The Seybold Report on Desktop Publishing articles from August 1994

The Seybold Report on Desktop Publishing archives from August 1994

Siggraph '94: a brave new world of virtual applications emerges. (Assn for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques conference) (summary of feature article) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... All things virtual were in the spotlight at this year's Siggraph show in Orlando. Concentrating on more than just the newest technology, this annual event, sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery, emphasized how people are using...

Macworld: Power Macs and System 7.5. (Macworld Expo 1994 exhibition) (summary of feature article) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... The drought of Power Mac applications is over, or nearly so. Everywhere we looked at Macworld Expo, signs proclaimed the availability (or, more rarely, the imminence) of native Power versions of productivity applications. On the system front,...

Seybold shifting European customer support setup. (business change notice) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... Seybold Publications is changing its customer support arm in Europe. The Seybold Ltd. office in the UK has closed. We will name a new contact soon. Meanwhile, send requests to our office in Media, PA. This change -- part of an effort to improve...

The Non-Designer's Design Book.
August 15, 1994... The Non-Designer's Design, by Robin Williams. Peachpit Press, 144 pages, $15. Robin Williams knows how to write a beginner's book: Make a few simple points about a single subject, illustrate profusely and don't ever let the tone get too...

PostScript Typeface Library.
August 15, 1994... PostScript Typeface Library, by Tony Esposito and Jean Callan King. Van Nostrand, $35 per volume or $65 for the two-volume set. A pair of hefty paperbacks, too tall for the bookshelf and too narrow to prop up a monitor. We've seen much...

SSF preview via Internet (Seybold San Francisco 1994 conference) (publication change notice) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... In the next few weeks, the editors of The Seybold Reports will be preparing their traditional preview of the Seybold San Francisco expo. This year, for the first time, the stories will be available on the World Wide Web, up- dated regularly in...

Siggraph: virtual-reality applications and immersion experiences. (Assn for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques 1994 conference and exhibition highlights)
August 15, 1994... Sidestepping our normal realm of graphic arts and desktop publishing trade shows, we spent a week (July 24-28) at the 21st annual Siggraph conference and exhibition in Orlando, FL. At first glance, you might have mistaken Siggraph for a...

Apple's System 7.5 makes debut; Power Macs everywhere at Macworld. (Macworld Expo 1994)
August 15, 1994... It's always a treat to explore the nooks and crannies of Macworld in Boston. Despite the nuisance of rushing between two exhibit halls separated by several miles of intense traffic (with the keynote sessions in a third location across town),...

Aldus, Altsys settle suit; Adobe merger imminent; FreeHand to be returned to Altsys; merged firm to be named Adobe Systems. (Adobe Systems; Aldus FreeHand draw software)
August 15, 1994... FreeHand to be returned to Altsys; merged firm to be named Adobe Systems The merger between Aldus and Adobe should be consummated within the next few weeks, following a deal settling objections by the Federal Trade Commission and an...

ATM 3.0 for Windows adds multiple masters; version 3.8 for Mac adds GX support. (Adobe Type Manager now supports Power Macintoshes and System 7.5's QuickDraw GX features) (Product Announcement)
August 15, 1994... ATM 3.0 for Windows adds multiple masters Version 3.8 for Mac adds GX support Adobe is set to deliver Adobe Type Manager 3.0 for Windows, which includes support for multiple-master type for the first time. It also enables running ATM via a...

Photoshop 3.0: layers, new color correction; preview of CMYK prior to conversion. (Adobe Systems image processing software) (Product Announcement)
August 15, 1994... Preview of cmyk prior to conversion Quietly nestled in a corner of the Apple booth's "Newsroom of the '90s" at the recent Nexpo newspaper equipment exposition, a brand-new version of Photoshop was demonstrated by Adobe. (Interestingly, the...

Letraset, Altsys drop FontStudio, Font-o-matic; cow-spotted fonts are a thing of the past. (font management software) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... Cow-spotted fonts are a thing of the past In unrelated announcements, Letraset and Altsys have disclosed that they will discontinue font manipulation programs: Letraset's FontStudio and Altsys's Font-o-matic. (However, Altsys will continue...

Extensis PageTools aids PageMaker speed, ease; "must-have" utility is 10 Additions. (Aldus PageMaker 5.0 for Macintosh add-on) (Evaluation) (Software Review)
August 15, 1994... "Must-have" utility is 10 Additions It's rare when a product comes along that immediately becomes a candidate for use by everyone in a certain class or market. Few products have achieved this exalted status, and those that have more often...

Galileo shows color pixel formatter chip; interface to printers, scanners. (Galileo Technology's GT-24001 Color Pixel Formatter ASIC) (Product Announcement)
August 15, 1994... Interface to printers, scanners Galileo Technology, a semiconductor design firm, has announced an application-specific chip for color printers, rips and scanners. Called the GT-24001 Color Pixel Formatter, it comprises three 32-bit-wide, fifo...

Xyptx debuts Mac halftoning utility; optimized for 300-, 600-dpi printers. (Smart1/2Tones screening software) (Brief Article) (Product Announcement)
August 15, 1994... Optimized for 300-, 600-dpi printers Xyptx has announced a Macintosh application, called Smart1/2Tones, that combines am and fm screening techniques to convert gray-scale images to screened images. In the name of ease of use, versions of the...

Microsoft told to end monopolistic practices: But is it really business a usual? (results of US Justice Dept antitrust investigation)
August 15, 1994... But is it really business as usual? Long-suffering software vendors that had hoped that the Federal Trade Commission would save them from the Microsoft juggernaut will have to look elsewhere for salvation. On July 15, the U.S. Justice...

Dimensions 2.0 makes up for past failures; 3D imaging adds Bezier drawing. (Adobe Systems imaging program) (Product Announcement)
August 15, 1994... 3d imaging adds Bezier drawing Dimensions 2.0, Adobe's quasi-3d imaging program, has corrected a lot of the shortcomings of the past. At our last viewing, we found it lacking in many areas (see Vol. 7, No. 4). But Adobe has made up for them....

PDAs and publishing. (highlights from special Seybold reports) (Seybold Clip File) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... Long on promises and short on attractive products, the market for pdas has yet to mature to the $3 trillion value estimated by John Sculley during the launch of the Newton. Despite high initial interest, sales for the Newton and other hand-held...

Quark on a roll? (CopyDesk Special Edition and QPS Entry publishing programs; highlights from Seybold special publications) (Seybold Clip File) (Brief Article) (Product Announcement)
August 15, 1994... Quark made its share of news at this year's Nexpo newspaper show in Las Vegas with the debut of a freestanding version of CopyDesk. Being marketed at word processor prices, the program will solve the problem of different h&j results in the text...

Digital camera comparison. (highlights from Seybold special reports) (Seybold Clip File) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... Finally, in our upcoming Report on Publishing Systems (Vol. 23, No. 22), we reproduce the results of a comparative study of digital cameras. We put four devices on the market today through their paces and report the results in an article...

Sun rolls out low-end graphics workstations; misguided competition against Power Macs, Pentium PCs. (Sun Microsystems' Sparcstation 5)
August 15, 1994... Misguided competition against Power Macs, Pentium pcs Sun Microsystems recently announced four low-cost workstation versions. Using a new 24-bit screen controller called the S24, the lineup starts at $6,600 for a 70-mhz Sparcstation 5 with 16...

Horizon offers Indeo compression service; tape to disk for $90 per minute. (Horizons Technology digitizing services) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... Tape to disk for $90 per minute Horizons Technology, which sells an Indeo compression system, has gone into the service bureau business. For roughly $90 per minute of raw video, it will digitize your tape, compress it using the Indeo...

Sassafras upgrades license management; KeyServer for Windows, Power Mac. (Sassafras Software's version 4.0 of its license manager package) (Brief Article) (Product Announcement)
August 15, 1994... KeyServer for Windows, Power Mac Sassafras Software has announced an update to its KeyServer license management package, and showed native Windows and Power Macintosh clients. KeyServer ensures, verifies and documents compliance with...

Zinc-air battery promises light laptops; bulkiness is only major limitation. (Aer Energy's new technology)
August 15, 1994... Bulkiness is only major limitation A portable computer is designed around a few critical components that define what the computer can and cannot do. One of these is the display; another is the battery. Weight, bulk, power and cost are the...

Fast ATA-2. (Seagate Technology's hard disk drive interface standard) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... Seagate Technology announced a series of hard disk drives with the latest interface standard, known as Fast ata-2. The original ata (at attachment) standard is better known as the ide interface. Fast ata-2 is backward-compatible with ata....

Solaris to PowerPC. (Sun Microsystems' SunSoft div ports its Unix version to the PowerPC, Solaris for PREP, or the PowerPC Reference Platform from IBM) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... SunSoft, the software subsidiary of Sun Microsystems, said that it will port its Solaris Unix operating system to the PowerPC. The result, which will appear in the first half of 1995, will comply with the specs for the PowerPC Reference...

Ethernet integration. (National Semiconductor's SuperI/O+LAN chip, also known as the PC87340VUL) (Brief Article) (Product Announcement)
August 15, 1994... National Semiconductor has an i/o chip that combines the controllers for 10BaseT Ethernet, ide hard disks, floppy disks (including the extended-density 2.88-mb size), and one parallel and two serial ports. The Ethernet portion of the chip can...

P7 in '97. (Intel and HP alliance to develop the Pentium CPU's successor) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... A couple of months ago, Intel and Hewlett-Packard struck an alliance to design future microprocessors. As a result, the P7 chip (grandchild of the Pentium) will pick up some of HP's risc know-how and thus be a better competitor for the...

Pentium PCs for $2,000. (Dell Computer and Intelligent Computers and Technologies lower prices) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... Dell Computer and Intelligent Computers and Technologies have announced Pentium-based computers priced below $2,000. The Dell machine has specs that would have seemed rather respectable one year ago: a 60-mhz processor, 8 mb of ram, a 340-mb...

IBM unwraps a whopper. (IBM's Almaden Research Center's giant magneto-resistance technology miniaturizes hard disks) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... Business Week has reported that IBM's Almaden Research Center has unveiled a read-write head that promises to hold 20 times as much data on a hard disk as today's best technology. The experimental heads are based on giant magnetoresistance...

Chicago delayed. (Microsoft's operating system release pushed back to Jan 1995) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... Microsoft is now saying that Chicago, also known as Windows 4.0, will not be available commercially before January 1995. The company is expected to phase out Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups once the new software begins commercial...

AT&T shuts down EO. (EO Corp) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... After two years of pumping money into EO Corporation, a budding supplier of personal communicators, AT&T last month shut down the operation. EO sold only about 10,000 of its hand-held devices, which competed with Apple's Newton. The Wall St....

FCC auctions airwaves. (narrow band wireless radio frequency licenses) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... An indication that EO was a little ahead of its time is the hot bidding in Washington over the licenses for wireless radio frequencies. The Federal Communications Commission's auctioning of narrow-band communications licenses topped $500...

Aldus Chartmaker has features, lacks creation: targeting the occasional presenter. (presentation graphics software) (Evaluation) (Software Review)
August 15, 1994... Targeting the occasional presenter Chartmaker is Aldus's first sally into a new market: customers who need lots of formatting power, but only occasionally. This is not exactly a low-end market -- the customers want lots of punch in their...

Internet integrator offers servers, services. (NovX's Scorpion and Tarantula prepackaged Spider Series servers and InterServ's WebMaster World Wide Web host services) (NetNews)
August 15, 1994... With the recent surge in the Internet's popularity, it was a sure bet that vendors would move rapidly to exploit this market. We recently got a press release from NovX trumpeting the advent of a Spider-Series of prepackaged Internet servers....

Dialog's new interface. (Dialog Information Services PLServer World Wide Web and Mosaic interface) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... Dialog Information Services will soon sport a new look. It will use the PLServer, a World Wide Web server written by Personal Library Software. The server combines a NCSA Mosaic user interface with PLS's search engine. Dialog customers will...

Repelling wily hackers. ('Firewalls and Internet Security' book announcement) (Brief Article)
August 15, 1994... Addison-Wesley has published Firewalls and Internet Security, a book that suggests ways to protect your corporate secrets from being exposed through your Internet server. Written by AT&T's William R. Cheswick and Steven M. Bellovin, it includes...

Corel Co-Op to help developers, users; California developer to lead Corel's efforts to encourage add-on products. (PageWorks forms group to market Corel-related programs)
August 15, 1994... California developer to lead Corel's efforts to encourage add-on products A California software developer has formed Corel Co-Op, a cooperative nonprofit organization to provide marketing and support services to Corel developers and users....