The LightWorks Application Development System (ADS) is available for
all major development platforms, including all
popular UNIX platforms, all Microsoft Windows environments and Macintosh
systems. More info from
sales@lightwork.co.uk
The Workspace maintains all local design changes, allowing users
to work independently while communicating
with Commonspace. Pro/INTRALINK provides an open set of APIs
in the Pro/INTRALINK Toolkit for the access, query, and
manipulation of data. The Web-based interface allows dynamic access
and query through a common interface, the Web
browser. More info from http://www.ptc.com
Want Ads
++
Get 38,000 impressions per month from upFront.eZine's
classified advertising for just US$35.00. Employment Wanted
ads are always free. For pricing info on Employment
Available and other classified ads, email
ralphg@xyzpress.com
HLB Technology's CAD SuperStore: If you need 3rd PARTY ADD-
ON SOFTWARE for MicroStation, CADKEY, DataCAD or AutoCAD you
should check us out at http://www.hlbtech.com
If you need something to make your CAD easier, faster
and more productive, then there's everything from 3D Image
Libraries to Complete Drafting Package add-ons.
[65]
Employment Available: New, rapidly growing computer graphics
development company is hiring in New Hampshire, USA.
Software engineers wanted with Windows Visual C++ experience
required. CAD or 3D graphics experience preferred.
Email your resumes to steve@a3ds.com or send by mail to
Applied 3D Science, 32 Daniel Webster Highway - Unit 9,
Merrimack, NH 03054.
[64]
Gifts In Kind International is the leading charity in the
field of product philanthropy, helping companies donate
product efficiently and effectively to charities and schools
in your home town and around the world. In the past decade,
nearly US$1 billion in newly- manufactured product has been
contributed to more than 50,000 charities and schools
worldwide. For more info: http://www.giftsinkind.org/
[64]
CAD and Internet News Headlines
++
ADDA: The National Design Drafting Contest encourages
students to excel in their drafting discipline for manual
drafting, CAD, architectural, architectural rendering,
machine, mechanical, technical illustration, and civil. More
info, email national@adda.org
Autodesk England: The UK upgrade price from any version of
AutoCAD will be £495 (US$800) till the end of September,
then it will go up to £695 (US$1,125). From the 1st of
November, Release 9 and R10 users will have to pay for a
full AutoCAD (£3,150 or US$5,150) to upgrade! Also from the
1st of November no one will be able to buy R12.
-- Report by Martyn Day, editor, CADdesk magazine
Autodesk North America: AutoCAD LT has been licensed by
500,000 users worldwide since its introduction in December,
1993. According to Autodesk, "this represents the largest
installed base for any Windows-based, low-cost, 2D,
computer-aided design software over US$100." Autodesk
continues to insist that LT users "receive 100 percent
drawing file compatibility with AutoCAD Release 13, 12 and
11."
Bentley Systems: A partnership with local chapters of the
AIA (American Institute of Architects) has Bentley providing
content and sponsorship of meetings. In addition to hosting
meetings, rebates of up to US$250 are available to AIA
members of Bentley software products. More info from
http://www.bentley.com
CadPLUS: InfoEngine for AutoCAD R13 and R14 is now faster
and adds attribute management. More info from
http://www.cadplus.com
CAD Studio: VRMLout.ARX is an AutoCAD ObjectARx application
for VRML export from AutoCAD Release 13. A version for
Release 14 is due soon. The product is free from
http://www.cadstudio.cz/vrmlout.htm For more info, contact
Vladimir Michl <cad@traveller.cz> of CAD Studio
Intel: Digital Equipment has said Intel misappropriated the
following patents found in Digital's Alpha CPU:
+ Cache memory architecture.
+ Memory access conflict resolution.
+ Branch prediction.
+ Register mapping.
+ Byte comparison.
+ Subroutine return prediction.
The day after, Cyrix said Intel had copied these patents:
+ Register naming.
+ Power management.
Digital has asked for a halt to shipments of Intel CPUs and
monetary compensation. In reaction, Intel has now filed suit
against Digital Equipment, alleging DEC refused to return
confidential information in Digital CPUs and personal
computers. DEC says Intel's suit is without merit.
Microsoft: According to the Internet daily, TipWorld,
Microsoft is reportedly deciding whether to get out of the
Internet access business. Apparently, the big headaches are
customer complaints about e-mail delays and billing
problems.
Novell: Reported an unexpected loss for the latest quarter
and will cut 1,000 jobs.
Silicon Graphics: VRML was founded on one of SGI's file
formats and now the company has purchased one of the more
aggressive VRML programming houses. ParaGraph International
will become part of a new business unit called Cosmo
Software and will handle SGI's Internet software
development. More info from http://www.sig.com and
http://www.paragraph.com
Share Prices
++
Intel shares fell $21 upon news that its earnings for the
current quarter would be lower than expected.
At close of business Monday, 3 June, 1997, some share
prices were:
Company Symbol Price Change
----------------------------------------------------------
Autodesk ADSK 38 7/8 0
Corel COSFF 6 3/16 +5/16
Computervision CVN 4 7/8 +1/8
IBM IBM 87 1/8 +5/8
Intergraph INGR 7 1/16 0
Microsoft MSFT 124 3/8 +3/8
PTC PMTC 45 1/16 +3/16
-----------------------------------------------
CAD and Internet Books Due out in June
++
"The CAD Rating Guide" by W. Bradley Holtz
List Price: currently unknown (hardcover);
Publisher: Pennwell Publishing
For more info or to purchase on-line:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0878146954/XyzpublishingltdA/
"CAD System Engineering: From Theory to Practical
Applications" by Wolfhard Lawrenz
List price: US$69.95; hardcover (incl. diskette)
Publisher: Springer Verlag
For more info or to purchase on-line:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0387949399/XyzpublishingltdA/
"AutoCAD Transition from 12 to 13" by Stephen Ethier and
Christine Ethier
List price: US$26.67
Publisher: Prentice Hall
For more info or to purchase on-line:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0137547552/XyzpublishingltdA/
"Modeling and Visualizing Interiors: AutoCAD R13" by
Kingsley K. Wu
List price: $48.00
Publisher: Prentice Hall
For more info or to purchase on-line:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0135309328/XyzpublishingltdA/
Highlights from the R14 News Group
++
To take part in the AutoCAD Release 14 discussion group,
point your news reader to
news://adesknews.autodesk.com/autodesk.autocad.r14general
Stay away from the TrueType fonts, if at all possible. Stick
with the SHX fonts and your object selection speed will be
instantaneous. As soon as the TTFs are in the drawing,
object selections were taking me a minimum of 1.5 seconds.
-- Chris J. Adams <cjadams@crplumbing.com>
Selecting TrueType text is slow and osnap uses the selection
set process. Fixing this problem is not easy, and I am sorry
to say that I don't think that Autodesk will provide a fix
in the near future.
-- Christal Elliott, Autodesk
3D solids in AutoCAD are ACIS objects. The documentation of
ACIS objects (SAT file format) should be available at
www.spatial.com. To find out how ACIS objects are saved in
DWG/DXF, byte-compare a SAT file and the correspondent
DXF/entget contents.
-- dietmar_rudolph@compuserve.com (Dietmar Rudolph)
Letters to the Editor
++
Some readers get our little newsletter with a =20 at the end
of each line. There was some discussion on the Boston
Computer Society mailing list -- one of upFront.eZine's many
remailers -- about how to get rid of them, or prevent them
in the first place. Here is one solution from Shelly Liebman
<LSMarket@flash.net>:
"I use Office97 with Microsoft Outlook. When I first
open a message, I can see the =20 at the end of every line
but Outlook tries to do smart formatting of messages through
Word. It usually takes a few seconds of the hourglass, but
then all the =20s disappear. Interestingly enough, it also
tries to determine which carriage returns are artificial vs.
actual ends of paragraphs and reformats those paragraphs
too. Most of the time it works well, sometimes it doesn't.
"Anyway, it seems that the =20s can be filtered out
from the mail reader software. This doesn't mean that
everyone should run out and buy Office97, but I think it
does add an interesting piece of data to the problem."
Thanks Shelly. Does anyone have a suggestion for preventing
the eye-numbing =20s in the first place?
Jargon Watch
++
From Christopher Conte via the BCS mailing list, how to
decode the wording used by press releases, product
brochures, and advertisements:
ADVANCED DESIGN - The advertising agency doesn't
understand it.
ALL NEW - Parts not interchangeable with previous design.
ALL SOLID-STATE - Heavy.
BREAKTHROUGH - We finally figured out a way to sell it.
BROADCAST QUALITY - Gives a picture and produces noise.
BUILT TO PRECISION TOLERANCES - We finally got it to fit
together.
CUSTOMER SERVICE ACROSS THE COUNTRY - You can return it
from most airports.
DESIGNED SIMPLICITY - Manufacturer's cost cut to the bone.
DIRECT SALES ONLY - Factory had big argument with
distributor.
DISTINCTIVE - A different shape and color than the others.
EXCLUSIVE - Imported product.
FIELD-TESTED - Manufacturer lacks test equipment.
FOOLPROOF OPERATION - No provision for adjustments.
FUTURISTIC - No other reason why it looks the way it does.
HAND-CRAFTED - Assembly machines operated without gloves
on.
HIGH ACCURACY - Unit on which all parts fit.
HIGH RELIABILITY - We made it work long enough to ship
it.
IT'S HERE AT LAST! - Rush job; Nobody knew it was coming.
LATEST AEROSPACE TECHNOLOGY - One of our techs was laid
off by Boeing.
MAINTENANCE-FREE - Impossible to fix.
MEETS ALL STANDARDS - Ours, not yours.
MICROPROCESSOR CONTROLLED - Does things we can't explain.
MIL-SPEC COMPONENTS - We got a good deal at a government
auction.
NEW - Different color from previous design.
NEW GENERATION - Old design failed, maybe this one will
work.
PERFORMANCE PROVEN - Will operate through the warranty
period.
RE-DESIGNED - Previous faults corrected, we hope.
REVOLUTIONARY - It's different from our competitors.
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED - Manufacturer's, upon cashing
your check.
SMPTE BUS COMPATIBLE - When completed, will be shipped
by
Greyhound.
UNMATCHED - Almost as good as the competition.
UNPRECEDENTED PERFORMANCE - Nothing we ever had before
worked THIS way.
YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT - We finally got one that works.
Notable Quotable
++
"The big question for Microsoft is whether corporate users
really want the browser to become their desktop."
-- David Coursey in Inter@ctive Week, 19 May, 1997.