* To: slug@Warbucks.AI.SRI.COM * Subject: Genera 8.0 Announcement * From: groberts@YUKON.SCRC.Symbolics.COM, jr@YUKON.SCRC.Symbolics.COM * Date: Fri, 2 Mar 90 10:57 EST * Sender: JR@YUKON.SCRC.Symbolics.COM This letter went out in hardcopy to all customers this week. The sales reps also received this letter. If you have questions, please address them to your sales rep, Gary Roberts, or Johanna Rothman. ---- Dear Symbolics Owner, We are pleased to announce the imminent availability of Genera 8.0 for all Symbolics systems. Genera 8.0 is the culmination of a year's effort by the Symbolics Software Products Group to build upon and extend the feature set of Genera 7.4. It includes a full implementation of the new Common Lisp Object Standard (CLOS), as well as numerous other customer-suggested feature enhancements, performance improvements, and bug fixes. Genera 8.0 provides additional benefits to the users of the 36xx family of systems as it incorporates improvements from Genera 7.3 and 7.4, previously only available for Ivory products. Finally, Genera 8.0 is the first release to run uniformly across all Symbolics platforms-- 3600 family, XL400, UX400S, and MacIvory. The implementation of the same feature set across all systems will greatly simplify development for users who work within a mixed-system environment. Genera 8.0 will be sent automatically, in May, to customers who have systems at their site under a warranty or Genera software maintenance contract that is current as of April 2, 1990. Other Symbolics system owners who would like to receive the release should read the attachment to this letter entitled "Information on Ordering Genera 8.0". Please note that distribution kits for previous releases will become unavailable upon the introduction of Genera 8.0, and that support for these earlier releases will end six months later. Customers eligible for Genera 8.0 will receive distribution media, an initial documentation set, and one extra documentation set for each additional five covered systems at a site. Owners of MacIvory and XL400 systems will receive their distribution on QIC-100 cartridge tape. Owners of 36xx family and UX400S systems will receive QIC-11 cartridge tape written on 9 tracks. Please note that neither format can be read on Cipher 4-track tape drives. If you have an older 3600 system with a tape drive that cannot read 9-tracks tapes, contact Symbolics Customer Service at 1-800-824-4263. Below are described some of the features new in Genera 8.0. Support for the Creation of Portable Code: Genera 8.0 supports the Common Lisp Object Standard (CLOS), part of the ANSI Lisp draft standard, for portability of object-oriented Lisp programs. Symbolics support for CLOS includes a Zmacs-based utility for converting existing programs from Flavors to CLOS. The Common Lisp Developer, included in Genera 8.0, is a tool which aids in developing and testing Common Lisp programs on a Symbolics system. A programmer working under the CL Developer is automatically guided toward writing code that conforms to a strict interpretation of Common Lisp (Steele), thus increasing the ability to port the program to any other Common Lisp environment. Genera 8.0 also provides the foundation for CLIM, the new Common Lisp User Interface Management System standard, which will be available from Symbolics as an optional layered product within the next few months. Improved Networking and I/O: Many networking and I/O functions have been extensively rewritten to provide more robust and faster performance, with speed improvements of up to 400 percent in some cases. The Network File System (NFS), the X-Window System client function, handling of character I/O streams, and support of Postscript hardcopy are much faster and more reliable. TCP/IP performance has also been improved. The Sun Microsystems RPC protocol is now available for all systems. Dialnet has been made more robust. Support for "Lisp Server" System Configurations: Symbolics systems can now be accessed as "Lisp servers" across a local area network, allowing workstations such as the SPARCstation 1 to exploit the power of Genera . Genera 8.0 has been designed to support multiple UX400S boards residing in the same Sun system; further information on supported multiple-board configurations and performance will be available in April. New Garbage Collection Option: The programmer may choose to use the new in-place garbage collector, reducing application memory requirements. Improved Documentation: All Genera, layered products, and Ivory system documentation has been extensively rewritten for this release. Material has been reorganized to facilitate lookup of related topics. An all-new tutorial in Genera programming techniques and a completely updated system index have been added. New features are fully documented, and errors from past editions have been corrected. Improvements for the MacIvory: Genera 8.0 continues to increase the integration between Ivory and the Macintosh. Zmail can now read and write mail files in the Macintosh file system; FEP commands are available through desktop menu; and the Genera screen behaves more like a MacIntosh window. Genera can now access CD-ROM drives on the Macintosh SCSI bus, which Symbolics will be using in our future software release distribution strategy. Improvements for the 3600 Family: In addition to the above, 36xx users will be able to take advantage of features previously available only to users of Ivory systems, including a new event-driven scheduler, which can be used to increase program performance; embedding support and development systems, which allows code developed on 36xx systems to run on other Symbolics machines; improvements to the metering interface; and support for Hayes modems and the LPG3 laser printer. Compatibility with Previous Releases: Genera 8.0 provides for a smooth transition for customers now using Genera 7.2, 7.3, or 7.4. Programs currently running under one of those releases will execute under Genera 8.0 without the need for source code modification. Binaries running on XL400, UX400S, and MacIvory systems can run as is, without recompilation, although recompilation is recommended to take full advantage of performance improvements. Programs now running on 36xx systems under Genera 7.2 will also run under Genera 8.0, after recompilation. Layered Products: Most layered products have been updated to fix bugs, to implement customer-requested feature enhancements, and to operate on top of Genera 8.0. Layered products are included in the Genera 8.0 distribution kit for customers who are eligible for updates of those products. Layered product updates are available for: TCP/IP, the X-Window System, NFS, DNA, C, FORTRAN, Pascal, SNA, Joshua, Concordia, Plexi, CLOE, Statice, LPG2/3, and DMP1. These improved product versions will run only on Genera 8.0. Information on Ordering Release 8.0 Genera 8.0 will be sent automatically to customers under current warranties or software maintenance contracts. Please note that all systems at a site must be under current warranties or Genera software maintenance contracts to be eligible for this release. Other customers may arrange to acquire Genera 8.0 by ordering one of the following options. Please contact Symbolics Contract Administration Department at (818) 998-3600 or 1-800-824-4263, or your local Symbolics sales representative, to order. The software support options are: release updates, documentation updates, and a subscription to the Software Services Technical Bulletin; ongoing telephone and electronics mail access to Symbolics Software Support Engineers; 8.0 and layered products. Contact Symbolics Sales for further descriptions of these services. A Note From Symbolics Customer Service In conjunction with the release of Genera 8.0, Symbolics Customer Service is taking the opportunity to streamline a number of our software support policies and procedures. The net impact of these changes will be to increase the efficiency of our service operation and to allow us to provide a higher overall level of service to our customers who are under support contracts. New Call Processing Procedure: Effective March 1, 1990, customers who contact us through our toll-free software support hotline should follow the same procedures as they do for opening hardware service calls. The caller should leave a message for software support engineering with the dispatch operator. The call will be logged, and a support engineer will return your call within two business hours. This new procedure will allow our software support engineers sufficient uninterrupted time to investigate and thoroughly handle your reported problems. Strictly Enforced Service Eligibility Requirements: Symbolics software support policy is, and has always been, to require either a Software Contract Service or a purchase order when providing service. Use of the toll-free hotline, replies to bug reports, and other assistance services, are restricted to customers who are paying for these services. Customers who are not under Software Contract Service may request support services from us on a time-and-materials basis. To do this, you must first supply us with either a blanket purchase order or a purchase order with a "not-to-exceed" hour limit. The "not-to-exceed" limit must be at least ten (10) hours. Please note that in order to receive new software release distributions, all Symbolics systems at your site must be eligible to get the release. The Genera 8.0 distribution will not be sent to customers for whom any of their systems are ineligible, unless Symbolics has agreed in writing that such systems are "deactivated". For All Customers: Symbolics will accept bug reports through electronic mail, facsimile, or U.S. mail from all customers, regardless of their contracted support levels. All customers are encouraged to send bug reports and comments through electronic mail to: CUSTOMER-REPORTS@RIVERSIDE.SCRC.SYMBOLICS.COM. If you do not have access to electronic mail, you may send your reports to: Symbolics, Inc. Attention: Software Support Manager 9600 Desoto Ave. P.O. Box 2154 Chatsworth, California Fax: (818) 998-3735 Customers eligible for a reply should send us the serial number of your Symbolics system. For customers who send their bug reports through electronic mail, use the :Report bug or Debugger:Send Bug Mail facility to automatically include the serial number. Gary Roberts, Genera Marketing Manager Johanna Rothman, Genera Program Manager 0, forwarded,,