Scheduled for release this summer, new software for the IBM Personal Computer displays several applications at a time, each in its own window. Visi On also lets you transfer information from one application to another with an electronic mouse. This image can be zoomedScheduled for release this summer, new software for the IBM Personal Computer displays several applications at a time, each in its own window. Visi On also lets you transfer information from one application to another with an electronic mouse. A couple of years ago, Visicorp chairman Dan Fylstra had what you might call a vision for the next generation of computer software. He envisioned software that would appeal to what was truly becoming a mass market of computer users. With it, we’d no longer have to learn a flock of strange computer commands or adapt to the computer’s way of working. Rather, the new software would adapt itself to our work habits. It would let us use several applications at once, viewing them side by side on the screen and moving information freely from one to another. It would free us from the tedium of the keyboard by accepting input from easy-to-use pointing devices such as the new device known as the mouse or the light pen. By the summer of 1981, the hardware to make all this possible arrived with the IBM Personal Computer. And soon to follow was a spate of similarly endowed 16-bit machines. Clearly, the time is right for this new generation of software. And with Visicorp’s recent introduction of Visi On, Fylstra’s “vision” may be one step closer to reality. Fylstra describes Visi On as a portable operating environment for 16-bit personal computers. It features a desktop management system that runs several applications programs simultaneously on your screen, transfers data directly between the applications, and lets you select options and manipulate text and data with a mouse, a handheld electronic cursor mover with program-control buttons (see Meet the Mouse, page 102). Although a price for Visi On has not been set as of this writing, Visi On is scheduled for a summer release on the IBM Personal Computer. And, according to Visicorp, it will be available soon after that for personal computers from Digital Equipment Corporation, and, in time, for a bevy of other machines. Visi On is intended for various operating systems including MS-DOS and CP/M-86. It requires a 16-bit microprocessor such as the 8086, the 8088, or the 68000, as well as 256K bytes of main memory and, to run multiple applications, 620K bytes of disk space. . . . The company will also be making an effort to help third-party software developers gear their products specifically for use with Visi On. The mouse, says Fylstra, will be made available through Visicorp or another manufacturer, although Visi On can also be used with other pointing devices like the light pen or joystick. Simply put, Visi On simulates on your screen the way your desktop appears while you work. Just as you can place several papers on your desk at a time, Visi On lets you simultaneously display several applications on your screen. Each application appears in a window. One window might show part of a spreadsheet, another might show some text written with a word-processing program, and another might show business graphics. You can move the windows from place to place or overlap them just as you would papers. If you’re working on one application but wish to switch to another, you can move the cursor to the desired window and click the mouse’s select button to activate it. To close a window, open a new one, or adjust the size of one, you use the mouse to select the appropriate commands displayed along the bottom of the screen. Closed windows are listed in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Because Visi On integrates applications, you can transfer information from one to another. In other words, parts of documents can be electronically cut and pasted onto one another or into a final report. That way, you could design a pie chart based on spreadsheet data, then paste it into a report you're writing with a word processor. Moreover, according to William Coleman, group manager in charge of integrated systems, because Visi On employs a bit map to print text and graphics on the screen, you have the option of changing the size of your chart or any graphics at will. . . .