SEWALL@UCONNVM.BITNET (Murph Sewall) (07/30/89)
From the Robert X Cringely column in the 24 July InfoWorld (did anyone
else notice that Cringely's column is the only page in that issue with
"July 31, 1989" at the top :-)
"I'm learning lots more about the Unix world and more since I came
across an undocumented, unannounced gateway that allows Compuserve nd
Internet users to exchange messages free. It's very easy to use, but
I'm sworn not to tell you how."
VAPORWARE tells all :-) details about the Compu$erve email gateway are
appended to this month's column. Note the date on the information;
someone was kidding Cringely when they told him he couldn't tell.
Enjoy.
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VAPORWARE
Murphy Sewall
From the August 1989 APPLE PULP
H.U.G.E. Apple Club (E. Hartford) News Letter
$15/year
P.O. Box 18027
East Hartford, CT 06118
Call the "Bit Bucket" (203) 569-8739
Permission granted to copy with the above citation
i486 Announcements.
Although last January's report that PC's based on Intel's
new i486 CPU would be introduced by year end was greeted
with some skepticism, no fewer than four manufacturers (IBM,
ALR, AST, and Cheetah International) have announced i486
"upgrade" boards to be shipped "during the fourth quarter."
Cheetah International is offering a choice of a 33 MHz 80386
CPU or a 25 MHz i486 chip for the same $4,995 price. None
of the systems announced, thus, far have motherboards
designed specifically for the i486 and thus will not be able
to realize the full potential of the new processor. The
first complete i486 system may be announced by Sun in
November (see last February's column).
- InfoWorld 17 July and PC Week 10 July
100 MIP PC?
Even though the i486 exists only in sample quantities,
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has already begun discussing
the i586. At a presentation to the Capital PC Users Group
in Rockville, Maryland Gates asserted that "Over the next
five years we'll be able to take PC architecture up to 100
million instructions per second." - InfoWorld 17 July
Apple Splits with Adobe.
Apple has announced that it is developing its own PostScript
language interpreter (due by this time next year) in order
to add its own features and avoid royalty payments to
Adobe. Apple is selling all of its 3.4 million shares
(16.4%) of Adobe stock (after tax, Apple expects to retain a
nearly $50 million dollar profit on its November 1984
investment of $2.5 million).
- MacWeek 11 July and PC Week 10 July
Managing Windows Presentations.
OS/2 Presentation Manager 2.0 for the 80386 (and i486) which
is expected late next year will be able to transparently
translate unmodified MS-DOS Windows applications.
- PC Week 17 July
IIgs Chip Set in the K-12 Macintosh?
In spite of the guffaws from numerous friends at Apple, the
rumor that the company will market a single computer (see
the November 1988 and January and May 1989 columns) capable
of running both Macintosh and Apple 2 software refuses to go
away. In the latest version, the low-end replacement for
the Mac Plus (the so-called K-12 Mac) will retail for $1,299
and contain the Apple IIgs chip set. Maybe it will be
called the IIgs+? Considering the source, the whole concept
may be wishful thinking. - MacWeek 11 July
Mac Stacks of IIgs.
Gossip is that this Fall Apple will release software that
will let the IIgs run Mac Hypercard stacks (slowly).
- InCider August
Apple Takes a RISC.
A prepared statement from Apple says "We have chosen the
Motorola 88000 as the primary platform upon which we are
basing our RISC research. Since our research efforts are
only beginning, it is premature to say whether or not we
will have a RISC-based personal computer." Translation:
Apple's next Macintosh generation will be built around the
Motorola 68040. The 88000 is more likely to appear first
(as early as the first quarter of next year) as display and
sound controllers. Converting the main CPU to the 88000
would require a total rewrite of the Mac Toolbox (among
other things).
- MacWeek 27 June and 11 July and InfoWorld 10 July
What's Happened to the 33 MHz PS/2?
It doesn't look like IBM's 33 MHz 80386 Model 75 will make
its forecast August announcement (see last March's column)
because it is still having trouble getting Class B
certification from the FCC. The i486 board for the 25 MHz
Model 70 is a "peripheral" which isn't subject to the same
certification standards. It's possible that the i486 Model
70 will be available for sale before the Model 75.
- PC Week 10 July
PostScript Quality on Ordinary Laser Printers.
Zenographics is readying an inexpensive ($195) set of
software drivers for Microsoft Windows which will provide
sophisticated graphics and type-set quality output without
the expense of PostScript hardware. A fourth quarter
release is planned for the SuperPrint package which will
offer PostScript quality, scalable fonts, and support for
24-bit color output devices. - PC Week 10 July
IBM Brand Laser Printers.
This Fall IBM will announce three new laser printers based
on a modified version of the Ricoh six page per minute
engine. The low-end model with 512K of memory and 13
built-in fonts is slated to cost less than $1,600. The top
of the line model with full PostScript support will retail
in the $3,000 range - well below current PostScript laser
printer prices. - PC Week 26 June
New Laserjet.
Hewlett-Packard plans to introduce a new, low-cost four page
per minute laser printer in September. The under $2,000
printer will be the first shipped to the U.S. with the new
4-ppm Canon print engine. The printer will support a subset
of HP's Printer Command Language, including some graphics,
but will not have all the features of the Laserjet II
series. - InfoWorld 10 July
Low-Cost Line Printer.
Output Technology has announced plans to begin shipping in
late August a $3,995 printer with a 300 lines per minute
output. The Model 2132 will emulate any of the IBM
ProPrinter XL, Epson FX-286e, or Printronix P6080.
- PC Week 3 July
Toshiba Light.
Last month Toshiba began selling a 6 pound, book-size laptop
in Japan for the equivalent of $1,400. A U.S. version may
be available as early as this Fall. - InfoWorld 3 July
SAS Under OS/2.
SAS Institute has already released versions of its entire
line of statistical and decision support software for
MS-DOS. SAS plans to port its entire line to OS/2 under
Presentation Manager by the end of the second quarter next
year. The biggest attraction of the OS/2 versions will be
the removal of MS-DOS memory limits. - PC Week 10 July
MacMach.
Xinu, Inc., a Berkeley, California Unix developer,
demonstrated a Macintosh II running the Unix-based Mach
operating system at the Usenix Technical Conference. Mach
also is the basis of the NeXT operating system. Xinu is
still negotiating with Apple for distribution rights to
MacMach. - MacWeek 27 June
Vaporwatch.
Ashton-Tate and Fox Software are hurrying to see who can be
the first to ship new dBase/Fox-base software. dBase IV 1.1
which will fix numerous bugs that have retarded adoption of
version 1.0 as well as add some new enhancements is targeted
for "before October 1" while Fox is aiming for a
mid-September release of its latest dBase "work-a-like."
Ashton-Tate's Byline 2.0 has been delayed due to contractual
problems with the developer, but insiders expect the
problems to be resolved by Fall Comdex. Meanwhile A-T's
FullWrite 2.0 (September?) is so far behind that version 3.0
(January?) may overtake it. Apple's HyperCard version 2.0
(with multiuser, network support but without color) will be
delayed until after MacWorld in Boston this month. Now that
1-2-3 version 3.0 is finally out the door, attention is
turning to other Lotus products promised in 1987. Version
2.2 (for older PC's) will be released in September, 1-2-3/G
(Graphic, for the Presentation Manager) and Lotus DBMS (Data
Base Management System for networked 1-2-3) won't be out
until next year. Only four of the 22 Presentation Manager
promised last February for the end of June are on dealer
shelves. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates says most developers
are now planning to ship later this quarter. The infamous
LapMac (too big, too heavy, too slow, and too expensive) may
have been quietly canceled.
- PC Week 3 and 17 July and InfoWorld 3 and 17 July and
MacWeek 20 June
Beware of Lawyers Reading Vaporware.
Lawyers for Ashton-Tate recently fired off a stern letter to
Wordtech Systems instructing them to destroy all marketing
literature and packaging material related to their dBase/SQL
product. The only problem is, Wordtech does not offer, has
not announced, and does not plan to sell a program by that
name. It seems Ashton-Tate's lawyers reacted a mistaken
report published in the April issue of the Netware Technical
Journal. - InfoWorld 10 July
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Date: Fri, 14 Jul 89 17:43:38 -0400
From: Karl Kleinpaste <karl@CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU>
Subject: Mail access to CompuServe
[This is going simultaneously to comp.mail.misc on the Usenet and
info-nets@think.com.]
To clear up some confusion and squash several dozen rumors which have
been floating around since sometime this past Wednesday or
thereabouts, I'm telling people about this now, although more official
(officious? :-) announcements will be forthcoming sometime Real Soon
Now.
CompuServe is email-accessible. The machinery to do so has actually
been in place for some months, but there has been an arbitrarily large
number of reasons why official, live status has not yet been granted
to the gateway. Technically, this is true, even as I write this.
To reach a CompuServe subscriber account of the form
7xxxx,yyy
swap the `,' for `.' and add @compuserve.com:
7xxxx.yyy@compuserve.com
This is necessary for RFC compliance. To reach employees of
CompuServe, they have somewhat more typical usernames inside the
csi.compuserve.com subdomain.
CompuServe subscribers can reach people Out Here from CompuServe's
mailers via the specification:
>internet:user@host.domain
The use of ">stuff:" is CompuServe's general gateway-access syntax; it
does not appear in anything on the Internet side of the gateway, but
rather RFC-compliant headers are generated.
Internet nameservers for compuserve.com are alive and responding, and
pathalias data for a (fictitious) host "compuserve" has been published
since last fall. Internet mailers must support MX records in order to
reach CompuServe. The MX host is saqqara.cis.ohio-state.edu, a.k.a.
osu-cis. I understand that there is some magic that must be performed
on BITNET VM hosts in order to get there due to lack of MX support;
details from other BITNETters, not me.
[That's 7xxxx.yyy%compuserve.com@saqqara.cis.ohio-state.edu - Ed.]
Saqqara speaks with CompuServe approximately half-hourly, though this
will probably change as load is observed.
There are NO charges accrued to ANYBODY on either side of the gateway
for its use. CompuServe subscribers are charged their usual hourly
rates, but there is no gateway-specific surcharge.
The reason for this posting is that the gateway was mentioned rather
casually to info-nets@think.com, resulting in a rather impressive
flurry of queries, explanations, and test notes through the gateway.
The load has been, ah, remarkable. There were quite a number of
misconceptions about it (notably regarding charging, there being none
but others claiming that there would be), and I am hoping to prevent
further rumor-mongering. Vint Cerf presented this on CompuServe's
behalf to FRICC just this past Monday; there is "agreement in
principle" on the gateway's existence, but the formalities of the
situation have yet to be finalized.
Disclaimer: I speak for myself, not CompuServe.
Questions about the gateway => karl@cis.ohio-state.edu
Questions about CompuServe => postmaster@compuserve.com
Cheers,
--Karl Kleinpaste
Personification of the Mailer Daemon
Ohio State Computer Science
Instigator of the Internet/CompuServe mail gateway
no longer acting "postmaster@compuserve.com"
___________________________________________________________
(~~~~) / \
( 0 0 ) | (Prof) Murph Sewall <Sewall@UConnVM.BITNET> |
(| > |) ___/ Marketing Department <Sewall%UConnVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.Edu>|
( \__/ ) <___ School of Business ...psuvax1!uconnvm.bitnet!sewall |
(____) \_ U. of Connecticut *standard disclaimer applies* /
\__________________________________________________________/
(This .sig "borrowed" from Johnson Earls <Jearls@Polyslo.CalPoly.Edu> Thanx!)