Jerry Bragstad reports: "Last week, I attended presentations for building contractors and architects. The first presentation was by a local Chief Architect dealer who knew nothing about construction and less about architecture. It was a disaster. I felt sorry for the guy.
"And then there was a presentation of Autodesk's new series of home design products. I was really impressed with 'Picture This! Kitchen.' No manual; the instructions are in a sidebar. No upgrades are in the plans; when Autodesk comes out with an upgrade, you buy the new one and trash the old one.
"Because 'Picture This' can prepare an estimate from the included materials, some contractors at the presentation felt challenged by the idea of a client walking in with a price list of what they were willing to pay for a project. That price list might not include recent price increases for materials or include prices for labor. It will be interesting to see how this works out. But I am sure it will be popular with a lot of people.
"Some thoughts: Traditionally, CAD has been a rather esoteric area of knowledge, strictly aimed at the professionals. They are a relatively small market niche in the world, but they have driven the technology. Now Autodesk has locked on to a segment of the consumer market that -- until now -- was developed by companies whom you wouldn't usually identify as CAD companies. Autodesk is using the technology that was developed for their professional CAD products in a new arena: the retail, non-professional user.
"Broderbund's very successful retail product, 3D Home Architect, is a simplified version of Advanced Relational Technology's (ART) product Chief Architect. I wonder how the total revenues from 3D Home Architect compare to the total revenues from the sales of Chief Architect? I wonder how the new Autodesk home product line will impact the company's revenue stream?"
Construction Business Computer is a monthly 16-page newsletter that provides building contractors with information on using computing to help out in the business. For example, the February issue includes reviews of Remodeler's Add-Vantage and of WriteOn-Estimator for the Apple Newton; discussion of the need (or lack of need) for purchasing software upgrades; understanding export-import of database files; computer-integrated construction; and news items. US$125 per year from +1 (800) 784-0290 or email cbc@bginet.com
Apple Computer: The first DVD-enabled Macintosh systems could appear as soon as late 1997, with several new PowerBook and desktop models expected to be shipping with DVD-ROM by early 1998. Apple plans to integrate DVD-ROM with QTML (QuickTime Media Layer) for integrated audio-video, 3D, and virtual reality technologies, 500 MHz+ PowerPC chip, and the Philips TriMedia multimedia chip. Apple demonstrated the first DVD-enabled Mac last week.
Commodore: From 'BETA Report of the Day' we read: "Got some old games that only work on a C64? Want to remember Commodore's version of the old BASIC programming language? Just want to see that blue screen with light purple letters? CCS64 software is nearly 100% compatible with all your old Commodore programs. CCS64 is available from http://www.mdstud.chalmers.se/ccs64 "
To subscribe to 'BETA Report of the Day', send a blank subject to mgr_cyberlist@cyberianoutpost.com with this message in the body: SUBSCRIBE BETA_REPORT
Computervision Users' Group: Seeking technical papers on a broad range of topics for the upcoming Users' Conference. Submit an abstract no later than March 14, and don't forget to mark August 23-24, 1997 on your calendar for the 1997 Computervision Users' Group Conference in San Diego, California! More info at http://www.cv.com
Eagle Point Software: Now shipping SVT AutoCAD video training tapes for Release 12 and 13. "The First Step" package for R13 consists of 8 VHS videos, eight lesson sets (800 pages) on diskette, and one diskette with drawing files. More info at http://eaglepoint.com
Microsoft: The next version of Internet Explorer (public beta available end of March '97) combines Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer so that user seamlessly browse the Web and computer hard drive "as if it were a Web site." Meanwhile, the state of Texas has started to investigate Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior.
DVD-ROM -- "digital video disk read-only memory." DVD-Rooms look identical to CD-ROMs but hold up to 18GB of any mixture of CD-quality sound, AC-3 surround sound, MPEG-2 video, and computer data. (The current CD-ROM format holds 680MB of content.)
Data communications standards:
SONet -- "synchronous optical network"
Q: "AutoCAD's PsOut command failed to import into MS-Word. It just shows an empty frame with text at the top explaining what type of file it was. It printed the same way, too. What's wrong?"
A: No, PsOut didn't fail. PsOut did exactly what it is supposed to <g>. A PostScript image does not display. That's why the PsOut command has an option for making a preview image in TIFF (I recommend you use the 512x512 size, the largest). That'll give you a rough image for positioning purposes. As for printing a PostScript image, you need a PostScript-compatible device (Adobe Type Manager doesn't work) or software that converts PostScript into HP PCL format.
"A plug-in sound card that costs about $100 is equivalent to a motherboard-mounted sound chip at about $10, and either can be replaced by software for about $1." -- Michael D'Amore, Yamaha America, quoted in InfoWorld.