The Advanced Technologies Operation unit of Canon Inc’s Canon Computer Systems Inc US marketing arm, has just introduced a second NeXTstep-on-iAPX-86 box as the entry-level object.station 31. Advanced Technologies has pared down the specification of its existing object.station 41 to create the 100MHz 80486DX4-based desktop which comes with an IDE interface instead of the 41’s Small Computer System Interface and a standard, not high-resolution 17 colour screen. It costs from $4,000 from the second week of next month compared to the $5,000-odd an entry model 41 costs. Object.station 31 comes with from 2Mb Video RAM, 16Mb memory, and 500Mb disk, Advanced Technologies’ proprietary video subsystem that speeds throughput but retains compatibility with standard monitors, and support for Insignia Solutions Inc’s SoftPC software; a demonstration version is bundled.
