A p-code compiler for reducing code size significantly has been announced by Watcom. The C/p16 Compacting and Optimizing Compiler uses interpretive techniques at runtime to execute compacted 16-bit pseudo object code (p16 code). The company claims you can substantially reduce memory requirements on a range of application programs, make execution speed trade-offs insignificant, and improve speed on applications implemented with other C compilers. This product can help you deal with memory constraints such as the DOS 640K barrier, excessive paging under Windows or OS/2, and the hardware limits of embedded systems, and can give you larger application workspaces and smaller executable files.
C/p16 uses a version of the Watcom C compiler that optionally generates either compact p16 code or optimized 80x86 code. The compaction technique used is applied to infrequently executed regions of an application, which minimizes interpretation-caused speed costs at execution time. The frequently used portions of a program are compiled into optimized native 80x86 code.
The package includes the WVideo debugger, linker, execution profiler, make, and librarian. The profiler is used to measure program behavior at run-time; it shows where the program spends its execution time and recommends portions of code for compaction. Some sections of code may be reduced by as much as 50 percent, and overall application code size reduction ranges up to 40 percent.
C/p16 is priced at $5,000, which includes a royalty-free license for the runtime support. Reader service no. 20.
Watcom 415 Phillip St. Waterloo, Ontario Canada N2L 3X2 519-886-3700; 800-265-4555
Borland is now shipping Borland C++, a complete C and C++ programming environment for building DOS and Windows applications. The package contains two compilers -- an ANSI C and a C++ compiler. Borland C++ does not require the Microsoft Windows SDK to develop MS Windows apps.
The package includes Turbo Drive, which allows the compiler and integrated development environment to run in protected mode; Programmer's Platform (Borland's IDE), which includes multiple overlapping windows, mouse support, multifile editor, smart project manager, integrated debugger, and Turbo Help; precompiled headers; the Whitewater Resource Toolkit; and Turbo Debugger for Windows. Borland C++ should retail for $495. Registered Turbo C and Turbo C++ users can upgrade for $149.95; registered users of the professional packages may upgrade for $99.95. Reader service no. 32.
Borland International 1800 Green Hills Rd. P.O. Box 660001 Scotts Valley, CA 95066-0001 408-438-8400
The HyperCard 2.0 Development Kit is now shipping from Claris. The package includes ready-made stacks, tools, fields and templates, extensive documentation, and online help. Both experienced HyperCard users and novices can use the development kit, which sells for $199. Reader service no. 21.
Claris Corp. 5201 Patrick Henry Dr. Box 58168 Santa Clara, CA 95052-8168 408-987-7000
A new software version of Periscope has been released by the Periscope Company. Periscope/EM uses extended memory instead of memory in the lower 640K and requires the use of Qualitas's 386MAX or BlueMAX (Version 5.11 or later). Periscope/EM uses about 300K of extended memory, which is mapped into a 32K footprint between 640K and 1 Mbyte, and is write-protected during debugging.
The company decided to develop the product because the 386 has become a common development environment and this is a less expensive and simpler alternative to purchasing a board. The Periscope/EM software provides source-level and symbolic support for Borland, JPI TopSpeed, Microsoft, and other languages; overlay support for PocketSoft's .RTLink and Sage's PLink; support for debugging large or graphics-intensive applications; and support for debugging TSRs, device drivers, non-DOS programs, and even DOS itself. The product lists for $295. Reader service no. 33.
The Periscope Company Inc. 1197 Peachtree St., Plaza Level Atlanta, GA 30361 404-875-8080; 800-722-7006
The 286 | DOS-Extender for Microsoft C developers is now available from Phar Lap Software. 286 | DOS-Extender allows the creation of multimegabyte, protected-mode applications for MS-DOS without changing development tools or making major source code changes. 286 | DOS-Extender works with the entire Microsoft C toolkit, and is compatible with the CodeView debugger and the Microsoft linker. You can simply relink to move your applications to protected mode, where you can deliver more features and higher performance without the use of overlays or EMS.
In addition to providing more memory for applications, the product also makes extended memory available to the Microsoft C compiler itself, which both allows you to compile larger programs with full optimization and significantly diminishes "out of memory" messages.
The 286 | DOS-Extender gives OS/2 developers the capability to run character-based OS/2 applications under DOS. 286 | DOS-Extender fully supports the XMS, VCPI, and DPMI standards, as well as DLLs and the Phar Lap API (PHAPI). The 286 | DOS-Extender SDK is priced at $495. Reader service no. 22.
Phar Lap Software 60 Aberdeen Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138 617-661-1510
Aspen Scientific has released three software development tools.
Multi-C is designed for creating more structured programs that include light-weight processes and threads under DOS, OS/2, Unix, VMS, and others. Multi-C also provides built-in scheduling, task switching, adjustable priorities, and interthread facilities such as message queues and semaphores.
Formation Desktop is a GUI development tool for creating portable character-mode interfaces. Included are viewports, push buttons, list boxes, icons, radio buttons, scroll bars, and much more. The prompter interface supports full field validation and range checking. Resource and style managers support either in-house or SAA/CUA standards and allow you to port to various operating systems. The company claims that your applications will look like those that run under Windows or Presentation Manager. Don Thomas of DCA in Dayton, Ohio, is using Formation Desktop to redesign their 1ONet interface (a NetBIOS-based network). He told DDJ that Aspen's product "has been extremely useful -- I needed something for porting to Unix and OS/2, and their package is just about it. It allows you to create a windowed user interface with mouse support."
Formation Desktop Designer Version 1.0 is for rapid prototyping and application interface design. After you design your application to your liking, you can save it as a portable resource file and generate program skeleton code and include files to support the interface. With the Designer, you can see the results of your design before you begin coding.
For pricing information, contact the company. Reader service no. 23.
Aspen Scientific Corp. 10580 W. 46th Ave. P.O. Box 72 Wheat Ridge, CO 80034-0072 303-423-8088
PenApps is an application development system from Slate Corporation for the PenPoint operating system recently announced by Go Corporation. The PenPoint operating system will allow people to compute "on the go" by providing mobile, "pen-centric" units for the capture and display of data. PenApps is the first software application package available for PenPoint, and will be used to create vertical applications that can read and write existing database formats through Slate's DAA (Data Access Architecture), an open architecture that allows any existing database to be supported through PenApps. Initially, Slate will provide DAA services for .DBF (dBase III format) and Slate's sample database format.
PenApps features include deferred translation, which allows users to input information in their own handwriting and perform the translation later; targeting, which relieves users of any concern about staying within lines on electronic forms; and SmartFields, which dynamically build choice lists for fields based on user input.
Other components are the PenApps Designer, which allows users to draw a form-oriented user interface with the pen and specify the types and locations of fields; PenApps Filler is for creating new forms, filling out forms, and navigating through existing forms; and PenApps Engine is the library of functions and objects that interact with the user and manage data when the application is running.
The PenApps Developer's Release is priced at $2,500; it includes a free upgrade to the commercial release of PenApps and a free, unlimited license for the PenApps Engine on Go's pilot hardware. Reader service no. 24.
Slate Corporation 15035 N. 73rd St. Scottsdale, AZ 85260 602-443-7322
Braincel is a PC neural-network software package from Promised Land Technologies and runs in Microsoft Excel under Windows 3.0. Unlike rule-based artificial intelligence software, Braincel extracts expertise from data automatically. Promised Land Technologies calls Braincel combined with Excel a "intelligent spreadsheet" that can create forecasts of stock-market prices and sales, failure diagnoses, forecasting of inventory levels, development of new chemical compounds and drugs, analysis of scientific data, and other pattern-recognition tasks.
DDJ spoke with Dave Barstow, an independent consultant in Gainesville, Florida. Dave has been a beta tester for Braincel and uses it in the financial systems he designs for his clients. "It's one of the most useful neural net applications I've seen yet. It embeds nicely into Excel -- I'd venture to say that it's the first add-on application that's more powerful than what it's added to. It has a new learning algorithm termed 'back percolation,' which works better than back propagation in some instances. If a network isn't learning with back prop, you can try back perc."
Braincel works by feeding historical data in ranges in an Excel worksheet through layers of simulated neurons, thus creating a "training set." The net then tries to decode the pattern that leads to the outputs by guessing an outcome and checking the results of the guess against the actual outcome. The process repeats until the net reaches a minimum error goal and is considered "trained." Because Excel allows you to design your own buttons, dialog boxes, and screens, you can create applications that include neural nets. Braincel is available in a royalty-free runtime version for $249. Reader service no. 25.
Promised Land Technologies Inc. 900 Chapel St., Ste. 300 New Haven, CT 06510 203-562-7335
New from Qtool comes CAS, an integrated, interactive tool system for analysis, maintenance, and enhancement of ANSI C and C++ on DOS. Working with any C compiler, CAS includes a code browser, text browser, command-line query utility, and a translator for building a project database.
The code browser is for locating identifiers, defines, numbers, and includes in a project with query results placed in a scrollable list. An external editor can then be used to browse selected files for more context. You can also use the code browser to locate function calls and callers across a project, or to find all function definitions or uses in a single file.
The text browser has built-in language capabilities and allows hypertext-like database searching. You can invoke external editors and other tools through both browsers, and database rebuilds are incremental based on time-stamp. CAS sells for $100. Reader service no. 26.
Qtool Inc. 5814 SW Taylor Portland, OR 97221 503-297-3583
Protocol, a portable terminal communications library for Unix, is now available from Applications Plus. Protocol is designed to handle the communications protocol between hand-held terminals and a Unix host. Until now, users of hand-held technology have had to download to DOS then upload to the Unix host.
For programmers of hand-held terminal programs in a Unix, Xenix, or AIX environment, the advantage of Protocol as a programming tool is that it can save hours of development time. The price for Protocol is $1,895. Reader service no. 27.
Applications Plus 35 Glenlake Pkwy., Ste. 365 Atlanta, GA 30328 404-399-9360
386 users now have access to Mach and the BSD Unix interface through MT Xinu's Mach{386}, a Mach binary release for the 386. The operating system will run on common ATs and compatibles, and requires no AT&T source license. The complete system includes the 4.3 BSD interface, GNU utilities, TCP/IP networking from the Berkeley Tahoe release, NFS, the X Window System Version 11, Release 4, and online documentation.
DDJ spoke with Donn Seeley, a software engineer in Salt Lake City, Utah, who is one of MT Xinu's first customers. He said "It's the closest thing on the market to a real BSD system. I can do all the things I did on my HP 9000 340 system running Mach 2.5. It has all the tools that I could want, and it's a really snappy system. This is what I've been waiting for for a long time -- to be able to use the tools at home that I do at work. Software engineers developing for Suns and the like can use this to develop on smaller, 386 machines."
The Mach operating system, developed at Carnegie Mellon University, was designed in order to enhance Unix and has been adopted as the base technology by the Open Software Foundation. MT Xinu also ships source versions of a Mach operating system, called "2.6 MSD," for the Sun 3, Digital VAX, and 386. Contact the company for pricing. Reader service no. 28.
MT Xinu 2560 Ninth St. Berkeley, CA 94710 415-644-0146
Solution Systems has added a profiler, called Charge, to its Brief Programming Environment. Charge analyzes how much runtime each routine in your program uses, and allows you to view the information as bar graphs, statistics, execution counts, and time measures. Because Charge is a direct interface to Brief, you can go right into Brief to edit your source code. The price for Charge is $99.
Also available from Solution Systems is the release of Sourcerer's Apprentice, Version Control for the Professional. This product allows you to maintain a record of each version you create as you make revisions to your work. The branching feature allows you to create alternate lines of development on individual modules, such as when a module requires operating-system-specific code in order to be ported to another operating platform. The product sells for $349 to Brief owners and $499 to others. Reader service no. 29.
Solution Systems 372 Washington St. Wellesley, MA 02181 617-337-2313; 800-821-2492
Paradigm Systems has released new versions of their Locate and TDREM (Turbo Debugger Remote Interface) packages for embedded systems using the 80x86 and NEC V-Series microprocessor families. These tools give needed support to Microsoft and Borland language products for embedded applications by supplying the technical interfaces that are required in order to use in-circuit emulators, EPROM programmers, and the Borland Turbo Debugger with Microsoft and Borland compilers.
Paradigm Locate takes relocatable output from Microsoft C, Turbo C, or Turbo C++ and converts it to an absolute format with optional debugging information. After debugging, Locate can prepare output files in formats suitable for download to an EPROM programmer. Enhancements to this release include full C++ support, automatic peripheral register initialization, address space partitioning, and full debug information control.
TDREM emulates the Turbo Debugger interface and makes the full set of Turbo Debugger capabilities available to observe and control the application executing on the target system. TDREM is designed to be adapted to meet the individual requirements of the target system hardware. The TDREM kernel can be built with any of the Microsoft or Borland C compilers. Once configured and built, application software can be developed using Microsoft C, Turbo C, or Turbo C++. Locate 3.0 sells for $395 and TDREM 2.0 sells for $195. Lower-cost upgrades are available. Reader service no. 31.
Paradigm Systems 3301 Country Club Rd., Ste. 2214 Endwell, NY 13760 607-748-5966
Copyright © 1991, Dr. Dobb's Journal