NCR Corp has once again picked the Hanover Fair for a major worldwide announcement, this time of its new mid-range system that is designed to work intimately with its family of MS-DOS personal computers (CI No 884). The System 10000, announced by NCR France yesterday and NCR UK tomorrow, is the successor to the NCR 9200, 9300, 9400 and 9500 systems, which represent an installed base of 35,000 machines, and integrates open application development tools with NCR’s ITX operating system and is built around an enhanced version of the NCR 32 32-bit proprietary chip set. NCR is placing particular emphasis on the integration of Cortex Corp’s picture-programming development tool CorVision, with Oracle Corp’s Oracle database management system and IBM’s SQL Structured Query Language. System 10000 will thus provide users with access to both standard files and, via Oracle, SQL files. The 10000 also includes an implementation of Microsoft’s Windows, which will enable a user at a personal computer to use Windows’ cut and paste techniques to run up to nine concurrent jobs. For business professionals frustrated through being unable to access data, System 10000 offers a Data Reformat facility to extract data from the system, and reformat it for any MS-DOS application required by the user. Other features include an electronic mail system, and an electronic filing system that enables MS-DOS users to store and retrieve their data from the main system rather than on floppy disks. The 10000 comes in single and dual processor configurations and up to four can be clustered to support a maximum of 4,000 terminals. The bottom-end Model 35 processing satellite, has 2Mb memory, 135Mb of integrated disk and can connect 16 terminals, while the top-end dual processor Model 75 has 8Mb to 32Mb memory, 270Mb of integrated disk and can support 300 to 400 active terminals. Performance of the 75 and the Model 65 can be enhanced by adding file and communications processors, and the 65 matches the performance of the 9500, while the entry-level Model 55 system, supporting a maximum of 198 terminals, matches the 9400. The Model 35 is available now in the UK at UKP16,350, the Mod els 55 and 75 arrive at the end of the third quarter and Model 65 in the fourth quarter, at UKP48,000, UKP159,800 and UKP98,500 respectively.
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