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E&S Ships One Of The First 3D Solutions For Linux; E&S Lightning 1200LX Board Availability and Software Support Leads CompetitionSALT LAKE CITY, Jan. 31, 2000 - Evans & Sutherland (E&S(R)) (Nasdaq: ESCC) Monday announced that the company is now shipping the E&S Lightning 1200LX(TM), one of the first fully hardware-accelerated 3D solutions for the desktop Linux market.E&S Lightning 1200LX delivers to Linux users OpenGL graphics features that were previously available only on UNIX and NT-based systems. In addition, E&S Lightning 1200LX supports a number of design and visualization applications for Linux, including Side Effects Software's Houdini 4.0 and Engineering Animation Inc.'s WorldToolKit 9.0. The addition of Linux capability demonstrates the company's commitment to continually providing upgrades and improvements to its existing graphics cards, offering customers enhanced capability and performance without requiring them to purchase new hardware. Based on E&S's innovative REALimage(R) technology, the Lighting 1200LX offers professional workstation graphics features, including 24-bit Z-buffering, MIP-mapped texturing, antialiased lines, transparency, fog, and overlay planes. It also provides resolutions up to 1280x1024 at true color, with performance rates up to 4.0 million triangles per second and a sustained fill rate of 90 Mpixels/second. E&S originally developed REALimage technology to bridge the gap between traditional UNIX workstations and PCs. Today, REALimage takes this a step further to Linux. "While many leading companies are announcing plans to support the Linux operating system, E&S is the first and only company delivering Linux technology for the professional workstation graphics customer," said Pratish Shah, vice president of marketing for the E&S Workstation Graphics Division. "Development of the Linux driver for our graphics accelerators is consistent with our commitment to continuing to enhance and add options to our boards, allowing our customers to upgrade their capabilities without investing in new hardware. Our cards keep getting better and better." Xi Graphics "We are pleased to be working with E&S to bring workstation-class, professional 3D graphics on Linux and Intel hardware to the market," Thomas Roell, chief executive officer and chief technical officer of Xi Graphics. "With PC workstations using the E&S Lightning 1200LX subsystem and our 3D Accelerated-X product, CAD/CAM engineers, animators, 3D designers, and game developers have a very powerful platform to create advanced 3D effects without trading off quality for performance." Evans & Sutherland has partnered with Xi Graphics to develop the Linux driver. Xi Graphics develops and markets, high-performance commercial X display servers for use with Linux and UNIX operating systems. The company's base product line, the Accelerated-X brand of X servers, is a stable, robust foundation for Graphical User Interfaces that are often required for Linux and UNIX operating systems installations that operate on a desktop or laptop computer. Hardware Vendors Support E&S has also been collaborating with BOXX Technologies and TriStar Computer Corp. to bring an open GL graphics board to the Linux market that gives hardware users features such as quality shaded performance and overlay plane support. BOXX Technologies "We are excited to work with E&S to help bring high performance, standards-compliant products to the Linux workstation space," said Todd Bryant, BOXX Technologies president and CEO. "We believe that graphics acceleration is an integral part of Linux's success on the desktop. With E&S Lightning 1200LX , users will have true OpenGL acceleration on Linux platforms with top anti-aliased line quality, overlay plane support, and shaded performance." BOXX Technologies is a leading provider of hardware and software tools for digital content creation and distribution on the Microsoft(R) Windows NT(R) and Linux operating systems for the 3D, animation, film, and HD broadcast markets. The BOXX suite of solutions, which include 3DBOXX(TM), RenderBOXX(TM), and FusionBOXX(TM) HD, are complete systems for 3D, rendering, film, and HDTV. Fortified with E&S's accelerators, BOXX workstations greatly reduce production times and increase output quality. TriStar Computer Corp. According to Patrick Maderia, president & CEO of TriStar Computer Corp., "TriStar Computer is excited about the addition of Linux support by E&S. We have been supporting Linux on our Workstations and Servers for the past 12 months and believe that E&S is showing great foresight in leading the charge into this market." TriStar is a privately held original equipment manufacturer of high-performance Windows NT graphics workstations and servers. TriStar offers four major product lines, with various models and custom configurations designed to meet an array of user needs: StarStation, PowerStation, StudioStation, StarServer. These systems are custom built for professionals in graphics-intensive disciplines, including: architectural design, mechanical design, engineering, desktop publishing, 3D animation, digital video editing, Internet web site development, video post production and software development. Software Vendors Support Today, E&S is working with The Sense8 Product Line of Engineering Animation Inc. and Side Effects Software to ensure E&S Lightning 1200LX support for new Linux-based graphics applications. Engineering Animation Inc. "E&S's Linux support finally provides the real-time 3D graphics market with one of the first solid Linux hardware-accelerated graphics solutions," said Tom Coull, executive director of EAI's Sense8 Product Line. "The demand for Linux support has been mounting, inhibited only by the lack of viable 3D graphics hardware in the marketplace. The combination of WorldToolKit and E&S' Linux hardware opens an entire platform to 3D developers." Engineering Animation Inc.'s (EAI) Sense8 Product Line is the leading provider of scalable real-time 3D interactive software development tools. EAI is developing a Linux version of its WorldToolKit simulation software, a portable, cross-platform software development system used for building high-performance, real-time, integrated 3D applications. Side Effects Software "Evans & Sutherland technology helped us to provide Houdini on Linux as a viable platform for high-end 3D graphics," said Paul Salvini, chief technology officer for Side Effects Software. "Their ongoing commitment to quality Linux production solutions is evident in the release of the Lightning 1200LX. We look forward to our continued involvement with E&S to offer powerful solutions for the Linux graphics community." Side Effects Software, a world leader in advanced 3D graphics and special effects software, announced the availability of the Linux version of their product, Houdini 4.0 last week. This new Linux-compliant application offers the same look, feel, and feature set as the IRIX and Windows NT versions of Houdini. Pricing and Availability The Lightning 1200LX solution is available this month for US $489 through E&S resellers/OEMs as well as ESDirect (www.es.com). Current E&S Lightning 1200 customers can upgrade to the Lightning 1200LX solution for $100. Upgrade information is available by calling 1800-show-me-the-penguin or through ESDirect. E&S will be demonstrating the E&S Lightning 1200LX at LinuxWorld Expo in New York City on Feb. 2-4 in Atipa's booth No. 855 and in VA Linux's booth No. 719 and from Feb. 1-3 at Linux Expo in Paris, Level 2, Palais Des Congres in Evans & Sutherland booth. About Evans & Sutherland Evans & Sutherland develops and manufactures hardware and software to produce highly realistic 3D images. E&S business units deliver high-quality visual systems for simulation and training in defense and commercial applications, graphics systems for high-performance workstations, and related applications throughout the world. Through its acquisition of San Jose-based AccelGraphics in June 1998, E&S expanded its workstation graphics offerings to include board-level products. Visit the E&S web page at www.es.com. E&S is a registered trademark, and E&S Tornado 3000, E&S Lightning 1200, and DYNAMICgeometry are trademarks of Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp., Salt Lake City. All other trade names or marks are the properties of their respective owners. CONTACT: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp., Salt Lake City Joan Mitchell, 801/588-1000 Fax: 801/588-4538 e-mail: jmitchel@es.com www.es.com
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