Very Computer

February 12, 1997

The PicLan-IP Web Server initial beta release is now available for
Mentor Pro 4.0-4.1.  The posting for AP/Pro 6.1 should occur late
Thursday 2/13/97.  Other Pick platforms should begin surfacing at the
beginning of next month.

Information about this beta is available on-line at
http://apweb.piclan.com (which is an AP/Pro system running the
software) or is available from Modular Software via email

http://apweb.piclan.com also includes documentation, configuration
information, and programming details.

The beta release is protected by an "activation code" which is
required to start the TCP/IP protocol stacks.  If you would like to
participate in this open beta, please email the following information

  Name:
  Company:
  Address:
  City:
  State:
  Zip:
  Country:
  email address:
  Telephone:
  Fax:
  O/S version:
  System CPU:
  System RAM:
  System Disk:

You will also need to email your system's PicLan Software serial
number.  This number is available by executing the PL-STAT command on
the Pick host.

  PicLan Serial Number:

If you have any questions or comments, please address them to:

  Doug Dumitru
  Modular Software Corporation
  24872 Nellie Gail Road
  Laguna Hills, CA  92653  USA

  714 831-4774

We are also building an email list of individuals who are interested
in future PicLan-IP announcements.  If you would like to be added to

Doug Dumitru

http://modsoft.com
http://apweb.piclan.com

Fellow Pickers,

This is the most exciting product in the Pick market that I have seen
since AP was released!  We are running the beta PicLan-IP Web Server for
AP/PRO.  It works great with the sample files (they came right off the
actual Internet site.)

In a few days I will report back after testing web pages that we have
created.  Then we'll try the direct database access.

I attended a seminar this week on Unidata's Redback.  Redback is a full
web development environment running under Unix or NT.  It uses a modified
CGI to interface with databases (Unidata or Universe).  PicLan-IP could
be considered a more basic environment, but it has DIRECT access to the
database (i.e. speed of access).  It also gives us Pick programmers the
ability to develop Windows/Mac/etc front-ends to our Pick data through
the use of Pick Basic and HTML (no VB, ODBC, etc, etc necessary).  The
approach has to be different since you can't use traditional record
locking.

Those are my thoughts so far.  I'll report back after we have had time to
experiment a bit.  In the meantime, check out Modular's APWEB site noted
below.

George Shaunfield
AccounTron
Houston, TX

Terry Pennington
Mukilteo WA USA