFF:DEFINT A-230 REM OPEN CONSOLE AS OUTPUT FILE40 OPEN.0.,£1,"CON.50 REM DEFINE CR$ FOR END -OF -ROW CLEARANCE ROUTINE60 CRS=CHR$(27)+"(s.+CHR$(27)+"[C+CHRS(27)+"[C70 REM DEFINE CS$ FOR END -OF -SCREEN CLEARANCE ROUTINE80 CSS=CHRS(27)+'[s"+CHR$127)+"[K'+CHR$(27)+°[C+

CHRS(27)+'(790.90 FOR I=1 TO 23:CSS=CSS+CHRS(27)+"[C+CHR8(27)+.[B.:

NEXT I

100 CSS=CS8+CHRS(27)+°(u.110 REM DEFINE CW$ FOR 8 -DEEP -WINDOW CLEARANCE ROUTINE120 0WS=CHR8(27)+.(s"130 FOR I=1 TO 8:0818=CWS+CHRS(27)+"(K.+CHRS(27)+.[B°:

NEXT I

140 CW$=CW8+CHR$(27)+'[u.150 REM FILL SCREEN160 GOSUB 300170 REM CLEAR ROW 8 FROM COLUMN 10 TO END180 LOCATE 8,10:PRINT £1,088190 REM PAUSE AND FILL SCREEN200 GOSUB 340:GOSUB 300210 REM CLEAR FROM ROW 12 COLUMN 35 TO END OF SCREEN220 LOCATE 12,35:PRINT £1,CS$230 REM PAUSE AND FILL SCREEN240 GOSUB 340:GOSUB 300250 REM CLEAR WINDOW IN SCREEN FROM ROW 8 COLUMN 60 TO

ROW 16 COLUMN 80260 LOCATE 8,60:PRINT £1,CWS270 REM END DEMONSTRATION280 LOCATE 22,80:END290 REM CLEAR SCREEN THEN FILL WITH CHARACTERS

SUBROUTINE300 LOCATE 1,1:PRINT £1,CS$310 FOR I=1 TO 23:FOR J=1 TO 79:PRINT CHRI(I+64)::NEXT

J:PRINT:NEXT I

320 RETURN330 REM CREATE SHORT PAUSE SUBROUTINE340 FOR I=1 TO 4000:NEXT I:RETURN

including the set of screen -handling commands listed in table1. These commands may be com-bined to produce within a BasicProgram, a whole series of screen -clearing routines which may beinvoked from within the programas required.

The necessary steps are asfollows. First, the VDU screen isopened as an output device fromwithin the program. For thispurpose it must be given the nameCon as illustrated in line 40 of theBasic program listed in listing 1.

Next a number of string vari-ables must be defined in terms ofthe commands listed in table 1.

CR$ may, for instance, be chosenas the variable signifying thecommand to clear to the end of thecurrent row and return the cursorto the clearing start position; itmight be defined as illustrated inline 60 of listing 1. Then whenever

the operation signified by CR$ isrequired within the program, allthat is necessary is to insert a linesuch as line 180. That line, whenexecuted, will instantly clear row 8of the screen from column 10 tothe end before returning the cursorto the start -clearing position.

Another variable might be set toclear the screen from a particularcursor position to the end of thescreen, and return the cursor to theclearing start position. CS$ mightbe defined as illustrated in lines 80to 100 of listing 1. To clear thescreen from, say, column 35 of row12, it then becomes necessarymerely to insert a line such as theillustrated line 220.

Unfortunately, the additionalcommands available underANSI.Sys do not lend themselvesto the defining of variables to cleara window, except where the


LISTING 2. BIOS METHOD

10 REM SWITCH OFF SOFT KEYS AND DEFINE INTEGERS20 KEY OFF:DEFINT A -Z30 REM LOCATE MACHINE CODE SUBROUTINE OUTSIDE BASIC

WORKAREA40 DEF SEG=&H170050 REM READ CODE FROM DATA STATEMENTS AND POKE INTO

SPECIFIED LOCATION60 FOR 1=0 TO 41:READ J:POKE I,J:NEXT I

70 DATA 8(H55,8H8B,&HEC,&HB4,1(H06,8H130,81H00,8(H87,1tH00,

&H8B,P176,4H06,8(H8A,8H14,1(H88,1tH76,1tH08,8H8A,8(H34,

&H8B,8H76,81104,81H8A,8HOC,I(H88,ttH76,8HOC,&H8A,&H2C,&HFE,&HCD,I(HFE,U109,4HFE,&HCE,&HFE,&HCA,&HCD,8tH10,4H5D,t(HCA,41108

80 REM NAME SUBROUTINE AND SET VALUE TO ENTRY ADDRESSOF SPECIFIED SEGMENT

90 S40

100 REM FILL SCREEN110 GOSUB 250120 REM CLEAR ROW 8 FROM COLUMN 10 TO END130 W=8:X=10:GOSUB 290140 REM PAUSE AND FILL SCREEN150 GOSUB 270:GOSUB 250160 REM CLEAR FROM ROW 12 COLUMN 35 TO END OF SCREEN170 W=12:X=35:GOSUB 310180 REM PAUSE THEN FILL SCREEN190 GOSUB 270:GOSUB 250200 REM CLEAR WINDOW IN SCREEN FROM ROW 8 COLUMN 30 TO

ROW 15 COLUMN 50210 W=8:X=30:Y=15:Z=50:GOSUB 350220 REM END DEMONSTRATION230 LOCATE 22,80:END240 REM CLEAR SCREEN THEN FILL WITH CHARACTERS

SUBROUTINE250 GOSUB 330:FOR A=1 TO 23:FOR B=1 TO 79:PRINT CHRS(A+

64);:NEXT B:PRINT:NEXT A:RETURN260 REM CREATE SHORT PAUSE SUBROUTINE270 FOR I=1 TO 4000:NEXT I

280 REM CLEAR TO END OF ROW SUBROUTINE290 Y=W:Z=80:CALL S(W,X,Y,Z):LOCATE W,X:RETURN300 REM CLEAR TO END OF SCREEN SUBROUTINE310 GOSUB 290:W=W+1:X=1:Y=24:2=80:CALL S(W,X,Y,2):

LOCATE W,X:RETURN320 REM CLEAR WHOLE SCREEN SUBROUTINE330 W=1:X=1:Y=24:2=80:CALL S(W,X,Y,Z):LOCATE W,X:RETURN340 REM CLEAR WINDOW IN SCREEN SUBROUTINE350 CALL S(W,X,Y,Z):LOCATE W,X:RETURN



desired windows have column 80as their right-hand parameter.However, for such windows thevariable CW$ might be defined asillustrated by lines 120 to 140 oflisting 1. The variable shown is fora window eight rows high, but anynumber between 1 and 25 may besubstituted so as to obtainwindows of different heights. Line260 illustrates how a blankedwindow beginning at row 8 ofcolumn 60, and ending on row 16of column 80, may be obtained.

A faster method of performingscreen clearance, including theclearance of a window anywhere inthe screen, is by accessing the ROMBIOS and issuing direct screencommands by means of anassembly -language routine whichcan be called from a Basicprogram. Access to the BIOS videoI/O routines is through the 8088software interrupt 10 hex.

There are numerous methods ofinterfacing an assembly -languagesubroutine from Basic, but themethod described here is to makethe subroutine part of the Basicprogram by placing the relevantmachine code in Data statementswhich are then Poked into memorylocations lying outside Basic's 64Kwork area. The subroutine is givenan integer variable name and maythen then be Called whenevernecessary. This method does notrequire the use of an assembler,and all code is contained in the oneBasic program file.

The assembly -language screen -clearing routine illustrated heremust be supplied with four par-ameters in the form of four integervariables if it is to perform theclearing operations discussed.They may be contained in theBasic program in the form ofdeclared variables, or may be ob-tained from the user in response to

LISTING 3. ASSEMBLY -LANGUAGE SUBROUTINE

55 PUSH BP8BEC MOV BP,SP ;SETB406 MOV AH,6 ;SETB000 MOV AL,O ;SETB700 MOV BH,O ;SET8B7606 MOV SI,[BP]+6 ;GET8A14 MOV DL,[SI] ;GET

887608 MOV SI,[BP]+8 ;GET8A34 MOV DH,[SI] ;GET8B7608 MOV SI,[BP]+10 ;GET8AOC MOV CL,[SI] ;GET887608 MOV SI, [BP]+12 ;GET8A2C MOV CH,[SI] ;GET

FECD DEC CH

FEC9 DEC CL

FECE DEC DHFECA DEC DLCD10 INT 10H5D POP BPCA08 RET 8

;SAVE BASE POINTERBASE POINTER FOR ADDRESSING STACKSCROLL INSTRUCTION AS "UP"SCROLL LENGTH AS "ALL"ATTRIBUTE AS "BLACK"ADDRESS OF "Z"VALUE OF "Z"ADDRESS OF "Y"VALUE OF "Y"ADDRESS OF "X"VALUE OF "X"ADDRESS OF "W"VALUE OF "W"

;DECREMENT VALUE OF "W" BY;0-24 SYSTEM);DECREMENT VALUE OF "X" BY;0-79 SYSTEM);DECREMENT VALUE OF "Y" BY 1;DECREMENT VALUE OF "Z" BY 1;CALL BIOS VIDEO INTERRUPT;RESTORE BASE POINTER;RETURN AND DISCARD 4 ARGUMENTS

1 (1-25 VDU =

1 (1-80 VDU =

input commands. In listing 2,these variables are named W, X, Yand Z; W and X represent, res-pectively, the row and columnfrom which clearance is to begin,while Y and Z represent, respect-ively, the row and column at whichclearance is to end.

The parameters supplied are

TABLE 1 SCREEN CONTROL COMMANDS

CHR$(27) + "[ ?A" - Movecursor up ? rows withoutchanging columns. Default is1. Command cancelled if row1 reached.CHR$(27) + "[?B" - Movecursor down ? rows withoutchanging columns. Default is1. Command cancelled if row24 reached.CHR$(27) + "[?C" - Movecursor forward ? columnswithout changing rows.Default is 1. Commandcancelled if column 80reached.CHR$(27) + "[?D" - Movecursor back ? columns withoutchanging rows. Default is 1.Command cancelled if

column 1 reached.CHR$(27) + "[?;?H" - Movecursor to position specified by?;? (row number; columnnumber). Default is 1;1.CHR$(27) + "[?2J" - Clearentire screen and place cursorat 1,1.CHR$(27) + "[K" - Clear toend of row from andincluding cursor position.CHR$(27) + "[s" - Savecurrent cursor position.CHR$(27) + "[u" - Returncursor to saved position.

All the letters used in thesesequences are case sensitive; Ato K must be in upper case, sand u must be in lower case.

passed to the assembly -languagesubroutine by separating them bycommas and placing them inparentheses after the subroutine'svariable name in the Callcommand. In listing 2 theassembly -language subroutine hasbeen named S and, accordingly,the Call is to S(W,X,Y,Z), as ill-ustrated by lines 290, 310, 330 and350.

The code for the assembly -language subroutine itself is as setout in the first column of listing 3.It may be contained in a singleData statement as illustrated byline 70 of listing 2.

If the machine code comprisingthe Data statement is to be Pokedinto an area of memory outside theBasic work area, the system musthave a memory capacity of at least96K so as to leave such an area freeafter accommodating DOS, Basicand the Basic work area. It is

sensible to set aside the highest 4Kor so of memory for assembly -language subroutines, in whichcase the starting address for thePoke routine will be the hexa-decimal equivalent of the memorycapacity of the syStem, expressed inKbyte, minus 4K.

For example, in a 96K systemthe starting address will be 92K,which equals 94208 decimal or17000 hexadecimal. The final zerois removed to arrive at the figurerequired by the Def Seg state-ment. Thus, in line 40 of listing 2the memory segment is defined asthat beginning at &H1700. If thesystem has less than 96K ofmemory it will be necessary tolocate the assembly -languageroutine within the highest area ofthe Basic work area by issuing aClear command within the Basicprogram.

CLEAR,&HF000will reserve the top 4K forassembly -language subroutines;starting Basic with the DOScommand

BASIC/M:&H F000will have the same effect.

Once the starting address hasbeen defined, the data is Pokedinto successive memory locations,beginning with that address, bymeans of Read and Poke com-mands as illustrated in line 60. TheBasic program in listing 2 will fillthe screen with characters and thenperform various screen -clearoperations.


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CompaqCompaq Plus 256kb lx360kb 10mb HDCompaq Port II M3 640kb lx360kb 10mb HDCompaq Port 286 640kb lx1.2mb 20mbStreamCompaq Deskpro 286 640kb lx I.2mb 30mb HDCompaq Deskpro 386 X140 1mb lx1.2mb 40mb

PleaseCall fordetails

Amstrad

PC1512 lx360kb512kb K/BPC1512 2x360kb+512kb K/BPC1512 lx.360kb+512kb 10mb HD K/BPCI512 lx360kb+512kb 20mb HD K/B

Mono/Colour449/619.00959/729.00799/969.00899/1069.00

EpsonEpson PC 256kb 2x360 kb + K,B 729.00Epson PC + 640kb 2x360 kb + K/B 1399.00Epson PC + 640kb 1x360 kb + 20mb HD + K/B 1699.00

Daisywheel PrintersBrother HR20DBrother HR25XLBrother HR3SIBM WheelprinterIBM Quietwriter Mod 2 Graphics

22cps 335.0028cps 515.0035cps 745.0025cps 795.0045cos 1075.00

Regent House, 2 North Road,Brighton. Sussex BN1 1YATelex: 877649 Fax: 0273 671513

0273 609331Juki 6100Olivetti DV300Olivetti DV800Qume 11 55

I8cps 265.0030cps 599.0080cps 1175.0055cps 1275.00

Laser PrintersOki Laser Line 0Canon Laser LBP-8A1Canon Laser LBP-8A2Hewlett Packard LaserHewlett Packard Laser +Hewlett Packard Laser 500Qume Ten LaserQume Ten Laser Plus

I28kb 8ppm 1645.00I 28 kb 8ppm 1899.00

1024kb 8ppm 2799.00128kb 8ppm 1999.00512kb 8ppm 2650.00512kb 8ppm 3400.00I28kb l0ppm 2300.00512kb l0ppm 2900.00

Network Systems AvailablePlease call for details

PlottersEpson HI 80Hitachi 672Hewlett rackard 7440Hewlett Packard 7475Hewlett Packard 7550ARoland DX)). 980 A PlotterRoland DXV 880A PlotterRoland DPXSekonick 430

A4 4penA3 4penA4 OpenA3 6penA3 OpenA3 OpenA3 OpenA2 OpenA3 Open

349.00499.00999.00

1475.003415.00930.00655.00

3540.00925.00

TerminalsQume QVT101Qume QVT101+Qume QVT103Wyse 60Televldeo 905

ASCIIASCIIANSIIBM

ASCII

294.00340.00505.00510.00315.00

Tape BackupEverex 20mb InternalEverex 60mb InternalTallgrassChristy

60mb20mb

620.00850.00

External 1115.00External 670.00

Displays and AdaptorsHercules Mono Graphics AdaptorHercules Colour Graphics AdaptorOrchid EGA C1W 256kbPrinter AdaptorAst 3'3-G EGA CO, 256kbInterquadram Quad EGA +Tatung EGA MonitorAdaptor

EC Multisvnc Monitor CGA EGA PGA

SoftwareWord Prot essing

Displaywrite 3Muffins'', AdvMultlmateSamna IIISamna PlusWord PerfectMS Word 3WordstarWordstar Prof

308 Crosstalk XVII295 Flight Simulator214 Gem Collection355 Gem Desktop435 Norton Utilities270 Sidekick (NCP)280 MS Windows170 Top NI,. 115218

Wordstar 2000 R2 265Wordstar 2000 + 285Writing Assistant 79Wordcraft Nova 160Wordcraft 360Wordcraft Elite 600

e=23Mili=.Framework II 345Open Access 290Smart Suite v3.0 388

357380247169225

SymphonyJavelinLotus 123Multiplan v.2.0Supercalc 4

110459447595575=NM

Cardbox Plus 244Datamaster 440dilsse II 270dBse III plug 357

CompNantuilercket dB3

480Delta 4 Prof 390IBM Filing Asst v.2 99Multisoft A/Cs from 390Pegasus A/Cs from 175Sage Bookeeper 85Sage Accountant 125Sage Accountant + 155Sage Flu. Coat. 850Paradox 430IBM Teamwork from 305

12=11Autocad 2+EX123 2150Autocad 2 Base 300MS Chart 184Domino 365Energraphics 205Execuvision 205Gem Draw/Graph 99/155Gem Wordchart 89

Amstrad PC 1512 (budget)

ReflexWordstar 1512Delta 4 1512Domino 1512Supercalc 3Sage PC WriteSage DesksetSage Retrieve (DB)

6060878760846984

Hard Disk* Specials *From 260.00

180.00100.00220.00220.00280.00640.00550.00

11-14 Maritime Street,Edinburgh EM6 6S8Telex: 728298 Fax: 031-554 2581,

031 554 4361IBM Compatible Add-Ons

EGCM/EGA 256KBPersyst EMS-LIM Compat Ram 1.5mbQubie Sixshooter 384kb MultifunctionAST SixPac Plus 384kb MultifunctionAST SixPac Premium 2mb EMS LIMAST Advantage 1.5mbAST Rampage 1.5mb EMS LIMAST Flashpack 9.54mhz NEC V30Sony 13" Colour VDUDataflex Excelorator 8086 9.54mhz/640kbEverex Ram 3000 3mbProcom 20 InternalOrchid Tiny Turbo 80286 8mhzOrchid EGA 256kbOrchid Turbo EGA 256kbOrchid PC Turbo 286-e Imb Memory 8mhzSage Chit -ChatAll Breakout Modems with Crosstalk XVIBreakout Int or Ext Modem 300 1200/75Breakout Int or Ext Modem 300 1200/75 1200Breakout Modem 300 1200/75 1200 2400Summa Graphics MouseMicrosoft MouseMouse Systems Mouse

650.00399.00190.00275.00430.00275.00

290/525.00295.00499.00425.00399.00699.00399.00264.00585.00778.00299.00

450.00599.00799.0099.00

143.00145.00

Hard Disks10mb to 20mb Hard Disk Exchange360kb to 10mb Hard Disk Exchange360kb to 20mb Hard Disk Exchange360kb to 30mb Hard Disk Exchange40mb Hard Disk Voice CoilFitting on the aboveBernoulli Box 1010mbBernoulli Box 20+20mb

350.00260.00375.00445.00777.00

15.001600.002155.00

Printers Dot MatrixBrother M1109Brother M1409Brother M1509Brother TwInNriter 5Epson LX86Epson FX800Epson FX 1000Epson EX800 opt Colour 8391Epson EX1000 opt Colour 8391Epson LQ800Epson LQI000Epson LQ2500 opt ColourEpson Colour OptionsIBM ProprinterIBM Proprinter XLNEC PS XLNEC P6NEC P7Olivetti DM100OTC OT700Panasonic KP 1080Panasonic KP 1091Panasonic KP 1092Panasonic KP 1595Honeywell 4/21

25/100cps45/180cps45/180cps40/160cps16/120cps32/200cps32/200cps50/300cps50/300cps60/180cps60/180cps90/270cps

839140/200cps40/200cps88/264cps77/216cps77/216cps25/120cps

350/700cps 1750.0020/100cps 175.0029/120cps 245.0033/180cps 320.0051/260cps 520.00

40/200cps 415.00

175.00295.00380.00975.00210.00322.00413.00415.00559.00469.00625.00785.0055.00

363.00425.00915.00410.00490.00199.00

Special Offers

Bromcom 20mb4 User System

80186 running at 10mhrConcurrent DOS I mb

Memory20mb Hard Disk

4 Terminals + Key boardsDR/ARC-net Supplied as

StandardFree New word Processing

Amstrad or IBMCompatible Networking

£3250

20mb Olivetti

5124 Base Unit 640kb Ram1 x 360kb Disk Dos 3.1

Olivetti Monitor7 Slot Bus Convertor

Olivetti or IBM KeyboardClock Calendar

Serial Parallel Port

£142020mb Hard DiskAs above I x 360kb DiskCompat 20mb Hard Disk

£1675rnternalH/H2OMBStreamer C650 E Ara

Colour Maloof- E220Extra

20mb IBM XT/286IBM XT/286 640kb Ram1 x 1.2mb Disk Dos 3.2

IBM MonitorMono Display + Printer

AdaptorIBM 20mb Hard Disk

IBM Enhanced KeyboardClock Calendar

Serial + 2nd Parallel Port

£2440interroirt/1120M6Streamer £600 Extra

Colour Monitor C210 Extra

20MB IBM

IBM XTS-FD Base Unit20MB Hard Disk360K Floppy Disk

640K RAMHi-res Mono Graphics

AdaptorMono Display

IBM XTS Enhanced K/BParallel and Serial Port

DOS 3.2

£1899Internal 11/H 20M8 Streamer £600 Extra

Colour Monad £210 Extra

All prices are correct at the time of gongto press and subject to stocks beng available


'PRACTICAL COMPUTING

Telephone Susan Platts 01-661 3033ADVERTISEMENT RATES

Rates quoted below are subject to the addition of 15% VAT.

Display Rates £20.00 per single Column Centimetre Minhum 5cm x 1 colMicro Ads. Linage 50p per word minimum of 20 words. Prepayable.

COPY DATE

L)

X

LLJ

D

Shopwindow advertisements for the May issue will be accepted up to 1stApril subject to space bein. available.Post to Practical Computing, Classified Department, Room H211, Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton Surrey SM2 SAS.

For the BBC B. B Muster

OVERLAY BASICTransparent, easy to use. Lets your BBC BASIC

programs call procedures from disk, use them, then

forget them until next needed Programs now needing

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allows other BBC users to run the programs from

disk without the chip.

£29.95 inc. VAT + p&p

Available only from:

Elsevier - EIDSOFT68 Hills Road Cambridge CB2 ILA

Telephone (0223) 68622 Telex 81623

X

u-1

IT REALLY IS MAGIC!

IITOSHIBA

EPSON ATARI=_ CITIZENNEC Canon

an donII THORN EMI Datatech

Thinking of buying aComputer, Accessories,Printers or Software?Why not save up to 40%Contact Rocketfield,PRC1, 86 Birch HallLane, Manchester 13.Tel. 061-224 4032

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Don't forget to ask for your'Magic' Order form

ROCKETFIELD'computer systems

CYB CYB COMPUTERSLIMREO

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Our qualified technical support team provideoffice systems for word processing, datamanagement, accounting, networking etc.,tailored to your immediate and future needs.Our services include on site training,installation, maintenance and of coursehelpful advice.We offer flexible payment schemes toreduce capital expenditure, thus giving youthe system that is best suited to yourbusiness and spending power.If you are this harassed business man,Please contact us.

9, Crown Parade, Crown Lane, Morden. Surrey, SM4 5DA

DISKCOPYINGIFORMATTINGI

FILE TRANSFERWE CAN TRANSFER YOUR DATA

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FLOPPY DISC OR MAGNETIC TAPE.FORMATS INCLUDE: CPM, CPM 86,

MSDOS, PCDOS, UNIX, XENIX, IDRIS,TAR, RT11, MDOS, IBM BEF, ISIS, FLEX,0S9, VICTOR-SIRIUS, APPLE, TORCH,

ACORN, AMSTRAD, MISC.TYPESETTINGANORD PROCESSING.*OVERNIGHT SERVICE - most formats returned by

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TELEPHONE 01-727 8722

TO RESERVE YOUR SPACE FOR SHOPWINDOW,MICRO ADS AND RECRUITMENT. PHONE:

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SoftOscilloscope

Turn your BBC B, B -F or Master into a

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Education Version (EPROM, disk,

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Professional Version : open access

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Individuals send cheque/Amex/Visa/Access with order.

Elsevier BIOSOFT68 Hills Road, Cambridge,

CB2 ILA, U.K.

AL ATARI - ST ALPUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE

We probably have the most extensive collectionof ATARI -ST public domain software in the U.K.

Over 100 disks are packed with Desk Accessories,Comms software, Games, Utilities, Music andLanguages. And the list is growing daily!

Send an SAE for our most recent listto:

THE SOFT OPTION5 Barn Owl Way, Stoke Gifford,

Bristol, Avon BS126RZ

DESKTOP PUBLISHINGA Seminar

organised by the RM User GroupSee the best in action with AldusPagemaker, Microsoft Word and

MicroSoft Windowsat The Bordesley Centre in Birmingham on

April 4th from 11am to 4pmContact Steve Burrows on 051-639 8237

or Telecom Gold on 72:MAG90380Free to RM User Group Members

Membership of the RM User Group is £15 pa


SEX PROBLEMS?SM SOFTWARE I

Contact House, Church Lane, Bristol

COMMODORE "PET"8000 USERS

Your system still supported!

No need to change to a PC!

Contact SM (UK) Ltd on

0272-24991

New and ReconditionedEquipment, Maintenance, Repairs,

Software

Solve all your RS232 sex problems with our universal cable.Plug and socket at both ends of the one metre cable. Price £25

PRINTER CONNECTION PROBLEMS?SOLUTION 1

CONVERTER: SERIAL TO PARALLEL£60.83 (inc p&p, ex VAT)

For owners of computers with RS232 outputs who wish to drivecentronics printers. Add £25 for additional ways

SOLUTION 2DATA SWITCH: 4 -WAY SERIAL

£60.83 (inc p&p, ex VAT)For owners of computers with RS232 outputs who wish to talkto four different devices without swapping leads

SOLUTION 3DATA SWITCH: 2 -WAY PARALLEL

£60.83 line p&p, ex VAT)For computer owners who wish to drive more than onecentronics printer. Add £25 for additional ways. Reverse alsopossible at same price.

SOLUTION 5CONVERTER: PARALLEL TO SERIAL

£60.83 line p&p, ex VAT)For owners of computers with centronics outputs who wish todrive serial printers. Add f25 for additional waysPlease enquire about our range of software for the NewBrainand also our low-cost Computer Cables. All the above pricesinclude postage and packing, but exclude VAT.For other solutions watch this space, or contact us at

TYEPRO LIMITED30 CoopkIn Road, CAMBRIDGE CB4 2NG

Tel: 0223 322394

APEX HOUSE18 HOCKERILL ST.BISHOPS STORTFORDHERTFORDSHIRE CM23 2DWTEL. (0279) 59343TELEX 817547

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AMSTRAD PC AND PCWMICROS WITH VT100TERMINAL EMULATION, FILETRANSFER ANDNETWORKING

ALSO VT52, ADDS, TELEVIDEO,ADM, etc, etcPRESTEL and COMMUNICATIONS Southern sales: (0279) 59343.CUSTOMISED KEYBOARDS ANDTERMINAL EMULATIONS Northern sales: (0606) 553433

FULL TECHNICAL SUPPORT & ADVICE

SERVICE & MAINTENANCE CONTRACTS

«.,,e vr we are ,.d. meta of regtel Equipment Comoranon

When replying toClassified advertisements,readers are recommendedto take steps to protecttheir interests beforesending money.

COPY DEADLINE

APRIL 1stFOR MAY ISSUE

APRICOT Fl and portable technicalreference manual. £20 each or £35 pair. Alsoracing forecasting program £30. Stateformat CWO Box No. 429m.

WINDOW MANUFACTORS softwarepackage for the AMSTRAD PCW8512, IBMor compatibles now available. Will producecutting lists for any design of window inaluminium or p.v.c. Send for sample print-outs or enclose £10 for demo -disks.SWIFTSOFT Computers, Ballindmallard,County Fermanagh, N. IRELAND.

SIRIUS 128K, 2x600k d/drives Smith CoronaDaisy Wheel Printer with Tractor Feed,Wordstar, Pulsar Sales and PurchaseLedgers. £250. Phone 0524 792101.

SIRIUS/IBM & Compatibles Public Domainsoftware incl. Transfer pack send large saeto M. Palaci 122 Kilburn High Road, LondonNW6 4HY.

COMPUTER FLOOR 450 2Fx2F Tiles, Jacks,Aluminium Grids, Complete Floor, £1000(offers) can deliver 0737 67915 day timeanswerphone or evenings.XEROX 16/8 C.P.U. 10Meg drive blackscreen V.D.U. W.P. Keyboard 620 DiabloPrinter C.P.M. and D.O.S. Systems all boxedunused £1500 01-852 5161.

MICROWRITER £140; Tandy 100/8KForgetful £120; Crunch (Mac) Overlarge£120. Aysgarth (09693) 345.

APRICOT PC Monitor 9" brand new £100also ten Tandy model III's complete withbasic training course manuals suitable forComputer Club. £500 the lot Gosport (0705)587862 office hours.

EPSON LQ1500 with Tractor Feed and FontBoard £550.000 DIABLO 630 KSR withKeyboard and Tractor £650.00 SPRINTERInterface Convertor £100.00 all domesticuse only 0296 88122 day 641666 evening.

DISK COPYING SERVICEMoving data and program files from

one machine to another is often madedifficult because different

manufacturers have adopted differentdisk format standards.

We can copy your files to and fromover 250 disk formats including

CP/M, CP/M-86, MS-IXE, PC -DOS, ISIS,APPLE, SIRIUS, TORCH, APRICOT, HP150,

DEC RT-11, and IBM BEF.

Disks are normally despatched on theday they are received.

Our charge is £10.00 + disk + VAT.Special prices for quantities.

For more information call us.

GREY MATTER4 Prigg Meadow, Ashburton Devon TC)137DF

TEL. (0364) 53499 10

MAKE YOUR OWN

MENUSCreate screen menus to drive all yoursoftware. Whether you are in abusiness, a home -user or even anexperienced programmer, if you usean IBM compatible running MS-DOS,you need MAKMEN.Features:EASY TO USE. SYNTAX CHECKING.

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Mole Systems Ltd £49.95111 Manor Green RoadEpsomSurrey KT19 8LW Tel: 03727 21217

CTh11PUTEFi DIPTiESDATA COMMUNICATIONSAIR CONDITIONINGMAINS SUPPLIES

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We offer a complete service at very com-petitive prices. Specialists in all types ofcomputer cabling installations.for a free quotation; Tel: (0442) 216235

COMPUTER OPTICS16 Chardins Close,

Hemel Hempstead, Herts. HP1 2QN.

FOR SALE Ricoh RP1600 Centronics DailyWheel Letter quality printer. Cost £1200,surplus to requirements £595 ono. SiemensPT88 Whisper Jet Serial Printer cost£650-£295 ono, never used, viewChippenham 720984.

TELEVIDEO 800A workstations £200.TS806/20MG Computer £750. ICL K9Terminals £90. Tel: Day 061-832 2816 orEvenings 061 445 5650.

RAIR BLACK BOX and ICL PCs (8 bit).Bought sold exchange repaired advicegiven. Ring 0734 668951 (Reading). 267M

dBASE II/III custom software development.Library of programs in dBase available andmodifiable. EaslyLink 6290 9922. KNAssociates, 114 -8th Street, Ann Arbor.Michigan 48103.

SIRIUS expansion boards, high quality, lowcost. Send for details. Issue 18, NorfolkRoad, Brighton BN1 3AA.


PC FORUMdClock-2 is thelatest in theunique rangeof real-timeclock -calendars foruse inpersonalcomputers.On startupdClock-2automaticallyenters the time& date intoyourcomputer. *Actual sizeThrough theuse of an internal battery, dClock-2 maintains the precise timeand date even when the system is shut down.Due to it's unique design dCLOCK-2 does not take up avaluable expansion slot in your computer, it simply plugs intothe back of the floppy disk drive or disk controller board.dCLOCK-2 can be installed by the user in less than 5 minutes.The unit measures 60mm x42mm x 18mm and forms anunobtrusive part of the system.dClock-2 is suitable for most PC's ie: PC, AT, & Turbo types,so long as they have at least one standard 360k disk drive andrun DOS 2 or later.

-ONLY f69.95 -Telephone or credit card orders phone (03526)61991 or write: Bentley (Computers) LimitedUnit 23, Manor Industrial Estate, Flint, ClwydCH6 5UY. Tel 03526 61991For postal orders please add f1.50 p&pAll prices exclude VAT*If dCLOCK-2 proves unsuitable for use with yourcomputer, you may return it within 14 day.. fora fullrefund.

VISA


PC/AT COMPATIBLESBREAKING THE PRICE BARRIERmim

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED KINGDOMUSING HIGHEST QUALITY JAPANESE PRODUCTS

PC/XT £365`8088/V20-8MH

*640K*1 FLOPPY DRIVE*PRINTER PORT

*GRAPHICS DISPLAY ADAPTER, AT STYLE CASE*AT KEYBOARD NUMS + CAPS LOCK

WITH 20MB HARD DISK MONITOR £780

AT/TURBO £995*80286 6/8/10MHZ

*512K RAM EXPANDABLE TO 1M*LEGAL BIOS DYNAMIC SPEED CONTROL

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WITH 20MB HARD DISK + MONITOR £1,280HI REST TTL MONITOR £69

20MB HARD DISK £229BILINGUAL SYSTEMS EXPORT ORDERS WELCOME12 MONTHS WARRANTY AND SUPPORT INCLUDED

PRICES EXCLUDING VATFOR ORDERS AND ENQUIRIES PLEASE CONTACT

C.A.S. COMPUTER POINT LTDTEL 01-708 2734

TLX 8952387 ANSWER G

'PRACTICALCOMPUTING

Advertisement Index


AAltos Computer Systems 6AMA 92

E

Electroplan ComputersElite Computer Systems

10720

MMercator Computer System Ltd

20

S

Sagesoft plc 4Sellec Computer Products Ltd55

Amstrad Consumer Electronics Elonex UK Ltd IBC Mekom Computer Products Ltd Sentinel Software Ltd 4324/25 Epson (UK) Ltd 66/67 74 Silica Shop 83

Art of Software (The) 60 Micronix Computers Ltd 58/59 Star Micronix (UK) Ltd 81Aston Technology 89 Micro Peripherals Back Cover System Science 18Aztech Computer Systems 26 F Microft Technology Ltd 60

Flute Software Ltd 62 Micro -Rent 54 T

Fraser Associates 26 Microcosm Research 104 Tandy Corporation 48B Fujitsu 12/13 Teamwork UK Ltd (CambridgeBentley Computer Ltd 114 Computers) 32/33Bits Per Second 18 Trisoft Ltd 76Borland International IFC 3British Telecom International H

NNewtons Laboratories 51 W

44/45 Homestead Data Products 26 NVS Solution Ltd 20 Worldwide Computers 111Brother Industries 23Bhatty Computers (My) (inc

HM System 75

zAmson Computing) 106 Zenith Data Systems 29

0Omicron Management Ltd 39

Interface Systems 82C Ines Gmbh 62CAS Computer Point 114 ISD Interface 84Computer Express 52

PComputer Network &Communications 18Compumart 93 K

Keyzone 84

Pace Micro TechnologyPlus 5 TPractical Computing Filler

6336

108

DData Marketing (Mill Computer) R

84 Lotus Development (UK) Ltd Realtime Development Ltd 102Data Plus PSI (Sales) 22 16/17 Ringdale Peripherals 8


XT -Compatible20 Megabytes £7954.77/8 MHz

The PC88 Turbo Legal BIOSI NEC V-20 Super Processor Switchable 4.77/8 MHz Clock 640K RAMII 20MB Half Height Hard Disk 360K Half Height Floppy Parallel Printer + RS232 Serial ports Clock/Calendar with Battery

Back-up.

IN Monographic/Printer card 130W Power Supply Professional Keyboard "Hi -Res 12"" Green Monitor MS-DOS 3.2IN Full Set of Manuals 8 Expansion SlotsIN 12 Months Warranty

AT -Compatible20 Megabytes £12956/8/10 MHz0 or 1 Wait States

IN The PC -286 Turbo Legal Bios Switchable 6/8/10 MHzIII 640K RAM 20 MB Half Height Hard Disk 1.2 MB Half Height Floppy Parallel Printer + Two RS232 Serial Ports Clock/Calendar with Battery Back- up

Monographic/Printer card 200W Power Supply Professional KeyboardII "Hi Res 14"" Green Monitor MS-DOS 3.2 Full Set of ManualsIN 8 Expansion Slots 12 Months Warranty

OPTIONS 30 MB Hard Disk Drive 14" Hi Res Colour MonitorUpgrade £265 and EGA Card Upgrade £395

40MB Hard Disk Drive EGA Card £165

Upgrade £365 14" Colour Monitor Upgrade

£175`ON SITE MAINTENANCE AVAILABLE'

ELONEX (UK) Ltd.Please feel free to visit our showroom for demonstration

RAYS HOUSE, NORTH CIRCULAR ROAD, STONEBRIDGE PARK,LONDON NW10 7XB TELEPHONE: 01-965 3225


7200 NLQ MATRIXThe world's first multi -function, multi -wire, flat-bed printer. It allows you toprint virtually any kind of businessform.ltgives quality print as well as colour andplotting facilities.Speed: 324cps (Draft). 108cps (LQ).Columns: 136. Compatibility: IBM,Epson, or Diablo 630.Price: £1395.

5510/5520 NLQ MATRIXHigh speed, NLQ with full graphics modeand 3K memory. 5520 is the colourversion.Speed: 180cps (Draft). 30cps (NLQ).Columns: 80. Compatibility: IBM &Epson.Price: 5510 f3 29. 5520 £449.

6500 DAISYWHEELThis new daisywheel is designed for heavyduty office use. It's very fast and includesparallel and serial interfaces.Speed: 60cps. Columns: 132.Compatibility: IBM & Diablo 630.Price: £1299.

6300 DAISYWHEELOur best selling general purposedaisywheel printer. It's fast speed and lownoise level make it ideal for the office.Speed: 40cps. Columns: 132.Compatibility: IBM & Diablo 630.Price: £899.

6200 DAISYWHEELA popular wide bodied letter qualityprinter, perfect for the smaller office.Parallel or serial interface.Speed: 30cps. Columns: 132.Compatibility: IBM 8 Diablo 630Price: £579.

6100 DAISYWHEELThe U.K.'s bestsellingdaisywheel printer.100 character wheel. 2K memoryexpandable to 8K.Speed: 20cps Columns: 110.

Compatibility: IBM & Diablo 630Price: £399.

',Lin 11 1114114111 i 11

6000 DAISYWHEEL'A letter quality printer designed for homeuse. 100 character wheel and eitherparallel or serial interface.Speed: 10cps. Columns: 90.Compatibility: IBM graphics printer.Price: £199.

ice;

/ ,-/-7,-Y1-

Essential hardware if youdon't buy a Juki.

//.

Mind you, if you do buy a Juki Printer you can put your tools away, because we're

now giving a full 2 year warranty* on the entire Juki range.

Whatever your needs, whether for home use, small business or busy office, Juki

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Juki printers are compatible with virtually all computer systems and with prices

ranging from just £199' to £1395t they're compatible with your pocket too.

For more detailed information and brochures on Juki printers phone us now

for free on 0800 521111.

KJ K ITechnology true to type

Sole Distributor:

microPeripherals ltd


Intec 2, Unit 3, Wade Road, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG24 ONE. Telephone: 0256 473232.Telex: 859669 MICRO P G Facsimile: 0256 461570.Units 5 & 6, Newhallhey Works, Newhallhey Road, Rawtenstall, Rossendale, LancashireBB4 6HL. Telephone: 0706 211526 Facsimile: 0706 228166.Excludes printhead, ribbon and daisywheel. t All prices are RRP Ex. VAT. IBM, EPSON & DIABLO are trade marks and are recognised.

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