sunflash-Distributed to mailing list sun/NC/north-carolina sunflash-Send requests, problems to owner-sunflash@suntri.east.sun.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash Third Party Product Announcements SunFLASH Vol 59 #26 November 1993 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abstracts 59.26.A Accelr8 product description VAX/VMS MIGRATION to SUN APPLICATION MIGRATION FORTRAN SOURCE CODE CONVERTER VAX BASIC CONVERSION DATA INTEROPERABILITY USER TOOLS -- DCL and VMS editors MIGRATION PLANNING (63 lines) 59.26.B THE ASK GROUP UNVEILS NEXT-GENERATION DEVELOPMENT TOOLS The ASK Group will deliver the first two products in its new ASK OpenROAD* family of application development tools, along with new services offerings, over the next 6-9 months. OpenROAD, which stands for open Rapid Object Application Development, allows developers to achieve as much as a 10-fold productivity improvement over current methods. In addition, by providing OpenROAD on more than 20 hardware and software platforms, the ASK Group is setting a standard for platform support among independent tools providers. (180 lines) 59.26.C SCREENPLAY 2.0 for Solaris Now Available RAD Technologies is now shipping Release 2.0 of ScreenPlay, part of a family of PowerHouse Multimedia tools for Sales and Marketing Presentations, Multimedia Electronic Mail, Training Tutorials, and Software Demonstrations. This new release of the best-selling screen video recording software now has powerful editing capabilities to produce professional on-screen presentations, software demonstrations and training tutorials for playback from CD-ROM or over the network from within any application. (202 lines) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Details -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Accelr8 product description Org: Accelr8 Technology Corporation Address: 303 East 17th Avenue, Suite 108 Denver, CO 80203-1253 Phone: 303-863-8088 and ask for "sales" FAX: 303-863-1218 Email: sales@accelr8.com V A X / V M S M I G R A T I O N to S U N APPLICATION MIGRATION -- VAX/VMS applications use hundreds of library routines that are part of VMS. Accelr8 Technology offers these libraries on Solaris 1.x and 2.x. By using these migration tools, customers gain the advantages of Sun-based computing now. Written in C, and optimized for UNIX, these libraries allow VAX applications to port in a fraction of the time required for a rewrite. Asynchronous I/O, RMS file I/O, Mailboxes, Logical Names, Screen Management, Forms Management, and other VAX facilities are ported by this library of over 500 routines. Customers have reported twenty-to-one time savings using these tools in a port. FORTRAN SOURCE CODE CONVERTER -- This product translates a VAX FORTRAN application source code to a new FORTRAN source code for compiling on Sun. Comments and white space are preserved. Indexed file operations, logical expression handling, argument type checking, and other differences between VAX and Suns FORTRAN are resolved or flagged for the user. Avoids costly trial and error in porting FORTRAN applications. VAX BASIC CONVERSION -- Accelr8 provides a VAX BASIC compiler for Sun. Heavily extended, VAX BASIC applications require special tools, such as Accelr8's compiler, for ports to Sun. DATA INTEROPERABILITY -- Customers easily solve the byte ordering, floating point, and file type differences between SPARC systems and the VAX. Products either move files to Sun when the VAX is being replaced, or, when co-existence is desired, make it easy to share data between the systems. USER TOOLS -- DCL and VMS editors on Solaris. These VAX facilities ease the pain of VMS users moving to Sun. With maximum fidelity to VMS, the DCL product is an excellent porting tool for VAX command procedures. Open TPU provides multiple editing modes for VAX users on Solaris. MIGRATION PLANNING -- Accelr8 offers a consulting service which includes a visit to the customer's site, resulting in a plan for moving to open systems. Issues are identified along with strategies to accomplish a move, delivered in a written report to the customer. 3RD PARTY SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS -- One of Accelr8's most satisfied customers is a 3rd party software supplier who was able to offer their VAX solution on Sun, years ahead of when they could through re-engineering. Accelr8 offers royalty free and source code licenses to software suppliers. THE BOTTOM LINE -- THESE TOOLS SAVE TIME AND MONEY FOR 3RD PARTY DEVELOPERS AND END USERS MOVING FROM VAX/VMS TO SUN. Money that goes straight to your customer's bottom line. Open Software Solutions(tm) from Accelr8 Technology -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: THE ASK GROUP UNVEILS NEXT-GENERATION DEVELOPMENT TOOLS From: bconnors@ingres.com Contact: Penny Wolf Kamini Ramani ASK Group Public Relations Copithorne & Bellows (510) 748-3696 (415) 541-0873 New ASK OpenROAD products propel rapid development of enterprise information systems MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., October 4, 1993 -- The ASK Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASKI), strategic business software provider, today announced a new family of products aimed at helping companies solve one of their most critical information processing challenges -- rapidly developing and refining the information systems that run their businesses worldwide. The ASK Group will deliver the first two products in its new ASK OpenROAD* family of application development tools, along with new services offerings, over the next 6-9 months. OpenROAD, which stands for open Rapid Object Application Development, allows developers to achieve as much as a 10-fold productivity improvement over current methods. In addition, by providing OpenROAD on more than 20 hardware and software platforms, the ASK Group is setting a standard for platform support among independent tools providers. "ASK OpenROAD represents a new approach to software development," said Stephen Weyl, president of the ASK Group's Development Tools Product Unit. "It is based on a philosophy of building applications from existing components using the highest-level development language available and allowing the generation of dynamic enterprise applications without writing software code. This will allow large-scale systems to be implemented at speeds inconceivable even a short time ago." Weyl said this is important in today's dynamic environment which requires continual "business process re-engineering," forcing software developers to rapidly implement new systems and continuously refine existing ones. The first of the new products and services within the ASK OpenROAD family will include a new version (Release 3.0) of ASK Windows4GL, the company's graphical application development tool, a next-generation model- based code generator and service offerings consisting of a development methodology and consulting packages for rapid implementation. Weyl said the new products will provide users: % High-performance support for a variety of databases in addition to the ASK Group's INGRES database, including databases from Oracle Corporation and Sybase Inc; through custom drivers; % The ability to create powerful visual applications using a "dynamic" interface that is intuitively understood by users; % The ability to build, enhance and refine large-scale systems faster using model-based application generation techniques that eliminate the code- writing necessary with language- and methodology-based tools; % Lower maintenance costs and reliability improvements through the new capability of reusing existing "objects," or whole applications stored in an application library; % The ability to automatically control and synchronize applications worldwide through enhanced distributed application management technology. In endorsing the ASK Group's new approach to application development, customer Chuck O'Leary, a vice president of Modisette Associates of Houston, Texas, said, "ASK Windows4GL brought us a 67 percent reduction in time to develop graphically-oriented pipeline management software for transportation and oil companies worldwide. With ASK OpenROAD, we'll be able to improve that productivity even more and develop applications across multiple database platforms; this is a truly open solution." Maximum Flexibility and Freedom of Choice ASK OpenROAD provides a scalable, desktop-to-enterprise development and deployment environment that supports up to thousands of users. Applications employ the technology best suited to address business requirements; for instance, a decision support application can employ gateways while a transaction processing application can be deployed against transaction processing monitors. In addition, ASK OpenROAD permits developers to build applications that are portable across multiple environments with no code changes. ASK OpenROAD supports popular operating systems including Microsoft Windows 3.1 and WindowsNT, Apple Macintosh, IBM OS/2, UNIX and Digital Equipment Corporation's OpenVMS; a range of relational databases including ASK INGRES, Oracle, Sybase, IBM DB2 and Digital Rdb as well as IBM IMS, Hewlett Packard Allbase and other non-relational databases; all major microprocessor architectures including Intel 80x86/Pentium, SPARC, RS/6000, HP/PA, Alpha and Motorola; transaction processing monitors such as Tuxedo; a range of other tools including CASE, 3GL, 4GL and visual interface software. Easy Creation of Visual Interfaces ASK OpenROAD supports the development of applications that employ a dynamic visual interface to allow users to visually interact with business functions. This reduces training costs and increases user effectiveness. For example, in an airline reservation application, the agent could have a picture of an airplane to indicate current seat occupancy and simply click on an empty seat to indicate that it has been filled. Developers also have the ability to dynamically adapt the interface to meet user requirements, such as incorporating a new type of airplane into the airline reservation system example. Rapid Development of Large-Scale Systems By using the enterprise data model as the starting point of application development, ASK OpenROAD will enable developers to build, enhance and refine large scale systems in a time-frame not possible with language- or methodology-based toolsets. As a result of the model-based generation capabilities, business and data integrity rules can be incorporated automatically into applications, standard coding practices can be enforced, modifications can be made manually and changes can be reconciled automatically. For instance, instead of a status code for an employee being a numerical value like 1 or 0, the developer can specify in the data model that inactive employees be referenced by a red box and active by a green one. Every subsequent application that uses employee status information would then automatically adopt the color-coded attributes. Maximum Return on Software Investment ASK OpenROAD is based on a powerful, object-oriented architecture that provides developers with the ability to create "class libraries" in an object-oriented 4GL (fourth generation language) and do it during development or in runtime mode without the need to exit to a 3GL to obtain desired functionality. Objects, components and whole applications that are specifically tailored to a user's environment can be stored in the libraries and be re-used over and over again. The ASK Group is currently working with third-party developers to build application libraries targeted at common business functions such as entry forms, accounting screens and tax tables. As a result of these capabilities, developers can generate large applications (defined as using 1000s of screens) 10 times faster than with current development approaches. Easy Deployment of Enterprisewide Applications ASK OpenROAD's unique distributed application management capabilities enable companies to automatically deploy applications to worldwide sites, guarantee that users have the current version and ensure that applications are always available and running. ASK OpenROAD applications are stored within a data dictionary that is accessible to any user on the network on which it resides. ASK OpenROAD Availability The first of the products in the new ASK OpenROAD family -- ASK Windows4GL 3.0 and the new model-based code generator -- will be available within 6-9 months, as will the new services offerings. Pricing details and configuration options will be announced within 90 days. Today, more than 100,000 developers use the ASK Group tools in organizations like Time-Warner, AT&T, Barclays Bank, NASA, and the Hewlett-Packard Company. The ASK Group's development tools team has a 10-year history of leadership in the tools market beginning with the release of ABF, the first client-server 4GL tool in 1984; followed by the introduction of ASK Vision, the first 4GL generator in 1988; ASK Windows4GL, the first object-oriented 4GL environment in 1989; and the availability of that environment on the most window managers in 1992. The ASK Group, Inc., is a developer and integrator of strategic business software, providing corporations with the technologies and services to build, connect, manage and maintain information systems. With revenue of $426 million for fiscal year ended June 30, 1993, the company employs more than 2,300 employees in 82 offices who serve customers worldwide. ASK is a registered trademark of The ASK Group, Inc. OpenROAD is a trademark of The ASK Group, Inc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: SCREENPLAY 2.0 for Solaris Now Available Org: RAD Technologies, Inc Tel: 415-968-4800 Fax: 415-940-1961 Address: 745 Emerson St. Palo Alto, CA 94301 Email: info@rad.com RAD Technologies is now shipping Release 2.0 of ScreenPlay, part of a family of PowerHouse Multimedia tools for Sales and Marketing Presentations, Multimedia Electronic Mail, Training Tutorials, and Software Demonstrations. This new release of the best-selling screen video recording software now has powerful editing capabilities to produce professional on-screen presentations, software demonstrations and training tutorials for playback from CD-ROM or over the network from within any application. ScreenPlay 2.0 represents a major upgrade of RAD's best-selling multimedia production software. While providing unparalleled real-time screen video recording for software demonstrations and simulations, Release 2.0 brings powerful new video and audio editing features, and an advanced MediaPlayer API for integration with third-party applications. And now ScreenPlay 2.0 provides industry-standard AVI playback in Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh computers as well as for SunOS, Solaris, HP, SGI, and other UNIX platforms. New Features * TimeLine-based screen video and audio editing * Insert, delete and delay editing functions * Import images, graphics, ScreenPlay video clips and audio files * Advanced audio tools including frame-by-frame overdubbing, file import, microphone and volume control * Powerful Command Line API for exact control of recording and viewing * Enhanced MediaViewer VTR and runtime controls * SunOS4.1.3, Solaris 2.x, SGI, and HP support * Playback on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh * On-Line documentation shipped with every copy INSTALLATION FROM INTERNET 1. ftp ftp.uu.net Login 'anonymous'. Use email address as password. cd /vendor/RAD/screenplay 2. Copy screenplay.tar.Z, demos.tar.Z, and README.sp 3. uncompress files 4. tar files into /home/RAD on your local machine 5. Follow instructions in README 6. Call, fax, or e-mail info@rad.com for password or technical questions. FROM SUN NEWSTOP (newstop.ebay) Sun Employees Only % cd (to HOME directory on your machine) % ftp newstop login: anonymous psswrd: first.lastname@hostname (where hostname is your machine) ftp> cd /sun/corpdemos/multimedia/screenplay ftp> bin ftp> get rad.disk1.tar.Z ftp> get rad.disk2.tar.Z ftp> get README ftp> logout README will provide step-by-step instructions on how to install the ScreenPlay binaries and executables. REQUEST FREE DEMO If you do not have access to INTERNET or Sun NewStop, you can request a free demonstration copy of ScreenPlay four ways: 1. Send E-Mail to info@rad.com with your name, address, and phone number. 2. Send Fascimile to RAD at Fax: 415-940-1961 3. Call RAD at 415-968-4800 4. ftp uunet /vendor/RAD/screenplay RAD TECHNOLOGIES RAD Technologies is the leading developer of multimedia and CD-ROM publishing tools for UNIX workstations. RAD develops products to help companies like yourself: * More Effectively Market Products * Better Train Customers and Employees * Reduce the Costs of Product Delivery * Improve Company Image in the Marketplace RAD products allow your company to provide all its software and product information, documentation, videos, presentations, and marketing materials on-line for your worldwide customers and workforce. CD-ROM publishing of your software provides major benefits to your company, which is made possible through innovative PowerHouse MultiMedia tools like ScreenPlay, VideoCam, Media Catalogue, and CDID from RAD Technologies. Primary benefits of RAD PowerHouse MultiMedia are: Provides all required information on-line to the customer and the workforce: Product demonstrations Documentation Product for multiple platforms Sales presentations Training tutorials Corporate videos Product updates Reduces training costs of the field and workforce by providing automated remote training tools. Dramatically reduces product delivery, support and logistics costs. A typical CD-ROM SKU price is under $30 vs. $2-300 for conventional. Customers call less because they have all required files and info and expenses can be amortized across a number of departments. Implements a efficient process and goal for all groups to work together in the company to produce the CD-ROM. RAD PowerHouse MultiMedia products are easy to use, work across a wide number of platforms, provide high-performance video compression and playback, and use flexible enterprise-wide licensing. Join hundreds of other companies using RAD PowerHouse MultiMedia tools to improve their business. SCREENPLAY 2.0 For recording and editing of on-screen videos for tutorials, demonstrations, and project walk-thrus. ScreenPlay 2.0 provides new advanced editing capabilities for integration of video, images, graphics and audio. ScreenPlay integrates with on-line publishing and hypertext systems, object and releational databases, and electronic mail systems. SunGlass 1.01 is now released as a conversion utility which provides playback of ScreenPlay videos on any Microsoft Windows or Apple Macintosh computer. OTHER RAD POWERHOUSE MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTS RAD develops and markets a family of software products for authoring and delivery of multimedia presentations, training, and product demonstrations. For detailed information, see the respective READMEs and /doc directories under each product. CD-ROM Integrated Desktop (CDID) The CDID is now available as a customizable toolkit for developing your own CD-ROMs showcasing software products. CDID provides range of tools for your CD publishing needs: Electronic Order Form Customizable Product Kiosk Display Demo, Install, or Get Info on any product On-Line Price List Call RAD Technologies at 415-968-4800 for more info. VideoCam 1.0 VideoCam is new digital video publishing software for recording, editing, and playback of MPEG compressed video from SunVideo, Parallax, and RasterOps video boards. VideoCam provides real-motion software-only decompression and playback of videos on a wide number of platforms. Due to be release in November, 1993. Media Catalogue 1.0 This allows developers of on-line catalogues of videos, images, and ScreenPlay movies to quickly create high- performance user libraries with a point-and-click interface. Any executable script can be attached to any image in the Media Catalogue. Up to 1000 videos can be included in any catalogue allowing easy scrolling and selection from hours of information. ********************************************************************** For information about SunFlash send mail to info-sunflash@Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@Sun.COM. Archives are on draco.nova.edu, ftp.uu.net, sunsite.unc.edu, src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au For Gopher and WAIS access: sunsite.unc.edu. (Login as 'gopher' for a simple gopher client, 'swais' for a simple WAIS client (over 500 databases). 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. Send brief articles (e.g. third party announcements) and include contact information (non-800#, fax #, email, etc) to: John McLaughlin, SunFlash editor, flash@Sun.COM. +1 305 351 4909