The ambitious development effort between Phoenix Technologies Ltd, Norwood, Massachusetts and a string of partners to create a kit for building pocket computers under the name Companion PC two years ago (CI No 1,791) has finally come to fruition with the announcement of PhoenixPICO and a key cross-licence agreement between Phoenix and one of those partners, Distributed Information Processing Ltd, the Guildford, Surrey company that designed the Atari Corp Portfolio and the Sharp Corp PC-3000. The agreement calls for co-operative development of a new line of system software, PhoenixPICO, designed to enable OEM customers to produce MS-DOS- and PCMCIA-compatible embedded systems and small form factor computers quickly and cost effectively: it is going after the Electronic Organisers, Digital Reference Book, Pocket Computer & Personal Digital Assistant markets. Embedded systems cover applications such as handheld data acquisition terminals, industrial control and telecommunications products. Phoenix and Distributed Information are developing a complete line of products, including low-level system software and high-level personal information manager applications. This software is stored and executes from ROM, and PhoenixPICO personal softare includes eight ROM-executable applications with hot-key access; the PhoenixPICO BIOS provides a complete system software suite for small form factors – system, video, keyboard, pen, and power management BIOS; PCMCIA, and ROM-embedded operating system support for a comprehensive range of chip sets. There is also a PhoenixPICO Prototype Service and an Integration Service for customised BIOS extensions, hardware ref erence designs, chip set support and ROM software support. Phoenix PICO software enhances the Phoenix BIOS for the Intel Corp iAPX-86, NEC Corp V series, Chips & Technol ogies Inc PC Chip, and Vadem chip sets, including PCMCIA support, power management and international isation features. PhoenixPICO app lications include a fully compati ble Lotus Development Corp 1-2-3 spreadsheet, an editor, time man agement functions and database for names, addresses and phone numbers. Phoenix and Distributed can also integrate third-party software.
