After six months of shipping its 80386 Unix port, VP/ix, Interactive Systems Corp, Santa Monica, California has started teaming up with a number of Unix software developers to give its port added flavour. VenturCom Inc, Lachman Associates, JSB Computer Systems Ltd and Softbank Research Institute of Tokyo are providing real-time extensions, Network File System, windowing and Kanji support. VenturCom, Cambridge, Massachusetts, has committed to work with Interactive to develop real-time extensions for 386/ix by mid-1988. VenturCom introduced its highest performing real-time version of Unix, Venix V.2.3, for IBM-compatible personal computers last September. The two companies have committed to produce a fully System V Interface Definition-compliant product which VenturCom will sell as Venix/386, while Interactive – in process of being acquired by Eastman Kodak Co – will offer the extensions as an option to 386/ix. Lachman Associates Inc will have its version of Network File System ready to run with 386/ix by the second quarter of this year: the agreement will allow Interactive to sell both source and binary versions of Lachman’s implementation of the Sun Microsystems product. UK software house JSB Computer Systems will provide windowing software for 386/ix. Softbank Research Institute Ltd of Tokyo announced plans to add Kanji language capabilities to the Ten/Plus, VP/ix and 386/ix Interactive products. Softbank claims to have already added Kanji support to Ten/Plus and adds that the other work is already underway and should be finished by the end of the second quarter. The Kanji implementation will be sold to Japanese and South Korean OEM customers by Softbank.
