---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash SunFlash August 1992 Table Of Contents SunFLASH Vol 44 #toc August 1992 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note From The SunFlash Editor Summary of The Florida SunFlash For New Subscribers Summary Of August's Messages (line count + title) Summary of Messages Sent This Month (issue # and synopsis) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The archive files for August 1992 should be available by the end of this week. There are compressed tar files for each month as well as the whole of last year. newstop.ebay.sun.com (Sun access only) solar.nova.edu pub/sunflash src.doc.ic.ac.uk sun/sunflash ftp.uu.net systems/sun/sunflash ftp.adelaide.edu.au pub/sun/sunflash If you find material that would make a good SunFlash article, please send it to me for consideration and I'll post it. If you want a copy of an article that you missed, please send the volume.issue (e.g. 44.00 for this article) to flash@sunvice.east.sun.com John J. McLaughlin System Engineer & SunFlash Editor Ft. Lauderdale, Florida USA September 3th, 1992 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Summary of The Florida SunFlash For New Subscribers The Florida SunFlash is an electronic news service for Sun Microsystems computer users. It is distributed from over 90 Sun offices and by about 40 Sun Local Users Groups in more than 45 countries. The Florida SunFlash has a subscription base of more that 75,000 Sun users. This is the August 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 $ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Titles And Sizes For August's Articles -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Line Count Vol.# Title 341 44.01 Third Party Product Announcements 103 44.02 ShowMe Computer Conferencing Software 105 44.03 SUN USER GROUP: Call For Papers 103 44.04 Sun's 4th Quarter, Fiscal Year Results 134 44.05 SunSelect Ships NetWare SunLink 85 44.06 Novell Netware Client for Sun from Spry 297 44.07 SunSolve and Sun HelpDesk 339 44.08 SBus Developer List, July 20, 1992 467 44.09 SBus Developer List, Chapters I, II 798 44.10 SBus Developer List, Chapters III, IV, V 733 44.11 SBus Developer List, Chapters VI to VIII 747 44.12 SBus Developer List, Chapters IX to XVI 123 44.13 Aug. 25th Sunergy Satellite Broadcast 460 44.14 PTF: 3Gb of UNIX Freeware 89 44.15 SMCC Introduces Multimedia Training 103 44.16 SunExpress Unveils New Low U.S. Pricing 94 44.17 SPARCstation IPX with Mid-Range monitor 68 44.18 Sun Consolidates in Chelmsford 62 44.19 Silvestri To Drive SPARC Technology Sales 149 44.20 NetWare SunLink 1.0 307 44.21 Third Party Product Announcements 90 44.22 Sun Enters S&P 500 95 44.23 SunSoft Launches SunSoft Press 104 44.24 Pre-Press Vendors And Sun 57 44.25 Sun Leads Japanese Workstation Market 89 44.26 SunSoft Introduces SearchIt 290 44.27 September 1992 STB Contents 292 44.28 New Type 5 Keyboards 115 44.29 Solaris 2.0 System Admin Class 149 44.30 Upgrades to SPARCstation 10GS 874 44.31 Full Source Software 520 44.32 Improving Performance with Direct Xlib Total 8382 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Summary of August's Articles -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 44.01 Third Party Product Announcements Island Graphics Delivers IslandPresents for SPARCstations Aurora FirstScan II Supports Color And Grayscale Scanners Sys Admin - a Journal For UNIX System Administrators 44.02 Sun Unveils ShowMe Computer Conferencing Software Sun Unveils Easy-To-Use Computer Conferencing Software MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--August 3, 1992--SunSolutions(TM), a product development venture within Sun Technology Enterprises, today introduced ShowMe, an easy-to-use computer conferencing software product. ShowMe software lets SPARC(R) workstation users conduct on-line meetings, allowing groups to view and interactively collaborate on documents, graphics, spreadsheets and other images over a TCP/IP network. Using on-screen markers, participants in a ShowMe conference can annotate shared documents simultaneously in real time, so users interact and communicate much the same way they would in a meeting room. 44.03 SUN USER GROUP: Call For Papers This is a second call for papers for the December SUG annual conference. -johnj From: don@doug.med.utah.edu (Don Baune 581-6088 MIRL) Call For Papers SUN USER GROUP Tenth Annual Conference December 8-10, 1992 San Jose, California OPERATING SYSTEMS: SOLARIS 2.0/SVR4 and Alternatives 44.04 Sun's 4th Quarter, Fiscal Year Results BREAKS $1 BILLION QUARTERLY BOOKINGS MARK I have prepared a quick summary of Sun's fiscal performance for the last four years to put this article about Sun's most recent Fiscal year into context. (This data was extracted from previous Sun Press Releases.) Note that Sun's fiscal year starts July 1st and end June 30th. Fiscal Actual Revenues ( $ millions ) Revenue Growth (%) Year Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Year Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 FY 92 755 909 952 973 3,589 11.5 20.7 12.3 3.2 11.4 91 677 754 848 943 3,221 25.7 26.7 34.1 34.6 30.6 90 539 595 632 700 2,465 24.9 46.8 27.1 62.4 39.7 89 431 405 497 431 1,765 67.8 88 1,052 44.05 SunSelect Ships NetWare SunLink Prices and availabilty of NetWare SunLink for SMCC customers will be announced shortly. -johnj Supported By Oracle and Ingres BILLERICA, Mass.--August 3, 1992-- SunSelect(TM), a business unit of Sun Microsystems, Inc., today announced the immediate availability of its NetWare(R) SunLink(R) software for integrating Novell(R) NetWare networks with SPARC(R) and Solaris(R) environments. The NetWare SunLink product allows DOS, Microsoft(R) Windows(R) and OS/2(R) NetWare system users to share data, files and print services with UNIX(R) system workgroups. Based on NetWare for UNIX Version 3.11 from Novell, the NetWare SunLink product provides an easy way to move from a departmental network to a powerful, integrated SPARC/Solaris enterprise network. By simply adding NetWare SunLink on a Sun SPARCserver(TM) system to the network, NetWare customers protect their investment in their existing network while gaining direct access to UNIX system files, applications and services including distributed processing, client-server computing and open systems. With the NetWare SunLink product, the multitasking 44.06 Novell Netware Client for Sun from Spry This is a third party product announcement from Dave Pool (dave@spry.com), President of Spry Inc. This software allows a Sun to access files that reside on a Novell Netware server via the Novell IPX protocol. I.e. with this software, a Sun can be added into an existing Netware network as another client. It complements the recent SunSelect announcement of SunLink Netware, which allows Novell Netware clients (usually PC's) to access a Sun via the IPX protocol. I.e. with this software, a Sun can be added into an existing Netware network as another server. (I guess this means that a Sun with Spry's Netware Client could get file services from another Sun running SunSelect's NetWare SunLink with the IPX protocol.) -johnj 44.07 SunSolve and Sun HelpDesk - SMCC announces two new products: - SunSolve (TM) - Sun HelpDesk - These products provide access to Sun service information such as: - common Sun workstation questions and answers - symptoms and resolutions - bug and patch descriptions - technical bulletins - optional integration with AnswerBook(TM) documentation - and more... Sun HelpDesk also includes: - an escalation tool to obtain backline support from Sun - documentation on how to set up and maintain a help desk - SunSolve is provided to Personal AnswerLine(SM), AnswerLine(SM), and Software Update Service software contract customers: - CD-ROM version is updated & shipped quarterly - electronic version, called SunSolve Online, can be centrally accessed via modem and is updated nightly 44.08 SBus Developer List, July 20, 1992 The July 1992 SBus Developer List is also available in the SunFlash archive servers as a single compressed file e.g. on solar.nova.edu it is: 42948 pub/sunflash.1992/sbus-july.21.Z The next four articles are the 16 chapters of the SBus developer list group so that no article is greater that 32Kbytes. Thanks to Harold Sonenklar (Harold.Sonenklar@Corp.Sun.Com) for putting this list together. Note that there are embedded control-l (page feed) characters in these articles. If you remove the SunFlash headers and cat these 5 articles together, the result should print OK. -johnj 44.09 SBus Developer List, Chapters I, II I. PARALLEL/SERIAL I/O II. BUS ADAPTERS 44.10 SBus Developer List, Chapters III, IV, V III. GRAPHICS, VIDEO, and DISPLAY IV. INSTRUMENTATION INTERFACES V. COPROCESSORS 44.11 SBus Developer List, Chapters VI to VIII VI. I/O DEVICES AND INTERFACES VII. NETWORKING/COMMUNICATIONS INTERFACES VIII. STORAGE and DISK CONTROLLERS 44.12 SBus Developer List, Chapters IX to XVI IX. MODEMS, FACSIMILE, and COMPRESSION X. INDUSTRIAL I/O XI. MEMORY XII. ENABLING PRODUCTS and SERVICES XIII. MIL-STANDARD INTERFACE XIV. DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING SYSTEMS XV. AUDIO, VOICE, and SPEECH SYSTEMS XVI. DR-11W INTERFACE 44.13 Aug. 25th Sunergy Satellite Broadcast Live From Japan This is from Miyong.Byun@Corp. -johnj Sunergy announces the next interactive satellite broadcast Live from Japan! This program will be broadcast from the SunWorld Expo in Tokyo on August 25 at 6:30pm PDT. The late hour is due to the fact that the show is being downlinked throughout Japan. You may want to tape it for future playback. The preliminary agenda is as follows: Introduction to show John Gage (Host) Todays news John Gage Report from show floor John & Gene Banman First 10 years Scott McNealy & John Gage look at Sun's first 10 years 44.14 PTF: 3Gb of UNIX Freeware Issue 1-2 of Prime Time Freeware (cover date July, 1992) Prime Time Freeware (PTF) is a large, inexpensive collection of UNIX-related freeware source code. This article describes how to obtain the PTF CD-ROMS and an appendix is a Hierchical Package List of the key packages included in this 3Gb collection. -johnj 44.15 SMCC Introduces Multimedia Training Incorporates Audio, Video, Text, Graphics and Simulation MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- August 17, 1992 -- Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation (SMCC) announced today that it is shipping the first in a series of on-line interactive training tools, condensing more than 16 hours of classroom lecture into a lively multimedia experience. Called "SunTutor: OpenWindows Environment for Users," the new course is designed for first-time users of Sun workstations, allowing them to be trained on a Sun system in the convenience of their own office. With the new SunTutor series, SMCC is leading the workstation industry by combining on-line audio, video, text, graphics and simulation into a multimedia, self-paced training course that interacts with the application. The course takes full advantage of the multimedia capabilities of the Sun SPARCstation , requires no extra hardware or software for users of the OpenWindows environment and can be downloaded to the network. 44.16 SunExpress Unveils New Low U.S. Pricing Outlines New Business Direction LINCOLN, Mass. -- August 17, 1992 -- SunExpress, a business unit of Sun Microsystems, Inc. unveiled dramatic price reductions across its entire U.S. product line. Effective today, the company's U.S. operation has moved from list pricing to highly competitive non-discountable "street" pricing, which is what customers typically pay for products from a direct sales organization. The new pricing is part of SunExpress' new business direction, which is to focus on satisfying end user demand by being the low-price, direct source for Sun(TM) and third-party customer installable non-system products. SunExpress has also broadened its product set to include many leading third-party hardware and software solutions. 44.17 SPARCstation IPX with Mid-Range monitor - SPARCstation IPX now available with Mid-Range monitor - Lowers entry price to accelerated graphics performance SMCC is introducing a new SPARCstation IPX configuration with the recently announced 16" Mid-Range monitor. The new configuration of the SPARCstation IPX enables Sun to offer an even lower price for a fully-configured, high performance accelerated color system. The new monitor is a lower-priced aperture-grille product that offers excellent text performance and very good graphics performance. Compared to most monitors of this size available in the PC and Macintosh environments, the Mid-Range monitor offers superior front-of-screen performance and a larger screen. 44.18 Sun Consolidates in Chelmsford MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- August 12, 1992 -- Sun Microsystems, Inc., announced today that it has signed a long-term lease for three buildings in Chelmsford, Mass. The 320,000 square feet of office and production space in Altid Park will serve as the company's East Coast headquarters and will consolidate four existing Sun offices located throughout Massachusetts (Billerica, Andover, Methuen and Westford) into a single "campus." 44.19 Silvestri To Drive SPARC Technology Sales Will Head New Group to Capture SPARC Design Wins MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- August 13, 1992 -- Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation (SMCC) today announced that Chester J. Silvestri has joined the company as vice president, technology sales. In his newly created position, Silvestri will manage a new group devoted to securing technology design wins across a variety of industries, markets and geographies for SPARC(R), the leading RISC CPU architecture developed and championed by Sun. Silvestri, who will report to Joseph Roebuck, SMCC's vice president of worldwide field operations, comes to the company from Silicon Graphics, Inc., where he was most recently vice president and general manager of the Technology Products Group. Silvestri became part of Silicon Graphics when it acquired MIPS Computer Systems this year. 44.20 NetWare SunLink 1.0 - Enables SPARCsystems to act as servers in Novell PC networks - Transparent access to Solaris file, print, terminal services for NetWare client PCs (DOS, Windows, OS/2) - Will provide basis for application vendors (e.g. RDBMS vendors like Oracle) to develop high-performance Solaris back-ends for PC networks Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation (SMCC) announces SunSelect's NetWare SunLink product to provide full NetWare services on SMCC systems. NetWare SunLink provides NetWare file and print connectivity while retaining the much more robust application environment of Solaris and enabling server functions such as RDBMS back-ends. 44.21 Third Party Product Announcements db++ version 1.3 - C++ for portable database applications IPT's, Apple Agent Man (SNMP) NetMake 1.1 released Sendmail Made Simple Seminar 44.22 Sun Enters S&P 500 Wang Labs Chapter 11 filing triggers changes in the S&P indices NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sun Microsystems Inc., a leading supplier of high-performance workstations, servers and networking software based in Mountain View, Calif., will be added to the S&P 500 effective at the close of trading on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 1992. Sun is replacing Wang Laboratories Inc., a computer systems manufacturer, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier today. Sun will be added to the S&P 500 Computer Systems industry group. 44.23 SunSoft Launches SunSoft Press Announces Partnerships with Ziff-Davis and Prentice Hall MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.-- August 19, 1992 -- SunSoft, Inc., today launched SunSoft Press, a publishing group to develop, market, and distribute books on the Solaris software environment and associated Sun products to mainstream users. The company also announced strategic partnerships with Ziff-Davis Press, a leader in commercial and retail book publishing, and the Professional Technical Reference (PTR) division of Prentice Hall, a leader in professional and technical book publishing, to deliver Solaris expertise through their worldwide network of retail and technical bookstores. 44.24 Pre-Press Vendors And Sun MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- August 25, 1992 -- Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation (SMCC) today announced that six leading pre-press software and systems vendors will market new applications for the SPARC(R)/Solaris(R) platform. The applications bring advanced desktop, database and processing capabilities to SMCC's line of SPARC workstations, including the newly introduced Sun(TM) SPARCstation(TM) 10. Developers offering new applications on Sun systems include Crosfield Electronics Ltd., Digital Technology International, DuPont/Camex, ECRM, Linotype-Hell Company and System Integrators, Inc. Their products will be used for output and production flow management, display ad make-up, spot and process color imaging, raster image processing and database management. 44.25 Sun Leads Japanese Workstation Market MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- August 24, 1992 -- Sun Microsystems remains the top workstation vendor in Japan, according to a just-released Dataquest report, having led in that market since 1987. Dataquest Japan's "Analysis for the Information Systems Industry" stated that Sun Microsystems remained the market leader in Japan during 1991, with 29,800 units shipped and $483 million (U.S.) in revenues, up 26 percent and 22 percent, respectively, from 1990. Sun accounted for approximately 25 percent of the Japanese market in terms of both units and value of shipments for 1991. 44.26 SunSoft Introduces SearchIt SUNSOFT ANNOUNCES NEW SEARCH-AND-RETRIEVAL Application FOR SOLARIS Faster And Easier Access To Critical Information Across The Corporate Network MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- August 25, 1992 -- SunSoft, Inc., today unveiled new full-text search-and-retrieval application for the Solaris software environment. Called SearchIt, the new application acts as a personal reference librarian that quickly and easily locates on-line business data such as reports, proposals, and correspondence stored anywhere on the corporate network. In addition, SearchIt enables users to manage and manipulate this information for their specific needs through its easy-to-use intuitive interface. 44.27 September 1992 Software Technical Bulletin Contents This article describes the contents of the Software Technical bulletin (STB) for September, 1992. Is posted to SunFlash to make those customers who have a support contract aware that they should be receiving this execellent publication. Note that copies of the STB are sent to the people listed in your support contract. They have limited duplication rights (see notice included each month within the STB). ****** I have been given permission to place just two PostScript STBs (about 100 pages each) in the SunFlash archives on solar.nova.edu:/pub/sunflash/1992 185,395 stbaug92.ps.Z 171,958 stbjul92.ps.Z These files are also on ftp.uu.net:systems/sun/sunflash/1992 Consider these two PostScript versions as examples of what's included in this monthly service. I will continue to post the Table Of Contents and Editor's Introduction so that you can determine if you should obtain a copy of the STB from the person listed in your support contract (if you have one). 44.28 New "Type 5" Keyboards for the SPARCstation Product Line - New Sun "Type 5" keyboards available for all SPARCstations as of July 1 - New ergonomic industrial design & "Industry Standard" keyboard layout - Type 4 U.S. and universal country kits will continue to be available - New European international Type 5 country kits will begin shipping on all European systems July 1, 1992 Sun announced the availability of the completely new Type 5 keyboards for the SPARCstation product line beginning July 1, 1992: * the Type 5 Standard layout (PC-101 based layout) * the Type 5 UNIX layout. 44.29 SA-271 - Solaris 2.0 System Administration This is a course announcement from Sun's Educational Services. -johnj ************************************************** ** Sun Microsystems Educational Services ** ** SA-271 - Solaris 2.0 System Administration ** ************************************************** The person taking this course should be very knowledgable in SunOS 4.1.x and will be upgrading to solaris 2.0 between now and December 31, 1992 at their site. If you are planning to upgrade after January 1, 1993, we will offer a revised version of this course for you at that time. Please see our upcoming January-June 1993 education catalog for the revised version and course dates. 44.30 Upgrades to SPARCstation 10GS Sun announces four "box swap" upgrades from SPARCstation 2GS to SPARCstation 10GS. Customers can upgrade to either the SPARCstation 10 Model 30 or the Model 41. The box swap upgrades include Sun's new GS frame buffer: Upgrade to Model 41 GS UG-S2GS-S10-41 Upgrade to Model 41 GS diskfull UG-S2GS-S10-41-P43 Upgrade to Model 30 GS UG-S2GS-S10-30 Upgrade to Model 30 GS diskfull UG-S2GS-S10-30-P43 The introduction of the four upgrade paths to SPARCstation 10GS changes the upgrade plan announced on May 19, 1992. Originally, the GS upgrades to SPARCstation 10 were to be handled individually with the customer returning their entire SPARCstation 2GS system, including monitor. 44.31 Full Source Software This article describes a third party product which is a collection of tools, utilities and accessories from Full Source Software. -johnj From: Gary Kremen Org: Full Source Software Phone: 1-800-999-UNIX Fax: 1-415-949-4825 (fax) email: fss@btr.com We also have distribution (from Qualix Group 1-800-245-UNIX and UNIX Central 1-800-553-UNIX). Save time and make your job easier with Full Source Software's collection of tools, utilities and accessories. 44.32 Improving Performance with Direct Xlib This article is reprinted from the STB by permission of the author. -johnj By - Jamshed Doctor, SMCC Marketing Development Engineering Direct Xlib is Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation's new, unbundled product that transparently improves the rendering performance of graphics-intensive Xlib-based applications. The improved performance depends on the application's use and mix of graphics primitives. Applications using the standard Xlib Application Programming Interface (API) should not have to make any changes to their source code, because Direct Xlib presents the exact same MIT X11R4 interface. Direct Xlib is a set of supplemental (dynamic and static) Xlib libraries for OpenWindows 3.0. It can be easily disabled when standard server rendering is desired, and can be used for either the entire window system or on an application-by-application basis. A dynamically linked application can use Direct Xlib without any recompile or relink. A statically linked application must relink with the static Direct Xlib library provided. Performance increase is provided only when both the window client and the window server are on the same machine. Otherwise, standard Xlib is used for rendering. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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, paris.cs.miami.edu, uunet.uu.net, src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au 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.