Newsbytes - Internationa…ews 1983 May to 1994 June/Newsbytes - International Computing Industry News 1994 Edition - May 1983 - June 1994 - Wayzata Technologies (5045) (1994).iso/pc/text/mac_text/1987/nb871215.235

Text File | 1991-08-16 | 63.0 KB | 1,365 lines

[***][12/15/87][***]
JOHN SCULLEY FORECASTS NEW MACINTOSH OPERATING SYSTEM
SANTA CLARA, Ca. (NB) -- Apple Chairman John Sculley has
announced that a new operating system for the Macintosh
is being designed which will take advantage of the new
Macintosh models but will be compatible with the old operating
system.  The project is expected to take three to four years
before the new operating system reaches the market.  Sculley
made his remarks before a conference at the Santa Clara
Marriott sponsored by the Technologic Partners of New York.

Sculley promised the new operating system would be able to
run expert systems, have artificial intelligence abilities, and
would be able to do true multitasking.  He said the changes
will be more evolutionary than revolutionary  and will evolve
in parts over the course of the next few years.

[***][12/15/87][***]
HOLIDAY HIRING AT HEWLETT PACKARD
PALO ALTO, Ca. (NB) -- For the first time in three years, Hewlett
Packard has announced that it will start hiring again in '88.  While
HP did not announce how many will be added to the work force,
the news ends a series of employee parings which have reduced
the work force from 84,000 to 82,000 since 1985.  HP's Chief
Executive Officer John Young made the announcement at a semi-
annual meeting with securities analysts.  Young said HP
has the "best product situation we have had in my memory,"
with its new line of RISC-based computer systems.  In 1988, he
said, HP will be "more aggressive" against its rivals IBM, Digital
Equipment, and Apple, but quickly added that he was talking
about marketing and not price cuts.

The key to a successful 1988, however, will be the performance
of the US dollar since much of HP's revenue is generated abroad.
"That's why it's so important that an orderly decline in the dollar
takes place, in order that these international markets not get
upset," he remarked.

[***][12/15/87][***]
SOFTWARE MAKERS TEAM UP TO FIGHT PIRACY
SAN FRANCISCO (NB) -- Deciding that the problem of software piracy
is too big and too expensive a crime for individual companies to fight,
several major software companies have joined to form a new
organization specifically set up to pursue piracy cases.  The
Business Software Association, whose members include Apple,
Microsoft, Autodesk, WordPerfect Corporation, Lotus, and
Ashton-Tate.  Statistics show for every software package sold,
one or two copies are illegally pirated, according to the Software
Publisher's Association.  The consortium recently led the raid
against pirates in Hong Kong which netted $2 million worth of
illegally copied software and hopes to bring more pirates to
justice in the future.  Unfortunately, membership in this elite
club does not come cheap.  The Business Software Association
will ask its members for up to $100,000 each to cover the
costs of staging investigations and prosecutions.

[***][12/15/87][***]
ATARI'S BIG 1988 - UNDER $5,000 DESKTOP PUB SYSTEM, NEW PLANT
SUNNYVALE, Ca. (NB) -- In the first quarter of 1988, Atari plans to
release a complete desktop publishing system, including hardware
and software, for what one might expect to pay for one laser printer.
The system, composed of an Atari Mega computer, the SLM804 laser
printer, and Atari Deskset desktop publishing software, is targeted
at the small office which does desktop publishing.  The Deskset
software, says Atari's Neil Harris, will offer true WYSIWYG (what
you see is what you get) display on screen and does the formatting
of the pages directly inside the computer.  The software sets aside
one megabyte of memory to perform the laser printer commands.

Meanwhile, Atari is scouting locations in Silicon Valley for a
new manufacturing plant and expects to have one in operation in
early 1988.  Some 100 people will be employed at the new location,
one of two plants slated for a 1988 debut -- the other targeted
for either Texas or Nevada.  Atari has been seeking to add to its
production muscle in Taiwan with one or more U.S.-based plants,
now that new automated manufacturing techniques have made
the cost of domestic production cheaper.

[***][12/15/87][***]
ROLM GETS SWALLOWED WHOLE BY IBM
SANTA CLARA, Ca. (NB) -- When the ball drops in New York, Rolm will
drop the last vestiges of independence it has had since becoming an
IBM subsidiary.  The Silicon Valley telecommunications equipment
maker sheds the name Rolm Corporation and becomes the Rolm
Systems Division of IBM on January 1; along with its independence
may go the trade name Rolm.  Changes in the company which once ranked
as one of the most liberal in Silicon Valley have been happening
gradually ever since IBM bought the firm in 1984.  Big Blue eliminated
the Friday beer bashes, its founders left, and management changes and
stricter policies brought the firm into the 80's.

Under the Big Blue umbrella, the Rolm Systems Division will continue
to produce integrated voice and data systems, digital phones, and other
telecommunications products.

[***][12/15/87][***]
IBM SHEDS THE REST OF INTEL
SANTA CLARA, Ca. (NB) -- While Rolm was settling comfortably into
the IBM nest, Intel got kicked out on its own.  IBM has divested the
last of its interest in Intel Corporation with the sale of 3.1
million shares.  IBM owned nearly 20% of Intel as recently as June
of 1987 but began a selling spree which has ultimately netted the
computer industry giant nearly $125 million.  Analysts say IBM's
original intent with the purchase was to strengthen Intel, its
key chip supplier.  That goal accomplished, IBM is allowing the
firm to stand on its own.

[***][12/15/87][***]
THE END OF THE DRIVE : TANDON SHEDS DISK OPERATIONS
MOORPARK, Ca. (NB) -- Tandon Corporation has unloaded the products
which first made it famous in a deal valued at $80 million.  The firm has
sold most of its disk drive business to Western Digital of Irvine.
Tandon, headed by Sirjang Lal Tandon, was started in the early
80's and supplied floppy and hard disk drives to major manufacturers.
But when the drive business softened, so did company profits,
necessitating a major change in corporate strategy.  Over the past
few years, Tandon has switched to personal computer manufacturing
and now will be doing that almost exclusively.

Tandon expects to buy drives from Western Digital for the next
two years.  In a published interview, Sirjan Tandon has said that the
sale is meant to ease financial burdens as it expands into personal
computer manufacturing.

[***][12/15/87][***]
BORLAND'S QUATTRO ENJOYS BIG ORDERS, COMES WITH FREE MAGAZINE
SCOTTS VALLEY, Ca. (NB) -- Borland International reports that demand
for its new spreadsheet Quattro has wildly exceeded expectations, with
50,000 orders placed in the first two weeks of its release.  Previously,
Borland had forecast 50,000 orders in the first six months of the
spreadsheet's introduction.

Buyers of Quattro are receiving a free issue of "For Quattro," a
monthly journal devoted to tips, tutorials, and techniques for the
new product.  The publication is being bundled free with every copy
of Quattro sold.  Subscriptions can be purchased from the Cobb Group
for $49 a year.

[***][12/15/87][***]
IN BRIEF --

ADOBE SYSTEMS, Mountain View, Ca., will introduce a color version
of Illustrator in January at the MacWorld Expo, according to
MACWEEK.  Priced at $495, the product will replace the current
Illustrator and will run on all Macintosh models, according to the
report.

STEWART ALSOP, publisher of PC Letter, will launch a newsletter
covering the use and marketing of computers and software in American
schools.  Called The Grady Report: Personal Computers in American
Education, the first issue of the monthly is slated for the first
quarter of '88.  Price: $195/year.  CONTACT:  PC LETTER, 415/363-8080.

CHRISTMAS PARTIES may abound this year but they're a ghost of
Christmases past.  At many firms employees are being asked to pony
up money for the festivities, Electronic Arts, and Sun Microsystems
among them.  Apple Computer , Hewlett Packard, Tandem, and others
will provide money for each department holding its own bash, but
no major party encompassing the entire work force is planned.

CLARIS, Mountain View, Ca., has moved out of Apple's Cupertino campus
and into its own offices here.  Starting in January, Claris will
market products under its own brand name, eliminating the Apple logo.

SONY, San Diego, will start production of 32-bit NEWS computer workstations
in a plant here starting in February.  The move is slated to bypass
current import tariffs on 32-bit machines made in Japan.

WESTERN DIGITAL, Irvine, Ca., and PHOENIX TECHNOLOGIES, Norwood, Ma.,
have announced a project to jointly develop PS/2-compatible ROM
BIOSes.

[***][12/15/87][***]
WORLD'S FIRST CHOCOLATE WORKSTATION
LOS ANGELES, Ca. (NB) -- If you thought chocolate diskettes were
the height of decadence, consider an entire workstation made out of
chocolate.  That's what The Chocolate Software Company has created.
For $24.95, the system is composed of a chocolate terminal and keyboard,
"Chocolate Chip," and "The Original Chocolate Byte" floppy chocolate
diskette.  "Just like most computer systems, you can buy only the
components you need," explains president Michael Cahlin.  Each
component, priced between $8 and $10, can be purchased separately.
To sweeten the deal even further, the firm is offering a gift
certificate worth $20 toward the purchase of a real (non-edible)
IBM or Macintosh keyboard made by DataDesk International.

NEWSBYTES hasn't received a review copy of this workstation, but if
it's as good as the Chocolate Byte was last year, it's made out
of the finest chocolate we've ever tasted!

CONTACT:  Michael Cahlin, CHOCOLATE SOFTWARE CO., 213/655-1727

[***][12/15/87][***]
CONTROL DATA TO GIVE KIDS A SUPERCOMPUTER
MINNEAPOLIS, MN (NB) -- Control Data is offering a free two-year
lease on one of its ETA Systems supercomputers as first prize in
a nationwide competition. SuperQuest is open to high school
students, and the winner will be the kid who can come up with the
most exciting problem requiring a supercomputer. "We know there
are kids out there who can do it," ETA president Carl Ledbetter,
a third-grader when Sputnik went up, told a newspaper, "I would
have died for my own supercomputer 20 years ago." (Wouldn't we
all?) The drawing is expected in August, 1988, and Control Data
hopes the contest will help revitalize science and math
education, as well as stir excitement in the machine itself,
which hasn't shipped yet. As to whether high school kids can
really use such a machine, Ledbetter said that's no problem.
"Thousands of them know Fortran." (Which beats the skills of
NEWSBYTES SOUTH!)

CONTACT: Dick Reed, CONTROL DATA [phone]

[***][12/15/87][***]
HOW TO DUCK THE FCC ACCESS CHARGES; YOUR OWN SATELLITE NET
COLUMBUS, OH (NB) -- Jeffrey Winslow, the computer guru at hotel
chain Red Roof Inns, has told a magazine he was convinced by FCC
Chairman Dennis Patrick last June, that the FCC's proposed $4-5
per hour "access charges," payable to local Bell Operating
Companies, are a done deal and will come into effect in January,
1988. So he got together with Tridom Corp., Marietta, Georgia and is
putting Ku-band satellite dishes (the same type as TV stations
are now installing) at each of his 185 U.S. hotels and at his
headquarters. The system replaces local connections to CompuServe
nodes at $120,000 per month. No local phone connections mean no
access charges are payable.

Tridom, which makes VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminals) dishes
to connect with Ku-band satellites, and operates a shared-hub
service through transponder lessees, could be a big winner if
the charges take effect. Chris Cook of Tridom says, "There are two
camps out there. Some think the access charges will pass, others
think they won't. I take a middle ground. But Patrick made a strong
case before Congress. People are keeping lines open through the
local network 24 hours a day and paying almost nothing for the
service." For that abuse, we'll all pay.

CONTACT: Jeff Winslow, RED ROOF INNS, Columbus, OH. [phone]
Chris Cook, TRIDOM, [phone]

[***][12/15/87][***]
MOTOROLA DEVELOPING RISC CHIP
SCHAUMBURG, IL (NB) -- Motorola Corp. already has a RISC chip,
and spent $20 million developing it. The market for such chips to
date has been dominated by MIPS Computer Systems, a Silicon
Valley start-up. Sun Microsystems' has announced its own RISC
chip, the SPARC, and licensed chipmakers to sell it, and Xerox
and AT&T to use it. However, the new, unnamed chip will not be
compatible with the Motorola 68000 family, which powers the Apple
Macintosh; instead a new 68040 is being developed for Apple. The
RISC chip wars will bring workstation prices down to the levels
of PCs within 3 years.

CONTACT:  Bob King, MOTOROLA, [phone]

[***][12/15/87][***]
PECAN GOLDEN CHIPS

TELEX, Tulsa, OK, found a white knight in Memorex International
M.V., London, UK, in its fight to avoid the clutches of New York
arbitrageur Asher Edelman. Memorex offered $56 cash and $6 in
notes for shares of Telex, a terminal maker, and Telex promised
to respond by 6 PM September 12. Telex president George Bragg
formerly worked for Memorex. Edelman said he would consider a
higher bid, and warned against Telex giving Memorex any favorable
treatment over his $55/share cash offer. Telex stock traded
during the week in the low 50s.

EDS, Dallas, and MCGRAW HILL have agreed to a market a service
which sends news to PCs via satellite and FM receivers. EDS will
have exclusive rights to sell "McGraw-Hill Executive One" in
Washington and to the federal government. Both will sell it to
the rest of  us. Included will be news from AP, the PR Newswire,
and McGraw-Hill's magazines, including "Business Week" and
"Byte."

CRAY RESEARCH, Minneapolis, sold a $13 million Cray X-MP/28
supercomputer to the US Naval Underwater Systems Center. It will
be installed in Newport, RI.

SAMNA, Atlanta, said its revenues rose 62% for the quarter ending
September 30 over a year ago, to $3.2 million. Income after
taxes, $511,000, was up 127% over a year ago. Samna makes Word IV
word processing software, and Plus IV office automation software,
for PC compatibles.

[***][12/15/87][***]
PECAN CHIPS

INFOMART, Dallas, said it will host an Electronic Publishing
Market each Wednesday between January-March, 1987. The markets
will feature briefings on technical and business issues, with
sales pitches in participating showrooms.

RADIAN, Austin, TX, added a way to import ASCII files and a
new user interface (windows and pull-down menus) to the new
version of its Rulemaster expert system shell, which still costs
about $500.

MICRO DESIGN, Winter Park, FL, said its LaserBank 800 CD WORM
drive now can get data in 65 milliseconds and sends data to DOS at
90,000 bytes/second with a new 16-bit adapter and a better SCSI
interface. Price remains about $10,000.

ZSOFT, Marietta, GA, is now shipping Publisher's Type Foundry, a
software-based font cartridge for its PC Paintbrush family which
lets you create fonts, logos and other designs, then ship them to
an H-P LaserJet or PostScript compatible laser printer. The cost;
about $500.

GEORGIA TECH clarified the views of DR. AHMET ERBIL on his 530
Fahrenheit superconductor. He explained that a stable and
reproducible compound of copper oxide remains superconductive at
all temperatures up to 500 degrees Kelvin. (That's 393 Fahrenheit
or 227 degrees Centigrade.) He called it a scientific
breakthrough, but not a technical breakthrough, and revolutionary
in its potential, because room temperature is 300 Kelvin (70 F or
30 C.) He was using grants from the U.S. Department of Energy,
the Sloan Foundation, and IBM.

JAY DAVID BOLTER, a classics professor at the UNIVERSITY OF NORTH
CAROLINA, Chapel Hill, NC, has written a Hypertext-based
organizer called Storyspace, which lets you connect documents in
several ways at once. He's negotiating with publishers now.
"It's not that strange," he adds, "I have an M.S. in Computer
Science."

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, Dallas, will sell its LISP chip to Apple for
coprocessor boards on the Apple Macintosh II, according to
"Macintosh Today."

NETLINK, Raleigh, NC, announced Release 1.7 of its SNA Gate, a
gateway processor for SNA networks built around IBM mainframes.

TEN X TECHNOLOGY, Austin, TX, has begun shipping a card to let
PS/2 computers run applications written for Texas Instruments'
DX10 minicomputers. It's called X-Porter and costs $3,350.

N-VIEW, Yorktown, VA, said its MacViewFrame screen for overhead
projectors is on back-order through mid-January. (Some Santas
will have to leave IOUs.)

HARRIS, Melbourne, FL, will help Rockwell work up a power system
for NASA's space station. They'll create a solar concentrator
for the station's thermal engines.

[***][12/15/87][***]
AND FINALLY, HAYES' DIVORCE IS ALL OVER THE PAPER
ATLANTA (NB) -- This city is abuzz over an "Atlanta Constitution"
feature published December 11 on the pending divorce of modem
king Dennis Hayes and his wife, Melita. She wants half of Hayes
Microcomputer Products at market value, which could force it to
go public in a slack market. He wants the company to be split
based on book value, which would keep it private. What's setting
tongues wagging, however, are the gory details. (Both Hayes'
refused the paper's interview requests.) He says she's a
spendthrift and social climber, she says he's keeping company
with Mina Wong, his director of strategic planning. I'm quoted
about the marble countertops at their stadium box. This much is
for certain -- some lawyers are getting rich. One of Dennis'
attorneys is a former chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court.
===
[***][12/15/87][***]
US ROBOTICS WORKING TO ELIMINATE CUSTOMS HASSLES ON UPGRADES
TORONTO (NB) -- Miscoe Data, a subsidiary of Apple Canada Inc.,
will probably be upgrading US Robotics HST 9,600-baud modems
before Christmas, according to Mike Levy, technical and service
manager for US Robotics in Chicago.

Up to now, Canadian owners of the high-speed modems have had to
send them across the border to US Robotics for the upgrades, which
add data compression capabilities and the ability to react to
line noise by retreating gracefully to a lower transmission
speed.  That meant customers here had to contend with Canadian
and U.S. customs clearance in both directions.

Levy said that arrangement was awkward for the vendor as well as
its customers.  "I certainly don't like it any more than anyone
else does," he said.  But he said US Robotics could not authorize
Canadian dealers to do the upgrades because some might not have
the technical expertise, and "if we let one dealer do them, we've
got to let them all do them."  Miscoe is already US Robotics'
authorized service representative in Canada. The modem maker's
two national distributors may also be authorized to do upgrades,
Levy said.

The upgrades are free to those who purchased HST modems recently
and found an upgrade coupon in the package.  Those who don't have
the coupon will have to pay $50.

CONTACT: MISCOE DATA, [phone]
         US ROBOTICS, [phone] or [phone]

[***][12/15/87][***]
APPLE CANADA ANNOUNCES CANADIAN CERTIFIED DEVELOPER PROGRAM
MARKHAM, Ont. (NB) -- Apple Canada Inc. has announced a Canadian
Certified Developer Program for software and hardware developers.
The program is designed to promote development of additional
capabilities for Apple computers, the company said.

Apple will provide certified developers with AppleLink, Apple's
internal electronic mail system, giving them direct access to
Apple, including support engineers in Cupertino, Calif., and
Apple resellers throughout Canada.  Developers will also get
bigger price discounts on development units and local Canadian
sourcing for technical documentation and tools.  Apple Canada has
launched a new service, called the Apple Technical Warehouse, to
provide one-stop shopping for developers, resellers, members of
the Apple Canada University Consortium, major clients and
customers interested in developing software or hardware for Apple
products.

Becoming a certified developer depends on demonstrating a
technical capability to design and build a commercial product and
an ability to market that product effectively, Apple said.  The
company will also consider financial stability and business
experience.

CONTACT: APPLE CANADA INC., 7495 Birchmount Rd., Markham, Ont.
         L3R 5G2, [phone]

[***][12/15/87][***]
MONTREAL FIRM HELPS DEVELOP ARABIC MS-DOS
MONTREAL (NB) -- Alis Technologies, Inc., based here, worked with
Microsoft Corp. to develop an Arabic version of Microsoft's MS-
DOS operating system.  The jointly developed software combines
all the functions of MS-DOS Version 3.3 with Alis's Presentation
Layer Algorithm for Screen Management Arabization (PLASMA), which
handles Arabic lettering, writing from right to left and special
processing of Hindu numbers.  The product comes with a variety of
Arabic printer drivers.  The system also supports the Microsoft
Mouse.

Microsoft will produce Arabic MS-DOS in the U.S.  It will be
available under license from Microsoft, and will be distributed
by Alis outside the United States.

Alis Technologies develops, markets and supports a range of
Arabized computer peripherals and Arabization software for
operating systems.  It also undertakes localization programs for
the Arabic language with major software developers.

[***][12/15/87][***]
FEDS TIGHTENING PROPOSED SOFTWARE COPYRIGHT RULES
OTTAWA (NB) -- Make more than one copy of a commercial software
package, or lend that original copy to a friend, and you'll be
liable for a fine of as much as C$25,000 and up to six months in
jail.  That's if proposed changes in Canada's copyright law, now
being considered by a committee of the House of Commons, are
approved by Parliament.

The federal government has tightened the rules regarding software
in its proposed legislation.  Under the previous wording, the
owner of a software package could make several copies for his or
her own use.  Now, the limit will be one.  Lending the original
program to someone else is still legal, but lending a copy is
not.

The law will allow you to modify software written for one
computer to run on another, but not to resell that modified
software.

[***][12/15/87][***]
GET COMPUTERS OUT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS, AUTHOR ADVISES
OTTAWA (NB) -- Computers in elementary schools are a waste of
money and a bad model for youngsters to learn from, and they
should be eliminated from Canada's elementary school classrooms,
a meeting of National Research Council scientists was told here
recently.

The speaker? An elderly Miss Grundy suffering from advanced
technophobia?  A representative of the Green Party?  Somebody
from the League for the Utter Destruction of Digital Interactive
Technology Everywhere?  No -- David Suzuki, Canadian scientist,
host of CBC Television's acclaimed science series The Nature of
Things and winner of several awards for the popularization of
science.

Suzuki told the NRC meeting that exposing kids to computers in
elementary schools does nothing to prepare them for the working
world because the machines in the classrooms will be completely
obsolete by the time they're ready to enter the work force. And,
dismissing the theories of Dr. Seymour Papert, he contended that
computers are useless as learning tools.

[***][12/15/87][***]
COMMUNITY COLLEGE LAUNCHES ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PROJECT
VICTORIA, B.C. (NB) -- Students at this community college, and
businesses in the Victoria area, will get the chance to work with
two Texas Instruments Explorer workstations equipped with
Knowledge Engineering Environment (KEE) software.  The
workstations, packaged and supplied to the college by Unisys
Corp., are part of the Knowledge Lab, an AI laboratory opened
earlier this month.

Robert Leahy, an instructor at Camosun, said the lab was opened
to expose students to artificial intelligence and knowledge
engineering.  "What we're hoping to do, " he said, "is offset the
cost by subcontracting it out to the local community."

Leahy is already teaching a second-year course on knowledge-based
systems, which will be repeated next semester, and giving an
informal series of seminars on artificial intelligence for
interested students.  He said the response from students has been
"overwhelming."  Another course will probably be added next year.

The college is developing an expert system to help instructors
advise students on course selection.  Leahy said this project may
take a back seat to outside contracts as they appear.  At present
a number of contracts are under discussion but none are final, he
said.

The British Columbia Institute of Technology, in Vancouver, also
has one Explorer workstation.  Leahy said Unisys approached
Camosun first, and Camosun obtained matching funds from the
provincial government to help obtain the workstations.  The
government then suggested that BCIT obtain one workstation as
well.

[***][12/15/87][***]
USER GROUP PLANS UNIX STUDY
TORONTO (NB) -- /usr/group/cdn, the Canadian network of Unix
users, is about to begin a C$250,000, 12-month study of the
Canadian Unix market.  The study, to be conducted by an
independent research firm not yet chosen, will look at the number
of Unix installations in Canada, what applications they're
running, critical factors in choosing or rejecting Unix and
trends in the marketplace.  The user group also sees the study as
"a vehicle to describe the value and market forces of Unix to the
non-user," said Araldo Menegon, president of /usr/group/cdn, at a
reception where the project was announced.

The user group also announced it will sponsor a Unix in
Government show and conference in Ottawa January 12-13, and its
annual Unix show and conference, Unix 88/etc., in Toronto May 17-
19.

[***][12/15/87][***]
FINANCIAL BITS
-- HARTCO ENTERPRISES INC., of Anjou, Que., which operates
MicroAge and CompuCentre stores across Canada, made a profit of
C$1,156,000 in the nine months ended Oct. 31, up from C$550,000
in the same period a year earlier.  Revenue was C$69.2 million,
up from C$41.7 million.

-- GANDALF DATA INC., of Ottawa, reported profit of C$1.5 million
for the three months ended October 31, compared with C$1.4
million in the same period of the previous year.  Revenue rose to
C$34.7 million from C$32.1 million.

-- LGS DATA PROCESSING CONSULTANTS INC. of Montreal now says its
profit in the year ended March 31, 1987 was C$691,298.  LGS
revised the figure -- formerly C$1,092,298 -- after the Quebec
Securities Commission objected to the way the consulting firm
handled the cost of a public share issue. LGS also announced a
profit of C$496,000 on revenues of C$11.1 million for the six
months ended Sept. 30, up from C$429,000 profit on revenues of
C$7.7 million in the first half of the last fiscal year.

[***][12/15/87][***]
BITS, EH?
-- MEMOTEC DATA INC., Montreal, whose subsidiary Teleglobe Canada
operates Canada's undersea cable and satellite communications
links to overseas, says the cost of intercontinental phone calls
from Canada will go down.  Teleglobe plans to reduce overseas
rates by 13.5 per cent on January 1.

-- HARRIS SYSTEMS LTD., Toronto, has announced completion of a
communications network for the federal Department of Health and
Welfare that provides on-line access to the Canada Pension Plan
database from government offices across the country.

-- WYSE TECHNOLOGY (CANADA) LTD., Markham, Ont., introduced the
WYSEpc 286 and WYSEpc 386 to the Canadian market.  Canadian
pricing on the new machines: the 286 ranges from C$2,680 to
C$6,390 depending on processor speed and disk storage; the 386 is
C$6,130 with a single floppy drive and C$8,000 with a 40-megabyte
hard disk.

[***][12/15/87][***]
SHARING FUJITSU'S JAPANESE FONTS ON MACINTOSH
TOKYO (NB) -- Hacinohe Farmware System has released a kanji font
card adapter, Font Capsule, for the Japanese Macintosh Plus.
Font Capsule consists of the program disk and the card interface
which accepts credit card-size font cards of Fujitsu's portable
Japanese word processor, the OASYS-FROM series.  With Font Capsule,
Mac users can use various custom-made high-quality kanji
fonts.  The system certainly enhances Japanese desktop publishing
on the Macintosh. Font Capsule is priced at 39,500 yen or $299.
Each font card from Fujitsu costs $61 to $91.

CONTACT: Hachinohe Farmware System, 4-2-27 Kita-8-jyo-Nishi,
         Kita-ku, Sapporo-shi, Hokkaido 001, Japan

[***][12/15/87][***]
NEC'S NEW CRUSADE AGAINST ITS CLONES
TOKYO (NB) -- Having settled one legal issue with Seiko-Epson
regarding its NEC-compatible computers, NEC is preparing another
suit against the firm.  According to the DEMPA newspaper,
NEC suspects five parts of the basic I/O system of Seiko-Epson's
latest NEC-compatible computers to be in violation of NEC's
copyright.   Meanwhile, a Seiko-Epson spokesman flatly denies
the copyright violation charge.  "The basic I/O system was
originally developed by Seiko-Epson," states the executive.

[***][12/15/87][***]
NEC EATS FAMICON'S SHARE
TOKYO (NB) -- The Japanese are finally getting over the Famicon
(Family Computer) fever.  1987 sales of this game gadget
are expected to be half of 1986's figures.  But before you wave
goodbye to this computer, keep in mind that 1987's Famicon sales were
still in the range of 2 million units -- which beats unit sales
for all PCs combined in Japan.  The Famicon computer has broken
all sales records  in the Japanese market with 15 million units
sold since it was released in 1983.

Meanwhile, post-Famicon competition has become intense during
the Christmas sales season in Japan.  NEC's TV game machine, the PC
Engine, has sold over 300,000 units during the last two months.
The PC Engine is expensive, but it provides arcade-type
games with more realistic characters and more improved colors than the
Famicon.  NEC expects to sell 800,000 units by next March.

CONTACT: NEC Home Electronics, Sumitomo-Mita Bldg., 5-37-8 Shiba,
         Minato-ku, Tokyo 108

[***][12/15/87][***]
COMPUTERLAND JAPAN MERGED
TOKYO (NB) -- Catena Group, which owns 100% of the shares of
Computerland Japan, will merge with the nationwide computer franchise
stores in April '88.

Computerland Japan was sold to Catena Group in the spring of
1987.  Since then, the franchise has been selling various
computer products, including Apple computers, in addition to IBM
products. The annual sales of Computerland Japan is $39.8 million.
Catena Group expects to rake in total $75.8 million sales after
the merger in April.

CONTACT: Catena Group, Taisei Bldg. 6F, 5-2 Ekimae-Honcho,
         Kawasaki-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa-ken 210, Japan

[***][12/15/87][***]
SONY'S DAT LANDS IN U.S. CARS
TOKYO (NB) -- Sony has signed an OEM-supply contract with the
American carmaker Ford concerning its digital audio tape players
(DATs).  In the agreement, Ford will install DATs in the
Lincoln-Continentals which will go on sale in the summer of
1988.  Sony will provide Ford with DATs without a recording function
in order prevent copying of compact disk software and recordings.
Sony is the first company to export DATs for cars to the U.S.

[***][12/15/87][***]
HP DEPENDS MORE ON JAPANESE CHIPS
TOKYO (NB) -- The California-based computer maker Hewlett Packard
will purchase more chips in Japan.  An HP spokesman reportedly
says the Japanese makers have more reliable shipping dates
compared with their US counterparts.  Also, the development price
for custom ICs, such as a mask ROM, is cheaper in Japan.  HP will
get the chip supply through Yokogawa-Hewlett Packard (Tokyo), which
is HP's venture business with Japan's Yokogawa Electronics.

[***][12/15/87][***]
NEW CD FORMAT FROM SONY AND PHILIPS
TOKYO (NB) -- Sony and Philips have announced a standard format
of a new CD called CD Single.  It is 8 cm in diameter, and it
stores 20 minutes of music.  This is much smaller than the current
12 cm CD.  Current CD users can listen to the music in the CD
Single with the attachment of a special adapter priced at 300 yen
or $2.27.  CBS-Sony Group plans to release 45 titles of music CD
Singles, including songs by Michael Jackson by the end of next
February.  One CD Single costs 1,000 yen or $7.58.

CONTACT: Sony, 6-7-35 Kita-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 141
         Japan

[***][12/15/87][***]
HITACHI OPENS COMPUTER CENTERS IN U.S. AND U.K.
TOKYO (NB) -- Hitachi will open computer facilities in New York
and London in 1988.  Large-scale computers will be installed in
the centers for data processing services for financial firms.
The center will also sell various IBM-compatible software.
This is the first time Hitachi has leaped into the business of
selling software abroad; Hitachi has been selling IBM-compatible
computers overseas.  In fact, Hitachi is among the first Japanese
firms venturing into these uncharted waters.

CONTACT: Hitachi, 1-5-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100

[***][12/15/87][***]
HIGH-TECH LIFE IN JAPAN IN 2010
TOKYO (NB) -- The Japan Human Resources Investigation Committee
has released a report on the estimated usage of home electronics
goods in Japan in the year 2010.  The report claims half of all
Japanese families will have a TV-phone, a facsimile machine, and a
value-added TV.  Also, many people will work at home with computers.
Among next generation home electronics goods, a fully automatic
dishwasher and dryer is expected to lead in popularity.  Information
processing gadgets, such as a TV phone and a value-added TV, will
follow.  The report says 85% of families will use a fully-automatic
dishwasher and 50% will have a value added TV.  Such wide
usage of high-tech goods is attributed to an increase in spare
time, and an increasing number of people who want to save time
doing housework.  It is expected Japan's home electronics
industry will grow from between $1.06 and $1.29 billion in 1990 to
$6.67 billion to $9.85 billion in 2010.

[***][12/15/87][***]
<<< SUSHI BYTES >>>

64M DRAM TECHNOLOGY BREAKTHROUGH -- NEC has produced a prototype
memory cell of 64 megabit dynamic RAM, based on its recently
developed device structure called partial SOI.  With
the new technology, the chip integration rate has become four
times larger than current VLSIs.  That's a big step in the
production of 64M DRAM.

AI WORD PROCESSOR -- Sharp will be the first to release an AI
(artificial intelligence)-based Japanese word processor. The WD5500
is equipped with 15 thousand words to check spelling and grammar
of documents.  Suggestions are issued based on a set of 300 grammar
rules.  The AI word processor will cost one million yen or $7,576
when released next spring.

RAM-TYPE OPTICAL DISK FOR PCs -- Sharp will soon release its 422
megabyte double-sided optical magnetic disk drive, the JY-500.
It can erase and rewrite data on the disk.  The JY-500 can easily
be connected to several types of personal computers, including
NEC PC-9801 and IBM 5550.

SONY'S LARGEST IC PLANT -- Sony has established a 100%
subsidiary, Sony Nagasaki, in Kyushu, Southern Japan.  This firm
is the former IC plant of Japan Fairchild, bought from
Schlumberger in the U.S.  Operation will begin in the summer
of '88.

NS JAPAN MERGES FAIRCHILD JAPAN -- National Semiconductor Japan
(Tokyo) has officially merged all organizations and employees of
Japan Fairchild.  The merger followed its parent company's
purchase of Fairchild.

FASTEST JOSEPHSON LOGIC GATE FROM FUJITSU -- Fujitsu has developed
the fastest Josephson junction device logic gate with the
processing speed of 2.5 pico second (0.0000000000025 second).
With this IC, a supercomputer as small as a personal computer can
be made, according to first reports.

MITSUBISHI AND SONY AGREE ON TV PHONE STANDARD -- Mitsubishi and
Sony have just agreed on a TV phone standard.  The Japanese telecom
giant NTT has decided to release a TV phone based on the
standard next spring.  It will be priced at around 50,000 yen or
$379.



[***][12/15/87][***]
MICROSOFT TO OFFER QUICKBASIC 4 IN JANUARY
AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND (NB) -- Microsoft has announced that
Quickbasic, version 4.0 will be available in January 1988.
QB4 is what QuickBasic would have been for the existence of
Borland's Turbo Basic. Marketing considerations (fighting
Borland, that is) forced Microsoft to release QB version 3.0 a
few months ago.

QB4 is an extremely fast compiler (on an IBM AT, it does
150,000 lines per minute) that offers stand-alone multiple-
module executables, a full-screen window supporting Wordstar
commands, support for Hercules cards, recursion, automatic
8087/287 support, and interlanguage calling sequences.

QB4, which was seen in operation by this NEWSBYTES reporter,
worked really fast, even under OS/2, in the compatibility box.

In another Microsoft story, a serious bug has been found in Excel,
Microsoft's new spreadsheet/graphics/database program.
If a print operation is desired and there is no space on disk
to put the temporary print files, the system will not return with an
error message, leaving the user to wonder whether this is a
special no-printing demo version. No date was given by Microsoft
for this bug fix.

Also, the previously announced DOS 4.0 product, the
multitasking version of DOS, has been offered by quite a few
computer manufacturers in Europe and Japan. ICL, the British
computer company, and Bull of France, both offer DOS 4.0, and
there are many Japanese companies that offer the product with
their systems, according to a Microsoft spokesman.

CONTACT: Microsoft, Jupiterstraat 190, Pluspoint Gebouw 3,
         2132 HH Hoofddorp, Tel: [phone]

[***][12/15/87][***]
EUROPEAN COMMUNITY INSTALLS SUPER-MODERN ACCESS SYSTEM
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (NB) -- The European Community is entering
the high-tech era. A new employee access system has been
installed which uses smart cards to monitor the people going in
and out. The system, based on channels through which people
enter the building, uses special smart cards which are
activated when a person enters a channel. The systems finds who
entered; the radio-electric field powers the smart cards which in
turn provide information on the person entering.

The system, which is the first to use such technology and is
scheduled to enter operation starting January 1988, is built by two
companies, one from Italy and the other from Holland.

Raymond Dodge, who designed the system, said "this was found to
be the most appropriate system for the EC. Fingerprint-based
systems were examined but it was felt that no one would have
given us their prints, for fear of persecution." The press corps
of the EC refused outright to accept this new system and thus
they have been allowed to keep using the old, picture-based ID cards.

[***][12/15/87][***]
BROWN BAG SOFTWARE ARRIVES IN GERMANY
COLOGNE, GERMANY (NB) -- Brown Bag Software, the shareware
company, has opened a facility in Germany to serve Germany,
Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and Austria.

Brown Bag, whose software is also available through the company's
bulletin board, offers Homebase, PC Outline, Ramtest,
MindReader, Power Menu, and Goal seeker. All of these products
are available free of charge from the BBS. Unfortunately, how
Brown Bag will do in a country where products have to be translated
to be successful, nobody knows. We wish them luck!

CONTACT: Brown Bag Software, Theodor-Heus-Ring 19-21, 5000
         Koln, Germany (BBS number is : 0221/739-1975 1200bps)

[***][12/15/87][***]
NCR ANNOUNCES A 286 SYSTEM, MADE IN GERMANY
AUGSBURG, GERMANY (NB) -- NCR announced its latest 286 system, the
NCR-810, a system similar to the now-defunct Decision Mate V,
designed and made in West Germany.

The NCR-810 is supplied with 640K of RAM, 1.2MB floppy disk,
32MB hard disk, and runs at either 6 or 10MHz with no wait
states, similar to the AST Premium 286 system. The system uses
an EGA display and costs DM 11250 ($ 6000), including a user-
friendly interface which is character based.

One of the unique features of this product is that the
CPU board is, in fact, a card, that is inserted on a passive
backplane. This means that soon enough, NCR can offer a 386
system just by changing the CPU board. Kaypro's latest system,
shown at Comdex in Las Vegas, also uses this idea.

[***][12/15/87][***]
SOFTWARE OF THE YEAR AWARDS
MUNICH, WEST GERMANY (NB) -- Software of the year awards
are as serious in Europe as anywhere in the world. This year's
awards, which were selected by publications in the computer field,
such as "Personal Computing (USA)," "Practical Computing (UK),"
"Soft & Micro (France),"  "komputer (Poland),"  "uj impulzus (Hungary),"
"Chip-micros (Spain),"  "Chip-micronix (Holland),"  "Chip-Italy,"  "svet
kompjutera (Jugoslavia)," and "Chip Germany."

Amongst beer and Bavarian flowers, the products that won in
the game category include Balance of Power, Flight Simulator II,
Chess Openings and Boulder Dash.

In the commercial category, Ventura publisher came ahead of such
greats as Paradox, Rapidfile, Lotus 1-2-3, Supercalc 4, dBase
III+, and Smartcom III.

As far as technical software is concerned, Autocad emerged as
the clear winner, ahead of Manuscript, MathCad, CAD-3D, Versacad
and Adobe Illustrator.

Finally, in the tools section, Norton Utilities came first
followed by Microsoft C, GW Basic, Gofer, Turbo C, and Sidekick.

[***][12/15/87][***]
TULIP ANNOUNCES A 386 SYSTEM
AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND (NB) -- Tulip, the Dutch computer company
which has been selling a compact sized IBM-compatible system,
announced its 386 system which will sell for about $5000. The system
includes 1MB of RAM, a 1.2MB floppy drive, and various hard
disks, and is half the size of the IBM AT.  The unit is expected
to sell in large numbers.

Announcing the system, a company spokesman said, "the 386 system
is our top of the line model and as such, is designed to offer
high performance for its price."

Tulip has been expanding in various European locations and
currently has offices in Holland, Germany, Belgium, the UK, and
France.

[***][12/15/87][***]
COMPUTER BRIEFS....

PHILIPS's joint venture with the Taiwan government, Taiwan
Semiconductor Co., said its board approved the manufacturing of
a second facility for a cost of $220 million. The plant will
make ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) and will
start operation in 1990.

RODIME and MINISCRIBE have settled their suit which concerned
Rodime's two patents dealing with 3.5" hard disk drives. Terms
included an undisclosed payment from Miniscribe which will
cover future licensing for the drives.

The EUROPEAN COMMUNITY has put forward a plan to spend some $30
million to upgrade the computerized databases and the
information services market in Europe. At present the market is
dominated by US firms since European companies are hampered by
technical, legal, and language problems (what else is new?).



[***][12/15/87][***]
B U L L E T I N .... December 14, 1987

CHRISTMAS CARD CREATES HAVOC AT IBM  *EXCLUSIVE*
ARMONK, N.Y. (NB) -- An innocent-looking electronic Christmas card, sent
to IBM employees, was responsible for a major traffic problem Friday
evening, which led to shutdowns of various nodes throughout the international
IBM electronic mail network.  The electronic Christmas card, actually
a "worm" program in disguise, displayed a Christmas tree and a holiday
greeting, and if a reader "executed" the program at a prompt, it sent itself
to every name and address on each employee's electronic mail file.
Within hours the Christmas card had penetrated thousands of mailboxes
throughout the IBM electronic mail network, which stretches across
most of the U.S. and in some foreign countries, an IBM spokesman confirmed
to NEWSBYTES.

"There ws a disrupted file that was widely distributed through IBM's
electronic mail network," said the spokesman.  "It causes excessive volume
in network traffic and slowed the delivery of electronic mail."

The spokesman said in only a few cases did the Christmas Card program
cause system nodes to shutdown from overload, "but the systems came
back on almost immediately."

IBM engineers stopped the virus-like spread of the card by "trapping"
it in individual nodes.

They do not know where the card originated, but IBM suspects it came
from outside the corporation.  IBM has external links to different
organizations.  "Our preliminary investigation shows the problem
existed outside the IBM system," he told NEWSBYTES.

Nobody except the prankster, he added, thought it was funny.

         --Wendy Woods
====
[***][12/15/87][***]
*************NEWS FROM IBM: THE BIG BLUE REPORT*****************
*
*  IBM SHIPS OS-2
*  RYE BROOK, N.Y. (NB) -- International Business Machines Corp.
*  says it has shipped an initial 20,000 copies of OS-2, its new
*  operating system for the PS-2 personal computers that allows
*  users to run more than one program at a time and gives access to
*  more than 640 K of RAM. OS-2 is designed to work with 80286 and
*  80386 processors, so owners of the brain-damaged low-end of the
*  PS-2 line (they use the 8086 CPU) are stuck with DOS. OS-2
*  Standard Edition has $325 price tag, but users of PC-DOS 3.0 or
*  higher can upgrade for $200.
*
*  IBM says more than 60 major software developers will support OS-
*  2. OS-2 will find itself in heated competition with earlier
*  products, such as Microsoft's Windows, Desqview, and Concurrent
*  DOS, which are already in the market. Still to come from Big
*  Blue: a new operating system that makes the 80386 chip really
*  strut its stuff.
*
*
*  ADAPSO ACCUSES IBM OF UNFAIR TRADE PRACTICES
*  WASHINGTON (NB) -- Adapso, the software trade group, says IBM is
*  using unfair trade practices and may ask the U.S. and European
*  governments to intervene. IBM disputes the charge. Several
*  software executives who are Adapso members charge that Big Blue
*  is withholding crucial information about OS-2, the new personal
*  computer operating system, and is attempting to lock up the
*  software market by bundling its own programs with the PS-2 at an
*  artificially low price. The trade group is expected to decide
*  soon whether to formally pursue charges against IBM with the
*  Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, and the
*  European Economic Community. The Adapso execs are also angry at
*  the arbitration agreement with Fujitsu Ltd. which gives the
*  Japanese firm access to IBM operating system source code. They
*  argue they should have the same access as Fujitsu.
*
*  IBM spokesman John Mihalec said the Adapso charges are
*  "groundless." He said IBM makes enough information available
*  about OS-2 so that competitors can make acceptable products.
*  Mihalec added that the Fujitsu settlement was not voluntary on
*  IBM's part, and that Fujitsu's access to source code will be
*  severely limited.
*
*
*  PRIME ATTACKS KANSAS FOR FAVORING IBM
*  NATICK, Mass. (NB) -- Minicomputer maker Prime Computer has filed
*  suit in Topeka, charging that the state of Kansas makes it nearly
*  impossible for companies other than IBM to sell computers to the
*  state. The suit seeks a change in state bidding procedures and
*  damages for the state's award of a $200,000 minicomputer contract
*  for Emporia State University to IBM. No comment from the state.
*
*
*  BIG BLUE CUTS GE DEAL, UNLOADS THE REST OF INTEL
*  NEW YORK (NB) -- In other news from Big Blue, the
*  company has entered into a deal with General Electric Co. for
*  joint development of chips and components for IBM products,
*  targeted at the automotive market. The chips and components that
*  GE builds for IBM will be Big Blue's exclusive property and GE
*  won't offer them on the general market. GE got into the
*  semiconductor business with its acquisition of RCA. Initially, GE
*  indicated that it might spin off the chip business, which has
*  annual sales of more than $350 million. Now, it appears that GE
*  wants to hold on to the business, at least for a while.
*
*  In the meantime, IBM has sold that last 3.1 million shares that
*  represent its stake in Intel Corp. The final block of Intel were
*  the share that IBM had to hold under the terms of a Eurobond
*  offering last year. The sale means that IBM is now totally out of
*  Intel. The shares sold at $24.25, yielding IBM a cool $75.175
*  million. Not a bad day's work.
********************************************************************

[***][12/15/87][***]
SANTA REPORT: ELVES BUSY MAKING COMPUTERS
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (NB) -- Kids are asking Santa Claus for
computers for Christmas, according to the U.S. Post Office in
Providence. The regional mail handling center has received 1,000
letters for St. Nick so far, with plenty more to come. According
to an informal survey by Sue Brown, Santa's chief helper in
Providence, kids still want bikes and dolls. But increasingly,
tots are asking for computer hardware and software. Kids who put
a return address on their Santa letter get a form letter reply
from "Santa's Postal Elf, Providence Division." With kids getting
so sophisticated about computers, one of these days Rudolph's
nose is going to start blinking out binary code.

[***][12/15/87][***]
BRAZIL TO EASE SOFTWARE IMPORTS
WASHINGTON (NB) -- Brazil's Chamber of Deputies has passed a new
law aimed at easing access to U.S. software, according to State
Department sources. But the White House says the measure is too
vague and plans to continue punitive tariffs against Brazil. The
measure was previously passed by the Brazilian Senate and is
expected to be signed soon by President Jose Sarney. The
legislation keeps duties of as much as 200 percent on foreign
software, with the proceeds going to finance Brazilian software
companies.

[***][12/15/87][***]
CARELESS SQUIRREL KNOCKS OUT, DAMAGES NASDAQ COMPUTER
ROCKVILLE, Md. (NB) -- This is why they tell you to back up your
data. A stray squirrel carrying a piece of aluminum foil
electrocuted itself at a Connecticut power station in early
December, triggering a power failure that took out the National
Association of Securities Dealers automated stock quotation
system for more than an hour. Restoring power damaged the main
computer complex at Trumbull, Conn.

The lights went out at 10:43 a.m. when the squirrel committed
electronic hari kari, shutting down the system which handles
trades in the over-the-counter market. By 12:05, NASDAQ had
switched to a backup facility at its Rockville headquarters. But
then when United Illuminating Co. restored power, it caused a
power surge that crashed the NASDAQ mainframes at Trumbull
and seriously damaged the facility. NASDAQ will be running from
the Rockville facility while repairs are underway in Connecticut.

[***][12/15/87][***]
SUPERCOMPUTER GOES TO SCHOOLS
WASHINGTON (NB) -- Supercomputer maker ETA Systems Inc. of St.
Paul wants to get into the educational market in an unusual way.
At a Washington press conference, ETA President Carl Ledbetter
offered one of ETA's $1 million supercomputers for two years to
a junior or senior high school whose students win a nationwide
contest to develop a project that requires a supercomputer.
Ledbetter insists the whole thing is not a publicity stunt. "We
need something that galvanizes U.S. interest in science like
Sputnik did," Ledbetter said. "I would have died for my own
supercomputer 20 years ago."

The winning school will get the use of the computer, on site, and
ETA will pay installation and maintenance costs of about $8,000 a
month. The contest is called "SuperQuest" and is open to teams of
students and teachers from grades eight through 12. Proposals are
due February 26, 1988, and finalists will run their programs on a
supercomputer at ETA headquarters in the summer. Kenneth Wilson,
1982 Nobel Prize winner in physics and head of the Theory Center
at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., will head the panel of
contest judges.

[***][12/15/87][***]
TELEPATHIC COMPUTERS IN THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE
BETHESDA, Md. (NB) -- In its annual list of the best
prognostications of the year, the World Future Society says there
will be mind-reading computers in the future. Look for this
development by the turn of the century, says the group, which
culls the list each year from the articles in its monthly
magazine. How will the mind-reading computers work? The machine
will sample brain waves and put them on a screen in front of the
user. How's that for a user interface? Also on tap, say the
futurists, are supercomputers that can accurately predict the
weather months in advance. Wanna bet?

[***][12/15/87][***]
NEWS NIBBLES FROM AROUND THE REGION

APOLLO COMPUTER of Chelmsford, Mass., has won a $2.6 million
contract from the Department of Transportation to supply
workstations for a new air traffic management system. The system
will gather and analyze live flight information at each of the
Federal Aviation Administration's 20 regional air traffic control
centers. The initial contract calls for 50 workstations.

DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP. of Maynard, Mass., has announced software
for its VAX minicomputers that give them more power in real-time
computing. Two software packages are for use in scientific and
laboratory applications and one driver is for factory floor use.

COMVERSE TECHNOLOGY of Woodbury, N.Y., has announced a product
that combines fax and voicemail. The product is Faxlogue, which
works with Comverse's Trilogue voicemail system. Not for home
use. Prices range from $35,000 to $185,000.

SONY of Park Ridge, N.J., will raise prices of its 3.5-inch disks
by 10 percent and may also hike the prices of 5.25-inch disks.

COMPUTER FACTORY of Elmsford, N.Y., reported four-quarter
earnings of $1.6 million (19 cents per share) on sales of $51.2
million. That compares to earnings of $622,000 (10 cents per
share) on $28.2 million in sales for the fourth quarter of 1986.
The results reflect soaring sales and tighter controls at the
booming computer retailer.

GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION in Washington has awarded
Computer Sciences Corp. of El Segundo, Calif., a $30 million,
five-year contract to run an automated debt-collection system for
the Department of House and Urban Development, Veterans
Administration, Agriculture Department and other agencies.

SEC ON-LINE of Hauppage, N.Y., is offering an online database of
filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Charges are
$50 per hour base fee plus documents charges from $5 to $10.

GE INFORMATION SERVICES of Rockville, Md., now carries the FCC's
online database, at $100 per hour plus a $190 registration fee.
The database consists of the FCC Daily Digest and the FCC
Library, the text of comments, orders, letter, petition and
motions before the agency.

[***][12/15/87][***]
COMMODORE #1: NEW AMIGAS & 386-MACHINES DUE
Maidenhead, Berkshire (NB) -- First details of Commodore's 1988
range of Amigas are becoming available.  Sources indicate that
the existing A500 Amiga will be uprated to 1Mb of RAM (from its
current 512K), whilst the existing A2000 will be uprated with a
faster 68000 processor (to 14MHz from 8MHz on existing models).
Other improvements include a 4Mb blitter chip and a redesigned
'Denise' controller chip.

Big news is the reported existence - on paper at least - of a
68030-based Amiga A3000.  The machine will reportedly run at over
20MHz and feature PC emulation within software amongst many other
features.

Target launch dates for the 'B' series of Amigas (the B500 and
B2000) is the Hanover Faire in West Germany next March.  The
A3000 will probably not see the light of day until late
1988/early 1989, say NEWSBYTES UK's sources, owing to chronic
shortages of the 68030 microprocessor.

Back in the present meanwhile, Commodore UK has quietly
announced the PC60 series.  Styled the same as the earlier PCs,
the PC60 range centres around an 80386 microprocessor running at
a fully-switchable 6, 8, 10, 12 and 16MHz into 1Mb of Ram.  Two
models in the PC-60 series are expected initially, the PC-60/40
and PC-60/80.  The suffix denotes the size of the PC's hard disc,
whilst both models come with a single AT-style 5.25 inch floppy
as standard.  The PC-60/80 also comes with a single PS/2-style
3.5 inch floppy drive.

Connections with the real world on the PC-60 include twin
parallel and serial ports, plus two XT and five AT-style
expansion card slots.  A monochrome monitor, Ms-Dos and other
utility packages are supplied as standard, with a mouse as an
optional extra with the PC60/80 machine.

Pricing on both models in the PC-60 series has yet to be
announced.  limited initial quantities are expected to ship later
this month.  Commodore UK expects volume shipments to start in
the first quarter of 1988.

[***][12/15/87][***]
COMMODORE #2: COMMODORE FARMS MAINTENANCE OUT TO THIRD PARTY
Maidenhead, Berkshire (NB) -- The latest PC DEALER newspaper
reports that Commodore has farmed out its on-site maintenance and
general warranty services to DPCE, an independent firm
specialising in computer repairs.

The paper quotes Commodore UK MD Steve Franklin as saying that
the decision to move maintenance out of house to DPCE was due to
consumers being "unable to get a good level of service on after-
sales."

Consumer Marketing Manager Tom Hart, also interviewed by PC
DEALER, said that quality control checks on whole batches of
Amigas were being carried out, following a complete dealer
shipment being returned as faulty to Commodore UK.  "Things are
really much better now," said Hart.  "We've just checked a batch
of 1000 Amigas and the only faults we found were with some
connector cables."

CONTACT: COMMODORE UK - 0628-770088

[***][12/15/87][***]
INMOS - #10M LOSSES, 300 JOBS IN US TO GO
Newport, Gwent (NB) -- There was some bad news from Inmos last
week.  The company turned in a #10m interim annual loss and
immediately announced that 300 of its 460-strong staff at
Colorado Springs in the US are to go.  The remaining staff will
concentrate on sales and marketing for North America.

All development of Inmos product, including the famous Transputer
chip, will be consolidated at the company's Newport facility in
South Wales.  NEWSBYTES UK understands that a pilot Transputer
production line is currently in operation at the Colorado Springs
facility.  It's not yet clear whether the this line will be
transferred to the UK or remain on-site.

Inmos Managing Director Douglas Stevenson is on record as saying
he wants the company "to return to profitability" by the end of
the year, and that savings of #20m will accrue from a partial
shutdown of US operations.

CONTACT: INMOS - 0454-616616

[***][12/15/87][***]
LOTUS 1-2-3 RELEASE 3.0 UNVEILED
LONDON, UK (NB) -- More than three months ahead of its UK release
date, Lotus unveiled 1-2-3 release 3.0 to a private audience in
London last week.  The latest version of the best-selling
spreadsheet runs under OS/2 as well as Dos, and has been
completely rewritten in C to improve speed and take advantage of
OS/2's character display system.

Not that DOS users are left behind.  According to Robert Ingrams,
Lotus UK's analytical products manager, Release 3.0 spans the
OS/2 and DOS environments perfectly.  "Release 3.0 can handle
multi-dimensional data arrays," Ingrams told NEWSBYTES UK.  "THis
feature is made possible by the high speed of the C programming
language," he added.

Despite its early unveiling, 1-2-3 is a long way off its full
OS/2 version, which won't become available until the Graphics
Presentation Manager sees the light of day this time next year.
"The important thing to realise is that Release 3.0 embraces
OS/2, but doesn't leave Dos users behind," said Ingrams.

Lotus 1-2-3 Release 3.0 will be released in the UK next April,
with a provisional #395 price tag having been set.  Further
product enhancements from Lotus, including the long-awaited Lotus
Extended Applications Facility (LEAF), are expected to be
announced next month.

CONTACT: LOTUS UK - 0753-840281

[***][12/15/87][***]
AMIGA VIDEO DIGITISER UNVEILED
Worcester Park, Surrey (NB) -- Precision Software has released
Digipic, a video image digitiser for the Commodore Amiga.  The
#299-95 unit can capture a single picture field from almost any
video source for manipulation and subsequent downloading to disc,
printer or additional video system.

Up to four video images can be captured and manipulated in memory
at once, working under the standard 16-level Amiga grey scale, as
well as a proprietary 32-level adaptor which comes integrated
with the hardware.  Still video pictures in up to 32 colours can
be produced using red, green and blue colour filters.

Digipic-saved images can be loaded into many Commodore and third-
party programs, including Deluxe Paint, Digipaint, Prism,
Superbase and other graphics applications.

CONTACT: PRECISION SOFTWARE, 6 Park Terrace, Worcester Park,
         Surrey KT4 7JZ.                    Tel:[phone].

[***][12/15/87][***]
EXECUTIVE COMPUTER SUPPORT SERVICE LAUNCHED
Maidenhead, Berkshire (NB) -- It's five o'clock and you've got a
problem with your computer.   Since it's not hardware or
software-specific, you can't call a manufacturer for help.  Your
dealer is on half day closing, but you've got to get a report out
for tomorrow morning.  A familiar story?  It is to David Smith,
MD of Worldwide Computers, the company that's just launched its
Executive Computing Support Service (ECSS).

"We decided to launch the service after visiting RTZ Chemicals
Director John Matthews," he explained.  "Matthews has a Compaq
Portable II running Symphony and Javelin.  We were able to design
a custom screen that enables him to switch easily between these
and other applications at the touch of a key.  It's not a
computing revolution, but it helped a very senior decision maker
in his work, which is what the service is all about," he said.

ECSS provides a one-to-one consultancy on hardware and software
needs, and includes customised software development with personal
training and ongoing support as standard in its facilities.
Costs vary from firm to firm, depending on the service required,
according to the company's literature.

CONTACT: David Smith, WORLDWIDE COMPUTERS, Quicks Road,
         Wimbledon, London SW19 IEX.  Tel: [phone].

[***][12/15/87][***]
+ BRITBYTES - Bytes of news from around the UK... +
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

The BIX online service run by BYTE MAGAZINE now has a new Network
User Address for its international subscribers.  The NUA is
A310690157800.

The FINANCIAL TIMES PROFILE (formerly World Reporter) information
service will rise in price next month.  Initial sign-up will cost
#110 (free at present), with online charges rising to #1-40 from
a current charge of #1-25 per minute.

LIVING SOFTWARE of Milton Keynes has released Living C Plus, an
uprated version of its C programming environment.  The #149-95
package runs under Dos and OS/2.  The OS/2 version is capable of
working on several files at once, despite the package running as
a single task in an OS/2 multitasking environment.

MERCURY COMMUNICATIONS, London, has signed a major deal with the
Dutch telecoms authority for interconnection of both firm's
telecommunications networks.  A 170Km long fibre optic cable has
been commissioned for 1989 release, when digital telephone links
will be available to public phone subscribers.

MERCURY has also said that its first public call boxes will not
now be installed in the UK until this time next year.  The delay
is attributable to designing and installing suitable hardware.

MICROSOFT OS/2 is not expected to ship until next month in the
UK, according to PC DEALER newspaper.  20,000 units of OS/2
version 1.0 were shipped in the US earlier this month.  Grey
market imports of the package are available from some London
agents however.

The ONE-TO-ONE Email company of London (01-351-2468) has expanded
its Advance online company information service to include custom-
generated reports at #22-50 each.  Each report includes two
year's-worth of company accounts with 72 hour delivery to
subscriber mailboxes.

PRECISION SOFTWARE's Superbase Personal database package has hit
the big time in Europe.  Sales of 53,000 units have taken the
package to the number one PC database slot in France, with
correspondingly good sales elsewhere in Europe.  An advanced
version - Superbase Professional - will be launched at the end of
this month in the UK.
====