---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash SunFlash March 1991 Table Of Contents SunFLASH Vol 27 #toc March 1991 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash is an electronic news service for Sun Microsystems computer users. It is distributed by more than 80 Sun offices and by about 40 Sun Local Users Groups in more than 20 countries. This is the March table of contents for the Florida SunFlash. If there are any items that you missed and really want to see, please send the required volume.issue numbers to flash@sunvice.East.Sun.com. For more information about SunFlash, send mail to info-sunflash thus: $ mail info-sunflash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM Subject: info info ^D $ John J. McLaughlin, SunFlash Editor, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Summary Of March's Messages -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Line Count Vol.# Title 156 27.01 PC-NFS Enhancements From Sun 119 27.02 New Color Printers Supporting NeWSprint 124 27.03 SunNet OSI - Version 7.0 96 27.04 SunLink DNI 7.0 & SunLink TE100 6.1 545 27.05 Third Party Product Announcements 174 27.06 When to Buy a Faster Computer 80 27.07 Sun Equips French Rate Trading Room 59 27.08 Sun Scientists Win ACM Award 79 27.09 Sun & Star Sign - Marketing Agreement 72 27.10 SunOS: X/Open XPG3 Base Branding 163 27.11 Rock Ridge Group, CD-ROM Specs & NIST 144 27.12 1990 Workstation & Server Market 153 27.13 NeWSprint 1.0 - PRINTERS 466 27.14 The Archie Archive Server 130 27.15 The 3G Machine by Andreas Bechtolsheim 82 27.16 SPARC V8 and Mbus Specification 144 27.17 SUG 1991 Summer Technical Conference 110 27.18 Sun Foundation Awards Community Grants 103 27.19 New PostScript-Based Toolkit 105 27.20 Software Alliance, Total Banking Solution 511 27.21 Third Party Product Announcements 122 27.22 Sun's New R&D Subsidiary 122 27.23 Sun's Additional Commercial Resellers 1848 27.24 Network Manager's Reading List 92 27.25 Transport-Independent RPC Technology Total 5799 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Summary of Messages Sent This Month -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 27.01 PC-NFS Enhancements From Sun WASHINGTON, D.C. --March 5, 1991-- Sun Microsystems today unveiled enhancements to its PC-NFS(R) networking product family that further integrate PCs into enterprise-wide networks of UNIX(R) workstations, minicomputers, mainframes and other network resources. With these products, PC users can expand their access to information located on diverse systems while still staying in their familiar DOS and Windows 3.0 environment. Introduced were new releases of PC-NFS and a companion product, PC-NFS LifeLine(TM) Mail and Backup. In addition, Sun rolled out PC-NFS Advanced Telnet, a new terminal emulation product that gives PCs greater access to applications on mainframes and minicomputers. 27.02 New Color Printers Supporting NeWSprint New Color Printers Bring To 60 The Number Of Postscript-Compatible Devices Supporting NeWSprint BOSTON --March 4, 1991-- Sun Microsystems today reported that three new color printer manufacturers now support its NeWSprint(TM) software. The addition of these companies' six printers brings to 60 the number of third-party output devices that have achieved PostScript(R) compatibility as a result of Sun's innovative printing solution. Introduced in September, NeWSprint makes workgroup printing less expensive, flexible and faster than it has ever been before. Customers can now use the printer of their choice and get PostScript-compatible output anywhere on the network. The announcement was made at the 1991 Seybold Seminars - Professional Publishing Conference, being held here. 27.03 SunNet OSI - Version 7.0 SunNet OSI Offers Easy TCP/IP-to-OSI Transition Solution WASHINGTON, D.C. --March 5, 1991-- Sun Microsystems today introduced a new release of its SunNet(TM) OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) product, the core of Sun's line of communication products that support international standards. SunNet OSI now supports international OSI services and protocols such as U.S. and U.K. GOSIP (Government OSI Profile), which, along with its other features, makes it one of the most complete OSI transition solutions in the industry. Today, Sun also unveiled enhancements to its SunNet X.25 network connectivity software and SunNet MHS (Mail Handling System) software. 27.04 SunLink DNI 7.0 & SunLink TE100 6.1 New Releases Of DEC Connectivity Products From Sun Offer Enhanced Ease Of Use WASHINGTON, D.C. --March 5, 1991-- Sun Microsystems today introduced new versions of its connectivity products, SunLink(R) DNI and SunLink TE100, that broaden and simplify interoperability for users of Sun workstations and servers linked to Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) VAX/VMS-based systems. SunLink DNI 7.0 allows application, data and management-level interoperability between Sun and DECnet-based VAX systems from DEC. With SunLink TE100 6.1, Sun workstation users can interactively access applications on systems from DEC or other vendors that support VT100 terminals. By installing TE100 on a Sun system for VT100 terminal emulation, users can access a VAX/VMS host in a window-based manner instead of having to use a terminal. 27.05 Third Party Product Announcements Occasionally, I'm asked to send out some information about a non-Sun product. Sometimes I will see an annoucement, e.g. in a Usenet newsgroup, that I think will be of general interest. This article is a collection of 7 announcements. The usual disclaimer applies: Reprinting this information does not imply an endorsement by Sun Microsystems. Rapport from Clarity Software Boost NFS performance with eNFS Intergraph Chooses SPARC Platform SmartLeaf --- New Tools for Interleaf Users Landscan-DEM (Digital Elevation Modelling) INTERPHASE NC400 Network CoProcessor Unix International Releases 1991 Schedule 01/23/91 27.06 When to Buy a Faster Computer This is a short technical article written by Mike Loukides. It was provided by: Cindy Adelman of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 27.07 Sun Equips French Rate Trading Room "Dual-Headed" SPARCstations Help Firm Compete in New European Unified Interest Rates Market MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --March 11, 1991-- Sun Microsystems today announced that it has won a $4 million contract with Caisse des Depots & Consignations (CDC), a major banking and financial organization headquartered in Paris. Sun has equipped CDC's interest rate trading room with 30 SPARC(R)-based servers and 67 SPARCstation(TM) 1+ workstations running Teknekron Software Systems' trading software, which integrates market data and realtime trading applications on the desktop. CDC is the first French financial institution to base its trading system entirely on digital technology, with no video back-up (financial market data was previously available only in video, or "read only" format). 27.08 Sun Scientists Win ACM Award Development of Text Processing System Honored MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --March 11, 1991-- The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) presented its 1990 ACM Software Systems Award to Jeff Rulifson and Bill English of Sun Microsystems and Doug Engelbart of Stanford University for their development of NLS, a pioneering computer-based text processing system. The award is given annually to institutions or individuals recognized for developing software systems that have had a lasting influence on the computer industry. Previous winners include the developers of UNIX(R), PostScript(R), VisiCalc and SMALLTALK. 27.09 Sun & Star Sign - Marketing Agreement New Star Supercomputer Expands Performance Range of SPARC Market MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --March 11, 1991-- Sun Microsystems, Inc., and Star Technologies, Inc., have signed a joint marketing agreement to promote their respective SPARC(R) products. The combination of Sun workstations and servers with Star's SPARC supercomputing servers on a network is a cost-effective solution for high-performance segments of the scientific and engineering markets. Sun and Star will participate in joint marketing and sales activities, including joint sales calls, seminars and other promotional efforts that demonstrate the advantages of SPARC products for high-performance computing applications in distributed computing environments. The products included under the agreement are Sun's SPARC systems and the Star 910/VP, a SPARC supercomputing network server recently introduced by Star. 27.10 SunOS: X/Open XPG3 Base Branding Sun's Operating System Receives XPG3 Base Branding From X/Open MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --March 11, l991-- Sun Microsystems today announced that its UNIX(R) operating system, SunOS(TM), has received X/Open's Portability Guide 3 (XPG3) BASE branding. X/Open, the leading international open systems organization in the computer industry, has branded the SunOS/SVR4 Development and Test Platform, a suite of products that enables software developers to create applications based on UNIX System V Release 4 (SVR4). SVR4 is the next-generation operating system standard for UNIX. BASE branding signifies 100 percent compliance with the foundation level of the XPG3 branding specifications. These specifications combine both formal and de facto standards for open system interfaces. The SunOS/SVR4 Development and Test Platform is part of Sun's migration to SVR4. The company's end user release of SVR4 will be available at the end of the year and will also carry the XPG3 BASE brand. 27.11 Rock Ridge Group, CD-ROM Specs & NIST SAN JOSE, Calif. --March 18, 1991-- Sixteen companies known as the Rock Ridge Group have submitted two new preliminary CD-ROM specifications -- System Use Sharing Protocol (SUSP) and the Rock Ridge Interchange Protocol Specification (RRIP) -- to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). These specifications offer industry-standard solutions for the distribution of data and software on CD-ROM media. They extend and are completely compliant with the current international standard format for CD-ROM, the ISO 9660-1988. CD-ROM media can significantly reduce cost and improve software installation and ease of use. 27.12 1990 Workstation & Server Market This article contains four tables from IDC. They show how the Workstation/Workstation server market place was divided among the various vendors in 1990. -johnj Table Data 1. Top Workstation/Workstation Server Vendors, Worldwide Shipments of All Vendors, Calendar 1990 (Units) 2. Top Workstation/Workstation Server Vendors, Worldwide Value of All Vendor Shipments, Calendar 1990 ($M) 3. Worldwide Workstation/Workstation Server Unit Shipment Growth, All Vendors, By Processor Type, 1989-1990 (Units) 4. Worldwide RISC Workstation/Workstation Server Unit Shipment Growth, All vendors, By Type of RISC Processor, 1989-1990 (Units) 27.13 NeWSprint 1.0 - PRINTERS This is the only list that I have of printers that support NeWSprint. I will try to update it once per quarter. I am sure that there are many printers that are supported (perhaps by their vendors ?) that are not included in this list. -johnj 27.14 The Archie Archive Server This is an article from USENET that described the Archie archive server. Archive is a service that can be used to locate public domain software. Summary: (a) telnet to quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (132.206.2.3 or 132.206.51.1) login as user "archie" (b) send a mail message with the word "help" as the subject line to archie@cs.mcgill.ca The first part of this article describes the telnet interface and the second part describes the email interface. 27.15 The 3G Machine by Andreas Bechtolsheim This article was written for Workstation News by Andreas Bechtolsheim, vice president of technology at Sun Microsystems. He designed the original Sun workstation, the SPARCstation, and many other systems. It is reproduced with permisssion. -johnj 27.16 SPARC V8 and Mbus Specification This is an announcement from SPARC International. -johnj SPARC International announced the publication of the specification for SPARC Architecture Version 8. Through SPARC International, Version 8 has become the first cooperatively defined and evolved instruction set architecture in the history of the computer industry. "Version 8 reflects the SPARC community's ability to focus on architectural problem-solving, gain consensus and produce a public standard available to any vendor," said Bob Duncan, SPARC International's CEO and chairman. "The improvements in Version 8 illustrate that the SPARC architectural community is in lock-step with systems vendors and the other suppliers that are offering products that meet customer demands today." 27.17 SUG 1991 Summer Technical Conference The Sun User Group 1991 Summer Technical Conference SPARC: HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE ATLANTA HILTON & TOWERS JUNE 17-19, 1991 27.18 Sun Foundation Awards Community Grants $323,641 Awarded in Support of Community Developmen MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --March 25, 1990-- The Sun Microsystems Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit charitable organization, announced today that it has awarded $323,641 in community development grants to organizations in the San Francisco and Boston areas, two regions in which Sun Microsystems has its largest operations. The grants will support programs in education, job training, leadership and business enterprise. Today's awards bring total contributions from both the company and the foundation to more than $1,159,000 since April 1990. 27.19 New PostScript-Based Toolkit Sun Introduces Developer Tool For Moving Commercial Applications To Unix MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --March 25, 1991-- Sun Microsystems today introduced The NeWS(R) Toolkit, its first toolkit for designing WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) applications that also use the intuitive OPEN LOOK(R) Graphical User Interface. These applications are for UNIX(R) platforms that run the OpenWindows(TM) application development environment. The NeWS Toolkit is particularly well suited to applications that require the capabilities derived from PostScript(TM), the industry-standard imaging model. Such applications include commercial and corporate publishing, image processing, multimedia applications, stock trading, mapping and electronic design automation. Forrester Research estimates that 40 percent of Sun's workstations will make their way into the commercial arena by 1994, giving Sun the largest market share of UNIX workstations sold into commercial client/server environments. 27.20 Software Alliance, Total Banking Solution Partnership Represents Sun's First Reseller Relationship In Banking Systems Market BERKELEY, Calif., March 25, 1991 -- Software Alliance Corporation (SA) announced today that it has teamed up with Sun Microsytems, Inc. to provide banks a comprehensive and cost-effective data processing environment. The new environment will include SA's Total Banking Solution (TBS) running on Sun's family of UNIX-based workstations and server. TBS, a comprehensive, truly integrated data processing solution, provides all key banking applications from demand deposits to commercial loans. Running in Sun's client/server computing environment, TBS manages the operations of an entire bank, while providing hefty reductions in computer operations costs. 27.21 Third Party Product Announcements This article contains some third party product annoucenments and press releases. This article does not imply an endorsement by Sun* Inc. Computer Signal introduces CorporateFax for Sun SPARC Sparc-hosted C Cross Compilers available FrameMaker 3.0 Legato announces SBus PrestoServe Artecon supports Sun on AFCAC 308 27.22 Sun's New R&D Subsidiary Sun's Labs Adds Staff and Technology From Leading Consulting Firm MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --March 27, 1991-- Sun Microsystems today made public further details about its new R&D subsidiary, Sun Microsystems Laboratories, Inc., formed to investigate and develop new hardware and software technologies. Sun has acquired the technology, patents and principals of Sutherland, Sproull and Associates, a noted consulting firm formerly located in Menlo Park, Calif., and Pittsburgh, Penn., that has performed work for companies such as DEC, Apple, Xerox and Citicorp. This gives Sun the expertise of the three well-known scientists who headed up this firm. 27.23 Sun's Additional Commercial Resellers MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --March 27, 1991-- To continue it's expansion into commercial markets, Sun Microsystems today announced the addition of two new commercial resellers and the expansion of its relationship with an existing reseller. The Commercial Systems Group of Arrow Electronics, Inc. will assist Sun in selecting commercial resellers with proprietary UNIX(R) applications and manage the porting of their applications to Sun's operating system and graphical user interface, Open Windows(TM). Sun also signed a joint marketing agreement with Novadyne Computer Systems Inc. to resell Sun systems into the PICK(R) VAR commercial market. In addition, Sun's current relationship with technical reseller, ACCESS Graphics Technology, has been expanded, making it easier and quicker for Sun's existing commercial resellers to purchase and receive Sun systems. 27.24 Network Manager's Reading List This is a document that is widely available within the internet community. It contains a lot of valuable information and references to many other sources of valuable information. Please observe the copyright notice. Here is the table of contents: Section 1 TCP/IP 1. Introduction to TCP/IP 1.1. TCP/IP Network Design and Administration 1.2. Guides to the TCP/IP Internet 1.3. Electronic Mail and the Internet 1.4. Network Management Tools 1.5. Requests For Comments 1.5.1. Electronic Mail Server Section 2 UNIX 2. UNIX In General 2.1. UNIX Networking In Detail Section 3 Ethernet 3. Introduction to LANs 3.1. Ethernet Installation Guide 3.2. Ethernet Troubleshooting Guide 3.3. The Ethernet Standards ...... etc ..... 27.25 Transport-Independent RPC Technology Free Source Code Available Via Internet SAN JOSE, Calif. -- March 27, 1991 -- Sun Microsystems today announced at Connectathon '91 that system vendors and software developers can get source code for Sun's new transport independent-remote procedure call (TI-RPC) technology for free over the Internet. The new TI-RPC is compatible with the existing ONC(TM) RPC but permits applications to be insulated from the underlying network transports. This means that, for example, applications written for TCP/IP networks will run unmodified over OSI-based networks, thereby greatly easing the migration from today's standards to emerging OSI standards. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For information send mail to info-sunflash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Archives are on solar.nova.edu and paris.cs.miami.edu. All prices, availability, and other statements relating to Sun or third party products are valid in the U.S. only. Please contact your local Sales Representative for details of pricing and product availability in your region. Descriptions of, or references to products or publications within SunFlash does not imply an endorsement of that product or publication by Sun Microsystems. John McLaughlin, SunFlash editor, flash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. (305) 776-7770.