Cupertino, Calif. - To boost sales of the PowerBook 100 and 140, Apple last week cut prices and offered new, heavier-duty configurations. The company also unbundled its internal fax modem from some PowerBook 170 configurations and added new options.
The price cuts hit the slow-selling, low-end PowerBook 100 the hardest. The model configured with 2 Mbytes of RAM, a 20-Mbyte hard disk and an external floppy disk drive slid from $2,199 to $1,599 - a 27.3 percent drop.
The PowerBook 140 and 170 gained two configurations each that have 80-Mbyte hard drives, starting with the $2,999 PowerBook 140, which comes with 2 Mbytes of RAM and the 80-Mbyte hard disk.
Apple also has made the internal fax modem in the PowerBook 170 optional. Many users have said the send-only, 2400-bps fax modem formerly bundled with the 170 is not powerful enough for Apple's top-of-the-line notebook. Third-party developers, including PSI Integration Inc. of San Jose, Calif., and Global Village Communication Inc. of Menlo Park, Calif., now offer faster, albeit more expensive alternatives.
Customers have flocked to the 170, which has a high-quality active-matrix display, in such numbers that orders for the high-end model are often backlogged.
"The 170 is the machine that account executives, even copywriters want," said Art Guerrero, director of creative computing for ad agency Eisaman, Johns & Laws in Los Angeles. "From there, the next biggest interest in our company has been in the 100, curiously enough. The price cut on that model will definitely have an impact."
The cuts might help Apple steal sales away from IBM PC and compatible notebook makers. "The PowerBook 100 and 140 play in a market that's really competitive with PC-clone notebooks," said Bruce Gee, PowerBook product marketing manager for Apple.
MacWEEK 04/20/92
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CODE 252 Mac virus threatens System 7
Stockton, Calif. - Anti-virus developers announced remedies for a new Mac virus discovered here last week at the University of the Pacific: CODE 252. Patches, virus definitions and new versions of most anti-viral applications are now available or under development.
CODE 252 infects system files and applications. The virus spreads in System 6 non-MultiFinder configurations between Jan. 1 and June 5 of any year and is activated between June 6 and Dec. 31 under both System 6 and 7.
CODE 252 reportedly does not intentionally harm user data or systems. However, a bug in it can damage System 7, and applications may behave erratically when it is active.
When activated, a message is displayed falsely claiming the user's hard disks are being erased, and the virus deletes itself.
MacWEEK 04/20/92
News Page 4
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News Analysis: Life goes on after Apple's GUI suit
By Jon Swartz
San Francisco - After suffering a major blow in its four-year legal battle against Microsoft Corp., Apple seems resigned to move the conflict out of the courtroom and into the marketplace.
In a surprise ruling here last week, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker dismissed most of the counts in Apple's suit against Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard Co. that accused the two companies of copying the "look and feel" of the Macintosh.
Apple CEO John Sculley told The Wall Street Journal he was disappointed by the decision but "life goes on." He said Apple's Macintosh business is strong and that the company is "positioned to expand the product line beyond the Macintosh hardware line."
Industry analysts said that the lawsuit hasn't affected Apple's fortunes in the past and that the company's current strategy or success wouldn't be affected by losing the lawsuit.
"In terms of the market, it was a non-event," said William Gorman, an analyst at Provident National Bank in Philadelphia. "Windows has grown, but it has not put an appreciable dent into Mac sales - lawsuit or no lawsuit."
>Multiple product lines.
Apple is hoping that its foray into new product categories, such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and cross-platform system software, will fortify its position as it slugs it out with Microsoft for market share.
Part of Apple's near-term strategy is to make some of its proprietary software available on Windows and other platforms. Apple is developing Windows versions of Quick- Time and the Open Collaboration Environment (OCE).
In addition, Apple is porting the Macintosh operating system to the PowerPC RISC (reduced instruction set computing) chip and possibly Intel-based processors (see MacWEEK, April 6).
The computer maker also has formed strategic alliances with IBM Corp. and consumer-electronics companies, such as Sharp Corp.
"Over the last year, Apple has put together a solid strategy for addressing multiplat-form environments," said Pieter Hartsook, editor of The Hartsook Letter in Alameda, Calif.
>User reaction.
Most Macintosh volume buyers said the outcome of the lawsuit had little effect on their software and hardware purchases. Michael Kiwak, senior product engineer and account executive at Ford Motor Corp.'s Inland Fisher Guide division in Troy, Mich., said Mac and Windows interfaces are equally important. "We have a mixed computing environment. Both are necessary," he said.
By the same token, developers see opportunities in writing software applications for multiple platforms.
>The final stage.
Walker has scheduled a hearing May 12 on a number of disputed items remaining in the case, including an overall comparison of the Windows and Macintosh interfaces.
Meanwhile, Apple has asked Judge Walker to reconsider the ruling and could appeal if it loses the case, according to Edward Stead, Apple's general counsel.
"We were surprised by the ruling," Stead conceded. "Our view all along is that a jury is the place to decide this issue."
Some legal observers believe that Apple can still gain a limited victory. "Even if [Walker] threw out 85 percent of Apple's claims, it still could win a limited victory based on the remaining 15 percent," said Jonathan Rosenoer, an attorney who writes a syndicated column on computers called The Legal Side.
"As anyone who follows this suit can tell you, it's been unpredictable," Rosenoer said.
Apple ruling reflects copyright complexities
By Jon Swartz
To the non-legal world, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling that Apple failed to prove that elements such as overlapping windows and icons were protected by copyright law may have been a surprise.
But copyright experts familiar with the case expected Apple to have a tough time trying to redefine the often murky area of software copyright law.
"One of the fundamental rules in copyright law is that copyrights protect the expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves," said Rick Larson, an attorney in College Station, Texas. "It's difficult to prove a functional item like an overlapping window is an artistic expression."
Apple's claims were further complicated by the fact that the computer maker borrowed many of the disputed ideas, such as icons, from earlier work done by Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center.
Walker also said in his ruling that Apple's claims were undercut by a 1985 agreement in which Microsoft Corp. licensed some of the Mac's interface elements from Apple.
Despite the ruling, Apple still could salvage a limited victory if Walker decides in a May 12 hearing that there are "substantial similarities" between the Mac and Windows interfaces.
If Walker does, the case would likely go to trial sometime this summer.
"If Apple is to make new law, it'll have to do it through [jury] trial or by appeal," Larson said.
Apple sued Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard Co. in 1988, alleging they illegally copied critical portions of the Mac interface. The case was broadened last summer to include Windows 3.0 (see MacWEEK, June 25, 1991).
MacWEEK 04/20/92
News Page 1
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System 7.1 goes global, simplifies language support
By Mitch Ratcliffe
Cupertino, Calif. - Apple last week released to developers its first "world-ready" system software, an alpha version of System 7.1.
Two new Toolbox managers in the system will allow developers to incorporate into their standard System 7- compatible applications a variety of languages, including for the first time those with complex two-byte character sets, such as Japanese and Chinese. System 7.1 also adds a folder for storing fonts and support for extensions that update the OS for new CPUs.
The upcoming release will allow Apple to bring out non- American English-language versions of its operating system more quickly (see MacWEEK, March 9). At the core of this international Mac OS are:
>Fonts folder.
Fonts no longer will be bundled in the System suitcase. Instead, users will add bit-mapped, TrueType and PostScript Type 1 fonts or font suitcases to their system by dragging them into a new Fonts folder within the System folder. Font ID conflicts will be resolved automatically by the system.
>CPU versatility.
When new hardware capabilities become available in new CPUs, Apple won't have to create incremental system releases, and System 7.1 users will be able to adapt their applications without the need for an update. New Macs will ship with system extensions that override anachronistic CPU-specific resources that currently derail the OS and applications.
>Text services.
If application developers support the new Text Services Manager, users will be able to toggle between different character sets they have loaded into the
>System folder.
For instance, when working in a 7.1-aware version of WordPerfect Corp.'s WordPerfect, users could type both Russian and Japanese characters in a single sentence.
>Expansion.
Apple told developers it may develop and market additional language modules that could be added to System 7.1 without altering the system files. Developers would have to build support for expanded character sets into their applications to take advantage of this feature.
>Multiple dictionaries.
Searching for text in multiple-language documents will be facilitated by a new Dictionary Manager, which lets users create dictionaries for each language they use and consolidate them into a single script for use in searching, inserting and deleting words from a document.
Additionally, the upgrade will include enhancements that will benefit users of just one language.
Due in August or September, System 7.1 will be the first major OS release since System 7 was introduced in May. Apple reportedly told developers that System 7.1 will require the same or slightly less RAM than the current version.
The new version will include the features and fixes that Apple has added through the System 7 Tune-Up extensions. Extensions that provide added functionality, such as QuickTime, will not be rolled into the upgrade. System 7.1 also should provide faster printing and performance than System 7.0.1 with the Tuner installed, according to developers.
MacWEEK 04/20/92
News Page 1
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Media database catalogs files
By Andrew Gore
Anaheim, Calif. - A multi-user, mixed-media cataloging database from Provident Software Inc. will be retrieving images and movies for Mac media professionals by this summer.
Code-named Fetch, the program originally was intended as an upgrade to Multi-Ad Services Inc.'s Multi-Ad Search, before developer Doug Dawirs decided to strike out on his own. Fetch will make its first appearance on Apple's upcoming QuickTime Starter Kit expected to ship later this month.
The database will be used as the retrieval engine for a large collection of QuickTime movies included in the Starter Kit, although users will be unable to modify or create new catalogs with this bundled version.
The retail version of Fetch, expected to ship by July for less than $400, lets users create catalogs of graphics files in QuickTime, Adobe Photoshop, Kodak Photo CD, Encapsulated PostScript, Radius' ImpressIt JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group), Paint, Multi-Ad Creator, PICT, RIFF, Storm JPEG, Storm JPEG++, TIFF, AIFF and snd formats.
A single Fetch catalog can contain references for up to 32,000 files and associated thumbnails. Users can preview a file's contents at full size or play a QuickTime movie by double- clicking on thumbnails. If necessary, Fetch will instruct the user to load the CD or archive disk where the image is located.
Catalogs can be compiled from an unlimited number of volumes, including volumes on other networks. Fetch will automatically dial into remote systems to retrieve files.
Under System 7, Fetch even can find files that have been moved and renamed, as long as the appropriate volume is mounted.
Users can search for files by file name, file type, host volume or keywords. Users can attach an unlimited number of keywords to each file.
According to Dawirs, image database publishers are already adding Fetch catalogs to their collections that contain extensive keyword notation and even image copyright and licensing information.
Once users select the image they want, they can launch the appli-cation of their choice and transfer the image to the program. They also can zoom in on detailed images, like those that will be available on Kodak Photo CDs, and copy only the selected portion of the graphic to the Clipboard.
Fetch can move large collections of images to QuarkXPress with an XTension that is included with the program for free.
Users of Multi-Ad Search 1.0, which retails for $249, will be offered an upgrade path, Dawirs said. Fetch will retail for less than $400.
Provident Software Inc. is at 211 S. Kingsley St., Anaheim, Calif. 92806. Phone (714) 632-9068.
MacWEEK 04/20/92
News Page 1
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Macs get into pro video act at NAB
By Neil McManus
Las Vegas - It's not easy to get attention at the National Association of Broadcasters convention, but Mac video vendors took the stage here last week along with Ronald Reagan, Don Rickles and a herd of actors dressed up as zebras.
New products from companies such as Diaquest Inc. and Avid Technology Inc. caught the eyes of video professionals who are turning to the Mac as a low-cost production tool. Diaquest showed its DQ-Animaq animation controller, which now lets users copy full-frame, full-motion QuickTime movies to and from videotape. Avid introduced its upcoming Avid AirPlay series of Mac-based, non-linear editing systems that output broadcast-quality video.
"This was a watershed year for the Mac at NAB," said Elliot Porter, a producer at Big Zig Studios in San Francisco. "A lot of video professionals still don't even know what a Mac is, but they look at products like Avid's and say, 'I could use this stuff right now.' "
Apple also had a booth at the show; the company is aiming at the estimated 300,000 U.S. video-production professionals, according to Kirk Shorte, Apple marketing manager for integrated media. "If Apple can win over the top video professionals to the Mac, there's a multiplier effect of millions of people who produce scripts, budgets, animations and graphic images for video. Then there's a trickle-down effect to an even bigger market of corporate video users and consumers who want to make home movies on their VCRs," Shorte said.
>>Editing systems.
Burlington, Mass.-based Avid introduced Avid AirPlay, its new broadcast-quality, non-linear editing system, due this fall for $90,000 to $120,000. The company also proposed a universal standard defining post-production elements for personal computers as well as for proprietary broadcast-video hardware. Called Open Media Framework (OMF), this standard would allow post-production tools to exchange digital data, such as audio, animation and QuickTime movies.
Sundance Technology Group of Irving, Texas, unveiled Version 2.0 of its Sundance video-editing systems, which start at $1,191 and now support CMX edit-decision list (EDL) input and output.
>Videographics.
Intelligent Resources Integrated Systems Inc. of Arlington Heights, Ill., showed a prototype of its Video Explorer NuBus card configured to output Mac images to HDTV. The company also previewed an $11,995 version of the board with a D1 Serial interface that will let producers work in an all-digital video environment.
Fast Electronics U.S. Inc. of Natick, Mass., demonstrated its upcoming Video Machine, a $4,000 video mixer on a NuBus board that will give the Mac many of the special effects of NewTek Inc.'s Amiga-based Video Toaster. Mountain View, Calif.-based Digital F/X showed its new $7,995 TitleMan PostScript-to-video converter box for the Mac (see MacWEEK, April 6).
>Animation controllers.
Berkeley, Calif.-based Diaquest showed its DQ-Animaq board, available for $2,595 to $3,395, outputting full-frame, full-motion QuickTime movies to Sony Corp.'s new frame-accurate EVO-9650 Hi-8 animation VCR. VideoMedia Inc. of San Jose, Calif., demonstrated its AutoPICT QT animation software, which outputs QuickTime movies to tape through the company's PACE animation controllers. Both companies' animation controllers require videographics cards such as Truevision Inc.'s NuVista+ board.
>Other products.
Sonic Solutions of San Rafael, Calif., showed its CD Printer, a new $9,750 device that lets users produce write-once CD audio and data discs from their Mac. Sonic also displayed a prototype of a new $4,000 Fiber Distributed Data Interface on a NuBus card.
Pipeline Digital of Kaneohe, Hawaii, unveiled AutoLog 2.0, a new version of its $495 timecode-logger system that now can display logged segments as QuickTime movies.
Magic Teleprompting Inc. of San Francisco demonstrated MagicScroll, a $3,500 Mac-based tele-prompting system.
Erik Holsinger and Steve Rosenthal contributed to this report.
MacWEEK 04/20/92
News Page 1
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Credit card-size optical technology
The next big thing in digital storage?
Disk packs 1 Gbyte of data, firm claims
By Henry Norr
Los Angeles - A small company here is developing a storage technology that - if it works as promised - could revolutionize not only the computer industry, but also music, film, consumer-electronics and communications.
Urshan Research Corp. has applied for patents on an optical technology that it says can put 1 Gbyte of data on a "compact card" that looks like a credit card, performs like high-speed static RAM and could cost as little as $20 retail.
Company officials were vague about details of its technology, citing the risk of giving competitors a jump. But several industry sources said that fitting a gigabyte of data on a credit card would require a multilayer design. They speculated that the developers must be using lasers to produce crystalline phase changes in the recording media.
Reading and writing digital data on the removable card requires a laser device about the size of a 2.5-inch hard drive. The drive will have no moving parts except those needed to seat and eject the card; laser beams moved electrically across the face of the card will read, write and erase data.
Sydney Urshan, the 35-year-old inventor, musician, and former stereo and television repairman who developed the compact-card concept and now serves as co-chairman and chief tech-nical officer of Urshan Research, predicted that his system will replace not only floppy disks, hard drives and RAM in future computers, but also current consumer audio and video media.
Company officials said they have successfully developed several working versions of the system, but a final prototype is not scheduled to be completed for about six more months.
At that point, they said, Urshan expects to finalize license agreements with major companies in several fields, and Apple could have an inside track in bringing the new technology to Macs and handheld digital devices.
An Apple official who declined to be identified acknowledged that the company has lent Macintoshes to Urshan, and he described the developer's technology as "really cool." He said, however, that Apple had been in contact with Urshan for some years, but "We're still waiting for a working demo unit. Our support for them is very limited."
Urshan will develop and then license a version of its card player for use as an internal and external computer storage device. Steve Shannon, the company's vice president, said that pricing for such products would be up to the licensee marketing them, but that he expects compact-card readers to have prices comparable to digital audio tape drives. DAT drives start at around $1,400 street price and range up to list prices of more than $5,000.
Urshan said it also plans a NuBus card that will bring its technology to existing Macintoshes. To take advantage of the high throughput of the new storage system, Urshan said, the card will incorporate an external bus architecture resembling the HBus, a high-speed card-to-card data-transfer scheme Apple originally developed for its Touchstone digital video card, which it later sold to Radius Inc. (see MacWEEK, Aug. 13, 1991).
In addition to Apple, Urshan said, it has received assistance from several other major companies in the storage, communi- cations, instrumentation and entertainment worlds. Christine Wallace, test and measurement account manager for Tektronix Inc. in Woodland Hills, Calif., said her company was in the process of negotiating a loan of several hundred thousand dollars' worth of test equipment.
A top executive at another company Urshan lists as a sponsor said he personally had never heard of the Los Angeles developer. While admitting that the technology sounded interesting, he expressed skepticism about its prospects. "Having some technology is one thing," he said, "but there are a lot of other things you've got to have in line before you have anything real. The big question s are whether they'll get the acceptance and the funding they need to make this take off."
Urshan Research Corp. is at 3151 Cahuenga Blvd. W., Suite 317, Los Angeles, Calif. 90068. Phone (213) 874-5004; fax (213) 874-4602.
MacWEEK 04/20/92
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Revamped AutoCAD toes Mac line
By April Streeter
Sausalito, Calif. - Autodesk Inc. next week will ship an update to AutoCAD for Mac that brings a friendlier interface and a barrage of new features.
Release 11 of the $3,500 CAD package adds icon-based tool bars, tear-off menus and dialog boxes that distinguish it from its DOS counterpart and make it more Mac-like than the previous version. Other features include:
>Expanded Clipboard.
Release 11 lets users cut and paste drawings in AutoCAD's DXB format (a binary form of the Drawing Interchange File format) to the Mac Clipboard for use in other AutoCAD documents.
>Two at a time.
The new version supports two Apple Desktop Bus devices, so users can control a mouse and the pen on a digitizing tablet simultaneously, for example.
>Updatable blocks.
Users can assign names to symbols or groups of symbols, then modify all instances of the symbol globally, in one drawing or a set of drawings.
>Enhanced drawing tools.
Handles attached to an image now can be stretched and moved; shading features, formerly handled by a utility, have been integrated into the program; and a "paper space" feature lets users display multiple 2-D and 3-D views at once. In Release 11, users also can attach reference drawings to their active drawings without making them a permanent part of the file.
>New modules.
Autodesk has added a $495 Advanced Modeling Extension that lets users build solid 3-D models and analyze them for design flaws, as well as a $495 programming tool that adds support for Macintosh Programmer's Workshop C.
Upgrades from Release 10 are $500, Autodesk said.
Don Wooten, an engineer at New United Motors Manufacturing Inc. of Fremont, Calif., called Release 11 for the Mac "a leap ahead" of the DOS version. The Mac version still isn't as fast as its DOS ancestor, he said, but "we chose the Mac version because we have a lot of students coming through, and it's much easier to get them up and going."
Autodesk Inc. is at 2320 Marinship Way, Sausalito, Calif. 94965. Phone (415) 332-2344; fax (415) 491-8305.
MacWEEK 4/20/92
Graphics Applications Page 20
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Review: Vines untangles AppleTalk nets
Banyan Systems' upgrade finally gives Mac users full status, including file, mail and print support, on Vines networks.
By Jonathan A. Oski
Banyan Systems Inc.'s recent upgrade of Vines to Version 5.0 includes Vines Option for Macintosh and Vines Mail for Macintosh, two options for the 8-year-old network operating system that finally add file, mail and print support for Mac clients.
Third-party applications such as Miramar Systems Inc.'s MacLAN Connect and CE Software Inc.'s QuickMail have allowed Macs to coexist in Vines environments for some time, but they fail to provide integration with StreetTalk, Banyan's distributed naming service. As a result, these products require separate administration procedures.
A disadvantage shared by all currently available Mac networking products is that there is little consistency among the various services available. Vines' StreetTalk (see story, next page) presents the user with a common authentication and verification interface for all network services - something Apple has promised with its Open Collaboration Environment (OCE) and other recent networking initiatives.
Vines is an operating system for creating virtual networks. It runs on a variety of platforms based on Intel Corp.'s 386 or 486 chip. Built on AT&T Co.'s Unix System V Release 3, it is the only network operating system that supports symmetric multiprocessing on servers such as AT&T's StarServer E and Compaq Computer Corp.'s Systempro.
The founders of Banyan understood the potential of microcomputer networks and the issues of managing corporatewide multiserver networks. As a result, Vines thrives in networks that offer a full range of services to a geographically dispersed user population.
>Installation.
Network services for Mac clients are not included in the base-level release of Vines 5.0. Vines Option for Macintosh is needed to provide support for the AppleTalk protocol stack on the Vines server. Vines Mail for Macintosh requires that the standard Vines Mail option be installed; it is necessary only if you plan to access Vines Mail from Mac clients.
Once the server options have been installed, users can access Vines file services by clicking on the AppleShare icon in the Chooser - much like any other server compliant with AFP (AppleTalk Filing Protocol).
Access to mail, messaging and enhanced file-security features requires the installation of the Vines extension on each Mac and the Mail and Utilities applications either on a shared file service or locally at each node.
>Configuration.
The first step in making Vines services available to Mac users is configuring AppleTalk support on at least one server on your network.
All configuration must be performed at the server console. Banyan allows you to configure AppleTalk support for attached LocalTalk, token-ring or Ethernet networks.
A wide variety of token-ring and Ethernet cards can be installed in a Vines server. For LocalTalk networks, Banyan supports Dayna Communications Inc.'s Industry Standard Architecture and Micro Channel Architecture adapters. AppleTalk can be configured for each attached LAN as either a seeded or non-seeded port. Vines requires AppleTalk Phase 2, so you must upgrade any nodes or routers that will participate in your network.
Vines servers are characterized by their communications capabilities as much as anything else. It is not uncommon to find two or three network adapters in most Vines servers. The server acts as a network router enabling clients on any attached LAN to access any of the services on the network.
Vines also has extensive wide-area network capabilities. Servers can be linked over local LANs, through a Systems Network Architecture or X.25 network, using point-to-point leased lines or dial-up connections.
Vines 5.0 servers with the Vines Mac Option installed can provide AppleTalk tunneling throughout a Vines network. AppleTalk packets are encapsulated in Vines packets that in turn can be routed through any Vines server. Using this feature you can link disparate AppleTalk networks by leveraging an existing Vines WAN.
>File services.
Logical file volumes on a Vines network are manifestations of file-service processes running on a server. All servers have a file service called Vines Files that stores the client software for DOS and OS/2 workstations. Additional file services can be created by a server administrator based on the needs of your organization.
To Mac users, file services appear as AppleShare volumes on a server. In the Chooser, you connect to a Vines server using the AppleShare icon and your StreetTalk name and password.
Once you have logged in, the file services to which you have access rights appear in the list of volumes for a particular server. You can connect to as many servers as you wish, but you must log into each one separately, a requirement that is inconsistent with that of Vines' DOS or OS/2 users. However, you can use the same user name and password to connect to any server.
From a DOS or OS/2 workstation you can manage the AFP service.
Banyan lets you assign file types and creators to files stored on your Vines server based on their DOS extensions. This facilitates sharing of data files between cross-platform applications such as Microsoft Word and Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, and many others.
Mac users can use long file names for files saved on the server, but DOS and OS/2 clients will see them truncated in DOS' archaic 11-character file-name format. To realistically share files on a network, Mac users should adopt this naming convention, since most DOS applications search for their native files based only on the three-character file-name extension.
File-service performance for Vines file volumes accessed over Ethernet was comparable or better than that observed using AppleShare 3.0 with a Mac IIfx as a server, although we ran no hard-core benchmark tests. Performance will vary, depending upon the number and type of services on a given server. We experienced several unexplained performance slowdowns, although overall we were satisfied with the response time of the network.
The Vines server we used during our tests was a Compaq Systempro-486/33 with 16 Mbytes of RAM and an 840-Mbyte Intelligent Drive Array. The Mac IIfx had 8 Mbytes of RAM and a Quantum Corp. 240-Mbyte internal drive.
If you install Vines, you should use either Ethernet or token- ring connections. LocalTalk connections should be considered only for incidental network use.
>Electronic mail.
Vines Mail for the Mac enables Mac clients to directly connect to Banyan's mail engine.
To connect to a Vines Mail Service you must log in to the Vines network. You can do this using the Vines extension from the Chooser, or if you are not already logged into the network when launching mail, you will be prompted to log in.
Using the Mail application, Mac users can exchange electronic mail with any DOS, Windows or OS/2 Vines client.
You also can send and receive mail through a variety of mail gateways, including SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), fax, MCI Mail and others. Vines mail messages can have a maximum of 6,000 characters, which some users might find limiting.
Addressing of E-mail in a Vines network is greatly facilitated by the StreetTalk Directory Assistant (STDA).
Using this service, users easily can search a corporatewide directory containing thousands of names in a matter of seconds. You can use STDA to search for user name, nickname or StreetTalk lists. Each user also can have a personal address book, where they can maintain their own lists and nicknames.
There are some known limitations in the current implementation of Vines Mail for the Mac, most notably with attachments. Mac file attachments sent to DOS, Windows or OS/2 clients that contain resource forks cannot be saved properly and are unusable.
To work around this limitation, you must first convert the attachment to a DOS format before it is sent. Another oddity is that if you try to save an attachment using a file name that exists on your hard disk, the file will not be saved. Banyan is aware of these problems and plans to address them in a forthcoming minor update to the product.
Existing users of Banyan's MacVines Mail Gateway product that lets QuickMail and Vines Mail users exchange mail should be aware that the MacVines Mail Gateway is not supported on Vines 5.0. Vines Mail for Macintosh lacks some of the flexibility that QuickMail users might appreciate. Vines Mail does not let you create custom forms, and Geneva and Monaco are the only fonts supported.
If you are interested in more flexibility with respect to mail, you should consider products like Lotus Development Corp.'s cc:Mail, which works with the Vines Mail engine, or implement a non-Vines mail system such as QuickMail or Microsoft Mail.
>Print services and security.
Vines 5.0 lets you use printers that support Apple's Printer Access Protocol as a destination for a Vines print service. This provides Mac users with some sorely needed flexibility with respect to printer-queue management.
Once spooled to a Vines print service, documents can be reprinted, held in queue or redirected to another printer. Although these queue-management features must be run from a DOS or OS/2 workstation, they address shortcomings of other Mac-based printing utilities.
Security on a Vines network is controlled by the Vines Security Service. It is the first service that loads when a server boots. Access to any resource on a Vines network is based on your single StreetTalk user name. This greatly reduces the administrative overhead of managing a network with a wide range of services because you do not have to create and manage a separate user name and password space on each network device.
Although the limited set of services offered to Mac users in Banyan's initial offering does not fully demonstrate the advantages of this feature, users befuddled with having to remember and manage separate names and passwords to access multiple AppleShare volumes will find this a welcome relief.
Vines also lets you set expiration periods for any user account. Passwords can be set to expire every four months, for example, to ensure that users change their passwords on a regular basis.
Accounts can be temporarily disabled if necessary, as well. All user-security management must be performed from a DOS or OS/2 workstation. File security can be managed from any Mac using the Vines Utilities application.
>Documentation.
Banyan has rewritten its entire documentation set for Version 5.0. The three books most apropos to Mac users are the Vines User's Guide for Macintosh, Vines Mail for Macintosh User's Guide and AppleTalk on a Vines Network. Each book is well-written and has clear examples. The book that covers networking issues is very thorough and gives the reader a complete overview of the interaction between the AppleTalk and Vines protocol stacks.
>Conclusions.
Banyan's long-overdue support for the Mac represents a worthy effort to bring Macs into the fold of Vines networks. The breadth of support in the initial product that includes file, print, mail and internetworking should keep most anxious users at bay.
Compared with other products in this niche, Banyan is poised to offer the highest level of integration mainly because of its distributed naming service, StreetTalk. File-level security is something that has been lacking from AFP servers since their inception. Banyan addresses this deficiency by providing the most flexible file-security system available.
Like Novell Inc.'s NetWare, Vines is principally available only through value-added resellers. It will be a challenge for some resellers to support this product, since the operating system has been vastly overhauled and most are not accustomed to supporting Macintoshes.
For existing Vines customers who understand the underpinnings of the Vines opera ting system, Banyan's Mac support is a natural extension. For customers new to Vines, there is a long learning process that you must tackle to install, configure and manage this product.
The new documentation is helpful, but success ultimately will depend on the strengths of your reseller.
Many of Banyan's advantages stem back to its basic philosophy and view of the network. When users log in to a Vines network, they are connected to the network and not a particular server on that network. All rights and privileges are based on a single user identification that makes accessing services consistent across a wide variety of service types.
We anticipate future releases to include support for Banyan's asynchronous and 3270-host gateways and provide a higher level of integration and management features.
A StreetTalk primer: Getting to the root of Vines
By Jonathan A. Oski
Much of the strength of Banyan Systems Inc.'s Vines lies in its distributed naming system, StreetTalk. StreetTalk is a three- part naming convention that is used to define all entities on a Vines network. These entities include users, nicknames and lists, as well as file, print, mail, and 3270 and asynchronous terminal-emulation services.
Everything on a Vines network has a unique three-part StreetTalk name. The full name can be up to 61 characters long, using the syntax "item@group@organization". The name refers to a specific item, the group it is a member of and the organization to which it belongs.
Groups are commonly used to designate departments or divisione s within large organizations. Items, the finest level of detail in StreetTalk, are used to represent users, lists, printers, logical file volumes and any other entity on the network.
StreetTalk allows users to associate names with services on their network. In other network operating systems, such as Novell Inc.'s NetWare, services are based on a particular server. In these instances, the user must know the server upon which the service they want to use resides before they can connect to it. Furthermore, in some cases, they must have a separate network user name and password for each server they need to access. With Vines, the user need log on to the network only once.
Access to all services on an entire Vines wide-area network is based on a single StreetTalk name. This allows a user to go to virtually any workstation on a Vines network, even in a different city or country, and log on using the same StreetTalk name.
StreetTalk is maintained automatically by Vines. Groups are established and reside on a specific server. Each server in turn keeps track of all the groups on their network and upon which server they are maintained.
Improper design and use of a StreetTalk database can lead to a lot of unnecessary network traffic during list-enumeration and access-verification processes, but this point is quickly learned by Vines administrators who learn the do's and don'ts of StreetTalk.
To ease the user interface to StreetTalk, Banyan included a product in Vines 4.0 called StreetTalk Directory Assistant (STDA). Using STDA, users can search a StreetTalk database quickly by typing just a few letters in the item they want to find. This enables users to quickly mount new network drives or attach printers simply by typing a few characters in its name.
Another advantage to StreetTalk that is not immediately obvious is that administrators can move services and groups around their network without informing users of the changes. Users still can refer to these items by their original name; the server on which these items are located is of no consequence.
Apple's forthcoming Open Collaboration Environment (OCE) technology is similar to StreetTalk in many respects. Because Vines networks rely on a distributed authentication and verification service, network users and managers need only maintain a single user-name space throughout an entire network.
Score Card: Vines 5.0 Mac services
Option for Mail for
Categories Macintosh* Macintosh*
Overall value Good Good
Performance Good Very good
Features Very good Average
Ease of use Good Good
Documentation/support Very good Very good
List price $1,995 $895**
*Requires Vines 5.0, which costs &7,495.
**Bundled free with Option for Macintosh until June 30.
On Balance
Banyan Systems Inc.'s much-anticipated support for Macintosh clients is a solid initial offering that will appeal mostly to large sites with earlier versions of Vines installed who want to truly incorporate the Mac into their networks.
Vines Option for Macintosh, Banyan's core Mac product, offers good general network performance, although we occasionally had a few unexplained slowdowns. On the whole, however, Banyan's AFP (AppleTalk Filing Protocol) implementation is better than other available file-server products. The key to many of Banyan's advantages is StreetTalk, its distributed naming system. Vines' AppleTalk tunneling feature lets you leverage an existing Vines network to internetwork a collection of dispersed AppleTalk networks.
Vines Mail for Macintosh, Banyan's companion product, lacks some of the features found in products such as Microsoft Mail and CE Software Inc.'s QuickMail but works well for exchanging mail among a variety of platforms. Performance was very good, but Banyan needs to work on a fewitems, most notably file enclosures, before we would recommend replacing an existing mail system.
System 7 Compatibility: Vines 5.0 Mac Services*
Balloon help No
TrueType n/a
Publish and subscribe n/a
Apple events No
32-bit addressing** Yes
*System 7 attributes apply to both Vines Option for Macintosh and Vines Mail for Macintosh.
**According to vendor.
Banyan Systems Inc. is at 120 Flanders Road, Westboro, Mass. 01581. Phone (508) 898-1000 or (800) 828-2404; fax (508) 898-1755.
MacWEEK 4/20/92
Reviews Page 35
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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Knife: Claris develops success envy
Don't let the stunned, ashen-faced expressions exhibited by so many Apple executives last week fool you for a minute. They must have had a pretty good idea for some time now that the judge was unlikely to buy into the logic behind Apple's suit against Microsoft.
As Exhibit A in support of this hypothesis, the Knife presents the recent Claris acquisition of Chuck Berger, lately of Sun Microsystems and formerly of Apple itself. Berger's new title, vice president special projects, is vague enough to cover almost any mandate, but the Knife has learned that Claris is quite serious about expanding into new markets so that it can realize the economies of scale necessary to compete with the likes of Borland, Lotus and, of course, Microsoft.
As a result of this desire to play in the same playground with the big boys, you can anticipate a lot of new activity from Claris. Some are known to speculate, for example, that PDA software publishing is on the agenda for Claris. You also can safely bet that some other, probably even more interesting, announcements from Apple/Claris are in our future.
>Windows development.
Now that Windows is no longer a dirty word, those several individuals toiling in Apple Development Services probably won't mind seeing their latest trial-balloon proposal in print. According to the Knife's sources, it is these folks' fervent desire to make the Mac a better Windows development platform than a Windows machine. This would, of course, require the use of Apple's announced Windows development tools for MPW. In this scheme, you'd do your development, then hit a software switch and, like magic, Windows code would be generated. Guaranteed not to streak, too.
Then again, wouldn't it be interesting if Apple provided a machine that could run both Windows and Mac applications? That would certainly be a Mac of a different color, no?
>Do something. Quick.
Next weekend CE Software will unleash a cloud of new add-ons for QuicKeys. For those who find the byzantine QuicKeys interface more than any trainer should have to stomach, CE will offer Instant QuicKeys. This product will automatically scan a Mac volume for applications, desk accessories, control panels and Chooser elements and thoughtfully suggest appropriate QuicKeys.
For those who think CE's Tiles is a good idea but don't want all the advanced (and memory-hungry) features, CE has developed QK Icons, which lets you easily create icons representing individual QuicKeys macros. Another utility, SoftKeys, will let you create on-screen palettes representing keyboard keys to which QuicKeys macros have been assigned and that then are accessible with the cursor.
Managers will probably most appreciate QuicKeys Runtime, which will let them create dedicated QuicKeys macros for users who aren't licensed for the full product. Later, perhaps as early as the third quarter, CE hopes to ship a version of QuicKeys for A/UX 3.0.
>IIfx country.
From time to time things happen according to all the rules of logic. In this week's example, it's the Mac IIfx. Once considered the fastest (and perhaps weirdest) Mac ever, the arrival of the Quadra siblings have made it pretty much irrelevant, no matter how much price tweaking is applied. As a result, it came as no surprise when reports began to trickle in last week from volume buyers who were anxious to inform the Knife that the production of the IIfx has ceased, and supply is therefore limited solely to quantities already in the channels. Others tell the Knife that it's even been taken off the Apple employee purchase price list, a sure sign if there ever were one that a Mac model has reached the end of its usefulness to Apple. We'll miss its eccentricities, but as long as there's a Quadra in the house, we'll doubt if we'll ever miss its bulk.
With an entire baseball season before us and that nasty April 15 business behind us, you have to admit that things just don't get better than this. If you've got the info, you can celebrate spring with a MacWEEK mug by sharing with the Knife at (415) 243-3500, fax (415) 243-3650, MCI (MactheKnife), AppleLink (MacWEEK) and CompuServe/ZiffNet/Mac. The entire downtown Chicago work force is excused from the celebrations and, no, there is no MacWEEK bucket.
MacWEEK 04/20/92
Opinion Page 106
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
