Desqview/X, a graphical, multitasking, and windowing DOS environment, is shipping from Quarterdeck Office Systems. Desqview/X brings workstation capabilities to stand-alone and networked 386 machines. It features a graphical desktop, scalable fonts, keystroke macros and customizable menus, data transfer, and remote computing. It can run both DOS text and Windows graphics programs in small windows or remotely on other Desqview/X PCs or X workstations.
Desqview/X is the first DOS client/ server implementation of the X Window system incorporating X Window-system graphics and network protocols and Rational Systems' 16- and 32-bit shared DOS-extender technology. Desqview/X comes with a graphical desktop and program organizer; a file manager for either local DOS or remote DOS and non-DOS files; a graphics tool for creating and editing pixmap and bitmap icons; and an outline font manager. The QEMM-386 memory manager and Manifest system and memory reporting tool are bundled with Desqview/X.
The price for Desqview/X is $275.00, $100.00 for registered Quarterdeck users. Reader service no. 21.
Quarterdeck Office Systems Inc. 150 Pico Boulevard Santa Monica, CA 90405 310-392-9851
Autodesk has released HyperChem, molecular-modeling software that allows you to build, analyze, and manipulate three-dimensional molecular structures on the desktop, running under Windows. Besides building and displaying molecular structures, Hyper-Chem can be used to investigate the reactivity of molecules, evaluate chemical pathways and mechanisms, study the dynamic behavior of molecules, and construct proteins and nucleic acids. It offers a selection of classical and semi-empirical quantum-mechanical computational methods. Additionally, HyperChem features an open architecture to facilitate extending and customizing the software.
The suggested retail price is $3500; educational pricing is $595.00. Reader service no. 22.
Autodesk Inc. 2320 Marinship Way Sausalito, CA 94965 800-424-9737
TCXL 6.0., a CUA-style user-interface toolkit, has been announced by Innovative Data Concepts. TCXL has an event-driven architecture combined with virtual windows, virtual memory (supporting EMS, XMS, VCPI, and DPMI) dialog controls, mouse support, and more. TCXL 6.0 allows you to build Windows applications and a C++ front end and contains more than 500 multipurpose functions.
TCXL supports C and C++ compilers from Borland, Microsoft, TopSpeed, Zortech, Watcom, Intel, and MetaWare. It is available for DOS, 286 and 386 protected mode, Windows, OS/2 Presentation Manager, and various UNIX platforms.
The retail price of TCXL for DOS is $99.00. Reader service no. 23.
Innovative Data Concepts Inc. 122 North York Road, Suite 5 Hatboro, PA 19040 215-443-9705
A new version of Dolphin Encrypt, a private-key encryption system that uses an 8-60 character encryption key, is available from Dolphin Software. Dolphin Encrypt can encrypt multiple files in a single operation without limit on size, type, or number of files. Files are compressed during encryption.
Dolphin Encrypt can be run from a batch file to encrypt or decrypt multiple files in multiple subdirectories with a single command. You can encrypt to binary, text, or a script language which allows complex and conditional encryption operations. A recoverability option is included to allow the encryption key to be recovered if it is lost or becomes unavailable.
The encryption algorithm encrypts files at about 8 Kbytes per second and produces encrypted data indistinguishable from random bytes. This is available separately as a C-function library.
Dolphin Encrypt sells for $195.00. A decryption-only version that can be sent to recipients of encrypted material is sold separately. Reader service no. 24.
Dolphin Software 48 Shattuck Square #147 Berkeley, CA 94704 510-464-3009
Advanced Technology for Developers is a new monthly newsletter for developers edited by Jane Klimasauskas and published by High-Tech Communications. The newsletter will feature, among other topics, articles on time-series forecasting; selling neural computing technology; building neural networks to handle unusual events; methods for transforming data that improve performance; neural networks applied to database retrieval; genetic algorithms; consequence theory; fuzzy logic; neurogenetic algorithms; database design for advanced technologies, and statistical process control.
Domestic subscriptions cost $99.00 per year; international subscriptions are $179.00. Reader service no. 25.
High-Tech Communications 103 Buckskin Court Swickley, PA 15143 412-741-7699
Otter Research has released AUTODIF, an array-language extension to C++. AUTODIF incorporates the reverse mode of automatic differentiation to calculate the derivatives of a function of one or many variables. Derivative calculations take no more than five times the time needed to evaluate the function itself, even with hundreds of independent variables, and derivatives are calculated to the same precision as the function itself.
Using AUTODIF's vector and matrix classes, you can produce tight, efficient code for rapid prototyping of nonlinear models. There are no restrictions on allowable code constructions; AUTODIF features backward compatibility with C code so that existing numerical routines written in C can be incorporated in minutes. Included are methods and examples for implementing robust nonlinear regression techniques; sample code for defining and training a feed-forward neural network with hidden layers and nodes; and Quasi-Newton and conjugate-gradient function-minimization routines.
AUTODIF for Borland and Zortech C++ costs $149.00; for the cfront C++ translator for SPARCstations the price is $299.00. Reader service no. 26.
Otter Research Ltd. P.O. Box 265, Station A Nanaimo, BC V9R 5K9 Canada 604-756-0956
Now shipping from The Periscope Company is Periscope/32 for Windows, a source-level debugger for Windows virtual device drivers, Windows device drivers, DOS device drivers, programs running in the DOS box, and other system-level software running in Windows enhanced mode. Periscope/32 runs on a host DOS system connected to a target Windows system, providing the stability necessary for system-level debugging.
Periscope/32 operates at the systems level and is compatible with applications-level debuggers. It aids in determining the cause of Unrecoverable Application Errors and offers easy access to any memory location in the system.
Periscope/32 is priced at $445.00. Reader service no. 27.
The Periscope Company Inc. 1197 Peachtree Street Atlanta, GA 30361 800-722-7006 or 404-875-8080
Lahey Computer Systems is shipping F77L-EM/32 5.0, a 32-bit Fortran compiler that incorporates the Phar Lap 386/DOS-Extender (which supports VCPI, XMS, and DPMI). The DOS-Extender enables the compiler to operate entirely in protected mode so that you can build multi-megabyte Fortran applications that can access all the memory available on a given machine.
The new version has an updated debugger with an intuitive user interface, faster performance, and features that allow you to break and trace execution at specified Fortran statement labels. Arrays can be as large as 2 Gbytes, 255 files can be opened, and substring bounds can be checked. A 486 optimization switch has also been included.
The compiler (which has an interface to MetaWare High C) sells for $1195; upgrades are $250.00. Reader service no. 31.
Lahey Computer Systems Inc. 865 Tahoe Boulevard Incline Village, NV 89450 702-831-2500
New from The MathWorks is MATLAB 4.0, an integrated environment that merges numeric-computation software and a family of application-specific toolboxes with new graphics capabilities. MATLAB allows you to analyze and visualize data; prototype, analyze, and optimize engineering system designs and algorithms; explore new concepts in scientific research; create mathematical models and solve systems of equations; and perform general engineering and scientific computations. Sparse matrix support, flexible file I/O, additional debugging tools, and sound output are new to the version as well.
Also available from The MathWorks is SIMULAB, model-building and simulation software for Windows. SIMULAB is an interactive, intuitive, computer-aided engineering tool for dynamic system simulation targeted at electrical, mechanical, chemical, aerospace, and automotive engineering applications. SIMULAB comprises: a set of tools for modeling and analyzing dynamic systems, including linear, nonlinear, continuous-time, dicrete-time, hybrid, and multirate models; an environment for describing systems graphically in block-diagram form or mathematically by differential and difference equations; hierarchical model structures; on-screen simulation that lets you modify system parameters and solver methods interactively during a simulation; transferring and exchanging of SIMULAB models between platforms; and an expandable built in block library of functions and the ability to include existing models using C, Fortran, or MATLAB code.
MATLAB costs $2995; SIMULAB is $3995. Reader service no. 29.
The MathWorks Inc. Cochituate Place 24 Prime Park Way Natick, MA 01760 508-653-1415
Last month we announced that DDJ is conducting a first-ever contest of handwriting-recognition software. Here's an update with some truly exciting news: Apple Computer is providing a PowerBook 100 as first prize. Many observers agree that the PowerBook series represents the state of the art in mobile graphical computing, so it's only fitting that a contest involving emerging technology begin with the current best of the breed.
Recapping some of the contest details; the contest officially begins on June 15th, when source code, test data, and contest entry blank will be available electronically and by mail. Some components are available now, so contact us now for more information. The deadline for submissions is September 15th. We'll announce a winner in our December 1992 issue.
Remember that you don't need a pen computer or pen operating system to participate in the contest. We've built a platform-independent test harness that, in the most general case, allows you to plug in your C function and check the result.
The core code of the test harness consists of 200 lines of C, and was written by Ron Avitzur to run as a batch process using the standard I/O library functions. This code has been tested on the Macintosh, SPARC, and DOS platforms. On the PC, the code compiles with both Borland and Microsoft compilers.
The harness processes a data file containing stored "ink" (stylus data points). The data in this file represents characters that were captured with an interactive program, from at least a dozen different individuals. The test alphabet consists of alphanumeric characters and some punctuation marks. There are multiple instances of each character, some of which are used for training the recognizer (if your engine requires this), and the rest for testing.
During the training phase, the test harness reads multiple instances of a character and, for each instance, calls your recognizer's training routine, Train(). Then, during the testing phase, the harness calls your recognizer's recognition routine, Guess(), with a different set of instances of each character. Both Train() and Guess() are passed pointers to an in-memory data structure representing the strokes that compose a character. Your routines must know how to parse this data structure. To serve as a guide, we are publishing both the test harness and a sample recognizer that works with that harness. The harness, sample recognizer, and a small data file are all available now.
Of course, it's more fun to work with the system interactively and to visually inspect the data that the system is munching on, but this is not essential to the process. Ron has implemented an interactive ink-capture program that currently runs on the Macintosh and assumes the Wacom digitizer. A version of this program appeared with Ron's article in the April issue of DDJ. That version stored ink data in processed form rather than as raw-data points; now available is an updated version that reads and writes raw ink data files. We are in the process of writing an equivalent program for Microsoft Windows, to be ready by June 15th.
--Ray Valdes
Copyright © 1992, Dr. Dobb's Journal