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INFO-MICRO AM Digest    Wednsday, 17 June 1981     Volume 3 : Issue 49

Todays's Topics:    
           Xerox Star, Smalltalk, Professional Software - LOCKSMITH
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Date: 6 May 1981 1311-EDT (Wednesday)
From: Gregg.Glass at CMU-10D (N680GG60)
Re:   xerox star

Does anyone know anything about the xerox star other then what was in
the times and fortune mag.  i.e. what kind of processer, memory size
etc.
				Greg

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Date: 8 May 1981 2121-EDT 
From: LLOYD (Brian P. Lloyd) 
Re: NCC '81

I have just returned from NCC '81 and thought that I would describe
what I saw and heard.  Surprisingly there were few new and/or
interesting items.

The item of greatest interest was 'Star', the new "office product"
from Xerox.  Star is wonderous to behold with its bitmap display,
mouse, keyboard, and 8Mb of winchester.  With a pricetag of $16,000 it
had EVERYONE's attention.  I felt that price was a bit too awesome and
investigated.

Indeed, the price for a Star was $16K, **BUT** in order to make it
work you had to buy an Ethernet file server (approx. $20K).  If you
wish hardcopy as well, you have to buy a printer server (approx.
$25K).  Oh well...

In spite of the price, Star is an interesting product.  It is not
intended as a general purpose computer system: in fact it is not even
user programmable.  It IS one of the first non-DP-person oriented
"office of the future" products that I feel has a chance to succeed.
Am I right?  Time will tell.  Xerox has certainly expended significant
resources to develop Star (to the point that they make no profit on
the sale of a Star).  In any case it bears attention.

I also got a chance to see Three Rivers' PERQ.  This is a user
programmable device with a bitmapped display, 12 or 24Mb winchester, a
fast processor that executes P-code directly, and Ethernet support for
local networks.  I was very impressed with the quality of the display,
but couldn't tell too much about it otherwise.  Three Rivers'
documentation and literature was nonexistant.

Convergent Technologies displayed their new Word Processing software
at the Alanthus booth.  Convergent has also just become licensed to
use Ethernet so I think that we will see them on the Ethernet
bandwagon soon.  Since I work for Alanthus, I will not comment further
(I'm prejudiced--I think we had one of the best booths there).
Perhaps some of the people from this list who visited me there will
comment on how Alanthus and Convergent looked.

5 1/4" winchesters abounded with Corvus displaying a nice range of
disks for most of the popular home computers and operating systems.
There was one mini-winchester that was conspicuous by its absence;
Irwin Industries.  Irwin was supposed to display their 10Mb 5 1/4"
winchester drive with integral cartridge tape backup but didn't get
the drive working in time (hearsay).  United States Design Corp, the
company designing the controller for the Irwin, claimed that they had
their electronics done in time for the show but Irwin didn't come
through with the drive.

All in all I was somewhat dissapointed.  There really didn't appear to
be anything new.  I am reminded of the audio industry where you get
the same old product with a new faceplate and more chrome each year.
Perhaps next year will be better.

Brian Lloyd

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Date: 22 May 1981 1913-EDT
From: Sarah Rolph <RI.SR at MIT-XX>
Re:   smalltalk at NCC

Did anyone go to the session The Public Release of Smalltalk 80 at NCC
in Chicago?

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Date: 26 May 1981 03:45-EDT
From: William E. Blue <BLUE at MIT-MC>

I believe there was a comment in this mailing list about the LOCKSMITH
people declaring bankruptcy due to the lawsuits from various software
manufacturers/distributors.

Since Dave Alpert (President of Omega, the people who distribute
LOCKSMITH) is a friend of mine, and also sysop of the NIAUG PMS in
Lake Forest Illinois, I checked with him about the possible validity
of this story.

His response:

   Msg# 7536 on 05/25/81 at 13:35 (17)
   Subj: Alive and WELL!!, To: !Sysop and all
   From: Dave Alpert, Chicago IL

   Omega Software and Locksmith are alive and well and NOT in 
   litagation with anyone. The rumors are great publicity but
   none are true. In fact, we are marketing a new product (much
   less controversial than LS). Ads have been placed and accepted
   in various magazines. The ball is now in the hands of thoses
   who can solve the back-up controversy. I hope they attack the
   problem by employing one of the many ways available to both
   allow the user multiple copies and prevent their distribution
   by the pirates. Locksmith is only intended to allow the 
   legitimate user to make back-up. It, by itself, is not in
   violation of any law. Those who use it are if they use it
   to distribute illicitly any copyrighted software. This is not
   different than using the COPY program on the APPLE DOS master 
   to copy PIE 2.0 from Programma and giving it away or selling 
   it. You don't sue APPLE for that, you go after the pirate. 
   Anyway, let the rumors fly. People who want to find us can 
   by calling 312-648-1944.

   End msg #7536

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End of INFO-MICRO Digest
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