Prime Computer Inc’s Computervision unit is to unveil a new version of its CADDS-4X computer-aided design package later this year, though it will be at least 1992 before the software makes it onto a non-Sun Microsystems system, the company says. The release will include a new design module that can export data to other parts of the program, and in a departure from Computervision custom, the package will also allow users and third-party vendors to write applications that will run alongside its own programs. Following its failed effort to develop a 32-bit computer back in the mid-1980s, Computervision converted CADDS-4X for the Sun system and signed on with the workstation builder as OEM partner in a determined attempt not to miss the Unix window sometime before its acquisition by Prime.
