---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Third Party Product Announcements SunFLASH Vol 21 #10 September 1990 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message contains some third party product announcements. This message does not constitute an endorsement of these products by Sun Microsystems. We don't post many product announcements to SunFlash - we are too lazy to type in the hundreds of Sun related products announcements that cross our desks. We will print a few announcements of products that are 'neat' - especially if someone else types in the product announcement! If one of these products represents one of your companies competitors, don't get upset! Just remember that I will forward your companies product announcements if you send them to us. (I am still ambivilent about including third party product announcements in SunFlash. If you have strong feelings about including or not including them in SunFlash, please send me some email -flash) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Avalon Publisher (electronic publishing ) ER MAPPER (image processing) Color Thermal Printers (output hardware) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elan Announces Object Oriented Publishing System ------------------------------------------------ Easy-To-Use Product Breaks New Ground in Commercial UNIX Applications Mountain View, CA, August 1, 1990. -- Elan Computer Group, Inc. today announced its new electronic publishing system Avalon Publisher (TM). Avalon Publisher features a complete WYSIWYG interface under X-11 using the Open Look GUI, and has been designed to provide more power and ease of use than any other UNIX electronic publishing system available today. Avalon Publisher offers the sophisticated tools necessary for writing technical documentation, books, or manuals. It also provides the flexibility and ease of use needed for other office materials such as newsletters, memos, reports, or sales and marketing literature. Two main features distinguish Avalon Publisher from other UNIX electronic publishing applications making it the easiest to learn and easiest to use UNIX publishing system available. First, Avalon's object-oriented user interface gives the user a simple and consistent way of performing operations on any object of a document. For instance, a word, a graphic element, or a paragraph are considered objects, and can be cut, copied, or pasted using the same set of simple operations. Secondly, using Avalon is further simplified by context sensitive menus. Only the operations that are appropriate for the objects selected appear on screen and menus are never more than two levels deep. Avalon is so easy to use that even a beginner can create impressive looking documents right away using sophisticated tables, forms, and graphics, all integrated with text in professional looking layouts. A number of Avalon's features will be appreciated by both the experienced user and novice alike. Avalon comes with sample layouts for several common office documents. There are ready-made templates for letters, inter-office memos, outlines, facsimile cover sheets, and overhead projector slides. Paragraph aligning allows side by side headers and text, or for parallel presentation of multilingual text. Avalon handily creates full box and multi-page tables, charts, and forms. Text can flow to non-adjacent columns or pages for magazine and newspaper style layout. In addition to its 80,000 word spelling checker with customizable dictionaries, Avalon includes a 40,000 word thesaurus which provides alternative words for the word selected. The illustration palette allows the user to easily create graphics, or import them in a variety of formats. These and Avalon's many other powerful features are implemented in a manner that makes them easily accessible to everyone in the office and makes Avalon a publishing solution for engineers, management and support staff alike. Another of Avalon Publisher's firsts is its support for the Hewlett-Packard line of LaserJet printers. Avalon is the only UNIX publishing system to fully support the HP LaserJet printer family, setting a new price point for an economical high quality UNIX publishing solutions. Of course, Avalon also fully supports PostScript printers and typesetters including all 35 standard LaserWriter Plus fonts. Avalon not only offers technical solutions for electronic publishing, the floating license built into Avalon provides an economical solution in two ways. First, users can share Avalon among all workstations and X terminals on a network. The customer pays only for concurrent use on the network, providing a great savings over per-CPU or node locked licensing. Secondly, this shared licensing is implemented with Elan License Manager and allows Avalon to be offered at a low per user (per floating license) price. Avalon Publisher will be licensed for $1295.00 for a single floating license and server kit, and $995 for each additional floating license on the network. Avalon is initially available on Sun 4s and SPARCstations under SunOS 4.x directly from Elan. Versions for the Hewlett Packard 9000 series under HP-UX, and Digital Equipment Corporation DECstations under ULTRIX are planned for the last quarter 1990. Interested VARS, distributers, and re-sellers are invited to contact Elan for further information on our resale program. Since its founding in 1985, Elan Computer Group has gained vast experience in the publishing industry, building on a base of solid products with worldwide distribution. The company's goal is to become a major software force helping office workers at all levels to become more productive and accomplished in their work. Avalon continues the evolution of the company's product line in electronic publishing. Sales Information Contact: Bob Taylor sales@elan.com Marketing Information Contact: Liz Elms Elan Computer Group, Inc. 888 Villa Street, 3rd Floor Mountain View, CA 94041 Phone: 415-964-2200 FAX: 415-964-8588 Avalon, Avalon Publisher, and Elan License Manager are trademarks of Elan Computer Group, Inc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ER MAPPER: Friendly and powerful image processing ER Mapper is a powerful new raster image processing product designed to run on Sun-4's and Sparcstations. It enables users to develop and apply sophisticated image processing algorithms without having to write special software. The product is designed to be easy to use for both expert and novice using the X Window System with the OpenLook user interface. ER Mapper has been used to process many different types of data including satellite, geophysical, geochemical, and seismic. User applications ----------------- Environmental studies Environmental Impact monitoring Mining Exploration Vegetation Mapping Forestry Natural Resource Management Land Management Waste and Pollution Management ER Mapper Features ------------------ - Multiple image windows may be opened (including windows on other displays on the network). - Supports 1 bit, 8 bit and 24 bit X-11 displays. A copy of X11R4 is supplied that supports the RasterOps 24 bit display on SPARCstations under X-windows. - The following data types are supported: signed or unsigned 8, 16, and 32 bit integers, and 4 or 8 byte IEEE floating point. The handling of the various types is done automatically by the software. - Datasets that can be processed with ER Mapper include: Landsat TM and MSS, SPOT MSS and panchromatic, AVHRR (NOAA), DTM, VLF, radiometrics, magnetics, geochemical, gravity, AVIRIS and resistivity. Examples of most of these types of datasets are supplied with the product. - There is no limit to the size of datasets or the number of bands per dataset. - Different datasets can be combined in a single image. - Formulae for combining bands (eg: ratios, differences, principal components, NDVI's etc) can be defined by the user and saved under a specific name for later re-use. All standard operators (+, -, /, *) and mathematical functions (log, exp, sin, cos, etc) are available for use in formula. - Statistics (including number of cells, minimum, maximum, mean, median, covariance matrix, correlation matrix, eigenvalues, and eigenvectors) can be calculated for specified regions and used within formulae. - Filters (convolutions) can be defined by the user and saved under a specific name for later re-use. Floating point numbers may be specified in convolutions and there is no size limit for a filter. - Images can be artificially shaded from any elevation or sun angle. - A real-time sun angle shading facility is provided. - Classification of images is supported. - Vector data may be overlayed on top of the raster image. Vector data is stored as true vector data, not as rasterised data. - Output to hardcopy devices is supported. These include colour printers and film-writers. ER Mapper automatically strip prints to generate large hard copy printouts. - Many data formats can be read with the import utilities supplied with ER Mapper. Documentation ------------- Comprehensive documentation is included: - Installation Manual - Application and Training Manual - ER Mapper Reference Manual - ER Storage Reference Manual Recommended Hardware -------------------- Sun Sparcstation or Sun-4 (running SUNOS 4.03 or 4.1) 8 MB RAM (minimum) Colour Monitor The cost of the software is $14,000. For more information please contact: Earth Resource Mapping 316 Churchill Ave Subiaco, Perth Western Australia 6008 Phone: +61 9 388 2900 Fax: +61 9 388 2901 Email: queries@erm.oz.au Sun-4 and Sparcstation are trademarks of Sun Microsystems. X Window System is a trademark of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Newsgroups: comp.newprod Subject: Tek Introduces Two Color Thermal Printers Keywords: tcp/ip lpd color printer Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. Tektronix Introduces Two Color Thermal Printers To Support Networked Workstations, Terminals San Francisco, July 10, 1990 -- Tektronix Inc. today intro- duced two networked color 300 dot-per-inch (dpi) printers to address the growing market for high-quality color output in the unix-based workstation and terminal environments. The 4693PXN networked color PostScript-language compatible printer and the 4693DXN networked color image printer are Tektronix' first products specifically designed to work with the growing number of applications demanding high-quality color output. Both printers are based on Tektronix' proven thermal wax transfer technology which has made it a leader in the IBM PC and Apple Macintosh color printer markets. Both the 4693PXN and the 4693DXN are available now through Tektronix' direct sales force in the United States and through Tektronix dis- tributors worldwide. "These products represent a major commitment by Tektronix to provide shareable high quality color solutions to the grow- ing number of workstation and X terminal users," said A.J. Rogers, strategic marketing manager of Tektronix' Graphics Printing and Imaging Division. "Not only do these users want the best quality in their color output, but they want the convenience of having the printer located near their work areas." The 4693PXN supports both color PostScript and HP-GL on net- works running BSD unix or extensions to System V unix. Its TCP/IP ethernet-compatible interface allows the 4693PXN to be connected to either thick or thin-wire ethernet cabling anywhere on the network. In its basic configuration with 6 MB of memory, the 4693PXN has a suggested retail price of $10,995. With color PostScript supported by many leading software vendors including Frame Technology, Precision Visuals, SAS Institute, Template Graphics and Computer Associates, the 4693PXN provides high-quality paper and transparency output that can be shared across the network. The 4693PXN's stan- dard parallel, serial and AppleTalk ports, also give it direct connect capabilities to workstations or Apple Macin- tosh personal computers. Resident fonts include the same 35 trademarked typefaces that are standard with the Apple LaserWriter. Download support is provided for Adobe Type 1 and Type 3 formats. The 4693DXN also connects anywhere on a TCP/IP ethernet net- work and allows the capture and printing of window, region or full screen images from a variety of popular workstations and graphics terminals. This direct network connect elim- inates the need for VME Bus or S-Bus cards and device drivers. The 4693DXN has a suggested retail price of $11,995. The 4693DXN is compatible with all graphics applications that support X Windows 11R4. With optional X-Print inter- face software, the 4693DXN allows users to print full screens, windows or regions of the screen to a raster image file from popular workstations platforms, including Sun Microsystems, Tektronix, DEC and Silicon Graphics. For Sun workstation users, Tek provides S-Print, a software interface that allows users of SunViews, OpenLook or X Win- dows 11R4 to print full screen, window or region images across the network. Both X-Print and S-Print will be avail- able from Tektronix in September. (See accompanying news release.) Existing users of Tektronix 4693DX color thermal wax printer can upgrade it to full network capabilities by purchasing a network interface. The network interface has a suggested price of $3,495. Tektronix has long been a leader in providing high-quality color output solutions for engineers and scientific users beginning with its ink-jet products in the early 1980s. Tek also markets the RGBII, a color thermal wax transfer video- interfaced screen printer. Both the 4693PXN and the 4693DXN offer easy network instal- lation, requiring only changes to printcap and host files. The printers' addresses are set through a serial interface or by editing a PC-formatted floppy disk. The printers' network interface is compatible with standard spooling sys- tem printer interface. It is platform-independent and does not require special interface hardware, device drivers or kernel builds. For further customer or dealer information, write to Tek- tronix Inc., P.O. Box 1000, M-S 63-630, Wilsonville, Ore. 97070, or call (800) 835-6100. Tektronix is a leading manufacturer of electronic products and systems in the areas of computer graphics, test and measurement and communications. Sales in fiscal 1989 totaled $1.4 billion. Tek has approximately 13,000 employ- ees worldwide. Tek's Graphics Printing and Imaging Division is part of the Visual Systems Group, which markets a complete line of graphics products including color graphics terminals, nets- tations, X stations, workstations, superworkstations, printers and software. Tektronix and Tek are registered trademarks of Tektronix Inc. Apple and Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple Com- puter Inc. Other marks used in this document are trademarks or registered trademarks of the manufacturers or marketers of the products with which the marks are associated. FROM: Hastings, Humble, Giardini & Freeman Inc. 1200 N.W. Front Avenue Portland, Ore. 97209 Contact: Charles Humble (503) 221-1063 FOR: Tektronix Graphics Printing and Imaging Division Customer Contact: (800) 835-6100 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sunflash is an electronic mail news service from Sun Microsystems, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA. It is targeted at Sun Users and Customers. For additional information about SunFlash send mail to info-sunflash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM SunFlash is distributed via a hierarchy of aliases. Try to address change requests to the owner of the alias that you belong to. If you want to be added to the SunFlash alias, please contact the systems engineers at your local Sun office and/or send mail to sunflash-request@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Address comments to the SunFlash editor (John McLaughlin) at sun!sunvice!flash or flash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. (305) 776-7770.