OBRIEN%OBRIEN@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU ("James A. O'Brien 432-4382", 203) (02/27/89)
In the past week or two there has been some discussion about the capabilities
of the Rainbow as a more-or-less "orphaned" machine, and the availability
of new hardware and software.
Another NEW software product for the Rainbow (may be interpreted as a sneaky
plug) is now available from SullivanSFT, P.O. Box 292431, Lewisville, TX
75029. It is RBDVI, a TeX DVI file previewer for the Rainbow. Cost is
$59.95 (quantity 1) or $49.95 for IRUG members. Doesn't need a hard disk,
or memory above 256k (for most documents). It only requires the Rainbow
Graphics Option card. It supports horizontal and vertical scrolling, and
display colors are entirely user-selectable for user comfort. Given the
availability of TeX for the Rainbow* e.g. PCTeX from Personal TeX, Inc.
or SBTeX (public domain - FTPable from SIMTEL20 or available from the WARUG
software library), RBDVI allows you to take documents from draft to final
form locally on your Rainbow, and only upload them to your VAX (or wherever you
have a laser printer) to print the final copy. It's also fast - the first
page of your document appears within about 5 seconds, and it paints each
new screen in less than a second. RBDVI is compatible with the Turbow-286
board from Suitable Solutions.
*any TeX implementation for PC's that I've seen will run on a Rainbow, since
they're all vanilla MS-DOS programs.
(Dis)claimer: I was involved with the development of RBDVI, porting an existing
IBM-based product of SullivanSFT (CDVI) to Rainbow graphics and keyboard
compatibility. In my defense, I initially undertook this project simply
because it was a tool I needed in my own work - I use it pretty much every
day now. If it can be of similar use to others, so much the better.
Jim O'Brien
+1 203 322 7222 (eves)
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