1994 20.02 1996

Vol.20 n°2 february 1995

Vol.20 n°2 february 1995

(byte_1995_02.jpg)

News & Views

News & Views

p.22 Visual Pascal with a Punch

p.22 Visual Pascal with a Punch

Borland's Delphi unites a visual design environment with the industrial strength of Borland's Pascal compiler and database connectivity engines.

[theme : VISUAL POGRAMMING]

p.23 LexMark Delivers Outstanding Resolution

p.23 LexMark Delivers Outstanding Resolution

Lexmark's new 1200-dpi printer delivers excellent quality when printing gray-scale images, such as photographs. But when printing standard text, the differences between 1200 and 600 dpi are not as noticeable

[theme : PRINTERS]

p.24 Notebooks, NT Clusters Capture Awards

p.24 Notebooks, NT Clusters Capture Awards

BYTE editors searched throughout the convention halls of Fall Comdex 1994 for innovative new products that had been publicly announced within 30 days of the show and that would have a strong influence on business computing.

[theme : BEST OF COMDEX]

p.26 High-End Portables Take Off

p.26 High-End Portables Take Off

High-end notebook computers are accounting for an increasing percentage of portables sales thanks in part to a higher demand by businesses for desktop PC replacements. Here's what to expect from new product introductions in 1995.

[theme : MAC AND PC NOTEBOOK COMPUTERS]

p.28 Rewritable Drive Integrates Two Optical Technologies

p.28 Rewritable Drive Integrates Two Optical Technologies

Phase change promised much as a rewritable medium, but high costs have kept it out of the mainstream. Matsushita hopes to change that.

[theme : OPTICAL STORAGE]

p.32 Brooktrout Cuts the Cost of Internal Faxing

p.32 Brooktrout Cuts the Cost of Internal Faxing

A new device from the Brooktrout Networks Group could save you a lot of money on intracompany fax phone calls.

[theme : INTERCOMPANY FAX]

p.180 What's New

p.180 What's New

The CruisePad provides wireless control locally; Process Charter for Windows does smart flowcharting; WinDD puts Windows on Unix; and more.

[theme : NEW PRODUCTS]

Cover Story

Cover Story

[theme : NETWORKING] [author : Jon Udell]

p.42 Novell's Campaign

p.42 Novell's Campaign

Novell is embarking on a grand strategy to get 1 billion users and devices connected to NetWare by the year 2000.

Features

Features

p.65 The Grand Challenges

p.65 The Grand Challenges

Researchers are beginning to tackle problems in geography, weather, and other areas that require more computing capability than today's most powerful computers can muster. Here's a look at the biggest of these challenges and the ways in which scientists are attacking them with supercomputers.

[theme : SUPERCOMPUTING] [author : Oliver Sharp]

p.76 Solutions Focus: Moody's Evolving Help Desk

p.76 Solutions Focus: Moody's Evolving Help Desk

A distinctly different approach to departmental scheduling uses genetic algorithms to maximize productivity.

[theme : TECHNICAL-SUPPORT SCHEDULING] [author : Mark Clarkson]

State of the Art

State of the Art

p.82 Piecing Together Puzzles

p.82 Piecing Together Puzzles

Finding and understanding patterns in data are key to creating mainstream applications for speech-and handwriting-recognition or machine-vision systems.

[theme : PATTERN RECOGNITION]

p.85 Face Value

p.85 Face Value

New facial-recognition research is yielding fast, accurate, and commercially viable algorithms for a variety of applications.

[theme : Edmund X. Dejesus]

p.91 Eyes, Ears, and Brains on a Chip

p.91 Eyes, Ears, and Brains on a Chip

Economical pattern-recognition horsepower comes to the desktop thanks to the latest generations of DSPs (digital signal processors) and dedicated processors. Here's how systems developers are using this power in commercial products.

[author : Mark Clarkson]

p.97 Mining Statistics

p.97 Mining Statistics

Statistical-pattern analysis provides the technical underpinnings to make many types of recognition systems more accurate.

Reviews

Reviews

p.103 Agent-Enhanced Communicator

p.103 Agent-Enhanced Communicator

Sony's Magic Link provides phone, modem, sendfax, E-mail pager, and infrared communications abilities.

[theme : COMMUNICATIONS] [author : Peter Wayner]

p.105 Video for Free

p.105 Video for Free

High-performance desktop systems, graphics-chip innovations, and the new DCI (Display Control Interface) software layer will soon make digital video a standard feature for Windows graphics cards.

[author : Stanford Diehl and Greg Loveria]

p.111 Make Bulletproof SQL Queries

p.111 Make Bulletproof SQL Queries

Software AG's Esperant, a front end for SQL database querying, uses an SQL "expert" to guard against syntactically flawed queries.

[theme : DATABASES] [author : David S. Linthicum]

p.115 Simple, Scalable RAID

p.115 Simple, Scalable RAID

Micropolis makes RAID both scalable and multiplatform with the Raidion LTX, a modular RAID system that works with any SCSI host.

[theme : DATA STORAGE] [author : Steve Apiki]

p.119 Software Roundup: Networks for the Enterprise

p.119 Software Roundup: Networks for the Enterprise

Heterogeneous enterprise networks require a robust, reliable, and secure software environment. NSTL evaluates the major server-based network operating systems, including OS/2 Lan Server, Windows NT, and two flavors of NetWare.

[theme : NETWORKS] [author : Tadesse W. Giorgis]

p.129 File Transfer on Steroids

p.129 File Transfer on Steroids

LapLink for Windows includes some additional features beyond simple file transfers, including remote access, file synchronization, a chat facility, file-delta transfers, and security features.

[theme : FILE MANAGEMENT] [author : Barry Nance]

p.131 On-Line Service on the Cheap

p.131 On-Line Service on the Cheap

Mustang Software's popular Wildcat BBS software gets increased capacity, customizable menus, V.34 modem support, and an optional utilities suite that includes a QuickBasic-like language.

[author : Bill Esposito]

p.136 Lab Report: True-Color Graphics Accelerators

p.136 Lab Report: True-Color Graphics Accelerators

PCI cards are finally delivering on earlier promises. Our custom tests find the fastest PCI graphics accelerators under Windows, as well as some hot new Macintosh cards.

[theme : PCI AND MAC GRAPHICS ADAPTERS] [author : Bill Esposito]

p.138 The Best Graphics Accelerators for General Business

p.138 The Best Graphics Accelerators for General Business

p.138 Graphics Glossary

p.138 Graphics Glossary

p.140 Video Tests

p.140 Video Tests

p.142 The Best PCI Graphics Adapters for Drafting

p.142 The Best PCI Graphics Adapters for Drafting

p.144 How We Tested

p.144 How We Tested

p.145 The Best Graphics Accelerators for Macintosh NuBus Systems

p.145 The Best Graphics Accelerators for Macintosh NuBus Systems

p.146 Video Glossary

p.146 Video Glossary

p.146 Honorable Mentions

p.146 Honorable Mentions

Core Technologies

Core Technologies

p.151 Transport-Triggered Architectures

p.151 Transport-Triggered Architectures

The ultimate expression of the RISC philosophy is the Transport-Triggered Architecture.

[theme : CPUS] [author : Dick Pountain]

p.155 The Great Little File System

p.155 The Great Little File System

Flexible and secure, Veritas sets the standard for Unix file systems.

[theme : OPERATING SYSTEMS] [author : Tom Yager]

p.159 Constraint Logic Programming

p.159 Constraint Logic Programming

CLP's power to tackle difficult combinatorial problems may make it the most significant commercial programming paradigm over the next five years.

[theme : PROGRAMMING] [author : Dick Pountain]

p.161 The PGP Web of Trust

p.161 The PGP Web of Trust

Managing public keys with the PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) web of trust.

[theme : NETWORKS] [author : William Stallings]

Opinions

Opinions

p.165 Pournelle: Software-Installation Hell

p.165 Pournelle: Software-Installation Hell

Jerry finds installing software a pain.

[author : Jerry Pournelle]

p.37 Books and CD-ROMs: A Savvy Guide to Client/Server Computing

p.37 Books and CD-ROMs: A Savvy Guide to Client/Server Computing

Programming CD-ROMs, LANs, and the development of Windows NT

[author : Jon Udell and Rick Grehan and Rex Baldazo]

p.238 Commentary: Needed: A GUI Revolution

p.238 Commentary: Needed: A GUI Revolution

GUIs have become fat - and not very intuitive.

[author : Ezra Shapiro]

p.10 Editorial

p.10 Editorial

[author : Raphael Needleman]

p.33 Blasts from the Past

p.33 Blasts from the Past

Highlights from two decades of covering the PC revolution.

p.18 Letters

p.18 Letters

February letters cover platform debates and programming issues.

p.166 Reader Survey

p.166 Reader Survey

READER SERVICE

READER SERVICE

p.236 Editorial Index by Company

p.236 Editorial Index by Company

p.232 Alphabetical Index to Advertisers

p.232 Alphabetical Index to Advertisers

p.234 Index to Advertisers by Product Category

p.234 Index to Advertisers by Product Category

Inquiry Reply Cards: 160A, 232A

Inquiry Reply Cards: 160A, 232A

p.191 BUYER'S GUIDE

p.191 BUYER'S GUIDE

Mail Order

Hardware/Software Showcase

Buyer's Mart

PROGRAM LISTINGS

PROGRAM LISTINGS

From BIX: Join "listings/frombyte95" and select the appropriate subarea (i.e., "feb95").

From the UUNET:ftp to ftp.uu.net, log on as "anonymous," and enter your user ID as your password. Type "cd/published/byte" and type "DIR." Files appear in subdirectories arranged by month.

From the BYTE BBS at 1200-9600 bps: Dial (603) 924-9820 and follow the instructions at the prompt.