San Francisco - One of Silicon Valley's best-kept secrets is General Magic Inc., a 2-year-old company that hopes to revolutionize information access.
Although reports have said the company is developing hardware, the real trick up General Magic's sleeve is its software, sources said. The company, whose founders include Mac pioneers Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld, reportedly is developing a new kind of operating system for communications devices.
Known as TeleScript, the software reportedly has both client and host components. The client software is designed to turn a variety of devices - including cellular telephones, VCRs and handheld computers with wireless or wired network connections - into easy-to-use data appliances, while a set of communications protocols for host systems will enable them to format and deliver data for the clients.
> Device as application.
Unlike the operating system software users know today, TeleScript will not support applications, per se, sources said. Instead, the OS is said to offer sophisticated data-filtering capabilities, allowing third parties to design devices for general or specialized tasks.
The TeleScript interface reportedly includes touch- or pen- activated electronic buttons, an interactive electronic telephone key pad, and windows in which incoming data can be viewed. Sources said the interface is so simple that users can easily program complex data-filtering and network functions.
For example, sources speculated, a user running a computer with a touch-sensitive screen and cellular transceiver could program the device via TeleScript to sort incoming electronic- mail messages and faxes or to script on-line conferencing sessions. Or a cellular phone user could have TeleScript link a name selected from a personal information manager to a recent fax from that person and then dial their phone number.
In contrast to Apple's Intelligent Assistant (see MacWEEK, May 4), an early version of TeleScript reportedly does not support handwritten input. Neither does it provide optical character recognition capabilities, which will be required for users to save an incoming fax to a text file. This will probably change before TeleScript ships, sources said.
> Third-party labels.
General Magic reportedly will not produce hardware. Instead, it will provide specifications for highly efficient cellular, radio and, possibly, telephone communications interfaces that can be added to existing devices.
Information vendors that want to use TeleScript will have to implement General Magic's communications protocols on their servers. This support will allow a two-way TeleScript client device to navigate a server's filing system.
Sources said the built-in server support for TeleScript also will enable scripting, windowing and filtering of data on client devices. For example, TeleScript may be a front end to Oracle Corp. and McCaw Cellular Communications Inc.'s experimental one-way "data-freight" services (see MacWEEK, Dec. 10, 1991). When it becomes available in 1993, the Oracle/McCaw service will provide high-speed wireless news, software and data deliveries.
A TeleScript-enabled device would be able to grab stock quotes and E-mail from data-freight broadcasts and sort them into appropriate windows. When combined with a robust CPU and storage media, TeleScript might also be able to store files as objects in a database, sources said.
> Uneasy partnerships.
Sources said Sony Corp. will use TeleScript in a cellular telephone and perhaps its handheld computers. Motorola Inc., which invested in General Magic along with Apple and Sony, reportedly will support TeleScript in its cellular and wireless services and devices.
Apple, the largest investor in General Magic, has been decidedly chilly to TeleScript, according to sources.
Atkinson, Hertzfeld and Marc Porat, the three Apple veterans who founded General Magic, reportedly did so only after a fierce internal power struggle over the future of Apple's handheld computer efforts.
The General Magic team had championed a TeleScript approach to the handheld interface, in which Apple would have done extensive licensing of its handheld technology. But a top-level decision instead supported the Intelligent Assistant, an Apple- brand device and interface that will be introduced this month.
The first products based on General Magic technology are at least 18 to 24 months from shipping, sources said. They also said hardware manufacturers will have access to TeleScript code and General Magic's communications specifications by year-end. General Magic has played its cards very close to the chest and has denied the accuracy of all published reports about it, including this one.
Andrew Gore contributed to this story.
MacWEEK 05/11/92
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DevCon '92 gives lowdown on Apple directions
By Raines Cohen
San Jose, Calif. - When thousands of developers descend on the 1992 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference here this week, they might be overwhelmed by the sheer number of new technologies Apple will present.
Apple CEO John Sculley will kick off the conference with a keynote talk highlighting key technologies and strategic directions for Apple in the next few years: Personal Digital Assistants, the Open Collaboration Environment (OCE), AppleScript, PowerPC, new imaging and printing architectures, and System 7.1's multiple- language support.
The weeklong conference also will include details on:
> AppleScript.
Apple will explain how to make applications scripting-savvy and how AppleScript fits into the Open Scripting Architecture announced last year.
> OCE.
More than a dozen sessions will cover collaboration, directory services, telephony, videoconferencing, interprogram messaging, digital signatures, privacy and security.
> Data interchange.
Attendees will learn about the Translation Manager, which makes format conversion more transparent in applications that support Apple's Claris XTND translation filters. Also covered will be Bento, Apple's proposed standard for compound documents (see MacWEEK, Jan. 15).
> PowerPC.
Several sessions address RISC (reduced instruction set computing) architectures, system software supporting PowerPC, and the effect of Taligent and the Apple- IBM Corp. alliance.
Mac developers said the sessions are a mixed bag. "You have to pick your way through to get the juicy and time-critical topics," said Andrew Lewis, president of accelerator maker DayStar Digital Inc. of Flowery Branch, Ga.
"I'm going to go, but I don't know why," said Kyle Mashima, executive vice president of Objective Software Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif. "I'll go to try to absorb something without having to read too much."
At least one longtime Mac developer plans to skip the conference altogether. "If we had lots of money to throw around, or we were a new company in need of contacts, then, sure, we'd go," said Dan Chadwick, president of Attain Corp. of Cambridge, Mass. "However, we're already seeded with the [Apple] technology important to us."
MacWEEK 05/11/92
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News Analysis: Apple's publish and subscribe
By Neil McManus
Cupertino, Calif. - Publish and subscribe seems to have few aficionados at its first birthday party, but more functionality and ease of use could make the System 7 feature more popular, users said.
"I work with people in everything from small companies to Fortune 500 firms, but I don't know anyone who's even tried to use publish and subscribe," said Rob Getlan, president of the Mac Software Registry, a training and consulting company in Bronxville, N.Y.
Publish and subscribe lets System 7 users create "live" links that pass updatable data between documents. These links, called editions, can be created or received by any program that supports the feature.
Although in the past users might have been deterred from using the feature by the lack of application support, at least 90 programs now offer publish and/or subscribe, according to the Mac Software Registry, including Microsoft Excel 3.0, Microsoft Word 5.0, Adobe Photoshop 2.0, Claris Resolve 1.1, Aldus Persuasion 2.1 and QuarkXPress 3.1.
Publish and subscribe is useful for workgroup projects, said Conrad Zinkus, president of Cahnie Consultants of Vancouver, British Columbia. Zinkus is using the feature to help the British Columbia Automobile Association set up a networkwide system for shared financial reports.
"Each department publishes its budget and forecasting information, and it's all automatically flowed into master reports," Zinkus said.
"Publish and subscribe works so well, it's strange more people aren't using it," he said.
Publish and subscribe's inflexibility is one reason it didn't win over Elizabeth Wood, president of Egeland Wood & Zuber Inc., an advertising agency in Scotia, N.Y. "I tried it, but I didn't really like it. You can't move [an edition] file or you break the link, and at our office we're always moving things around."
Apple has conducted focus groups and interviews to learn how to make publish and subscribe simpler and more approachable, said Steve Goldberg, Apple System 7 product manager. Future improvements are likely to include:
> Ease of use.
Creating a link takes several steps, including naming each edition file (see chart, Page 1). Alternatives could include direct links, such as those available in Microsoft Windows' Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE), or storing editions within documents rather than as separate files.
> Pipelines.
Last spring Claris Corp. demonstrated a technology called Pipelines for tracking the locations and status of editions. Apple has since acquired the technology, according to Claris spokesman Steve Ruddock. When Goldberg was informed of this development last week, however, he said, "Really? Wow. That's news to me."
> Formatting.
Publish and subscribe now can exchange only text and PICT data, and in some cases, other formats common to both applications involved in the exchange. Apple's XTND technology, also acquired from Claris, could be supported in the future and allow greater preservation of style information in text.
MacWEEK 05/11/92
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Translator to speed shift to RISC
By Henry Norr
Holmdel, N.J. - An offshoot of AT&T Co.'s Bell Labs stepped forward last week to take the wraps off a new software- porting technology it said will allow Macintosh developers to move current applications to the PowerPC platform in "a matter of days."
Echo Logic, a 9-month-old AT&T-owned venture based here, announced an agreement with Apple to collaborate on implementing the technology, which it calls FlashPort. Key software developers are slated to get alpha versions of the porting tool this year, while general release is scheduled for next spring.
Apple has said that it expects to release the first Macs based on the new RISC (reduced instruction set computing) processor in late 1993 or early 1994. Company officials last week joined colleagues from IBM Corp. and Motorola Inc., its partners in the PowerPC project, at the formal opening of the Austin, Texas, facility where some 300 engineers are working on the chip.
FlashPort converts executable object code - "shrink-wrapped" applications - written in any language for current Macs' 680x0 processors into programs that run in native mode on the faster PowerPC chip.
The RISC Macs will ship with emulation software allowing buyers to run their existing software on the RISC machines even without conversion. Emulation, however, will consume much of the machines' power, leaving perceived performance at about the levels of comparably priced 680x0 Macs.
Programs converted with FlashPort, on the other hand, will run at about 90 percent of the speed of software compiled directly for the new chip, according to Brad Burnham, president of Echo Logic. Code size will typically be about only 1.1 times that of native code, he said.
"To really exploit the capabilities of the RISC chip, developers will have to rearchitect their programs," said Jordan Mattson, Apple product marketing manager for PowerPC tools. "FlashPort won't do that, but it will give you a way to do what you are already doing a lot faster."
Pricing for the Echo Logic software has not been set. It initially will require an IBM RS/6000 workstation but will eventually run on fully configured PowerPC-based Macs, according to Burnham.
The program works, he said, by applying three progressively more-aggressive algorithms to derive the input program's underlying logic by tracing its flow of control, accumulating detailed contextual information about the state of registers, stacks and memory as instructions are executed. It then generates an intermediate representation of the program in an "architecturally neutral low-level register-transfer language"; this file can be 25 or more times larger than the input file, he said.
This internal representation is then pared down and optimized, then passed to a code generator that converts it to native code for the target processor. A programmer familiar with the program's logic will have to be on hand to assist at points where the translator is stymied.
To assist smaller developers who can't afford an RS/6000 workstation and a FlashPort license, Mattson said, Apple is weighing plans to set up "porting centers," equipped with RS/6000 stations running the porting program and staffed by knowledgeable technicians, in Cupertino, Calif., London and Tokyo.
In other porting news, Quorum Systems Software Inc. of Menlo Park, Calif., last week shipped Quorum Latitude, a set of tools that will enable Macintosh developers to convert their software to run on SPARC-based workstations.
MacWEEK 05/11/92
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Apple OSI support and X.400 server due at Interop 92
By Louise Fickel and Daniel Todd
Washington - Apple, moving to strengthen its internetworking capabilities, will throw its weight behind two international data standards at Interop 92 Spring here next week.
The company will announce Mac server software for X.400 electronic-mail systems, which will make it easier for Mac mail vendors to write X.400 gateways. At least two developers will announce X.400 gateways built on Apple's server, one for CE Software Inc.'s QuickMail and a second for Microsoft Corp.'s Mail for PC Networks, Apple said.
Judy Rosall, program manager for electronic-mail messaging at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass., said: "A lot more people are using X.400, and this would get [Mac users] right into that world transparently."
Apple also will announce Mac software that supports the physical, data link, network and transport layers of the Open Systems Interconnection architecture. Developers will be able to build OSI services, such as File Transfer Access and Management, on top of Apple's software by writing to the software's X/Open Transport Interface application programming interface, Apple said.
The company has been promising OSI-compatible products since 1989 but currently offers only one: MacX25, communications software that works with the X.25 standard.
Apple also will introduce software that will let users read and create documents in Open Document Architecture format, a platform-independent standard for text and graphic information (see MacWEEK, April 2, 1991). The software will work with XTND-aware applications.
Other companies expected to make Mac-related announcements include:
> InterCon Systems Corp. will introduce LPR/Con, software that lets Macs print to PostScript printers that are attached to Unix hosts. Pricing will range from $195 for a single-user version to $3,995 for a 100-user version.
> Tenon Intersystems Inc. will demonstrate the System 7- savvy version of MachTen, its Mac-based implementation of Unix that allows every Mac from the PowerBook to the Quadra to run both Unix and Macintosh applications. MachTen 2.0 is slated to ship for $595 at the end of this month (see MacWEEK, March 30).
> Cayman Systems Inc. will show Version 2.1 of system software for its GatorBox routers and GatorStar GX router/repeater (see story, Page 12).
> Asante Technologies Inc. will introduce its first intelligent Ethernet hub and an SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) add-in card for the hub.
> Isocor, a small Los Angeles start-up, will announce a $2,450 X.400 messaging engine that will run on IBM PCs and compatibles. By year-end, the company said, its X.400 Lite will include an interface to Apple's Open Collaboration Environment (OCE).
> Advanced Computer Communications Inc. will show Release 5.0 of the software for its Series 4000 multiprotocol routers. The upgrade, due this week, optimizes performance across wide-area networks by dividing bandwidth equally among active users. Version 5.0 is free to current users who subscribe to the ACC's warranty program and $1,000 to new users.
> NetWorth Inc. will introduce the NetWare Application Engine, a 486-based PC-compatible card with a hard disk running Novell Inc.'s NetWare Runtime and any number of NetWare Loadable Modules (NLMs), which plugs into NetWorth's Series 4000 hubs.
> Ungermann-Bass Inc. will announce Access/Open, an enclosure for PC-compatible cards that connects to the company's Access/One Enterprise hub (see MacWEEK, March 23). The Access/One hub supports SNMP; pricing starts at $7,990.
Walker Richer & Quinn Inc. will announce two new connection tools for its Reflection terminal emulators: NS Connection, which implements Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Network Services protocol over TCP/IP, and the 3000 Connection, which supports NS and Telnet.
> Motorola Inc. will demonstrate two enhancements to its Altair wireless network: Altair VistaPoint, due in June, a wireless LAN link that connects Ethernet networks up to 500 feet apart, and Altair Plus, wireless Ethernet that connects more users than the original version of the product (see MacWEEK, March 16).
MacWEEK 05/11/92
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Speech tools to get the Mac talking again
By Henry Norr
San Jose, Calif. - Your Mac soon could be speaking out on the issues of the day.
While Apple has put its Casper speech-recognition technology in the spotlight in recent months, company engineers also have been working on the other side of the coin: speech synthesis. The technology is expected to be demonstrated at next week's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference here, and later this year developers will receive a kit enabling them to build speech-generation capabilities into their programs, sources said.
The kit reportedly will include a new text-to-speech manager and sample drivers, or actual digital voices, to go with it. Designed to work on everything from high-volume low-end Macs to top-of-the-line equipment, the system is modular and scalable: Users eventually will be able to plug in other drivers, from Apple or third parties, that speak in other tongues and make different trade-offs between speech quality on the one hand and disk-space and processing-power requirements on the other.
Apple has distributed a speech driver called Macintalk since 1984. But its quality is generally considered marginal, it has been updated only slightly since its first release, and it is used by only a handful of programs. With the new software, the company reportedly hopes to offer spoken alerts and balloon help, and incorporate speech synthesis into QuickTime and possibly into the messaging system in its Open Collaboration Environment (OCE).
> Text-to-speech manager.
The new manager, which will be distributed in the form of a system extension, will provide a standard application programming interface that developers incorporating speech generation can address, without worrying about the details of the driver in use. Programs simply will pass phrases to the speech manager, which in turn will send them to the speech synthesizer driver that is installed.
> Speech drivers.
Apple reportedly will deliver four drivers, two with male and two with female voices. The drivers are differentiated not only by gender, but also by size and quality: The smaller drivers reportedly take up 100 Kbytes on disk, while the larger ones fill 1.5 Mbytes. Once the software ships, users reportedly will be able to change voices without restarting.
Sources said that while the quality of the system's speech output is a definite improvement over Macintalk and getting steadily better, users expecting a natural-sounding voice might be disappointed. The new technology, they said, is much better able to parse phrases and sentences, but the output still has a tinny and artificial quality, even with the larger driver.
Mac speech-software developers said they expect to adapt their products to work with Apple's new architecture. Baseline Publishing Inc. of Memphis, Tenn., publisher of The Talking Moose and His Talking Carnival, said Apple has provided it with source code to Macintalk, and Steve Halls, the Moose's creator, is rewriting it as a driver for the new manager that would fill only about 20 Kbytes.
Sandra Hutchins, president and chief technical officer of Emerson & Stern Associates Inc. of San Diego, developer of the Sound Bytes speech driver, said: "We've implemented our driver independently until now, but when and if there is a standard, we would plan to be compatible."
MacWEEK 05/11/92
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(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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Special Report: Developer tools
By Steve Rosenthal
Cross-platform development has become the rule rather than the exception. Increasingly, there's no advantage in limiting your in-house or commercial programming to the Macintosh.
Large organizations "want to hedge their bets; it isn't clear where the future lies, and they don't want to get locked into one platform," said David Taylor, principal of Taylor Consulting of San Mateo, Calif. Companies already experienced in graphical user interface development on the Mac are finding Microsoft Corp.'s Windows an especially attractive follow-up. Shouldn't there be a way, they ask, to easily move our Mac software to Windows?
Many vendors of development tools want to answer that question with a yes. Nearly a dozen companies are shipping or plan to ship cross-platform development tools to help move Mac-originated software to Windows, Unix and other environments.
Admittedly, users said, many cross-platform development products are either limited in scope or too new to have an established track record. But developers already have found that cross-platform tools make it possible to produce multiple program versions on schedules or budgets that would be impossible to match developing from scratch.
Cross-platform tools vary widely in approach, cost, business terms and range of supported platforms. One way to classify the tools, said Steve Weyl, senior engineering manager of developer tools engineering for Apple, is whether they provide portability by means of a general toolbox, a GUI, an application programming interface (API), a complete program environment or a combination of these elements.
>Graphical interfaces.
Tools that allow one program to call different GUI systems are the simplest cross-platform approach. They take care of the complex process of creating the on-screen boxes, windows, styled text and the other elements that make a GUI look different from a character- based interface. Tool users still must write their applications' core code, and sometimes even the code to interface to the file system and other services provided by the operating system.
Bawamba Software Inc.'s MPC package allows code written for a Mac to drive a Motif-like interface on an IBM PC or compatible. However, users report it is particularly effective in speeding conversions of character-oriented applications from PC to Mac.
Thomas Reahard, president of Symmetry Software Corp. of Scottsdale, Ariz., said: "We had four man-years in development. Using MPC to convert our atOnce! accounting package from PC to Mac, we reduced that to eight man-months."
Reahard cited as major stumbling blocks the differences in byte order, memory constraints on the PC side and lack of support for QuickDraw on the PC. "We had the application up and limping in three weeks. Then it took another two or three months chasing down the details. But now," he said, "we know what to watch for in the porting process, so it goes much faster."
The XVT (for extensible virtual toolkit) from XVT Software Inc. provides graphics code for a variety of windowing systems, including Macintosh, Windows, OS/2 Presentation Manager and Motif. The program translates a common list of graphical elements and services to C or C++ code and resource files.
"We started with our Mac version (of Grammatik) in February and (using XVT) had our Windows version by June," said Jon King, project coordinator for Reference Software International's development arm in Albuquerque, N.M. Although XVT didn't give them all the services they would have liked, he said, "it's better to use stuff that's a bit older, because it's more likely to work." But even with a conservative approach, he added, they needed to buy the XVT source code to change some hard-wired phrases for international editions.
However, Macromedia Inc. has been gradually recoding its Windows Player to eliminate the code produced by the XVT package, said Jeff Parker, product manager of Director and Player products for the San Francisco-based company. "We wanted faster performance," Parker said. "And we found that we didn't want to go back [to XVT] for bug fixes because it was something we could not control."
Parker said it was worth taking the cross-platform porting route initially to get the product out quickly. But for the long term, he said, you have to consider the cost in performance.
Open Interface from Neuron Data includes a set of interface design tools that allow visual construction of a program's look and feel. The resulting code can be compiled for Macintosh, Windows, DECwindows, Open Look and Motif.
Jeff Faraday, manager of system architecture for Amex Life Assurance Co. of San Rafael, Calif., used Open Interface to develop a GUI for a front-end data system. "We have a mixed environment," he explained, "but at the same time the key was to preserve the hardware investment." Tests on the system are working out so well that his company plans to use Open Interface on upcoming projects.
>Complete APIs.
Newer tools are aiming to provide a complete cross-platform API to handle all calls to the operating system rather than just the graphics and user input. Several programs start with an idealized machine-independent format, which the system then translates to the specific code needed for each platform. Others start from an existing machine-specific API.
"The Universal Component System allows a developer to write the applications once to get all their system and GUI services from our API," said David Evans, director of business development for Software Transformation Inc., which makes the system. Providing a new idealized API rather than an existing operating system interface, he said, offers more of what developers need.
For developers who have existing applications coded for the Mac, several firms are offering tools that aim to provide a compatibility layer on other platforms.
Quorum Software Systems Inc. is offering Latitude, a Mac-to- Unix software system that runs on Sun Microsystems Inc.'s SPARC workstations.
Latitude includes code libraries and a runtime engine, which are linked to Mac program code to provide Motif or Open Look interfaces on Unix systems.
For applications where a translation and recompilation isn't worthwhile, Quorum also plans a runtime compatibility system called Equal. The company said the package will run off-the- shelf Mac programs on Unix systems, but the programs will show up with a Unix GUI's look and feel.
Both systems will implement virtually all non-hardware- dependent Mac system calls, including difficult areas such as sound and 32-bit color, Quorum said.
Cambridge Scientific Computing Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., is using Latitude to port the company's ChemDraw scientific illustration program from the Mac to workstations. So far, said Chief Operating Officer Michael G. Tomasic, the company has been pleased by the results. "When you're moving from Mac to Unix, it's not uncommon that the raw performance of the Unix machine is greater than the Mac, so the performance hit of the extra software is affordable."
"It's working very well," confirmed James MacDonald, strategic developer manager for Sun's SunSoft software development arm in Mountain View, Calif. Sun will back the program, he said, for both distributed high-power database applications and for bringing a larger collection of desktop software products to the company's workstation users.
Xcelerated Systems Inc. said it is shipping its Liken software, which lets compiled Mac programs run on SPARC machines. The company has verified that more than 50 popular Mac applications run on the system, although only in monochrome.
Abacus Research and Development Inc.'s Executor, a similar compatibility program for the NeXT machine, has been verified with only a few programs, such as Microsoft Word and Excel.
But, said Abacus President Clifford Matthews, the company plans to support a list of 28 major applications. Users pay $80 per application from that list but also can use Executor to run any compatible Mac application not included in that group, the company said.
Altura Software Inc. plans a release of a general-use product that will translate between the Mac API and Windows. The program provides equivalents of most Mac services in a Dynamic Link Library (DLL) for Windows.
Tom Hedges, vice president of research and development for Fractal Design Corp. of Aptos, Calif., said his company was pleased with the results when translating its Painter program to Windows using pre-release software from Altura. "We recoded a few of the tight loops in assembly language," he admitted, but otherwise the software handled the raster- graphics program quite well.
>Class libraries.
With the growing popularity of object- oriented programming, collections of cross-platform programming routines, called class libraries, for C++ are another logical approach.
The Mac version of Liant Software Corp.'s C++Views class library isn't expected until this summer, but the company already is shipping Windows, OS/2 Presentation Manager and Motif versions.
The library, Product Manager Steve Kuhn said, includes more than 100 classes and takes care of more than 95 percent of what would ordinarily be calls to the operating system and GUI.
The object-oriented C++ facilities and cross-platform capabilities together made C++Views the tool of choice for Avantos Performance Systems Inc. of Emeryville, Calif., said Gerald Huff, vice president of product development. The company is working on an unreleased productivity application. "We began the development in Windows," he said, "but we intend to bring the product out for both Windows and the Mac." Using C++Views, he said, the company has written close to 70,000 lines of code with about only 50 lines that are Windows-specific.
Component Workshop from Component Software Corp. is due out this summer for Mac and Windows. The package will start with a Smalltalk-like object-oriented language but will produce C++ code for each supported platform.
Environments. For applications where complete portability and fast development are key parameters, high-level object- oriented development environments are often the preferred solution.
Smalltalk, which came out of the same effort at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) that produced the ancestor of the Macintosh, is now available in two flavors. Smalltalk/V from Digitalk Inc. often is used as an internal development or prototyping language. Objectworks/Smalltalk from ParcPlace Systems offers an extensive set of utilities, but at a price (from $595 to $3,495) that has largely restricted its popularity to vertical markets and internal development.
Forth, BASIC and LISP language systems also offer some degree of portability for application software. They are mostly used in academic work or for special-interest software applications.
>Standards.
While most cross-platform efforts aim at bridging the gap between current industry standards such as the Mac and Windows, several projects aim to produce a new cross- platform approach that will lessen the need for separate application development.
Apple and IBM Corp. have announced their intentions to create a cross-platform standard through their jointly owned Taligent Inc. OS company (see MacWEEK, Oct. 8, 1991).
There's also an ongoing lesser-known effort by an API standards group sponsored by the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers. Chaired by Sunil Mehta, chief scientist at Guideware Corp. of Mountain View, Calif., the group is aiming to produce a draft standard by early next year. "We don't expect to displace established standards like Windows," he said. Instead, the target is a compatibility layer.
Not everyone's ready to buy. Several larger developers see their own internal cross-platform tools as strategic assets.
"We have created a layer that constitutes a standardized API that is mapped to both [Mac and PC] platforms," said Bill Johnson, Excel product manager for Microsoft in Redmond, Wash. The code, he said, allows the company's programmers to write to an interface without having to worry about the details of Macs, Windows or other destinations. "The big win is that we have a single common source code." That commonality, he said, makes development faster, eases support, and allows Microsoft to train or recruit programmers based on their knowledge of an application area rather than an operating environment.
"We started our cross-platform effort about four years ago," said Jerry Barber, director of advance products for Aldus Corp. of Seattle. "We have developed an internal tool that is a cross- platform application (programming) framework using C++. We're able to write most of our code as 'core code' that is independent of the platform it runs on. There's some edge code that's specific to the platform."
Not everyone is ready to make even that initial trade-off for an automated cross-platform solution, however.
"We share code back and forth," said Mike Scalora, development tools manager for WordPerfect Corp. of Orem, Utah. But, he said, when it comes to the various desktop machines, most code is hand-translated and optimized. That may change, he admitted, but for now the company would rather aim for maximum performance even if it means maintaining separate program code on each desktop platform.
MacWEEK 05/11/92
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File-translation software aids cross-platform
But role narrows as apps build in options
By Roger Karraker
File translation to and from the Macintosh - regardless of platform - has come a long way since the days when a cable between serial ports or modem-to-modem transfers sufficed to move plain ASCII text into Macs. The development of more- sophisticated hardware and software solutions has brought cross-platform file transfer out of the dark ages.
Several software solutions now are available to translate word processor, database, spreadsheet, graphics and CAD files between Macs, IBM PCs and compatibles, and Unix workstations. Yet even as software becomes more sophisticated, the role of file translation is narrowing as applications incorporate their own translation options and software companies port their applications to other platforms.
System-level solutions. Both Apple and Claris Corp. provide software to aid in rudimentary file exchange and data translation.
In recent years, Claris developed its XTND technology, a translation technology that Mac developers can license and incorporate into their applications. XTND has made better file translation, especially between word processors, the result of multiple developers' efforts.
Claris' XTND project has now moved to Apple and will be incorporated into Apple's future system software plans, according to Claris spokesman Steve Ruddock.
While the XTND technology is becoming popular, the most common basic solution is Apple File Exchange, a utility distributed with all current Macs. Apple File Exchange allows Macs with a 1.4-Mbyte SuperDrive to read PC and OS/2 disks and rudimentarily convert the most-common PC word processing formats into Mac-readable text.
DOS on the desktop. Apple File Exchange's limits, such as only reading from the SuperDrive and its inability to mount DOS volumes on the desktop, are addressed by several vendors. Dayna Communications Inc.'s DOS Mounter 3.0, Argosy Software Inc.'s MountPC and Insignia Solutions Inc.'s AccessPC 1.1 are control panels that let Mac users see and manipulate files on DOS-formatted floppy disks and other removable media.
They can read SyQuest Technology Inc.'s 88-Mbyte removable cartridges in addition to locked and unlocked 720-Kbyte and 1.4-Mbyte DOS floppies; all programs operate with a variety of external floppy drives and with Apple's SuperDrive. MountPC is available bundled with Argosy's Software Bridge/Mac, which features more than 30 translators that convert word processing files between Macintosh and PC formats.
FormatterFive from Software Architects Inc. also lets you mount and read a large number of DOS-formatted SCSI- compatible storage devices, including SyQuest and Ricoh Corp. removable cartridges, most brands of 5.25-inch and 3.5-inch magneto-optical disks, and several brands of hard drives. FormatterFive also can create Mac and DOS partitions on the same drive.
Hot link. DataViz Inc. recently released Version 6.02 of MacLinkPlus, its file-conversion utility that contains more than 50 translators to convert files between Mac, Apple II, DOS, Windows, Sun and NeXT applications.
MacLinkPlus is a software-only package that comes with DOS Mounter. MacLinkPlus/PC is a hardware-software package that includes translation software and cabling necessary to transfer files to a Mac from a PC, PS/2, laptop, Sun or NeXT computer.
While primarily known for its word processing, database and spreadsheet conversion, MacLinkPlus also can translate Autodesk Inc.'s AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange File), Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM), BMP, Digital Research Inc.'s GEM (Graphics Environment Manager) and PC Paintbrush's PCX graphic file formats into Mac PICT files.
The DataViz products offer "drag-and-drop" file conversion: Mac users can drag a DOS/Windows file icon onto the icon of a Mac application, and the file is automatically copied to the Mac disk and converted to that application type.
MacLinkPlus' conversion possibilities are dizzying. DOS WordPerfect 5.1 files, for example, can be converted into any of four file formats on DOS, Windows, Sun, Mac and NeXT platforms. Formatted Claris MacWrite, Microsoft Word and Frame Technology Corp. Maker Interchange Format (MIF) files can be converted into more than 22 formats each on those platforms and VMS minicomputers.
Graphics translation. Grace Moore, vice president of Techart, a graphic design and typesetting service bureau in San Francisco, said her firm uses MacLinkPlus mostly to translate graphics files created on the Mac by Techart back to IBM formats for clients. "It works well 90 percent of the time - 100 percent with bit-mapped images. Occasionally we have problems with EPS files, but those are usually caused by the application in DOS that created them."
Surprisingly, Adobe Photoshop often succeeds in file translation where dedicated file translators fail. "We use Photoshop for translating PCX files," Moore said. "When I use MacLink to open a PICT version of a PC screen shot it looks like an electronic storm, but Photoshop will always open it."
Photoshop is one of the most versatile graphics translation options. It can import and export images in 14 graphics file formats: raw, Encapsulated PostScript, TIFF, PICT file, PICT resource, Amiga IFF/ILBM, CompuServe's GIF (Graphic Interchange Format), Paint, PIXAR, PixelPaint, Scitex CT, Targa and ThunderScan.
Other graphics translators such as GSC Associates Inc.'s MetaPICT translate graphics and presentation documents from CGM international-standard format that can be read by DOS and Unix applications to PICT files. FGM Inc.'s PICTure This also converts a number of file formats from the DOS, Mac, Amiga and Unix arenas into PICT.
A standard format. Lenny Bailes, a San Francisco graphics consultant and a writer for California's MicroTimes Magazine, said EPS is the closest thing to a lingua franca when converting graphics files.
"I try to use EPS first," Bailes said. "It's the most standard format." When EPS isn't an option, Bailes uses CompuServe's GIF format. "Everybody on every platform has a shareware GIF convertor," he said. As a last resort he uses TIFF formats.
Bailes prefers to do file conversion on the PC using Inset Systems Inc.'s HiJaak, which can translate into more than 60 formats, including many compatible with Photoshop.
CAD/CAM solutions. Photoshop is a bit-map editing program, however, which is of little use to CAD/CAM users who often need to convert files between platforms, and then edit the intricate objects they contain.
That's where programs such as Engineered Software's PowerDraw Translator 3.0 come into play. PowerDraw Translator can convert a number of CAD formats, including PowerDraw 3.0, Adobe Illustrator 88, PICT, PICT2 and AutoCAD DXF files.
DXF files, for example, can be converted into editable Illustrator 88 files, then reconverted back into DXF files, if desired. PowerDraw Translator also works with Computervision Calma Products Division's VersaCAD and Claris' Claris CAD and MacDraw formats.
Rob Coolidge, a Guilford, Conn., architect and Macintosh consultant, uses PowerDraw Translator regularly to convert architectural drawings into Illustrator 88 files for printing on PostScript printers.
"Illustrator prints better to laser printers than any QuickDraw-based program, especially with one-pixel and two-pixel lines, which often print erratically," Coolidge said. His local graphics service bureau recently purchased PowerDraw Translator because of the growing number of users needing to convert files created on DOS to Mac formats.
Coolidge said such conversion is critical for a growing number of manufacturers whose engineering drawings are produced on PCs but who need to prepare literature on Macs.
Coolidge also recommends another Mac-based program, CAD Express from Amiable Technologies Inc., which has translators for moving IGES (Initial Graphic Exchange Specification), DXF, Corel Systems Corp.'s CorelDRAW! and HP-GL files into Illustrator and Aldus FreeHand documents.
Future compatibility. Sharing information between platforms is becoming more transparent. As more vendors port their products to other platforms and Mac applications are able to open files created on other systems, file-translation software may become obsolete.
For example, while sites with a mixed environment of Macs and PCs may need to retain word processing formats between platforms, service bureaus that use page-layout programs such as QuarkXPress and Aldus PageMaker for final output generally prefer ASCII text files to formatted word processing files.
"DOS Mounter eliminates most of our need to translate word processing files, the majority of which our page-layout programs can import directly from a PC disk in ASCII without translation," said Techart's Moore.
"PC PageMaker files can open up in PageMaker on the Mac," Moore said. "That is the way things are going. Eventually there won't be any translation programs; every application will contain translators and be able to read across platforms."
Product Info
Adobe Systems Inc.
Adobe Photoshop 2.0: $895
1585 Charleston Road, Mountain View, Calif. 94039
Phone (415) 961-4400; fax (415) 961-3769
Amiable Technologies Inc.
CAD Express: $799
3508 Market St., Suite 210, Philadelphia, Pa. 19104
Phone (215) 222-9066; fax (215) 222-9056
Argosy Software Inc.
RunPC/Remote: $219
Software Bridge/Mac: $159
113 Spring St., Fifth Floor, New York, N.Y. 10012
Phone (212) 274-1199; fax (212) 431-6567
DataViz Inc.
MacLinkPlus Version 6.02: $169
MacLinkPlus/PC: $199
55 Corporate Drive, Trumbull, Conn. 06611
Phone (203) 268-0030; fax (203) 268-4345
Dayna Communications Inc.
DOS Mounter 3.0: $89.95
50 S. Main St., Fifth Floor, Salt Lake City, Utah 84144
Phone (703) 478-9881 or (800) 783-7428; fax (703) 437- 3454
GSC Associates Inc.
MetaPICT: $179
2304 Artesia Blvd., Suite 201, Redondo Beach, Calif. 90278
Phone (310) 379-2113; fax (310) 379-1649
Inset Systems Inc.
HiJaak 2.1: $249
71 Commerce Drive, Brookfield, Conn. 06804
Phone (203) 775-5866 or (800) 374-6738; fax (203) 775- 5634
Insignia Solutions Inc.
AccessPC 1.1: $99
526 Clyde Ave., Mountain View, Calif. 94043
Phone (415) 694-7600 or (800) 848-7677; fax (415) 964- 5434
Software Architects Inc.
FormatterFive: $150;
$195 with DOS Mounter 3.0
19102 N. Creek Parkway, Suite 101, Bothell, Wash. 98103
Phone (206) 487-0122; fax (206) 487-0467
MacWEEK 05/11/92
Product Watch Page 47
(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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Review: Accountant, Inc. 3.0 adds System 7
Update to small-business system is good, but it still needs some refinements.
By Steve Mann
Accountant, Inc., a small-business accounting package from Softsync Inc. (a subsidiary of Bloc Development Corp.), has been on the market for several years. With Version 3.0, the company has created a System 7-savvy program that uses publish and subscribe and Apple events to create a flexible and open accounting product. The result is a good example of applying System 7 capabilities to solve business problems, but because of various shortcomings, Accountant, Inc. falls short of real innovation.
>By all accountants.
Accountant, Inc. is available in single- and multi-user versions and costs $595 per single-user copy and $995 per three-user multi-user copy. Although we did not test Accountant, Inc./MultiUser, Softsync claims it enables one Mac to maintain an accounting database, which it can share with an unlimited number of users. When client workstations require data, the server sends them only the information specific to their request, which minimizes network traffic. Accountant, Inc./MultiUser does not require a dedicated file server and is fully compatible with single-user Accountant, Inc. data files.
Accountant, Inc. includes general-ledger, accounts-payable, accounts-receivable, inventory and payroll modules. In addition, it has minimal job-cost capabilities. The general- ledger module tracks four, 12 or 13 periods per year. It keeps all periods open throughout the year, which simplifies making adjustments to prior periods. It includes standard financial statements (with budgeting) and lets you define custom sort orders for both the income statement and balance sheet. The program also lets you define subtotal account codes. You can create a wide variety of financial statements through combinations of sort and subtotal.
The accounts-receivable module can be used both by inventory and service businesses. Each customer is specified as either open-item or balance-forward. The two predefined invoice formats cover most small-business needs - finance charges, customer-specific tax rates, credit limit checking, discounts, user-defined payment terms and taxable line items, for instance. Invoices can be posted to inventory or customer- specific accounts, or you can define a custom distribution for each transaction. Receivables also handles quotes, purchase orders, back orders, finance charges and credit memos. There is a separate sales journal that you can use for cash sales, payments, refunds and transaction reversals.
The accounts-payable module is equally flexible. The basic transaction is an inventory-based purchase order (there is also a separate purchases journal). The module handles the partial receipt of goods, cancellations, prepaid transactions, back orders, credits, refunds and reversals. Both payments and credits can be partially or fully allocated to purchases. The module also includes a check-book reconciliation feature and calculates early payment discounts for you. One feature that is surprisingly not included is the ability to print federal 1099 forms.
The payroll module has four pay periods - weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly and monthly. Each employee can be either salaried or hourly, with one regular and two overtime wage rates. In addition to standard federal and state withholding taxes and disability insurance, you can assign up to nine additional withholdings to each employee. The module includes capabilities for previewing, voiding and reprinting checks. You can assign a separate state tax table to each employee. All tax tables are maintained by Softsync; the annual upgrade fee is $95.
The inventory module is straightforward. You can enter both product and service items. Products also can be assembled from other parts or disassembled at any time, assuming there are enough parts in stock. You can specify reorder levels and quantities for each inventory item, and Accountant, Inc. will warn you when you're below the minimum threshold. The inventory module stores one selling price and discount price per item, and it tracks only the weighted average cost.
>Flexible business solutions.
Accountant, Inc. includes many features designed to make the program as flexible as possible. For instance, most reports include multiple date ranges and sort options where applicable. You can define the length of the aging periods for receivables and accounts payable. You can define four-character analysis codes for customer, vendors and inventory items and print selected reports using wild-card selection on those codes. In addition, there are more than 100 special analysis reports. For instance, there are 20 special customer reports, including items bought by customer and discounts taken.
Accountant, Inc. tries hard to be a truly open environment. For instance, all reports can be printed, displayed or exported in text, Microsoft Corp.'s SYLK or tab-delimited formats. Also, you can import customers, vendors, accounts and inventory items in tab-delimited formats, making it easy to migrate from a different accounting system to Accountant, Inc. You can control a variety of operating preferences such as invoice and check printing, default account distributions and inventory assembly.
>Up with 7.
The program takes special advantage of System 7 features, which no other Mac accounting product can match. You can publish any report or part of a report as an edition file, and you can subscribe to any Accountant, Inc. report that has been published. Publish and subscribe support gives you impressive reporting flexibility.
Softsync has gone one step further to support System 7. You can link forms created with Shana Corp.'s Informed Designer forms-management software to Accountant, Inc.'s accounting engine (see story at left). If you are not satisfied with the invoice formats provided by Softsync, you can create your own. You also can create custom calculation forms, such as a depreciation schedule or tax-calculation worksheet, and link it directly to the general-ledger module.
>Ambitious but flawed.
Despite Softsync's attempts to make Accountant, Inc. suitable for many types of businesses, the program has a variety of problems that tarnish its success. The interface is at times inconsistent and unnecessarily complex. For instance, submenus are used judiciously to group related tasks, but at the same time, the File menu has five print commands (one of them a submenu with two choices). Menus are grouped by tasks (forms, reports and journals), but there is a module-oriented menu for payroll-module functions.
Although it is easy to use overall, some program operations and results are confusing. Receivables, accounts-payable and payroll transactions must be explicitly posted to the general- ledger module (contrary to the product brochure, which claims that "the system will update all sections of the program automatically"). Inventory and project (job-cost) data, however, are automatically updated - their reports are always current while the financial statements reflect different results.
Accountant, Inc. makes some things unnecessarily difficult. For instance, you cannot change account numbers, even if there is no activity in that account. You have to delete the account and create a new one. When first using the program, you have to enter a group of required account numbers, even though you may not use them. The scrolling lists of analysis reports are in random order, making it difficult to find any report by title. There is no attempt to complete most transaction amounts during data entry.
Accountant, Inc.'s performance needs some improvement. It is slow at posting, completing a transaction and importing (on a Mac II). There are times, when selecting distribution accounts, that the program will stall - with no busy cursor - for as long as 15 seconds, making it seem as though the program has crashed. We also were able to crash the program, repeatedly, doing certain types of setup operations.
The publish implementation is weak. When you publish an edition, the program assigns a fixed number of lines to it. If the length of the report changes, the length of the edition does not. Ideally, the published edition should change to include the same range of information, reflecting the same financial content.
Finally, the program's documentation needs some improvement. The reference, tutorial and quick-start manuals are from a previous version. Descriptions, menus, windows and dialogs often don't match what the program actually does. This can be very confusing for a novice user. There is a separate System 7 booklet that describes publish and subscribe and linking to Informed forms. The information is spotty and incomplete - limitations and potential problems are not discussed.
Softsync's technical support does not do much to supplement the documentation's weaknesses. It ranges from good (sometimes) to fair (too often). After the first 30 days, you must pay $249 per year for support, plus the cost of the calls.
>Conclusions.
Overall, Accountant, Inc. is a reasonable attempt to create a flexible, open accounting product that can be adapted to a variety of small-business needs. It is not as easy to use, however, as CheckMark Software Inc.'s MultiLedger or as flexible as Satori Software's Components Accounting System. Softsync should be applauded for readily embracing System 7 capabilities to solve business problems. Unfortunately, until it cleans up the product's rough edges, the applause won't be very long or loud.
Score Card: Accountant, Inc. 3.0
Overall value Good
Performance Average
Features Good
Ease of use Good
Documentation/support Average
List price $595*
*Single-user version; multi-user version: $995.
On Balance
Accountant, Inc. is a System 7-savvy small-business accounting product that includes publish and subscribe as well as linking to custom forms using Apple events. Although it is an ambitious attempt to create an innovative product, the program suffers from interface, performance and implementation flaws. The System 7 features are a good start, but they need refining. Overall, Accountant, Inc. is not as easy to use as CheckMark Software Inc.'s MultiLedger or as flexible as Satori Software's Components Accounting System.
System 7 Compatibility
Accountant, Inc. 3.0
Balloon help Yes
TrueType Yes
Publish and subscribe Yes
Apple events Yes
32-bit addressing* Yes
*According to vendor.
Softsync Inc. is at 800 Douglas Entrance, Suite 765, Coral Gables, Fla. 33134-9711. Phone (305) 529-3475 or (800) 933-2537; fax (305) 443-3255.
MacWEEK 05/11/92
Reviews Page 39
(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: Is the future in the mail?
Sometimes it's better just to shut up and write. At least that's what the Knife decided last week when it became apparent that watching the various talking heads unsuccessfully attempt to explain the situation in urban America wasn't leading to anything but a serious case of angst. Setting all that aside, he returned to the business at hand.
And the first business at hand is Apple, which contrary to the image it occasionally projects, is a business whose mission on this earth is to generate cash money. The Knife discovered that Apple USA, having already finalized plans to enter the lucrative and high-profile consumer-electronics industry, is now pondering entering the mail-order business.
No, Apple doesn't envision customers, MasterCard in hand, ordering Quadra 950s over the phone. Instead, the plan is to sell slower-moving items directly to end users. These would include such things as Ethernet cards and LaserWriter cartridges.
Not really a threat to the existing channels, but these items usually have substantially higher margins than computers and peripherals, so dealers aren't likely to greet the proposed pilot program with much enthusiasm.
Whatever enthusiasm the dealers manage to muster for direct Apple mail-order sales still will be more than the public's enthusiasm for the littlest PowerBook.
Sales are so slow that there's a possibility Apple may soon drop it all together. The Knife has learned that the latest higher-education reseller bulletin contains a warning that two of the specially priced, not-for-sale packages it uses to get resellers to buy demo units won't be available after May 15. One is the soon-to-be obsolete Quadra 900; the other is the PowerBook 100. The elimination of such items from the list has in the past been followed by the product's demise within 30 days. It might be a little early to plan the 100's memorial service, but forewarned is, well, forewarned.
>You can touch this.
Whenever the weather gets warmer and the streets get hotter, the Knife's thoughts turn to the Boston Macworld Expo and the many wild and wonderful things that will transpire there - things like last year's announcement by Radius that it had purchased Touchstone, Apple's new video project.
The only problem was that the board wasn't nearly as close to completion as many had suspected. As a result, VideoVision, as it probably will be called, is only now in shape to begin serious beta testing.
Sources tell the Knife that Radius hopes to get it out by August, in time for this year's show. To no one's surprise, this combination NuBus video capture, video and audio I/O, and frame buffer will replace the aging and increasingly uncompetitive Radius TV.
>dWEEK.
In an excellent example of me-too, follow-the-leader product strategy, Lotus is seriously investigating getting into the cross-platform database market. The leaders it is following, of course, are Microsoft with its acquisition of FoxBASE and Borland with its earlier acquisition of Ashton- Tate.
The Microsoft FoxBASE acquisition has apparently had some unexpected repercussions in the form of delays for Cirrus, Microsoft's FileMaker-like file-manager project for Windows and the Mac. In fact, the Knife reports that the Mac version has been delayed for at least another year.
Microsoft also has been overheard telling dealers and others that Works 3.0, which was scheduled for release next month, now has been delayed at least until mid-July.
>Cross-town rivals.
Apple isn't the only company to realize the value of adopting a new low-cost, high-volume strategy. The Knife says Compaq will enter the fray next month with several plug-and-play, less-than-$1,000 CPUs ready to power up out of the box. Like the Mac Classic and IBM PS/1, these new Compaqs will be aimed squarely at the home market.
A deal with BizMart probably will be in place within 90 days, while both Compaq and IBM are holding serious talks with CompUSA about future distribution agreements. Whoever said there was no home-computer market blew it.
If your boss gets all excited about the MacWEEK mug you got for sharing with the Knife, just take a cue from our leaders and blame it on the policies of the '60s. Word to the Knife at (415) 243-3500, fax (415) 243-3650, MCI (MactheKnife), AppleLink (MacWEEK) and CompuServe/ZiffNet/Mac. Peace, y'all.
MacWEEK 05/11/92
Opinion Page 94
Mac the Knife
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
