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UX400S product backgrounder
Contact: Susan Zellmann-Rohrer
Symbolics, Inc. 617-221-1021
Diane Smestad
Sterling Hager, Inc. 617-259-1400
Product Backgrounder
THE SYMBOLICS UX400S BRINGS GENERA DEVELOPMENT
ENVIRONMENT
TO SUN WORKSTATIONS
The Symbolics UX400S is a coprocessor designed to work with most
disk-based Sun-3 and SPARC-based machines, allowing the
Symbolics Genera operating system to run within the UNIX
environment. Genera is an advanced object-oriented software
environment for the development and delivery of complex
applications.
The UX400S integrates Genera with the UNIX-based SunOS. Genera
applications appear within the host Sun window system just as
native UNIX applications do, and a variety of standard network
services, including X Window System, NFS, the Network Filesystem
protocol, and RPC, a remote procedure call protocol, are provided to
facilitate seamless communication between the two systems. This
high level of integration enables developers to leverage the extensive
library of software applications and fast I/O available with UNIX as
well as the unequaled software development environment available
with Genera.
The Genera Software Environment
Providing an open architecture and highly integrated development
tools, Genera helps software designers get from prototype to product
faster and more efficiently. The development methodology
supported by Genera could be described as rapid productizing, the
fast, efficient evolution of software from early working versions to
the final product, which dramatically shortens development cycles
for complex projects.
Genera encourages incremental refinement of programs. The
development tools, which are tightly coupled due to Genera's unique
object-oriented memory architecture, operate on individual
definitions instead of files. All processes in Genera operate within a
single, vast virtual memory, which is treated as a set of objects,
rather than bits or bytes. This high level of abstraction allows
programmers to design flexible programs with general-purpose data
structures. As a result, these programs can integrate smoothly with
other programs and can be refined, reused and extended more easily.
Combining Proven Technologies
Designed as an add-in coprocessor for most disk-based Sun-3 and
SPARC-based machines configured with 9U VME slots, the UX400S
integrates Symbolics' Ivory microprocessor and Genera software
environment with the UNIX-based SunOS. A complete
implementation of a symbolic processor on a single VLSI CMOS part,
Ivory is based on a 40-bit tagged architecture to support Genera's
object-oriented memory model. The Ivory microprocessor also
features comprehensive run-time checking and hardware support for
safe, efficient Common Lisp function calls, particularly the generic
function calls prevalent in object-oriented programs.
The Genera operating system offers extensive network facilities and
integrates easily into heterogeneous, multivendor environments. It
includes protocols and services to support many different operating
systems and automatically chooses the best protocols, hosts, and
routes to obtain a requested service. In a number of network
protocols common to UNIX systems, including TCP/IP, FS, RPC and X
Window System, version 11.
Symbolics' Proven Object-Oriented Software
The UX400S provides an advanced programming environment which
supports proven object-oriented building blocks:
Joshua -- Proven software for building and delivering
expert system applications, Joshua gives developers the flexibility
needed to develop real-world applications and modify them quickly
and easily as requirements change.
Symbolics Concordia -- An object-oriented system for
hypertext document development and delivery, Symbolics Concordia
helps solve documentation problems too complex for conventional
technology.
Statice -- The first commercially available object-
oriented database system designed to support multiple users, Statice
enables users to store and share objects across a network.
CLOE -- Sophisticated software which allows
applications developed under Genera to be delivered on Intel 80386-
based personal computers, CLOE support both UNIX and MS-DOS(
operating systems and provides demand-paged virtual memory for
the DOS environment to support large applications.
PLEXI -- A development environment for constructing
neural networks, Plexi provides a graphical interface, including icons
and pull-down menus, which makes it easy to create, modify and
train neural networks.
MACSYMA -- Macsyma is a computer-aided
mathematics program which combines symbolic and numerical
analyses into an automated approach to mathematical modeling.
Hardware Features and Options
The standard UX400S configuration includes the Ivory processor
board complete with VMEbus interface, two or four megawords (10
MB or 20 MB) of Ivory main memory and Genera delivery software.
The full Genera development system and a Floating Point Accelerator
may be purchased as options.
The main memory stores 40-bit words, (plus 8-bit error correcting
codes), and is connected to the pipelined Ivory processor bus. A
Symbolics memory expansion board is available, providing up to
eight megawords (40 MB) of additional memory. The system boards
conform to the 9U X 400 mm Eurocard form factor and VMEbus
specification (Revision C.1).
Service
Symbolics will provide hardware maintenance for the UX400S and
software support for all Company products. Extensive consulting
services ranging from application design to implementation are also
available from Symbolics. Sun Microsystems will provide
maintenance on all Sun workstation hardware, as well as software
support for the UNIX operating system and all Sun application
products.
Symbolics Inc., headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, and with
operations in Chatsworth, California, is the leading manufacturer and
marketer of symbolic processing systems for the development and
delivery of complex, strategic applications. The company's stock is
traded over the NASDAQ national market system (SMBX).
Sun Microsystems, Inc. headquartered in Mountain View, California,
is a leading manufacturer and marketer of UNIX-based workstations.
Symbolics UX400S, MacIvory, Ivory, Joshua, Symbolics Concordia,
Statice, CLOE and Symbolics are trademarks and Genera and
MACSYMA are registered trademarks of Symbolics, Inc.
Sun Microsystems, NFS, Sun-3, SunOS and SPARC are trademarks of
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T.
X Window System is a trademark of MIT.
Plexi is a trademark of Plexi Software, Inc.