Headlining one of those grab-bag IBM announcements the company makes from time to time is an agreement with Adobe Systems for a PostScript interpreter that runs under VM/CMS for users of IBM Advanced Function Printing on 370-type mainframes, enabling them to print PostScript language documents on existing printing devices – and it supports the Adobe Type Library, coming with 43 typefaces matching the ones in the IBM 4216 Personal Page Printer. It’s $10,000 or $385 a month, next week. The new Office Interconnect Facility enables users of Wang or DEC office automation systems in an IBM network to send and receive electronic mail without further training. It is available to VM users through Profs and to MVS users through Personal Services/CICS. It comes from Aratek International Inc of Toronto, arrives March for VM, July for MVS and is $387 to $1,819 a month, plus the charge for the non-IBM component. The mainframe Application System line of decision support products has migrated down to OS/2 micros with Personal Application System 1.0. It supports import and export of SQL/DS and BD2 tables and is $600 plus $250 for Statistics and $450 for the Development system. Out now. There is a CICS statement of direction saying that a new CICS code base will operate only under MVS/ESA and will dump support for macro level applications, and devices and controllers accessed by BTAM. Also in the grab bag, with AIX PS/2 Unix delayed till March, the companion versions of Oracle and Ingres, set for last month, are put back to June 1989. And there’s a string of factory automation products with OS/2 for the shop floor.
