From some points of view it might be a little late in the day but there’s another contender wading into the desktop management arena claiming its technology is superior to Visix Software Inc or IXI Ltd. Paris-based Non Standard Logics SA is at least as old as either of its competitors but has so far failed to attract much attention outside its home market, except in these pages, having apparently disdained to chase the American OEM customer: until now that is. It’s got its first worldwide bundling deal under its belt. Atari Corp is putting the French product on its upcoming 32MHz 68030-based Unix System V.4 TT/030 Unix/X workstation which will be shown next week at Comdex and will go on sale in the first quarter nest year after applications become available. Atari has bought off on both Non Standard’s Wish2 object-oriented iconic shell and its mouse or keyboard-driven Wx2 text editor, a standard feature with the software. For developers there’s also XFacemaker2, an interactive Motif-compliant graphical user interface development tool that uses real Motif widgets. Developer tools include the Free Software Foundation’s compilers and debugger. Atari says it has no reluctance to employ an obscure manager since it sees no rising standard as yet. Non Standard Logics has implemented the Wish2 desktop to other systems including Sparc and MIPS Computer Systems Inc R-series-based boxes, and is looking to have the thing available this quarter. Future implementations include ones for IBM’s AIX, Hewlett-Packard Co’s HP-UX, Digital Equipment Corp’s Ultrix, Group Bull SA’s DPX Unix, and Interactive Systems Corp and Santa Cruz Operation Inc implementations for Intel Corp iAPX-86 machines. The more widely used XFacemaker is already available on all the major Unix families. The company, which has opened an office in Santa Barbara, California, is considering a number of sales channels including bundling the manager together with Unisoft Inc’s rendition of System V.4. Features include an avoidance of proliferating windows, design for Network File System distributed computing, on-line help and roots in C. The company expects to have a full word processor next year. The new Atari machine, by the way, features 8Mb or 18Mb ofmemory, 200Mb or 340Mb disk drive, Ethernet board, a 19 monochrome screen, and Network File System.
