The Solutions Unix show was staged in Paris earlier this month by fast-growing UK exhibition organiser Blenheim Online Ltd, of Chiswick, West London, which combined the event with Windows Europe, Telecom Network, Software Development and Siged shows to create one large computing jamboree at the Porte de Versailles.
COSE, Mac emulator and WABI on IBM’s unity desktop…
Barred, it says, by fellow COSE founders – specifically Hewlett-Packard Co – from demonstrating its implementation of a fully-integrated COSE Common Desktop Environment, IBM Corp was nevertheless giving sneak previews of CDE technologies running under version 1.0 of its Unity Desktop system at the Solutions Unix show. The problem, according to IBM, is that the COSE firms have been unable to agree on a policy for demonstrating the so-called unifying technology outside the confines of their own walls. If what our IBM demonstrator says is true – and the environment he was showing was hurriedly closed down when personnel from other COSE firms were in the vicinity – then what hope is there for the as-yet unsigned agreement for cross-licensing COSE environment components? Unity Desktop 1.0 is the HP VUE Visual User Environment-based front-end of an early version of IBM’s COSE implementation – the part it is allowed to show. Unity Desktop is IBM’s implementation of Hewlett-Packard Co code, which typically takes between 20 and 30 seconds to boot up on most COSE vendors’ systems, including full authentication procedures. The COSE system is hungry, however. The RS/6000 Model 370 wasn’t able to do anything else while COSE was up – IBM had both Wabi, and its new Apple Computer Inc Macintosh emulator sitting under the desktop. The PowerPC system – a 60 SPECint92 and 80 SPECfp92, 66MHz PowerStation 250 workstations that featured in IBM’s Unix Expo announcement last week – was also running the SunSelect Windows-under-Unix Wabi system. Meanwhile, IBM’s long-awaited Mac-under-AIX environment, was up on an RS/6000 Model 370. The Apple Macintosh emulation system – MacOS converted for the Rios RS/6000 and recompiled will be running under AIX 3.2.5 ahead of the delayed PowerOpen environment, and has undergone a series of name changes within the organisation, including Power Mac, Mac on AIX and most recently, Mac on Power. As to what it will eventually be launched as, the IBM people were still in the dark. Although the emulator itself seems to work perfectly well – the user can bring up the Macintosh system and execute Mac applications and utilities in a single X Window as if he or she were sitting a very fast Apple computer – the environment we played with is currently only supported on host systems configured with Power 3GTi graphics adaptor boards, and that means RS/6000 Rios systems, for now. AIX on PowerPC needs a new server extension for Mac, according to IBM, which will be included in the finished product, it assured us. Another feature not supported on initial versions of the environment, but being readied for product shipment, is the ability to see Macintosh files on the system from within Unix, and see Unix files as icons within MacOS. It’s a feature that IBM expects Wabi to support as well, in its product integration. IBM is also tinkering to iron out some minor colour-mapping inconsistencies, including loading some of those not already present. Currently the use of certain Mac applications generate a psychedelic riot of colour on the screen. Users will need at least an RS/6000 Model 360 to run the Macintosh emulator.
…as the firm puts WABI performance under microscope…
IBM was also demonstrating the performance of Wabi on PowerPC and Rios RS/6000s, in this case respectively a 66MHz PowerStation 250 – which is rated at 60 SPECint92 and 80 SPECfp92 – and a 62MHz Model 370, performing at 59.7 SPECint92 and 121.1 SPECfp92. Using Wabi’s performance test suite, which compares Windows word processing, spreadsheet, CAD/Draw and Paint applications on the host Wabi/Unix system against a range of simulated Intel Corp 80286 and 80386 architectures – up to a full 8038
6 box with a standard VGA graphics board – each seemed to run at least three times faster on the PowerPC box than in the simulated environment. Performance of the applications on the 370 didn’t meet the PowerPC’s factored performance advantage, and on the spreadsheet at least, it was slower than on a simulated 80386.
…as french IBMers call for universal desktop system
With Unity Desktop, COSE, Wabi and the Macintosh interface ranged alongside each other on RS/6000 systems, IBMmers at the Paris show said that they hope all the utilities will eventually be brought together under a single hood, a universal desktop environment for running Unix, Windows and Macintosh on a single system. Whether this is can be achieved or not, the problem remains one of convincing people to put – and pay for – Unix on their desktops as opposed to straight Mac or Windows machines.
Round-up
The system is now up under Unix as well as VAX/VMS and Paris firm Intellitic International SA announced a version of its object-oriented Matisse – Multimedia Advanced Technology for Information Systems Semantic Engineering (and you thought it had something to do with the impressionist painter?) – database for Hewlett-Packard Co HP 9000 series systems: already available on Sun Sparcstations and testing on the Kendall Square Research Inc parallel systems, Matisse is due on IBM Corp AIX systems and in Windows NT and Windows 3 client versions. Krystal Ingenierie SA had Virginia-based Template Software Inc’s Snap application development environment up under OSF Disributed Computing Environment on IBM Corp RS/6000s. Meanwhile, Assistance Developpement Nouvelles Technologies SA, Paris, has a new Object SQL module for its Snapix graphical database application development system which runs under Motif on Sun Sparcstations and Unix System V.3.2-based systems, and sells for from UKP3,000. Groupe Prologue SA, Paris, wheeled out version 2.0 of its Abal++ object-oriented development environment which runs under a variety of Unixes and also under Windows NT, MS-DOS and VMS: version 2.0 comes with an A-plus class library generator and includes encapsulation, inheritance and persistence features; an SQL Open module connects with Informix, Oracle, Ingres and Skipper databases and development systems are priced at from UKP3,200 under Unix, with ships due in November; Abal++ was spawned by Prologue’s Abal development environment – the MS-DOS version of which can now be used to develop AS/400 applications over PCS/400 links. Esker SA launched version 6.1 of its Screener Unix development environment, which it says now includes support for X Window, C, Cobol, SQL and Windows clients; it’s on version 7.1 of its Tun MS-DOS and Windows-to-Unix communications system. IBSI Groupe SA’s recently-acquired Dual division used the Solutions Unix show to launch version 3.0 of its Applidual Motif and Windows 3-on-Unix application development system in client and server iterations: the product runs in conjunction with Oracle, Sybase, Ingres and Informix relational databases.
