ANAHEIM, CALIF. -- JUNE 12, 1990 -- AT&T UNIX Software Operation today announced enhancements to UNIX(R) System V Release 4 (SVR4) that give this latest version of the operating system a true international flavor, enabling the operating system and applications to talk to users in French, German, Japanese and other languages.

The announcement was made at the USENIX Trade Show here, where the company also introduced a test suite that helps software vendors make sure their programs conform to international standards.

The UNIX System V Release 4 Multi-National Language Supplement (SVR4 MNLS) increases the versatility of UNIX System V Release 4 by allowing users to communicate with the computer in their native language and by enabling the software developer to produce a single application for all markets. The Country Specific Packages provide localization features to function in a particular country or language.

"SVR4 MNLS and the new versions of our Country Specific Packages will greatly assist German, French or Japanese speaking users in developing software applications, and will enable us to more rapidly expand licensing of UNIX System V Release 4 worldwide," said Larry Dooling, president of the UNIX Software Operation.

Features of the new MNLS offering include extended multi-byte support for UNIX commands with Extended UNIX Code (EUC), a technique for handling up to four code sets (single- and multi-byte) simultaneously; C Multi-byte Character Processing Library, which provides multi-byte analogues and extensions to C library functions; "Curses" Library multiple character support with process codes; and Keyboard/Character Mapping to generate needed characters not provided by the terminal.

SVR4 MNLS will be available later this month in source code for the AT&T 3B2 minicomputer, and will be available in Intel 386 source code in fourth quarter, 1990.

In addition to SVR4 MNLS, the company also announced a new UNIX System V Release 4 European Language Supplement (SVR4 ELS), which provides localization support for European languages for SVR4. SVR4 ELS supports a wide range of terminals and printers, and 18 European languages. SVR4 ELS, which will be available in the third quarter of 1990, can be used in conjunction with MNLS or as a standalone platform with SVR4.

Upgraded to provide messages in Japanese, the System V Release 4 Japanese System Messages (SVR4 JSM) will be available later this month for the AT&T 3B2 minicomputer.

The UNIX Software Operation is planning to offer enhancements to its German System Messages and French System Messages in the future.

Another new UNIX Software Operation source code product demonstrated at USENIX was the UNIX Application Source Verifier (ASV), Release 2.0, which helps developers write portable applications across different hardware architectures by identifying source code that does not conform to industry standards SVID Issue 2, POSIX, FIPS, and X/Open XPG3.

Vendors who wish to order any of these products should contact the UNIX Software Operation: in Greensboro, N.C., at 1-800-828-UNIX; in London, UNIX Software Operation Europe at +44-81-567-7711; in Tokyo, UNIX Software Operation Pacific at +91-11)331-0513; and in New Delhi, UNIX Software Operation India at +91-11-331-0513.

Dick Muldoon (USENIX Booth 258)
(201) 829-7212 (office)
(201) 635-6699 (home)

Joe Kerrigan
(201) 644-3804 (office)
(201) 283-2463 (home)