Sony Microsystems has added a top of the range file server system to its News workstation series. Rated at 5.3 MIPS, the NWS-1930 was previewed at the Hannover fair back in March, and is now available in the UK through Sony’s distributor Logitek Plc, based in Wigan. Built around two 25MHz 68030s, the new model has 16Mb RAM expandable to 32Mb, 64Kb cache memory, 572Mb internal storage, three expansion slots and can take up to five extra VME boards. With Ethernet, and running Sony’s News-OS Unix variant, the NWS-1930 costs around UKP32,000. The file server now enables an image database system to be operated across a network, for building databases that can incorporate colour video images and handwritten documents, in addition to text data entered via a keyboard. It is built upon the News workstation’s image and video graphics boards and integrates with Sony’s rewritable magneto-optical disk subsystem. Images taken by a colour video camera are converted into bit format, documents are read by the CCITT G4 technique and both are stored on the internal hard disk of the workstation using third party relational database software – yes but which? Sony doesn’t say. Images can then be displayed on the NWP-513 colour bit-mapped display and printed with a video or laser printer from any workstation on the network.
