In brief

Press, 27 September 1988, Page 30

In brief

Atari emulators A number of emulators have been released for the Atari ST. These include PC Ditto, which allows emulation (slower) of the IBM PC from the 3.5 in builtin drive or an external 5.25 in drive. Magic Sac allows emulation of the Apple Macintosh, but is said to run 30 per cent faster. Aussat spot beams Aussat Pty has announced plans to modify the Aussat B-Series satellites to include very high powered pencil beams covering each of the Australian state capitals. The spot beams will enable the provision of specialised services via satellite into each capital city using very small satellite antenna systems. Digital selling SAS Digital Equipment Corporation will sell the SAS System, which includes more than 125 software applications, direct to customers in Australia and New Zealand after the signing of a formal software marketing agreement. The SAS System was first released for the VAX/VMS system in 1984 and has become the leading data analysis and graphical reporting system in the VAX environment. Unix and Post Script In the American desktop publishing world, increasing attention is being given to the operating system, Unix. Bix reports that at the recent Seybold desktop publishing conference in California, Unix was supported by Steve Jobs, of NeXT, and representatives of Sun and Abode Systems. Sun suggested it would be offering a Unix PC in the price range of the Macintosh and the PC next year based on SPARC technology, and that there would be Taiwanese clones. The NeXT micro, to be released next month, is rumoured to have a graphical interface to Unix.

Steven Jobs said micros that would handle both Unix and Post Script would cost about SUS2OOO (perhaps SNZSOOO in New Zealand) over present Mac and MS-DOS systems. Alliance off Peterborough Software of Britain, and MSA have abandoned the "alliance” that would have given Peterborough all MSA’s payroll and personnel sites outside North America. The decision affects six IBM mainframe users in New Zealand: at Postßank, Telecom, the Broadcasting Corporation, NZ Post, Reserve Bank, and the Department of Education. Peterborough said the company was unable to resolve the terms of the joint venture with MSA and both parties had reluctantly agreed to withdraw from the proposed arrangement. The agreement would have entailed Peterborough taking responsibility for support of MSA’s IPP human resources package and eventually providing a migration path to its own Unipay and Unipersonnel software. The announcement came in a week in which MSA also reported the departure of top executives in Britain and America.

MSA fought off an unwelcome take-over bid in July by Computer Associates.