Companies were rushing to endorse IBM’s new Personal System/2 line yesterday, and at least a couple jumped the gun and got their announcements in ahead of the IBM launch. Symantec Corp, Cupertino, California announced versions of its Q&A file manager and word processor that will run on the new machines: the company says that its current version 2.0 runs on the 8086 and 80286 PC-DOS-compatible computers and that a specially optimised 80386 version of Q&A 2.0 will ship on May 1, with both 5.25 and 3.5 versions available this month. And Graphic Software Systems Inc announced that the first graphics programming software for the new Personal System/2 microcomputers was licenced by IBM from Graphic Software, noting that the new IBM Operating System/2 graphics development toolkit was developed for IBM under terms of the fifth announced marketing agreement between IBM and GSS, extending a relationship that began in 1984 when the company licensed its original Personal Computer graphics development toolkit to IBM in 1984, following up with an updated version in 1985, and versions for the RT and 3270 Personal Computer. Graphic Software Systems says that the new toolkit will enable programmers to write powerful, easy-to-use programs based on the idea that a picture is worth a 1,000 words, taking advantage of the 16Mb address range of the OS/2 operating system. Graphic Software Systems will offer the toolkit at an introductory price of $495, rising to $695 thereafter. Microsoft Corp announced that its generic version of OS/2 – MS OS-2 and what has been variously known as New DOS and ADOS, will be available on phased release to OEM customers in the fourth quarter, and will run on existing 80286 and 80386 boxes – including IBM’s AT, with adaptations.
