Portable Appletalk came a step closer at UniForum last week when Apple Computer got together with AT&T Computer Systems and Pacer Software to announce a specification for standardising the access of AppleTalk networking protocols from AT&T’s Unix Systems C Release 4. The announcements, following on from preliminary details released last September, mean that software developers will be able to create AppleTalk networking applications for Unix that perform file sharing, printing, electronic mail or client-server operations. AT&T is the first to implement the AppleTalk applications programming interfaces described in the specification for its StarGroup Server for Macintosh Clients, part of its StarGroup LAN Manager Server system. It will begin shipping in February. Apple will implement the interfaces in the next release of Portable AppleTalk source code, which it licenses to mainframe and minicomputer and networking companies, in an effort to extend AppleTalk to all major computing environments. Pacer Software Inc, Westborough, Massachusetts, a long-term Apple networking specialist, has already completed implementations of the AppleTalk protocols for Unix systems from Hewlett-Packard, DEC, Sun and Santa Cruz Operation Unix. The first release of the AppleTalk applications programming interfaces will be offered on NCR’s new Intel iAPX-86-based System 3000. AT&T and Apple promise to distribute the AppleTalk specification beginning in the second quarter of this year.
