Apricot Sigmex Ltd, the Horsham, West Sussex result of Apricot’s acquisition of command and control specialists Sigmex International Plc back in May of last year, has launched a range of real time graphics workstations and subsystems at the top end of its range of systems. The AS 8000 graphics workstation series and AS 6700 subsystem are re-badged and ruggedised versions of Tucker, Georgia based Chromatics Inc’ Baja and Le Mans CX2000 workstations. The AS 6700 is the two-dimensional Baja graphics terminal subsystem, which uses a 68020 running at 16MHz with 12 MIPS performance. The pipelining of processors is claimed to deliver one million two dimensional GKS vectors. It has an optional PHIGS-like three-dimensional extension, and supports both Unix and VAX/VMS environments. Priced at UKP20,000 the AS 6700 is available now. The AS 8500 version of the Le Mans workstation, incorporating the AS 6700 subsystem, has a Sun-3/E workstation processor – a 20MHz version of the 68020 with Sun’s memory management unit – 4Mb memory expandable to 16Mb, and 300Mb hard disk. It runs Unix and supports all Sun software and tools including Network File System. The AS 8700 is built upon a 68030 CPU set, again running Unix and incorporating the AS 6700 subsystem. No prices are given for the workstations. Apricot Sigmex says it has now completed the first stage of a contract to supply 12 real time data management and display subsystems for the Ministry of Defence’s Skynet 4 military satellite communications programme, providing the user interface for Skynet’s Enhanced Spacecraft Operations Facility, controlling the operation of defence satellites. And French sister firm Apricot Sigmex SA is installing a graphics command and control subsystem at Electricite de France’s main regional control centre.
