Prime and CV deal with Medusa Prime Computer and Computervision have reached an agreement over the future of the Medusa 3D solid modelling package. Medusa'was developed by Cambridge Interactive Systems Ltd, which Computervision bought last year. Under the agreement, Prime buys joint ownership of Revision 4 of the package and both companies will be able to market it worldwide from June this year. The cost of the sale has not been disclosed. (Prime Computer (UK) Ltd, The HounslowCentre, 1 Lampton Road, Hounslow, Middlesex TW3 lIB, UK. Tel: 01-572 7400. Tx: 938371. Computervision Ltd, Computervision Centre, Central House, New Street, Basingstoke RG21 IAA, Hants, UK. Tel: (0256) 58133. Tx: 858554)
Automating system development
Polaroid's A utoprocess 35 mm instant slide system in use
Instant slides Polaroid has launched an instant 35 mm slide processing kit. Using special film and a portable processing unit weighing 0.6 kg, slides can be produced without the need for a darkroom or special temperature control. Development time is 60 - 120 s. Three types of film are available, one colour and two
black and white (one high contrast and one continuous tone). Processing temperature latitude is 60 - 85 C. The Autoprocessor costs about £100, including special slide mounter. (Polaroid (UK) Ltd, Ashley Road, St A/bans,
Herts ALl 5PR, UK. Tel: (0727} 59191. Tx: 263246)
Motorola announce graphics processor Motorola has introduced a colour graphics processor module as part of its range of Versamodule products. The M68KVM40 uses an on-board MC68000 to provide 512 x 384 pixels, eight colours/pixel, with 400 colours available for graphics fill. A set of 56 standard graphics primitive commands is supported, to which the user may add others as either firmware or on RAM. (Motorola Ltd, 88 Tanners
180
Drive, Blakelands, Milton Keynes MKI4 5BP, UK. Tel: (0908) 61414)
Apollo launches floating point node Apollo Computer have added a new
workstation with integral floating point unit to their DN range. In addition to the standard four arithmetical functions, the DN320 also performs sin, cos
The SMX-Cogitor is an interactive problem solver and program generator from Cogitronix of Sweden. The microbased machine can produce abstract solutions to the system problem or complete programs with documentation. Cogitronix claim that anyone can use the machine after only a few days training. SMX-Cogitor is available in colour and black-and-white versions. Prices start from $12 000. (Cogitronix
AB, PO Box 121, S-182 12 Danderyd, Sweden. Tx : 11296)
and square root operations. The workstation has 1.5 Mbyte main memory and a 16 inch monochrome display with a resolution of 1024 x 800 pixels. Apollo have also announced a 70 Mbyte Winchester disc for the DN300 and 320 workstations, and 60 and 167 Mbyte disc for the DN460 and 660 nodes, The DN320 floating point workstation costs about £20000. The 70 Mbyte Winchester is £11 000-£12 500; the 80 and 167 Mbyte discs cost £10875 and £14615. (Apollo Com-
puter (UK) Ltd, Bulbourne House, Gossoms End, Berkhamsted, Herts HP4 3LP, UK. Tel: (04427) 75026)
computer-aided design