From: info@Perspecta.COM (Perspecta Software Inc.)
Subject: Low-cost full-function presentation package for Unix workstations
Followup-To: poster
Organization: Motorola Computer Group, Schaumburg, IL
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 19:23:12 GMT

       PERSPECTA SOFTWARE INTRODUCES FULL-FUNCTION, INEXPENSIVE 
             PRESENTATION PACKAGE FOR UNIX WORKSTATIONS

 (Demo version available on ftp.uu.net in "vendor/perspecta".  Send email)
 (to info@perspecta.com or call 1-800-648-3433 for more information.     )

Berkeley, Calif, October 6, 1992 -- Perspecta Software today
introduced Perspecta Presents!, a low-cost, full-function presentation
package for Unix workstations running the X Window System.  The
product integrates word processing, color graphics, images, and
presentation management capabilities so users can create sophisticated
full-color slides, viewgraphs, or on-line slide shows.

Perspecta Presents! will sell for $299, one third the price of
competing products.

Users of the Berkeley-based start-up's debut product can create
presentations featuring multiple backgrounds and speaker notes.
Slides can contain text with multiple fonts, geometric shapes with
color blending, and images in a variety of formats, for example, GIF,
EEPS, PICT, and TIFF.  Each slide has a background that can contain
borders, logos, color backgrounds, and computed text such as page
numbers and dates.

Perspecta Presents! uses a Motif look and feel with keyboard shortcuts
and a "speedbar" for common operations to reduce the time required to
edit slide items and style attributes.  The product runs on all major
UNIX workstations including Sun Sparcstations and compatibles, IBM
RS6000s, HP PA-RISC, and DECStation 3100s and 5000s.

The product supports a variety of output options including 35mm
slides, viewgraphs, audience handouts with several slide images per
page, and speaker notes with a miniature slide image and presentation
reminders.  It also supports all color and black/white postscript
output devices including printers and film recorders.

Bob Kridle, President and CEO of XiNET, Inc., a Macintosh/UNIX
resource- sharing software vendor, said, "Our line of business demands
a high volume multimedia presentations.  After trying other products
that were either too expensive or too slow, we found Perspecta
Presents! to be a 'lean-and-mean' tool that gives us the ability to
build powerful presentations quickly and easily."

"We developed Perspecta Presents! for people who want flexible,
feature-rich workstation tools at attractive PC prices.  The further
value added is that users can easily extend and customize the package
to meet their needs," said Larry Rowe, Perspecta President and CEO.
"Extensions might be as simple as adding a new keyboard accelerator
for a commonly used command sequence, or as complex as creating a new
function for the program."

This flexibility is achieved because Perspecta Presents! is written
using the Tool Command Language (Tcl, pronounced "tickle") which is a
scripting language and the Tcl Toolkit (Tk) which is a graphical user
interface toolkit.  For example, a user could create a Tcl/Tk program
that can read a database and create a new slide or modify the contents
of an existing slide by sending Tcl commands to Perspecta Presents!
Or, a program could control copies of Perspecta Presents!
simultaneously displaying an on-line slide show on different machines
at different sites on a network.

Besides its intuitive "point-and-click" Macintosh- or Window-style
interface, Perspecta Presents! offers a number of other easy-to-use
features, some of which include:

1. Multiple windows open at the same time showing slides, backgrounds,
   title sorters, and slide sorters.

2. The capability to reorder, copy, and delete slides using the title and 
   slide sorters which cannot be done easily in most word processing programs.

3. Cutting and pasting within a presentation, between presentations, or to
   other applications using the X intercommunication protocol.

Perspecta Presents! has other features to improve your productivity
including an infinite UNDO/REDO log, named styles that can be used to
maintain consistency across slides, and sophisticated object drawing
commands to align and manipulate items.

The single-license cost of $299 includes a floating license server to
support shared use by workgroups.  Volume discounts and site licenses
are also available.  Perspecta Presents! is currently shipping and may
be ordered by email via info@perspecta.com or by phone on
1-800-648-3433.

A demonstration version can be accessed by FTP on the Internet at
ftp.uu.net in the directory "vendor/perspecta".

Perspecta Software, Inc. is a Berkeley California corporation founded
in 1991 to develop low-cost end-user software for the UNIX market
using the Tcl/Tk toolkit.

Perspecta Presents! is a trademark of Perspecta Software, Inc.  All other
products mentioned are trademarks of their respective manufacturers.
Newsgroups: comp.newprod