ldf@killer.UUCP (Leon Frenkel) (07/21/87)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: OXXI, INC. JOHN HOUSTON (714)999-6710 BENCHMARK MODULA-2: SOFTWARE CONSTRUCTION SET FROM OXXI SETS NEW STANDARD FOR PROGRAMMING PRODUCTIVITY Fullerton, CA - June 26, 1987 - Oxxi's entry into the field of programmer productivity is the new Modula-2 Software Construction Set called Benchmark for Amiga Computers. Shipment of Benchmark will begin in September through Oxxi's standard distribution network. Benchmark, delivers a highly efficient environment for developing programs by integrating the primary tools used in software development: an Editor, Compiler and Linker. The Editor is based on EMACS an editor developed at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Benchmark's Editor contains well over 125 commands for dealing with multiple files, windows, and buffers. The Compiler implements the entire Modula-2 language as defined by N. Wirth, the creator of PASCAL and Modula-2 languages. Compilation of densely packed programs takes place at an average speed of 10,000 lines per minute with burst speeds of up to 30,000 lines per minute. The Compiler can be activated by pressing a key while in the Editor, no time is wasted loading the Compiler in from a floppy disk since it is always resides in memory. Once the program is compiled, the Editor automatically positions itself at the sight of any errors and displays an error message. The error can the be fixed and the Editor repositioned at the next error by pressing a key. Once all parts of the program have been compiled successfully, the lightning fast Linker is activated by pressing a single key in the Editor. The program is then linked into a stand alone executable file. Running the program is as simple as pressing a key from the Editor, or by using either the Amiga Command Line Interface or the Workbench to execute the program. Thus a program can be written, compiled, debugged, and executed without leaving the Editor. One of the unique features of Benchmark is that it can be used right out of the box without performing any installation. Most other language products currently on the market have complex installation procedures which in many cases discourage their use by beginning programmers. For the professional developer, programs written in Benchmark Modula-2 can be distributed without any further licensing requirements from Oxxi. The Benchmark Modula-2: Software Construction Set includes the following items: * Full screen interactive EMACS Editor * A lightning fast Modula-2 Compiler * A turbo speed Linker built into the EMACS Editor * Amiga hardware/software support libraries including: Intuition, ROM Kernel, AmigaDOS, etc... * Standard Modula-2 libraries including: FileSystem, InOut, Storage, Terminal, MathLib0, etc... * Demonstration programs showing the usage of many of the Amiga functions, such as windows, graphics, multi-tasking, menus, gadgets, and many others. Some of the demo programs include a free-hand paint program, a desktop calculator, a powerful gadget based directory maintenance program and many others. * Professionally written documentation, consisting of a User's Guide and a Reference Guide totaling over 800 pages. The documentation includes a thorough tutorial and many examples. * A profiling utility for determining which subroutines are used most in a Modula-2 program. * A very fast cross reference utility which can be used on both user and system created libraries. * A utility for loading large numbers of files very quickly into RAM based disks. Very useful for loading libraries into RAM quickly. * A CLI based stand alone Compiler which can compile any number of programs in batch mode. * A CLI based stand alone error lister which can display any errors encountered in a previous batch compilation. * A CLI based stand alone Linker which can link any number of programs in batch mode. * A true assembly language interface for programmers who may wish to write some subroutines using the Amiga assembler. Included is a utility which allows the assembly language subroutines to be interfaced to any Modula-2 program directly. The suggested retail price for this incredible product is only $199. In addition the following add-on products are available for Benchmark Modula-2. These add-ons can only be used with Benchmark Modula-2 and provide capabilities not available from any other vendor at any price. Each add-on product includes extensive documentation and examples. Shipment of the add-on products will commence in September. Each of the products described below has a suggested retail price of $99. 1. "C" Language Standard Library: This add-on product implements many of the functions available in the "C" language standard library. These functions allow programs originally written in "C" to be moved easily into the state-of-the-art Benchmark Modula-2 programming environment. New Modula-2 programs can also take advantage of "C" functions to perform many advanced functions. The following is a sample of the functions included in this package: * printf, fprintf, ... - the formatted output functions * scanf, fscanf, ... - the formatted input functions * fopen, fclose, fseek, ... - the buffered i/o functions * open, close, create, lseek - the un-buffered i/o functions * malloc, calloc, free - the memory management functions * and many others ... 2. Simplified Amiga Libraries: This add-on product is useful to both the beginner and the professional programmer. For beginners it performs functions they would not normally be capable to performing. For professional programmers it can save weeks of programming and debugging routines which are useful in almost every Amiga program. The following is a partial list of the libraries included and the functions they perform: * SimpleScreens - easy Intuition screen creation * SimpleWindows - easy Intuition window creation * SimpleGadgets - easy Intuition gadget creation * SimpleMenus - easy Intuition menu creation * SimpleConsole - easy console device handling * SimpleIDCMP - easy Intuition IDCMP port handling * SimpleSpeech - easy speech synthesizer handling * SimpleGels - easy Graphics Elements creation * SimpleDBuf - easy double buffered animation handling * and many others ... 3. IFF Libraries, Graphic Image Resource Management: This add-on product consists of two very useful components. The first is a set of libraries for dealing with Interchange File Format(IFF) Files and the full documentation of the IFF format. The second is a library and utility program which allow bit-mapped images to be integrated into Modula-2 programs as a resource. The supplied utility reads IFF images and converts them into on of three formats appending the result to the executable Modula-2 program as a resource. At run-time the Modula-2 program can access those images easily. This method is much more efficient than reading the images in from external files. The three image formats currently supported are Intuition or BOB format, Simple Sprite format, and Virtual Sprite format. This product is ideal for any program which utilizes graphics imagery. Modula-2 is the successor language to Pascal and is specifically designed for development rather than just classroom instruction. It is easy to learn especially for programmers familiar with Pascal, "C", or another higher-level language. It is characterized as highly structured with a small and consistent core language. One of Modula-2's outstanding traits is that a program listing is easy to understand even if the original author did not include any comments. Universities are beginning to use Modula-2 as a replacement for PASCAL because it is simple enough for introductory programming courses, yet powerful enough to solve complex programming problems. Test runs of similar Modula-2 and "C" programs compiled on Aztec "C" produced object code files of like size and execution speed. Oxxi's President, John Houston, stated: "Benchmark is the most outstanding developer environments we have seen for personal computers on any machine in any language." Benchmark Modula-2 represents Oxxi's commitment to publishing state-of-the-art software. Oxxi is fast becoming one of the leading business productivity software publishers for the Amiga. Oxxi was founded in 1985 by John Houston. Mr. Houston has been associated with the successful launching and marketshare expansions of several well known micro computer software programs. As Manager of Marketing at Sorcim, he helped design and market the first version of SuperCalc. Later at Ashton-Tate in the capacity of Director of Product Marketing, he orchestrated the marketing effort for dBase II and III, which are still considered the marketshare leaders for databases in the PC environment.