From: garth@ObjecTime.on.ca (Garth Gullekson)
Subject: ObjecTime: Object-Oriented Case for Real-Time
Followup-To: poster
Organization: Motorola Computer Group, Schaumburg, IL
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 01:10:36 GMT

Major Enhancements to First Object-Oriented
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CASE Tool for Real-TimeSystems 
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KANATA, Ontario, CANADA, -- ObjecTime 4.0, representing major
enhancements to the first object-oriented CASE tool for distributed,
event-driven systems, was introduced by ObjecTime Limited at OOPSLA'92.
OOPSLA is the Seventh Annual Conference on Object-Oriented Programming
Systems, Languages, and Applications. Support for executable
specification and design models has been enhanced to include real-time
interworking via TCP/IP sockets. For example, this can be used to
control various hardware or software entities directly from an
executing ObjecTime model.

ObjecTime represents a new generation of problem-domain optimized CASE
tools. As Jim McGee, President of ObjecTime Limited explains "ObjecTime
was created to specifically address the needs of "real-time" software
developers. It can be used on a broad spectrum of applications from
high-level architecture and protocol design to detailed design".

ObjecTime supports an advanced methodology for the analysis and design
of distributed, event-driven systems known as Real-Time Object-Oriented
Modeling (ROOM).  ROOM includes graphical design concepts and a
highly-iterative development process which help to eliminate
error-prone discontinuities between the various phases of software
development.  As a unique feature, ObjecTime enables the creation of
executable analysis and design models that can be tested in an
extensive workstation-based run-time environment.

The high-level design concepts supported for real-time include
concurrent objects (hierarchically decomposed) that communicate via
messages through formal protocol definitions. Complex hierarchical
finite-state machines specify the behavior of such objects, via major
object-oriented extensions to the Statecharts formalism.  Inheritance
can be applied at the design component level, independent of the detail
level programming language.

As Garth Gullekson, Vice President of Marketing notes, "Getting early
prove-in of the control architecture of real-time systems is critical.
ObjecTime 4.0 now allows the creation of various networked testbeds for
more realistic prototyping of new systems". This is achieved by the
capability of an executing ObjecTime model to send and receive messages
in real-time (via TCP/IP) to directly control hardware, interlink
multiple ObjecTime models for very large designs, or communicate with
any other UNIX process.

The high-level object-oriented concepts are independent of programming
language. Either C++ or ObjecTime's Rapid Prototyping Language (based
on Smalltalk-80) may be used at the detailed design level.  To broaden
the appeal of ObjecTime's ability to intermix graphical design content
with detailed level programming, 4.0 contains improved C++ support. In
addition to the GNU compiler, CFront from AT&T is now supported.

ObjecTime 4.0 also includes a wide variety of other enhancements,
including more flexible system layering, keyword searching for
requirements traceability and reuse browsing, and graphical support for
large state-machine and object structure diagrams.

ObjecTime is vended by ObjecTime Limited, an independent software
company established as a spin-off from Bell-Northern Research (BNR).
Northern Telecom, BNR's parent, has granted ObjecTime Limited
world-wide license rights to state-of-the-art software design tool
technology developed at BNR's lab in Ottawa, Canada. ObjecTime Limited
develops and markets software design tools for the telecommunications,
aerospace, and manufacturing control industries and was formed from the
group in BNR that originated the technology.

* * *

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: 
 
	Garth Gullekson 
	ObjecTime Limited
	1-800-567-TIME
	sales@objectime.on.ca
Newsgroups: comp.newprod