December 1990 - COMMUNICATIONS AND CONNECTIVITY


FEATURES

CONTROLLING BACKGROUND PROCESSES UNDER UNIX


by Barr E. Bauer This system, chiefly written in Bourne shell script, "user-izes" the management of background processes that run locally and across a network.

DESIGNING AN OSI TEST BED


by Kenneth L. Crocker and Michael T. Thompson Ken and Michael discuss the synchronous communications device drivers that play a key part in the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) test bed they helped design and implement.

THE MACINTOSH COMMUNICATIONS TOOLBOX


by Don Gaspar Apple's Communications Toolbox includes connection, terminal, and file transfer managers for constructing dynamic communications applications.

ALGEBRAIC CODES FOR ERROR DETECTION AND CORRECTION


by Hsi-Chiu Liu One of the most efficient methods of error detection and correction is algebraic coding, which requires only a minimal amount of bit redundancy in forming code words.

SUPERCHARGING SEQUENTIAL SEARCHES


by Walter Williams Here's a simple algorithm that can speed up a sequential search


by a factor of two or more.

EXAMINING ROOM

EXAMINING THE ZINC INTERFACE LIBRARY


by Gary Entsminger The Zinc Interface Library is a C++ class library for constructing graphics- and text-application interfaces.

PROGRAMMER'S WORKBENCH

A DATABASE SYSTEM FOR AUTOMATING E-MAIL


by Chris Olsen Chris presents a message storage and retrieval system for electronic mail built around Borland's Paradox database engine.

COLUMNS

PROGRAMMING PARADIGMS


by Michael Swaine Michael wraps up loose ends that have come unraveled over the past year.

C PROGRAMMING


by Al Stevens Al examines, updates, and balances a B-tree he first presented last spring.

STRUCTURED PROGRAMMING


by Jeff Duntemann Who knows what evil lurks behind those traditional menu-tree applications? Event-driven architectures may mean you don't even have to ask the question.

PROGRAMMER'S BOOKSHELF


by Ray Duncan If you're starting up or restructuring your business, Ray recommends a small, but important, book called Peopleware.

DEPARTMENTS

EDITORIAL


by Jonathan Erickson

LETTERS


by you

SWAINE'S FLAMES


by Michael Swaine

PROGRAMMER'S SERVICES

OF INTEREST


compiled by Janna Custer