Fujitsu Ltd has converted its Atlas machine translation system from its M series mainframes on which it was initially developed, to the S family of Sun-derived workstations: the translation system is also currently available on the Motorola 68030-based G series of workstations, and is planned to be implemented on the DS/90 7000 series; the price of the S family version is even more competitive than the system is on previous hardware – $212,750; Atlas, which was developed several years ago and is a continuing source of effort, if not profits, for Fujitsu, provides two-way English-Japanese translation, at a speed of 26,000 words per hour from Japanese to English, and 12,000 words from English to Japanese – that’s 1.5 times faster for English to Japanese and 1.8 times faster in reverse than manual translation; specialised dictionaries are available for a range of subjects, including biology, finance and medicine, for a cost of $960, and a special low-cost version for the individual user is now offered by Fujitsu for $2,400.
