COMPUTERCORNERLTD.

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80286

(It 100-1z3QON.oeor

Ia S t.

IIMT5H ILSSIA'S
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Vol 1.No.I September 193III

ESKTOP PUBLISHIN
xe

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HEWLETT PA C K A R D LAsERJET8

e 80286 MCROPROCE88GRe 12MHz e 640K FNM

40MB HARD DIK e 1,2MB FLOPPYe DGS 3.3
MONG MONITOR MONG/GRAPHICS CARD

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NTERNAL FONTS

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A User's Guide
to Computer
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II+, 60288, 12MHz, 640K-R, 1x1~B-F, DOS 3,3/BASIC, T2MB (28MS)
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PLUS: Doctors Teleplan II User Group Insert

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-2 'n ?e-Computer.Paper Septemher 1988

The

C 0 IVI P U I E R s
F U I v f e ' s 8 Ul l f I n

"prA '

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COMPUTERINFORMATIONSOURCE
BRITISH
COLUMBIA'S
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Vol 1.No,8Se
tember 1988
+ f n wgam I s age g

6 N ewsbytes
6 Atari
6 B .C. Bytes
6 Canadian News
6 CD-ROM
7 Chips
7 Commodore
7 D atabase
7 Desktop Publishing 8c Graphics
8 Data Storage
8 General Interest
9 Japan
10 LANs
10 Macintosh
11 NeXT Computers
11 PC News
11 Quotes

, P""

Summer isdisappearing and ourminds and bodies are coming back

from the beaches and slowly resuming the work of the fall and winter.
For many this year, that work will include unravelling the mysteries of
a new computer or software package. This issue focuses on the variety
options available for those delving into the joys of computing. And joy it is too or can be.
Computer learning, as with all learning, seems to occur best when
it is effortless, when it is done with a sense of joy and fun.
If you were to ask me what I think is the best way to begin learning
about computing,I would suggest that you read as much as you can in
computer magazines, visit computer stores, computer shows, computer user groups, fiends with computers, take introductory courses and everywhere you go, ask
questions an abundance of questions to begin formulating your own concept of which computer or
programsarerightforyou.
Ask your questions, ask your experts, but most of all, take the time to play with the computers and
programs for yourself. Nothing beats the "hands-on" poking around on computers to give you a feel for
which ones are the best for you. Each program is an expression of its programmers personality and each
computer has a different feel.
Computers are here to stay, and they will constantly be challenging us to new learning, every time
they get easier to use, some new prtoduct or sofware category will add a new layer of sophistication and
a new set of skills will be required to use them. One time it was spreadsheets, then desktop publishing,
then into the technology of scanning images or artificial intelligenceand the list goes on. So the process
will continue and for many of us, the learning will be life long. Remember to have fun while you are doing
t e .

of learning

it.We hopethis information assernbledonsome ofthemany courses,trainingcentresandeventsisuseful

to you in your on-going learning process.
A secondary theme of this months issue is the Teleplan 2 Medical software. We had a look at things
back in July and since then have gotten a lot of feedback from doctors who where interested in the article
and wanted to know more. Much has happened, including an extension of the deadline for them to
purchase their systems into next year and much comings and goings of vendors. A regular contributer
to these pages, Daken Ariel, has taken it on to help organize a users group for the doctors. This is a much
neededforum fordoctorsto get feedback on theircolleagues'experience with the various vendors and
products. Their first meeting is scheduled to include displays by adozen vendors. A good user group can
be a powerful association to convey real "hands-on" product information as well as communicating user
needs back to the vendors. If you are a doctor and considering buying a medical software package, it
would be well worth your while to attend.

Oh yes,we have grown again.Our circulation hasgone up 10,000 to 40,000 and we have 40 pages
this time a long way from the original 16 pages in the first issue ... way back in February of this year.
This translates into more news, more articles, more reviews and more listings for you. Thanks to our
advertisers and your support, we are continuing to grow. Please let the advertisers who are supporting
this flow of information know where you saw their
ads.Tell themyou saw themin The ComputerPaper.
Thanks.
Nextmonth should be an interesting one, we have
anumber of
productreviews coming on the burgeonOctober: Windows
ing field of user-friendly Windows programs.
Copy k. Ad Deadline: Sept 17
Until next issue...

Coming Up in

The Computer Paper:

November: Word Processing

12 OS/2-Ps/2
12 Telecommunications 8c FAX
12 The Stock Market
13 Unix
13 U.S.S.R.

Teleplan II Medical Software

19 Pacific Medical Software User Group
2f3 Computerization of BC's physicians

Computer Training
28 A User's Guide To Training Cenues
30 Easygteps ToGoodDesign
32 Expert Systems: Using AI in Training

Reviews A Surveys
14 Virus Watchers
16 Boston MacWorld Special Report
18 BEDSPREAD: A Bedford Add-ln
31 Illustrator 88 Review
36 G etting Listed on the VSE

Regular Columns
4

Le t t ers to the Editor

Ne w Products: The newest products

33 C omputer Calendar: Courses and Events

37 The service sector

38 The Shareware Shelf: DOS Tutors
39 Classified Ads

Copy rft Ad Deadline: October 22

December: CAD

39 The Booksellers' Bestsellers

Copy 8c Ad Deadline: November 19

IGrtan Singh Khalsa

Call for AdverHslng Rates: 733-55th

Publisher/Editor
Tike Ctnnpttter Payer September 1988 .3

senior technical and copy writers to the job. The

largest and oldest writing firm in Vancouver,
Wordsmiths built its reputation in the high tech
field. Now, the finn is poised to expand into two
new areas: procedures manuals for firms andinstitutions of every size, and high profile sales mate-

Le 4 LINL aOc
Dear Computer Paper:
I am enclosingmyquestionnairefor asubscription
toyourpaper.Itoohavereaditcoverto cover (ex-

rials for high techclients.

"By matching the right writer to the right task,

we saveour cfi
ents a lotofhassles," says Jones.

cept the Mac articles) and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Very interesting, high quality material.

Sincerely
S. McLaughlin
Dear Computer Paper

Iam aregularreaderofyourmagazine and find

itcontains much goodinformation. AndIlookforward to its corttinuing success and gtowdt.
In themost recent issue I wa s also pleased, as a
local SysOp, to see the inclusion of a Lower
Mainland BBS list.
However, I was disappointed to note it contained a number of mistakes regarding boards,
communications programs, features, etc. I found it
particularly disappoinung as A) the item is headed
bythe
line "Recently VerifiedBBS Systems in the
Vancouver area,"and B) Cary Muzykais auser on
my Board.
I realize BBSs come and go, much like hair
styles, and thatkeeping upwith thesechanges isno
easy task. But iherearelists available that aremore
accurate than this one, andperhaps out of concern
for the reputation of your newspaper, a greater
effortmightbeplaced onaccuracy if you aregoing
to carry such a list.
SysOps spend a lot of timeaud, inmany cases,
a great deal of money setting up and maintaining
high-quality Boards, and it's discouraging to see
them promoted inaccurately.
Therefore,
for the record,I amnot, nor have I

ever been, nor have I any plans to ever be a

PHOENIX system. HEIKO's BBS is and will
continue to be a WILDCATI boarcL Also, I might
add that I no longer support 300 baud- just 1200
and 2400.
I woulbemostgratefulifsuch alistis to appear
in any future issues of your fine newspaper, that
these changes are chly noted. Thank you for your
time.

S
ince
rely,
David Hanhnson

Systems Operator HEKO's BBS

Dear TCP
I pickup up The Computer Paper from Sprite
Computers and read it with great interest. Finally
a good mformative paper available in Vancouver
for the Computer Buffs.
At lastl - A Vancouver BBS List not as complete as I expected andsome ofthe Phonenumbers
are wrong, so, here is the correctiorc

Abacus BBS 2724311 24 ho'urs John Gyulasi

CBM 3/1200 modem
Big Board 272464424 hoursJolmGyulasi CBM
3/1200 Punter

Comm-Only 272-9222 24 hours John Gyulasi

CBM 3/1200 Punter
Look forward lo see your next edition of The
Computer Paper. Keepup the goodworkandshow
it to INPUT" that Vancouver can produce just as
good a paper or better.

Sincerely JolmGyulasi
SysOp ABC BBS, Richmond
-Whoops, seems we gota fan numbers and

deraih wrong.Our ffpologies, fend

please heed the
warning Nr thebolomof the lisf, See the ckrssi
fied
section for some ocher new or corrected listings.
-Ed.
Dear Sir:
Thank you for providmg an excellent information service which pmvides very valuable data
about ihe North American, and mom importantly
Canadian computer h, software situation. Your
publication will beavery valuableassetin Tahsis.
Andris Freimams
Principal, Captain Meatus Elementary

Secondary SchoolBox 460 Tahsis, B.C.

Dear Computer Paper

We enjoyed your August 8 issue of THE COMPUTER PAPER very much..it was passedaround

"For example, wematchwriters with engineering

backgrounds to telecommunicauons projecxs. Or,

we find a procedures expert to bring order out of

chaos in expandingoffices."
Wordsmiths'writersworkintheworclprocessmg

packageoftheclient's choice andamanagerover-

i
,44~
.:.P.

full pagedraa view

224-6152

var ar.

I >' ~v ynctua wa a a
llldfI aS I%I Ll fOI ii%81$ga

k(f v Sllll IlllSNOgltl 5 SklO'COW

hw pAalfl OEN5 lgl t1kElil aR

4 %4IICa|rt w %vh Oll lltML aC

wu fbi lelvll 14%l ala Slvu Idl
I I ldosscN s
(cI h M D

Previewina with softJEf

Screen Preview Utility for Laser Je0ii

Theta Systems Corporation of Vancouver has
recentlyannounced the release of theirsofw sre
solution for Laserjet Plus and compatible printers.
sept/ET, their new software screenpreview utility,
allows users to check out their output before they
send it out to the printer. New features include a

larger full-page draft view, page upand go to page

abiTity, a wider zoom windo~, automatic detection of graphics card and soft font downloading.
sottlET is memory resident and is designed for
use with applications programs which do not
contain a preview capablity for text or graphics.
Thepackage sells for US $120.Registeredusersof
previous versions can upgrade for $29.95 US.
kvi y =

l u u e iew

PUBLISHER/EDITOR Kirtan Singh Khalsa

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Wendy Woods,

Ken Maize, Dana Blankenhoin, Ken Takahashi,
Naoyuki Yazawa,Grant Buckler, Steve Gold
and Peter Vekinis.
CONTRI U T ING WRITRRSi Gordon
SimmcmdsJNary Kletchko, Marie Burlinson,
Ken Robertson, Ingrid Harris, Nelson Reust,

John Spilker
ART DIRECTOR: Rosemary Anders,
Cartoons by Graham Hanop

TYPESETTING: Glacier Press

COVER DESIGN 8t ARTWORK: Illustration

by Larry DeFehr of Arthise

ADVERTISING MANAGER:
Kirtan Singh i&eisa

ADVERTISING SALES:
Lany Galvin

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: John Oliver

PRODUCTION: Ward Stirrat
DISTRIBUTION: All Citi Flyer Disuibutors

New PeripheralSharing Device

Pmtec Microsystems of Montreal has come out
with a new and powerful solution for those who
need an easy but effective way of accessing all
printers andotherperipheral devices from anumber
of different PCs in an office, without the need to
have a Local Area Network
The Byteway 2000 is available in three port
configurauons to suit anmy differentapplications.
Datacan be automaticaily converted &om aparallel input to a serial output and vice versa
Every Byteway 2000 is equiped with a dynamically partitioned buffer to quickly take in each
print request and &ee the PC user io work on the
next task Retail prices for a 64K buffer unit start
at $1089and range up to $3069 fora2 M egabyte

PRINTER: Valley Web Graphics

SUB SCRIPTIONS:

The Computer Paper is published monthly. If

you would like the Computer Paper mailed directly to your home, please send a chequefor $14
to 3205 West 13th Avenue, Vancouver B.C. V6K

2V6 Telephone (604) 733-5596. This will cover

mailing and handling for 12 issues in Canada
American subscriptions please send $25.

This is Volume 1, No.g September 1988

The Computer Paper, British Columbia's

Computer Information Source is published by:

Canada Computer Paper Inc. All rights reserved. Repmduction in whole or in part without
the permission of the Publisher is strictly prohibitaL Unsolicited material is gratefully accepted,
but we can't be responsible for returning it unless
it is accompanied by a stamped self-addressed

New Training Affiliation for VSC

The Vancouver
Software Center has signed an envelope. Submissionsare prefened on 5 8c1/4"
agreement with Manta Computer Technologies, Diskettes in ASCII (text) format or Mac disks.
Inc. of Ottawa to operate an Oncourse Learning
CIRCULATION: 40,000
Center.
2nd Class Postage Registration Number Tllg
The Vancouver Sof ware Center currently has a
Printed ln Canada

training roomandoffers microcomputer courses.

and mme-consuming."says SheilaJones,princi- 'Ihe majority of the training is customized to a
pal in Wordsmiths.
company's particluar needs. Their target market
Now, for the first time, people who need good, for training is largecorporationsandgovernment
solid writing can find it. Wordsmiths matches

anom window

This isn't exactly anew product, but we thought

it was of interest and it wouldn't fit elsewhere.

DESIGN VANCOUVER, scheduled between

International Wordsmiths is helping Vancouand I'm certain our clients will enjoy i4 too.
We' dvery much liketoconunuereceiving your ver area firms, institutions and ad agencies connewspaper, particularly the September issue fea- nect with writers."Everyone knows that they need
turing training, which is also one of the mam better materials betler manuals, better procedures, beuer sales hts. But, fmding writers with
thrusts of our services.
the expertise to produce them can be frustrating
Look forward to receiving yournext issue.

4. The Computer Paper September 1988

Deslgn Vancouver to Include DTP Contest

October 21 to 30, 1988, is unprecedcsited inNorth

America. The firstdesignexposition of its hnd, it
Locally Produced Mac Hard Drive
will showcase the skill, talent and products of the
You may recall weran apressreleaselastmonth Vancouver and Canadian design industry.
on the MACFLY line of Apple hard drives. Well
Over 35 events will take place thmughout the
we thought we would run the announcement again city at the Vancouver Art Gallery, University of
just so we could show you their new publicity British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, Robphoto of the heshly redesign logo on the unit. We son Square, Gastown, Yaletown,.South Granville,
apologize for mahng thiis much fuss overa mere Stanley Park and Granville Mand.
hard drive unit, but we think that it is great that
Included in the events are:
someone is actually assembling Macintosh hard
Businessfor Design/DesignforBusinessSemidrives in Vancouver, let alone in Canada. Until
nar k Exhibition at Robson Square: Graphic
now virtually all Mac hard drives have been Rom
Designers of Canada
the U.S. or elsewhere.
A Future With Design: SimonFraserUniverAdam Peripherals president, Henry Vehovec, sity symposium at the Vancouver Art Gallery
tells us that they are using high quahty Seagate
Virtu 3 Showof Ccntcsnporary CanadianFurdrives and that they offer a range of both internal niture: Emily Carr College of Art k Design
aud external SCSI drives of a variety of sizes for
The Domus Exhibit: Simon Fraser University
the Mac. Apparently there is agreatdeal of interest Art Gallery
in these units Rom a variety of government instivTheWalls HaveEars,Poster asArt in Vancoututions because of their Canadian content.
ver: Vancouver Museum
Pictured here is their entry level 20 meg unit.
Exposition '88: Canadian Association of PhoThey also offer a deluxe model with a built in tographers and Illustrators in Communication at
power bar and surge suppressor- a nice loohng the Sinclair Centre
unit.
Crafthouse, B.C. Design for Living, Granville
Hard drives are just the begining of a line of
Island
Macintosh products for Adam Peripherals. JudgThe significance of this event is economic. The
ing Rom the look of these units, we can look industry is young, dynamic, increasinglysophistiforward to more quality Canadian content Macin- cated and growing rapidly with a world-class
tosh peripherals.
reputation in several areas. DESIGN VANCOUThe MACFLY drive is reasonably priced and VER will promote the design industry; public
available at a number of Macintosh dealers in the awareness of the design sector will increase and
lower mainland including: Computer Connection, links will be forged between business and the
StrachanComputers and SlriderComputers.
design community. Overall, the B.C. economy
willbenefit throughbetterurilizationof thedesign
resource.
.3,
Of particular interest to computer users is a
"a
design
competition being held for the best black
v v.,
and white computer produced designs. Categories
include Corporate Identity, Point of Sale, Newsletters, Magazines, Books, Booklets, Advertising,
M iscellaneous.
Winners and runners up in each
category will receive design or computer related
prizes for the best entries. Deadline for entries
Sept 30, show Oct 21-30 at the World Trade
Centre. For further information, Marion Munro

the offi
ce and comments were very favorable buffer.
indeed. We' ll keep the copy in our reception area WORDSMITHS

Audrey Cooper

sees theprojectevery step of the way. Wordsmiths

also offers desk top publishing servims and illustration for clients who want start-to-fitushproduc-

offices. Having a training facility amongst a

computer and software enviromnent is a prime
location for an Oncourse Learning Center, who
already have contracts for training with corporations such asthe Royal Bank, Canada Post and the
Justice Department. By the Vancouver Software
Center bemg Ixut of a network of high quality
trainingcenters,ccunpanies whohaveofficesacioss
Canada will be able to take training in the center in
Vancouver, and be at the same level of training as
the rest of their offices across Canada who attend
training classes at an Oncourse faciTity. Manta
presently has offices in Ouawa, Toronto and
Timmins and has been expanding its network of
cxuttersincities acrossCanada to servetheincreasing denumd for consistenthigh quality training for
micrcicomputer applicationsoftware. ContactDave
Nichol at the VSC for more infcumation 669-9800

Canada Computer Paper Inc.

3205 West 13th Avenue
Vancouver B.C. V6K 2V6
Phone Number: (604) 733-5596

Learn touse the popular accounting package from Bedford

Software Inc. through this practical workbook.
NOW AVAILABLE A BOOK ON BEDFORD
his workbook provides applications for all modules of
Integrated Accounting. The accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, inventory and jobcosts.
There are 11 applications which allow the readers to proceed
directly with transactions using accounts already developed and
stored on the accompanying disk. Keystrokes are provided for the
first transaction of each application and each application builds on
the previous one.
Thiseasy-to-use workbook isam ustforany businessperson or
student who wants a quick and practical way to learn one of
Canada's best-selling software products.
D, Purbhoo is a teacher of accounting and data processing at
Eastern High School of Commerce.
L. Borel is the Director of Business at Lester B. Person Collegiate Institute.

C3

Workbook

DD

D D C l D D Q D O O U Q Q QQ

Dc r a a a a a a n a a ona

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
BedfordIntegratedAccounting Package
IBM PC or compatable
5 I/4" Disk Drive

LEARNING BEDFORD
I NTEGRATED A C C O U N T ING :

An Applications Workbook
D. Purbhoo and L. Borel
Distributed by: COMPULIT DISTRIBUTORS INC.
Port Coquitlam, B.C.,

The Computer Paper September 19$8 5

advertising eight jobs,from sales representatives to natianal tetail

and carporaiu accounts managers. Filling thosejobs would increase
Lotus's Canadian staff by nearl half, &om 17 to 25, and expand its
presence Rom Toronto to Montreal and Calgary.

LieamaTION NOTICE)

Wyatt toldNEWSBYKS CANADA furtherexpansionispmba-

ontents of Computer Store

Must Go Regardless of Cost

bly in the cards, but "it's ahnost too early toteHright now." But he
did say he is working on a plan to make the Canadian operation a
full subsidiary of Lotus Development Corp., not just a branch
ATARI (0753-33344) is said to be developing a hand-held PC, office. Offices will probably open in more Canadian cities in the
according to MICROSCOPE, a UK computer trade weekly. Details future, Wyatt added.
of the machine are scarce, but it expected to be similar to the Psion
CRTC Crunches Free Enterprise
Organiser 11, and be MS-DOS compatible...
OITAWA (NB) CaH-Net Telecommunications Ltd. of Toronto
ATARI, Sunnyvale, Ca., reports disappointing earnings but a dou- is providing competitive longAistsnce service, the Canadian Rabling of sales compared to thistimelastyear. Income wasdown 59%
dio- television and Telecommunications Commission has decided.
to US$5.6mifiioneven though revenue soared to US$164.6mifiion, That's illegal in Canada so on August 16 the CRTC tokl CaH-Net
an increase of 133 percent. Atari blames the sour
on its to cut off service to its 800 customers
by the weekend.
Federated unit which continues to lose money.
The CRTC ruled last November that CaH-Net's service was a

Computers
including 2 drives

$495.00

AT/XT Keyboards

$39.00
AT Motherboards
&om

<%< !!t/!/Ii!sI@t!

earnin
gs

$299.00

Atarl: Super ST Due?

MAIDENHEAD, BERKSHIRE (NB) Justwhenyou thought it

XT Motherboards
&om

$79.00
Citizen Printers

(180 cps)

$249.00

20 MB Hard Drives

$285.00

30 MB Hard Drives

$325.00

TTL Monitors

$89.00

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InternalModems

(?400)Baud

$195.00

EVERYTHING DISCOUNTED!!
FULL MFG WARRANTY
NO REASONABLE OFFERS REFUSED

1440 KQVGSWAY

basic long~tance service and must stop. The company argued

that its service it provides long4istance service on lines leased
was safe to buy an Atari ST or Commodore Amiga, along comes the &am Bell Canada and CNCP Telecommunications and gives its
rumour mill with a super ST, capable of everything the Amiga does, customers reports listmg their outgoing telephone calls was an
but with the ST's low pricing and wide software base.
enhanced telephone service, which is aHowed. The federal cabinet
According
tothelatestCOMPUTERTRADEWEEKLY(CTW),
intervened to keep CaH-Net in business. But the CRTC, after
the super-Sf wiH be capable of displaying 4,096 colours on-screen holding hearings on the subject, reaffirme its ruling.
simultaneously (the same as the Amiga) and support stereo sound,
Mike Kedar, presidentof CaH-Net, did notretumNEWSBYTES
as well as multitasking and fast horizontal and vertical scrolling CANADA's telephonecafis. A CaH-Netrepresentative said a press
screens. And aH this for 399 British Pounds.
release would be issued Aug. 18, but called on that day to say the
What does Atari UK say to aH this? Nothmg. Atari UK MD Bob release had been cancelled. Kedar was reported to be considering
Gleadow is quoted as knowing nothmg about the machina He did, legal action to keep the company in business.
however, know a lot about the laptop ST (code name Stacey) when
NEWSBYTES UK talked to him at the last Atari computer show. Fraud Trial For Clubsoft Owner
Let's look at the facts. Atari has developed prototypes of several TORONTO (NB) The owner of a Toronto store that rented
variations on the ST in the past. Some have made it to market. Many copies of commercial software to customers for evaluation will
haven' t. Atari is,however, coinmiued to theoST series whichnow stand trial for fraud, probably early in 1989. Clubsoft International
has a wide software base, both in Europe and the US. On this basis, Corp. was raided in April and its owner. James Lushy, has been
counts of handover $C1,000. A axial date isto
the Super-ST is likely to be a souped-up version of the existing ST, charged with seven
using 1Mb DRAM chips to provide memory at lower cost, and be set December 5.
The courts have imposed apublication banon evidence Som the
feature improved graphics aud sound - the features it needs to meet
prelimmary hearing, aud Leahy told NEWSBYfES CANADA,
the Amiga head on.
And whatabout the existing ST range? To accommodate the8399 through a Clubsoft employee, that he could not comment an the
pricing on the Super ST, NEWSBYTES UK predicts that the 100 case.

British Poundsprice hike (to 399 British Po'unde) of last February

wiH bereversed,leaving room forthe Super ST to manoeuvre.
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VANCOUVER
Personal ShoppingOnly. Open daily 10 AM to 6 PM
Information Line Only: 872-322$/26

New Headache for Canada's

Chartered Banks
Spells Relief for Canadian Business
The Accounting Master Payroll Program may spell the eud
of the chartered banks domination of the payoH processing
market for many small snd medium sized businesses. Now
business owners can complete their own payroll in house,
and save a bundle on bank charges and interest.
To make matters better (or worse for the banks), less work
is involved in using Accounting Master to complete a
payroH, thm in filling out forms for the bank.
The company's money can earn interest for the company
not the bank. Again, providing big savmgs for the small to
medium sized business particularly if a large overdraft is
involved.
Accounting Master Inc., of Suite 163-2619 Alma St.
Vancouver has introduced the definitive payraH program far
the IBM and compatible computers. This easy to use
program does itaH for you. T4's, employee separation
reports, journals, cheques, pay advices, and detailed job
msting are just some of the reports it handles. It even
exports directly to ACCPACiM general ledger, but saves the
complex set up time often associated with ACCPAC's own

payroll program.
Until now payroll software for personal computers has
been either too simple to handle more than the most straight
forward situations, or too big and expensive to set up.
Accounting Master promises to be the best solution possible,
it is easy to leam and inexpensive to buy and maintain.
The manual documentation does an excellent job of
bringing the user quickly up to speed on everything needed
to run a paymH. You probably will never need it, but it is
nice to know that free support is always just a phone call
away.
Investigate and you will be surprised at how much
money can be saved.

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CP/M Operating System Dying Out

TORONTO (NB) Canada Remote Systems, a large Torontobased buHetin board system, has decided to step offering limited

memberships tousersof theCP/M operating systen. The hmited

BEDFORD SOFTWARE of Vancouver says its "Comfort Card"

guarantee wiH ensure that anyone who buys its small business
accounting software gets the current versian. Customers will be
asked to complete the card that comes with each package and return
it to Bedford. If the version number on the card isn't that of the
current version, Bedford will send out a replacement free of charge.

memberships allow users without modems to order public-domain

software by maiL Canada Remote says that because of the dimin-

B.C. AdvancedSystemsCorp., the TRIUMF national subatomic

Canadian PC Market SNl Growing Fast

TORONTO (NB) The personalcomputer market is still aue of

ishing importance of CP/M it will no langer offer CP/M disks by

mail.
Existing CP/M limited memberships will be honored until they
expire and CRS will amtiuue offermg CP/M software on-line for
as long as it's available. But, sysop Jud NeweH writes in the CRS
Hi~padty Network Links UBC, SFU
newsleuer, the supply of CP/M software has slowed toe
VANCOUVER (NB) 'Ibree universities, two reseal% facilities members'
trickle.
and the British Columbia Advanced Systems Corp. have set up
Canada Remote Systems started in 1977 as a purely CP/MBCnet, a high~acity network linking scientists and engine vs at oriente BBS, under thenameToronto RCP/M Systems.
the six sites.
research laboratory, Microtel Pacific Research Ltd the University

the most dynamic parts of the computer industry, acctuding to a

the University of Victoria, can now exchange data at high speeds study by International Data Corp. Canada. IDC says theover-aH
over coaxial cable, optical fibre and microwave hnks. The links can Canadian PC market grew by a little more than 20per cent in 1987,
hit C$1 biHian, risingsome30pur cent
also handle interachve video and connect a terminal atone site to a to 529,800uniti. Revenues
&om the previous year's figure. The biggest market seynentis still
txunputer at another.
The University of British Cotumbiacomputing centrehatchethe business and professional applications, accounting for mare than
idea in 1986, and got initial funding hom the Universities Council half of the totaL The home andhobby market accaunted for another
of British Columbia That council has since been disbsndetL The 28 per cent and education for about 10 per cent of sales. IBM held
B.C. Advanced Systems Corp. provided the money to fmish the on to 17.9 per centof the market, with Couunodore and Apple next
project. There are plans to connect other research faciTities, includ- at 10.8percentand10.4 per centrespectively. Following these were
Tandy Corp.praducts) with
ing the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory m Victoria, in the Inter Tan(the mternational marketer of
9.1 per cent, and Compaq with 42 per cent.
future.
BCnet is a wide-area extended Ethernet network. Coaxial cable v zz are rr / . rsezmevarczarmremm. r ~ .
:
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huks the two Vancouver universities. TRIUMF is tied in to UBC e ~mavrmvw~
with a fibre-opuc connection, while the University of Victoria, on MICROSOFT, Redmond, Wa., has organized the next CD-ROM
Vancouver island, communicates through B.C. Telephone's micro- conference. It's slated for Anaheim Hilton andTowers in Anaheim,
wave faciliiis.
California for March28-30,1989. Regitrationis US$950, US$750
if received before December 15th of this year. Ivor further info
r.wmvawv.wwev.
ewwr~ewzrzw
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contact Shetrie Eastman at Microsoft, 206/8824080.

of British Columbiaan SimonFraser University mVancouver, and

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Semi-Tech Buys Canada SystemsGroup

MARKHAM,Ont. (NB) It' s officiaLAcompanythatbeganinthe
early1980s making a personal computer based on the CP/M operating system, and later got into the IBM-compatible busmess, has
become Canada'slargestdanipmcessing service bureau.
On August 16, International Semi-Tech Micmelectranics Inc.
announcedithas afinal agreement to buy Canada Systems Groupof
Taiunto. one of Canada's top service bureaus. The announcement
Semi-Techi e purchase
comes as
loose endsare still being ti
of DatacrownInc., another of thecountry's largest service bureaus.

ed up
on

CD-ROM Publishing Package

OTTAWA {NB) Tools developed byFulcrumTechnologies of

Ottawa are the basis of LaserRetrieve, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s new

software for publishing and accessing information on CD-ROM.
avid Dow said Fulcrum has sold its
Fulcrumspokes' D
FuHText collection of CD-ROM software tools to a umnber of
origmal equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who have incorporated
FuHText in their own products. But he said Hewlett-Packard is the
first to package the tools in a product designed to let otlms publish

information onCD-ROM.
international Semi-Tech said it will integrate the compames. CCINFODISC Goes International

Combined, they are expected to have annual sales of more than

C$200miHion tomore than700 customersacrossthe counuy. That

HAMILTON, Ont.(NB) TheI

nternationalOccupationalSafety

would give International Semi-Tech about the sixth-largest reve-

nues fromcamputers anddata processing amongCanadian companies up&om87th in the 1987 ranking by EvansResearchCorp.
:

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Advertisement
6 The ComputerPaper September 1988,

='.~

of Toronto.

Lotus Gettlug Serious In Canada

TORONTO(NB) Colin Wyau, the first general man
ager Lotus
o

/!/EWSBI!TES by Wendy IYoods(Western USA j, KeeNuise(East

USA), Dana BIankenhoru (South & Midwest USA), Moray

Niyosawa amMeiro Yammamoto (Japan), GrantBucNsr (Cue
ada),SteveGold (UEQandPeter Vekinis fEurope)
CopyrigAt 1988 NEWSBFEES

DevelopmentCanada, says
hehas amsndamtoexpaud thecampany's NEWSBYTES Canadian bureau chief is Grant Buck/er, Source I
presence in Canada, and he's doing it. Wyatt joined thecompany last XP2008, PC Canada ID PCI176, voice(4I6) 28546 !44, 859 See
month, and one of his first acts has been to start hiring. Lotus is nedy Rd., AQ03, Scarborough,Ontario N1E2N.

and Health Information Centre will oEer a CatladianAeveloped compact disk reference tool internationally. CCINFOdisc, which consists of 24
databases, technical publications and information
packageson health and safety,wasdeveloped by
the Canadian Centre of Occupational Health and

to about 45 per cent of Commodore's total revenues in the three years since the machine was
introduced. He added that Commodore's Canadian operation hopes to top C$100 million in sales
this year a figure the company has topped
before but fell below again in recentyears. The
Amiga's success ismostlyinniches, though. Major
users thatCommodore namedwereprimarily those

DESKTOP PUBLISHING
r

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' ' rem'APgeg

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~M a iIIteflanCC COntraCtS

MICROGRAFX, Richardson, TX, added four

Clip-Art libraries, ready- to-use pictures under
ngrIndustrial APP1icatiOIIS
Microsoft Windows at US$80 each, or US$250
Safety (CCOHS).
for the set. Choose f'rom ~
y, S p orts, BusiThe CCOHS has iso announced the comple~TOP Quality UP-grades
ness
Forms,
and
Headline
Typefaces.
Mi ciografx
tion of videotex training packages in the native who couldusethecomputer's impressive graphics
also
got
a
big
write-up
m
Infoworld."
languagesInuktitut and South Slavey for use in and soundcapabilities, including advertising agen4 Add-OIIS
Canada's Northwest Territories.
cies, community colleges, and B.C. Place in Software Based PostScript Clone
Vancouver, ~here an Amiga runs the sports sta- BILLERICA, Mass. (NB) Custom Applicar rr r
. W .$Q; r rr r r r r r r r .e r r
~IadividualiZCd SerViCeS
dium scoreboard. However, Dionne spoke of tions Inc. has announced a software huerpreter
NEC ELECTRONICS, Mountam View, Ca., is developments in the next few' months that he said that will read PostScript nles and print them on
k Security
debating whether to expand its Roseville, Califor- "will make the Amiga2000 alotmore interesting" ordinary printers. The US$495 product, Freedom
of Press, will offer 35 fonts, through either
will be an80286
nia plant in order to manufacture one megabit to corporate buyers. Among these
board, anew releaseofthe operating BitStream's Fontware or Compugraphics Intelli~profCSsiona1 COmPuter
DRAM chips. Currently only 256K DRAM chips coprocessor
are produced at the plant. A decision should be system (AmigaDOS 1.3) with an improved filing font fonts. CAI President Jeff Moore says, "Freesystem and the abiTity to boot from the hard disk dom of Press will change the way people conceive
made sootL
Service 8r, Repair
(and about time, tool) and though Dionne was of using the PostScript language. By eliminating
NEC To Produce 4MB Chips
coy about this the Messing of a major software costs as the determinmg factor, overall use of this
TOKYO (NB) NEC has announced its 4M
vendor. Commodore says it has sold more than powerhl page description language will increase
DRAM production schedule. According to this
600,000 Amigss. That's decent, but then again greatly." The pmduct supports a variety of 24-pin
long-term plan, production and shipment of com- IBM recently announced the sale of the two- dot matrix printers, mk jet printers from H-P,
Boss Compater Electronics
mercial samples will start in January 1989 at millionth PS/2, a machine half the Amiga's age, Siemens, and ~
an d laser printers including
Yamaguchi NEC, with output amounting to a few
and Commodore also says some 12 mi9ion units the H-P Laser Jet Plus and Series 8, the Canon
thousand units per month.
of its venerable 64 have been sold. Commodore LBP8-II, Olivetti PG-108, and the JLaser card.
Hiroshima NEC will participate mthe produc- also trotted out some figures hem Evans Research The software runs on ATs, PS/2s, and 386 mation starting in early 1991. This is NEC's chance
that place it as number three m the Canadian PC chines. According to Mark Hastings, vice presito beatrivalToshiba which hasgotten the jump on
m arket,
after IBM and Apple,and a surprising dent of sales and marketing, the product wi5 run
NEC in the 1 megabit DRAM business.
number two in sales of MS- DOS computers. with on XTs, but itis very processor intensive, and will
But Toshiba isn't NEC's only rivaL Compeirun verys 1o w 1 y.Freedom of Press is set for
IBM first and Tandy third m that segment.
tionin the4M DRAM market is aheadyheatingup
delivery in late September.
between these players and Fujitsu, Hitschi and Aegis Development, Santa Monica, Ca., is shipConic Splines For The PCt
ping
their
new
desktop
presentation
product
for
Mitsubishi. Meanwhile, Sharphasalsoentered the
race with the development of technical sample of the Commodore Amiga, Lights l Cameral Actionl. DALAI , Tx(NB) Imagine that you arestand4M DRAM chipsandsaysit is prepared toship its The program combines pictures, animation, ing on along, slender steel beam and deforming it
sampled sounds, and music into complete slide- with the force exerted by your mass. Splme-fit
pmducts at the same time.
algorithms describe the way such a beam would
show presentations. It retails for US$80.
%hite Home To Ease Chip Sanctions
deform under speci6c coefficients and moments.
Ontario
Revlses
Educational
PC
Specs
00ePlete COmPuterCare
WASHINGTON (NB) The Reagan AdrnmiWait.
What's that got to do with anythingV%ell,
stration has mov@1 to relax antidumping penal- TORONTO (NB) The Pmvince of Ontario it has plenty to do with desktcppublishing. (Itmay
T0P Quatity PrOfeaaianal Work
announcedJuly26 anew'setofspecifications for
ties in order toencourage sales ofJapaneseDRAM
also
have
something
to
do
withyour
eating
habits.)
24 Hour Service
chips in the U.S. The action is a bid to esse the educational microcomputers. We rules, which
Many business-rximputeruseis arefamiliar with
shortage of memory chips that has sent U.S. govern which machines a school may purchase to a special class of these algorithms called Bezier
computerprices soarmg m recent months. The be ehgible for substantial subsidiesRomthe pro- curves. They' re ihe algorithms used to defme the
chip sanctions, applied in June 1986, were sup- vincial govermnent, have been adjusted to allow curves in many of the fonts used by Postscript.
posed to stimulate U.S. chipmskers to increase more machines to get approval and te lay more Actually, they can be used to defme many curves
pnductlon of domesuc memory chips. But that emphasis on portable software. Changes include besides those m letters; they can also defme the
more Qexible rules about Canadian content and
hasn'thappened and U.S. production of RAM
curves in srt Don't take my word for it. Ask
chips remains quite low. Texas Instruments and revisedmemory and storage requirements.The
Computer Support Corporation, publisher of the
ptnvmcial
Ministry
of
Educauon
intends
to
supMicron Technology, theonly twoU.S. companies
Arts snd Letters software series.
that sell DRAMs on the open market, have been port the developmentof a common software enviArts and Leners Editor will be thefirstgraphicsronment,
which
all
approved
machines
will
have
cleaning up during the shortage.
editing
package for the IBM PC to feature conic
The action &am %sshington comes as the to support, so that applications will be portable. splines. Simlsr capabiTities are already available
memory shortage is beginning to show somesigns Only two systems qualified under the old rules. for the Mac m Adobe Illustrator. Editor also uses
I
~l I
of ending. Spot prices for 1- megabit DRAMs They werethe Icon, developed by Toronto-based
Bezier
curves
to
size
drawmgs
to
any
scale
rt.
have fallen to US$37 in July &am US$47.50 in Canadian Educational Miciopiocessor Corp. and quired with the same superior results obtamed by
April, accordmg to Dataquest Inca market re- now marketed andsupported by Unisys Corp., snd outline fonts. Encapsulated Postscript output is
'I
K
the EdNet system developed by IBM Canada Ltd.
search finn in San Jose,Ca
available
for
transfer
directly
into
PostscriptdocuIronically, the chip crunch hss even hit Japan, Under the new regulations, Commodore Business ments or the program can output directly to a
KNIOY THE BKNIFITS
whereNEC has hadqualitycontrol problems on its Machines Inc. is hoping to win ministry approval, Postscript device. Expect to see the release in
chip lines and Hitachi has been slow to recover and other manufacturers should have a good shot about six weeks.
&amanearthquskewhichdarnagoiits chip-makmg at it. Among the requirements: the BASIC, PAScapalities. According to the Associated Press, CAL tmd Logo programmmg languages must be IMSI Buys TurboCAD
Toshiba, the world's largest pmducer of 1-mega- available; the systems must have networkmg SAN RAFAEL, CL (NB) IMSI, bestknownfor
bit DRAMS, sends more than 60 percent of its capabilities; minimum memory is 284K bytes; its Pagepefect program for the PC, has merged
so
Ge o rgi
~~
chips to the U.Salthough the company's com- keyboards must provide cursor control keys, a with Milan Systems Amixicaof A~
minimum of 10 function keys and a numeric in whatcompany officers call a cashless exchange
puter unit in Japan is short of memory chips.
keypad; and each system must be equipped with a of stock. Milan Systems puMshes the TurboCAD
mouse or a trackball pointing device. Other re- program, the leading computer-aided design softquirements deal with ease of use, training, support ware for PCs priced under US$500.'%'e expect to
Amiga Salas Save Commodore
phg TurboCAD right into our distribution chanWEST CHESTER, Pa. (NB) The techmcally alxl el'goiiomlcs.
nels," IMSI President Geoffrey Koblick told
nifty Amiga computer is fmally making a big 8 Computers of Commodore Line In Top 10
NEWSBYTES. IMSI, apubhcly traded company,
MUNICH,
GERMANY
(NB)

C
HIP,
impression on the bottom lme at Commodore
on the acquisition trail, having purchased ByteInternational Inc. Commodorehasreported a six- Germany's mostwidely readcomputermagazine, is
Com last year. IMSI's products are aimed at the
foM increase m profits for the fourth quarter, and reports that its recent survey shows the Schneider
doubled ~
for t h e year ended June 30. 1640 is the top-selling micro for the third month in PC graphics snd desktop publishing market.
According to Chairman Irving Gould, U.S. sales a row. The second position is held by the Apple Super Norkstatlons At SIGGRAPH
rose m the fourth quarter, the fwst time in two Mac H, followed by the Commodore PC20, the ATLANTA (NB) Siggraph (Special Interest
years.We U.S. accounts for about 20 percentof PSi2 Mode130, the Commodore Amiga 2000, the Group - Graphics), the large computer graphics
Commodore's sales. According io Conunodoie, Commodore PC40,the Schneider PC2640, the show, replacedthe Democrats in the Georgia
the Amiga is selling well in corporate art and PSj2 Model 60, the Zenith EasyPC, and the Plan- World Congress Center August 1-5. An estimated
design shops, where it is a strong performer in trou PT286AT. In the home computer segment, 20,000computer graphics devotees of all typesthe Commodore 64 is stiH number one (where it engineers, doctors, scientists, and artists saw
desktop presentations.
Commodore said fourth quarterprofits rose to has been for the last three years), followed by the new "super-computers"d
esi
gnedsolelyfor graphUS$12.2 million (3$ cents per shee) on sales of Amiga 50, the Amiga 1000, snd the Sclmeider ics. There werenew versions of all the old standby
US$215.2 million. The prior fourth quarter say CPC464. For those who keep count, Commodore workstations, putting the latest chips and most
earnmgsofUS$2.1 million (six centspershare) on the has8 products in the first ten positions &om user-friendly operatin sys!emson their desktops.
And there was talk but noagreement for standards.
revenues of US$190.4 milhon. For the year, prof- both thehomecomputer market and the PC marIn one corner, Sun Microsysteins and its allies
its hit US$55.8 million (USSL75 per share) on ket.
promised their Sun OS wiH become Unix System
sales of US$871.1 miHion, compared to pronts of rrrrrrrrrrrrr re
vL vrrgJ
rrrrrv rrrw v r r rrrr
+
V with Open Look (a Big Mac operating environUS$28.6million(89ccntspershaie) on
US$806.7
milhon in sales.
ASHTON-TATEhss toldits UKdealers toexpect ment that would work with any computer known)
dBase IV sometime during October. The long- Real Soon Now. In another comer, Apollo with its
Commodore LovesAmign
(including DEC, H-P, IBM, etc.) promised
TORONTO (NB) We Commodore
Amiga is a awsited rework of dBase III was originally an- allies
Ste. 501 1190 Melville St.,
their Open System Foundation standards (just like
nounced
last
February
for
shipment
m
July.
Last
bigsuccess.That atleastwa sthe message ComVancouver, B.C.VSESW
AN
Open Look, only better) will be followed once
modore Business Machines presented to a group April, A-T announced a revised shipment date of they' re made, maybe by early next year. (They
(A
division
of
Sash
Cori
s
sltisg
Geup
Isc,)
September. The October release date could be
at arecent press breakfasL Jim
of j
want
pmposals
September
26,
they'
ll
start
meetDionne,president snd general manager of the third-time lucky for Ashton-Tate...
ing and deciding November 1, and the committee
Csnsdianoperation. saidAmigasales haveclimbed

Aa cwork isguaranteed

B.D.S.S.
Computer

Electronics

526-2871
i~i

%ITHOUT THE RISK

':

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DAILY
a WEEKLY
a MONTHLY
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@~"' COMPUTER
RENTALS

681-7032

ourn
alists

The Computer Paper September 1%8

THE
CONIPUTERSHON '88

BUY

EXHIBITORS

S iaiiup

,,: N SELL

::

TR4DE
Participate in this exciting Computer Show Bringing Consumers and
Commercial Dealers together under one roof for maximum benefit.

DEALER$

CONSUMERS&USERS '

First time buyerst Or opgradingt

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senefit from many buyerswho seeyour good
Sponsor a t ecture or Seminar and benefu from a used system as their "new' system.
Demonstrate what your system can do
you have the benefit of aver $40,0ttg worth of
mass advertising to attract the thousands of
Wheel 5 deal on your2' by 8'
customers you wantt
Appiaximatdy gg0 exclusive dealer booths table $50(max.twocomplete
gems p r able).
available 10' by 10' booth $600.

P ily. 48glSMOA.ti88db%'.:..:.::,.'~: '.'."-'.':~~' ' '

'

"

" . .

.- ' '.- ' . ' ' . - . " . - '. :

. " .

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will announce the winners of the Great Cantest the people who nm Computer Attic, a San Franwhen they' re agreed upon, Real Soon Now.) In a ciscocomputer store,havedone with Savvy, shned
third corner, Apple had the Real Macintosh, the to open this month in downtown San Francisco's
finest parties, and promises of more powerful financial district. Savvy will specialize in highlighting the cuttmg edge of desktop graphics and
Macs Real Soon Now.
computer-aided design teclmology, including an
Alllant Phar, H-PtSIGGRAPH News
ATLANTA(NB) Themajoryxaductannounce- online design studio, slidemaking, color printing,
ment wasby Alliant Computer Systems, Littletan, preluess,multimediapresentation, animation, and
MA, a"mini-sttpexcamputer"maker whichbougbt video. Customers cansee combmatiansof micros,
software and yeripherals working in conjunction
RasterTechnologies,makers ofa popular graphand talk to experts in the graphic arts regarding
icspackage on the Sun OS, m June.The Visualipuning
together a system for their needs. While
zation Series is the result, a lme of graphics maMacintosh will take center stage, AST
chines (yriced fiamUS$75,000-LSmillion) which the
Research's IBM-campatibles axe to be sold at the
combineCray-hke computingpower,Sun graph- new-typexetailstoreas
well.'Thisis acompletely
ics power and Mac-hke case of use. Pixar, San
original
concept,"
Savvy's
Apple account manRafael, CA, (owned by Steve Jobs, Ross Pexat,
ager Brad Walonick told NEWSBYTES. "The
formerly owned by George Lucas) showed developers' kits for its graphics mttsface, Renlhuman, idea is to get away &am just selling hardware to
showing what machines can really do." The marand plans to connect Pixar image computers
ket for computer aided design gear is just heating
(descendedham themachines which made "Star
'Wars" ) with the Apple Mac. Pixar also showed a up and Savvyhopes to carve out a niche in the
market. Walonick says a major design finn in Sa
splendid hst of companies "endorsing" the Rendermanlnterface, inchuhng both Sun and Apollo, Francisco expects to save US$1 million a year in
as well as Digital Equipment and Walt Disney. typesetting costs by buying two Macintosh Ils, for
Typical of the new warkstatians on display was

Hewlett-Packard'sMode1835TurboSRXAnima-

tion Superworkstation. Priced from around

US$68,000, it offers n g-knob, 2-button input
device, a 20- fisnction key keyboard, a 9-buttan
mouse, and a huge color screen. You can make
weather maps with it, model molecular interactions, or design in 3-D with it. And of course it' s
backward-compatible with all their old equip-

New Version Of Interleaf For Muc

software, Interleaf Publisher, for the MacintoshIL

Vexsion35 supports the Apple FontMsnager, can
canvert typed-in text xo graphic fonts that can be
sized, stretched, rotated, and Sled/ and can nm
under Multifinder. Also, the new version of Interleaf Pubhsher makes it easier for the Mac to share
documents with all the other platforms the pmgram xuns on, including engineering workstations
&om Apollo, Digital Equipment, IBM, and Sun.
''The new releaseof Interleaf Publisher for the
Macintosh Il demonstrates our ongoing commitment to the powerful Macintosh platfonn,-acomminnentweplan
ta continue mto the future," says
Interleaf President David Boucher. The price is
U S$2,495,
the same asversion 3.0.Upgrades for
registered 3.0 users are free.

share) on revenues of US$17 million for the first

quarter of 1988. That camyares to casings of

US$534,000 (five cents per share) en sales of

US$10.5 milhon in the firs quarter of 1987. The

Puing microcompuSsrsra work for your,business.

Don't be leddosn the garden back.f

Contact .HBKP SOFTWARE LTD.
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and INhGLSS SofhirarePaCkageS.
Find Out abOut t h eir i n t egrated

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company sells cantputer publishingsystems.

Canadian Maga Usa DTP
TORONTO(NB) Desktapyublishing istakmg

its place in the publishing indusuy in Canada.

While Iyfp technology has been used in same
yubhcations for same time, there seems ta be a
rush to the technology lately. Apple Canada Inc.
has recently been sending out copies of SMALL
BUSINESS, a Toxanto-based national monthly
magazine that just started using Macintoshes to

pmduce its issues. SMALL BUSINESS is published by Maclean-Hunter, one of the largest
Canadianyublishing houses. It was af51iated with
the FINANCIALPOSTunQMaclean-Hunter sold
the business newspaper to Toranto Sun Publishing, in which it owns a minority interest. With the
change of ownership and the POST's move to
daily publication in February, SMALL BUSINESS lost the use of the Atex computer sysum it
had shared with the POST thus the move to
Macs. SMALL BUSINESS says it is the first
nationalmagazineinNoxthAmerica, and possibly
the warld, to be produced entirely an a desktop
publishing system. Others aremoving into lyfp as
welL According to officiais of Commodore Business Machines, a Monueal city magazine, MON-

TREAL CALENDAR, is instalhng Amigas for

desktop publishing. VIDEO SCENE, a Tomntobased magazine also distributed in the U.S., is

being produced hugely with PCs using Ventura

Publisher. And the computer press isnot to be left

out the staff at COMPIJHNG CANADA re-

Call: Wesley Kcnzie, Robert Fisher,

cently began producing sections of the bi-weekly

tabloid usmg Vennuu Publisher.

StePhen SChatmm, Cliff EtlquiSt, Or Ken

New Retail Store Conaept: Savy

Grecnlaw at:

8 '17te Ctsmtutter'Paper 'September 1988'

diskette holding the equivalent-of a 26 megabyte

hard disk drive. It's not the stuff af fantasy, but of
reality, as Insite Peripherals has created a drive
that can store that nmch data on the small-sized
floppy. Such a high~ t
y f l oppy could make
data back-up, now a lengthy yxacem involviug
many diskettes, asimplerpmcess. The teclmology

new version of its bighead desktop publishing date a special snipe of opticaily

earnin
gs

lt d .

Dish Storage Breakthrough

SANTA CLARA, Ca (NB) Imagineone3 li2"

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (NB) InterleafInc. has a involvesmodifi

cationof thedisketteto accommo-

INTERLEAF, INC., Cambridge, Masshas

reparted
of US$109,000 (a penny per

s oftware

==.'
-"':'.=-"-SATA ='-::
STCRA''GR-=-

SAN FRANCISCO (NB) What do you do if

you'xe one of 12 computer suues in 8 square
blocks and the competition y just too fierce7 You
do something completely diffenmt; That's what

andmagnetically

recorded data
Unlike many new disk drive technologies, this
one seems destined to make it to dealer shelves.
The teamsofKodak and Verbatim, and Xidex and
Dysan, have licensed to produce the high capacity
diskettes. Insite expects the fixst disks should be
available by the first quarter of next year.

SomewhereIn The South Pacmc

WILMINGTON, De Kao is preparing to substantially increase its U.S. production of 3.5-inch
Gappy diskeues. 7lie company has just purchased
the assets of Sentinel Technologies, a U. S.producer of fioppies, and forty acres in Plymouth,
MA. %be forty acres will be the site of an additional three-million~kette-per-month faciTity.
What are they going to do with all of those little
diskettes? 'Ihey're going to stuff them into kangaroos. Well, diskaxaos actually. They'xe like kangaroos but have more pockets and are fillel with
little Kaos instead of joeys. %he new soft diskette
caser, which contain diskettes in ~
cola r s,
axe similar ta the nylon cases sold by Ricks nd
Traveling Software. The case is included at no
extra cost with the purchase of ten little Kaos.
(Shouldn't something full of little Kaos be made

&am kalf skin'7) Kao is aheady producing in

Canada and, according to Kao spokesperson Bud
Baxciay, "With the additional capacity, Kao will
be the largest producer of 35-inch diskettes in
north America" He also assmed me, "By the end
ofnextyear thedollarvahteof the35-mchmarket
will exceed the 5.25-inc~ a doubt about it." If
you haven't yet made a commitment to the diminutive, ityrobably won'tbe long before you do.
Contact Kao at (800) 4434100x-947 to findyour
nearest dealer.

6% -

%&RR+&V''

: -- = '--==

Computers Flunk FCC Tests

SAN FRANCISCO (NB) The Federal Com-

municatianCommissianhastoldThe SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE that 75% of the PCs it' s

recently tested failedradio interference standards.
The report says clones &am Asia are the most
flagrant violators.
The FCC officials quoted say companies axe
submitting "laboratory queens" ar prototype
machines to the FCC for approvai, then faiTing to
manufacture the systems that have passed emission standards. One testing house says some 150
off-the-shelf computers were recently exammed
befoxe one was found to be in compliance. Such
big name companies as Hewlett PAckard, IBM,
and Mitsubishi were found among the violatoxs,
Merle Coe, presidentof HAAR industrie, told the
newspaper.
The violatoxs get fines of US$2,000 but often
continue to flaunt the law, says the report. That' s
because the FCC approval pracess is lengthy and
the competition in the computer marketplace is
fierc. 'The problem is the off-shore guys," re-

ported one testmg official.

examine music. Music foundtobeoutofhaxmony,

or out of tune, even though the changes may be

Electronics Employment Up
SANTA CLARA, Ca (NB) More U.S. work- very small, will be corrected automatically.
ers are employed m electronics than ever before m
the nation's history, reports the American Electronics Association. In the trade group's latest
survey, 2.61 million Americans are employed in
electmnics in June, compared to 2A9 milhon one
year earlier. In computer companies specifically,
there were459,7Nemployedcomparedto430,8QQ

in June, 1987.
"nus steady upward curve is an indicator of
healthy growth and we expect more of the same
throughout 1988 and into the next year,"remarked
Pat Hill Hubbard, the AEA vice president.
The biggest gains were in sofnvare programming, where 34,400 jobs were added compared to
last year, bringing the total number of workers in
this fleld to 280,4N, an increase of 16 percent.
GM Speaks With Ferked Tongue
WASHINGTON (NB) Transporation Secretaxy James Bumley says General Motors Chairman Roger Smith told him GM's Hughes Aircraft
Corp. wouldnetprotest the awarding of a VS$3.6
billion air traffic contxol computer contract to
IBM. Just days later, says Burnley, "the protest
came in." Burnley said Smith telephoned him
shortly after thegiantcontract, the largestinIBM's
history, was announceL Smith said Hughes
wouldn't appeal, according to Bumley, and that
Hughes would turn over its data to IBM. Then
Hughes complained to the General Services
Administration's Board of Contract Appeals. The
contract is on hold while GSAponders the matter.
The conaaet is a key to IBM's plans for its RT
reduced instruction set workstation, which will be
the basic tmninal m the system.
$3.6 Billion Contract On Hold
WASHINGTON (NB) The General Services
Admmistxation's Board of Contract Appeals has
yut the US$3.6 billion contract awarded by the
Federal Aviation Administration to International
Business Machines Corp. on ice pending an appealby Hughes Aircraftdivisionof GeaeralMetors
Coxp. Hughes charges that the award violated
federal procurementregulatioas. Hughes was the
unsuccessful bidder in the four-year contest to win
a contract to modernize the FAA's air traf6c
contxol system.
In its pretest, Hughes complains that IBM
undercut its bid because Uncle Sam allowed IBM
to bid used computers, while Hughes had to bid
new gear.
IBM saysthe charges are baseless.The
contract is nnpoxtant te both companies. Hughes
lied set up anentire corporate division to bid onthe
pxoject and may have to lay off 250 workers. Fer
IBM, tlie contract is a key in the company's
strategy for theRTengineering workstation, which
will be the backbone of the FAA system. IBM has
said it expects the new air traffic contxol system
will use 12,000 to 15,QQQ ef the slow-selling
reduced mslruction set computers.

18% ot US Househehla Have PCs

A Galhp poll done for the ELECTRONIC INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION in Washington estimates that18 percem of American households
now ewn personal computers. Households with
children are more likely to have computers than

singie~aa households.

16A% Growth In PC Sales

TORONTO (NB) The personal cmaputer
market in Canada year 16.4 per cent in 1987,
aexmdmg to International Data Corp. Canada
That made it the fastest-gxewmg part of Canada's
informatkmteehaologymdustry. IDCCanadasays
the PC market New to C$1436 million in 1987.
The over-allinfoxmatioa technology indusuygxew
85 per cent to C$12,443 million.
IDC'
industry stories" of
1987. It was a slow year fer mainframes. IBM
continued to have problems in mainframes aad
xmd-range systems. IBM's 9370 got off to a slow
start. Digital Equiymeat, Tandem, Stratus, Apple
and Compaq enjoyed a goodyear, IDC said, but at
the same time thereseaxehfmnpomts to increased
pxessme en Iraditional mmicomputer vendors, a
category that presumably includes Digital. The
flnal pomts is renewed enthusiasra fer Unix.
IDC says these developments reflect fundamental, longer-term forces. particularly a shift
toward standardized systems, consolidation to a
few key hardware aad software architectures, and
smeller systemscoatmumg to drive the indusuy's

srep
ortlistssixmajor "

grow
th.

Kemal Ebcioglu developed CHORAL, the

program responsible for the music analysis. Being
a master of music and a bolder ef an Informatics
degree. he used the Backtrachng Speeiseation
Language, which performs fastlogic analysisusing
a computer.
Bach*s music, which was written in the 18th
century, is mainly annyosed of musical harmonies. Each one of these isdesigned tobeperformed
by a male and female choral group with the seyrano as themajor sound heard. CHORAL, which
iscomposed of350rules ofdeduction,each oneof
which is subdivisable into many morerules, corresponds to the way our voice aack actually works.
Although such a job may seem simple, it takes
an IBM mainframe about 30 mmutes to rua the
pxogram and perfoxm an analysis on sounds. It
executes 23 bNion instructions.
Kemal Ebcioglu stated, "CHORAL is a test to
see whether the artiTicial mtelligence software
available today iscspableto analyze sounds, which
are among the most difficult analog signals to be
examined by computers. The success of CHORAL, however, affaxns my position that computers, and especially software, are flnally able to
tackle extremely complex projecs."

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PC Screens: Bad Fer Your Eyes

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BERKELEY, Ca. (NB) The director of the

U.S.'s first clinic dedicated to the study aad treatment of vision problems related to video display
teclmologysays regularVDT exposuremay cause
eye focusing yrobleras. James Sheedy of the Uni-

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Fonts, Utilities, Graphic Design Software, etc.

versity of California's School of Optometry VDT

Eye Clinic says his study of 153 patients revealed
mere of them to haveproblems focusing their eyes
than "we would normally see in a clinical population." In addition te problems focusing, the patients also suffer &om eye fatigue and other visioa
pmblems, he said. Most of the patients were under
40 years old, twice as maay were women as men,
and all
worked foran average of6 hoursa day for
more than four years at a VDT.
Sheedy suggests work at a VDT could be
"ehangmg thephysiologyof the eye,"inhis report.
He suspects the problems are dne to several factors: the glowing CRTs, the posture of the workers, ml the use ef prescription glasses, specifically bifocals, m many of the cases. He acknowledges that the report is pxeliminaiy andnotsuietly

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Casays sales of U.S.-made electronics goods are

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amounting to US$1373 billioa for the fast six
months of this year.

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Software Sales Booming

WASHINGTON (NB) Whosaysthe personal
computer market is soft? According to the Seftwafe Pllbllshexs Assedatloa, sales of persollal
computersoftware boomed ahead 51 percent in
the flrst half of 1988, on sales of US$1.8 billion,
compared to US$12billionfor the flrst half of last
year. "People have alleged that the PC software
industry is maturing," said the SPA executive
director,"but this data, which surprised me, shows
that it's nowhere near maturing." According to
SPA, US$139 billion of the sales was for MSDOS software, compared to US$192 million for
Apple Macmtosh software. But the Mac represented the fastest growing segment of the market,
with sales an astonishing 131 percent ahead of last
year.
The End to Ferris BueBer's Day ON?
UNISYSCORP., Blue BelL Pa., isofferingmicroCASTS Attendance, designed to help schoel
aaendance recerds and notify
parentsof absences through an auto&aler. The
product will be available in early 1989 and will be
priced between US$1PN aad US$3,000.

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Teshlba's Real-Thne Telephene 12anslatlen ef

English/Japaaese
TOKYO (NB} Toshiba has developedIthe
world's first Japanese- English automatic character translation phone, taking advantage of AI and
satellite communications teclmology. The phone
translates conversations faxm Japanese to English
and vice versa when the chats originate via key-

board.
For instance, Japanese sentences written m
Badt'a Musk Doaa On AI System
Tokyo
are translated mreal-time into Eaglish by
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (NB) An IBM re-

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searcher is being aided by Bach's music to create an eaginoring workstation, and the translated
an expert system which is designed to listen and sentencesare displayed en the screen m London
through satellite communications. In tbe same
The ComputerPaper September 1988 ~ 9

said to be Puff, anew sound aud video board, and

Super Scooper, adisk drive capable of reading and
writing in both IBM andMac formats. When will
see the new machines? Bajarin reckons it' llbe
early in '89 with a possible showing for one of the
68030 boxes at the Boston MacWorld Expo later
this month. NE%SBYTES UK's sources, however,suggest an announcement for the week of
Comdex (Las Vegas - 14/18 November). %ith
Atari expected to unveil its Stacy ST laptop that
week, it looks like there could be a lot of laptop
interest around...

multiple tasks and be a local areanetwork server.

Speeds should range &om 25 megahertz to 40
MHz but along with the speedcomes a high price.
Look for the80486 machines to run up to
US$40,000each.Meanwhile, look fora 33 MHz
80386 to be announced soon, we' re told.

IBM DOS 4.0 Released

FRANKFURT, GERMANY(NB) Asreported
by NEWSBYTES EUROPE in
February,thenew

DOS 3.4/4.0releasedby Microsoft includes UM/

EMS support, higher capacity storage (more than
32MB - however the clusters get bigger, so more
=':~
X ' :=F:.='
space is wasted for small files), menumriented
installationalaOS/2, andnew commands, includAll I Got Was A Crummy T4hlrt
PALO ALTO, Ca. (NB) Wehear that inlieu of ing a memory manager. In addition, a file caching
compuuns, Apple founder Steve Jobshasarranged capabiTity is inchided which makes this reporter
for T-shirts to be sent to some900 of his favorite wonder whether it will work with MS %indows
software developers. Emblazoned with the logo of (most of the other caching pmgrams don' t).
hiscompany NeXT, they're accompanied by a
IBM Copy Protects New DOS 4.0
note ashng his friends to bepatient, the computers
%H1TE PLAINS. NY (NB) IBM has quietly
are coming. "It will be worth the wait, I promise
you." Obviously Steve has had these T-shirts introduced amild form ofcopypiotection with the
hanging around for some time. NEWSBYTES got shipment of DOS 4.0. To my knowledge, it is a
hold of one through illicit channels way back in first for Blue. Olieraung systems, hmguage pmd1986l We can testify to the fact that the color has ucts, Display Write and other IBM software have
held up through two years of laundering, in case never been protected in the past even at a time
you had any doubts about the quality of the work- when all of the major PC software vendors protected their products. Now that the major players
manship
have foregonetheodiouspractice, thebootlegger's
:r~nrrrrarwvccarra rrvPa~r: -rrg~av c
usi:;v:+$Av p p A N v p ~ v p pJA A'Aw mostcoolierative victim has seemingly decided to
turn everything around.
Wang Finally Serious About PCs?
So many problems have been noticed by early
LOWELL, Mass. (NB) Wang Laboratories has
hired Graham Beachum to anew position of vice reviewers of the pmduct thu the point has gone all
president of personal computer sales and market- but unnoticed. However, die new DOS can't be
ing. Wang stole Beachum away fmm Dell Com- copied to a hard disk or to other than the origmal
puter Corp., where he was vice president of mar- media type. If it is, the installation process reketing and sales. Frederick Wang, president and quired to create the new DOS shell, the pmduct's
chief operating officer at Wang, said the move major innovation, will fail to work &om the new
"underscores the seriousness of our intent to cap- media.
ture a significant share" of the PC market. %ang
The copy pmtectionemploysahiddendirectory
estabhshed itspersonalcomputer division in May. entry and other strategies that allow the user to use
Beachum, 40, has had senior marketing jobs at
the DISKCOPY command to reproduce backups
Tandy and IBM.
but not ln copy the installation files lo a different
ATILT Cuts &03&6Prices
media format with COPY or XCOPY. FurtherMORRISTOWN,NL (NB) AT8tThasmoved more, at least some earlier versions of DOS will
to position its high-end personal computers to not DISKCOPY the new formlt. And, users with
compete with the machines based onthe new Intel
compatible machines may fmd that their system
80386SX chip. The 80386SX is a somewhat dis- will not start from the installation diskette in any
abled version of the 80386 thetis a little bit slower case.
butslotcheaper."This reduction shows customQulters At Lotus, 1-2-3 Delays
ers and the mdustty that ATILT intends to be an
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (NB) Irfan Salim, vice
aggiessiveplayer in the personal computer field,"
and general manager of Lotus Developsays Francisco Albququerque of ATILT's per- president
ment Corp.'s spreadsheet division, the most imsonal computer division. Prices on the flagship
portant in thecompany, hasresigned, citing per6386 WGS, whichruns at 16 mHz, have been
sonalreasons. Lotus spokesmanJames O'Duunell
slashed bymore than 20percent. The basic model
says Salim's resignation willhaveno effect on the
has been knocked down fmm $US4,899 to oft-postponed release of Version 3.0 of 1-2-3.
$US3,495.
O'Donnell says the upgraded spreadsheet is still
Lotus Development Corp.
scheduled to see the light of day in the fourth
, Cambridge, Mass., has named Mark Flanagan as quarter.
president of the Lone Development Corp. subSalim is the fifih vice president to flee Losidiary. Established in 1984, Lotus Publishing tusland since March, when Lotus's aggressive
develops and markets information products and ChairmanfimManzi forced out &eaior VicePresisefvlccL
dent Charles Digate, expected to be Manzi's successor. Digatehadhired Salimtoruninternabonal
First
4&6 Systems Due Iu 1990
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (NB) NEWSBYTES operations. He came to the U.S. from Britain in
EUROPE has leaned that 80486 samples have November to take over spreadsheet marketing.
Meanwhile, Lotus' marketing manager for
been delivered to IBM, COMPAQ and DELL
which are expected to aimouncenew '486 systems Agenda, Conall Ryan, has also resigned to join
Steve Jobs' NeXT, Inc. in Palo Alto, Ca Reports
for delivery in 1990.
Thechip, whichhas been coveredpreviously in say he feels his job is done at Lotus and isready for
NEWSBYTES,offers'386compatibihty and faster a new challenge. "Agenda's launch is out there
and it's happenmg," he told the SAN FRANspeedsdue lo itsdensermanufacuue.
One source close to Intel said to NEWSBYTES CISCO CHRONICLE 'The oliportunity to be
EUROPE that these systems will have ESDI hard involved with NeXT is soo good to be true."
diskcontrollers nmning at 15MHz (against 5MHz IBM And Apple Tied For Dollar Share Of Sahs
forMFM and 10Mhz fortoday's ESDI) and thus PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa (NB) Apple and
will be able to use 760MB hard disks. Prices are IBM are tied for dollar share in computer store
naturally high and thesesupersystems should cost channels, according to the latest IMS America
about US$30,000 and offer about 10 - 15 MIPS. National Computer Retail Reports. Acxarding to
IMS, it's the first time IBM's market share has
What The 804&6 Will Be Like
SANTA CLAIU4 Ca. (NB) The successorto fallen below 20 percent, and that Apple matched
the 80386 chip, the 80486 &om Intel, will be so or topped IBM in a non~ t m as selling period
fast and sopowerhit thatit may start anew class of further evidence that Apple is making it in the

CQfPVF'KRS

computers, sosaysIntel. Slated to ship in sample

quantities within a few months, the RISC-like
80486 is expected to propelthe PC into the workstation nd minicomputer market, according to
one analyst. It will be backward-compatible with
the 80386 and its predecessors, able to iun IBM
software, but will also take advantages of new
applications thatrequire speed andpower. Sources
say the firstcomputers with the 80486 should start

crucial business
market. Apple actually squeaked

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For only aboutwhat yes'd psy ter twoendewy cwtedges
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0 tiers than doubleSe tests andsymbolsets pessihb
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TONER CARTRIDGERELOADS

HP II$79"

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byIBM in total dollars for thequarter ending April

1988 by half a point, accordmg to IMS.

Quote Of The Month

"Putting Presentation Manager on an
IBM is like

MG~

NEW-$1N

PC COPIEA

LASERNEW-$159

putting Bemaise on a hot dog." Alan Kay,

Apple fellow, at MACWORLD EXPO

to appear amund 1989 and 1990 and will most The Tricks Of The Trade
likely make use of the 80486 for its ability to direct SANTA MONICA, Ca (NB) A loquacious

$
The Computer Paper September 1988 11

source has revealed that Quarterdeck Office Systems and others, Microsoft was also mes@ have
a secret IBM microcomputer for testing develop-

mentpxujects. OKcially, company spokespersons August 16. The Communicating Applications

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Dr. Halo Paint
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declined to admit to the existence of the mystery

machine but my guess would have to be that it' s
the new IBM laptop computer. If you know anything of these machines why not give me acall. I'd
like to hear about it here first. QUOTE OF THE
WEEK... If you'd like to hear a hilarious story
about the investigative methods of the fourth estate, give Quarterdeck a call and talk to Gary
Saxer. When I asked Gary about the foregoing
laptop rumor, he denied it completely. But I was
fairly sure of my source. So, I asked him if the
machine uses a '2S6 or '3S6 processor.

He told meinstead about anapocryphal internal

memo warning the Deckers about theimethods
employedbyinvestigativereporters. It seems that,
acccuding to the memo, reporters will call Quarterdeck and ask if they' re still roasting babies at
the Santa Monica deckquaxters. When confronted
with denials, the correspondent then says all he
really wants to know is the type ofbarbecue sauce
being used. Gaty had me on the floor.

Specifitcationis onanew Connection CoPmcessor

board which can communicate with main&ames,
share that information with PCs or fax machines,
and do it all in the background. If all of this works
as they claim it will for about US$1,000 with a
modem ophon priced at under US$300 (available
in September), itshouldbe an unique product. But
if this interface canreally become a standard, you
won't have to worry about modem, fax, or main&ame connections again. Lotus, Micmsoft, and
Borland all claim they' re suppoxting it.

US. Spies On British Telecomm

NORTH YORKSHIRE (NB) Investigative

journalist Duncan Campbell has caused a stir in

the latest NEW STATESMAN magazine by revealing that the US's National Security Agency
(NSA) is to sink several tens ofmilliondollaxs into
expanding its Menwith Hill faciTity near Harxogate, North Yorkshire.
Whatdoes Menwith Hill do2Cuxrentlyitlistens
to world radio hansmissions. The expansion will
take its operations into the world of international
teleeommumcations. Campbell alleges that plans
Tandy, Dell Delay PS/2 Cloaca
call for all international phone and data conversaFORT WORTH, TX (NB) Tandy became the tions, both in and out of the UK, to be monitored
third PS/2 clonemaker to delay shipping its com- by the NSA site.
puters, followmg announcements by Acer of TaiCan they do this'P Yes. The UK Home Office
w an (which held up its enhy into Japan) and Dell grants 'monitoring warrants,' to prevent any
Computer. All three blamed "chip problems gen- embarrassing prosmltions under the Interception
erally." This comes on the heels of a NEWSBY- of Communications Act. AppearingonNEWSBYTES EASTreport that Applehas caught up to IBM TES UK's local TV station, Campbell revealed
in the share of PCs sold at retail stores.
that between 250 and 300 of these warrants are in
Boca Research, Boca Rotan, Fl., however, says use at any one time. Furthermore, between 6 and
the IBM PS/2 market is booming, despite appear- 12of those wirants are what are knownasblanket
ances.Itsaysits PS/2 Micm Channel boards have warrants. One waxrant is sufficient to tsp ALL
exceededsalesexpectations "200%" (fmun what, international phone calls in and out of the UK.
they don't say) with two Scandanavian distribuWhat Uncle Sam does with all those phone call
tors plscmg orders on its serial and serial-parallel recordings, however, is anyone's guess.
cards while they were still prototypes.
Murata BusinessSystems, Dallas,announced a
TheClassic Coke Gambit: IBM AT To Return? connectionbetweenits F-50fax machine endmost
ARMONK, N.Y. g%) Listen for the jungle PCs. Calledthe FacsimileInterface Protocol(HP),
drums. Scan the sky for smoke signals. The IBM it lets users send images to and &am PCs over a
nnnor mill is grinding again, with the word from serial cable.
the Big Blueologists that the PC-AT is about to
""' ZHESGXfC~ ~ K K Fcome to life again. It's the Coke Classic gambitbrought back by customer demand. "PC Week" Doomsayer Predicts New Crash
says the new machine will be called the PS/2 SAN FRANCISCO (NB) Michael Murphy,
Model 35.''rhe Wall Sheet Journal" says the new author of the CALIFORNIA TECHNOLOGY
machine will abandon the controversial Micro STOCK LETTER, predicts a second Black Mon-,
Channel Axchitecture in favor of the good old AT day market crash REAL SOON NOW. And when
bus. Stewart Alsop, editor of "P.C. Week," is Murphy talks, people listen. Th
bec ause
skeptical. "It would kind of give the lie tu every- Murphy successfully predicted the last Black
thing they' ve been saying,"he told the Associated Monday crash of October, 1987. He's been liquiPress. IBM, characteristically, is mum. Remem- dating the newsletter's portfolio in preparation.
ber, dear readers, IBM has the power to cloud
Perhaps it's also no coincidence that Computermen's minds. Only the Big Blue Shadow knows land has just postponed its public offering. The
for sure.
Hayward, Ca.-based computer retail chain, citing
In other IBM news, the company has rolled out adverse stock market trends, has announced its
a comprehensive line of expert systems software, public offering will be postponed indefinitely.
for users of IBM products ranging kom novices to Ken Waters, Computerlandpresident, says during
artificialintelligencemavens. The software guides the last few weeks, "the market declined almost
the user through a series of questions in order to 100 points and companies comparable to us deextract the lists and rules needed in the software. clined by about 20 percent."
The software is available for a full range of comComputerland had hoped to raise US$51 milputers I'rom PCs to mainframes. The products lion by selling 2.7 million shares of common stock
include anew version of the Expert System Envi- priced between US$16 and US$19 a share.
ronment, aimed for users withfewcomputer skills,
Electronic Rumour Mongers
a complementary program called Expert System
Consultation Enviromnent-PC, and an update of ATLANTA (NB) A " Wall Street Journal"

~f$;.P$f+

v F 1 % Y A w Z AA w

KnowledgeTool, aimed at computer pros. For Al

gurus, IBM is offering IBM KEE, developed with
Intelliooxp. Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.

feature about sowalled "rumor wires," an adjunct

of the market quotation systems on brokers' desks
amund the world, points up the quickly-dissipating line between fact and fiction in the online

IBM Ships 2$MHz Model 70 PS/2

business world. Quote services like KnightNEW YORK (NB) Selected user and dealers, Ridder's MoneyCenter, McGraw-Hill's "SAP
among them 'TnfoWorld," have been receiving MaxketScope," and even Dow Jones' own "PmIBM's enny in the 80386 speed contest. IBM has
confnmed itis shippmg a few of the 25 megahertz
PS/2 Model 70-A21. The machine is supposed to
be in dealers hands m quantity by end of September. Themachine is aimed squarely at the Compaq
25-MHz machine. According to "InfoWorld,"
preliminmy benchmark tests rate the IBM at 6.97
in processor
speed versus 6.15 for the Compaq.
But the Compaq beat the Model 70handily in hard

fessionallnvestor Report" need to chase downand

reportxumars immediately, because to get scooped
by 3 minutes can cost precious dollars on the
market. At the same time, these services know that
many of the reports they' re rushing to press won' t
turn out Io be true, and some will turn out to have
been planted by traders eager to make hay on the

disk benchmarks.

generally.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS
rerw r.w rzsavrz.wmmaww.mrA :rr.%% ~ 8 5 %'znrnrrmwrrrr wcwwm rr.vis.
W W

W W

'

'

N W W P PW P

PW A W

PN W

NewCommunications Interface.
ALPHARETTA, GA (NB) 9igital CommuniI2" The Computer Paper. September.19&$..

cations Associates Inc. of Alphareua tumedout to

be the brains behinds the new txmmunications
mterface put into the public domain by Intel on

resulting panic. The rumors, and panic, also scare

away small mveaturs, which is bad for business
WHATCANBE DONE Nota whole lot. But

if anyone calculated, regularly, the percentage of

rumors these services print which prove hue later.
on, moneycould be made and customers served.

GEAC Bndt In The Bladt

MARI&AM,Ont. (NB) GeacCcunyuterCoxy.
has reported its fust quarterly profit in twa and a
half years, with net income of C$10Q,NQ in the
quarter endedApril30. That comesless than ayear
after the
for
American readers, that's the Canachanequivalent
cf Chayter 11).
Fer the fiscal year, Geac reported a net loss of

mg a US$9.4 billion market by 1992. In order to

get a bigger piece of that maxket, IBM is spending
as much money on development of RT hardware
as it does on personal computers. Goldberg says
IBM has put 160 people to work developing RT
applications ar gening outside software camyanies to port their applications to the RT.

C$2.1 million on revenues ef C$685 nullian-

m an effart to dispel rumours about the demise of

the RT/PC (or the 6150 as its caHed in Europe)
introchiced new models which are both powerful
and fastet
rhan thepredecessors.Model 6151/130
or 6150/135 and B35 have 16MB memory and a

comp
anyemergedfmmreceivership (

not wonderful, but bauer than last year's lass of

C$19.4 million on revenues of C$64 million.
Donald C. Webster, chairman, said m a press
release that the company has "re~tablished its
gmwth
pattern,"has increased ihbeokvaluef'iom
C$11.8 million te C$373 milhen, and has a net

cash position of C$4.4 million.

114MB hard
diskasstandard.Theyalsooffera5.6
MIPS syeedusmganlBMAesignedRISC pmces-

sor, options far either a 310MB hard disk or up te

Integrn Systems., Vancouver, lost C$125 mil- 93QMB hard disk storage. The systems support a
lion on revenue of C$42millim in the year ended maximum of 7A6GB and cost about US$230N
March31, compared withapmfitof C$359,0Non
v &v w JA w v t x p & v l w J ~ IS%
SR
revenues of C$3.8 million last year.
Mltel Corp Kauata, Oatlast C$1.8millionin the Arms to Iran But Ne 386'a For Sevlets
14 weeks endedJuly 1, on revemuu of C$101.6 SAN RAFAEL, Ca (NB) Soviet officials, cm a
million. In the 13 weeks ended June 26, 1987, shopping trip te SiTiccn Valley computer fums,
Mitel lost C$10.1 million on revenues of C$92.7 have seared a big purchase from Micmym Intermillion.
national, which has agreed to help develop of
Orade CerporntfonTomnto, reported revenues Russian version of Wonntar. The technologyof C$193 milhen fer the fiscal year ended May tumgxy delegation is seehng software and hard31. mcre than doubling 1987's figure of C$83 ware for the U.S.Mtwhichbycutrent reports has
milhcn.
only about 200,NQ microcomputers compared to
20 million in the United States. But loosening of
US trade restrictions with the Soviets has allowed
Sun Establishes Tlea %Vlth Fujlhu
more softwaxe and hardware to pass behind the
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Ca. (NB) In a dizzymg Iran Curtain.
rise to the top of the world's technical and engiMicreyie says the Soviets will jointly develop
neering workstation market, Sun Microsystems and distribute a Russian version of WardStar,still
has gained another major foothold m a deal with the mast widely used wcml pmcessingprogram in
Japan'slargestcomputer company, Fujitsa Fujitsu the world with an estinated 3 million copies solcL
will market six Sun workstations in a deal valued
Other companies being visited by the 6 Soviet
at some US$280 million far Sun, which just re- scientists include Califanua Micmelectremc Syscorded its first US$1 billion xevenue year. Cm- tems and Databank Computer Corporation, which
rently Sun sells the mcst workstations in volume, plans ta sell IBM~npatibles in the U.S53L
but Hewlett Packard selh the mast m dolhxs.
Interestingly enough, MicxaPro reyorts that the
Soviet
sale did not come without a hitch. The
Untsys, Betting On Unix
BLUE BELL, Pa (NB) Unisys Corp. wiill company was reportedly given implicit oxders by
acquire Convergent Inc., Ssn Jose, Calif., for the FBI not to show any cemmunications software
US$350 million. lhe move provides further evi- noxacomputer based ontheIutel80386micmpmdence of Unisys's strategic decision to focus on
the Unix operating system asthe seftware that will
Ayyle Computer reports that new export rules
unify the Tower of Babel that chaxacxerizes the wiH make it possible for Apple computers to be
computer indusuy. 'Convergent will become a shippedtothe SovietUnion and EasternEurope.
cornerstone of our rapidly gmwmg busmessin Apple's spolreswomsn says despite the relaxed
distributed systems basedunopen industry stan- xules, Apple has no immediate plans to ship comdards and state of the art netwoxhug technokx- puters to the Commmust Bloc.
gies,"said Unisys Chairman W. Michael Blumen- Perestroika, Dataease Style
thaL
TRUMBALL, Conn. (NB) Software developer
Unisys had a close relationship with Conver- DataEase International Inc. will begin selling
gentpriar to the merger. Unisys hasbeenreseHmg English and Russian versions of its software in the
many Convergent computers, and manufacturing Soviet Union. Anm Gupta, president and chief
others under license fmm Convergent. Conver- executive
office of D~ s a ys his company
gent also has imlxutant ccmracts to build Unix has received Commerce Deyartment aypmval for
m achines
farresale by other comlunies, such as saleof the DataBase database software for IBM
Greupe Bull and NCR Carp. Unix system have PCs aud clones in the USSR."Under the Soviet's
been Unisys's fastest-gmwing line of business. economic reslxucturing program, Perestroika,"
Sales of Unix systems tripled last yea to US$500 Gupta told the media, basic businessandpurchase
million, and are expected to his US$8N million decisions will now be made directly by individual
this year.
managers, who will neel tools like DataEase to
Sun Mlcreaystams, Mountain View, Casays net automate theirorganizatiousefEciently."Six-yearincaine was ilp 83% lo US$66.4 xmillon, f evexllles old DataEcne will also market its software in
doubled fiem US$537 million to US$1.05 billion Eastern Bloc cotmtries.
in its last quarter compared to ene year ago. The The U.S. Department Of Commerce in Washresults were sogcod they smyrised mas analysts. ington will ease its export cannel mles so that
Sun Microsystems was mcently designated the moreyowexfulcontputexsembesoldmthePeoples
fastest-gmwmg electmnics ccrnpsxiy in America Republic of China The new rules wiH mom that
IBM To Beef Uy RT Workstations
most Digital Eqtulunent Carp. VAX ccmtputers,
NEW YORK (NB) Arthm Goldberg, a key most Sun Micmsystems workstations, and some
5gure m IBM's RT reduced instruction set com- IBM mid-range computers can be shipped muyuter, says Big Blue will ship an RT workstation tinely to China
at least twice as powerful as the current offering MITI To Sall Te Cemmnnists
within a year. Critics have trashed the RTs as TOKYO (NB) The Mmistry of Intexxumanai
woefully underpowered since the mtroduction of Trade and
Inclustries (MITI) has announced that it
the machines in 1986. IBM has been unable to will eliminate same restrictions en the exyort of
compete with Sun Microsystems, Apollo Com- camyuters to Chma as early as m the middle of
Yp

N
VN '

t .

N P

'

N
W N

NORTHWEST DIGITAL LTD.

IBM AnnouncesNew RT/PC Models

STNTGART, WERI'GERMANY(NB) IBM.

' pA

I'

SUMMER SAYINGS!
HEWlETT-PACKARD LASER JET SERIES II
PRINTERS
WITH FULL WARRANTY

Now Only:

p v

'N

puter, and Digital Equipmuat Corp. in the hot September. Aho, MITI is easing up
units restri-

(cnah and enny only)

The Hewlett-Packard Laserjet Series II
preter providestrue publication-quality
printing with the ubiquity
to mix cfwerent fonts, styles,
weights, and orientation to give each document a custom
look for muwmum impact.

Available at:

Northwest Digital Ltd.

Northwest Digital Ltd.

4t95-10551 Shnllbridge Way AND

Riebxxtcxntl, B.C. 270-7281

3352 Tenrtynort Ave.

%ctorfn, B.C. 382-234f

Canada'S largeet AutheriZed

* price sub]cct to crunge without retice.Oiler net valkl in eonjwctrca with ether promataea

some
xpcutsivethattheyurebeaunmgakeyindus-

upgraded te 550 megabits per secancL It is ex-

ham, Mass iuports that the workstahen market

late muru tmde with Chma by the falL

txy segment.International Data Ccny~Framing- pectol that the new, mare lament mles will stimuhasdoubledeveryyearsince 1982.IDC sayssales

R e
%~

OE $~

$E ~

e u
a a w e eat
ae
0 $ 1 $ %
S E S S '%
~
4 S S % %8

s O s l
% ' ~

see%
(H

e eg n g n

~
e ~ ~ e
~
E 4 8 O
~

O
therSIIwaretrPe(iphtralt??
'?

NeWy
aueaIPmehaeeyanrSelteareandhanlwre
aeae
saeriesthrasghtheleadingUnatyeE
m
aging

$ $

s W

R a % a
S R % $

O S ~

We like to muke
everything

CesheiaBritishColumbia!

perfectl
y clear,.
Until further notice, QuickSet will be
including either training or printcuta
with an y p u rchase o f so f tware.
Amounts will vary according to the
software purchased. As an example,
Illustrator '88 will include 2 hours of
training or 1 0 l e tter size Linotype
printouts" when purchased for $650.00

Ma]or new software accounting eoneept presently being

released across Canada.
Opportunities available for
dealers with solid business
background and hnowledge
Of aCCOunting and/Or Com-

puters. Excellent projected

amII11gS. FOr iaferma5On

wodmtatianmarlcet. But the "Wall Sneet Jotunal"

notes, "It's not at aH clear that IBM isn't just

ction regardmg the shipment of cempttters to the

Soviet Union and Eastern Europe at the end of this
throwing good money after bad; the ccunputur month.'11teughthemaximumymcessmgcapacity
industry isbmtal toyroducts that get off te a slow ofcxunyutexucuxxuntlyallowedferexportteChina
start." Wcnkstationsare becenuxtgso power and is 285 megabits per seccmd, diat ftgutu will be

WL% HE W L E T T
" ~ P A t : ~ ~ II D 8 8 I 8 l .

(604) 685-2777
N e off
era24hourmodem servicefor
uploadinyPasScript files to beprinted
lo the Linotype Imagesetter.

'Printout time limited to 5 minutes per letlerwize.

call:

RMS SYSTEMS PfC.

1-800-663-2358
In Vancouver
(604) 681-9575

willccutthtueto gmw at30peteent a year, beccmThe Computer.paper . ~number 1988 + IS

COM P U TER EMPIRE

Cf

og

Our 4th Year in Operation Over 35,000 Computer Items Sold

Og

REGULAR AT SYSTEM (6l10 MHz)

Expandable to 12MHx
1AMB floppy(3~
720Kfloppy(38")

~ 80286 CPU(IT board)

(Rag g695)
e 360K floppy drive
NCL AT hard disk gt floppy controller
+ Mono/graphic card with printer port
200 W CSA power supply

20MB $295
40MB $470

Clock 4t calendar

Enhanced keyboard
High Res. TTL monitor with swivel base
Metal case with LED light, Reset/Turbo switch

$135
$118

(with AT system
purc h ase)

24NBaud internal Modem

12NBaud internal Modern
A'IIGraphicSolution Card
Logitech Mouse

$1N
$185
$99
COMPACT TURBO XT SYSTEM
640K RAM

NECP22N Printer
Fujitsu DI34NPrtnter
RolandPR121SPrinter
Roland PRZ450Printer
HPLasetjet HPrinter

DELUXE AT SYSTEM(8/12 MHs)

4 la)pprs motherboard made in USA

One bdepaByae
RAM {yona)

$188

$1845

HP Laserjet DeskMnter

CPU 80286-12
e 12 MB floppy drive
(Beg. $l995)
NCL AT hard disk 4t floppy controller
Mono/graphic card with printer port
~ 200 W CSA power supply
~ Clock and calendar
e Enhanced keyboard
High Res TrL monitor with swivel base
Metal case with LED hghtReset k 3
exposable half height slots

$585
$758
$695
$895
$2595
$1295

t=pDEMOUNITSALBcp

NECMuttisynccolor monitor $795

SAMSUNGTTL monitor
$92
MITSUBISHIMultiscanmoitor $650

$998

One 360Kdoppy

+ ATl graphic card

(Reg. $1 195)
Clock and calendar
Serial, parallel ports
+ CSA power supply
AT style keyboard
High Res. Multisync monitor with swivel base
Conlpact case
e MS DOS 4K GW-Basic with manuals
LAPTOP/ PORTABLE

COMPUTER RENTALS

XT System $59/week
AT System $89/week
{Ask for monthly discount rate)
00

Prices slhj ect to change dtde to escalation of RAN prices.

NEC Mutttspeed
M4MHa Backht

640K 2 Floppies $2675

640K 20 M B $

3795

MURATA Japan) $1550

3 uses: Fax
Photocopying
Telephone

4168 MAIN STREET e VANCOUVER V5V 3P7 e 872-1668

Looking for the lowest price?

G oingfor the cheapest sale?
A Local Area Network represents a significant investment in computer equipment, but more importantly a major expenditure of your valuable
time.

Do you expect good service?

Do poQ collsldef SNpport Empoftast7

Do you ~ant expert advice available to you7

The lowest price does not necessarily reflect the best "deal". Select your LAN vendor with the same care you use in your
most important business decisions. In the crush of people wanting to sell you a network, some organizations rise above the
crowd.

So r kls:

A Novell Authorized Dealer

A Novell Independant software Developer

A Computer Associates ACCE88 Developer {28 man-years)
A business computer solution company (60+ man-years)
A Novell Netware User (V2.11 10 stations)
The ACCPAC ACGE88 Consultant of the Year (1987)

The ACGPAG AGCE88 Developer of the Year {1988)

4.-0- x

s oftrak was formedin 1984with a single goal toprovide the best ad'vice and products possible for business computer users. Our Network Products Division continues the traditt'on by providing our clients with a single-vendor solution to common business problems. l/Ye sell hardware to provide a complete
solution and avoid Vinger-pointtng" when things go wrong. i/i/e don't believein
automation merits own sake we believe in automation for your sake.

Phone lan Frazer for the Softrak solution.

736-3741

SYSTENSIrt.
CNN -1661W. 8th Ave. Yartcower
The Computer Paper September 1988 15

Mac%arid Expo Opens

BOSTON, Ma (NB) Before thedeluge of the
30,000 attendants expected to attend this year' s
BostonMacWorld Expo,exhibitors from themore
than350coinpsnies displaying at theshow opened
the doors to give press and invited guests a sneak
preview ofwhat to expect over the three day
indusuy show opening Thursday August 11tlL
Ever increasing in scale, this MacWorld Expo is
expected to be the largest Macintosh-related
computer event ever with exhibits and conferences 611ing three major faciTities and every hotel
in the city of Boston booked through the weekend.
Apple, Microsofi and Apple's softwaresubsidiary Clsris all announced new products during

industry day (seenext stories) aud over 100 new

releases or upgrades are expected to be unveiled

during the course of the show. Some new products
come from old- time Mac players like Jasmine
(makers ofharddisks and other peripherals) which
has announced a new Postscript printer, and
Mediagenic (formerly Activision) which has released new Hypercard applications including an
upgrade of Dan Goodman's Focal Point.
Other new products come f'romrecent additions
to the Macintosh family of software andperipheral

manufacturers. These include Dac Easy, makers

of PC accountmg software, which has released a
Mac version of its popular Dac Easy Light accountmg package, and Compugraphic, the world's
largest manufacturer of computerized typesetting
equipment, which is showing off its new range of
typefaces available for the Mac.
Show planners in Boston, a city of long traffic
jams, short- tempered drivets, and a major convention center still under construction, are counting on the efforts of several valiant shuttle bus
drivers to umte the far-flung branches of what
promises to beone of themost enjoyable and wellauended trade show in the city's hisumy.
New Scanner, 4MB Mac II, Upgrades
BOSTON,Ma(NB} Apple's rumored scanning
device wasannounced at MacWorki Expo on
Wednesday August10th. The 83" by 14" 300dots
per inch flatbed scanner is capaMe of importing
pictures into PICI', TIFF of MacPaint file formats
supported by most Macintosh applications.
The scanner, long anticipated by Apple watchers, comes bundled with software includmg AppleScan, a flexible imaghtg program which can
capmre grey scale at 4 bit/16 levels per soamed

pixel. This packagehasa useful "preview" feature

which snows users to quickly manipulate brightness and contiaston a75 line preview" versionof
an image setthtg parameters before a final scan.

The package also comes with HyperScan. a

pmgiam written by HyperCard author Bill Akim-

son, whichallowsphotos, picnaes or hneart tobe

scanned directly into HypetCmdsutcks increasing

the ease of integrating graphics into HyperCard

stacks andapplicatians.
The Apple Scanner has a suggested reuul price
of US$1,799.and is available immediately fmm
authorized dealers.
Apple also announced a top of the line version
of its Macintosh II computer, the 4/40, coming

with four megabytes ofRAM ands fast 40mega-

byte hsrddisk Includedin this announcement was

the immediate availability of 1MB, 2MB and
4MB extension kits for aH Mac Pius, SE and Mac
II computers. Lest you think the DRAM drought
over however, memory has itscost. Priceson allof
Apple's RAM extension kits have gone up as a
resultof increased costs of supply. The price of

1MB is US$499; 2MB, SUS 1199and4MB, $US

2399. The Mac II 4/40 retails for SUS7398 complete.
No end to therumors of anew Mac CPU based
on Motomla's top of the line 6$030 micmpmcessor. No ansvrers either except the statement of an
Apple developer who, remarking on Apple's
enormous surplus of R k D funds, told reporters
"if it sound's like it's a good idea, assume the
company is working on it."

the word pmcessing module, expanding thepackages spreadsheet to 2S6 cohmns by 16$82 rows.
adding color support for the Macintosh II, Print
Previewtoview each page of a document before
pfnunlg, and recorder nl&clos to automate keystrokes of often-repeated tasks.
Supportfor columnar text and an enhanced set
of object~ented drawing tools give Works the
potential for limited desktop publishing. Microsoft representatives displayed logospresentaaon
graphics and a newsletter created using the
pmgram's word processing and drawing tools.
While not award- winning works of art, they
demcrtstrated quality work needed by the small
busmess customer who are primary purchasers of
Works.
Works 2.0, scheduled for release in October,
retains its original price of US$295. Upgrades are
available to users of earlier versions of the program for justUS$75 and Microsoft is offering free
upgrades to anyone purchasing version 1.0 after
August 1st
Alongside this newly-enhanced version of
Microsoft'sintegrated software, the company
demcrltiatedupgradesof Micmsoft Word, Power
Point, and recently-released products like Micmsoft Mail, demonstrating that lawsuit or no, the
worM's largest software company is not about to
give up its dominant share of the lucrative Macintosh software market.

flit N I

I Rgl l l l I tl I S I P P O D f g ll l %LTI' 'Ll J&

lM INN Ilel

WIN IER

products, the upshot of their competition is that

presentation planners and artists will be spoiled
for choice during the months to come.
File Management: Twenty, forty, eighty and twohundredmegabyte storage devices and the promise of mammoth storage with CD-ROM have
prompted an emphasis on file management products and utilities. Alpha Micro of Santa Ana,

California released a Macintosh version of its

Videotrax hard disk back-up system which allows
Ihe use ofa V HS video cassette recorder as atape
backup unit, saving up to 80 megabytes on a two
hour standard tape cassette. Disk searching utiTities such asGOpher by Microlytics, Inc. were also
on display.
HyperCard: Finally HypetCard applications
abounded includutg a new version of Danny
Goodman's Focal Point, HyperDialer, a phone
dialing accessory kom DataDesk Internationa,
Hypersouice CD fmm Prism Teclmologies of
Canada, which contains over 400 megabytes of
useful information on the Macintosh industry, and
(they "re back. ) new additions to Smutstsck, the
K-rated HyperPornography product.

mg videos which Sculley showed during the talk.

The video featured a corporate computer jockey
mousmg around a map of the U.S., presenting
sales 6gures to his slack-jawed female associate
who can only sit in amazement as HypetCard
makes mincemestofcomlxmysfatistics. Htntmnm.
Videos featuring use oHyperCard by ABC News
and other corporate entitics illustrated Apple's
decision to nurture the Qedgling application until
it fmds its own niches in the business world.
Microsoft Still Loves The Mac
Boston, Ma. (NB) Microsoft Chairman Bill
Gates keynoted the second day of MacWorld
Expo in Boston, highlighting his continued commitment to the Macintosh line of computers despite the continued you know what over look and

feel.

Discussmg his company's recentnewprodv ts,

QuickBASIC, and a new update of Micmsoft
Works, Gates let it be known that his long-term
dedication to creatmg apphcations for the Mac's
line of computers is unshaken and that he is looking forward to creating newmore powerful applications for Mac machines entering new business
Jasmine's New Postgcrlpt Printer
and entertainment envimmnents.
BOSTON, Ma. (NB) Jasmine
Technologies, a
The lawsuit reared its ugly head only in releading manufacturer and disuibutm of hard disk spollse fo a reporter s tplesuon. Gates dlsnnssed
drivesand other mass storage peripherals, for- speculations of the suit dragging out for years,
mally announced theintroductionof DirectPrint, a statmg that he hoped the suit would be expedited,
leavingthe company's agenda by the end of the
year.
Mac To the Future
Boston, ML (NB) Bill Gate's keynote address
was preceded by a panel of blue ribbon experts
discussing the future of the Macintosh in a talk
entitled 'The Next Five Years of the Macintosh:
Visions of the Future." The panel featured Jonathan Rotenberg, president of the Boston Computer Society, David Burmell, editor-in-chief of
"Macworld," William Campbell, president of
Claris, Guy Kawasaki, former Apple evangelist
and president of ACIUS, Robert Metcalfe, chairrnan of 3Com and Apple Fellow, and visionary

Alan Kay.

Ckrris CAD low er priced 2-8 drawing package

Jamaine's new Postscript Direct Print Later

300 dot per inch Postscript-compatible printer for
BOSTON, Ma (NB) C l sris Cotpomtion,
Apple's software subsidiary, made a bold move to the Macintosh.
The new printer competes with Apple's own
define itself in the Macintosh apphcation market
LaserWriter
II serieswith an expected price tag
the aonounceinentof Claris CAD, apowerful
below US$4000 gower thm Apple's NT which is
computeraided designpackage fortheMacmtosh.
The productrepresents a venture of the com- priced at US$4,500 snd the NTX which sells for
US$6,500). The device uses a Postscript done
pany into new tetritory, as opposed to theupgrades
driver
developed by Qume Inc. and manufacturers
of well entrenched pmducts which have been their
halhnark up until now. Claris CAD is an interest- ensurecompatibiEty with all Macintosh Postscript
mg package offering a variety of drawing and applications.
This announcement heraldsJasmine's fast foray
geometric construction tools useful in the archi- outside of the hard disk market in which it has
tecuaal sad engineering design fields.
thrived during two years since itintmduced its fast
The company hopes that the package's firm
20 megabyte external hard disk. During that time
foundation in the Mac user interface (as opposed
snd
to other pmducts which Claris points outonly port
internal hard disk drive units, tape backup sysCAD products from other enviromneuts) will give
tems, and the popular MacBackPak portable hard
it an edge over the compethion in sn increasingly
drive. This line was enhanced today with the
populated field of products. &e company drew addition of new SCSI devices, a new DuectTape
upontheexpertiseof ~
el o p erComputer Aided
Systems for Engineering (CA.S.E.) a Cincinnati- 40 megabytehard disk backup system and an
enhanced setof BackPak disk drives with optional
based CADsoftwaredeveloper to ensure theprodremovable modem.
uct answered the long term needs of users aud fit
Jasmine's new move into the printer market is
in withmajorCAD standards suchas ANSI Y143,
part of that firm's strategy to broaden its base,
ISO, DIN, JIS and BS308.
using thereputation for quality imd good will ithas
Price may also work in Claris's favor. nte
developed over the years to try and become the
package's retail price of US$799 makes it one of world's leadmg msnufacuuer of Macintosh pethe cheapmt2-D CAD packages onthe market. As
ripherals.
an added benefit, authorized MacDraw II owners
The new printer comes complete with three
can upgrade to Claris CAD for US$399.
m egabytes
of RAM and operates at a rate of 4
Presentation Products
million instructions per second (NIPS). The
Boston, Ma (NB) Last year's MacWorld Expo machine is loaded with thirty-five typefaces and
featured advances inmlorhardware, massstorage will sell for under US$4000. This hghtw eight umt
devicesand, of course,HypetCard. This year's (35 pounds) is expected to ship in October fmm
convention is best characterized by the indusuy San Francisco-bmed Jasmine Technologies.
rising to meet the challenges offered by last year' s
Sculley Latest Hype:"Pinstripe Hypercanl"
revolutioniay additions to Mac technology.
Boston, Ma. (NB) Apple President John SculPresentatlonst Color applications have moved ley gave the keynote address to this year' s
well beyond gratuitously tintmg scroll bars and
MacWorld Expo in Boston, Ma before a sell-out

Claris Teams Up For CAD Package

thecompanyhasdevelopedarangeofexternal

In tribute to Apple President John Sculley's

visionof the future, theirdescriptianof tomorrow's
Mac bore a striking re 'mblance to the 'Knowledge Navigator,
" thepo aMe,networked."hyperlinked" computer powerhouse whichhas been the
buzz vision arouad Apple for the last year.
Metcalfe, whose company is a leading pmvider
of computer networhng products, discussed the

disklesscomputer. Alan Key (who waspartof the

Xemx Pare team which origmated many of the

Mac's user interface concepts) hopedfor a port-

able machine freed fmm the desktop, possibly

freed Rom the laptop. Boston Computer Society

President
JonathanRotenberg,evertheuseradvocate, called for a cheaper Macintosh computer
(" somewhere around US$200").
"Macworld" Editor David Bunneii used the
time given him before Bill Gates spoke to slam
OSQ against a few walls. Too big...too
compliicsted...too wasteful...who needs it, were
phrasestossed amund the hallby speakers and
press. Never let it be said that visiomuy talks of the
f'uture should mterrupt partisan issues of the present.
Two New Mac Publkations Debat
Boston, Ma (NB) Despite the recent demise of
the Macintosh weekly "Macintosh Today" andan

expected shakeout in thelarge cmnputer

publication industry, two new Mac magazines were announced at MacWorld, aiming at different segments of the busmess market.
"MB J the MacBusiness Journal," published by
PiM Publications of Fan River Massachusetts, is
dedicated to the business end-umr who wishes to
fmd out about Macintosh applicatiuns as they are
used in real-life situations.
"MBJ has been created as a medium through
which businessusers share their ideas,successes
and complaints," said Don Hicks, numaging editor, in MBJ's premier issue. "Thmugh this open

Works 2.0: Significant Upgrade

forum, MBJ hopes to secure a better busmms
icons. Themostpromisingcolor application,desksnewly-renovatedWang Center. envimnment for the Macintosh."
BOSTON, Ma (NB) To the surprise of almost top presentations, have several new proponents cmwd atBoston'
no one, the long anticipated release of Micmsoft including Aldus widt its Persuasion package, Refiectmg Apple's strategy to consoEdate its
iDespite claims to be "the first magazine dediadvantages during a year when no hardware surAshton Tate with Applause, Cricket Software
withCricket Presents and
Micmsof'twithitsnewest prisesareezpected,Sculleyspokeofthecompany's
successes
inthebusinessmarket asw'elias Apple's
version of Power Pomt. All of these programs
Microsokhas enhanced its tremendously poputxmtinued dedication to HypetCard.
boast a wealth of color and layout features. While
"Pinstripe Hypercard" was the mckname jourlar integrated software package for the Macintosh manufacturers argue the thfferences between
hmknaiiatsaffonied thelatestof Ale'swish&t
by adding a 60,000 word spellcheck programto
Works 2.0 was announced during a pressconfer-

cated to the Macintosh business user," MM win

ence on WednesdayAugust 10thduring industry

day at MacWorld.

face stiff competition fmm magazines such as

"MacintoshBusinessReview" publishedby VNU

16 The-Computer Paper- September=1988

and the many other Macintosh magazines which

give more snd more space to business concerns.

gree!
%a'cintosh S'ofttoare

, "-so~~~< i

Suyers guide
16 Pagesfoproduct

""u w<nc
"'~ Haut(q

descriptions and

'cl:44>8kue

ti

pricesfor ooer 100

of the most popular
business so
fteoare

for theMacintosh
Mail this coupon to:
SaltspringSoftware, 123-101 Meadowbrook Drive,
London Ontario, N6L 1C7, 519-652-9595
The second magazine, "Macintosh News" from
CMP Publishing of Manhasset, NY, will concentrate on news and features for resellers, integrators,
and developers of Macintosh products. With this
tight focus, "Macintosh News" hopes to play a role
m the Macintosh community similar to the one
enjoyed in the PC world by such publications as
"Computer Reseller News."

most navigatable in recent memory. gnformix

publishes Wingz,a major new spreadsheet, which
has become this MacWorld's FullWrite Professional with elaborate time-related displays promising marvels yet to be delivered. The same promises
were promised at the January MacWorld Expo in
San Francisco where the timemachinebooth touted

as part of a serious business system has been enhanced bya number of new productsdesigned to
connect Macs to other hnds of computers in a
network.
Oracle Caiporation of Behnont, California announced a Macintosh version of its powerful SQL
database, indicating Oracle's observation that the
Mac is becatnmg part of corporate mainframe
envinnunentsandneedstobeconnected
withoracle
databases located on IBM and DEC minis and
mahd'r ames.
This announcement was in addition to Netware
products on display by. Novell to connect Macintosh computers into Novell local area networks of
PCs, minis, and larger computers.
Network giant 3Com announced high performance networhngsotuuons for both the Mac SE and
the Mac Il, including a line of products to connect

case that it is a serious business machine.Oracle,

Novelb and 3Com's delivery of their high-end
database and networking products into the Mac
environment has helped make the Mac a serious
choice as a mainframe fmnt-end or network node
(see related story).
While no one is substantiating rumors of an
upcoming Mac II based on Motorola's top-of-theline6S030processor, Motorolaitself is on theshow
fioor pushing the new chip and little doubt remains
that68030 is part of Apple's plans to push the Mac
II into the range of workstation-class machines.
With Apple's booths stressing the company's
commitment to education and a030machine in the
wings, Steve Jobs had best get his NeXT educational workstations out of the lab and into the
classroom before his old company cuts him off at
the knees.

Wingz).
A certain confidence radiates from the show
Connectlvlty 4 Database Products
Boston, ML (NB) The power of the Macintosh floor this year as the Mac seems to have proved its

theMac to Ethernetandheterogeneouscomputing 3M's Shspla Solution For Colour

envimnments.

Boston, Ma(NB) A partial solution to the high

The Apple-DEC alliance, while not producing a cost of color presentation graphics was on show at

sueam of products, has a great deal to do with the MacWorld. 3M, the tape giant, had on display its
Mac (untilrecently only considered agraphics and model 4550 transparency maker and a new film
desktop publishing machine) suddenlyentering the which can take output &om a laser printer or phoworld of high-end business applications. The two tocopier and within seconds u ansfer the black and
companies' recent joint servicing agreement goes a white image to transparency in red, green, blue or
long way toenhmce Apple'along-term strategyof violet
making powerful personal computers like the Mac 'Ihe 3M system is remarkable speedy and proII part of corporate America's data pmcessing duces monocolor transparencies at a reasonable
system.
price. Multicolor graphics are solved in a rather
DAC Easy Light For the Macltttaah
primitive fashion stacking up mono transparenBoston, Ma (NB) Dac Software of Dallas, cies on top of one another. While the product
Texas formally announced the intmduction of a xepresmts a step backwards &om the colorful and
Mac version of its papularPC mcnuntmg pmgram camplex graphics available in new presentation
packagesfram Aldus, Cricket Software, and AshDac Easy Light.
Long heralded in the PC community as a maker ton Tate, it may satisfy the simple requirements of
of lowcost,easy-to-use accounting packages,D ac that old-fashioned presenter who just wants to get
released Dec Easy Light. a scaled-down version of his words on the screen with a little bit of fiair and
its business accounting package intmduced last a very low price.
yeartocapuue the small businessaud home office
PC-based aoeunting m arket.
Thenew Macversionof thispackagecanbeused
as a general ledger system, it can generate invoices
andstatements,doinvoiceprocessing, writechecks
and handle most of the tasks involved with day-to-

L."M

M M

w M M M

M M M w

w w w w w

bead ineglles~
'Nsttd short-tel,

trainedMacintosh
erat+ with or
%it rpf~quipyint't

IPi~gIitilifisr-'"
~hS
@
yhS
htIIIhrkill~i<SS
vfeeR
IgII~mpulIr~'
!hlm~all&ti;

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$

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tom
trayhics .'
,+.~P
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.Wt e IFlea eteeD Of'OH-LiHt

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Written in object Pascal, Dac Easy Light will

take full advantage of the Macintosh interface as
well as brmg to the Mac accounting field Dac's
major atlributes ofhighperfarmance and lowprice.
The package, slated for shipment in September,

Boston,Mtt (NB) The second day of Macworld

Expo ran smoothly with all systems go despite
record-breakmgcmwds and outdoor temperatures
in the high 90's. Other than long lines atInformix's
"time machine" booth,.this year's MacWorldis the-

w w w w

Macintosh is a Trademark Licensed to Apple Computer, Inc.

day small business accounting.

will retai 1 for US$69.95.

Wings still ln the Wings: Nexttime for NeXT

w w

0f

~+~ t,,t, s/ i-5@s6

0

CDNFeteNCNS; I lHOVQlt nt SAINTE

TNaG-

The omputer aper September 1988 17

NlllASER

Laser 128EX

CompanionProgramFor Bedford
QuickDiamond Software

Apple@lie, llc
comyatlble
4795

Computer comes fully

configured with192K,

1 floppy, 80 column
text, highres graphics,
parallel, serial,
joystick & video

ports and amber

monitor.

Panasonic 1080i or ~
Roland 1012 printer ep

269

NEWLASERTURBOXT-2 i
MB XT COMI PATIBLE

With 10MHz 8086,

640K, 2 Floppy drives,
Amber monitor.
(Reg 41393)
relsil XTIITmsreplelermr Smrmseks sl ISII Cerporamr

eepprs
le emreprerermlSeesmmeer reyph CampseersIso.

>m c MICRO CENTRE

2273 Kingsway (at Nanaimo)
Vancouver B.G. VSN 2T6

Out o f Town:
1 600663~ 8 8

spreadsheets and graphs. Beforeyou can startusing Bed-Spreadyou

must export the information &om your Bedford data files. There are
122C-11831 80tA Averlae Delta, B.C. V4C 61 (604) 645-6932
no links to' the Bedford program from Bed-Spread so you must
This interesting program with its catchy name is advertised as the exporteveiy time your datachanges. If you havenever exported data
PerfectBedford Companion. For those of you who donotknow what from Bedford I suggest you review the Bedford manual before
Bedford is let me explain. Bedford, from Bedford Software Limited, ptoceehng. Bed-Spread requires the General Journal and Trial data
is an integrated accounting software package designed for small files to pmduce its mports and graphs. Using the sample data
business. The entire program consisting of, General Ledger, Pay- supplied on my Bedford program disk the export procedure took
ables/Receivables, Inventory, Canadian Payroll and Jobcostmodule about two minutes, after I selected the right export format and sub
iscontained on one standard 360k fl
oppy disk.Bedford isfast,easy directory &em within Bedford.
to use and is highly rated by PC Magazine(editors choice Septem- Importing From Bedford is Slow
ber, 1987) and others. In my opinion Bedfordtm is a very good
The next step is to use the IMPORT program to change the
program that is easy to learn and comes with a good manuaL Bed- exported Bedford to Bed-Spread foanat. 'Ibis process consumed
Spread &om QuickDiamond Software is advertised as a companion about g minutes. Now you are ready to use Bed-SpreacL Well,
almost To create spreadsheets takes even more time. The time
program offeringfeatures and benefi
tsnotfound in Bedford.
System Requirements
required to create the monthlyspreadsheet was elevenminutes. This
Hardware and operating system requirements listed in the Bed- three steppmcess to just view your data in spreadsheet format, inmy
Spread manual are an IBM-PC XT compatible computer with opinion, is to complex and takes too much time.
640kB RAM and MS-DOS version 2.0 or higher. A parallel printer Changes In The Works
with graphics capability is also recommended. The manual also
However, QuickDiamond tells me they are working on reducing
statesmemoryresidentprogramsare notrecommeaded. You should the amount of time required to produce spreadsheets. Viewing a
also have a system that can display CGA graphics if you want to see spreadsheet once it is created, was not a very pleasant experience.
the graphs produced by Bed-Spread.
Moving around the screen was a veiy slow process with the cursor
Installation
laggmg far behind the keystrokes. Enor handling is poor. On some
I installed and tested Bed-Spread on one of our Zenith IBM XT enors you end up back at the DOS ptompt. This type of performance
compatible computers complete with a 10mB hard disk drive is not acceptable. Software should be fast and easy to use, especially
monochmme CGA compatible display and a Roland PR-1011 whenyou are askedtopay$149.00(suggestedlist pric) for it. While
printer. This is a turbo XT runmng MS-DOS 3.1 with 640kB RAM it is trueBed4preadproducesmports and graphs that Bedford alone
andno TSRpmgrams loaded. Installing Bed-Spread is easy. A batch cannot; this program has some serious drawbacks. The program
file creates the sub directory required and copies the files from drive itself is easy to learn how to use, it is not easy to use. It is slow and
A: to your hard drive. To install Bed-Spread all one must do is log cumbersome. The manual is poorly printed and hard to understand.
onto drive A:and type "INSTALL D:" D: beingthedrive youwould The manual does not have an index and a tutorial is not included.
like to install the program on. A word of caution. The install batch When last I talked with QuickDiamond I was told that these
file mayreplace you config.sys file with the one supplied withBed- ptoblems are being addressed. The people at Quickxhamond SoftSpmad. Once the installationprocess is finishedyou will have anew ware have a good idea but this program (Bed-Spread version 2.1)
sub directory named%)IAMOND complete with all the files &om still needs a lot of work before I can recommend it.
the three diskettes supplied with the pmgram.
How It Works
There are two main programs in Bedspread, IMPORT and QD. David Obermariis Senior Corlultant at Accel Computer Associares
Importis the programused toconvertexported Bedford files to Bed- a Vancouver bused CapisultipIgfuIII specializirIg ie accoaariIIg
Spread format. QD is the spreadsheet program that produces the systeIIN, desktop publishing and local area networks.

Medical Billing Package

Electronic Billing l TP I I User friendly
BCMACC approved Affordable
Full Service Support
Established User Base
For Further Information Call (604) 939-646i or 1-800-242-8591
SGA Systems Research Ltd.
Para comp

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A Division of Paracomp Technologies Inc.

Pacific Medical Software User Group

a newsletter for the on-line medical community

USER GROUPS: WHAT THEY CAN DO FOR YOU!

earnintgo operatea computer is

L
not a comfortable venture even at
the best of times. Especially if it

breaks down into speeifiic types of ap- chase. Buying groups are considered
to bethe strongest negotiating force
plications- word processing, telecommunications,spreadsheets,data base in business today.
On a closing note the Pacific Medimeans converting what seems to be a management etc. They can offer a
fairly efficient medical practice into
cal
Software
Users Group will also be
wealth of information outside your
what couldpossibly turn into an
forming
"Special
Interest Groups"
presentapplications and requireuncomfortable daily annoyance.
(SIG's)
within
our
membership strucments. Again, the information is comgetting to the point where the
ture.
These
will
be
formed from those
ingfrom the user community and not
computer system is working for you
people
who
have
chosen
a similar
the vendor.
rather than the other wag around
software
package.
It
is
hoped
that the
Speakingofvendors, while conm eans you
have get pastthe steep
vendors
will
participate
in
these
sideringone company's product or
learningcurve ofautomation. User
groups will help you do just that.
another,ifyou mention that you are a separatemeetings so as to greater
communication between users and
Everyoneneeds help at one time
member of a user group, chances are
theirongoing development and evoluor another. User groups have been
they will be more detailed and contion of the product. Any recognised
formed toserve this very purpose.
siderate in their demonstrations in
problems or software limitations may
The monthly meetings, on-going semi- hopes ofpositive referrals.A lso,many
be morequickly addressed if
nars, electronic bulletin boards for
vendors have discounts or special
presented by the SIG group. This will
remote conferencing with other users pricesfor user group members.
allowthevendor a quick feedback of
is precisely why user groups are
Once you have decided on a partheirusers needs so as to setdevelopformed. Satisfaction with the comticular purchase item it is always a
ment priorities.
puter comes with frustration free
good ideatoconsult others to see if
productivity increases. Only by getanyone is considered a similar pur
Kevin Brawley
ting past these training hurdles will
MSUG Vice President
MOA's and doctors be truly happy
with their system.
O ne of
the main advantage forconDear Doctor/Medical Office Assistant:
sulting your fellow members in a user
group isthat the information
This newsletter insert is to introduce you to the Pacific Medical
provided is coming from an unbiased
SoftwareUser Group. We are a mi crocomputer user group dedicated to
source. We will strive to mate objecserving the medical community in their transition to electronic billing.
tive criteria available through the
The current
government billmg requirements have created a real
newsletter and training seminars, as
pressingneed for an independant user-support group for new medical
well as regular monthly meeting
software users. We will be providing the following services to the
speakers. We will be successful if we
membership:
can help the members mate more in0 M onthly meetings at the BC Club which will highlight different
formed decisions as well as get you
speakers on topics of interest to the membership
fully productive with your system.
0 An informative monthly newsletter with a variety of articles from
Anotherkey reason forbelonging
users, government and suppliers
to a user group is that it will continue
0 Va r ious low cost seminars on topics of interest by knowledgable
to exist
foras long asthere is a need
seminar leaders. The present list of seminar topics include
for it. Consequently, many user
"Understanding Modems", "Hard Dist Management", and "Bacldng
groups have literally become "comUp your Data: What are your Alternatives?"
puter-user orphanages" for members
0 Sponsorship of various additional activities such as the Medical
whose hardware or software vendors
Software Exhibition, a software trade show featuring many of the
approved BCMA software vendors.
are no longer in existence. This intangible support can be critical to medi0 A ccess to the PMSUG electronic bulletin board system which we plan
cal offiees as there is a major concern
to stock with over 200 Mb of free public domain software accessible
through your modem
with the long-term solvency of mediT he annual
individual membership dues are $35.00. We hope that you
cal billing vendors. Are they divertake advantage of this association by joining. More important, we hope
sified enough to handle a saturation
you participate to make it a valuable compliment in your automation
of their marketplace, the medical
knowledge and training. Why not submit an article if you have valuable
practioner?Are their software supexperience that will make it easier for someone else in their transition to
port fees sufhcient to maintain the
electronic billing.
levelofsupportrequired? On-going
Ifyou have any suggestions,feelfree to callm e at Z86-5039. We look
changesingovernment regulation reforward
to your participation in the user group activities. Happy
quires an evolving medical billing
computing!
software product. Is your vendor
Yours truly,
there for the long-term?
Most user groups have members
j
with awide range ofexperience and
Daten Ariel
expertise. The spectrum varys from
MSUG President
the absolute beginner, those who have
P.S.Don't forget to apply fora membership for free admission into the
a working knowledge of their systems
Medical Software Exhibition.
to people who are "power" users.
Oftenuser group members'expertise

i I

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. 0

Tlie'COaqaaer.Paper ~ September 1988 r l9

Evaluating Medical Software

et me preface this article by saying
L
that you may have specialized
needs relative to your discipline that

{j

will determine your final software

e ' l l

f'

choice. Consider the following as a

general guideline applicable to any
specializedhigh support package. I
consider this appropriate for medical
billingsokware. Other aspects unique
to medicalsoftware willbe expanded
upon in latter issues.

I '

Long Term Commitment

" II O '

' ll

) !l i

Look for a vendor with a long term

commitment to your industry. If they
are in it for the quick profits, beware.
They should have a track record in
specialized software, not selling
stocks,real estate etc..
I think itis safe to say that a long
term commitment should be
demonstratedby past performance, indust~ reputation,
and the credibility
of the vendor. This is true for any specializedsoftware program, as the enduser needs long term support. It is
even more critical in medical billing
soAware. An evolving product is requiredtothe changing government
regulations and user needs.

I I

00

I
0

ee
II ee

0.

e .

e.

I I ec

I I

and get someone who knows the

problemsyou face.Software support
should include:
Telephone support when you have a
quick question
A ready and willing vendor who will
rush out and unravel some mess
you managed to
get into
On-line support so that your vendor
can log onto your system and
troubleshoot directly from his ofFice.
This means he can control your
computer through specialized communication software. This is optional
but useful to have. It means the vendor can immediately troubleshoot
your particular problem.

Installed Users Both In

Numbers, Size And Age

Look for
a vendor with an installed
base of users. See whether these users
are aspecific type ofpractice;larger
clinics or smaller practitioners. This is
an indicationofwho they are courting
with their software features. Look for
a vendor that is geared to long-term
supportfees.Ifthey are making
money supporting you can be assured
that they will continue to do so.

An Easy To Use Clean

Software Design

The Medical OKce Assistant will

love you if you will let her get involved
in the demos and final decision. ARer
all she is the one using it. Take some
time to get a yackage that is easy to
understand, easy to learn and easy to
train others later on. If she doesn't understand it after the demo, let the
buyer beware. If it is hard to train her
now, it will be harder to train her replacement if
she leaves.
A cleandesign refers to intangible
and tangibleaspects ofits user interface(sorry,more jargon). Is iteasy to
see where you are in the program at a
glance'? Are the screen designs neat
and uncluttered? Are they similar to
your papersystems? Are allaspectsof

thesoftwareconsistantl
y designed?

A Reasonable Price

You should pay a reasonable price

forthe software. Expect to pay ongoing support fees. It will be well
worth it.
Daken Ariel
MSUG President

Problem Free Software

Operation

Quality Computer System

Components

It goes without saying that the

equipment you buy will perform only
as well as it's specifications. If you
buy a cheap clone you should expect
floppy drive problems, hard disk
crashesand flaky components. Whole
motherboards (and this is the nucleus
of the computer) may have to be
swapped out. Have I scared you
enough? Good, because I don't like
saying I told you so.
Vendor Finanei& Stability
Look for top quality components,
Financial stability is crucial. Beespecially
in the hard disk drives. Get
. cause the majority of the medical praca
name
brand;
there are at least a
tictioners will have purchased by
dozen
good
ones
to choose from. They
April1988, you don't want your vendon't always cost that much more. But
dor to disappear. Those who have
major investments tied up in software they are always going to hold their
developmentcouldbecome bankrupt. value and cause less grief. In most
cases, you get what you yay for.
Look for diversification in related
products. This will allow them to keep A Thorough Hardware Seractive in changes in the marketplace. vice Contract
Look for depth in the company. HopeWhatever equipment you choose,
fully it isn't a one person show. That
you will want an excellent service consuggests you are at greater risk in
tract.Look for on-site service of4
relyingon them. Than again you
hours or less. You don't want to be
usually get better service with a
down for any longer than a day. Ask
smaller company as you are, hopeful- for replacement equipment if it takes
ly, very important to them.
any longertofix.Third party support,
Look for a program that is usersuch as Xerox, Bell Technical, or
configurable. If the vendor does cease Honeywell Bull is the norm, but look
to oyerate,.you can keep yourself upto your vendor for in-house technical
to-dateon fee code changes as they
staK Eventhough he may notbe
occur. If you have any qualms about
responsible for the warranty you will
your vendor look for a source code
want to be assured that they can handclausethat willrelease the code to the le those in-between problems that
end-users if they go out of business.
occui'.
This will allow you to get your neighborhoodprogrammer to make changes On-going Knowledgeable
if they are required. If you don't have Software Support
any qualms ask for it anyway. You
Look for software vendors who are
may be glad that you did.
softwareexperts,rather than expert
vendors.
You want tobe able to call

s
0

difficult to debug than others. The

newer languages tend to be modular
so that the defective components of
the program can be analyzed quickly.
That is the theory anyway. All things
being equal, (and they never are)
generallyprograms developed in
BASIC or COBOL are more difFicult
to debug than, say, C or even a
development tool like dBase IH.
From a user's point of view, loolr.
for a system that has many happy customer references. Also ask for the unhappy customers to see how they
handledtheircomplaints. Your vendor will probably say there are no unhappy customers...

The computer software term BUG

is nota pleasant one. Nobody enjoys
them, especially the user. Bugs are
the term used for so@ware glitches.
When the software doen't behave as it
was designed to, it has a bug in it.
This can be serious, esyecially when it
affects your billing data.
Softwaredevelopment takes place
within the context of a programming
language.Some languages are more

20 The Computer Paper September 1988

' i' {

i:

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. I { J S a '

Pacific Medical Software User Group

Announces the

Medical Software Exhibition

Meet the approved BCMA software vendors. Find
out which is the best billing system for your
practice!

This Exhibition isNOTto bemissed!!!

Monday, September 19th, 1988
10:00 a.m -9:00 p.m
British Columbia Club
410- 750 Pacific Blvd. South
(on the old Expo site}
Free for PMSUG members
(applications at the door}
or $5.00
For PMSOG information contact:
Kevin Brawley or Oaken Ariel at 736-5039

s s

'

' s

Informative Monthly Meetings

We will keep you up to date on new products and teclmiques with invited spealtets and presentations. Each
meeting will add to your productivity and cemfort level in working with electronic billing. Sponsoring the
Medical Software Mkbition is just an example of what the User Group is doing to help doctors make
informed decisions.

Specialized Maining Semil(1ars

Our special seminars will cover important aspects of nmning a successfully automated medical office. These
include getting the most out of modems, back up procedures and hard disk management. These semhtars are
offeredatmuch reduced ratesformembers.

Electronic Bulletin Board Access

The User Group is establishmg a Medical Electronic Bulletin Board for membership use. This will have over
200 Mb of free public domain software as well as utilities specifically geared for medical of6ces. It is acts as
an electronic forum so that you can phone in with your modem and discuss different issues of computer
automation.

An Objective Monthly Newsletter

The monthly newsleuer will bring inqxntant information to you on an on-going basis. We welcome your
articles if you have an experience or knowledge valuable to the members learning curve in becoming
successful in on-line computing

I wish to join the Pacific

Medical Software
User Group.

989 West 8th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. VSZ 1E4 (604) 736-5039
NAME:

POSTAL CODE:
TELEPHONE:

Pleaseenclose a cheque or money order for$35.00 fora fullone year

membershipmade payable to the Paci6c Medical Software User Group.

The Computerpaper September 1988 21

Tech Talk
Menu Programs

Evaluating Hard Dish

Drives

datatransfer,the fasteryour
computer's performance.
o matter how you look at it, you
Look
forvalues in and around the
will always be doing more than
hard dish drive is, in fact,
300,000
range fora good mid-priced
one thingon your computer. Even if
everal metal plates that spin
machine.
afler electronic billing the only
at extremelyfast speeds.Magnetic
How to measure reliability?
thing you do is bach up your
heads,moving across the plate
There
is no such thing as the pervaluable billing data periodically.
surface,read magnetically stored
fect
hard
drive (sigh...) but look for
Baching up your hard drive to
information into memory. The drive
floppies or a tape drive will require capacityto store information is
the MTBF rating of 35,00Q hours or
a degree of proficiency in getting
measured inmillions ofcharacters more.MTBF means "Mean Time
around your system and knowing
Between Failures". Something you
of information.
Therefore a 20 Mb
basic DOS commands. However if
don't want to experience. It is an
hard dish drive can store
you have a menu program, you can 20,000,000 characters of programs average that indicates the rigors of
automate this whole disagreeable
and data.
the drive design and testing. This
but necessary process.
The biggest limiting factor in
ratingisnota guarantee. Pay for
your computer's performance and
the difF
erence,hard dish drives are
reliability is the hard dish drive.
not the place to economize.
. You mill probably come Unbke
electronic components,
One last thing to look at is the
to consider menu
which can last virtually forever,
mechanism for moving the heads
programsa p
hard diskdrives are mechanical
over the tracts. Cheaper drives use
necessity.
devicesthat are prone to failure.
stepper motors which run hotter
But serious computing requires
and arenot as reliable as a voice
These invaluable programs can them, so read on if you wish to
coil drive. The voice coil is an
save time by automating numerous learn how to evaluate them intelelectronic system for advancing the
keystrolres in one keystroke. More ligently.
the read/writehead directly to the
Hard disk drive speeds are
importantly, they can save you
track where your data is stored,
usually measured in milliseconds of ratherthan "stepping" from track
grief and frustration. If you don' t
access time, ie. how much time does to track
hnowhow to back up a hard dish.
ittakes to find information on your
drive, chances are you won't do it,
In summary, look for voice coil
inviting sure disaster. With a menu hard dish drive. This does not
driveswith fast access times of 30
option called BACKUP you can't go reflect the speed with which it can milliseconds or better, MTBF of
put yourstored data into memory
wrong.
85,000 hours and 29, or 3:1 controlThere are many alternatives in to make it usable for you as the
ler interleaves. Ash for a high a
operator,
nor is ita m easure of
menu sofbrare. The leaders are
transfer rate, it will impress the
reliality.
Xtree, Direct Access, and Norton
salesman.A word ofadvice;a
Commander. My favorite is Lazy
cheap drive is not worth it. You can
Susan because of it's password conpay foritnow, or really pay for it
Unlike electronics,
trols and log flles. Log files tell you
later...
which canlast virtualhow much time was spent on each
program. There is even a freeware
ly forever, hard drives Video Terminology
menu software called Ashell. Have
are mechanical devices
ideo cards are the electronic
your vendor show youa few. You
connection
between computer
that are prone to
will probably come to consider
and your screen. All the confusing
failure.
them a practical necessity.
acronyms related to the various
video standards can be rather
A good hard dish access time is confusing and intimidating for all
Unerasing Piles
in theneighborhood of80 milof us.
en youfi
naHy do that
When IBM first introduced the
hseconds
or
lesa
To
further
inevitable action, delete a file
Personal
Computer (PC), they gave
evaluate
your
system
you
must
look
accidentally, don't despair... That is
the
computer
user two choices; the
at how e%cient the hard disk conifyou have one ofthe many handy
color
graphic
adapter
(CGA) which
Unerase Utilities. Norton Utilittles troller card is (which, for once, is
allowed
color
and
graphics,
but
and PC-Tools, two leaders in this
descriptive of what it does). The
area,come to mind and are well
lousy
text
clarity,
and
the
two most important aspects to conworth having just in case. This is
siderhere are the interleave factor monochrome displayadapters
not the only function that these
and the data transfer rate.
(MDA) which gave you sharp crisp
programs are capable of. PC Tools
The interleavefactor represents monochrome text but poor graphics
has an excellent backup program, .
the ratio of the number of times a
which is far superior to the DOS
diskdrive must spin to read a track
backup program.
How much is enough?
When you accidentally delete a of the hard dish into memory. A 2:1
Most medical personinterleave means the disk spins
file you must remember to stop
nel wiLLbe happy on a
twicetoread one fulltrack ofinforwhat everyou are doing right
mation.
An
inexpensive
controller
Hercules-compatible
away. By continuing, you run the
risk of putbng whatever new files has a5:1interleave ormore,
video card and an
whereas the newer faster controlyou createon top ofyour deleted
amber monitor
one, since the computer now thinks lersare 3:1 or 2:1.Theoretically the
that disk space is available. When best interleave wouM be 1:1, but
Along came asmaller company,
sometimes this can create comyou delete a file, whether accidenHercules
Corporation, which said
tally or not, the computer only chan- patibility problems between the
t
hat
they
could
do better and
ges onecharacter in the drive direc- computer components.
proceeded
to
do
so. They introThe data transfer rate measures
tory information. These Unerase
duced
the
Monochrome
Graphics
the amount of time it takes to transUtilities reverse this procesL
Adapter
which
became
the
HerT herefore
ifyou don'twant to be ferdata,once itis found, into the
c
ules
st
andard;
and
t
hus
t
he
queswaitingforyour vendor to undelete computeA electronic memory. It is tion is it Hercules compatible?
it foryou,get one ofthese uti
Tities. usuallymeasured in thousands of
How much is enough? Most
characters per second. The lower
medical
personnel will be happy on
the interleaveand the faster the
+~-~~C~
-P~ '~ ~ bp H 98f ~

ractical

a Herculescompatible video card

and anamber monitor of
reasonable quality. If eyestrain is a
problem you may want, to try one of
the new paper white monitors.

Floppy Drives
Explained
o you want 1.2Mb, 36QK, V20K
D
or 1.4 formats? 3.5" or 5.25"
sizes? It can be pretty discouraging
to mate one'sway through the
verbiage.
To make a long story
short, your biggest use for these
drives is to transfer your files to
and &om your hard drive to other
computers in your once, or to a
safe place for backup purposes. The
higherthe storage the better,saves
having to stick 100 disks,or more,
in yourmachine every time you
want to
bach up your hard drive. If
compatibility with other machines
in youronce isnot a problem, go
with the 14.Mb, 5.25" drives that
are standard, with most new ~..;t ., ,
computers. The diskettes are
inexpensiveand software
availability in that format is
common. When the AT
microcomputers (80286-processor
based) were introduced they
quadrupled the floppy capacity by
using a higher density for paching
the information on the disk That
gave usthe 1.2 Mb 525 inch floppy
disk drive. They can also read and
write to the older 360K dishs, but
not always reliably. The problem
occurs when the 860K diskette was
formated onthe 1.2 Mb Floppy
Drive. Without an extension on the
format command (FORMAT A: /4
will format it as a 360K floppy,
although it still may not be
reliable), the drive formats the
floppy into a quasi 1.2 Mb diskette.
I say quasi because there is only
360K capacity on the diskette. To
mhxhnlzeproblems ofsharing 860K
floppies between AT and XT
microcomputers, some users add an
additional 360K floppy drive to
their AT. You may want to do the
same.
Along came the laptop computer
and the V20K 8.5 inch floppy disk
drive.
It was a vast improvement
overthe 5.25 inch format as they
were handy to stuff in pockets and
use astemporary projectiles
against rowdy patients and hospital administrators.
IBM has since accepted this
type ofdish as the standard, except
that they doubled it's capacity to
1.4 Mb. These drives can also be
added to XTs and ATs by adding a
separatefloppy controller card.We
will, no doubt, see more floppy chan-

ges as time goeson. Change seems

the only constant in the computer

field

Dale Jachaman
Technical Manager

' "llg y

Medical Bllllng Goes Online

The BC governm
ent through the

Ministry of Health, has recentlymtroduced anew computer system designed to electronically link all physicians in the province to the Ministry's
ccnuel site coinputer. This new system is called TELEPLAN II and is
designol to replace the existing manual cardand day sheet process that
physicians use for submiumg Medical Services Plan(MSP) claims to the
government.

Under TELEPLAN II physicians

will ccnmcct electronically through a

modem with the MSP mainframein
Victoria. Oncethey have connected
they will transmit all their claims,
have those claims validated, receive
error reports on rejected claims, and
receivenotiTicauon of acceptance of
the claim for remiuance. In addition
to the processing of claims the physicians will also be able to do hatch
eligibiTity checks onpatients who will
bc lli the ofhce Ihc next day or do
online eligibiTity checks on a patient
while the patient is in the office.
FasterPayments
Thc main purpose for a system of
O'bo te buy from
this nature is to speed up the processbecomes the big issue
ing of the claims. Under the new
scheme,claimscanbesubmitteddaily
for man y doctors
and validated for errors daily with corrections therefore being made
in amore timeIy fashion. Currently the claims are keypunched fmm
the MSP cards aml nm through edit routines on a bi-weekly basis,
thus resulting m a long period of time to resolve edit errors.
To fit into this new system (which wih be mandatory in 19g9) the
physician must either use a service bureau to process the existing
MSP claim cards or buy a Personal Coinputer for the medical ofhce
which has software that can mtcrface with TELEPLAN IL

Many VendorsIn TheMarket

Physicians allover tbc province are now faced with the challenge
of making some business decisions on what to do, There are
currently many software vendors who are selling pmducts to meet
physician needs. %ith a deadline of computerizatio by early next
year, physicians are being bombarded with many vendors trying to
sell their pmducts.
To assist physicians in worhng their way through the maze of
hardware and so@warevendors the Univcrsityof British Columbia's,
Computer Science Programs Centre for Continuing Education and
the Division of Continuing Medical Education have a series of
seminars called "Computers in 'Ihe Medical Office: A Practical
Series". These seminars cover topics such asComputer Literacy,
Microcomputer %orkshop for Medical Ofhce Assistants, Mohcal
O ffice
Systems and Database Concepts. The one comse of this
seriesuponwhichthis articleisbasediscalled"Computerizing Your
Medical Office: Doing the Busmess Evaluation' *.

ee

an

An alternative @rill be unveiled by

Multilog at the

Pacific Rim
Computer and
Communication Shorv
v em her 1-3, 1988

Pan Pacific Hotel Vancouver

Understand the Basic Tcrmhtolomi

One of the common problems many physicians have, is prior to

doing a business evaluation they must hrst understand some of the
computerterminology. It is important for the physicians to at least
lmow the basics they need to look for such as: %hat is a processor?
How does a modem work? How do you store data? %hat is a
floppy?, etc.

Four Steps to a Successful Purchase

Itis my belief that doing a business evaluation for a large chnicor
for a single physician's ofhce fall within the same methodology.
The methodology follows four major steps:
(1) Requirements Gathering

See us at Booth 01
We are a step beyond on the future'stechnology

(2) Evaluation of Software

(3) Evaluation of Hardware
(4) Implementation Plan
1) What Do Want and What 9o Yon Need?
The first step is to establish some goals and a scope for your
computerization project. Hereyou should decide what aspects of

com
puterize.

your business you want to

Having decided on the scope you should now involve your staff
in the process of creating a list of what you need and want from this
new systerL A good starting point for is to look at how your ofhce
functions today. It has been my experience ttuiit at least &0% of a
computerize system is merelytahng what is presently done today
andplacingit
Many people do not realizethateven
if they do not have a computer in keir office they still have
"systems".These manual systems have probably been refmed over
theyeats topmvide thebestresults given the options available. With
the addition of the computer the "new system" will probably end up
being an automated version of what is already done, based on many
of the same principles.

on thecom
puter.

North American Operations

505-1281%est Georgia Street
Vancouver, B.C., V6E 3J7

(604) 681-8100
Videotex Multilink (604) 681-0124

2) Evaluate the Software

Haviing built your shopping hst of requirements, you are now

Continues on c 2 6

The ompufct'Paper Sep5&nb'er '1988' ~

REGENT
COMPUTER
SERVICES
OFFER
FLEXIBILITY
AND SELECTION
TO FIT

YOUR NEEDS

eleuet MetBcsl BiBhtg Network can be compared to

the B.C. SystemsCorp Sll'NPC
based Teleplan II communications system. But that's not really
bur. Although they both provide
a similar communications network for medical ofBces, Telenet
is faster and less expensive than
Telepian II, and offers electronic

mail as well. Best of all, Telenet

is responsible to the doctors it
serves, not to MSP.
egent Service Iureau
serves the low volume
practitioner in the computer
age. All bimng must be submitted
to-MSP by computer. In a small
oSce, this can mean a total

AUTHORlZEO OEALER

~ LJ P * ~ ~ IC 3 M

COMPUTER BILLING

IUSINKSSO'ONSULTANTS
7515 - 149A Street. Surrey. B.C. V35 3H6
Teiepitone: f604] 597-31 10

John N. MeGogglan
Reprasertlatlva

3140 Waacana Street

1S45FOtrr ST.. VICTORIA, S.C. VSR 'tHS(eo4) 598-5'I54
SRAHCHES FROM COAST TO COAST

Victoria, Ei.C. VBA 1W3

RANDY CASPELL
PRESIDENT

upheaval. Regent Service Bureau

allows the practitioner to submit
the billing information to us on
paper. We' ll computerize itand
print out the reports needed by
the doctor and MSP. You get the
improved fi
nandal and practice
reporting of the computer service,
with No capital outlay for hardware!

and access to the Telenet Medical

Billing Network, and much more.
Extensive on-site training is provided, plus 1 year free phone
support.

full range of functions and reporting options, plus the training to

make it work. This is an outstanding package, for complete
access to finandal or clinical
information including patient
charting. Training program
includes dassroom and
on-site training, free
phone support for
a year, and more.

',aN
I
Pt~

.r

/
p,) t J' '1' r
egent MyScal 0$ce
l
a
g;I
Assistance Sampler
egent
allows the pracComputer
:r
titioner to do their
Services
own data entry, but
;)
w a s the grst to
to use the service
'r provide an on-line
bureau for electronic
electronic billing
transmission of billing
service in Vancouver.
data to MSP. You also
And Regent is still
get access to Telenet, and In-House
first, with a whole menu
and Service Bureau Reports. The
egent Medical OunceAssis- of servicesfor medical o5ces.
Regent Sampler requires minimum
tance Seniorprovides the
capital outhy to improve the
mostcomprehensivemedical
egent Computer Services
offi
ce's fi
nandal and pract
ice billing and meditmi oittce manageis the first company to
reporting, reduce the operating ment soitware package available.
successILIlly test and submit
costs, and shorten the cash flow You' ll receive software to fill a daims via Teleplan II.
cyde. Regent provides full on-site
training in this system as part of
the package.

egent Medical 0$oe Assistance Junioris a complete

medical billing and receivables software package. For a low
capital outlay, you . can reduce
operating costs increase net
income! Its full range of functions
and reporting options offer the
practitioner complete financial information. You' ll receive direct
billing to MSP, plus accounting

I VI.Q.a8 C Q I V IP U T E R S E R V I CE 8

SEE YOUR REGENT DEALER OR

PHONE 1-800-663-2860

Health Care Systems Ltd.

Member, Medical Software Vendors Association

5UBUPIBFI
O COPIPUTER5
gggg+T

S ar ha r a M l l g r o m
Authorized Desalter
REGENT CC v l PLITER SERVICES INC.

S o f tsvate approved by B.C.M.A. Computer Committee

Authorized Dealer

Medical Billing and (ice Management Systems

3 181 B r o o k r i d g e O r .
Nort h V a n c o u v e r , B .C .
V 7R 3 A 7

Telephone
BBERBBRB

25340-76th Ave.
Aldergrove, B.C. VOX 1AO

Don Clerke

856-6977
290-8013

The,Comyptetgaper, peyterlt~.1988. 2$.

Tekphn ll - Const Fr/un Page 23

ready for step two which is the evaluation of
software. When it comes to software there are at

least four basic alternatives that can be consid-

TELEPLANNER

ered,they are as follows:

qmgram the system from scratch
ouse general pmpose software
(word processor, data base, spreadsheet)
obuy an Application packageaoff-the-shelf"
any combination of the above
Piogrammiug a system bum scratch is a challenge evenfor experienced computer people.
Many of the currently available medical of6ce
software packages are excellent and worthy of
consideration. A common solunon is to combine

the purchase of an offtheshelf application

Tete planner isthe mostcomplete and
easiest to use practice manager.
(BCMA CC approvedspec.)
With video training and tele direct
support, ii becomes easier and faster
to change to computer billing.

, MCC Telepiannersingle or multi-user

versions are powefft/I enough for
G.P.'s, and Specialists in single and
group pmciice.
BBls ri trarricrih overda telepbaa ur MS.P.
Unencoded
highsacarhy overnightapsreioovisTckpka,
Oeaast fadge ~
sndBcpanhg / thcyhhg aShy
Plhts Aagt lnuL bggngs lccelaBlknoos ccpalls scri graphs

Detsgtd
pr
innm
eofrcemciuetiam(+ MSP. mjccdancodes)
WCB, en ofpmviacs,gerpunyaamneic bising.
Complee meficalpmskr. history,tefensL Osrripthm en:.
Papop schedule whh variabl dma
sleetsnd ~ p c riek.
Peien falhwup whhpmmmtfer eases ml scbedaliag.
Dsy obese. chat heakr Iebek, cad labels. yrintel grcpbs.

Busyatacetjuikmenus'forfastenaysadyri
nadrdes.
Muhi~cc/hloueccr wmhswith papulaasnwaie.
Ahcaam fescodedcseipaons sadfee race.
Qrspb sayrcyens mdes damaL
Ikcs ICDP. fomdighdisgwsdc eadcsfm mnederaiL
Oaliao Ihip wiadown
MSVA vcadar tachsot
mfis usswhbader sysams.
W~
/DOS / Accpcri iatefaa.
Doeaa to Docunyaient Biosnansfcr vie elephone.
Ongne MSP
psdcnt riigBnhty chech.

package with apiece of general purpose software.

To do this software evaluation you should take
your shopping list and prioritize it. You cannow
compare at least three possible solutions to your
shopping list and pick the one that best suits your
needs.
Next Choose The Machines To Run It
Having picked the software it is now time to
evahaie the hardware. I recommend that you
always pick the software 6rst and then let the
software chosen drive the hardware choice. This
way you can be assured that the software will run
on themachine chosen. Again,yo u should have
a list of requirements such as; staMity of vendor,
service support, amount of memory required for
the chosen software, etc. Like. the software decision you can do the evaluation by comparing at
least threepossible solutions to your shopping list
and picking the one that best suits your needs.

Call us BEFORE making your decision...

Out With The Old - In With The New

In the last step you should develop an implementationplanwhichisbased upon thesoftware and
hardware selections you have made. lolls plan
should include things likehow to phase thesystem
m, how to do training, how to get the basedata into
the system, etc. Having created this plan you can
now, if you wish, do a cost bene6t analysis which
will include the bene6ts derived in step 1, the cost
of software, hardw are andimplementation iirsteps
2 tluough 4. Based on this you can now make an
informed business decision.
This process may seem to be long and onerous
but over the years it has proven to be a methodology that works for all sizes of organizations and
businesses. You need to decide at the beginning
how critical the decision is, and then dedicate the
amount of time to this process based on your
decisioll.

Can You Justify The Investment?

In this article I have just touched on some of the

issues faced by physicians today m doing the business evaluation for acomputer system in their own
ofFice. Over the past five years we have been
teaching courses on computers to physicians
through UBC and have found that in our opmion,
with the new TELEPLAN II that about 20 - 259o
of physicians cannot justify automation of their
office on their own, that 20 - 30% would benefit
f'rom automated MSP billings and 50-60'Fcr
would
bene6t from automated patient records. So asyou
can see, having your own computer system is not
for everyone. The ones that cannot juslify their
own machine or who do not want to automate can
utilize a service bureau to transmit their claims. I
wouldrecommend that anyone feeling bewildered
about the rea of automating their medical of6ce
should consider enmlling in the Medical Of6ce
courses offered by UBC. If you are interested
please contact Vicki Ayerbe of UBC at(604) 222-

5276;
'

I
r

"

KenR/ybartsonis a Director with LGS Data Processing Cfynsfdtants Inc. LGS is involved in all
aspectsof Data Processing consulting and has
been teaching /nf'cracfy/nputars to Physicians
through UBC for the past 5 years.

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The Computer paper September 1988 27
a u r4 . a e '

'.

1e 'e.u a 0 e.'.

Q. CAN'T COME TO A CLASS? ...

Why The Boom In Training?

"People with years of experience in manual systems, as well as

other skills such as accounting, are flnchng that being able to run a
computer is necessaty for survival in their induslry."
These words by Paul Symchych of the Access Centre sum up a
situation in which incteasmg numbers of businesses are using

camputers that arerunning increasingly complex programs. And, as

Barbara McKay of McKay Technical Institute adds, employers in a
competitive job market generally do not want to hire people who
"are willing and able to learnnew skills; they feel that they [prospective employeeu] must already have them." As well, computer users
are fmding that they are unable to allow themselves the lengthy
leaning curve involved in l
new program~ir even upgrades on their own. All these factors have resulted in an increasmg demand for computer iraining.

earning

The Selection of Courses Available Can Be Mnd Boggling

andco
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puter

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Pmvincial Government, or whether it is Registered as a Private

SasdenrspnrcNirc their sNNs at NcKay lasaftute

mahng a flnal course decisicm.
This may seem like a lot of trouble, and, according to Barbara
McKay of the McKay Institute, many people do decide on courses
by telephone. Consider that, however, in taking acourse,be it for one
day or for three months, you are investing not only your money, but
hours of your most valuable resources: time and cmergy.

Who and What Do You Teach?

In order to narrow down the facus of enqtnty a number of basic

questions were posed, beginning with: 'What market does your
centreaddress?" "What are your areas ofspecialty?" In answering
these questions Paul Symnchych of the Access Centre said that all
their courses are IBM related and address the needs ofboth novices
andexperienced users. Over one half of the Access Centre's students
"are complete novices, one quarter feel they should know how to
operate acomputer, and one quarter icctve to lmow in order to remain
competitive with other job seekers who do". Fraser Martin, of The
Computer Place, said that their pragrammes address the IBM world
only, and they serve mostly the downtown corporate client. %hey
plan to address the computerized medical office vertical market this
faU. To these questions Anne Tessla, of Pitman Business CoHege,
replied that their diploma programmes are IBM focused and that
their Computezized Accounting programme tuqulreu students to
possess a strong accounting background. BarbamMcKayof McKay
Technical Institute saidthat their Computerized Bookkeeping and
Desktap Publishing courses offer IBM, Macintosh. andIMS microcomputer options and attract a variety of students, "from those just
out of high school to mature. students who want so familianzs
themselves with the computerized of6ce cmviicmmeiit".

Training Institute in B.C. According to Ossie Sylvester of the Adult

Education and Job Training Branch of the Provincial Government,
inorder ta become Registered,a centre must undergo considerable
scrutiny and pmvide a surety bond. Two notarized letters of evaluation must be submitted &am qualified people who are at arms
length ftom the centre. These individuals must agree with the
philosophy of the program and feel that it addresses market needs.
The cise must also provide a synaysis of their courses and details
of instructors qualiTicatations to the Branch. Once registered a
centre's courses are tax deductible and, if at least 12 weeks in
duration, they are eligible for student loans. Unlike Public Institutions, however, there is no ongoing monitoring af Private Centres. How LongAre TheCourses?
For those mterested, the Branch has available, for $5.00, a list of all
Course duration forms another area of enquiry. This is an imporRegistered Private Training Centres in B.C. You may order this tant concein because, generally spealring, short courses are intense,
publication by phoning the Branch at 387-6276.
andrequirehighenergy. They workbestfor studentswho go directly
Provincial Registration Is Not n Guarantee of Quality
back to a situation in which they will be using their new knowledge
Even among registered centres, however, the kind of training nd on a daily basis, so as to retain as much of their new knowledge as
the amount of personal attention varies. For example, one student possible. Longer courses offer more time to practise and retain new
interviewed said that the centre she attends uses only printed course skil as well as providing art opportunity to interact with an
material supplied to each student tie work through, mdependently. instructor and other students. They reqinre more commitment,
When a problem arises, she must nnd the instructor, often a time however, since classes contmue for several weeks or manths and
cansuming and frustrating procedure, to get an answer, and then usually are mare expensive.
work alone again until the next problem occurs. As a a novice user
Fraser Martin descnlnu The Computer Place's courses as "one or
she encounters this procedure &equently. Some centres have a two day intensive courses," to allow students tu "focus completely
waiting list that students must sign lo get the instructor's attention. on the course with no outside concerns whatsoever." Far example,
Others have mstmctors circulating continually through a small they offer, among others, courses for difflcuh upgrades, such as
youp of students, after giving lectures on relevant materiaL These W ordperfect
5.01. Accordingta Fraser,"Hds course isonly for
differences should alert you, as a prospective student, to the impor- version4.2users who me thoroughly familiar with thatprogram."At
tance of apeisonal visit to any centres being considered. In this way Pitman Business College and at McKay Technical Institute, the
you can seeexactly how the training is car rie out, and even talk to courses are generally three months long and cover a wide variety of
currcmt students about their experiences.
to Paul
topics. At the Acmss Cenue the course is,
Often, registered cenlres offer what is termed "career coun- Symchych, "as lang as the student needs to feel comfortable thathe
selling", and employ counsellors whose job it is to discuss your orshehas mastered the material. Somepeoplefly thmughinamatter
wants and needs and match you with the best courses available at of hours and others may spend several days or even weeks until they
their centre. According to one contact who recently worked as a aresatisfl
ed".
caunsellorin the induslry, in some centreu thecounsellor is required,
What
Is
The Student-tu-Teacher Ratio?
"to 611 certain classes, to keep enrallmcmt up in less popular
Another
impartant question is, "What is the student:teacher ratio
courses", in other words tosdl courses topmspective studentsbased
on thecentre's needs ahead of, indeed instead of, those of Ihe in the class?" At The Computer Place the answer isamaximum of
student Forewarned is forearmed, so if you find yourself in a 9:1, each student bemg provided with hiather own computer. Each
situation like the one described, perhaps you should investigate computer is connected tothatof the instrucsor, so that the instructor
can monitor each student's screen, and each student can easily
other alternatives.
switch between his/her own screen and that of the instmctor. At the
Let The Buyer Beware
Access Centre, the answer ta this question is, in a sense, 1:1, since
Some people may feel that they are more likely to fmd the "all training is computer based and operates cancmrently with the
camputer expertise they need to leam software pmgrams at the actual sofbvare". Students warkwithapraprietary interact
ivevide/
centres that also retail computers and software. Training centre/ camputer pmgtam combinauon at their own pace, with the opporcamputer store contbinations, however, are not always what they tunity to move back aud forth at will &am the interactive tutorial
seem.Occasionall
y complaintssurface tbatsomeso~ed"courses" (that mauitors each of the student's keystmkes ta facTitate the
were in fact extended sales pitches far a particular dealer's product leamingpracess) tothe''live"program,wheretheycanpmctisetheir
hnes, and that in some instances students arehighpressuredby stare new shlls on their own persanal projects. Pitman's ratio is a
sales staff on their way into or out of their trambtg sessions. These maximum of 8:1 in the computer enviranment cmd
McKay Techninegative situations are, on the whole, the exception and many retail cal Institute allows a maximum of 16 students to each instmctor.
store related training centres offer top notch instruction.
Although the student ta instructor ratio canbe a big factor, but itis

exuding

Or attend one of our Design Clinics

for Ventura Users: we will solve your
design and formatting problems on
the spot.

to complete your own publishing

projects. Professional Advisors on hand.

Many public and private training institutions

retailers have rushed in to fill what is perceived to be a lucrative and fast
growing market. Computer training schools areproliferating and the
consumer is faced with a bewildering array of courses that vary in
length &om two or three hours to term-long college sessions. Prices
vary considerably &om one to another, as does the tax deductibility
of the course fees.
How do the courses and the dollar value compare &om one to
another? As often occurs in growing industries, the quality of fhe
products being offered to the consumer varies markedly from centre
to centre. What kinds of laws and certification exist ta protect the
cansumer from overzealous claims. This article looks at some of the
questions to ask of potential computer training centres.
BasicQuestions To Ask Potential Training Institutes
One possible criterion for choice of a centre may be whether it is
a Public Educational Institute, certiTied and subsidized by the

'.

FourLocal Trahlng CentresVisited

important turemember that, justasmhighschaoi,agtuattuachercan

the differences in appmach cuncmtly available in Vancouver. The

chart accompanying this arricle gives an overview of the course
offeri
ngs,equipment,softwarefocus,andotherdetailsprovidedby
alarger cross section of centres contactecL It ishighlyreconunended
that pmspective students investigate a number of centres thoroughly, including a personal visit to each of the premises before

What Khtd af Computers are used?Madutushar MS-DOS

Anumber of local training centres were sutveyedto get an idea of morethanccnnpeusateforhugernumbers ofstudems.

2$ 'The Compute@paper Septembur 19gg

Another pertment questian concerns the computer ulcerating

envircmments being usecL Currcmtly most msritutians are teacitmg

either MS-IXS or Macintosh based comses. UMX and OSI2

caurses williikelybecomemamcmnmcm, butcunently they amthe

s
Help for The Beginning Desktop Publisher
Whenever I do something for the hrst time,
I like to have clear, easy steps to follow. This
is especially important when there is very
little time to accomplish the task
For example, in the last two days of my
holiday this summer, my friend purchased a
kneeboard an alternative to waterskis. A
kneeboard is a very buoyant, short board,
rather Hke a dwarf surf board. We had seen
people using these, but had no idea how to
use it ourselves. We did have two days
however, and there went four of us to puzzle
this out. At theend of dayonemybrother-inlaw figured out the method mostly by trial,
error, and a high tolerance for water up the
nose. He then clearly described to the rest of
us what steps were needed to get up on the
kneeboard as theboat was pulling us through
the water. Those dearly described steps had
each of us kneeboarding on our first try the
next day.
This same need for clear steps to good
design is apparent in the desktop publishing
environment. Few of us have the time to
spend two to four years in CoHegeor Universitylearning how to design. I am grateful my
design training was completed before the
advent of desktop publishing as the time
spenttokeep abreastofsoAware and hardware changes is considerable.
The means to creating good design is more
important now than ever, with the newer
means of production. It's important because
good design means weHwrganized material
that gets the message across.We don't have
time to get interested in every piece of paper
that crosses our desk We need the message to

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I System: Same Computer:
HomeOperating System:
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I Work OpcralinmSystem:
Narrm,:
Title:
Bccsiness Nacre:
Address:

Mail Tor The Computer Paper

320S W. 13ttr Ave.
Vancouver, B.C. U6K 2V6

September t988

one r ttooetr m r, >see

~J

3D The Computer Paper Ssptetnber 19N

good design lies in proper training (years of it

ideaHy) and practice.
Few Good Design Books Available
For those people using desktop publishing
equipment without the benefit of layout and
design training,good resource books are the
solution. Unfortunately, most design hooks
are vague, at best, in their description of how
to achieve an ef$ective layout. Two recently
published books, directed towards the desktop publishing environment, are reasonably
good sources of design methods: Looking
Goad in Prbrt (OI9N) by Roger C. Parker, and
Design for Desktop Publishing (O1987)by John
Miles.
Thereare alsotwoexceHentresourcebooks
available that are standards in the Graphic
Design community and have been used in
Universitiesand CoHegesforquitesometime:
Designing teIith Typeby James Craig, and

ss .

Packaging
Take a simple 4"x 5" ad. Untrained Designers will produce the following.

Professional Hair Stylists

hmitcctts
pstmansnts
tints
skrarka
&kin caa
make.ttpaNsttr
nail at

Nate: catuateprcebehaten
Srtsoeateeetnctn eqcctty
ttent piece,mskhpt
nefct todectcteaaet tetrek et

sar

c I542-8663
tobe your best!

Observe the dramatic difference when applying the 'Packaging" technique:

Pro ssslonsl sir yl sts

hsircrtts
opetmsnents
tints
atnarks
sliin cant
mskectp aniatty
' nal all

am
642-8663
tobe your best!
The way to apply this technique is as foHows:
t. Identify information elements that work together within an ad
For example: a). You tk Mearith Professional Hair Stylists
b). the list of thircge they do
c). their phone number and slogan
2, Position these closer together with more space around each group
3. Try to make the reader see only a few packaged elements instead of many

Power ef Space
The second technique, the "power of space" is different but stiH related to "packaging".
Unusual as it may seem, space is not only an element of design, but the most powerful element
of design (hence the name power of space"). By controHing spacei.-:;: du~ ~, you control the
message of the desiign, its impact, organization, and communical in~-. c ."~~r e the foHowirrS
simple illustrations:

Prectuction for the Grtcphic Designer by James

Craig.
I teach an intensive Desktop Publishing/
Graphic Arts course at McKay Technical Institute and am always on the lookout for a
reaHy good design text. In my search, I have
been repeatedly disappointed. Either a book
looks great and says little or nothing, or it is

Your eye is drawn into the page by the grouped effect of the photos two items giving the
illusion of only one thing to look at. Now let's look at another example:

The rltla ot a Story

The Tails ota Story

unattractive in design but offers more infor-

mation (the first two resources mentioned

follow this rule). In my opinion, a book on
design methods should be attmctive and informative.
The more I search, the more I consider
putting together a book of my own methods,
techniques, and rules. I have discovered
through teaching thatoneof thebest ways for
peopleto learn about designquickly is to give
them rules, tips and clears guidelines to
follow. They may not grasp the design value
of the method initially, but use, practice and
success will make it crystal clear.
I would like to show you two techniques
that lconsiderbasic to successful design. One
of these I' ve called the "packapng" technique. The other is called the "power of
space .

SIIMNOWONMO
MNI 4is~
80lg!NM~

SO

Anotherstory 'rttte
sly~
~
'%%WW~F

AnotherStoryTitle

Combined, them two techniques are very powerful. You create the packaging technique by
using slice, but you can rely on graphic techniques (gray backgrounds, boxes, lines etc.) to
help. Unfortunately, without understanding why, people frequently package by using boxes,
Hnes, etc and st81 forget fo manipulate space in the process.
Easy steps to design are the way to bypass trial and errorand can often become a more
efHcient means to the same end. I can't help but think that there should have been a set of
instructions inchrded with that kneeboard. We could have been enjoying it for an extra
day...and more than likely we are sdl1 not doing it quite right anyway. Keep that in mind
while you produce your very Hrst newsletter without design training.
h4ur Netchka hs a ttucactor afEbsArtNia Gmptec ocsige nuf tclcac5 Baker psat tr Mng(cnrphic Ar4s ethfdtNJJr rheW bsH&k'

Every now and then a product or a tool comes

alongw
ith
capabihtiesunparalleled inthemarket-

piace. For me, it's Illustrator 88. This most exciting program can create graduatedscales, sophisticated type manipulation, automatically trace im-

Illustrator 88 Art:

can be left in Artwork mode while the other is in

Preview. Changes made on the artwork are automatically reflected in the Preview window.

I5 7VEgE ONE~gag~
iN C4VADA FOg CAprgg
CQLf PgTER iQ gDkY>~

~~ ~ % wmssogi~~

would expect inanydrawingprogram suchas box,

Developed by Adobe Systems Inc., Illustrator

has been on the market for about one and a half
years andruns on the Apple Macintosh. Thishighquality graphic design tool's first incarnation was

complex anddesigned tobeusedmostlybygraphic

Figure 1: The lower tail section of the image
shows the multiple layers created by Illustrator SS's blend tool is seen here in Artwork
Only mode.

System Reqnhumentn

stems,

mustratar has an excellent selection of tools. Of

course, there are the usual army of tools that you

fies.
What is Illustrator gg?

On a Mac SE with 1024 K of RAM numing

Fmder 6.0andSy
this two~ p r o gram
operates with 283 K of &ue memory (worhng
space). Install anything which mflates the System
such as a Tops Network and Illustrator 88 simply
won't run. This program is definitely aimed at
higher end systems with "gobs" of RAM. And
though it will work on a floppy disk drive, harti
drivesare highly recommended.

Tool Description

ages, produce chpping paths and more. Much

more... In two month's use, I've barely scratched

the surface of this computer program's capaMi-

iihstrators.
The new version, Illustrator 88, is clearly designed with a huader audience in mind. 'Ihough
the interfirce hasn't changed, tools such as autolrace nd transfcum are extremely easy lo use
and quite sophisticated.

Os~

willnote the freehand/pentool toggle(Conuolkey

.g

ie

pens, circle, item selector, hand, text, and so forth.

What makes Illustrator unique is that it contains
two types of tools. Objectcreation tools suchas the
ones listed above and object manipulation tools:
i.e., scale, rotate, shear and reflect.
Illustrator 88's new tools turn an already sophisticated program into a shear pleasure to use.
These include &eehand, autotrace, blend, and
measure.
The ireehsndtoolfinally letsyoudraw infreehmd
style with Illustrator. Dragging this tool around
the page will create a series of pomts and hazier
curves along the path drawn. Experienced users

Figure 2:Clipping paths are created in Illus-

trator Sgby placing the clipping object(in this

case anoval) behind the objects to be clipped.

The clipping object must be ungrouped and
One of the first things you will nofice about the
filled with the Mask option in the paint diamustrator 8S program compared to its previous
logue box.
incarnation is that it has gained quite a bit in
presentation. Material design and layout is excellent. All original art materials were created with
the program. Support materials include a Video, a
Quick Reference Card, a User Guide, a Training
Manual and a Colour Guide. The Colour Guide
includes a complete process colour map which
was originally created with Illustrator 88.
Illustrator was the first program to come complete with a video mlroducing the program and its
uses. The original version's video starred John
Wamock, Adobe SystemsPresidentand co-author of PostScript. Though it was quite useful to
view, it was by no means a videomatic masterpiece. The new video is much more refined. (John
Wamock fans will be disappointed because he
doesn't even make an appearance.) This time the
'Ihe original artwork for this image was crestar is an actual illustrator who guides us through
ated by Northwest Coast Indian artist Niel
the
use of the program. It provides good
Smith; It was scanned into MscPaint format
coverage of each tool's use and function though it
and used as a template for the illustration seen
seems that several video sections were accelerated
here.Blends were added afterwards to demwhile demonstrating Illustrator's more sophistionstrate Illustrator 88's more sophisticated
cated functions. This can be rather deceptive befeatures.
cause it leads the audience to befieve the program
operates faster than it actually does.
other tools to create complex information which
The QuickReference Card is quite useful and
program translates into PostScript language
well designed. It covers all the information re- the
constructs. Users never need see a line of code
quired to operateIllustrator 88. Itis easy to use and
has both wriuen and graphic descriptions of tool (though knowing some Postgcript can add to the
uses. It also includes hints on how to bestuse each effects created within the program) and yet protool. The blend tool, for example, has an excellent duce quite sophisticated illustrations.
Theprogram's work areais apage composed of
hint which clearly improves its use. Users can
1008 by 100& points (14by 14inches) divided into
actually begin working with Illustrator 88 armed
only with the Video and the Quick Reference nine pages. Only page 5 is whole; other pages are
portions of the work areL
Card.
The program always works m outline mode,
The User Guide is replete with valuable operationinformation. Itbegins with adescriptionof the creating see-through images. This allows for the
use of templates which can either be created in
program's envhonmental requirements. It also
different programs such as MacPaint or can be
gives a complete list of supported printers. It does
have some inconsistencies (what do they mean by scanned into one of Illustrator's supported tema Mac SE with "either" a hard drive?), but it is plate formats. Templates always open in the centre
mostly direct and to thepoint. Itcontainsoneof the of the working areL But since the page origin can
best descriptions I have seen of the two types of be relocated with the page tool, users need not
worry about creating the image directly in the
computer graphics:
worhng area Andbeliev erne,moving
"Whee you scan an image, or whee you use center of the
the
page
origin
takes much less time than moving
MacPaint so create aeimage, the image is define
by the arrangsmsnr of dots(pixels) on the screen. Ihe artwork.
There are four basic views within the program:
When you create artwork wuh the Adobe Illustrator88 program, you createan image which coe- Artwork only an interactive view in outline
sisrsnotofdotsburacollsctionoflinssandcurvss, only,
Template only~non-interactive view of your
template,
It is this ability ro translate images into mathe Artwork ik Template usually the operational
matical constructs that makssit possible for this
mode,
program to create tugh-qualuy artwork."
Preview mustration~non-interactive view of
User Guide
what the artwork looks like.

Support Materiah

everyda
y

each
ofwhichhasitscwnmarhsmaricaldefinition .

This quote captures the nature of computer

This last view is actually a PostScript preview
graphics for desktop publishing in a nutshell.
and smce the Macintosh does yet not support
Here'show it works
display Postscript, it remains non-interactive. An
mustrator 88 is really a graphicallywriented interesting feature is New View. This lets you use

programming tool. We use circle, pen, square, and two views of the same image at the same time. One

on SE and Ih) aHowing for quick switches between tools to create straight and other lines without going to the toolbox.
Autotrace is a dream come true. You simply
clickona template with the tool togetanautomatically~eated outline of the object. The image
included here took 2.5 hours to create in its original form with Rlustrator 1.1. In mustrator 88, I
created a better image with a much higher degree
of complexity in only one hour.

Blend is also a fabulous addition. Simply click

on the link points of two ungtouped objects with

the blend tool to make a dialogue box appear. Set
the number of intervening steps and let the program do the work for you.
Graduated grey scales are now very simple to.
produce. Simply draw a white box and ablack box
some distance Rom each other, ungroup the ob-

jects,
selectthem and blend themin98 steps.(A lot
simpler than creating 100 boxes snd assign 100
different grey values to each...) A hint to use this
tool is to select the same number of points within
each object to be blended before transforming
them. Results will be better than when only one
point is selected in each object. Another idea is to
create additional points (with the scissors) on
certain objects when blending oddly-shaped objects.

Yes?
Canada
Portable

Cornyuter

3620-244 Sireet
Langleti, B.C. VBA 4P6
Telephone: 1-800468-1 OS1
Vancouver Area: 584-6441
Phone or ~ t e totmtLy for
See htformatkoa kit.

TheOptionkeyisofutmostimportanceinlllus-

trator 88. Most tooh can be used as is, but when

used in conjunction with the Option key, a dialogue box appears giving you precise conttol over
the operation. For example, selecting an object
then pressing the option key while clichng on the
Item Selector will display a "move" dialogue box
allowing the precise movement of objects. Each
"Option" dialogue box gives you the option to
either change tbe original object or to change a
copy of the object. For example, to create a falling
object in ten steps, you would create it, select it,
use the rotation tool whilepressing theOptionkey,
give the rotation increment for the first step and
rotate a copy of the object. Once this is done, use
Transform Again I'rom the Options Menu until all
other steps have been created. This program is
replete with such features.
Disappointments
A major disappointment of Illustrator 88 is the
Text dialogue box. It hasn't been improvecL This
means that users are limited to 255 characters in
each text block. Kemmg is also limited to global
control which makes it tedious to create wellkerned words. Creating a full page of kemed text
in 88can be somewhat of a chore...
Anodter limitation is the memory requirement.
Users will find themselves continually saving to
clear operational memory. Sometimes this can be
so bad that you actually have to quit the program
and restart it to I'ree memory. The only solution is
to add more memory. With these flaws taken into
considerati
on, the program has abundant uses.
Illustrator 88 is here to stay and once again
appears to the market leader in its field. If sophisticated graphics is what you want, this is the
program for you.
Nelson Russr is ae independent Desktop

Publishing consultant. His publishing experiencespans severalyears and indudss operalion

of both Macintosh aed PC tuyour programs. He
cae bs reached through RESOLUTIONS at 683-

9 '!

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l$9k
The Computer Paper September 1988 ~31

aI y

Is Artlflctul Intelligence Research Pointless?

'Ihere was an article inthe New Y

orkTi
meslastmonthconcerned
with artificial intelligence. It was written by aphilosopher andin the
article he discusses the viability of AI researclL The philosopher
asserted that work in arti6cial intelhgence is pointless since it is
impossible to manufacture a machine that could completely imitate
all facets of the human brain. He's right. And he's wrong. Consider
this analogy:

For All Intents and Purposes

At a party at UBC, a mathematics student and an engineering

student were talhng with a professor. Across the
room, an attractive
woman was sitting at the bar and, the three of them having naticed
her, the professor said - "If you could go half the distance between
you and that woman, and then go half the remaining distance again
and again, how long would it take you to reach her?" The mathematics student was the first to respond - "Oh, that's easy l You would
never get there since there would always be half the distance to go."
At this point, the engineer of'fered his opinion -'Tltat may be true,"
he said, "but I' ll get close enough for all my intents and purposes."
I like the engineer's approach. The philosopher in the Times is
rightin saying thatsuch amachinecouldnotbe built. Buthe's wrong
in saying that AI research is pointless. We do nothave to mimic the
Tekphone workersusing
Sheexperr sysreui
human brainentirely to develop applicationsbased onAI principles.
There are many well-de6ned areas of human expertise that can be agreed onhow that truubleshouldbe dispatched. Experts were availmodeled by useful and practical AI systems. Our efforts to build an able and willing to assist mbuildmg the knowledge base. And, all the
expert system for the telephone company fall in that domain.
pertinent data for 100 trouble fault case studies had been gathered
Not Enough Experts to Gu Around
and were available to us.
Experts are a valuable resource in any iximpany. More often than
Looking at the task of analyzing uouble faults, it is apparent that
not, there are not enough experts in acompany to completely satisfy the problem is procedural in nature. A decision tree diagram could
the demands for their expertise. In the fall of 1987, a Canadian be compiled that would show every step and every question a test
telephone company madethedecisionta develop acomputer system desk person would need to consider. However, for this problem the
modeled an the expertise required by test desk personnel.
diagram is large enough that implemennng it with a traditional

Telephone Company Implhnents AI System

Test desk personnel are responsible far analyzing tmuble faults

(problems) on telephone lines. Once the test desk personnel have
deteinuned the cause of a trouble, they assign the task of fixing the
problem to one of several departments in the telephone company.
For example, if a test deskpersonanalyzes a fault and determines its
cause is due so a bad cable, they would dispatch the trouble to be
6xed by the cable maintenance crew.
The testdeskpersan has 3 databases (containing hundreds of data
6elds) and one software toal that they use to analyze a problem on
the telephone line. Syntheaizih@thatmuch information into knowledge far decision-makmg is not easy and, as a result, analyring
troubles is a camphcated process. If the test desk dispatches the
trouble to the wrang department, the tmuble will eventually return
to the test desk unresolved - a very costly error. The telephone
company's goal for handling telephone line tmubles is ambitiaus.
They want to detect the trouble, analyze it, dispatch it, and then
repair itbefaieyouevennotice aproblem withyour telephone. And,
by and large, they can do this with well-trained test desk personneL

Since thesuccessof the telephonecompany's strategy forresolv-

algorithmic programminglanguage(like Pascal or C) would beimpracticaL Not only would the nesting of control structures become
unwieldy, but it would be very difficult to modify ar enhance the
system.
It was decided that a knowledge-based approach would be applied
and, further to that, a commercially available expert system shell
would beused to implement the system. The use of anexpert syste
shell can dramatically shorten development time. For this project,
the LEVEL 5 expert systmn shell I'rom Information Builders, Inc.
was selected. The development team consisted of telephone company test desk experts, a knowledge engineer, an instructional
designer, and programmers.

Components of A Knowledge-Based System

A knowledge-based system has 4 components:

I) A user interface which asks questians to the user and obtains
the user's responses.
2) A knowledge base which contains the facts, rules, and
questions far the system.
3) Worhng mssnoty where facts are stored.
4) An inference engine that controls the knowledge base.

ing trouble faults depends greatly on having well-trained test desk

To transform a knowledge-basedsystem into a training system
personnel, the system we developed is a traming system. Its goal is like Test Desk DSF, you nosd to add one more component - the
to provide the test desk trainee with the strategies, knowledge and training interface. The training interfacepmvides a varietyof learner
experience of expert test desk persannel. The system was named evaluation and trachng functions.
Test Desk DecisionSupport Tool.
Test Desk DST approaches the task of training testdesk personnel

Test Desk Decision Support Tool (DST)

There were several aspects about the telephone company's problem that indicated it was a good candidate for a knowledge-based
solution. The test desk problem falls in the category of diagnosis.
Many successful diagnostic systems have already been built using
the knowledge-based approach. A detailed task analysis of the job
skills necessary for the test deskpersonhadbeencompleted and was
well document@L Once atrouble had been analyzed, everyone

I,'QIPllTER
QUEBEC

bypresenting thelearner with casestudiesbasedonactual telephone

line faults. To accomplish this, a youp of support programs had to
be written amund the knowledge base to round out the training

system.

Pulling It All Together

To implement Test Desk DST, we developed an initial prototype
and continued to refme it to the 6nal system. This method is
particularly suited to the development of knowledge-based systems
for severalreasons. Since we hadnot warked with the LEVELS shell
before, it was important that are found its limitations as soon as
possible. The flrst prototype was ready in two months. It was useful
in demonstrating to the knowledge experts the capabiTities the
system wouMhave. It also showed the experts the kindof knowledge
we required of them to develop the full knowledge base. Additionally, the prototype identified areas of our system design that needed
io be re-worked to accommodate the special limitations of the

LEVEL 5 shell.

handled over 80percentof trouble faults correctly upon completion

of these initial interviews.
Pushing that percentage closer to 100 by validating the knowledge
baserequired themostamountof timespenton theproject. This step
was crucial to producing an effective system. It is essential that the
knowledgebase be ascomplete and accurate aspossible.To realize
the goal of 100 parce'nt precision, the knowledge engineer and the
expertsrepeated the process of comparing the knowledge base's
solution for acase study with the expert' s solution. Whenerrors were
found,new ruleswere formed for handling the exceptional case
study. Moreover, we found that the experts don't always realize the
strategies they employ to resolve a problem and by using an
incremental validationapproach, they were able to identify their
strategies easier.

The Bonus
The learner
Snds severaladvantages in the knowledge-based

training system. First, the trainees have an "expert-in-a-box" guiding them through the analysis and advising them what to do or
consider next Second, whenever the system asks them for information, the trainees can ask "Why?" and the system-will explain why
the requested information is necessary for solving the problem.
Third, when the solution is reached, the trainees cansee the exact line
of reasoning the expert used to solve the problem.
The telephonecompany also found several advantages to
developing the Test Desk Decision SupportToolas a trainingprogram. First,
the knowledge base has been created and can be used virtually
without change in an operational knowledge-based system. The
knowledge base is the same for deciding how to dispatch troubles
whether the troubles are gathered for training or operational purposes. Thereal time databasesandline testing program can be linked
to the program instead of the simulated systems weused for training.
Second, by building the knowledge base for training, you can do a
thorough validation of the rules in a safe training enviromnent. All
the bugs in the system will get worked out before they can do any
damage in the operational system.
The Test Desk Decision Support Tool was a good application for
an expert system. It 6t neatly into a wellMfined pmblem set that
lends itself easily to knowledge-based modelmg. Itis impossible to
dismiss the growing impact of expert systemsmcorporations today.
Eighty percent of the Fortune 500 txunpanies are involved in developing expert systems. Arthur D.Little Management Consultants in
its report titled "Forecast on AI Ptoducts" (1983) predicted that the
dollarvolumeinexpertsystems willriseto$3-12Mlionby1990and
$50-120 billion by the year 3XS. It is perhaps the fastest growing
area in computer technology today. It is not too soonnow to think of
using a knowledge-based system io solve corporate problems
Building these systems first as training tools canpravide a clean aud
sensible development path to an operational system.

Expert%lords
Al - (arti6cial intelligence) An area of computer sciencere-

search whose goal is ta produce computer systems that

behave in ways humans recognize as 'intelligent'.
Expert System - A computer system that can perform a task at

or near the level of ahumanexper. Also calledknowledgebased systems.

Expert System Shell - A software tool that simplifies the development of expert systems by providing several components of expert systems m one package, usually the user
interface, inference engine, and memory management
modules.

Inference Engine - Thecomponentof an expert syste thetis

responsible for manipulating the knowledge base to solve a

problem.

Interface - The component of a computer system that communicates with the user.

Knowledge Acqulaltlon - The pmcess

of locating, collecting,
and refining knowledge gained &om human experts.
Knowledge Base - The component of an expert system that
consists of the facts and heuristics about a domain. The
knowledge is often recorded in the form of examples, faut
rules, or objcets.
Knowledge Engineer - An individual whose qe:ialty is as-

There is no fail-safe and easy way to transfer knowledge &um

sessingproblems, acquiring knowledge, andbuildingknowlexperts. Atbest, we can say itis an iterative process. For this project,
edge-based systems.
theprocess of building the knowledge base involved several steps:
Prototype - In expert systems development, a pmtotype is an
.The test desk experts were interviewed about their test desk
initial functioning versionof the system thatis built to test the
experience.
effectiveness of the overall knowledge representation and
.The knowledge engineer translated the interview results into
inference strategies of the system.
rulesforthe LEVEL 5 knowledge base.
.The know ledge engineer and the test desk experts sat down By Marie Burlinsos. As as educator and
witA over
together using case studies to validate the knowledge base against 2$ years
experience,Ms .Burlinsoshosaspecial
of
their expertise.
uaining goals inbusiness.Her owncompany, RTN Computer

busine
ssperson
unde
rstanding

.The knowledgeengineer revised the knowledge baseto correct. SystemsLtd, was ertablished in 1978 and is a leader iIi computerany errors andinclude newknowledge.
deIivered rrainuag solutions. kfM CoIuputerSystsuis uses its pro-

The whole ptucess was repeated several times - each time prietary authorieg system andj ob aid system to implementcustom
resulting in a more accurate and reliable knowledge base.
training solutions fora diverse range of corporateclients. Ms.

The incremental approach irked surprisingly welL In the first Burlinson hoch a Master'sdegreeis Computer SciencePons The

COSII CO
PIES, tng. SgAVEPNAN ...
32 ~ The Computer Paper Septeinber 19$8
\

session of knowledge extraction with the experts, we instmcted Johns HopkinsUniversity.She can be reuched ar RJM Computer
them to tellus thegeneral stepsthey would foflow for mosttmuble Systems Ltd. 301 - I190 MelvilleStreet Vancouver,B.C., Canada
faults. Weestimate thatwe were able to create
that- V6E3W'1 (N4) 681-5251

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DTP with PageMaker Sep 26, Oct 20
$190
PRlMA TRAMNG CENTER 207 - 3900 E. HastingsSt.
Butnaby 2944567

DTP using Ventura Call for dates

$150
DTP using Pagemaker
$150
SBLKIRK COLLEGE, Box 1200 Castle&sr V1N 3J1 36S-7292
Ekctronfc Publishing, Graphic Design, Photography,

Writing, 1 year pto&ram,

ACCESS CENTRE LonsdaleQuay 9$4-4671
dBase HI+ Start
computer based trainin&-selfpsced SIMON FRASER UNIVBRSlTY Downtown 6874255
DTP - Ventura, Alternative Approaches
tutorial (avemge 20hrs, no max.)
$140
A Day With Ventura Publisher Oct. 19
BARKEL BUSINESS SCHOOL 211-3030 Lincoln

dates3)Base HI+
$80
BURNABY SCHOOL BOARD, 5325 Kincaid St., Bumaby,
VSG 1W22994361. dBaseIH+ Lev. I Sept. 20,21
$SQ
CAPILANO COLLEGE 20SSPurcell Way, North Van 9&44901
dBase H-Level 1Pk3 (package $185) Sep 19
$75
Sharewnre Series: PC-File Sep 16/17
$125
COMPlJIXRLAND LEARNING CENTRE 1035 W. Pander

DTP Power with Aldus Pagemaker Oct. 22

$175
$175
$300

Design+Print Production for DTP Oct15-Dec10

VANCOUVER COMMUNlTY COLLEGE,
PageMakerfortheIBM Sept.1,23
$165
PageMakerfortheIBM Inter.Sept.8,29
$165
PageMaker for the IBM Newsletter Sept. 16
$130
VANCOUVER ELECTRONIC PUBUSHING ASSOC
P.O. Box 24776, Vancouver, 8754)677
SEYBOLD DESKTOP PUBLISHING CONFERENCE Santa
Clara, Calif. Sept.15-17, VEPA packagetour to Seybold rates
f'rom $426. Call Gail at A
rnica Travel 683-7727

6$34152, Call for startmg dates.

Intro to dBase HI + or dBase HI+ Interm.
$1&0
COMPUTER PEOPLE LEARNING CENTRE, 302A 1124
General Meetiug Sept. 6, 7 PM at the BC Club in the
Lonsdale Ave.N. Van. 9844349dBASE IH+ Intro, Inter4139
Enteqnise Centre, 750 Pacific Blvd S
Free
COMPUTER STATION 2130 Butrard St, Vancouver 732-8621
VEPA Monthly Meeting Commodore h QMS ProductDemIntro to dBase HI+, Sept. 14
$180
onstrations 875-0677.
DOPPLER'S TRAINING CENTRE 101 W. 5th $75-0261
Mac SIG (Nelson Ruest) 6$3-1599 2nd Wed of the month,
dBase HI+ Intro ar
dBas e HI+ Programming $175
meetings at Computerland, 1035 W. Pender
Free
DRAKE COMPUTER TRAIMNG 100-1111 Melville St 669Intro to DTP Sept. 27th $25 for members.
$50
8789
Page LayoutSeminar Sept.22nd $50 formembers
$80
Symphony Database Sept. 30
$175
DTP k Type Seminar Sept. 28 $50 for menbers
$$0
IntroductlontudBaseHI PlusSept. 13
$175

Intermediate dBaseHIPlus Sept. 15

$175
Introduction to dBase HI Plus Sept. 2$
$175
Introduction to dBase H Plus Eve. Sept. 27
$175
~
BON N ER $10-1112 W Pander 684v1022
dBase IH+ 1 Sept. 21
$175
MICROAGE LEARNING CENTRE 3609 W 16th Ave, 2221010 Cell for stsrtmg dates. dBase HI+ Part I 8t 2
$175
KTI (PERSONAL COMPUTER TRAINING INSTlTUTE)
200-247 Abbot St Downtown 682-5448 12 hour courses
Call for startmg dates. Reflex Plus
$150

PBSC 1RAINING CENTRE 1350-1140 W. Pander689-7272

dBase HI+ 1 Sept. 6,20
$175
v aaa r .

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r i r ri r a a w : . wr rai r w r rr vi a rrr7er rwwr

PITMAN BUS. COLLEGE 1490 W. Broadway738-784S

Design Vancouver: The Colour of Black a competition k,

exhibition of the best of Vancouver's Electronic Publishing.

Entry deadline Sept 30, Show Oct 21-30 224-6152

VANCOUVER COMMUNIIY COLLEGE 875-8200

Intro tu DTP
$130
VANCOUVER DESKTOP PUBLISHING CENTRE Ltd
1150 Homer St 681-9161 Steve Osbotne, Roedy Green

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5

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Call for starting dates.

PageMaker,
Ventura Callfordates
Introduction to Ventura Sept. 6,7
Advanced Ventura Sept. 9

Introduction to Pagemaker Sept. 19,20

Advanced Pagemaker Sept. 23

CONVENTIONS AND
cQMPU.f vl vi 'Swam. Qs;.':

av'...'.vr".'.v":.'r

w'w'-.vvaiv""

"

DIGITAL CONSULTING INC. 6 Windsor St. Andover, MA

01810, (617) 470-3870. National Database Sr,

4th/5th Generation Language Symposium in Toronto, Sept. 26-28, 1988.
THE CONSUMER'S COMPUTER SHOW '88 Oct 22%23,
Westcom Promotions PNE Grounds, New aud used computers,
seminars call for booths and tables 436-2677
$5

PACIFIC COAST COMPUTER FAIR 4 SWAP MEET, Oct.

1, 19SS, 104 pm, McPherson Centre, 7325 McPherson Ave.,

Bmnaby, B.C. 270-0064. Table rental $35 User youp displays,

door prizes
PACIFIC RIM COMPUTER St COMMUNICATION
SHOW November 1,2,3,19SS, Vancouver Trade and Convention
Centre. Call for details 433-9549 or 433-5121. Sales: Helen
Levasseur

Canadian BusinessTelecommunications Alliance Telecon '88,

Sept. 18-22. Canada's largest telecommunications conference and

trade exposition, Telecou '88 Winning Through Telecommunications. 54ays. Contact CBTA 416-865-9993.
'.=

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:

R.L. CRAIN INC., "Bar Code Seminar" officially announcing

openmg of Bsr Code Safes Office in Vancouver. Tuesday, Sept.
20, 9:30 am. or 1:30 pm. Ref'reshments will be served. Le
Meridia Hotel, Salon Versailles, 845 Bmrard St. Vancouver,

B.C. R.S.V.P. April Hamilton 874-1131.

-

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CAPILANO COLLEGE 2065 Purcell Way North Van 9844901

Intro to Computers for The MedicalOffice

Oct 12/16, Dec 3/4
$140
MEDICAL SOFTWARE USER GROUP Kevin Brawley 7365039 $35/yesr membership:
Medical Software Exhibition Exhibition of Teleplan biHing
systemsfar doctors.
$5
vwa s . : vvvw:

Usm QRQ@PS

Amlga User Group Meetings (PaNorAmA), BCIT, Rm 129A

General
Meetings 2nd Wed each month 7:30 pm
Programmers: 4th Wed eachmonth 7:30pm
Apples BC Computer Society Call Lorne 467-6062.
Apple H User Group Meeting BC Apple Society, Burnaby
Rugby Club, Kiyo Masuda437-9935
Apple HI SIG Monthly Kiyo Masuda437-9935
Beaver Valley Commodore Club Meets first Tuesevery month
at Monttose School Library. Call Iohu Vink 367-6426 B.C. Unh

anytim
e,

Ave.,Cotluitlsm 464-8717. Call for night school start

'%

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PROFESSIONAL TRAIMNG ASSOC., 502-1185 W. Georgia

681-5903 DBase IH+ Level H Sept. 1
$175
VANCOUVER COMMUNlTY COLLEGE 875-8200
Intro to JBase IH + Sept. 14,21
$145
Intermed.dBase HI + Sept.27
$145
Advanced dBase HI+ Sept. 14
$145
dBase HI dBase HI+ Sept. 22
$175
'
Database Using Clipper
$150
VAN.SOFrWARE CENTRE 300-1190 Melville 669-9S00

rrrrravrar

200-247 Abbot St Downtown 682-5448 12 hour courses

ACCPAC or Bedford Accounting CALL

F ~

Desktop Des/a Cllnlcs

$69
VANCOUVER DESKTOP PUBLISHING CENTRE Ltd
1150 Homer St 681-9161, StephenOsborne, Roedy Green
Ventura Publisher Call for dates
$129
VANCOUVER SCHOOL BOARD 736-7241
John Oliver School, 530 E. 41 Ave
DTP: Ventura or Pagemaker
$135
VAN.SOFTWARE CENTRE 300-1190 Melville St. 669-9800

User's Group meets 4 times ayear. Call George Pajari 9252555, 2545 QueensAve, West Van V7V 2Y9.
Clipper Developers Association 1st Mon SFU 873-0747

Commodore Club 1st Tues Sunset Comm Centre 73$-3311

Forth Interest Group SpeakersandTutorials on Forth hardware,

software and applications. Meetings: 7:30 fhst Thurs of each

month, BC1T main bldg, 3700 Willin&donRm. 1A-324

Kaypro User Group Vancouver Portable Computer Club 3rd
Monday at Kaypro in Richmond(CP/M) 278-5776
Mac User Group Meeting BC Apple Sockty, WCB Building,
6951 Wesuninster Hwy (Kiyo Masuda) 437-9935.
Mainland Mac Sept. 14, Mouse Stick Demo, MacRecorder.
New User Meeting Sept. 21st. Rm 115 Kwantlen College,
Suney, 574-3S13, Ron Haiden&er.

Maple Ridge Computer User Group 467-2647 M.R. Sr.

Secondary School 7:30 PM,

Free
NEC APC Users Group Bi-monthly Lee 980-5825
North American Amstrad User's Group. For newsletter,
membership application send S.A.S.E. to: 65-13880 - 74th Ave,
Sutrey V3W 7E6 PHONE: 597%881 R. Scott
Novell Netware Users Peter Whitelaw 669-8789 monthly

Port Coquitlam Computer Usem Group CommodoreAmiga 4

IBM 1st and 3rd Tuesday each month 7:30 pm, Poco Rec Ceuue

2100 Wilson Ave 9424286

Software B.C. General Meetings are 3rd Thursday of evety
month in Vancouver, 400 - 1190 Melville St., Vancouver, 6$4-

7432.
Tandy 1000+Club Meeting Second Monday 7:00pm at
Kwantlen College, Newton Campus, Rm 209 or 211. Call Len

Boscoe 574-5419
The New Apple Alliance May Chow435-7609 last Saturday of
month in Kitsilano Neighbourhood House.
TI Computer Club Central Richmond. Meets 2nd Wed of each
month. Phone Keith at 261-2739

Trace (Richmond Atarl Club) ThompsonComm. Centre Linus

LaneRichmond,272-5789 1st8'
c2nd M onday 7:30-9:30
Vancouver Netware User's Group Les Lebbrant 275-2829.
The Computer Piper 'Sept'ember'19$8 33

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Meets 1st Mon of the month.

Vancouver PC Users Group Planetarium 4384009, $20/year

membership. 7:00 pm2ndThurs
Vantarl 34-3046 Coast Meridian, Pt. Coquitlam B.C. Judy

Hercus 873-1941 HastingsComm. Ctr 3096 E Hastings, 7:3010:30pmK4XEk ST

Wang System User Association 736-8841 ext 227 JJ'. Doiron
99 Users Group Meets every Thursday 7-10 pm. at Cameron
Rec Centre, Burnaby. Call Ron at 522-2598. 1st Thurs Games,
2nd 'Iluus General 3rd Thurs Tutorials 4th Thurs Copying Prog.
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diploma course: Microcomputer businessapplications

THE COMPUTER PLACE 860 Bunard, 688-2992
Lotus 123Level I Sept6,20
.
$179
Lotus 123 Level II Sept 15, 29
$179
COMPUTER PEOPLE 302A 1124 Lunsdale N. Van. 9844349
Lotus 123 Adv.
$139
COMPUTERLAND LEARMNG CENTRE 1035 W. Pander

Introduction to Framework, Sept. 1,16,26

$180
$180
=

Framework II, - Inter. Sept, 19

KEMI

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M NK'r%'Q'RKS

DRAKE COMPUTER TRAINING 100-1111 Melville 6694789

Novell System Manager Sept 20,21
$415
INDEPENDENT TECHNOLOGY SERVICE 265 - 167 W. 2nd
Ava 873-3900.
Netware Training on site- Customer's convenience.

$250 3 hr/1 peison$400 6 hr/1 person

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ADVANTAGE COMPUTERS Suite 1760 505 Buirard St.

MACS AM. 8:30 - 1240 am.; P3i4. 1:00 -4:30 pan.

Intro to Mac, Intermed Mac, PageMaker

Microsoft Works, Word, Excel, Hypercard COMPUTERLAND ~GAINING CENTRE 1035 W. Pander 683-6152. Call
for starting dates.

Pagemaker, Excel, Macintosh Basic Skills,Word

FOLKSTONE DESIGN INC. Bax44, Grautham's Landing, B.C.
VON 1XO 986-8060 or 8864502
MlcroSoft Word, Pagemaker, Excel

PROGRAMMING A
%
Q I~OPMEN+

$180

2130 Burrard St, Vancouver, Pat Austin 732-8621

Introduction to Lotus 123 Sept. 13,27

$180
$180
$180

Intermediate Lotus 123 Sept. 15

Advanced Lotus 123 Sept. 15
DOPPLER 101 W. 5th, Vancouver 875-0261,
Lotus 123 Intro or Advanced
$175
DRAKE COMPUTER TRAINING 100-1111 Melville 669-8789
Advanced Lotus 1 2-3 Sept. 12
$175
Introduction to Lotus I 2-3 Eve. Sept 20
$175
Introduction to Lotus 1-2-3 Eve. Sept. 21
$175
Introduction to Lotus 1-2-3 Sept. 6,14,30
$175
Advanced Lotus 1-2-3 Sept. 12,29
$17S
Introduction to Lotus 1-2-3 Sept. 22
$17S
Lotus Macros Sept. 7
$175
HALA, BONNER 810-1112 W Pander Vancouver, 684-1022,
Lotus 123 1 Sept. 19
$175

Lotus 123 2 Sept. 13

Lotus 1-2-3 Level 1 Sept. 29
Lotus 1-2-3 Level II Sept. 23
IPC SYSTEMS,228 W. 7th, 873-5595
Lotus 123 BasicsSept. 13

$175
$175
$175
$150

MICROAGE LEARMNG CENTRE 3609 W 16th Ave, 2221010. Call for starting dates. Lotus 123
$17$

PBSC TRAINING CENTRE 1350-1 140 W. Pander689-7272

Lotus 123 1 Sept. 2, 21
$17S
Lotus 123 2 Sept. 20
$17$
Lotus 123 (Macras) Sept. 16
$175
Lotus 123 (Functions) Sept. 28
$175
Lotus for
Executives Sept.24
$175
Supercalc IV 1 Sept. 8
$175
Supercalc IV 2 Sept. 30
Smart 1 Sept. 9
Excel 1 Sept. 23

$175

PERSONAL COMPUTER TRAINING INSTITUTE

$175
$175

200-?47 Abbot St Van. 682-5448 12 hour courses

$150

Lotus123 IIorLotus123 Macros

PlTMAN BUS. COLLEGE 1490 W. Bioadway 738-7848
Integrated Software - Lotus 123 Call for start dates

PRECEPT LEARMNG CENTER 735 Clark Dr. 255-3198

r'r -' v"rr r v.rrrrrrr'r:r'
Electronic SpreadsheetsOct 27/28
$145
PRIMA TRAIMNG CENTER 207-3900 E Hastings, 294-4567
BCIT Full Time 432-8419, Part Time: 4341610
Using Lotus 123 Call for dates
$1$0
Assembler I (IBM Mainframe),
Ass embler II (IBM
Lotus Data Management gi Graphs
$105
Mainframe) 6 wks Assembler (IBM PC) I 6 wks Basic (IM
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING ASSOC., 502-1185 W. Georgia,
PC) 1 6 wks Basic I 6 wks Cobol-Level I 6 wks Cobol-Level
681-5903.
II 6 wks Pascal 6 wks PLO Level I 6 wks
Dlsplaywrlte 4 Sept. 22-23
$3$0
BURNABY SCHOOL BOARD 299436L
Lotus Level I Sept. 13
$17$
Micro Processing II BASIC Intro Oct. 26
$48
Lotus LevelII Sept. 14
$175
Data Proc. 2: BASIC Oct. 26
$6$
Lotus Level II Sept. 15
$175
COMPUCOLLEGE Vancouver 6824600, Butnaby

435 2424, Richmond273-0373. Call for starting dates. 480 hours

full time diploma courses:

Computer Programming 4 SystemsAnalysis

Microcomputer Electronic Technology

COMPUTER STATION, 2130 Buirard St. 732-8621.
Intro to Microcomputers Sept. 7P2
$1&0
SFU Continuing Studies Program (Applied Sciences) 291-3844
Design Analog Integrated Clrcnlts Oct 12-14
$350
Superconductlve Materials Oct 20 (video amf.)
$10$
I nterdisciplinary World of Computing Oct 4
$10$

P hotonfc Switching ln Comm&Comp. Sep 22

$10 5

UBC Centre for Cont. Education. Couxses held at Microcomputer

Lab, Old Bookstore, UBC.
BASICS of Programming Inho Sept.19-0ct. 31
$185

Programming in C: Intro Sept. 22-Oct. 27

CS 5079-488 Sept.14-Nov. 2 Sept. 24
VANCOUVER COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Intra to Computers Sept. 1,6,12,19

:='
.=
':-;:,-.":.-:;."'"~PRE~QH-.'.Eg!f g:;:

$195
$250
$145
=":.:;;-.'=,:-".";=
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ACCESS CENTRE Lonsdale Quay (N. Van SeabusEntrance)

984M7L Start anytime, computer based training-self paced

tutorials Spreadsheets: Lotus 123 (Av. 20 hours)

BARKEL BUSINESS SCHOOL 211-3030 Lincoln Ave.
Coquitlam 4644717. Call for night school Lotus123

$140

UBC Centre for Cont. Education, Courses held at Microcomputer

L ab, Old Bookstore, UBC.Lotus 1 24 Sept 21-Oct. 12 $ 1 95

VANCOUVER COMMUNlTY COLLEGE 875-8200

Intro to Lotus 123 Sept. 15,17,21,
Using Lotus 123 Sept. 19

Intermed. Lotus 1-2-3 Sept. 9g9

Advanced Lotus 1-23 Sept. 16

'1 F /

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Basics of Micros Lev.lgi2 Start:Sep 12.14,15,

$185
DOS Levels1gi2 Oct 832
$105
Managing Your Hard Disk Nov 12
$10$
COMPUTERLAND 1035 W. Pender 683-6152.
Intro ta Micros or DOS
$180
COMPUTER PLACE 860 Bunard St, 299-3003
MS/PC-DOS Sept 1, 28
$179
COMPUTER PEOPLE LEARNING CENTRE. 302A 1124
Lousdale Ave. N. Van. 9844349

MS-DOS ESSE%I IALS Call far dates

MS-DOS HARD DISK MAN.

$89
$89

COMPUTER STATION 2130 Bunard Vancouver 732-8621

Intro to Micros 4 DOS

$160
Intro to DOS
$115
DRAKE COMPUTER TRAINING 100-1111 Melville 669-8789
Intro tu DOS (Eve.) Sept. 6
$12S
Advanced DOS Sept. 26
$12$
Introduction to DOS Sept. 8
$125
Introduction to DOS Sept. 19
$125
Introduction to DOS Sept. 29
$125
DOPPLER 101 W. 5th, Vancauver 8754261
Intrm Micros & DOS Every Mon thru Sept
BALA, BONNER 810-1112 W Pander St. 684-1022

Introduction to Computers Sept. 16

Parent/Child Sept. 3
Intraductlon tu Computers Sept. 17
DOS 1 gi 2 Sept. 1
DOS 1 gi 2 Sept. 30

KWANTLEN COLLEGE Suney, B.C. 58L4411.

Intro ta Computers Sept. 26-Nov. 21
Intro tu Computers di DOS Sept. 26-Nov. 21

Sept. 28-Nov. 16, Sept. 30-Nov. 25

Managing Your Hard Disk Sept. 24

$175
$175
$175
$175
$17$
$175
$75
$75
$75
$35

MICROAGE 3609 W 16th Ave, 222-1010 Call for starting dates.

Intro to PCs/DOS, Advanced DOS

$175
PBSC TRAINING CENI'RE 1350-1140 W. Pander 689-7272
Intro to PC Sept. 13
$17S
DOS 1 gi 2 Sept. 1,10,12,19,29
$175
Advanced DOS Sept. 9
$175
PCrI200-247 Abbot St Van. 682-5448 12 hour courses

Introto IBM-PC and popularsoftware

$150

PlTMAN BUS.COLLEGE 1490 W. Broadway 738-784S

Intro to Business Software, Orientation MS-DOS
PRECEPI' LEARMNG CENTRE 735 Clark Dr 255-3198
Intro to PCs Sep 12,15,0ct 3,13
$14S

Harnessing the Power of DOS I Sap 22,0ct17

Harnessing the Power of DOS II Oct 6

$145

Intro to Microcomputers

$10$

$145
PRIMA TRAINING CENTER 207-3900 E. Hastings, Vancouver, 2944567. Call for times.

$105
Getting to Know your PC Hardware
PROFESSIONAL TRAlNING ASSOC., 502-1185 W. Georgia,
681-5903Jntroto PCs and DOS Sept.6,12,19,26
$175
UBC Centre for Continuing Education
Comses held at Microcomputer Lab, Old Bookstore
MS-DOS: A Beginner's Guide Call for dates
MS-DOSi An Advanced Workshop
Keyboard Skills Sept. 17
Learning about Microcomputers Sept. 24,25
VANCOUVER COMMUNlTY COLLEGE 8754200
I ntra to Computing Concepts Sept. 19,20,21
VANCOUVER SCHOOL BOARD 736-7241

$65
$65
$50
$185
$175

John Oliver, Vancouver Technical

DOS Orientation, Sept. 6,21

$180
VANCOUVER DESKTOP PUBLISHING CENTRE Ltd

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$145
$14$

$175

PBSC TRAINING CENTRE 1350-1140 W. Pander St 689-7272

Crasstalk (call for starting dates)
$17$

r'
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I '% h ~
$ % L% $ P
B
E RI P

Intro IBM PC Call for dates$90

VAN. SOFTWARE CENTRE 300-1 190Melville 669-9800

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88

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$145

VANCOUVER SCHOOL BOARD 736-7241 Vancouver

Technical,
2600 E. Broadway Lotus 123 Callforstartdates $90
VAN. SOFrWARE CENTRE 300-1190 Melville 669-9800
Callforsuuung dates.
Introduction to Lotus 123, Sept. 1,16
$1&0
Lotus Intermed.Sept 9,22
$180

&
SP
%

683-6152. Call for starting dates.

':IVRCR AVIS:SOI'TWARS-'-'

Call for starting dates.

~
~

COMPUCOLLEGE Vancouver 682-6600, Bumaby 435-2424,

Richmond 273-0373. Call for starting dates. 480 hours full tiine

Lotus123 Intro,Intermed or Advanced

COMPUTER STATION

DRAKE COMPUTER TRAINING 100-1111 Melville 669-8789

Symphony DatabaseSept. 30
$175
Symphony Spreadsheet Sept. 22
$17$
Smart Spreadsheet Day 1 Sefx. 27
$17$
SmartSpreadsheetDay 2 Sept.28
$175
PBSC TRAINING CENTRE 1140W. Pander,689-7272
Symphony 1 Sept. 7
$17$
Symphony 2 Sept. 19
$175
Symphony3 Sept.27
$175
Framework II 1 Sept. 13
$17S
VANCOUVER SCHOOL BOARD 736-7241
dBase III+ Call for dates
$90
VAN. SOFTWARE CENTRE 300-1190 Melville 669-9800

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Call for startmg dates.

1150 Homer St 681-9161, Stephen Osbames Roedy Green

Introduction MSDOS Call for dates
$119

Taking Command of MSDOS

Takhg Command of MSDOS
SuperCharging the Omfce PC

Under the Hood: Troubleshooting

==-

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- :

''-"'&RS::PRCESS''N4F-"::
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-

ACCESS CENTRE Lonsdale Quay 9844671

Basic Skills:computer-based training, self-paced tutorials.
Average 12 hoius. Start anytime.
$125

Word Processing: Wordperfect, MSWord, Dlsplaywrlte,

$140
BARKEL BUSINESS SCHOOL 211-3030 Coquitlsm 464-8717

ACCESS CENTRE Londsdale Quay984W71

Multlmate

Basic Operating Skills Start anytime, computer based training-self paced tutoriah (averagel2 hrs, no max. )
$125

Call for night school start dates

BARKEL BUSINESS SCHOOL 211-3030 Lincoln Ave,

Caquitlam 464-8717. Call for start dates.MS DOS Tutorial $45
BCIT Full Time Registration 432-8419, Part Time: 434-1610

$69
$69
$129
$129

WordPerfect, WordStar

$80

BURNABY SCHOOL BOARD, 5325 Kincaid St., Buniaby VSG

1W2. 299436LAES Alpha+ Indlvlds Frag. Oct. 3
$40

$80
BUSINESS CENIRE, Ste. 300, 1497 Marina Dr., W. Van. 925Computers in Business, Computer Systems-Intro 1,
$149
BCIT Full Time Regisuatian 432-8419, Patt Time: 434-1610
Computer Systems-Intro II 6 wks
$139 1147.W'ord Perfect
Business Applications (Lotus) 6 wks
$167 BURNABY SCHOOL BOARD, 5325 Kincsid St., Burnaby B.C. CAPILANO COLLEGE 2055 Puroell Way, Nardi Vsn 9844901
BURNABY SCHOOL BOARD, 5325 Kincaid Si., Buinaby VSG VtG 1W2 299436L
Shareware Serlesi PC-Write Nov 4/5
$125
1W2 2994361 1otns 1-2-3 Sept. 20,21
$&0
M icro
Processing 1 Sept.21,22 4 sess.
$32 COMPUTERLAND 1035 W. Pender 683-6152.
CAPILANO COLLEGE 2055 Purcell Way, North Vsn 9844901
DlsplayWrlte, MSWord, WordPerfect, Multlmate
MS DOS/IBM Sept. 20, 21
$75
Lotus Look Alikes Oct 1,15
$10S
COMPUTER PEOPLE LEARNING CENTRE,302A1124
Computerese Nov.5
Sharewaru Series: PC Calc Sept 23,24
$125 CAPILANO COLLEGE 2055 Purcell Way, North Van 9844901 Lonsdale Ave., N. Van. 9844349
34 The Computei J'aper September 1988

W orl: Intro, Intermediate gr Advancedgesch)

%ordPerfect Intro, Interm Adv. (each)
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The Computer Paper September 1988 ~ 35

Is the VSE "Easy Money" for Hl-Tech Companies?

To most people, Vancouver, British Columbia, is world-renowned
for its breathtaking beauty as weil as having been the site of the
inunensely successful Expo '86 World's Fair. But for an increasing
number of U.S.high-tech companies, Vancouver means two things
- cheap money snd a stepping stone to senior stock exchanges in the
United States.
The drawing card for these Amencan companies is the Vancouver Stock Exchange {VSE). Traditionally, the VSE hsa been

anything but an exchange for high-technology stocks. For most of

its 80 yis, it has been a penny stock exchange of junior mining

companies. Many serious bluewhip investors have looked with
disdain on VSE companies, regarding them as having only two
assets: moose pasture with questionable poten6al and smoothtalking promoters who never quite seem to get burned when their
vsntures fall flaL The occasional scaraMs that have plagued the
VSE during much of its history only reinforce this percep6on.
But times have changed at the VSE. The outdated and tran6c trading
floor which brings screaming buyers andsellers together-one of the
lastof its type inthe world-soon will make way for a silent computer
system, which conversely will be among the most modern. This
change is in keeping with the evolving compositionof the exchange.
Of the 2,100 companies that were listed on the VSE at the end of
1987, about 30 percent were industrial and technology companies

- up from lisle more than a handful a few years ago.

Early80'sCrash Perclpltated Changes
The crash of oil and mineral prices during the early 1980s

gl

g4'

p7

precipitated this transformation at the VSE, forcing the exchange to on Vancouver isto sell a company andproduct that can bedescribed
look atnew areasof underwri6ng -including the computer industry. in fewer than 25 words, Hislop says it helps when a company
And so far, this diversifica6on in unde~
has paid off. produces a product that most investors are familiar with. "The
Exchange observers estimate that at least 25 percent of the 301 new average investor isn't going toreada50-pageprospectus. Theeasier
listings in 1987, which were worth over $1 billion, were those of in- it is to sum up the company. the simpler it is to sell the idea to
investors.
dustrial and tecimology onnpanies.
According to Hislop, Vancouver investors are skeptical of softThe good news for American companies is that most of those
issues were U S.enterprises. Whil
the VSE mvestors were ware developers and favor hardware manufacturers, especially
once lookmg to buy into the next major gold rush, many now have those with established lines of credit and visible markets. One
their sights on thenext Apple Computer or Microsoft, and theydon't example he points to is a California company that has developed a
system to block off faulty sections of an EPROM {a type of readcare which side of the border it calls home.
only memory that can be erased and repmgranuned by the cusCostsof Ralslng Capital HereConsider "Reasonable"
"Vancouver is one of the better markets in tli world for compa- tomer), a product that has caught the atten6on of a major Korean
nies that are trying toraiselessthan$5miilion,"says RobertByford, electronics manufacturer."You need good management and a good
partner in charge of the conml6ng group at the Vancouver office of product concept. It helps to have a major sponsor behind the
Peat Marwick, which has been involved in over 100 underwr16rtgs venture," he says.
A company seekinga Vancouver list'
m g,H islop says,can expect
during the past two years. "The VSE is one of the best-kept secrets.
For about $115,000 {in listing costs and fees), you can raise to pay between $15,000 to $30,000 in legal fees; about $15,000 for
accounting; some $25,000 for atechnicalreport; $10000 in printing
$500,000.That'spretty reasonable."
Even Vancouver's most ardent supporters admit that the VSE is and mailing; and $5,000 for travel expmses. Brokers' sales comunlikely to become another NASDAQ {National Associa6on of missions are in the 10 percent to 15 percent range.
Security Dealers Automated Quota6ons). NASDAQ, which is The Mechanics of Getting Listed
The mechanics of getting a VSE Iis6ng are straightforward.
based near Washington, D.C is the the blue~hip exchange for
emerging companies, some of which have assets of more than $1 Hislop suggests that the company fust identify an accounting fhm
that specialixes m Vancouver listings that in turn will recommend
bilhon. But the VSE,nonetheless, is one of th
a company with a limited track record and only $100,000 {Cana- several brokers and security lawyers. "Talk to several brokerage
dian) of assets canhope to raise between $500000 and $1.5 million Gnus and make sureyou feel comfortable with them," he says.
Several brokeragefirms specialize in underwriting VSE securiby selhng shares to tbe public. By comparison, an emerging
company - one without ptn&s - must have $8 millicm in capital to ties. But few are willing to commit themselves to buying all of the
company's shares for resale to the public at aproEt. Most will agree
secure a NASDAQ listing.
''The average high-tech company on the VSE has {annual) sales to a "best effort" and will take a commission in addition to receiving
in the $400,000range and needs $15 million to$23 million to make warrants. The brokers are crucial m maintaining the investors'
it a $25 million company." Byford says. "If anything, VSE inves- interest in the company after it goes public.
Byfordof Odium Brownbelieves a U.S. company also should file
tors want to make sure that a company has enough money to do
full registration and disclosure documents with the Securi6es
things pmperly."
Exchange Commission in the United States to avoid charges of
Investors Not Likely to Finance RA9
However, VSE investors are very reluctant to fmanceresearch promoting unregistered stock in the U.S. "Pretend the border
and development. In the early 1980s, they were badly burned by dome't exist," he says. This Sing will cost in the $30,000 range.
One U.S. company that was pleased with its decision to be listed
Chopp Computers Corp. Inc., a company that claimed it would
on the VSE wasCumulus Technology Corp. of Palo Alto, CA,says
develop the ultimate supercomputer, which never materializal
Now investors want a sohd business plan written by a proven Peter Henderson, the company's vice president of Gnance. "Cost
management team with a product m hand. If anything, the money was a big reason why we wanted to ge to Vancouver. There wss also
raised on the exchange usually is intended for marketing and manu- a higher probability that we would have more control on when and
facturing. But management is the key, Byford adds. "First-rate how we would be listed. If we had gone to another market, it could
management can do something with a second-rate product, but a have been dragged out a lot longer.
"We felt Vancouver was more of a venturewapital type of
second-rate management is unlikely to impress many investors."
exchange.
Itfeelsmore comfortable withstamp companiesandwe
Besides providing access to quick money -most VSE listmgs csn
be concluded within 90 days - Vancouver gives a company the op- felt very comfortable with them," Henderson adds.
In November 1986, the I-yearold company spent $60,000 in
pornu6ty to establish a hack record which could prove useful if it
later wants a NASDAQ listing. By the end of 1987, about 100com- legal and accounting fees to raise $1 million(Canadian) to help with
panies were listed on both exchanges, and many will drop Vancou- the design and manufacturing of video-display terminals and
ver when they become more established on NASDAQ. 'This monitors. The company also has raised another $3 million in private
{NASDAQ) connection is a useful feature thatyou can' t overlook," placements. Cumulus will begin selling its line of products this year.
explains Bruce Stuart, Peat Marwick's high-technology consultant. "Eventually we will try for a NASDAQ listing," Henderson adds.
Stuart abo maintains that the recent surge in high-tech listings on "But we want a good history of sales before we apply;"
the VSE has lead to the creation of a pool of high-tech expertise m Scandals Frequent
But there are disadvantages to the Vancouver Stock Exchange.
Vancouver that in turn will stimulate more technology listings.
One of the major problems is the frequency of scandals that have
''There're some very talented people here."
According to John Hislop, corporate fmance director of the Vancou- rocked the ins6tu6on, in part because of loose regulations. While
ver-based Odium Brown Ltd. brokerage 5rm, Vancouver investors scandals aren't con6ned to only Vancouver, the ones that do occur
in that city are more closely iden6fied with the VSE than, for
aren't af'raid of taking risks.
example, was the Ivan Boesky affair tied to the New York Stock
VSE: "Speculat
ors- Not Investors"
"Most people who buy stocks on Vancouver aren't investors, Exchange.
Theexchange'smost infamous scandaloccurredon Black Friday,
they' re specu1ators. When they buy mining stocks, they don' t
expectmany of them to hit anything, butwhen they do hit, they want Oct. 12, 1984, when Beauford Resources Ltd. collapsed and
something big," he adds. "Sometimes the crariest idea will attract investors lost an es6mated $30 million. In sentencing promoters
the mostattention on Vancouver because ithas the ~ t po t en6al EnrichBrunnhuber and Engelbert Robert for Iraud and theft, Justice
Iohn Bouck tumed to the jury and said: "Ladies and gentlemen, I
to make money."
don' t know how many of you are going to rush out and invest m thy
While many VSE observers maintain that the best way to ~

eman
yof

efewexchangeswhere

36 ~The Computer Paper September 1988

stock market after this. I suspectnot many." In 1986, the VSE got
another black eye after three stocks tied to billionaire arms dealer
Adnan Khashoggi colltqned, once again leaving numy investors
holdmg ahnost worthless paper.
Former VSE Chief Resigned For A Song
To make matters worse that year, British Cohnnbia's chief
securityregulator,Michael Ross, resigned afterhe announced he
had won a California song-writmg contest and was going into the
music busmeas. This was followed by the resigaation of the
chairman of the B.C. Securities Commission for reasons that were
not clear. However, the superintendent's position was filled by Neil
de Gelder, an attorney fmm one of the province's top legal firms,
while Doug Hyndman, a 36=year-old deputy secretary of the B.C.
TreasuryBoard, was namedchainnanof thesecurities connnission.
They both made it clear they intend to improve the quality of the
VSE and instigated a series of cease-trade orders and disciphnary
But few people expect the scandals to come to a complete halt.
Says Odium Brown president Tony Hepburn: "People have to
recognize Umt (the VSE) will always be speada&re Therefore,.
from time to lime, there will be a few companies that fail. If
Vancouver was to place more reslric6ons, there would be fewer
incidents but there would be a lot less capital raised "
Oversll, the VSE had a rough year in 1987. Like most stock
exchanges, it hit a record peak during the year, with its index
reaching 2,045 Ix6ntsin May, but was devastated cm Black Monday,
Oct.19, and finished theyear at1,150-15percentlower than ithad
started 1987. At the same time, the Dow Jones average of 30
industria stocks gained 23 percent during the year despite themore
than500-pointplunge on Black Monday.
With the crash, the listing of new securities on the VSE has come
to sneer halt. It remains tobe seen whether the activity will pick up.
But Hislop of Odium Brown is convincedit's only a matter of time.
'"Not all of the money disappeared and these people will have to do
something with it sooner or later." Because of the Black Monday
crash, Byford of Peat Marwick expects to see fewer new listings in
1988, but predicts the companies will raise more money. "The
quality of the companies will be even better {in 1988). They will be
bigger, better and fewer."
Many VSE Stocksare Foreign Owned
With a population of 3 million people, Bri6sh Columbia doesn't
have enough investors to own the $5 billion worth of stocks hsted
on the VSE. Exchange officials estimate that about 35 percent of
VSE stocks are owned by Western Canadians while another 15
percent is owned by Eastern Canadians.U.S. and European investorseach account forabout 25 percentofthestock ownership.More
money from the Pacific Rim is expected to flow into the exchange
when a brokerage firm fmm tiny but highly industrialized Hong
Kong becomes a trading member of the VSE. About 40 fnms listed
on the exchange conduct most of their business in Hong Kong, and
most observers expect PatMc Rim money soon to start playing a
more major role in the exchange.
ComputerizedTrading
The $9 milhon computerized tradmg system, which wlii be
1

activity, says Alfred TA. Woo, exchange vice president. "In

Taiwan, their tradmg volume increased 10 times when they installed
a computerized system. I expect that our system will have a positive
effect on the speed and accuracy of trades andwill minimize the loss
of trading opportunities through hunum error."
So why should a company go public and sell off part of its action
- especially when its owners are convinced that they have a hot
product7 The answer usually is that going public is the best way of
Imancing a company through the manufacturing and marketing
phase without surrendering total control to outside investors or
banks - if indeed they are wilhng to part with money."A company
goes pubhc whenitneeds capital or wants liquidity butdoesn't want

to lose control," explams Woo.

Corrafnucs on Page8S

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LTERTEX

Dll

the computer

ATARI
COMMODORE

S ; C

Atari ST Memory Upgrades

Cables h, Accessories

Puef

II

Isaa e ass Central Business Machines I td.

<l eVSVte/

684%545

CONTINENTAL COMPUTER
47 w.BRoADwAY,vANcoUvER. 874-7147

4738 E Hastings St., BurnabyB.C. 291-2261

The Computer paper September 19$8 3'7

w w 5QNL05>

ELECTRONIC BULLETIN

BOARDS (BBS)

CATALYST 872-6968
Political activist board run by Public Informa-

tion ExchangeSociety (PIX) 24 hrs. 3/12/2400

Baud.

Kaypro User'sGroup Opus271-5934 CPM k

MAC HARD DRIVES

GENERAL COMPUTER FX40 $1300
SUPERMAC DATAFRAME 20XP $850
FOUR 256K MACINTOSH SIMMS,
(120 nanoseconds)$500
Call Hari 736-2919

MSDOS Software free.

APPLE 40SC HARD DISK AND TAPE

RBBSXYVR. 270-0810

Apple Care, suggested $6,019, asking $3,420

Karen or Paul 731-7917.

FANTASY PARADISE BBS 263-2682, 300/

1200, Young people oriented.

WONDERWORLD 937-7542 300 Baud.

SUNSET BLVD. 298-3530.
Streets
ofCalifornia,300B Commodore. 87662$7. Social Board Teens. $00 User.
Phoenix BBS 520-6112.
The Shorelme BBS Multi User 8-line 300-2400

Semi $1.20/hr. 736-2197.

NEC BBS. NEC CanadaLtd. Free of charge
Muitispeed gt Multisync support. 1200 Baud

6$7-7144; 2400 Baud662-7732; 300 Baud 6898601.

SERVICES

a Consulting 4 Training
~ Database Deiign
e Custom Prograuunmg
~ Tutoring in Wardperfect, RBASE.
Assembly Language, MSDOS

e Hard Disk Backup/File

,'i,::..

pi:c;

arnage

ZENrrH 2181 Laptop (MS DOS 3.2) 640K

2x720K floppies, $1,800. NEC P6 Pinwriter Dot
matrix 24 Pin 216-65 CPS, $650. James7317779.

i:Pr,'.r.'

'Yr?i

4W

HARDWARE
APPLE IMAGEWRXI ER 11LQ, 15" carnage
never used. Warranty. $1$00. Evenings 73$-

8379.

Personal
adaare ffeeBusiness adsare$20for25

wosdsorlessplus25g/ward$15 for aboxedads

Mail to The Computer Paper 3205 W13th
Ave., Vancouver V6K 2V6 or Call 733-5$96

$3250
$8.95
$30.75

Ventana Press
N ew Riders
Sybex

$ 3 5 .95
$29. 9 5
$32.95
$24.95

Simpson

Parker

Loohng Good in
Print
Inside Xerox Ventura Publisher
Mastering Ventura Il
Using Aldus Pagemaker

Berst
Holtz
Parker

Mastering Framework II
Mastering Symphony 4th Edition
MS-Works for the PC

MACINTOSH
Hypercard Developer's Guide

$53.9 5

$38.95

Bantam

Wolverton
Peter Norton
Robbins

Microsoft
Press $33.95
P rentice HaH
$28 9 5

Sybex

$28.95

Benmer
P Jfortou
Wolvertcm

Que
P rentice Hall
Microsoft

$29.95
$31. 9 5
$7.95

Hergert/Kamin

Sybex
Sybex
M cGraw-Hill

$34.95
$38.95
$29. 5 0

5p'

Bantam
$29.95
Addison-Wesley $37.95
Sybex
$34.95

t:

Cobb

Co wart
Goodman

Inside Macintosh Vl V
Mastering Excel Mac

Apple Inc
Townshend

Addison-Wesley $29.95

Compute Books

PROGRAMMING

MS CrPogram
m
ingIBM PC

Complete Ref. Turbo C

il l.'.
.':5.'7

i<."8F:

C Programming Language 2nd Ed.

Schildt
M cGraw-Hill
La5ore
Sama
K ernigan/Richie Prentice-Hall

SPREADSHEETS
Using 123 Special Edition

Que Cmp

Complete Reference Quattro

Quatlro Companion

McCoy

Cobb/Crane

$ 2 9 . 95

$36. 9 5
$38.95
$39.9 5

Que

$34.95

M cGraw-Hill

$37.5 0

Cobb

$32.95

WORD PROCESSING
$>)~;.

Ushg Wordperfect Version 5

Mastering WordPerfect Version 5

Using MS Word 4.0

Wineabase
the new'IBM PC/XT/AT wine
education
softwarepackage.Colorfulmaps,
1000 fun wmedescriptions, camplete meal,
sweetness and price cross referencing, builtm dictionary, easy one touch pictorial based
decisions, and more. 5 disk package,
includes I'ree wine course, mtraductory offer

$79.95. For more information write:

$4gu

gr3

WANTED
Wanted: Atari shareware programs. Tom 877-

08$5, 64 pan.

Kelly
Chase/Zager

Que

$29.95
$30.75
$27.95

Sybex

Que

o+
l

I gg l

I J Q gl I I L

BOOKS Lm.

3TV W. 10th Avenue

Vancouver, B.C.

New West Oueyt

610 Front St.
New Westminster
525-0650
Weatwood hlellr
2-6000 Loulheed Hwy
Cottultlum
464-5515

ver, B.C. V68 2L3 or phone662-$59$.

Stewart

This List ls sponsored by B.C.'s largest retailers of Computer Books

It is compBedmonthly by Compullt Distributors Inc.

k''

Sunshine Systems, 548 Beatty St. Vancou-

(604) 222-2221

10S 4StO'S Road, Nehmond, S.C. Canada V4X SCS(Ssa) 27S retS

Non Profit Founduhon needs computer

equipment. If you areupgrading yourequipment

and your old hardware will be collecting dust,
we will be more than happy to take it off your
hands. Tax receipts available. Telephone 684-

N~~
va,

4148. Physical Medicine ResearchFoundation.

WAPITI!I):
Personal Ads!

McGraw-Hill
McGraw-Hill
Sybex

Learnin
g

TECHNICAL WR1TER for software k

Good numuals:
Reduce customer support costs
Increase user satisfaction. Help market your
product Phone 325-9609

Liskin
Liskin

software, $150 O.B.O. 322-5924.

(dBase 4 Clipper). Leavemessagesfor Andy

29$-5966.

Available to write sofware or hardware user

manuals: full time or on contract, your premises

$43.50

Drive, Modem, Accessorie. Lots of orig.

PROGRAMMER seeks work with Databases

EXPERIENCED TECHNICAL WRH'ER

Sybex
New Riders
Sybex

MISCELLANEOUS
Bedford
Amiga Machine Language

RADIO SHACK COLOR COMPUTER, Disk

sticks, 100 programs, 3carrying casesfor disks

h computer. Disk Drive Powersupplies$325
o.b.o. Paul 299-8270.

EXPERIENCED PROGRAMER seekswork

with DBASE Ill Plus, Clipper, BASIC,
FORTRAN, C and Snancial applicatians. 876339$ or Leavemessage

Ohura
Raker/Fice
Thomas

DATABASE
Advanced dBase Ill+ Programing
dBase HI+ Pocket Reference Guide
Understanding RBase

Price

INTEGRATED SOFTWARE

software. Asking $120OBO. Phone322-5924.

Consultant

with complex apphcations 4 amounting

systems. 325-9609.

AUTOCAD
Mastering Autocad 9
Inside AutoCad 9
Advanced Techniques Autocad 9

Managing Your Hard Disk

Hard Disk Companion
Quick Ref.Gde. to Hard Disk Mgnt.

magazinex, 2 joy sticks, accessories, and lots of

Atari 130XE with 1050 Disk Drive 2 deluxe joy

hardware user mamtais. Years of experience

Publisher

HARD DISK MANAGEMENT

Maintenance

(604) 738-9440

Author

Running MS DOS 3rd Edition

Peter Norton's DOS Guide
Mastering DOS

Radio Shack 64K COLOR COMPUTER 2, with aN

Dabble Cooper

DOS

Apple Ile, MonochromeMonitor, 2DD,

3-1/2" Disk labels, 5 colors$5/100; $35/1,000

Call Richard 533-0465.

'

Title

DESKTOP PUBLISHING

APPLE II+ Clane C/w 2 Drives Gemini Star

15X printer, Joystick, soffware 291-6202

excellent condition, $1,200 o.b.o. Word Perfect

and Imagewriter II also aviilable. 224-2568.

0$

BACKUP C-W 5. 40 MB 'aspe, 4 months on

EPSON EQUlTY 11 40 Meg Hard Drive k

Epson FX 286 Wide C
Mnter 4
acowsories. $1,999. 872-3451 eves. dl wknds

::,:.

Software Dealers
to pramote establhhed

Il
]

.,jc.'.

s):

W e make eas
it y
to touch tomorrowl

::::FaiFNo|,Ywi8g::.:.
4N~3::,I::;.f'3'-"",
' :,"':

' 8. BOOKSTORE
6200 University Blvd, Vancouver B.C. 22B-4Z'lI

Denkrl SoftwarePackage.
526-3212.
%he Comlstter Papet Septcqyber 19$$ a39

'?::

386 DREAM MACHINE

Ulitlmate Performance at an
Extremely Low Price

386 Performance
at a 286 Price!

%5~.~ijj': rj:-' ': jg r&p:vj7zs ~~@vjs ' K

' i::NN$+w$w".:;pe

CEX 386/20 IB M

C O MPATIBLE

'80386-20 CPU Running at 20MHz, Owait state.

'Phoenix ROM BIOS
'2MB Static Column
RAM Memoly

CEX 286 I B M AT CO M P A T I BLE

'80288 CPU Running at8cr12MHz.
'AWARD ROM BIOS Ver.3.08 W/built-in setup.
'640K RAMMerncry.

'One1.2MB Rcppy Disk Drive.

'Hercules compatible graphics Card

W/printer port.
'AT Enhanced Keyboard.
Keytrcnics K101)
el Time Clock with
battery backup.
AT Case wilhkeybcard
oweriiurbaldilaliQht
~:i
i~.,l,i,~ti:~,.i,i...,i:~ ~

'One 1.2 MB Floppy

Disk Drive.
'65 MB Hard Drive

with SCSI Controller

graphics Card W/

printer port.
' AT Enhanced Keyboard. 'Keytronic

1 Negebyte ot RAN

I+p

1:1 Interleave factor.

'Hercules compatible

Special Features
1200 Baud lirdem
Turtle Speed

j~Ilail~

8 Expansion shts.
f24bits/6-1 6bits)
200 Watts CSA/UL approved

power supply.

K101)
'Real time clock with
battery backup.
AT case with keyboardloock, power/turbo/disc light
'14" Amber Monitor
'8 Expansion slots. (2-8bits/1-32bit/5-16bit)

'200 Watts CSA/UL approved power supply.

'80C88
microprocessor operating at 4.77 or 8 MHz (switch selectable)

Amber Monitor Whilta swivel

base.

'8087 numeric data coprocessor socker

'One megabyte
ofrandom access memory
Addup to1024K Memory (512K80ns)
3.5 IIicroflcppy disk drive 720K
Seriel/Paralie PortCard
80287-10 Math Co-processor
MSOOShGW BASIC V3.03

$199
$149

$95

$459
$125

One Year Parts and Labour Warranty

Vancouver office:
1041 West Broadway, Van, B.C. 733-1535

Richmond office:
10-4200 No. 3Road, Rich, B.C. 276-9588
Edmonton ONce:
13222 - 118th Ave., Edmonton, Alberta, T5L 4N4

'Super twisted liquid crystal display with backlight

'80 column text display
640 by 200 pixel graphic display
'Two 720 kilobyte 31/2' microfloppy disk drives (Dual

Floppy Drive Version)

One 720 kilobyte 31/2" micronoppy disk drive and one 20
megabyte Winchester 31/2' hard disk drive (Hard Disk

Version)

95 key low profile keyboard

'Real lime calendar/clock with battery backup
'Built-in rechargeable battery for system power supply
'1200 bps Bell/CCITT Hayes compatible modem
Standard RS232C communication port
'Cenfrontlcs parallel printer port
'RGBI video port

'NTSC composite video aoit

'MS-DOS 3.21,GW-BASIC 3.2,EASY 1.5Word Processor, and utilityprograms

The COUGAR/286 Gives You More Power And Performance......

It Deserves More Than A Second Look.

Elegantly crafted with latest Technology in Design and

Performance, The Cougar/286 Personal Computers runs at
a Blazing Speed of 12 MHz. There are more Standard
features incorporated such as Multimode Graphic Display,up
to 4MB RAM Expendability and more. Totally compatible
with today's MS-DQS, XENIX, Novell Netware Qperating
System and also designed to meet the challenge of
tomorrow.
Test run a Cougar/286 yourself today; only you will
feel the difference and the rest will just be "Love At First

Sight". After all the Cougar/286 is more than just a good

investment, it's also good looldng!!!

giwswiekie

CGRf M

M I CRO SYSTEM INC.

CANADA: 128 S.E.MARINE DRIVE VANCOUVER,

B.C. V5X 2S3

TEL: (604)321-2229 FAX: 604-321-5132
TELEX: 04-508542 OS. MICRO VCR
40 TheComyuter Payer Seyaunber 1988