France’s Unix Convention gets off to a slow start in heart of Paris skyscraper jungle
Visitors to Convention Unix ’91 at CNIT in the high-tech La Defense district of Paris were few and far between on the first day of the show, but things picked up a little on the second day as the conference started. Initial visitors were denied sight of the Hewlett-Packard’s brand new Series 700 workstation by a strategically placed sheet, and had to wait a day after the rest-of-the-world launch for a sighting of the machine. At the show, Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA repeated its launch of new Pyramid Technology Corp-based systems, and hardware at the show, with only a few exceptions, was of US origin. Of more interest was a range of home grown French software, including many graphical user interface builders and applications generators.
E3.X Odis.X generates C code via Motif or MS-Windows graphical user interfaces
Strangely-named E3.X SA is a 50-strong, Lyon-based software house that sells on communications and graphical products developed at the French INRIA research institute. Aside from the Ucom.X line of X400 and X500 message handling products, the company was exhibiting a new C code generator called Odis.X, which separates the code development portion from X Window, Motif and Microsoft Windows-based graphical front-ends, and also from the underlying database. Open Look, Mac and Presentation Manager drivers are also proposed. The C code can later be adapted or enlarged by hand if required. The graphics portion is generated by draw and paint programs, and produces code written in a special graphical interface description language, which can also be hand-coded; SNCF and France Telecom are among the early customers for it.
as Newlog provides for high-speed character-based windowing
Meanwhile Paris-based Newlog SA was demonstrating that character-based applications still have some life in them yet. The company has specialised in getting an MS-DOS-like windowing interface for character-based terminals to run as efficiently as possible with its multi-lingual Hyperface system administration and applications integration product line, which is offered OEM and integrated by the likes of Altos Computer Systems Inc as Preface. At the show, Newlog was showing the latest iteration, NTerm, claimed to be a 100% ANSI, Xenix, Santa Cruz Unix and Interactive Systems emulation product for MS-DOS, supporting a mouse. The memory-resident program takes up 50Kb of memory or less, and enables hot-keying between Unix and MS-DOS. It will be available by the end of the second quarter. The company, which hints that its products are likely to show up internationally shortly via some recently signed OEM agreements, is also responsible for the SimonSays WYSIWYG word processor for Unix.
Locus shows PC Interface for Mac
Locus Computing Corp held the European launch of PC-Interface for Macintosh at the Convention Unix show in Paris last week: the product is a major extension to the MS-DOS/Unix integration tool that has now 200,000 installations worldwide. The product enables files, printers and other resources on a Unix host to be accessed transparently by Macintosh users using the Mac user interface. Along with the Mac server product, you also get an MS-DOS server bundled in, enabling both MS-DOS and Macs to use the central Unix system as a resource. The product supports Macs from the Classic up, and is compliant with AppleTalk Phase 2 standards. Connection is via the Mac’s built in LocalTalk support or directly through an EtherTalk adaptor. There is also a built in Unix terminal emulator for the Mac, from Pacer Inc. Available from the second quarter on Interactive Systems Corp and Santa Cruz Operation Inc systems, the product will later become available for the IBM RS/6000 and Sparc machines, with other systems to follow depending on market demand. In Europe, Locus relies on the likes systems integration and communications specialist Synersoft SA of Paris for distribution and technical support.
Chorus claims new big hardware vendor
Chorus Systemes SA, ba
sed in Paris, says that it has now signed up another major hardware manufacturer, but is not letting on just who it is. According to Chorus, things are going to plan, with revenues doubled over last year and the outfit nearing profitability. Chorus, whose micro-kernel, message-based, Unix-compatible operating system looks to be along the same lines as the Open Software Foundation’s still speculative OSF/2 operating system, is selling to the data processing and telecommunications markets in pretty much equal measure, and Chorus is now nearing a 50% split in business between Europe and the US, with the help of its Beaverton, Oregon office, set up last year. Next stop is the Japanese marketplace. Back in France, the company says that users are becoming more Unix-literate, influenced by open systems decisions from users such as Electricite de France, Societe National de Chemins de Fer, France Telecom and Elf Aquitaine. Chorus plans to introduce its real-time operating system this summer. While it is not Unix-based, the Chorus real-time system will host the Unix development environment and utilities for developers working on real-time software.
Motorola 88000’s strong French showing
An exception to the preponderance of US-based hardware manufacturers at the show was Cetia – or Compagnie Europeenes Techniques de l’Ingenierie Assistee SA – which has its headquarters in Toulon, France as well as offices on the East and West coasts of the US and in Japan. Cetia was showing its delayed 68040-based Cetia 1000 workstation, rated at 20 MIPS and 3.5 MFLOPS, as well as a 68040-based graphics controller board with up to 1,600 by 1,300 resolution which will be integrated into all Cetia machines from July of this year. And Cetia was also showing its brand new compact 25MHz, 88000-based Cetia 1825 single and multi-processor VME workstations. All include a 68040 graphics co-processor and 68030 input-output processor, but can have one, two or four 88000-based CPUs for performance of up to 100 MIPS. Unix-based machines are aimed at the software development market, but they also run Uni/RT or VxWorks for real-time users. Cetia has an OEM agreement with Dolphin for its top-end 9000 Series server. Other French companies at the show using the 88000 included Telmat Informatique SA of Soultz with its TR5000 Unix System V.4 range, and Dune Technologies SA of Velizy, which has the 63030-based Dune 3000 and 88000-based Dune 8000 ranges, aimed, like Cetia at the real-time marketplace.
