Dynamic Concepts announces the immediate availability of UniBasic 9 and dL4 version 7 for Linux, SCO and Windows(dL4). A new SSN is required for these major releases which become the standard downloads from our website beginning Monday, June 16. Distributions for IBM AIX 5 and Apple OSX will be released over the next few weeks and other platforms (HP/UX, Solaris, etc.) will be scheduled as required. These formal releases include a number of new features and benefits:

    • Per-user pricing eliminates most banded pricing levels

    • Software Assurance discounts for backup and disaster recovery services

    • New UB/DL4 licensing shares users across both products

    • ORACLE SQL database support on Linux & Windows

    • Database encryption for UniBasic and dL4 contiguous, indexed files

    • New 64-bit x86 Linux platform (64)

    • New UniBasic, dL4 and dL4Term features

Per-User Licensing, Software Assurance, Offsite Disaster Recovery

All new licenses, as well as licenses covered by Software Assurance, may obtain UniBasic and dL4 on a per-user basis*. On an existing license, you may add from 1 to 31 additional users to the license without moving up to the next level. Already have a 32-user license and need another 4 users? Upgrade to a 36-user rather than 48.

The new licensing model supports any number of users between 1 and 128. Thereafter, you may add up to 31 additional users before jumping to the next licensing level.

A new Price List and spreadsheet will be published on our website later this month. View the Software Assurance data sheet for complete details on the benefits of this annual subscription. Disaster recovery services for UniBasic and dL4 are detailed in our April Technical and Marketing Bulletin.

Combined UniBasic & dL4 Licensing & Installation

New licenses, as well as those covered by Software Assurance, can now be issued for both UniBasic and dL4 at no extra charge. Please inform us at the time of order if you want a combined license, or if you prefer separate UniBasic and/or dL4 user limits. The combined license does NOT work with older releases.

For example, a 16-user combined UB-DL4 license can be used for either (16) dL4 users or (16) UniBasic users, or any combination of (16) users across both products. UniBasic installations benefit by having dL4 available during migrations, testing, or for special uses such as SQL, sockets, etc. that are not supported in UniBasic. Currently, dL4 may send signals to UniBasic and both can read, write and lock each other's data files. Future releases will include more integration, such as allowing you to swap between the languages at the program level.

When downloading products from our website, a new installer will be included with your package. Because our product footprints are small, we recommend downloading all products as a suite for each selected platform. You may continue to manually unpack and install the individual products, or run the new installer which will determine which products you downloaded and automatically install UniBasic, dL4, DynamicPaper, and/or Passport.

Oracle Database Server Support

A new driver, "Oracle SQL", has been implemented so that applications can use SQL statements to issue commands and queries to an Oracle database server. Both standard SQL statements and Oracle specific syntax can be used. The driver interface is essentially identical to the MySQL driver. SQL statements are executed with SEARCH statements and standard READ or READ RECORD statements are used to read the results.

Database Encryption

Protect sensitive data stored in Universal, Portable and Huge Contiguous and Indexed Contiguous files by encrypting all or parts of each data record. The encryption is handled transparently requiring little or no changes to existing applications. Enhancements to the languages are provided to BUILD encrypted files, as well as control and manage encryption keys. A given user accessing an encrypted file will be able to see and modify the encrypted portion of a record if their session includes the appropriate encryption key. Users without the required key can be prohibited from accessing the data, or more commonly see encrypted data as definable text, such as asterisks (*) for credit card or zero's (0) for social security numbers.

Encryption must be specifically enabled on the SSN and the installation is subject to US Government export regulations.

New 64-Bit x-86 Linux Platform [64]

In addition to the standard 32-bit Linux platform [6D], a new distribution includes all of our products compiled in native 64-bit mode. While you can continue to install the 32-bit Linux on 64-bit operating systems, the [64] distribution makes it easier for clients wanting to link to native libraries, such as the Oracle database driver. Platform [64] offers a small (5%) performance advantage for some CPU bound programs.

New Product Features in Brief

UniBasic includes a new feature to enable and disable forced upper-case input and PSAVED programs can be restricted to prevent modification.

dL4 for Linux and Windows includes an Oracle SQL driver to access Oracle database servers, conditional breakpoints, enhancements to structure variables, UniBasic conversion enhancements and a 'SENDCLIP' mnemonic for clipboard posting.

dL4Term supports windows with scroll-back history buffers, scroll-back debugger window for dL4, 'SENDCLIP' mnemonic for clipboard posting, deleted text with 'CL' or 'CE' can be retained in history and the history buffer can be displayed in reverse video.

Complete technical details regarding the new features may be found in the product Release Notes

* Minimum revisions supporting Per-User licensing: Passport 4.1, UniBasic-8, dL4-6, IQ 4.2.2.