San Francisco - Macromedia Inc. this month announced MacroModel, a spline-based 3-D modeling program that lets users quickly create 3-D objects from 2-D reference objects.
MacroModel, due to ship this summer for $1,495, was previously known as Zeppo (see MacWEEK, March 9). Macromedia also will offer it in a bundle with Pixar's MacRenderMan for $1,795 and packaged with MacroMind Three-D for $2,495.
>Fast 3-D.
MacroModel lets users extrude, lathe, sweep and skin any 2-D object into a rendered 3-D object in real time. For example, a user could draw the path of a roller coaster and sweep a circle over it to create a wavy tube.
>Tools.
The program offers several tools to manipulate 3-D objects, such as one that bores editable holes into objects.
>Views.
MacroModel lets users define a 2-D "working plane" from any three points in 3-D space.
>Import/export.
The program supports file formats such as Swivel 3D, ClarisCAD, MacDraw, DXF (Drawing Interchange File), RIB (RenderMan Interface Bytestream) and PICT.
"Since the program is spline-based, it lets you grab handles on objects just like in Adobe Illustrator; you're able to create more artistic types of models than you can with programs such as [Macromedia's] Swivel 3D," said beta-user Jeff Smith, owner of Infinite Point Design, a 3-D animation production house in Concord, Calif.
"MacroModel does smooth-shaded renderings very quickly," Smith said. "It's fast enough that you can work in a shaded view most of the time, but if you're drawing a complicated model, it slows down quite a bit."
In a separate announcement, Macromedia unveiled Player for Iris Workstations, now shipping for $995. This software lets Mac users convert interactive MacroMind Director presentations into a format that can be played on Silicon Graphics Inc.'s Iris workstations.
Macromedia Inc. is at 600 Townsend St., San Francisco, Calif. 94103. Phone (415) 442-0200; fax (415) 442-0190.
MacWEEK 06.22.92
GA Page 30
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
FOUR REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES OF MULTIMEDIA
Virtual travel takes kiosks to new dimension
A "movie map" of Karlsruhe, Germany's tramway system brings a new level of realism to public-access kiosks.
By Erik Holsinger
Moving at a brisk 500 miles per hour on railroad tracks through the countryside of Karlsruhe, Germany, you pull back on a joystick, slowing instantly to a crawl as the town approaches on the large video projection in front of you. Three switches light up on a panel. Push on one, you change tracks; move the joystick forward, and you blaze off in a new direction.
This movie map, created for the town of Karlsruhe by Michael Naimark and Co. of San Francisco, could be the next generation of Mac-based public-access kiosks.
Using the Mac, custom controllers, a laser disc and a video-projection system, the Karlsruhe movie map moves beyond "card stacks" to let users navigate through Karlsruhe's tramway system with incredible realism.
"The initial idea was to make something kinesthetic and immersive - something where you are not sitting, but standing, and where you are completely involved in the experience," said Michael Naimark, who conceived and directed the Karlsruhe movie map.
Naimark is no stranger to virtual travel. In 1978 he was on the main development team for the breakthrough Massachusetts Institute of Technology multimedia production, The Aspen movie map; additionally, he's directed movie maps of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and the Madeleine district of Paris for its Metro rail system.
>How it began.
Two years ago the Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie or ZKM (The Center for Art and Media Technology) commissioned Naimark to do an art project, which would be a tour of the city via Karlsruhe's internationally acclaimed tramway system. This vital part of the community extends for 108 kilometers from the downtown pedestrian area out to the Black Forest. Naimark immediately took on the job.
"Doing a movie map on rails was very attractive; it gives a sort of stability that allows for high-speed virtual travel,"Naimark said. "Plus, doing something that the community could instantly relate to was the highest priority."
>Creating the movie map.
Karlsruhe's movie map was filmed using a 16mm motion picture camera attached to a tram car at eye level. Using an interface built by Fake Space Labs of Palo Alto, Calif., Naimark tapped the tram car's electric odometer so that the 16mm camera would automatically record single-film frames that were triggered by distance rather than time.
The film footage was then transferred, frame by frame, onto a laser disc. When played back in quick succession on the video projection screen, the still frames give the illusion of rapid travel along the rails.
According to Naimark, both the fast seek time and built-in frame buffer of the Pioneer LD-V8000 laser disc player were important to the success of the Karlsruhe project. The built-in frame buffer is useful because it allows the LD-V8000 to hold one frame up on screen while it's looking for another. "If a user ever sees a blank screen, then the continuity of the experience is destroyed," Naimark said.
For the movie map's computer control, Christoph Dohrmann, Naimark's programmer in Karlsruhe, wrote a custom Pascal program running on a Mac IIci with 8 Mbytes of RAM and a 40-Mbyte hard disk to control and navigate through the laser disc images, and display a concurrent map on the Mac screen.
Instead of a mouse, the user operates the laser disc video with three switches for left and right direction changes, and a joystick that controls forward and backward movement and speed.
>First-class fare.
Of course, this kind of travel isn't cheap. "We figured the approximate cost for the project was about $115,000," said Naimark, "where about $15,000 to $20,000 of that was spent on hardware and custom input devices."
Naimark points out that the Karlsruhe project was produced for much less than most movie map productions because of the cooperation that Naimark had in production with the Karlsruhe tramway company. "Among other things, they gave me a tram car and a driver for two weeks," he said.
>Mapping the unknown.
Currently showing at the Art Du'Future in Montreal, the Karlsruhe movie map also will be on display at the navigation show at the Exploratorium in San Francisco next month.
Meanwhile, Naimark is already moving beyond the movie map technology into the world of virtual reality.
"We are trying to take this to the next logical step, which is moving from recorded images to actual 3-D models," Naimark said. "We will be doing a very modest first step in this direction."
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FOUR REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES OF MULTIMEDIA
Multimedia moves into medical training
A joint effort between physicians and programmers has created an innovative way for doctors to learn more about nuclear medicine.
By Anita Malnig
While to some the term multimedia may conjure up images of animated characters moving to rock music with that car-chase video clip in the background, some professionals in the Center for Advanced Instructional Media at the Yale University School of Medicine see it as the perfect medium for presenting diagnostic imaging case studies, particularly in the area of myocardial perfusion. Say what?
In layman's terms, a medical process exists to study heart and coronary disease by injecting a nuclear element into the human body. This element travels to and is taken up by heart muscle, but only in those portions where blood flows. The physician uses a sophisticated gamma camera that records the radiation and makes a picture of the heart's activity. The nuclear material lets a doctor see a ring of activity if the heart is normal. A heart with problems has a deficit of activity.
The staff at the Yale Center for Advanced Instructional Media was interested in developing instruction for this process because of its importance in the medical field and the advent of a new nuclear agent, Tc-99m sestamibi.
>The right vehicle.
Additionally, the group believed multimedia was the right vehicle for teaching. "This process was a perfect fit between multimedia, market and medical needs," said Dr. C. Carl Jaffe, professor of diagnostic imaging and director of the center. "The process is highly related to images, and most of the clinical scanners have no way of making teaching files or multimedia. The advantage was to use multimedia in ways that we could not use other competing [teaching] media, like books," he said.
Funded by an educational grant from DuPont Radiopharmaceuticals of Billerica, Mass., developer of the new agent, the center produced The Myocardial Perfusion Imaging Atlas and Videodisc, a collection of more than 90 case studies that includes patient histories, photos, diagrams, interviews to teach medical techniques in diagnostic imaging and detailed textual information. The team of physicians and two programmer/designers, Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton, worked hard to produce a presentation with an interface easy enough for computer novices and information detailed enough for the busy physicians who would access it.
>Not easily impressed.
"Our audience is primarily physicians who are not easily impressed," Jaffe said. Therefore the quality of the content had to be at a very high level. To ensure this level, the team relied on content advisers Dr. Frans Wackers of Yale and Dr. Daniel Berman of Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.
The main authoring tool was Silicon Beach Software Inc.'s Aldus SuperCard 1.6. While some information screens were created directly in SuperCard, others were created and adjusted in Adobe Photoshop or Electronic Arts' Studio/8 and brought into SuperCard.
The actual case images were transferred from the Siemens and Picker diagnostic imaging workstations (the gamma cameras mentioned above that have computers on board) via Ethernet. The team used a non-commercial conversion utility to convert those images into TIFF
files for use on the Mac.
Design director and programmer Lynch actually drew many of the more complex anatomical illustrations or models by hand, had them photographed, printed to slides, scanned, then assembled in Photoshop and Studio/8.
>Viewing video.
The video portion of the presentation that included interviews with physicians and showed exactly how to position patients for proper photographing and the like was shot on broadcast- quality Betacam SP tape, then transferred to three-quarter-inch videotape for off-line timecode editing by video producer Phillip Simon in Yale's own studios. Additional graphics for the videodisc were created on the Mac and transferred to video with a NuVista+ board from Truevision Inc. of Indianapolis. Title screens and informational graphics were assembled in Bola32, a video character generator from Flamingo Graphics of Cambridge, Mass. The final edit to 1-inch master involved bringing the Mac with the NuVista board to the edit suite and connecting it directly to the Grass Valley switcher.
More than 300 hospitals in the United States will be using the Atlas. "The applications give people like me, who specialize in other diagnostic imaging techniques, a chance to become acquainted with sestamibi images as they are viewed in a diagnostic setting," said Dr. Robert White, chairman of Diagnostic Imaging at the Yale School of Medicine. "The actual imaging workstations are constantly in use and must earn their keep, and hence cannot be used for instruction or review."
>Inexpensive setup.
Macs can earn their keep more inexpensively. The basic setup needed is a Macintosh II-series with a hard disk with at least 60 Mbytes of storage, an eight-bit-color monitor, at least 8 Mbytes of RAM and System 6.0.7 or higher. A laser disc is needed for the video portion of the presentation although that portion is not required.
Regardless of cost, Jaffe said that Yale, which holds the copyright to the material, treats the subject matter in greater detail than any commercial house would do. Said Jaffe, "We insist on depth and integrity."
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FOUR REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES OF MULTIMEDIA
Production firm tunes into digital video
Visual effects company R/Greenberg Associates has found that the switch to digital video saves time and hassle.
By Jennifer Ambrulevich
After banging its head against the wall trying to come up with a type treatment it liked, Bayer relieved its headaches by finishing its commercial on the Mac.
Although made for broadcast television, this commercial with typography created by R/Greenberg Associates, a New York-based visual effects production company, is an excellent example of a multimedia project where a variety of Mac software tools was used to combine film, video, sound and computer imagery into an innovative production.
Founded in 1977 by brothers Richard and Robert Greenberg, R/Greenberg broke new ground in 1987 by switching to all-digital video in its editing and video special-effects post-production suites. Past projects have ranged from motion pictures such as "Superman" and "Alien," to commercials for Diet Coke and the Bayer aspirin commercial shown here.
R/Greenberg landed the job of recreating the type treatment when Bayer and its New York-based ad agency NW Ayer Inc. decided the original type didn't deliver the desired effect. R/Greenberg received the existing three-quarter-inch video with sound but no type.
"Our goal was to use the Mac as much as possible to save the designers' time," said Brian Loube, Mac systems manager at R/Greenberg.
>Experimentation.
Using Truevision Inc.'s NuVista+ board, designer Jakob Trollbeck and Loube brought video frames into Aldus FreeHand where they experimented with many different type styles before deciding on Gil Sans. They then transferred the enhanced type to PostScript format. Using Adobe Photoshop, they created a high- resolution anti-aliased composite of the type over the color video frames. These were output to an Eastman Kodak Co. XL7700 thermal printer to create storyboards for client approval.
"We're able to do all of these different things without leaving the designer's desktop, which is great," Loube said.
Once NW Ayer OK'd the type, R/Greenberg began work on motion tests. The team took the PostScript type and rendered it in Photoshop as flat color with no anti-aliasing. They imported the PICT file into Macromedia Inc.'s MacroMind Director and did test animations of type going on and off over a key color. This enabled them to see on screen an instant composite of their type with the existing commercial.
The R/Greenberg team used Director to achieve the custom Venetian blind effect of the type fading in and out by building white shapes over the letters, covering a bit more of the letter in each frame. Because it was important to synchronize the type with the audio track, the team, including producer Maria Criscuolo and art director Kyle Cooper, digitized the sound with Macromedia's MacRecorder and imported it into Director.
>Composite in an instant.
At this point they recorded the piece with a Hi-8 video deck and were able to send the client an instant composite. "On the Mac, I can instantly make a tape, which, as a designer trying to communicate to a client, is a great thing," Loube said. "It's also very helpful to be able to revise many times without having to book a video session every time we want to make a change."
Finally, after the client picked the type of animation it liked, R/Greenberg re-rendered the type at a higher resolution in Photoshop, which was recorded on an A60 digital video frame recorder from Abekas Video Systems Inc. of Redwood City, Calif. The type was composited over the commercial using R/Greenberg's digital video- editing suite, where the final production was recorded onto a Sony D-1 digital video master.
"The beauty of [the Mac visualization work] is when we finally get into the digital video setup, we know exactly how we want the timing and colors; everything's laid out," Loube said. Digital video is very expensive, so the less time spent in this stage the better, he said.
While R/Greenberg has created several broadcast commercials entirely on the Mac, Loube said its current trend is to use the Mac more for previsualization. "That could change, though," he said, foreseeing more final animation from the Mac in the future.
R/Greenberg is currently developing a multimedia lab, where Loube foresees working with some of R/Greenberg's current clients such as Kodak and IBM Corp. in the future to create interactive extensions of its usual animation and graphics projects.
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FOUR REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES OF MULTIMEDIA
MacWEEK 06.22.92
Heavy industry harnesses multimedia power
A system developed by an electric power research group holds promise for the use of multimedia training applications in heavy industry.
By Kurt Carlson
While interactive multimedia training has made inroads into professional markets for several years, it has been slower to gain ground in heavy industry, where specialized new technology requires ongoing detailed instruction - something for which interactive multimedia could be invaluable.
However, since much of the technology is proprietary, developing generic training systems generally does not work. Yet it's too expensive for most plants to develop trainers from scratch.
Convinced of the viability of interactive training for the power industry, though, the Electric Power Research Institute of Palo Alto, Calif., an R&D organization funded by U.S. electric utilities, is forging ahead. In addition to expert systems and computerized documentation, EPRI has created a variety of training applications to show the power industry the benefits of computer-based training.
"Since computers are relatively cheap, everybody can have access to one," said Dr. George Quentin, project manager of instruments and controls at EPRI. "It's a strong vehicle, and the power industry is quick to recognize things that can help, so they support what we're doing."
>Preserving the pieces.
In 1988, when EPRI knew that its Cool Water plant, an experimental Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plant in Dagget, Calif., would close soon, it wanted to preserve work already done to use as an example for future IGCC plants.
The Cool Water plant, dubbed "the world's cleanest coal-fired power plant," was based on a technology that uses purified coal gas to generate electricity efficiently with very low environmental impact.
EPRI thought that by successfully training a plant operator on the complex Claus unit, which removes and recovers liquid sulfur from the coal gasification process, it could demonstrate the virtue of multimedia training. And the Interactive Videodisc Trainer (IVT) for Power Plant Operator Training stands today as a stellar example.
To develop the Cool Water IVT, EPRI enlisted the help of Nolan Productions, a multimedia and video-production company in Novato, Calif., which subcontracted Haukom Associates of San Francisco, an interactive video and multimedia custom-applications developer.
>Merging technologies.
Nolan Productions shot video and photos of the plant that were incorporated into the training system using Silicon Beach Software Inc.'s Aldus SuperCard. The trainer also used Macromedia Inc.'s MacroMind Director and Swivel 3D for animations. The system plays on a Mac IIfx with a Sony LDP-1550 laser disc player, a 19-inch SuperMac Technology monitor for graphics and a 21-inch Sony monitor for video.
The trainer was designed in two modules: one that illustrated conceptual foundations of new skills, and another that trained operators on specific procedures.
The conceptual base contained information regarded in training circles as "nice to know," knowledge not necessary to complete the task, but useful nonetheless, said Richard Haukom, president of Haukom Associates.
The first module takes a plant operator through simulations to familiarize them with the components of the Claus unit. Different levels of detail can be accessed at any time, such as a 3-D animation of how valves operate and chemical reactions inside combustion chambers.
"Animation is an important part of comprehending the processes," said Julie Nolan, producer and designer for Nolan Productions. "New employees find it very difficult to understand what's going on inside of a piece of equipment if they have no visual component to relate to."
The second module, a three-step sequence, involves task training. The first and second steps are walk-throughs of the entire procedure with and without a supervisor on video. These steps are linked to the first module to provide technical details at any step along the way.
Supplementary photos illustrate different points of view of individual valves and gauges, so operators can orient themselves to a specific location. "Being able to tell where you are is difficult when you're surrounded by pipes," Haukom said.
The final step of the module involves properly locating, identifying and setting 140 valves and gauges without access to on-line help. If this step is completed, the operator, in effect, lights the plant. If the operator makes mistakes, he is guided back to the section of the plant where the error occurred.
Although the IVT was never used to train plant operators, in 1990 it won a bronze medal at the International Film and Video Festival of New York.
>Future projects.
Further success of the pilot is the fact that, based on what it saw, the Alabama Power Co. of Birmingham is now working with EPRI and Nolan to develop a training module for boiler feed pumps, integral components in almost every power plant. A limited variety of boiler feed pumps used by the industry gives EPRI hope that this project might become widely used.
"Utilities are beginning to see that they need improved training," Nolan said.
EPRI finds the prospect of converting the industry difficult but promising.
"I believe the visualization techniques offered by interactive training allow greater effectiveness," said EPRI's Quentin. "If this increased understanding of plant operations could save on even one costly mistake, interactive trainers would prove very valuable, definitely worth the extra initial investment."
MacWEEK 06.22.92
GA Pages 36 and 37
(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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Mac the Knife:
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To serve the remote users
The likely presidential nominees of the two major political parties are learning a lot about competition thanks to the little billionaire who could (and obviously will) down in East Texas. In the world of the Mac, third-party developers have long been familiar with the concept of application competition. Developers of networking products, however, are not used to the 800-pound-gorilla treatment from Apple.
>That will change.
Based on what the Knife has learned about projects under development at Apple's Enterprise Systems Division, those developers' days of innocence are numbered. With current network products, AppleTalk Remote Access (ARA) is pretty much limited to one caller at a time per network server. Now that almost everyone less the odd blue-collar worker is shlepping PowerBooks on their daily rounds, the need for more lines for ARA users is becoming acute. The ESD solution is an ARA server, a dedicated product that will support multiple phone lines. The server is scheduled to ship early next year. Shiva, which ships a single-port server, will likely follow suit, as will others, including Global Village.
And the market for this kind of AppleTalk solution could be a great deal bigger than some now suppose. The Knife has learned that Microsoft has decided to include AppleTalk as a supported peer-to- peer network standard for Windows NT. AppleTalk will be a part of the Windows NT Network Libraries.
>Summer vacation.
Rumors were flying last week that something ominous was wrong with the Quadra 950, Apple's flagship Mac. A little investigation revealed that Apple was forced to shut down the Quadra 950 production line for a few days because it had received a surge of bad power supplies. The problem, which was described as a disturbing tendency to fail intermittently, was quickly isolated. The Quadra channels, anxious for orders to be filled, were annoyed by the delay caused by the shutdown. Those insufferable types who insist on looking on the bright side point out that at least no recall was required.
Desperately seeking DSP. It's beginning to look as if it will be a long time before we hear the last of this growing DSP trend. Now that the Global PowerPort DSP modem joins shipping DSP products from Spectral Innovations and Newer Technologies, the Knife felt it would be a good time to publicize other vendors that have DSP products for the Mac under development. Radius is known to be plumbing the depths of DSP technology, and SuperMac reportedly is working on a DSP add- on that supports publishing applications. And, of course, Apple is also known to be preparing to jump on the DSP bandwagon. The Knife has heard of a DSP project that would support networked video mail.
>Newton, Mass.
The potential R.J. Reynolds Nabisco vs. Apple controversy over the Apple Newton trademark took several unexpected turns last week. Many readers, with nothing better to do with their time than gleefully bring the Knife's errors to his attention, lined up to point out that the RJR Nabisco cookie in question was named after the Boston suburb, not the famed physicist. (Of course, the town could have been named after Isaac, which would have made the original statement accurate once removed.) Several callers also informed the Knife that RJR Nabisco threw a big party last year at the Newton City Hall to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of the now-world- famous cookie. One caller did complain, however, that they ran out of cookies and T-shirts very early in the day.
All this which-came-first controversy got the Knife to thinking about Sir Isaac and the apple-induced dent in his head, which in turn got him to thinking about the original Apple logo. Rather than the brightly colored apple with a bite thoughtfully removed, the company's original choice was a representation of Newton himself sitting under the Apple tree. If this controversy ever does make it into the judicial system, the Knife has already claimed dibs on a front-row seat. It promises a level of triviality that will make the media coverage of this year's presidential race seem like reasoned discourse in comparison.
No matter how you spell it, the MacWEEK mug can't be had for small potatoes. So if you've got what he needs, hail the Knife at (415) 243- 3500, fax (415) 243-3650, MCI (MactheKnife), AppleLink (MacWEEK) and CompuServe/ZiffNet/Mac.
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Aldus to draw on Mac, Windows with 24-bit app
By April Streeter
San Diego - Aldus Corp. this week will announce simultaneous Macintosh and Windows versions of a new 24-bit-color drawing program with "smart" tools for linking, aligning and modifying objects.
Due next month for $299, IntelliDraw is the first new product to emanate from the just-named Aldus Consumer Division, formerly Silicon Beach Software, which Aldus purchased in 1990.
The two versions of IntelliDraw share 80 percent core code and are binary-compatible; users on one platform with access to an IntelliDraw file created on another platform can double-click the file to open it, eliminating intermediate Save As or Open As steps.
>Smart Links.
IntelliDraw lets users link objects in multipage drawings and modify them as a group by attributes such as size, width or angle. Links remain when objects are moved or modified.
Beta-tester Chipp Walters, principal at Design Edge Inc. of Austin, Texas, is using IntelliDraw to generate industrial-design prototype drawings, which he created in Claris Corp.'s ClarisCAD.
Walters said IntelliDraw's linking capabilities allow him to quickly adjust a drawing of, say, a lamp, to give clients a vision of how it will look at different angles. "I don't know of any other 2-D program, either drawing or drafting, that does that," he said.
>"What-if" tools.
IntelliDraw's Symmetrigon tool lets users draw an instant mirror image of a multisided object, without flipping or duplicating. Sticky connectors are lines whose endpoints join objects, and stretch or bend when objects are moved. A Connection tool joins polygons together by their vertexes.
As in some CAD programs, users can name master shapes and save them in a symbols library. When a master symbol is modified in a special symbol window, all clones of the shape also change.
"IntelliDraw's great for the non-technically oriented," said Ed White, resource manager at the San Diego County Law Library. "I'm no architectural CAD user, and this gives me the tools at hand to make drawings look like more than just sticks."
White said he used the program to quickly mock up major renovations to the library.
>Alignment features.
IntelliDraw has "smart" guidelines that "shadow" a user's drawing and display alignment points as they arise. This helps users easily align objects to intersection points or edges of other objects. Users also can draw visible or invisible frames to align objects.
Aldus said it hopes the program's price and smart features will draw in entry-level business and home users.
According to Santa Clara, Calif.-based market research company InfoCorp, as hardware prices have dropped, a slow but steadily growing software market has developed in the Macintosh and Windows worlds, characterized by what has been dubbed the SoHo (small office/home) buyer.
But Jesse Berst, publisher of WindowWatch, a Windows software newsletter in Redmond, Wash., said he thinks $200 is the cutoff price for programs in this niche.
"[IntelliDraw] has nifty features, but it will have to be fairly innovative to get people to pay the premium," Berst said. "I think Aldus' price is kind of in the twilight zone."
IntelliDraw will ship next month with about 8 Mbytes of clip-art files. The Macintosh program can import TIFF, PICT and Encapsulated PostScript files, as well as export PICT and EPS.
Aldus Consumer Division is at 9770 Carroll Center Road, Suite J, San Diego, Calif. 92126. Phone (619) 695-6956; fax (619) 695-7902.
MacWEEK 06.22.92
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Apple tunes up Dylan as key to portability
New language spans Mac, Unix, Newton
By Mitch Ratcliffe
Palo Alto, Calif. - How many platforms can an application span? The answer, my friends, is blowing in on Apple's new programming language called Dylan.
Apple told developers gathered at a closed-session briefing here last week that the new language would let them build compact applications on many platforms, including the Macintosh, Unix workstations and the company's recently announced Newton Personal Digital Assistants, sources said.
Dylan, which is derived from the phrase "dynamic language," resulted from a joint project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Apple's Advanced Technology Group-East, both located in Cambridge, Mass. It is a descendant of LISP, a language born in the artificial- intelligence community during the 1950s. A programmer familiar with Dylan said it does not provide artificial intelligence, but rather allows applications to assist users by comparing input to previous situations and events, a function crucial to the Newton operating system (see MacWEEK, June 8).
"Dylan lets developers build small parts of applications or libraries of function that can dynamically swap in and out of memory," the programmer said.
In this way, Dylan provides function similar to Microsoft Corp.'s Dynamic Link Libraries, which load objects into an IBM PC or compatible computer's memory as they are needed by different applications. It can streamline development, because one module can serve several programs.
"If you were building a lot of library functionality based on existing objects, then you don't have to rewrite those objects for each application," the programmer said of Dylan.
Developers familiar with the new language disputed Apple's claim made at the briefing that Dylan-based applications will need minimal RAM and run faster than programs written in C languages.
The developers said Apple seemed willing to sacrifice memory size and execution speeds to pack more capabilities into Dylan-based applications.
The language also appears to put a heavy burden on a CPU, making it a questionable platform for current battery-powered mobile computer platforms.
"[The language] was obviously written by people who don't have to apply their work in the real world," said one source. "It could keep the CPU very busy and put a real load on the battery."
Dylan has been pitched to industry groups, including the LISP Industry Council, as a potential standard for developing cross-platform applications.
But developers said that after looking over the specifications, they may be reluctant to adopt Dylan.
"If [Dylan] is the only way to program Newton and there is a market opportunity, then people will probably go with it," a developer said.
Apple declined to comment.
MacWEEK 06.22.92
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Cross-platform MacApp will be built on Bedrock
By Andrew Gore
New York - Apple this week will announce that MacApp is going cross- platform and moving to Bedrock.
In a press conference at PC Expo '92 here, Apple and Symantec Corp. are expected to outline plans to jointly develop a cross-platform development framework that will include Apple's MacApp technology, according to sources. The framework reportedly will be based on Symantec Bedrock, a forthcoming multiplatform development environment.
Symantec Bedrock for Macintosh and Windows is expected to ship next spring, sources said, and will be followed later by versions for Unix and OS/2. Bedrock products will be sold by Symantec through retail channels and by Apple through APDA.
Apple and Symantec both declined to comment.
Although Apple will continue to support MacApp, its object-oriented programming framework, it will encourage MacApp programmers to migrate, and it will provide support and tools to move MacApp- developed software to Bedrock.
Apple decided to incorporate MacApp in Bedrock to allow programmers to port Mac applications "very quickly" to Windows and other platforms, sources said. Bedrock also will allow Windows developers to move their programs with equal speed to the Mac.
Although Bedrock will greatly simplify cross-platform development, sources said that software developed in Bedrock will be at least as robust as that developed in MacApp. Developers will be able to use all of MacApp's class libraries.
"The big question is whether they can really avoid the lowest- common-denominator problem," said Eric Hayes, software engineer at Now Software Inc. of Portland, Ore. "With all the cross-platform generators I've seen, they work, but you get really plain apps."
Bedrock-generated code reportedly will be based on C++, the same language as MacApp 3.0. Bedrock does not include a compiler; depending on when it ships, Bedrock will work with either Macintosh Programmer's Workshop or an advanced development environment Apple is currently working on to replace MPW.
Observers said the Bedrock announcement shows that Apple appears to have undergone a major change of heart in two areas: providing cross-platform programming tools and working with a third party on its development environment.
"It'll take a few neat tricks to pull off, but I'm tickled to death that Apple is working with Symantec," said Eric Berdahl, president of MADA, formerly the MacApp developers association. "It shows that Apple isn't suffering NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome anymore."
Bedrock ultimately could become one of the paths by which Apple moves toolboxes, such as OCE (Open Collaboration Environment), to other platforms, sources said.
MacWEEK 06.22.92
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Dynamic duos debut at PC Expo in Gotham City
By Jon Swartz
New York - Cross-platform computing will take a few steps closer to reality this week at PC Expo '92 here, and vendors' timing couldn't be better.
Both cross-platform development tools and cross-platform versions of major applications will be unveiled here, giving users the kind of interoperability they have been asking for.
"If the development tools are ready, it will have a big impact on accelerating our projects for both the Mac and Windows," said Eric Wiedl, staff analyst for the University of Chicago.
Alan Alvaro, programmer analyst for Chevron Information Technology Co. in San Ramon, Calif., said, "I'm glad to see actual products, and not just hear a bunch of marketing hype."
>Apple is expected to announce that its MacApp programming environment will be included in Symantec Corp.'s Bedrock technology, allowing cross-platform development on the Macintosh (see story, at right). Eventually applications developed under Bedrock could alleviate hassles for users at large sites who grapple daily with moving data across platforms.
>Aldus Corp. will announce the first product from its consumer division, formerly Silicon Beach Software. Called Aldus IntelliDraw, the cross-platform "smart" drawing program is designed for Mac and Windows users (see story, Page 1).
> SunSoft Inc., the software subsidiary of Sun Microsystems Inc., will ship a version of its Solaris 2.0 operating system that runs on SPARC workstations. A version for Intel-based machines isn't expected until this fall, though.
> Claris Corp. will show off Macintosh and Windows versions of FileMaker Pro 2.0. The programs share the same file format and 85 percent of common code, according to Claris. The flat-file database also can transfer graphics and fonts between Windows and Macintosh systems.
> NEC Technologies Inc. will demonstrate the first PostScript fax, a $599 option for its Silentwriter Model 95 laser printer. It is scheduled to ship in September (see MacWEEK, June 15).
Several other companies, including Caere Corp. and Bitstream Inc., will introduce PC products with Macintosh versions to follow. Caere will announce FaxMaster, a combination fax/OCR device for IBM PCs and compatibles.
A company spokeswoman said a Macintosh version of the product is forthcoming.
In addition to first-time attendees Microsoft Corp., Claris and SunSoft, Apple, IBM Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. will be among the 725 exhibitors. Some 75,000 people - including buyers from most Fortune 500 companies - are expected to attend, according to PC Expo organizers.
In Macintosh-only product news, Intelligence At Large Inc., a Philadelphia start-up, will premiere MovieStar Professional, a $289 software package that enables Macintosh users to make QuickTime movies from any application, document or image. It will ship next month.
The company also will demonstrate MovieStar Producer, an extension of MovieStar Professional that lets users produce stand-alone QuickTime movies. The software is available through site licenses.
MacWEEK 06.22.92
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
VideoShop doing QuickTime
DiVA sets up movie production, integrating sounds and pictures plus offering edit and catalog capabilities.
By Ric Ford
VideoShop, DiVA Corp.'s $599 debut product, is the second major QuickTime editing application to reach the market. Like Adobe Systems Inc.'s Premiere (see MacWEEK, Jan. 27), VideoShop integrates digital sounds and pictures to create QuickTime movies.
Premiere closely emulates the traditional video-editing process. VideoShop was designed more from a Macintosh perspective, in which digital video is just another medium like text or graphics.
VideoShop is a full QuickTime production environment, with the ability to digitize video and sound (using appropriate hardware), catalog media files, edit QuickTime movies and deliver the results as complete presentations.
One of VideoShop's fundamental features - the ability to arrange and play multiple video windows at once - opens up a wealth of creative options.
Bundled with the program is a collection of video and sound clips on a CD-ROM from The Image Bank Inc. The clips are licensed for personal and non-commercial uses.
A utility for grabbing Mac screens into movies, ScreenToMovie, is not yet included in the package. DiVA promises to send it free to registered owners when it is finished.
Lights, camera, HyperCard. VideoShop can record QuickTime movies if the Mac is equipped with digitizing hardware, and it can print movies to videotape with appropriate video-output hardware.
DiVA supplies a manual, a valuable booklet of tips and tricks, and a six-page quick-reference card for documentation. The material is clear and attractive but not as comprehensive as we would like.
VideoShop is a HyperCard-based program, and HyperCard 2.1 and a Home stack are included.
There is no description of how to integrate VideoShop with existing HyperCard environments, but we found that our normal Home stack could be retained and the VideoShop Home stack discarded.
One issue is the memory allocation of HyperCard. VideoShop requires a 3-Mbyte partition for HyperCard; more is recommended. This is extravagant if HyperCard is used for other applications. Another minor annoyance is that VideoShop documents cannot be opened by double-clicking them in the Finder but must be opened from within the application.
>Divergent desktops.
DiVA takes a unique approach to managing media files in VideoShop, providing its own variant of the Macintosh desktop, which overlaps the real desktop and displays Mac files, folders and volumes in special windows.
One of the features of the DiVA desktop is its support for micons, animated icons that give a dynamic preview of a movie file's contents.
Although this environment is visual and hierarchical, the DiVA desktop has its own set of rules, and the differences between the real Finder desktop and the DiVA version can be disconcerting.
You can double-click to open a file or a folder in the DiVA desktop, but only file types that VideoShop recognizes are displayed.
You cannot drag a file or folder into a closed folder or onto the desktop, and there are no list views. The file icons can be resized to one of three sizes.
To delete a file or folder, you have to select it and use a Delete menu command; there is no Trash. Renaming works differently too.
A Find command works like Finder 7's Find, but it looks only at file names, not at dates or types.
Selecting DiVA's equivalent of Get Info brings up a HyperCard catalog stack, where you can enter descriptive text, keywords, dates and copyright information.
A micon can be displayed in the catalog for movie files, and you can play movies or sounds by double-clicking on the sound icon or the micon.
An Update Clip Info menu item searches the disk and adds entries to the catalog, but we discovered that it found only a few media files out of all the ones on disk. According to DiVA, the command updates the catalog with the last 20 clips that have been modified.
>Recording.
VideoShop supports all standard QuickTime hardware devices, including Apple's microphones and video digitizers from companies such as RasterOps Corp. and SuperMac Technology.
More than just a convenience, VideoShop's recording capabilities provide essential control over the digitizing process, letting you optimize parameters for the best results with different system configurations. DiVA's tips and tricks booklet contains the best discussion of this process we have seen.
Movies can be captured either to memory or to disk, depending on the length of the clip and the amount of RAM available. To help achieve better frame rates on slower Macs, video can be post-compressed, avoiding the processing bottleneck of compressing on the fly.
A recording window sets the size and cropping of the digital movie and provides control over such things as hue and contrast, depending on the digitizing hardware's capabilities. One button starts and stops recording, and the user can choose whether to preview results during recording or to dedicate processor cycles to digitizing.
VideoShop is a little awkward in its handling of file names and locations during recording. You must select a recording folder where all the digitized files will be stored. VideoShop records to that folder, naming files "Untitled 1," "Untitled 2" and so on.
Unless that folder is open, you get no feedback and no opportunity to choose file names. Instead, you must go back and manually rename the files.
>Player and arranger.
QuickTime editing is the heart of VideoShop, and DiVA has put together an extensive set of features. Understanding them all takes some time.
The production is developed using three different views: the Playout window, the Time view and the Storyboard view.
The Playout window lets you play a movie forward, backward and frame by frame. The window can have multiple tracks playing at once, and you can arrange each video window on the screen, overlapping one another if you wish.
VideoShop displays QuickTime movies instantly at their normal size in this window, even during editing, which is a tremendous advantage over Premiere's Preview mode.
The Eyedropper tool lets you click on an individual color to make it transparent to video tracks playing behind it. However, this requires a solid background color, such as white, to be useful - unlike Premiere, which lets you adjust and preview keying to a range of similar color.
An optional DiVA controller bar provides an alternative to Apple's standard controller. DiVA's version is more like the jog-shuttle control on a professional videotape recorder, and you can hear the audio as you shuttle from place to place in the movie.
The other views are tied dynamically to the Playout window, and finding an editing point is as easy as shuttling the movie until you find the right place, then clicking on the picture.
You even can click on the Playout window with a Scissor icon to cut a segment into two parts at the displayed frame.
>Overview.
The Storyboard view is where you assemble and sequence the various clips used in the production. It displays a stack of audio and video tracks, and media files can be dragged from the DiVA desktop and dropped into the tracks. In this view, each clip is the same size and is represented by a small picture or audio waveform.
Changing the sequence of clips is a simple matter of dragging one clip to the left or right of another. Audio and video segments are synchronized if they were part of the same original clip.
Iconic track handles drag tracks above or below other tracks, and the higher tracks will appear in front of the lower tracks if they overlap during playback.
Double-clicking a track handle lets you temporarily disable a track or remove it entirely.
VideoShop supports a combined total of 16 audio and video tracks, which should be more than enough for normal purposes.
>Timeline.
The Storyboard gives no indication of the length of clips but shows only their sequence in the overall production. Switching to the Time view, however, shows everything in relation to a scalable timeline. This is the primary editing environment.
In this view, a graphic slider zooms in and out of the movie tracks, providing frame-by-frame detail or an overview of the entire production.
A powerful ruler at the top of the window provides dynamic access to the entire length of the production. Holding down the mouse button displays time values and visual location in the Playout window as you drag along the ruler. Clicking jumps instantly to that point in the movie.
Selections are made simply by dragging along the tracks with the mouse or using Shift-click to extend a selection, just as you would select text in a word processor. Holding down certain keys lets you select either single or multiple tracks.
A panel to the left of the horizontal scroll bar displays the exact length of the current selection, which can be very helpful.
Movies may be dragged from the DiVA desktop and dropped into tracks.
Most editing is accomplished with standard Mac Cut, Copy and Paste operations, and VideoShop adds Paste Scale, Paste Overwrite and Paste Crop operations.
If the selection is a single track, you can scale its duration by specifying a new duration or a scaling factor.
>Transitions and effects.
VideoShop's approach to scene transitions is quite different from Premiere's. It is simple to use but less flexible.
Transitions are created within a single video track. When you click at a point where one clip ends and another starts, the cursor changes, and dragging will select a symmetrical transition region on both sides of the cut. After making the selection, a transition can be chosen and previewed then applied or cancelled.
Other effects are applied in a similar way to selections. You can set the transparency level or key color in a video track and apply filters such as Color Balance and Rain. VideoShop also supports Adobe Photoshop plug-in filters.
You can set the volume level for an audio track, but VideoShop's audio- and video-level controls are simplistic compared with Premiere's graphics-level maps.
>Presentation and output.
VideoShop's Playout window handles the arrangement of multiple video tracks, but the Playout setup dialog lets you choose such parameters as window style, DiVA or Apple controller, and the size and color of the background.
When you are satisfied with the production, it can be saved either as a self-contained QuickTime movie or as a small reference movie that requires the original media files for playback.
VideoShop's Print to Video command, like Premiere's, plays the movie back on a plain background without the distraction of Mac windows and objects. This makes it easy to capture to videotape.
>HyperCard integration.
DiVA touts "drag-and-drop HyperCard authoring" with VideoShop, but we found that connection's disadvantages outweighed its benefits.
You can drag a micon from VideoShop into a HyperCard stack, and play it within the VideoShop environment, but the micon disappears when you leave VideoShop and open the stack from HyperCard.
Performance, reliability and support. VideoShop, like other QuickTime applications, benefits from lots of RAM, a big and fast hard disk, a fast processor, and a fast true-color display.
A Mac II-family machine with color QuickDraw is required. DiVA says that a 4-Mbyte Mac LC is acceptable as a low-end platform, though we recommend 8 Mbytes and a IIci as a more practical minimum. System 7 is needed for full functionality, such as using the Find feature.
Our testing showed no unexpected bottlenecks in VideoShop's performance, and overall it felt faster than Premiere. Of course, QuickTime always taxes the platform, and certain operations are lethargic.
Adding a transition, such as a smooth crossfade, can take minutes of processing time, even on a fast Mac. We also had out-of-memory errors working with large still images both in Premiere and in VideoShop.
We encountered only a few minor bugs during testing, such as an incomplete dialog that said, "Please specify a file to," without completing the question.
>Conclusions.
Adobe Premiere ushered in digital-video editing on the Mac, but VideoShop goes beyond it to provide a faster, more complete QuickTime production environment.
VideoShop's built-in recording capability is a significant advantage, and its fast, full-resolution Playout feature completely outclasses Premiere's Preview mode.
Click-and-drag selection, powerful navigation aids, dynamic coupling of playback and editing views, and the ability to arrange simultaneous playback of multiple video tracks are important advantages for VideoShop.
Premiere has a more elegant user interface and more flexible audio and video mixing than VideoShop. It also is free from VideoShop's significant HyperCard overhead and non-standard desktop.
We think professional multimedia producers will want both VideoShop and Premiere. VideoShop's layout capabilities are essential for creating complex presentations, and its production efficiency offsets its learning demands, but Premiere handles certain tasks better and more easily. Premiere alone might be enough for people who are producing single-track QuickTime movies on an occasional basis.
We expect to see VideoShop grow substantially over the next year, and we hope that future versions will overhaul its desktop interface and scrap its HyperCard dependency.
For now, VideoShop is a capable tool for multimedia production, and it marks a strong debut for a new company in the Mac market.
DiVA Corp. is at 222 Third St., Cambridge, Mass. 02142. Phone (617) 491-4147; fax (617) 491-2218.
MacWEEK 06.22.92
Reviews Page 61
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
CD-ROM archiving makes move in-house at lower cost
With prices of hardware systems plummeting, CD-ROM is becoming a viable data-archiving option.
By Charles Rubin
Most of us think of CD-ROM as a commercial distribution medium for font or clip-art libraries, multimedia games, interactive books, or encyclopedias.
But write-once CD-ROM technology, originally developed as a quick prototyping system for commercial CD-ROM products, now has become simple and inexpensive enough to compete as a data-storage alternative for business.
Today, CD-ROM production houses offer write-once services that can put up to 680 Mbytes of your company's data on a CD-ROM within a few days for about $200. In addition, prices for desktop write-once systems have fallen to about $8,000.
CD-ROM vs. other storage. CD-ROMs can pack up to 680 Mbytes of data on a disk that can be randomly accessed with a relatively inexpensive CD-ROM player (compared with expensive rewriteable magneto- optical disk drives, tape systems or SyQuest drives). Also, CD-ROM media is less expensive than optical disks or most other removable media.
On the other hand, CD-ROMs aren't erasable like SyQuest cartridges, tape or rewriteable magneto-optical disk drives, and with CD-ROM, the entire disc must be written at once. However, a new international standard for incremental CD-ROM recording, called the Orange Book standard, should be finalized this fall.
Also, at speeds of about 300 milliseconds, CD-ROM drives offer slow data access compared with magneto-optical drives or SyQuest cartridges; however, CD-ROM drives are much faster than tape.
But probably the biggest drawback to creating a write-once CD-ROM data archive is its technical complexity - there's a lot more to it than just dragging icons in the Finder (see story, next page).
Fortunately, service bureaus that make write-once CD-ROMs handle most of these technical chores for the customer, and making a CD is simply a matter of sending the source files to the service bureau.
Typically, service bureaus will remove a hard disk's boot blocks at no charge, although transferring data from multiple tapes or cartridges to one volume, checking for viruses, and defragmentation will cost extra. With the technical hassle eliminated, the promise of storing more bytes per buck has begun to win converts.
More bytes per buck. At Brilliant Color Cards of San Rafael, Calif., President Barry Brilliant has switched from SyQuest cartridges to write-once CD-ROMs for storing PICT images for his color-printing business.
With a need to store thousands of PICT files for the color business cards and postcards he prints, Brilliant had been filling up tapes and SyQuest cartridges by the dozen, but he's found CD-ROM far less expensive.
"I take 15 SyQuest 45-Mbyte cartridges, use Disk Doubler to get the equivalent of 30 cartridges' worth of data and then send them out and have two copies of a CD-ROM made," Brilliant said. One CD-ROM copy is used in-house, while the other is stored off-site for security.
Brilliant uses On-Site CD-ROM Services to write the CD-ROMs. The company transfers Brilliant's SyQuest cartridges to a hard disk and then writes two copies of a CD-ROM, returning them with the now- reusable SyQuest cartridges.
"I spend $450 for two copies of a CD-ROM with the storage equivalent of 30 removable cartridges," Brilliant said. "At about $60 per SyQuest cartridge, that's $1,800 of storage material that I get for $450."
Kevin Lyons, manager of creative technology at Clement Mok Design of San Francisco, has switched from digital audio tape backup systems to CD-ROM archives because of the medium's convenience and faster access.
Although DAT tapes each cost only $25 and hold 5 Gbytes apiece, the slow access time of tape makes CD-ROM a better bet. "It can take three or four hours to retrieve an old project design from a tape," Lyons said. "We can get it from a CD in a couple of minutes."
Publishing it yourself. A year ago, desktop write-once CD-ROM systems cost more than $30,000, but now that prices have fallen to less than $10,000, companies that archive gigabytes of data are taking the publication process in-house. Because end-user products are in their infancy, however, writing your own CD-ROMs isn't yet for the technically faint at heart.
At Broderbund Software Inc. of Novato, Calif., data archivist Amanda Thomas was given macTOPiX and pcTOPiX CD-ROM publishing systems from Optical Media International and charged with transferring the company's vast data collection to CDs. "My job title should really be something like CD-ROM technician," she said, "because I do more of that than archiving science."
Broderbund has had the systems for about six months, and Thomas now writes 50 to 75 CD-ROMs a month, half of them for data archiving and the other half to prototype the company's own CD-ROM products. Data archives include the company's software development system, source code, and original graphics and sound files.
Thomas has used the macTOPiX system to create hierarchical file system, International Standards Organization and mixed-mode CD- ROMs from a Macintosh, but making it all work has been a challenge. "The documentation is basically non-existent," she said, "and the error messages are completely useless."
According to Thomas, archiving to CD-ROM from a plain HFS disk is pretty simple, but if you vary from the norm you could run into trouble. "Try to do a mixed-mode disk, for example; if you have a problem, you're pretty much on your own," she said.
Optical Media has since revised the macTOPiX software and said it's now easier to use, but CD-ROM writing software from any source is still very much for those who intend to invest some time in understanding CD-ROM recording technology.
Whether you create CD-ROMs yourself or send your data to a service bureau, however, getting acquainted with CD-ROM storage will give you a head start on the future.
With Apple and other personal computer makers planning to build CD-ROM players into their systems within the next few years, CD- ROMs filled with data could become as common as today's tapes, SyQuest cartridges or floppy disks in the corporate library.
MacWEEK 06.22.92
ProductWatch Page 77
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
New PowerPorts get inside line on PowerBooks
By Nathalie Welch
Mountain View, Calif. - Global Village Communication Inc. this week will release three updated versions of its PowerPort internal fax- data modems for PowerBooks, including the highest speed modem of its kind. Models in the new series are completely internal devices untethered from the external boxes required with previous PowerPorts. All three send and receive faxes come bundled with Global Village's fax software.
> PowerPort/Gold, priced at $795, is a V.32bis modem with a base data-transmission speed of 14.4 Kbps; faxes move at Group 3- standard 9,600 bps.
> PowerPort/Silver, priced at $595, is a V.32 modem that transmits both data and faxes at 9,600 bps.
Both high-speed models use V.42bis and MNP Level 5 data compression, as well as V.42 and MNP levels 2 through 4 error correction.
> PowerPort/Bronze, priced at $295, is a standard 2,400-bps data modem that sends faxes at 9,600 bps and receives them at 4,800 bps.
The company anticipates releasing an even faster modem, the PowerPort/Platinum this time next year. That as-yet-unpriced modem will support the V.17 standard for 14.4-Kbps faxing and the emerging CCITT V.FAST protocol for data-transmission rates up to 28 Kbps.
At the heart of the Gold and Silver models are three-chip, 16-bit digital signal processors (DSPs) from AT&T Co. The low-end Bronze modem uses an integrated one-chip DSP from Rockwell International Corp. But exploiting the capabilities of the powerful AT&T DSPs is not a priority for Global Village, the company said.
"DSP is just keeping up with the Joneses; it's merely an evolutionary step," said Rick Miley, vice president of marketing.
"Voice will be added to the PowerPort/Gold, perhaps by the end of the year," Miley said. "Voice, as the third leg of the fax-data component, will be something all our products will have."
Miley said Global Village's overriding direction is to position the PowerPort series as a hardware base for AppleTalk Remote Access (ARA).
"Apple has not done enough to evangelize ARA," said Tyrone Pike, Global Village's president and CEO. "It's an extremely powerful tool that can put all your company's on-line resources right in your hotel room."
"We are working on developing an AppleTalk Remote Access server," Miley said. "We are also releasing a white paper with ARA speed performance and analysis information."
PowerPort/V.32 owners can upgrade to a PowerPort/Gold for $399 until Sept. 22. The PowerPort/V.32 will continue to be sold but will be marketed with a variety of external telephone interfaces for European markets.
Global Village Communication Inc. is at 1204 O'Brien Drive, Menlo Park, Calif. 94025. Phone (415) 329-0700; fax (415) 329-0767.
MacWEEK 06.22.92
News Page 1
(c) Copyright 1992 Coastal Associates, L.P. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
