On-line: COMPUTING
Issue 1, 10th September 1995: UNIX, Intel and 64-bits
ExNet On-line

COMPUTING

News and links; personal, parallel and high-performance computing

UNIX has won the desktop computing battle. Yes, really. Windows NT is an emasculated (Mach) UNIX. All the other UNIX vendors are working together to provide a standard programming model and environment for the top-end of off-the-shelf computing solutions. So why have we not reached portability nirvana yet? With UNIX just starting to embrace 64-bit computing, the UNIX camp has a chance to get its act together. Since Intel must be desperate to keep its future out of the hands of Bill Gates, and the main users of its P7 64-bit CPU chips are likely to be the UNIX and supercomputing communities (which overlap substantially), Intel is proposing to act as a ``neutral facilitator'' along with HP to push this new spec, including a common 64-bit C programming model, for eventual submission to X/Open for endorsement as a standard. Fifty UNIX vendors are involved, including Sun (more) DEC IBM, and Silicon Graphics, and database vendors who potentially have lots to gain, Oracle, Sybase, and Informix. This should be good news for all users and developers. Analysis from UNIX News.

Damon Hart-Davis, Computing Editor dhd@exnet.com.


NEWS
Be Secure or Be Sued, America Online exceeds 3.5 million members, Font of Ideas, Intel's PC Magazines.
LINKS
Yahoo (search), WebCrawler (search by word), Back Issues.
DIARY
Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec, calls for papers, proceedings.

NEWS

Be Secure or Be Sued
According to SunWorld OnLine, ``Companies that don't adequately secure their networks will face the wrath of shareholders and others who stand to lose from information leaks, said a former CIA spy at the Def Con III show [in Las Vegas, USA] in early August.''
America Online exceeds 3.5 million members
According to FutureNet, ``America Online, Inc. announced [7th Sep] hat it now has more than 3.5 million members, making it the largest and most popular online service in the world.'' AOL was founded in 1985.
Font of Ideas
According to FutureNet, Letraset has ``developed a novel means of enabling people to interactively try out fonts from Letraset's extensive Fontek range.'' A Web site allows any of the Fontek fonts to be selected and a text sample typed in to get a feel for the typeface.
Intel's PC Magazines
Intel has a PC magazine on the Web. OK. It's in English and German. OK. It's heavy on graphics and light on content (I had to follow about six links and download a floppy-full of graphics before I found any substantial text). Intel also has ``Directions'' in its first edition, which seems to be more business oriented. Again, too many clicks to get to useful text at the moment, but I expect it to improve.

LINKS

Computing-related links into the Web:
Yahoo (search), Supercomputing Diary, ExWeb (Web publisher).
Other computing news pages/magazines:
Directions (Intel's business PC magazine), FutureNet (general/Internet, daily update), Multimedia Association News (multimedia resources and news), PC Explore (Intel's home PC magazine), SunWorld OnLine (excellent Sun UNIX magazine), UNIX News (weekly update).
Computing companies:
Adaptec (hardware mfr, eg SCSI), Compaq (PCs), Convex (supercomputers), Data General (UNIX), DEC (UNIX, VAX), Fujitsu (semiconductors, supercomputers), Hitachi (semiconductors, supercomputers), HP (UNIX (esp telecomms), printers, test and measurement; humo(u)r, search), IBM (UK), ICL (UK company, UNIX, vertical markets), Informix (databases), Intel (semiconductors, x86 CPUs; P6 info), Novell (PCs, networking, UNIXWare), Oracle (databases; UK), SCO (PC UNIX), Sequent (parallel UNIX), Silicon Graphics (UNIX with visualisation slant, MIPS CPUs). Sun (largest UNIX vendor), Sybase (databases), Tandem (fault-tolerant systems), Teknekron (financial, distributed systems), Texas Instruments (semiconductors such as SPARC CPU), Unisys (software), X/Open (UNIX standards body).
Other links:
WebCrawler (search the Web by keyword), Yahoo (keyword search, all topics), Archie (search for free software by name), Users' own pages, Springboard (ExNet's hot-links page).
Back issues:
1995 September Pilot.
If any of these links are broken (ie the pages cannot be found), please mail me.

DIARY

September 1995:
19--24, Earl's Court, London. Live '95. The consumer electronics show. Tel: +44 171 396 4545.

20--21, New York, NY, USA. Internet and International Trade Conference on using the Internet for import/export, joint ventures, market research and other international trade activity. Contact Assist International for a brochure.

26, by 'phone and Internet. Session 1. Subsequent sessions 31st Oct, 28th Nov, 19th Dec, and Jan 1996. TeleSANS ``SS101: Enhancing Security on SunOS Systems.'' ``A fast-paced, five-part course designed to help you and others at your site learn new ways to improve the security of your SunOS 4 systems and the networks on which those systems sit. And, you don't have to leave your office to participate.'' Mail the organisers for more details.

27, London, UK. ``Start it up with Microsoft Windows '95.'' Tel: Kathy Gibson +44 181 940 8385 or +44 181 490 4000.

October 1995:
2--3, Chicago, IL, USA; 10--11, Washington DC, USA; 23--24 Boston, MA, USA. Internet and International Trade Conference as above, Contact Assist International for a brochure.

4--6, Paderborn, Germany. Third Conference on Mechatronics and Robotics: ``From Design Methods to Industrial Applications.'' For more details see the Web page.

5, New York, NY, USA. ``Parallel Computing: Ready for Prime-Time.'' Why scalably-parallel computing has emerged as key strategic technology for the '90s.

12, Cyberia, London. Wired Buildings. From telecottages to wired buildings; architects and planners think of how to use the Internet for leisure and work. Mail Sally Matrick.

23--26, Cornell, Ithaca, NY, USA. Workshop on Parallel Programming on the IBM SP.

31--2 Nov, Electronic Commerce '95. Barbican Centre, London. New exhibition and conference ranging from EDI to the Web. Contact Lorraine Hall, tel: +44 181 332 0044.

November 1995:
21--22, London, UK. Data Warehousing '95. Tel: +44 181 543 6565. Fax: +44 181 544 9020.
December 1995:
4--8, San Diego, CA, USA. Supercomputing '95.
April 1996:
13--14, Cambridge, UK. International Workshop on Object Representation for Computer Vision. Contact co-chairs Jean Ponce, Martial Hebert or Andrew Zisserman.
May 1996:
6--9, San Jose, CA, USA. ATM '96.

20--23, Atlantic City, NJ, USA. 8th Software Engineering Process Group Conference. The theme of the conference is ``Broadening the Perspective for the Next Century''. The conference will include plenary sessions, invited and contributed presentations, tutorials, panel discussions, and informal birds-of-a-feather (BOF) meetings. Vendor exhibits will also be offered. For more information mail SEI Customer Relations, and see the Web page.

20--26, Crete, Greece. CAiSE 1996. CAiSEs96 is the 8th in the series of CAiSE Conferences which provide a forum for presentation and exchange of research results and practical experiences within the field of Information Systems Engineering. The main theme of the CAiSEs96 Conference is ``Software Engineering Challenges in Modern Information Systems (IS).'' See the Web page (inaccessible at time of writing) or mail Ms Margaret Balothiari for more details.

Calls for papers:
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMPUTER-INTEGRATED MANUFACTURING, a special issue on ``Design and Implementation of Computer-integrated Manufacturing Systems: Integration and Adaptability Issues.'' Deadline 30th October 1995. Guest editors Dr A Gunasekaran, Monash University, Australia and Professor SY Nof, Purdue University, USA.

13--14 April 1996. Intl Workshop on Object Representation for Computer Vision. Contact Jean Ponce or as above.

6--9 May 1996. ATM '96. Send proposals to the Technology Transfer Institute.

Proceedings available:
EANN 95 (International Conference on Engineering Applications of Neural Networks) available here.

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