The Gino family of computer graphics packages is now available to users of Acorn Computers Plc’s proprietary 32-bit RISC-based Archimedes workstations. Gino, which has been on the market for over 25 years, was originally developed by the old Cambridge CAD Centre, now CADCentre and controlled by ICL. One of the original development team, Peter Bradly, set up Bradly Associates to market the product independently of CadCentre, and he acquired all rights to the family some two years ago. Gino has been traditionally strong in the scientific and research sectors, and it is claimed to be host and output device-independent. It runs on personal computers, workstations, mainframes, and is used by the University of London and Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment on Cray Research Inc supercomputers. Costs depend on hardware and modules taken, but the entry-level personal computer version is around UKP750, rising to UKP15,000 for a version for a Cray supercomputer. There are three packages for Acorn’s Archimedes workstations, starting with the Gino-F subrouting library at UKP750. Two associated programs are Ginograf and Ginosurf. The first is a graph and charting program, and the second plots three-dimensional contours and surfaces. Each sells for UKP350.
