Tenon Intersystems : Press Release

MachTen: Tenon's UNIX, MACH, And X Tools Change The Economics Of Corporate Computing

Santa Barbara, CA, September 21, 1993. Tenon Intersystems is now shipping two new versions of MachTen. Personal MachTen, Release 2.1, is affordable Unix software that runs on every Macintosh. Professional MachTen, Release 2.1VM, turns a low-cost Macintosh into a full featured computing environment tantamount to that found in larger workstations and minicomputers. This week, at Unix Expo in the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City, Tenon Intersystems will demonstrate the new MachTen software.

MachTen on low-cost Macintosh hardware changes the economics of corporate computing. Tenon's software gives application developers a new set of cost and performance options by offering sophisticated tools on platforms that are one-third to one-fourth the price of previous application support platforms. With MachTen, a Macintosh can be an X terminal, a Unix/Mach workstation, an X development platform, and a platform for standard Macintosh productivity applications.

MachTen is a 4.3BSD Unix with a Mach 2.5 microkernel. Both MachTen packages include software development tools and the full TCP/IP protocol suite, with file transfer, electronic mail, and telnet, as well as r-series, UUCP, and SLIP communications, NFS client and server software for enterprise-wide file sharing, and Unix remote printer spooling for printer sharing. MachTen TCP communications are supported, not only across EtherTalk and LocalTalk, but also over Token Ring. An expanded Control Panel lets you configure your network in a Macintosh-style dialog box.

Professional MachTen provides a demand-paged virtual memory protected environment for Unix and Mach applications. The Professional software development tools include an ANSI-standard TCU compiler, a C++ compiler, a source debugger, lex and yacc, as well as support for Mach C threads and Mach ipc.

MachTen X Window software features X client software, Motif libraries, and X server software. The MachTen X Window Client software is a powerful tool for developing X Window applications. The MachTen X client software contains a set of X11R5 programming libraries (e.g. Xlib, Xt, Xau, Xext, Xi, Xtest, phigs, and PEX5), Athena widgets and utilities (e.g. Xaw, Xmu, and Xdmcp), and configuration files (the imake configuration system). Motif programming libraries are provided containing the Motif widget library and Motif window manager.

MachTen X Window Server software supports user configurable X rooted windows, as well as rootless Macintosh and Motif-style windows with individualized window settings. Standard MachTen cut-and-paste desktop operations conform to the X Consortium standard Inter-Client Communications Conventions Manual (ICCCM) which aligns X11 service requests with Macintosh cut, paste and copy operations. The X Server conforms to X11R5 and supports networked font servers as well as new X font formats, such as the Portable Compiled Format.

Tenon Intersystems, founded in 1989, extends and enriches desktop software environments with workstation-class communications and software development tools.