Vol.19 n°1 january 1994

NEWS & REVIEWS

p.18 Chicago Enters Beta Testing

[theme WINDOWS]

Microsoft is working on a new version of Windows that takes several steps toward rivaling IBM's OS/2.

p.19 Apple Provides PC on a Mac

[theme INTEROPERABILITY]

Apple's new card lets you run DOS and Windows applications and cut and paste among your Mac and PC programs.

p.24 Competition for Active Matrix

[theme DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY]

The first commercial cold cathode field emission displays, which may compete with active-matrix screens, could show up this year.

p.28 Graphics Gets Down to Basics

[theme BUSINESS SOFTWARE]

Though not as powerful as full-featured drawing programs, programs like Visio and SnapGrafx make it easy to generate professional graphics for business

p.32 A Giant Leap for Borland C++

[theme PROGRAMMING]

Borland now has the best C++ environment, but just barely;

p.36 Speedy CDs Improve Video Performance

[theme CD-ROM DRIVES]

Toshiba and others are developing new CD-ROM players to improve the performance of video playback on multimedia computers.

p.40 Remote Control Gets Redirected

Several programs offer an inexpensive, though less capable, alternative to dedicated hardware/software solutions for remote LAN access.

p.40 Falling Prices Boost ISDN

[theme EUROPEAN COMMUNICATIONS]

The falling prices of ISDN in Europe may spark growth in telecomm and videoteleconferencing applications.

p.254 What's New

[theme NEW PRODUCTS]

A desktop unit that faxes, prints, copies, and scans; a wireless device that coexists with your mouse; software that learns from experience; and more.

SPECIAL REPORT : ADVANCED OPERATING SYSTEMS

p.117 Introduction: The Great OS Debate

[author Jon Udell]

p.119 Small Kernels Hit It Big

[author Peter D. Varhol]

Microsoft, IBM, USL, and others differ in their opinions on how best to implement microkernel architecture into new operating systems

p.131 The Chorus Microkernel

[author Dick Pountain]

Pountain takes a look at Chorus/MiX, a microkernel-based distributed Unix operating system from France.

p.139 Objects on the March

[author Peter Wayner]

The trend is toward an object-oriented approach to the design of operating systems.

p.155 Personality Plus

[author Frank Hayes]

Multiple operating-system personalities are here to stay.

FEATURE

p.46 1993 BYTE Awards

[author Michael Nadeau]

The best products of 1993 provide a window to the trends of 1994.

STATE OF THE ART

p.74 Microprocessor Trends

[theme NEXT-GENERATION CPUS] [author Dick Pountain]

Several trends converge to threaten the near monopoly the Intel 80x86 architecture enjoys on the desktoP;

p.77 Power2 Takes the Lead, For Now;

p.83 M1 Challenges Pentium

[author Bob Ryan]

Cyrix will compete with Intel's Pentium using an innovative 80x86 superscalar processor;

p.87 Pipeline Hazards : RISC Grows Up

[author Bob Ryan and Tom Thompson]

RISC vendors expand their offering to respond to the needs of a wider variety of applications.

p.101 Intel/VLSI Join the PDA Fray

[author Paul Statt]

The Intel/VLSI Polar chip set brings the 80x86 architecture to the PDA realm.

p.104 The Am386SC Does DOS and Windows

p.105 The AT&T Hobbit Enters Its Second Generation

p.107 Digital Video Goes Real-Time

[author Peter Wayner]

Real-time video might soon be on your desktop thanks to C-Cube's VideoRISC Compression Architecture, which can encode video on the fly using either MPEG 1 or MPEG 2.

REVIEWS

p.172 Paths to Platform Independence

[theme CROSS-PLATFORM TOOLKITS] [author Steve Apiki]

With multiplatform toolkits, you can build applications for Windows, the Mac, X/Motif, OS/2 Presentation Manager, and a variety of other platforms - from a single set of sources. Apiki develops an application with Liant Software's C++/Views, WNDX, XVT Software's XVT, and Zinc's Application Frameworks and evaluates each product for its programming environment and for its portability across multiple operating systems.

p.179 Opening Night for Premiere 3.0

[theme MULTIMEDIA] [author Bob Lindstrom]

For multimedia audio and video, Adobe Premiere 3.0 offers impressive editing capabilities - if you've got the hardware to handle it. Lindstrom evaluates the latest version of Premiere as a professional tool for videodevelopment.

p.183 Digital-Media Power

[theme UNIX WORKSTATION] [author Ben Smith]

Imaginative packaging and start-up software add some fun to SGI's new low-price workstation. The fun doesn't detract from the Indy's computing price/performance, 2-D graphics strengths, and ability to work with both Macs and PCs. Ben Smith's hands-on testing finds the new Indy serious about 2-D graphics and SGI's concept of digital media;

p.189 NT Programming's Early Leader

[theme PROGRAMMING TOOLS] [author Oliver Sharp]

Microsoft's Visual C++ 32-bit Edition shows flaws, but overall, it delivers effective tools for Windows NT programming and for porting 16-bit Windows applications.

p.197 New Mac Blazes Technology Trails

[theme DESKTOP SYSTEM] [author Tom Thompson]

Apple's new Mac Quadra 840AV makes the move into video and voice communications with a faster CPU, a built-in DSP, video connections, and software for voice recognition and text-to-speech conversion.

p.202 Lab Report: 70 Color Monitors

[theme COLOR MONITORS]

We evaluate 70 15-to 21-inch color monitors and choose the best for important business applications. Best Monitors for General Business; Energy Stars Burn Dimmer; How We Tested; Quality Gauges; The Keys to Image Quality; Best Monitors for Spreadsheets and Graphics; Emissions Overview; Is Bigger Better?; Best Monitors for Complex Graphics Presentations; Color-Matching Monitors; Do-It-Yourself Monitor Testing; Honorable Mentions;

HANDS ON

p.227 Beyond DOS: Wide-Area Windows Networking

[theme NETWORKING] [author Jon Udell]

Experimenting with routable protocols for Windows networking;

p.231 Under the Hood: A Standard for Writing Recordable CDs

[theme CD-ROM] [author Jason Hyon]

A look at a CD-recordable standard, ISO 13490, that supports adding sessions and support for new operating systems;

p.237 Some Assembly Required: Subclassing in OLE 2.0

[theme PROGRAMMING] [author Gen Kiyooka]

On the road to object-oriented system serviceS;

OPINIONS

p.243 Pournelle: Travels and Travails

[author Jerry Pournelle]

An especially busy month finds Jerry roaming the country but also active at Chaos Manor.

p.41 Books and CD-ROMs: Low-Cost Data Acquisition

[author Michael Nadeau]

All you want to know about data acquisition, an improved Encarta, open systems, and more.

p.312 Commentary: Shakespearean Wisdom

[author Thornton A. May]

Richard III and information technologists have much in common, but there are differences.

p.10 Editorial

[author Dennis Allen]

p.14 Letters

Readers share their views on PDAs, time synchronization, the software bulge battle, and more.

READER SERVICE

p.310 Editorial Index by Company

p.306 Alphabetical Index to Advertisers

p.308 Index to Advertisers by Product Category

Inquiry Reply Cards: 306A

BUYER'S GUIDE

Mail Order

Hardware/Software Showcase

Buyer's Mart

PROGRAM LISTINGS

From BIX: Join "listings/frombyte94" and select the appropriate subarea (i.e., "jan94").

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.

Vol.19 n°2 february 1994

News & Views

p.22 Just Like Magic

[theme COMMUNICATIONS]

After more than four years in gestation, a suite of technologies designed by General Magic stands poised to alter today's mishmash of wired and wireless networks

p.23 Agents on the Loose

[theme PROGRAMMING]

Telescript, General Magic's communications-oriented programming language, lets developers write tools that permit casual users to create intelligent applications that seek out and retrieve important information

p.24 Best of Comdex Awards

[theme NEW PRODUCTS]

BYTE editors worked morning, noon, and night picking the best products and technologies at Fall Comdex in Las Vegas

p.28 High-Performance 3-D Coming to PCs

[theme GRAPHICS/ENTERTAINEMENT]

Applications such as 3-D model animation, stock market visualization, and other high-end programs usually found on expensive workstations should start appearing in 1994 on less expensive 80x86-based PCs

p.28 Simon Says: Communicate

[theme PDAS]

IBM's new personal communication device combines a cellular phone, fax, E-mail, paging, and personal productivity applications

p.38 Developers Announce PowerPC Mac Applications

[theme APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT]

Apple has distributed the first software development kits for writing applications for the System 7 operating system on the PowerPC. Numerous developers are now announcing support for the Mac PowerPC platform

p.204 What's New

[theme NEW PRODUCT]

A cellular device transmits data; an applications development environment lets you create cross-platform workgroups; virtual reality becomes interactive; and more 204

COVER STORY

p.56 How Safe Is Data Compression

[theme DATA COMPRESSION] [author Tom Halfhill]

On the fly data compression can double your storage space - but not without some hassles and headaches

p.62 Data Compression on the Macintosh

p.64 Data Loss: A Cautionary Tale

FEATURE

p.47 The Macintosh at 10

[theme DESKTOP SYSTEMS] [author Tom Thompson]

On the Mac's tenth birthday, BYTE looks at its profound influence on computing

STATE OF THE ART

p.76 Today's Compilers

[theme THE NEW COMPILERS] [author Frank Hayes]

Challenged by multiple new processors, parallel machines, and operating systems, compiler builders must rework their mainline products to produce faster, leaner code.

p.80 Compiler Benchmarks: How Useful?

p.81 Optimizing for Today's CPUs

Making code run faster and smaller is an important goal of modern compilers.

p.82 Optimizing with Pre- and Post-Compilers

p.86 Pentium Optimizations

p.91 Developing for Multiple Platforms

[author Douglas K. Olson]

Writing applications to run on multiple platforms is an art that software engineers are just beginning to master

p.92 Porting Adobe Photoshop: A Case Study

p.97 Compilers for Parallel CPUs

[author Oliver Sharp]

In converting applications for parallel processing, how much of the job can the compiler do without programmer intervention?

p.98 Types of Parallel Machines

p.100 Converting an Application for Parallel Processing

REVIEWS

p.104 Advancing Communications

[theme COMMUNICATIONS SOFTWARE] [author Howard Eglowstein]

Data communications programs with scripting languages can automate your on-line sessions. Testing editor Howard Eglowstein looks at seven popular communications packages from four different environments, testing them with new 28.8-Kbps moderns.

p.106 Life at 28.8

p.108 New and Improved

p.115 A New Synergy for Windows

[theme APPLICATION-SOFTWARE INTEGRATION] [author Steve Gillmor]

With ProdeaSynergy, you can easily automate interapplication Windows tasks. Gilmor builds cross-application projects with off-the-shelf Windows software and the Prodes tools, Doing the same chores without ProdeaSynergy is difficult and sometimes impossible.

p.125 Hoops 4.0: Beyond 3-D

[theme GRAPHICS] [author Joel Orr]

The common API to most 2-D and 3-D libraries and hardware now offers a real-time mode and a powerful font engine.

p.129 Low-Priced Pentium PCs

[theme DESKTOP SYSTEMS] [author Ed Perratore]

General Pentium price wars have started. This review examines three Pentium systems, priced between $4000 and $4500, from ALR, Gateway, and Ambra.

p.137 PhotoStyler Fights Back

[theme IMAGE PROCESSING] [author Howard Eglowstein]

Since Aldus's last release of PhotoStyler, the image-editing market has heated up with the introduction of Photoshop on the Windows platform. PhotoStyler 2.0 represents more than a simple face-lift. Aldus pumped up the performance and the features set and comes away with a serious competitor.

p.141 WinFax Pro Hits the Network

[theme NETWORK SOFTWARE] [author Stan Miastkowski]

Delrina's WinFax Pro for Networks lets workgroups share fax modems.

p.76 Lab Report: 76 Cards for Fast Graphics

[theme ACCELERATED GRAPHICS CARDS]

Our applications-based tests identify the best PC and Mac accelerator boards for general-purpose and specialized applications.

p.148 Best for VL-Bus Systems

p.150 How We Tested

p.154 Best for ISA-Bus Systems

p.156 Windows NT Drivers: Better Late Then Never?

p.156 How to Buy a Graphics Accelerator

p.158 Best for Macintosh NuBus Systems

p.162 Best for EISA-Bus Systems

p.162 How Bus Architecture Affects Graphics

p.166 Honorable Mentions

p.166 Dubious Achievements

HANDS ON

p.171 Some Assembly Required

[theme PROGRAMMING] [author Andy Singleton]

Genetic Programming with C++: With an appropriate algorithmic structure, you can develop programs that are self-modifying and evolving.

p.177 Under the Hood: Inside the PCI Local Bus

[theme BUS ARCHITECTURE] [author Guy W. Kendall]

This new PC bus provides high throughput and self-configuring add-in cards.

p.181 Beyond DOS: Windows for Workgroups

[theme NETWORKING] [author Jon Udell]

This is the most advanced version of DOS-based Windows now available.

OPINIONS

p.185 Pournelle: Upgrades from Hell

[author Jerry Pournelle]

One assumes Jerry didn't have a great month

p.41 Books and CD-ROMs: The Genesis of the Mac

[author Tom Thompson, Raymond Ga Côté and Michael Nadeau]

The birth of a computer, an astronomy CD-ROM, legal requirements in business, and laptop repair.

p.262 Commentary: Layoff Software

[author Steve Evangelou]

Let's hope this doesn't become a new growth category.

p.10 Editorial

[author Dennis Allen]

p.18 Letters

Readers champion their favorite operating systems

READER SERVICE

p.260 Editorial Index by Company

p.256 Alphabetical Index to Advertisers

p.258 Index to Advertisers by Product Category

Inquiry Reply Cards: 256A

p.215 BUYER'S GUIDE

Mail Order

Hardware/Software Showcase

Buyer's Mart

PROGRAM LISTINGS

From BIX: Join "listings/frombyte94" and select the appropriate subarea (i.e., "feb94").

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.

Vol.19 n°3 march 1994

NEWS & VIEWS

p.22 Chicago: An Ambitious Compromise

[theme WINDOWS]

Windows NT it's not, but Microsoft's next version of Windows will play well on low-end, Intel-based PCs.

p.23 Low-End PowerPC Leaves 68040 Macs in the Dust

[theme POWERPC MACINTOSH]

Preliminary test results have the least expensive PowerPC Mac completing compute-intensive tasks at least three to four times faster than a Mac Quadra 900.

p.26 Teutonizing the Newton

[theme PDAS]

In working on the German version of the Newton PDA, Apple discovered that handwriting-recognition systems add a whole new set of factors in localizing a product.

p.28 Tut's 10-Mbps Telephone Cord Network Could Be Small-Office King

[theme NETWORKING]

A new development brings 10-Mbps networking to companies that are put off by the complexities of network wiring.

p.32 Intel and Nestor to Commercialize Neural-Net Chip

[theme NEURAL NETWORKS]

An agreement between Intel and Nestor to commercialize a neural processor could affect applications ranging from handwriting recognition to air-traffic control.

p.34 Fax Gets a Face-Lift

[theme COMMUNICATIONS]

This spring and summer, a new wave of products will give fax a face-lift by adding binary-file-transfer capabilities.

p.38 Alliances Could Mean Better Integration

[theme OBJECT OPERATING SYSTEM]

Microsoft and DEC will integrate DEC's Object Broker distributed-object system with Microsoft's OLE technology, and the agreement will allow Windows-and OLE-supported Mac applications to seamlessly access data on a wide variety of platforms.

p.220 What's New

[theme NEW PRODUCTS]

A PCMCIA card with its own audio; Windows software for powerful imaging; Visual Basic tools; and more.

COVER STORY

p.46 Building the Data Highway

[theme WIDE-AREA NETWORKS] [author Andy Reinhardt]

Building the data highway will require a blending of diverse technologies. What's the best way to send large amounts of data over today's mix of copper, coaxial cable, and fiber-optic lines? Should the transport protocol be ATM? TCP/IP? TCP/IP over ATM? The major players - the phone companies, the cable companies, and proponents of the Internet - each have their own vision of what the data highway should be. Whose vision should prevail?

p.52 Government Policy on the Data Highway

p.56 Data Highway Lags in Japan

p.58 Europe's Many Data Highways

p.60 Highway Safety: The Key Is Encryption

p.62 The Tools for New TV

STATE OF THE ART

p.78 Managing Mass Storage

[theme STORAGE TECHNOLOGY] [author Scott Wallace]

Advances in storage technology struggle to keep up with the burgeoning pace of storage requirements.

p.86 Storage Hot Spots

p.91 Digital Hard Drives

[author Peter Wayner]

Digital-read-channel technology will double the capacity of a standard hard drive, letting you pack more data on your hard disk.

p.93 PRML at Work

p.97 IDE Takes Off

[author Joe Bryan]

A low-cost solution, enhanced IDE will allow you to connect more and different peripherals to your PC.

p.99 SCSI vs. IDE

p.107 Optical Advances

[author David K. Campbell and Kraig Proehl]

A convergence of technologies is set to take the capacity of magneto-optical drives into the stratosphere.

REVIEWS

p.120 Three Suits Deals

[theme INTEGRATED BUSINESS SOFTWARE] [author Bill Lawrence]

Office application suites are taking the market by storm. But do you really get extra functionality and smoother integration by turning to a single vendor for all your major applications.

p.122 OLE 2.0: Death to Monoliths?

p.129 Multiprocessor Horsepower

[theme SYSTEMS] [author Raymond Ga Côté]

p.129 BYTE compares three dual-processor PCs from ALR, Compaq, and VTech. Running two processors - whether 486 or Pentium - gives a big boost to Microsoft's SQL Server under Windows NT.

p.139 Q+E: The Key to ODBC

[theme DATABASE DEVELOPMENT] [author Steve Apiki]

With ODBC drivers and Q+E's 2.0 release of Database Library, you can build a database-independent applications. The drivers enable a transparent connection to multiple data sources, while the library of DLLs delivers features - such as transactions support and explicit record locking - not necessarily supported by the database engine.

p.143 Client/Server Made Easy

[theme CLIENT/SERVER] [author Ben Smith]

NobleNet's EZ-RPC takes the sting out of writing client/server applications. Whether converting existing stand-alone programs of starting from scratch, applications programmers can write distributed applications without any network programming skills.

p.145 Budget CD Recording

[theme CD-ROM] [author Tom Thompson]

Cutting your own CD-ROMs has become affordable now that CD-R drives with recording software go for around $4000. Tom Thompson tests three, from JVC, Microboards, and Pinnacle Micro, on both Mac and PC platforms.

p.151 Desktop Telephony

[theme COMMUNICATIONS] [author Raymond Ga Côté]

PhonePro makes it easy to build phone automation applications for the Mac.

p.156 Lab Report: 46 Powerful Portables

[theme 486-BASED PORTABLES]

486 processing power now comes in two portable-computer form factors. See our exclusive ranking to find the best notebook and subnotebook for your application.

p.158 Best Windows Notebooks

p.158 New Pointers

p.162 How We Tested

p.162 Essential Features

p.166 Best Color Notebooks

p.166 Dual Scan: An Economical Compromise?

p.171 Best Desktop Replacement Notebooks

p.172 Mobile Multimedia

p.174 Best Subnotebooks

p.174 SL-Enhanced CPU's: Power Misers, but Rare

p.177 Lithium Promises Longer Battery Life

p.178 Honorable Mentions

p.178 Dubious Achievements

p.183 Under the Hood: A Close-Up of OpenDoc

[theme CROSS-PLATFORM ARCHITECTURE] [author Kurt Piersol]

A new vendor-neutral document standard provides a natural way to work with information while operating on different platforms.

p.191 Some Assembly Required: Life with NewtonScript

[theme APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT] [author David Betz]

Programming the game of Life in the Apple Newton's scripting language.

p.197 Beyond DOS: Visual Basic Custom Controls

[theme OLE EMBEDDING] [author Jon Udell]

Exploring Visual C++ 1.5's powerful OLE support.

OPINIONS

p.201 Pournelle: Booting, Benchmarking, and Bob's Your Uncle

[author Jerry Pournelle]

A potpourri of activity at Chaos Manor as Jerry continues his exploration of the Windows machinery.

p.41 Books and CD-ROMs: A Cache-Memory Primer

[author Bob Ryan and Michael Nadeau and Raymond Ga Côté]

The theory and practice of cache-memory design, a fantastic world on CD-ROM, multimedia production, and strange patterns.

p.278 Commentary: Virtual Legality

[author Victor J. Cosentino]

As the law struggles to catch up with technological changes, what happens to our legal, social, and ethical responsibilities?

p.10 Editorial

[author Dennis Allen]

p.18 Letters: WANs, printer technology, and statistics

READER SERVICE

p.276 Editorial Index by Company

p.272 Alphabetical Index to Advertisers

p.274 Index to Advertisers by Product Category

Inquiry Reply Cards: 144A, 272A

p.233 BUYER'S GUIDE

Mail Order

Hardware/Software Showcase

Buyer's Mart

PROGRAM LISTINGS

From BIX: Join "listings/frombyte94" and select the appropriate subarea (i.e., "mar94").

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.

Vol.19 n°4 april 1994

NEWS & VIEWS

p.22 Intel Pushes the 80x86 Envelope

[theme PROCESSORS]

In terms of sheer processing power, Intel is behind the RISC curve. Its next-generation Pentium may only keep the gap from widening. But that may be enough.

p.24 Apple Opens the Mac OS

[theme OPERATING SYSTEM]

After years of carefully guarding its Macintosh system software, Apple (Cupertino, CA) is taking steps to spread the Mac OS to several different platforms.

p.28 Video Acceleration in the Fast Lane

[theme PC VIDEO ACCELERATORS]

Two coalitions, VESA and an Intel-ATI pairing, have offered new graphics standards to speed digital video across the desktop.

p.32 35mm-Size Display Has VGA Resolution

[theme DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY]

Thanks to Kopin's Smart Slide technology, it may not be long before you can wear a head-mounted display that's about the size of a 35mm slide yet sports 640-by 480-pixel VGA resolution.

p.32 Motif Offers Variation on LCD Theme

Motif says its active addressing offers the best of both worlds - the low cost of passive matrix and the fast response of active matrix.

p.40 New Access Targets Wider Audience

[theme WINDOWS DATABASE]

Access 2.0 is what Microsoft wanted Access 1.0 to be: an easy-to-use, full-featured, relational database for Windows.

p.252 What's New

[theme NEW PRODUCTS]

RediDockit and DigiDial provide wireless control for your PC; Rapport Script brings object-oriented word processing to Unix; Internet-In-A-Box lets you access the Internet from your PC; and more.

COVER STORY

p.44 Apple, IBM Bring PowerPC to the Desktop

[theme NEW SYSTEMS] [author Tom Thompson and Bob Ryan]

The first PowerPC systems for the desktop provide many pleasant surprises, especially low price.

SPECIAL REPORT : THE RISC DECISION

p.109 Windows on RISC

Emulating Windows on even the fastest RISC workstation might mean disappointing performance.

p.112 Intel, TI Show Off the 486DX4

p.119 Emulation: RISC's Secret Weapon

[author Tom R. Halfhill]

Emulation is beginning to appear as an integral feature in some new operating systems, and its ambitious goal is to shield users from the incompatibilities of different hardware and operating-system platforms.

p.139 Developing for RISC

[author Alex Lane]

RISC development tools must offer more variety and greater ease of use.

p.142 Porting to RISC: Not Just a Recompile

p.149 Justifying NT

[author Jon Udell]

Available on RISC, CISC, and SMP platforms, Advanced Server and SQL Server make NT a viable choice to provide file and database services to your LAN.

p.150 How We Tested SQL Server on NetWare, OS/2, and NT

p.158 SQL Server for NT on CISC and RISC

p.164 LAN Operating-System Testing

STATE OF THE ART

p.74 Object Databases

[theme OBJECT DATABASE SYSTEMS] [author Richard Marlon Stein]

Object-oriented DBMSes solve the problem of storing persistent data from an object-oriented application.

p.82 The Object Database Standard

p.85 The Great Debate

[author Craig S. Mullins]

To store complex data objects, relational database systems must perform expensive and CPU-intensive transformations because of their simplified storage capabilities. Object database systems and object-oriented programming languages make it possible to store and access such data in an easy, efficient manner.

p.99 Objects in Use

[author Russell Kay]

The object-oriented approach looks great in theory - but what's it like out in the field? Here's a look at how object database technology is being used in a variety of real-world applications - the reasons, the benefits, the drawbacks, product selection, and wish lists.

REVIEWS

p.173 Almost as good as being there (conferencing enhancements)

[theme COMMUNICATIONS] [author H. Eglowstein]

Microfield Graphics SoftBoard and AT&T DataPort 2001 Multimedia Communicator enhance long-distance teleconferencing.

p.178 Whiteboarding with Software

p.181 Multiprotocol Print Server

[theme PRINTING] [author Ben Smith]

A $695 multiprotocol print server from Axis Communications connects as many as three printers directly to Ethernet LANs, providing equal access to PCs, Macs, and Unix machines. The NPS 550's virtual printer technology simplifies configuration and administration.

p.185 Easier Ethernet

[theme NETWORKS]

Plug Tut Systems' $99 Silver Streak adapter onto your Ethernet card, and you can string inexpensive, easy-to-install silver-satin phone cord instead of thin Ethernet. The Silver Streak allows full 10-Mbps Ethernet speed over the UTP phone cord.

p.186 Ethernet Cabling Methods

p.188 Verifying Your LAN Cables

p.189 Multimedia Presentations

[theme MULTIMEDIA] [author Shelley Cryan]

Time-line-based presentation software can enliven a traditional computer-based presentation with motion, animation, video, sound, and interactive controls. Cryan evaluates the best multimedia presenters for Windows and the Mac.

p.199 Mac Programming Power Tools

[theme DEVELOPMENT TOOLS] [author Raymond Ga Côté]

Côté finds Mainstay's new C and BASIC programming environments for the Macintosh hard to pigeonhole and harder to resist.

p.229 NIC Update: 22 New Ethernet Cards

16-bit NICs from Asia, evaluated by the Taiwan-based independent testing lab LANBit Computer.

p.206 Lab Report: 57 PCs That Set the Pace

[theme HIGH-END SYSTEMS] [author S. M. Platt]

Should you buy a high-end 486 or a Pentium? We evaluate 37 66-MHz 486DX2 systems and 20 Pentium systems to find the best performers for Windows, Unix, and DOS applications.

p.208 Best Pentiums for Windows

p.210 How We Tested

p.211 Best Pentiums for Unix

p.215 Best ISA 486s for Windows

p.217 Best EISA 486s for Windows

p.219 Best 486s for Unix

p.221 Best 486s for DOS

p.222 Honorable Mentions

p.222 Dubious Achievements

HANDS ON

p.131 Under the Hood: The Power Mac's Run-Time Architecture

[author Randy Thelen]

Power Mac offer backward compatibility and support for future development.

p.231 Some Assembly Required: Developing Applications in Perl

[theme PROGRAMMING] [author Tom Christiansen]

This widely supported public domain language can easily solve many general programming problems.

p.237 Beyond DOS: Essential Reading

[theme PROGRAMMING] [author Jon Udell]

A look at four recent books on Windows NT, Win32, and OLE 2.

OPINIONS

p.241 Pournelle: What's Hot, What's Not

[author Jerry Pournelle]

It's time once again for the annual User's Choice Awards from Chaos Manor.

p.41 Books and CD-ROMs: Internet Resource Guide

Thousands of Internet listings, government information on CD-ROM, computer design, and repetitive strain injuries.

p.308 Commentary: The First Bug

[author Fred Shapiro]

Exposing the myth of the first bug.

p.10 Editorial

[author Dennis Allen]

p.18 Letters

Compression problems, the Richard III-MIS director comparison, and Mac SCSI hints.

READER SERVICE

p.306 Editorial Index by Company

p.302 Alphabetical Index to Advertisers

p.304 Index to Advertisers by Product Category

Inquiry Reply Cards: 304A

p.261 BUYER'S GUIDE

Mail Order

Hardware/Software Showcase

Buyer's Mart

PROGRAM LISTINGS

From BIX: Join "listings/frombyte94" and select the appropriate subarea (i.e., "avr94").

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.

Vol.19 n°5 may 1994

NEWS & VIEWS

p.22 The Engines to Make Multimedia Mainstream

[theme DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING]

As industry groups seek to standardize software programming interfaces, DSPs may hold the key to bringing voice video, and telephony to low-cost PCs.

p.26 LANtastic 6.0 Creates Peer Pressure

[theme NETWORK OPERATING SYSTEMS]

Peer LANs have evolved from limited-function packages to full-featured systems that integrate into enterprise LANs.

p.30 Front Ends Ease Internet Access

[theme INTERNET COMMUNICATIONS]

A number of companies are releasing software designed to make accessing the Internet easier.

p.33 Adapting GUI Software for the Blind Is No Easy Task

[theme ADAPTIVE COMPUTING]

The widespread adoption of graphical applications adds a whole new set of challenges for applications developers and visually impaired users.

p.34 Motorola's Envoy First to Run Magic Cap

[theme PDAS]

Despite initial disappointing results in the area of PDAs, companies continue to develop hand-held, communications-centric computing devices.

p.38 CAD Gets Objective

[theme PROGRAMMING TRENDS]

CAD software vendors are beginning to exploit new technologies such as object-oriented programming and OLE 2.0.

p.40 Apple's and Microsoft's System Software Road Map

[theme OPERATING SYSTEMS]

Apple recently divulged new information on plans for its Mac operating system.

p.220 What's New

[theme NEW PRODUCTS]

Sparcbook 3 ships with the Solaris OS; Face to Face provides real-time cross-platform document conferencing for PCs and Macs; and more.

COVER STORY

p.46 Componentware

[theme PROGRAMMING] [author Jon Udell]

Component software, as exemplified by Visual Basic's custom controls, is succeeding where object-oriented computing has failed.

p.52 Object Wars

FEATURES

p.57 Extensible Software Systems

[theme SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT] [author Dick Pountain and Clemens Szyperski]

New programming tools are needed to develop software systems tha can be easily extended with new modules.

p.58 Subtyping or Subclassing?

p.60 Inheritance or Delegation?

p.67 The Computerized Patient Record

[theme INFORMATION PROCESSING] [author Scott Wallace]

Computerized patient records will improve health care and reduce costs.

p.81 Desktop Data Conferencing

[theme MULTIMEDIA] [author Andrew W. Davis]

A new breed of multifunction DSP-based peripherals makes data conferencing inevitable and lays the groundwork for personal videoconferencing.

p.82 The High Cost of Videoconferencing

p.84 DSPs and the PC Mainstream

STATE OF THE ART

p.90 Wireless Gets Real

[theme WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS] [author David A. Harvey and Richard Santalesa]

Buoyed by new products, services, and access standards, wide-area wireless communications is ready for prime time.

p.94 PCSes Are Coming

p.99 Universal Wireless Lan

[author Cees Links and Wim Diepstraten and Vic Hayes]

The IEEE brings order to the chaotic world of wireless LANs by agreeing upon a foundation protocol for media access.

p.102 The Evolution of a Standard

p.113 Agents Away

[author Peter Wayner]

Telescript provides the glue that lets personal communicators access the world. It could change the way you talk to the world.

p.118 Speaking the Same Language

REVIEWS

p.122 E-Mail from Afar

[theme COMMUNICATIONS] [author Howard Eglowstein and Ben Smith]

Lotus cc:Mail and Microsoft Mail provide the necessary E-mail tools for communicating with offices in far-flung locations. We liked both user interfaces, but cc:Mail is easier on the administrator.

p.124 E-Mail in Your Pocket

p.126 Can PC E-Mail Be the Wrong Choice?

p.133 Without Peer

[theme NETWORKS] [author Barry Nance]

Zenith Data Systems' new $999 Z-Stor Personal Server is a dedicated file server that makes sense for small workgroups. Bundled with Novell's Personal Netware, it almost installs itself on Ethernet LANs.

p.137 Poet in Motion

[theme PROGRAMMING]

Poet 2.1 is a true object-oriented database that also includes all the features of a full-blown multiuser database: compound indexes, locks, even multilevel transactions. Grehan explains how programmers can use the same structures of C++ code to support the database.

p.145 Desktop Dictation

[theme VOICE RECOGNITION] [author Stanford Diehl]

The IBM Personal Dictation System brings computer-based dictation services to a mainstream corporate audience. With its support of voice input of system commands and its sophisticated dictation application, the system can support text entry in a fully "hands free" environment. Its accuracy and ease of use make the system viable for general business correspondence.

p.146 Learning to Listen

p.149 Printer at Work

[theme PRINTERS] [author Ed Perratore]

The First At Work laser printer. Lexmark's WinWriter 600 provides good performance and an excellent user interface.

p.157 Big-Screen Stars

[theme DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY] [author Steve Apiki]

Capable 21-inch monitors from Nanao and Nokia push resolution to a flicker-free 1600 by 1200 pixels. Both can support an 80-HZ refresh rate if you've got the right graphics card.

p.161 SITcomm Is Serious

[theme COMMUNICATIONS] [author Tom Thompson]

Apple Events support is one reason Thompson finds Aladdin Systems' SITcomm a standout among Mac communications packages.

p.164 Lab Report: Head to Head: 71 Printers

[theme PRINTERS] [author Scott Higgs and Chandrika Mysore]

p.166 Best for General Business

p.166 As We Went to Press

p.168 How We Tested

p.169 Best for Workgroups

p.171 Best for CAD and DTP

p.173 Best for Color

p.175 Best for Draft Quality

p.177 Best for Listings and Forms

p.178 Honorable Mentions

p.178 Dubious Achievements

HANDS ON

p.187 Under the Hood: The Panose Typeface-Matching System

[theme FONT MAPPING] [author Scott Boggan and Michael De Laurentis]

A look at a font-matching system based on visual characteristics.

p.193 Some Assembly Required: The Icon Programming Language

[theme PROGRAMMING] [author Ralph E. Griswold]

Icon does string and structure processing and numerical computation.

p.201 Beyond DOS: IPX and NetBIOS for OS/2

[theme NETWORKING] [author Barry Nance]

Over-the-wire message passing with NetBIOS and IPX in an OS/2 environment.

OPINIONS

p.205 Pournelle: Crash, Bang - Quake

[author Jerry Pournelle]

Jerry survives an earthquake, installs a LAN server, and gives out more User's Choice Awards.

p.41 Books and CD-ROMs: Entertaining Math Models

[author Rick Cook and Lamont Wood and Dave Vislosky and Ben Smith]

Mathematical modeling, CD-ROM databases, computer ethics, and 3-D graphics libraries.

p.278 Commentary: The Introversion of America

[author Tom R. Halfhill]

Are virtual communities on the Internet taking the place of neighborhood communities?

p.10 Editorial

[author Dennis Allen]

p.18 Letters

The data superhighway, the "real" reasons for technical-support calls, and environmental concern

p.156 Reader Survey

READER SERVICE

p.276 Editorial Index by Company

p.272 Alphabetical Index to Advertisers

p.274 Index to Advertisers by Product Category

Inquiry Reply Cards: 272A

p.231 BUYER'S GUIDE

Mail Order

Hardware/Software Showcase

Buyer's Mart

PROGRAM LISTINGS

From BIX: Join "listings/frombyte94" and select the appropriate subarea (i.e., "may94").

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.

Vol.19 n°6 june 1994

NEWS & VIEWS

p.24 Desktop Conferencing Takes Off

[theme GROUPWARE] [author A. Reinhardt]

Although not as flashy as full-length feature films on CD-ROM or 3-D virtual reality, desktop conferencing applications can save you time and money

p.28 Switching Hub Get Their Due

[theme ETHERNET NETWORKING]

Somewhat overshadowed by ATM products, Ethernet switching hubs are now getting the respect they deserve.

p.32 The Memory-Card Manager Grows Up

[theme PCMCIA STANDARDS]

The committee works on a new PCMCIA standard that will add bus mastering, a 32-bit data path, and 3.3-V operation.

p.32 Vendors Work to Cure Incompatibility Blues

[theme NETWORK BACKUP]

Backup software and hardware vendors hope that a new standard, the System Independent Data Format, will make incompatibility problems obsolete

p.33 OS/2 On the PowerPC Slated for This Year

[theme SYSTEM SOFTWARE STRATEGY]

By year-end, IBM plans to release its first Microkernel-based Workplace OS product for the PowerPC, which is, in essence, OS/2 running on the PowerPC.

p.34 Users: Give Us Connected PDAs with PCMCIA

[theme PDAS]

BYTE interviewed and surveyed about 30 current or former PDA users and came up with a 10-point wish list for next-generation PDAs.

p.40 Options for Notes Developers to Improve

[theme APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT]

Developers frustrated by a limited number of visual-programming tools should see a change this summer.

p.288 What's New

[theme NEW PRODUCTS]

InterActive Communicator talks back, HotDocs automates document creation, and more.

COVER STORY

p.74 80x86 Wars

[theme NEW PROCESSORS] [author Tom R. Halfhill]

The Intel-based 80x86 continues to dominate the desktop, and it will likely continue with the anticipated introduction of new designs from Intel and its competitors.

p.76 NexGen Nx586 Straddles the RISC/CISC Divide

p.82 BYTE Lab Benchmarks the First P54C Systems

p.86 An 80x86-Compatible PowerPC?

SPECIAL REPORT: DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING

p.125 DCE: Building the Distributed Future

[author Michael D. Millikin]

The Distributed Computing Environment standard provides the services to make distributed computing manageable, multiplatform, and transparent to users.

p.139 Distributing Data

[author Jane Richter]

Although complex, businesses are relying more and more on distributed databases .

p.153 Managing Storage

[author Andy Reinhardt]

How do you get the most recent, important data where it is needed in a distributed environment?

p.165 Distributed and Secure

[author Russell Kay]

Securing distributed systems starts with controlling access.

p.183 The Changing World of EIS

[author Karen Watterson]

The role of EIS in a distributed environment is uncertain.

p.197 Remote Connections

[author Michael Nadeau]

Access performance, and data integrity are some of the issues of connecting remote clients.

p.206 Distributed-Computing Resource Guide

FEATURES

p.47 The Fine Art of CD-ROM Publishing

[theme CD-ROM] [author Dick Pountain]

The electronic version of the National Gallery collection demonstrates how traditional material can be adapted to new publishing media.

p.57 Multimedia Powerhouse

[theme PROCESSORS] [author Karl M. Guttag]

The designer of the TI MVP discusses the multimedia functions that drove the design of the chip.

p.65 1994 Readers' Choice Awards

[theme PRODUCTS]

BYTE readers separate the best from the rest.

REVIEWS

p.209 Power to the New Macs

[theme DESKTOP SYSTEMS] [author Tom Thompson]

Affordable Power Macs run old 680x0 software surprisingly well. The new Macs save their performance punch for a small but growing number of programs compiled for the PowerPC 601 processor.

p.216 Scheduling Across the Enterprise

[theme GROUP SCHEDULERS] [author Ben Smith and Howard Eglowstein]

Group-scheduling software relieves some of the tedium and frustration of corporatewide scheduling by accessing the combined calendars of all the people across an organization. The BYTE Lab evaluates six cross-platform schedulers.

p.227 Plug-and-Go File Server

[theme NETWORKS] [author Bruce Dawson]

As simple to use as an appliance, the FAServer 400 is a fast, affordable NFS file server for TCP/IP networks.

p.233 Dial-Up Networking

[theme COMMUNICATIONS] [author Bruce Dawson]

Telebit's NetBlazer remote routers enable telecommuting. The NetBlazer PN1, a small Ethernet router with a built-in V.32bis modem, supports IP, IPX, and Apple Ethernet protocols.

p.237 Forecasting the Future

[theme BUSINESS SOFTWARE] [author George Stewart]

Business forecasting software predicts future trends - sales projections, inventory levels, energy usage - by incorporating traditional forecasting methods. The four programs reviewed here guide businesspeople through a forecasting session and generate accessible reports and graphs.

p.241 Novell's Newest DOS

[theme OPERATING SYSTEMS] [author Terje Mathisen]

Is Novell DOS 7 a better DOS than Microsoft's?

p.246 Lab Report: 66 Ethernet Adapters

[theme ETHERNET ADAPTERS]

We test Ethernet NICs, PCMCIA cards, and parallel-port adapters to find the best networking hardware for desktop and mobile applications.

p.248 Best 16-bit NICs

p.248 Hassle-Free NICs

p.250 How We Tested

p.252 Best PCMCIA Cards

p.257 Best Portable Ethernet Adapters

p.258 Honorable Mention

p.258 Dubious Achievements

STATE OF THE ART

p.90 Software Goes Global

[theme INTERNATIONALIZATION] [author Russell Kay]

U.S. software developers scramble for a piece of the international pie.

p.93 Transborder Tips and Traps

[author Chris Miller]

A look at the many technical issues and problems involved in moving software.

p.96 Observing the Conventions

p.107 Crossing the Cultural Boundary

[author Kumiyo Nakakoji]

Cultural factors impinge on software design

p.113 Developing Software Overseas

[author Edward Yourdon]

The developing countries are also developing competitive software industries.

p.114 Quality: The Hidden Offshore Advantage

p.118 Software in Russia

CORE TECHNOLOGY

p.265 PowerPC 604 Weighs In

[theme CPUS] [author Bob Ryan and Tom Thompson]

IBM and Motorola's latest CPU outperforms the Pentium.

p.267 Retrofitting OS/2 for SMP

[theme OPERATING SYSTEMS] [author Michael Kogan]

OS/2 well exploit symmetric multiprocessing hardware.

p.271 From Here to There

[theme NETWORKS] [author Ben Smith]

A look at the growing popularity of the Point-to-Point Protocol.

p.273 Port Mac Applications to the PowerPC

[theme PROGRAMMING] [author Rick Grehan]

Apple finds a way to ease the task of moving programs over to the Power Mac.

OPINIONS

p.277 Pournelle: A Pentium Is Sounded Out

[author Jerry Pournelle]

Sound boards clash with hard drive controllers on new Pentium system.

p.41 Books and CD-ROMs: Levels of Secrecy

[author Rick Grehan and Tom Thompson and Raymond Ga Côté and Scott Wallace]

A look at cryptography, Marvin Minsky on CD-ROM, "plugs," and visualization of scientific data.

p.344 Commentary: Think Multiplatform

[author Raymond Ga Côté]

A software engineer's perspective of multiplatform applications development.

p.9 Editorial

[author Dennis Allen]

p.18 Letters

PowerPCs, the legality of E-mail contracts, a data-highway reality check, and Chicago's effect on software development.

p.276 Reader Survey

READER SERVICE

p.342 Editorial Index by Company

p.338 Alphabetical Index to Advertisers

p.340 Index to Advertisers by Product Category

Inquiry Reply Cards: 340A

p.297 BUYER'S GUIDE

Mail Order

Hardware/Software Showcase

Buyer's Mart

PROGRAM LISTINGS

From BIX: Join "listings/frombyte94" and select the appropriate subarea (i.e., "jun94").

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.

Vol.19 n°7 july 1994

NEWS & VIEWS

p.28 Borland Readies dBase, Takes Aim at Microsoft

It looks like dBase for Windows, Borland's long-delayed Windows version of the popular database development language, is close to release. Based on a look at a prerelease version, the program will offer features that won't be available in FoxPro for Windows for several months. Also covered: the next release of Paradox for Windows.

p.32 WordPerfect Enters Paperless-Document Arena

With WordPerfect Envoy, WordPerfect joins Adobe, Farallon Computing, and No Hands Software in offering portable electronic-document solutions.

p.36 The Best of Interop + Networld

Editors from McGraw-Hill's TechNet magazines - BYTE, Data Communications, LAN Times, and Open Computing - recognized companies that have products that advance global networking.

p.37 High-Speed 1394 Train Still at the Station

First products based on the proposed high-speed serial-bus P1394 interface, also known as FireWire, likely won't begin showing up until later this year.

p.37 1-2-3 Proves DOS Isn't Dead

Lotus's latest DOS spreadsheet includes many slick features already proven in 1-2-3 for Windows, such as nameable index tabs and SmartIcons.

p.40 PIMS Are Not So Personal Anymore

Proving that no person is an island, software developers are adding group-collaboration features to PIMs.

p.212 What's New

A stackable Ethernet switch; portable wireless LAN adapters; imaging in Windows NT; object-based programming; and more.

COVER STORY

p.80 Computer Telephony

[author Jon Udell]

The means to link your phone and computer is now available to nearly everyone.

p.86 First-Party vs. Third-Party Call Control

p.89 Macintosh Telephony

p.94 Distributed Computer Telephony

FEATURES

p.53 Parallel Course

[author Dick Pountain]

With Taos - a radically different, object-oriented, parallel operating system - it's possible to harness together the power of different types of processors.

p.62 Accelerating Engineering Design

[theme REENGINEERING] [author Scott Wallace]

A sophisticated engineering design system - combined with concurrent engineering methodology - is compressing time on a Lockheed Missile and Space Corp. missile development program.

STATE OF THE ART

p.100 Working Smarter

[author Scott Wallace]

Process-analysis and modeling tools provide core support for workgroup and work-flow applications. Experience in the trenches shows that technology is only part of the solution.

p.103 Know Your Work-Flow Tools

[author Thornton May]

The four basic classes of work-flow tools vary widely from one another.

p.106 DEC and Wang Put It All Together

p.109 Work-Flow and Legacy Systems

[author Meichun Hsu and Mike Howard]

Legacy systems are good at what they do; it's what they don't do that's the problem.

REVIEWS

p.121 Software Roundup: Network Management Systems

[theme NETWORKS]

BYTE evaluates software tools for managing complex LANs. The utilities range from desktop administration tools to high-end products with enterprise-wide device management.

p.133 Easing Windows' Graphics Bottleneck

[theme VIDEO CARDS] [author Greg Loveria]

Greg Loveria tests new 64-bit graphics adapters from five companies. All are blazingly fast with 24-bit graphics; one is surprisingly affordable.

p.134 A Bigger Bus

p.141 PowerPC Hits the Road

[theme SYSTEMS] [author Bruce Dawson]

IBM introduces the first PowerPC-based notebook. The RS/6000 N40 borrows many nice features from IBM's ThinkPad line, but though strong on performance, it's weak on battery life.

p.147 Friendly Acquisition

[theme DATA ACQUISITION] [author Ira Eglowstein]

The latest Windows data acquisition software lets you build applications without writing a line of code. Graphical programming saves time and money, allows more flexibility, reduces programming errors, and empowers nonprogrammers, Eglowstein evaluates seven current Windows tools.

p.152 Linking Development Teams

[theme PROGRAMMING] [author Edmund X. Dejesus]

With a distributed-objects architecture, a full suite of programming tools, and seamless version control, DEC's Cohesion WorX delivers a sophisticated environment for software development across heterogeneous networks.

p.155 Controlling Cross-Platform Objects

p.161 Power Workstation at a Pentium Price

[theme SYSTEMS] [author Ben Smith]

The HP 9000 Series 700 Model 712/60 uses innovative hardware packaging and the superscalar PA-7100LC CPU to achieve breakthroughs in low cost and high performance for a Unix workstation.

p.168 Lab Report: 26 Modems: Faster Than 14.4 Kbps

[theme HIGH-SPEED MODEMS] [author H. E. Holzbaur]

High-speed modems flout standards but promise faster transmission and lower costs. We evaluate 26 modems to see which are ready for data and fax applications.

p.170 Best V.34 Modems

p.170 V.34 versus V.32terbo

p.172 How We Tested

p.173 Impaired Lines: Crash Tests for Modems

p.175 Best V.32terbo Modems

p.176 Portable Modems

p.176 Honorable Mentions.

CORE TECHNOLOGY

p.183 A Taligent Update

[theme OPERATING SYSTEMS] [author Jon Udell]

Taligent's long-awaited developer's kit debuts this summer.

p.187 Visual Programming's Many Faces

[theme PROGRAMMING] [author Peter D. Varhol]

A quick climb through a growing family tree of visual programming products and paradigms.

p.191 Pentium Secrets

[theme CPUS] [author Terje Mathisen]

Undocumented features of the Intel Pentium can give you all the information you need to optimize Pentium code.

p.193 Pretty Good Privacy

[theme NETWORKS] [author William Stallings]

Privacy and security are important issues to commercial users of public E-mail systems. PGP, an E-mail security package, is finding acceptance as the way to achieve protection.

OPINIONS

p.197 Pournelle: An Educational Trip

[author Jerry Pournelle]

A journey to England finds Jerry attending a conference on education and a computer show.

p.51 Books and CD-ROMs: Put Fuzzy Logic to Work

[author Jon Udell and Hughes Pack and Ben Smith and Scott Wallace]

A calculus of everyday concepts, a CD-ROM about the space shuttle, cross-platform connection, and electronic imaging.

p.270 Commentary: Call in the Feds

[author Andy Reinhardt]

The government must be involved with the data highway.

p.14 Editorial

[author Dennis Allen]

p.18 Letters

Readers resist hype and respond to coverage of object computing, object databases, and medical databases.

p.245 Reader Survey

READER SERVICE

p.268 Editorial Index by Company

p.264 Alphabetical Index to Advertisers

p.266 Index to Advertisers by Product Category

Inquiry Reply Cards: 265

p.223 BUYER'S GUIDE

Mail Order

Hardware/Software Showcase

Buyer's Mart

PROGRAM LISTINGS

From BIX: Join "listings/frombyte94" and select the appropriate subarea (i.e., "jul94").

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.

Vol.19 n°8 august 1994

News & Views

p.26 OS/2 Gets Lean and Mean

[theme OPERATING SYSTEMS]

IBM has released the first beta of a new version of OS/2 for Windows: a 32-bit operating system that will run well on 4-MB PCs. But support for APIs for future versions of Windows is uncertain.

p.30 Hubs Branch Out of the Wiring Closet

[theme WIDE-AREA NETWORKS]

When combining hubs with devices that give users WAN access, vendors are making sure the components complement each other so that the combination is often better than what you'd get if you bought the pieces separately.

p.34 IBM Plans Ambitious Network

This fall, IBM will introduce Intelligent Communications, a set of communications services that span the gulf between different access providers, mail systems, delivery media, and user devices.

p.44 Help for Patent Fever

[theme NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT]

New products and services are out that can help a developer file a patent application or search for prior patents.

p.44 Add Seamless ZIP Support to Your Windows Applications

[theme PROGRAMMING]

DynaZIP lets you build Windows-based C/C++ or Visual Basic programs that can read and write standard ZIP files.

p.48 CorelDraw 5.0 Adds Better Image-Editing Tools

[theme WINDOWS GRAPHICS]

CorelDraw 5.0 offers an improved PhotoPaint image-editing application and numerous new image-editing tools.

p.48 Kurzweil Brings Voice Dictation to Windows

[theme SPEECH RECOGNITION]

At least three Windows voice-dictation programs will be available by year-end. Kurzweil Applied Intelligence's Voice for Windows 1.0 is the first.

p.202 What's New

[theme NEW PRODUCTS]

The Quartet provides four PCI ports; Enable for Windows integrates five applications; and more.

Cover Story

p.90 Managing the New Document

[theme DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT] [author Andy Reinhardt]

As compound document architectures make their way into the desktop computing mainstream, the way we manage documents is fundamentally changing.

p.92 Standards Efforts Aim to Ease Interoperability

p.100 Distributed Document Management with OLE and OpenDoc

p.104 Image Retrieval for Compound Documents

Features

p.55 Fine-Tune LANtastic

[theme PROGRAMMING] [author Amin R. Ismail and Rhonda Copley]

The LANtastic API gives you an unprecedented degree of control over your network configuration.

p.67 Silicon in Reverse

[theme LOW-POWER TECHNOLOGY] [author Peter Wayner]

Reversible logic circuits promise to radically decrease the power requirements of future VLSI chips.

p.68 Low-Power Chip Technology

p.78 Cache Advantage

[theme David F. Bacon] [author David F. Bacon]

CPUs get the glory, but cache type and organization are just as critical in determining system performance.

State of the Art

p.108 Back of the Bus

[theme BUS TECHNOLOGY] [author Russell Kay]

Connecting add-on devices to your computer can be an exercise in frustration. New buses promise to simplify the process.

p.111 SCSI and Beyond

[author Dinah McNutt]

New standards clarify the future direction and higher-speed capabilities of this long-established workhorse interface for PC, Macintosh, and Unix platforms.

p.112 Purchasing Hints, Troubleshooting Tips

p.117 Seriously Serial

[author Mark Clarkson]

Two new serial buses contend for desktop acceptance - the low-speed Access.bus and the high-speed P1394/Fire Wire. Each has special strengths.

p.118 Pumping Up the Parallel Port

p.123 Fibre Channel Speeds Up

[author John Bryan]

Here's a new route to the fast lane on the serial superhighway, opening up the capabilities of optical-fiber connections and incorporating other buses and protocols.

Reviews

p.129 Software Roundup: Virus-Prevention NLMs

[author ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE]

As the computing world becomes increasingly interconnected through LANs, wide-area links, the Internet, and on-line services, corporations are more vulnerable to the threat of computer viruses. BYTE evaluates a convenient and effective solution: antivirus software that works as NetWare NLMs. We test seven products for performance, effectiveness, usability, and versatility.

p.137 Flatbed Color Professionals

[author G. Armour Van Horn]

New color flatbed scanners from Agfa, Microtek, and Umax provide a price/performance balance that should appeal to graphics professionals. You may not need your local color service's drum scanner for image processing.

p.143 Apple Redefines the Notebook

[theme SYSTEMS] [author Tom Thompson]

The latest PowerBooks set a new standard for notebook computers: built-in Ethernet, an innovative trackpad, optional PCMCIA expansion, 16-bit color, stereo sound, and a fast 68040 processor upgradable to PowerPC. Tom Thompson tests the new PowerBooks.

p.147 Blazing the Path

[author Ben Smith]

DEC's LinkWorks delivers a multiplatform - Unix, OpenVMS, PC, and Macintosh - work-flow system. If groups in your organization collaborate on the creation and development of documents, images, or data, LinkWorks can provide an effective set of tools for automating your most complex work-flow tasks.

p.153 SPARC Workstations to Go

[theme SYSTEMS] [author Steve Apiki]

SPARC portables from RDI, Sun, and Tadpole put workstation computing on the road. These systems have at least a 50-MHz MicroSparc CPU, 32 MB of RAM, 340 MB of internal SCSI storage, and a color TFT display. All include software to handle such mobile problems as rapidly reconfiguring between different network situations. Apiki tests for performance, features, and portability.

p.159 "The" Debugger Is Aptly Named

[theme DEVELOPMENT TOOLS] [author Tom Thompson]

This program is an essential tool for developing native PowerPC programs.

p.164 Lab Report: 21 Pyrotechnic Pentiums

[theme PENTIUMS]

Our application tests identify the best Pentium systems for general business and high-performance computing.

p.166 Best Pentiums for General Purpose Windows

p.166 486DX4: A 100-MHz Alternative to Pentiums

p.169 Best Pentiums for High-Performance Windows

p.171 Best Pentiums for Unix Applications

p.174 How We Tested;

p.176 Beating the Heat

p.176 Honorable Mention

Core Technologies

p.183 Functional Programming Comes of Age

[theme PROGRAMMING] [author Dick Pountain]

Following a decade of crucial research breakthroughs, functional programming languages are catching on, even in the realms of parallel programming and real-time systems.

p.184 The Erlang Language

p.185 A Different Kind of RISC

[theme CPUS] [author Dick Pountain]

Hewlett-Packard's PA-RISC 7200 superscalar processor is not typical, and neither is its performance: It's likely to hold the title of "fastest RISC in town" for the immediate future.

p.187 System 7.5: A Step Toward the Future

[theme OPERATING SYSTEMS] [author Tom Thompson]

System 7.5 is a significant evolutionary step toward a new Mac OS.

p.191 SNMP Version 2

[theme NETWORKS] [author William Stallings and Ben Smith]

SNMP is maturing as evidenced by the added functionality of SNMP 2.

Opinions

p.193 Pournelle: Traveling Light

[author Jerry Pournelle]

Jerry experiments with minimalist computing

p.49 Books and CD-ROMs: Embedded Systems Programming

[author Rick Grehan and Tom Thompson and Michael Nadeau]

Developing embedded systems, a Holocaust story on CD-ROM, and a look at the future of publishing.

p.252 Commentary: R.I.P. Commodore 1954-1994

[author Tom R. Halfhill]

A look at the company that introduced millions to personal computing.

p.10 Editorial

[author Dennis Allen]

p.18 Letters

How to preserve a sense of community in neighborhoods while still enjoying on-line communities.

p.205 Reader Survey

READER SERVICE

p.250 Editorial Index by Company

p.246 Alphabetical Index to Advertisers

p.248 Index to Advertisers by Product Category

Inquiry Reply Cards: 248A

p.211 BUYER'S GUIDE

Mail Order

Hardware/Software Showcase

Buyer's Mart

PROGRAM LISTINGS

From BIX: Join "listings/frombyte94" and select the appropriate subarea (i.e., "aug94").

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.

► Lire la revue / Get this issue (archive.org)

Vol.19 n°9 september 1994

News & Views

p.24 Into the Enterprise

[theme WINDOWS SUITE]

New software releases by Lotus and announcements by Microsoft and WordPerfect reflect the companies' different strengths and philosophies.

p.25 Color Laser Moves Toward Mainstream

[theme LASER PRINTING]

Color laser printers for under $5000 may be appearing in offices soon.

p.30 Photoshop and Picture Publisher Get a Face-Life

[theme IMAGE EDITING]

The top vendors of image-processing software are unleashing new versions of their high-end programs.

p.32 Businesses Turn to BBSes

[theme COMMUNICATIONS]

Amid all the information-highway headlines, business and government agencies are turning to an information-sharing technology that's existed since the early days of personal computing: the electronic bulletin board system.

p.38 Getting CISC into RISC

[theme PROCESSOR TRENDS]

The RISC-CISC debate is taking some interesting turns that could have a profound effect on the future of the personal computer industry.

p.40 Bigger and Better

[theme PORTABLE COMPUTERS]

Reality is setting in: Small too often translated into flimsy and underpowered products. Subnotebook vendors' renewed efforts will hit the market this summer and fall.

p.40 Inexpensive, Fast, and Slow to Acceptance

[theme WINDOWS PRINTERS]

When looked at from a technological viewpoint, Windows printers ought to be big sellers. But analysts don't expect the category to take off for a couple of years. Here's why.

p.220 What's New

[theme NEW PRODUCTS]

PCMCIA connects notebooks to Ethernet, Macs become multimedia-ready, open architecture brings visual development to C++, and more.

Cover Story

[theme SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE]

p.78 Transforming the PC: Plug and Play

[author Tom R. Halfhill]

For over a decade, users have struggled with the arcana of expanding a PC system. Plug and Play promises to make system configuration - and reconfiguration - a simple and painless affair. Getting from here to there, however, won't be nearly as simple or painless.

p.80 Plug and Play with DMI

p.82 Tips for Plug and Play

p.86 What They're Saying About Plug and Play

p.92 Building a Better BIOS

Features

p.47 The Last Bastion

[theme SUPERCOMPUTING] [author Dick Pountain]

"Computer on a chip" is old hat; are you ready for a "supercomputer on a chip"?

p.59 Data over Cellular

[theme WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS] [author John Bryan]

Support builds for AT&T Paradyne's Enhanced Throughput Cellular.

p.67 Processors Proliferate

[theme EMBEDDED PROCESSORS] [author Rick Grehan]

While most CPU designers seek bigger processors with more power, others are looking for less. Small is a strategy that's working remarkably well in niche markets.

p.68 The Taming Power of the Small

State of the Art

p.98 Connecting Networks

[theme INTERNETWORKING]

Linking up multiple, far-flung networks for an enterprise calls for high-bandwidth digital connections.

p.103 On the Road to ATM

[author Peter Wayner]

ATM is a strong contender for connecting enterprise networks cost-effectively. Among the first to adopt ATM will be small workgroups that need to move large blocks of data.

p.113 LANs Make the Switch

[author John Bryan]

Three types of packet-switching hardware - shared-memory systems, shared-bus designs, and multistage switch matrix units - make it easier to maintain high-speed connections among an organization's LANs.

p.114 What's on the Market

p.125 Digital Remote Access

[author Jeffrey Fritz]

No longer an expensive and hard-to-justify luxury, high-speed remote access to networks is now possible using ISDN and other digital services available from the phone companies.

p.126 The Analog Alternative

Reviews

p.137 Software Roundup: Remote-Control Windows

[theme REMOTE-CONTROL SOFTWARE]

With remote-control software, you can access all the resources of your desktop computer system from just about anywhere. BYTE evaluates the six remote-control programs most widely used for running Windows applications. We test the programs for performance, features, usability and versatility.

p.151 Big, Fast IDE Drives

[theme HARD DRIVES] [author David Essex]

New IDE drives provide performance suitable for local-bus systems and capacities that exceed a gigabyte. We test eight of the latest.

p.157 Access 2.0: The Best of Both Worlds

[theme DATABASES] [author Jim Carls]

With new ease-of-use features and enhanced development tools, Microsoft Access 2.0 aims at database dabblers and developers. Reviewer Jim Carls evaluates Access as both an end-user tool and a development environment.

p.161 SparcStation Overhaul

[author Eric Garland]

Sun has updated its graphics workstation lineup. BYTE looks at the inexpensive SparcStation 5, powered by Sun's new MicroSparc II processor, and the SparcStation 20, which holds up to four SuperSparc processors.

p.162 Dual SuperSparcs

p.167 Power of Cooperation

[author J. Bruce Dawson]

Linux is a freely available version of Unix, developed by individuals from all over the world. But it isn't a bare-bones Unix clone. It is full of the features you would expect to find only in a commercial implementation of Unix.

p.171 Low-Cost Simulation

[author Dany Dion]

A circuit simulator lets you try before you fry.

p.176 Lab Report: 24 CD-ROM Drives: Double-Speed Rules

We test 24 double-speed and faster CD-ROM drives to identify the price/performance leaders.

p.178 The Best Double-Speed CD-ROM Drives

p.178 Do You Need Quad Speed?

p.180 How We Tested

p.182 Fast Access to Multiple CDs

p.182 CD-ROM for the Road

p.184 Honorable Mentions

p.184 Dubious Achievements

[author Core Technologies]

p.191 Silicon for 3-D

[theme CPUS] [author Peter Wayner]

Inexpensive 3-D hardware is coming to a PC near you, and games, slide presentations, virtual reality - even spreadsheets - will never be the same.

p.193 The Fix Is In for Chicago

[theme OPERATING SYSTEMS] [author Jon Udell]

Chicago will be the most radical Windows upgrade ever. Here's what's important and improved in Microsoft's newest operating system.

p.197 Object-Oriented COBOL

[theme PROGRAMMING] [author Rick Grehan]

Object-oriented - hold on to your hat - COBOL is in the works. How could such a thing remain true to the spirit of the language - and what would it look like?

p.201 Optimizing Notes Replication

[theme NETWORKS] [author David Yavin]

The issue of replication scheduling is moving to the forefront. Buyers and vendors of distributed data systems should raise their level of awareness about this potentially critical issue.

Opinions

p.205 Pournelle: Don't Blink

[author Jerry Pournelle]

Jerry tackles the trinity of SCSI, video cards, and sound cards; as usual, he wins.

p.41 Books and CD-ROMs: PowerPC: Cultural and Technological Perspective

[author Jon Udell and Rich Friedman and Rick Cook]

A chronicle of the PowerPC revolution, college selection via CD-ROM, and an encyclopedia of computer cracking via a network.

p.278 Commentary: Why IBM Should License Win32

[author Jon Udell]

To survive as an operating-system vendor, IBM will need a credible Win32 strategy.

p.14 Editorial

[author Dennis Allen]

p.18 Letters

Computing in a global environment, computing and U.S. politics, and a few clarifications.

p.229 Reader Survey

READER SERVICE

p.276 Editorial Index by Company

p.272 Alphabetical Index to Advertisers

p.274 Index to Advertisers by Product Category

Inquiry Reply Cards: 272A

p.211 BUYER'S GUIDE

Mail Order

Hardware/Software Showcase

Buyer's Mart

PROGRAM LISTINGS

From BIX: Join "listings/frombyte94" and select the appropriate subarea (i.e., "sep94").

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.

Vol.19 n°10 october 1994

News & Views

p.24 BPR Tools Help You Work Smarter

[theme BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING]

Applications for the desktop that let managers implement business process reengineering projects and, in some cases, create work-flow applications.

p.25 The Pentium Goes Mainstream

[theme PC TRENDS]

Intel has reduced prices on all but it 100-MHz Pentium chips. The result: a new line of affordable Pentium-based PCs, some with enhanced IDE drives, high-speed serial ports, and 64-bit graphics acceleration for $2500 or less.

p.28 TV Services Add Value to Desktop PCs

[theme TV COMPUTING]

Cable TV may soon provide a lot more than clear reception of the Simpsons. Companies are testing custom news services, on-line access, local discussion forums, and other services that will be delivered to your PC or a set-top box.

p.30 Taiwanese Vendors Wait for Operating Systems

[theme POWERPC SYSTEMS]

They're ready with the hardware, but major Taiwanese PC manufacturers continue to wait for a wider selection of operating systems than just AIX to load on the PowerPC clones.

p.34 Low-Cost Video Acceleration Arrives

[theme PC GRAPHICS CARDS]

Graphics accelerator cards that deliver improved video playback should arrive in force this fall at prices under $500.

p.36 Ethernet Switching at a Fraction of the Cost

[theme PC SWITCHING-HUB CARDS]

Even with the benefits of improved network performance, companies hesitate to adopt Ethernet switching, fearing expense and unfamiliarity. A new class of product, a switching hub on a PC card, eliminates both objections.

p.224 What's New

[theme NEW PRODUCTS]

DECtalk Express Speech Synthesizer goes where you go; Visual Thought communicates ideas graphically; and more.

Cover Story

p.50 The Network with Smarts

[theme INTELLIGENT NETWORKING] [author Andy Reinhardt]

Intelligent networks from AT&T and IBM could dramatically change the way you work and may set the model for a future of mobile software agents.

p.52 Don't Write Off the Internet

p.64 Telescript Security

Features

p.65 Measure for Measure

[theme BENCHMARKS] [author Oliver Sharp and David F. Bacon]

The more you know about benchmarks, the more you can use them intelligently when evaluating systems.

p.68 A world of Benchmarks

p.75 Unix at 25

[theme OPERATING SYSTEMS] [author Peter H. Salus]

For a quarter of a centry, Unix has defined the design of commercial operating systems. Here's the story of what gives Unix its staying power.

p.86 Solutions Focus: Experts in the Field

[theme EXPERT SYSTEMS] [author Scott Wallace]

Expert-system technology can pay off by capturing and codifying knowledge from throughout an organization.

State of the Art

p.98 Get That Data!

[theme DATA ACQUISITION]

Modern business runs on information. New tools and standards help capture and process that information in nontraditional ways.

p.103 Design of a Lifetime

[author Sara Reese Hedberg]

Product designers today face new requirements: They must account for the entire life cycle up front.

p.104 Made in the USA

p.111 Process Control's New Face

[author Mark Clarkson]

Personal computers are a cost-effective tool for controlling industrial processes.

p.121 EDI Moves the Data

[author Peter Wayner]

Eliminating the paper chase can speed up business and cut costs.

p.126 Digital Cash

p.128 Whose Authentication Systems?

Reviews

p.129 Software Roundup: SQL Front Ends for Windows

[author Mark Hettler and Scott Higgs]

NSTL evaluates three high-end SQL packages for developing sophisticated applications in a client/server environment. PowerBuilder, SQL Windows, and Object View are tested for performance, versatility, power, and usability.

p.143 Networking on a Beam of Light

[theme NETWORKS] [author Howard Eglowstein]

Photonics' Cooperative infrared LAN connects a roomful of Macs wirelessly. It's simple to use: You plug the small transceiver unit into a system's LocalTalk port.

p.145 Due Recognition of OCR

[theme OCR] [author Howard Eglowstein]

We compared the new high-end Windows products of major OCR vendors Caere and Calera with each other and with the international edition of less-know Recognita's product. We also tested Xerox's low-cost TextBridge 2.0 against all three. For serious OCR work, accuracy is critical, but if you don't do high-volume OCR, TextBridge may be your best bet.

p.153 Watcom C/C++ Get a New Face

[author Rick Grehan]

With version 10.0 of its C/C++ compiler, Watcom has added a complete graphical development environment and enhanced cross-platform capabilities. From a DOS, OS/2, Windows, or Windows NT host, you can now generate executables for DOS, Windows, Windows NT, OS/2, Novell NetWare, and AutoCAD. And from a single host you can produce both 16-and 32-bit code.

p.159 Mac SCSI Utility Sampler

[theme MACINTOSH UTILITIES] [author Tom Thompson]

Two SCSI utilities that let you attach third-party SCSI drives to your Mac.

p.163 Cross-Platform Warrior

[author Raymond Ga Côté]

Metrowerk's CodeWarrior is a powerful, exciting development environment for both 680x0 Macintosh and Power PC platforms.

p.169 One World, One Fax

[theme FAX SERVERS] [author Howard Eglowstein]

Global Village's One World fax server gives a Mac network an easy shared fax solution. The One World fax server installed on the BYTE editorial LAN is evaluated for its performance, flexibility, and ease of use.

p.174 Lab Report: 31 No-Compromise Portables

[theme HIGH-PERFORMANCE PORTABLES] [author A. J. Lennon]

We choose the best high-performance notebooks and subnotebooks. We also rate the leading portable printers for speed and print quality.

p.176 Best High-Performance Notebooks

p.176 PowerBook Update

p.181 Best 486 Based Subnotebooks

p.183 Best Protable Printers

p.186 How We Tested

p.188 Honorable Mentions

p.188 Dubious Achievements

p.192 Roll Call.

Core Technology

p.197 Alpha Rides High

[theme CPUS] [author Bob Ryan]

The 21164 is head and shoulders above the rest.

p.199 QNX Forges Ahead

[author Peter D. Varhol] [author Peter D. Varhol]

New uses for QNX, a venerable, micro-kernel-based operating system.

p.203 Charting the Uncharted

[author Steve Niezgoda]

Market dynamics may force you to port your Unix applications to Windows NT. Here's a guide to translating calls from one operating system to the other.

p.207 Clearing Away the ISDN Roadblocks

[author Jeffrey Fritz]

ISDN still isn't smoothly interoperable, but there's hope

Opinions

p.211 Pournelle: Odds and Ends

[author Jerry Pournelle]

Jerry looks at a dramatic morphing program, a neural network, and more.

p.45 Books and CD-ROMS: Build Power Macintosh Applications

[author Raymond Ga Côté and Rich Friedman and Russell Kay]

Power Mac program development, a science CD-ROM, and object-oriented programming languages.

p.282 Commentary: Slouching Toward the Internet

[author Craig Nova]

A world of information can seem just out of reach.

p.10 Editorial

[author Dennis Allen]

p.41 Blasts from the Past

Highlights from two decades of covering the computer revolution.

p.18 Letters

Reactions to Commodore's demise

p.202 Reader Survey

READER SERVICE

p.280 Editorial Index by Company

p.276 Alphabetical Index to Advertisers

p.278 Index to Advertisers by Product Category

Inquiry Reply Cards: 276A

p.235 BUYER'S GUIDE

Mail Order

Hardware/Software Showcase

Buyer's Mart

PROGRAM LISTINGS

From BIX: Join "listings/frombyte94" and select the appropriate subarea (i.e., "oct94").

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.

Vol.19 n°11 november 1994

News & Views

p.34 Polysilicon: The Path to Better Displays?

[theme DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY]

New fabrication techniques for creating screens based on the polysilicon technology could result in bigger, higher-resolution LCD displays than currently found on laptop computers.

p.41 CD-ROM Drive Prices Drop

[theme CD-ROM TRENDS]

A combination of strong competition and new technology should force prices for CD-ROM readers to drop this fall.

p.26 The Web Means Business

[theme THE INTERNET]

The Internet's popularity is booming, and it's being partly driven by the World Wide Web's red-hot popularity.

p.27 Solutions to Internet Traffic Jams

[theme THE INTERNET]

The number of bytes transferred on the Internet has doubled. Many Internet observers are busy working to prevent network overloads in the future.

p.38 New Languages Reflect DifferentvPriorities

[theme C++ PROGRAMMING]

With their newest C++ products, Borland and Microsoft have taken fundamentally different focuses: Microsoft emphasizes cross-platform coverage and the ability to create OLE Custom Controls, and Borland introduces a highly modular set of OLE 2.0 tools.

p.56 Apple Redefines the Macintosh

[theme MAC OS TRENDS]

Apple Computer is embarking on a two-to three-year project to redefine the Mac's proprietary hardware/software architecture to accommodate industry standards and eventually merge with IBM's PReP (PowerPC Reference Platform).

p.308 What's New

[theme NEW PRODUCTS]

Scan color graphics in a single pass; converse and hold interactive conferences from a distance; turn workgroup objects into networked discussion forums; and more.

Special Report : Beyong Windows

p.132 Exploring Chicago and Daytona

[author Jon Udell]

p.151 Windows Becomes DSP-Aware

[author Andrew W. Davis]

p.163 MAPI Blooms in Chicago

[author Tom Sheldon]

p.177 Globalization of Windows

[author Dean Abramson]

p.189 Automating TCP/IP in NT

[author Peter Wayner]

p.199 Extending the Reach of OLE

[author Keith Pleas]

p.207 Windows Becomes LAN Friendly

[author Barry Nance]

p.215 Managing Color in Chicago

[author Tom R. Halfhill]

Features

p.65 PCMCIA: Past, Present, and Promise

[theme PCMCIA STANDARDS] [author John Bryan]

With Chicago on the horizon and adherence to standards improving, PCMCIA promises peripherals that truly let you plug and play.

p.75 Starting with a Clean Sheet

[theme APPLICATIONS DEVELOPMENT] [author Dick Pountain]

Objects are the future of programming, and the CleanSheet spreadsheet construction set gives you a picture of what that future holds.

p.81 Smarter Copiers, Printers, and Fax Devices Are Coming

[theme PERIPHERALS] [author Andy Reinhardt]

Microsoft and Novell believe that peripherals and PDAs need their own operating system.

State of the Art

p.92 The New CPUs

[theme MICROPROCESSORS]

As competition heats up both in the PC and the workstation marketplaces, many of the industry's leading companies stake their futures on new ground-breaking CPUs.

p.95 AMD vs. Superman

[author Tom R. Halfhill]

The AMD K5 is an innovative marriage of RISC and CISC technology that will challenge Intel's strangehold on the high end of the PC market.

p.105 SPARC Strikes Back

[author Peter Wayner]

The latest incarnation of SPARC can perform with the big boys and is a multimedia screamer to boot.

p.113 PowerPC 620 Soars

[author Tom Thompson and Bob Ryan]

The newest member of the PowerPC family targets the workstation market with fast throughput and speedy floating-point performance.

p.123 T5: Brute Force

[author Tom R. Halfhill]

Using aggressive superscalar techniques, the T5 gives a big boost to the Mips architecture as it battles Windows NT competitors Alpha and Pentium.

Reviews

p.255 Software Roundup: Dynamic-Viewing Spreadsheets

[theme SPREADSHEETS] [author Bobby Joe Reff]

Lotus Improv gained exposure and praise as a tool for viewing strategic data in a variety of useful ways. Although Improv has been discontinued, other programs deliver similar functionality, slicing and dicing data to create analytical models. NSTL evaluates Microsoft Excel, Quattro Pro, and TM/1 Perspectives.

p.233 Face-to-Face Collaboration

[theme VIDEOCONFERENCING] [author Eric Garland and Dave Rowell]

BYTE takes an in-depth look at a sampling of desktop videoconferencing systems.

p.239 The C-Phone Solution: Out of Band

p.243 Windows Illustration

[theme WINDOWS GRAPHICS] [author G. Armour Van Horn]

Similarly priced but miles apart in the features they offer, CorelDraw 5 and FreeHand 4 for Windows both hold their own in the competitive Windows design and graphics illustration arena.

p.247 Network Problem Solver

[author Ben Smith]

Fluke's LANMeter 675 tests and analyzes protocols, networking hardware, and cables. This tool can quickly isolate problems on both Ethernet and Token Ring LANs;

p.251 Switching ISDN

[theme COMMUNICATIONS] [author Jeffrey Fritz]

Symplex Communications' DirectRoute is a flexible and powerful tool for remote LAN access. It provides aggregate bandwidth on multiple ISDN channels, data compression, and connection-oriented switching.

p.92 Printers Go to Battle

[author J. Kane and J. McDonough]

Ninety-two laser, color, ink-jet, and fast dot-matrix printers go head-to-head in our latest round of real-world tests. Our rankings identify the best models for six important business uses, ranging from general business to high-end color applications.

p.264 The Best Printers for General Business

p.268 How We Tested

p.269 The Best Printers for Workgroups

p.271 CAD and DTP

p.273 High-Quality Color

p.277 Draft Quality

p.279 Listings and Forms

Core Technologies

p.287 VLIW Questions

[theme CPUS] [author Peter Wayner]

Does the Intel/HP alliance spell the beginning of the end for RISC?

p.289 Whither NextStep?

[author Bruce F. Webster]

Concepts of the NextStep operating system are finding new life in OpenStep.

p.291 Power Mac Code Optimizations

[theme PROGRAMMING] [author Tom Thompson]

Avoid performance pitfalls in Mac OS

p.297 Running the Frame-Relay Race

[author Michael McParland and Ethan Wilansky]

Frame relay is an affordable way to get your LANs talking to each other.

Opinions

p.299 Pournelle: A Look to the Future

[author Jerry Pournelle]

Jerry highlights some major trends he sees in the computer industry.

p.61 Books and CD-ROMs: The Joy of the Internet

[author Craig Nova]

A look at 10 guides to the Internet and a CD-ROM on morphing.

p.366 Commentary: Teacher Training Is Key

[author Hughes Pack]

Too many schools are buying computers and stinting on the training.

p.10 Editorial

[author Dennis Allen]

p.57 Blasts from the Past

Highlights from two decades of covering the PC revolution.

p.18 Letters

Plug and Play new and old, split routing, Linux sources, OS/2 with Win32, and Ghost Busters.

p.340 Reader Survey

READER SERVICE

p.364 Editorial Index by Company

p.360 Alphabetical Index to Advertisers

p.362 Index to Advertisers by Product Category

Inquiry Reply Cards: 360A

p.317 BUYER'S GUIDE

Mail Order

Hardware/Software Showcase

Buyer's Mart

PROGRAM LISTINGS

From BIX: Join "listings/frombyte94" and select the appropriate subarea (i.e., "nov94").

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.

Vol.19 n°12 december 1994

News & Views

p.26 New Products Help Road Warriors Stay in Touch

[theme MOBILE COMPUTING]

A new round of telecommunications-savvy products seek to improve the communications of telecommuters and mobile workers.

p.27 Sony Releases Magic Cap Device

[theme PERSONAL DIGITAL ASSISTANTS]

Sony's new Magic Link PIC-1000 offers a break from traditionnal computing that at times enables and at other times hinders communications.

p.30 Network Management Gets Physical

[theme LAN MANAGEMENT]

To help make management easier for LAN administrators, vendors like NHC Communications are integrating physical network capabilities with their SNMP management programs.

p.34 Holiday Gift Sampler

[theme ENTERTAINMENT]

Holiday gift ideas for the BYTE reader include a build-your-own robot kit; cool CD-ROM games for DOS, Mac, and Windows; 3-D graphics/video accelerator cords; screen savers; and a card that brings 3DO games to the PC.

p.38 These Maps Lead to the Desktop

[theme MAPPING]

Companies are making their geographic information systems products available for personal computers in increasing numbers.

p.40 Electronic Banking Faces Numerous Hurdles

[theme PERSONAL FINANCE]

The merger between Intuit and Microsoft will align two powerful software compagnies in the personal finance arena. Yet software vendors face numerous hurdles before electronic banking become ubiquitous.

p.238 What's New

[theme NEW PRODUCTS]

Cover Story

[theme NEW TECHNOLOGIES] [author Tom R. Halfhill]

Apple is betting on three new technologies that it hopes will transform its future. But if Apple guesses wrong, it could finish the decade as a minor player.

p.64 Macs in the Enterprise

p.68 A 110-MHz PowerPC Speed Demon

Features

p.74 Solutions Focus: High-Tech Training

[theme MULTIMEDIA] [author Mickey Williamson]

Computer-based training keeps employees up to speed.

p.89 Write an NT Winsock Service

[theme APPLICATIONS DEVELOPMENT] [author Chuck Chan, Margaret K. Johnson, Keith Moore and David Treadwell]

The emerging Winsock standard can make writing networked services for Windows NT more palatable. This hands-on guide answers WinSock design questions.

State of the Art

p.104 Network Management

[theme NETWORKS] [author Russel Kay]

Take a look at how you can sort out the pieces of your network puzzle.

p.109 Monitoring Your Net

[author Paul Korzeniowski]

You say you don't know what's happening on your network, bucko? What's with every interface card, router, bridge, and hub? Where the bottleneck and problems are? Here's how to find out.

p.117 (Mis)using Bandwidth

[author Brett Husselbaugh]

Increasing network performance tops almost everyone's wish list. But be careful when deciding to use a more glamourous technology just to gain bandwidth. Other factors may have a greater influence over network performance than bandwidth.

p.129 ATM Traffic Control

[author Mark Juliano]

How the ATM traffic cops maintain orderly data flow and guarantee service to high-bandwidth applications.

p.130 ATM with a French Accent

Reviews

p.139 Low-Cost Color Lasers

[theme PRINTERS] [author Tom Thompson]

New laser models offer color-printing quality and per-page costs competitive with the best ink-jet printers but with laser-printer speed and networking capabilities. Tom Thompson reviews the color lasers from HP, QMS, and Xerox.

p.145 Simonizing the PDA

[theme PERSONAL DIGITAL ASSISTANTS] [author Chris O'Malley]

BellSouth's Simon is here. Able to send and receive E-mail, faxes, and pages, it's easily the most communicative PDA to date.

p.153 Collecting Facts from Fax

[theme ELECTRONIC FORMS] [author Stan Miastkowski]

p.163 SCSI Rides High on PCI

[theme INTERFACE ADAPTERS] [author Steve Apiki]

SCSI host adapters from Adaptec, BusLogic, and Future Domain bridge Fast SCSI-2 to faster PCI. But performance testing under NetWare shows that all PCI SCSI cards are not created equal.

p.169 Software Roundup: Four Peer Operating Systems

[theme NETWORKING] [author Barry Nance]

Peer-to-peer LANs are now better at managing resources, and file integrity will improve as future OS/2- and Windows 95-based systems emerge. Tests of four top players reveal important differences in speed, compatibility, and security.

Core Technologies

p.211 Pentium Chip's Dual Personality

[theme CPUS] [author Roeland Van Krieken]

Here's how the P54C supports dual-processor configurations.

p.213 CTOS Revealed

[theme OPERATING SYSTEMS] [author Dirk S. Faegre and Jon Udell]

CTOS shows the practical business benefits of a microkernel architecture.

p.217 Programming in Tight Spaces

[theme PROGRAMMING] [author Rick Grehan]

p.221 Network Spoofing

[theme NETWORKS] [author Jeffrey Fritz]

Network protocols constantly exchange management information. LAN users normally don't notice the lost bandwidth, but over a slower WAN connection, it can be significant. Worse, WAN connections are often charged on a usage basis. Spoofing is one technique to reduce network overhead.

Opinions

p.225 Pournelle: Can You Say Network?

[author Jerry Pournelle]

p.45 Books and CD-ROMs: Not-So-Successful Reengineering

[author Thornton May and others]

Reengineering, trip-planning CD-ROMs, a multivolume set on BSD Unix, and Unix whiners.

p.292 Commentary: Teach Formal Methods

[author John Cuadrado]

A look at the development of safety-critical systems.

p.10 Editorial

[author Dennis Allen]

p.41 Blast from the Past

Highlights from two decades of covering the PC revolution.

p.18 Letters

Plug and Play criticism and the OS/2 debate.

p.234 Reader Survey

READER SERVICE

p.290 Editorial Index by Company

p.286 Alphabetical Index to Advertisers

p.288 Index to Advertisers by Product Category

Inquiry Reply Cards: 144A, 288A

p.247 BUYER'S GUIDE

Mail Order

Hardware/Software Showcase

Buyer's Mart

PROGRAM LISTINGS

From BIX: Join "listings/frombyte94" and select the appropriate subarea (i.e., "dec94").

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.