The product is a computer-aided design and drafting system. This product currently exists on the Marinchip 9900 computer in SPL. Our plan is to convert it to the IBM Personal Computer either by translating it to C or Digital Research PL/1, or by porting SPL to the 8086. We would also be able to offer a very high performance system using the Godbout 10 Mhz 8086/8087 S-100 system.
Installed on a desktop computer configuration in the $10K to $15K range, it is competitive in performance and features to Computervision CAD systems in the $70K range. There are no known competitive products on microcomputers today (although there are some very simpleminded screen drawing programs for the Apple, and we must be careful to explain how we differ).
We can probably obtain substantial free publicity by issuing press releases and writing articles stressing the tie-in with computer aided design and the IBM robot controlled by the IBM personal computer. We can also aim our ads to sell the product as a ``word processor for drawings''. Potential customers are anybody who currently produces drawings. Small architectural offices are ideal prospects.
We can make add-ons to the package to make it an engineering workstation. It could be used to enter, edit, and view structural engineering information, for example, or to interactively view and edit plots made on mainframe computers and transmitted downline.
The package has been sold as a software package on the M9900 at $1000. There are about 20 installations at present, no substantial promotion has been done.