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Date: Mon, 1 May 1995 19:03:09 -0700
From: "Andrew K. Yu" <andrew@postgres.Berkeley.EDU>
Message-Id: <199505020203.TAA05792@eden.CS.Berkeley.EDU>
To: postgres@postgres.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: Announcement: Postgres95 Beta                 
Resent-To: postgres-redist@postgres.Berkeley.EDU
Resent-Date: Mon, 01 May 95 19:03:10 -0700
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                     POSTGRES95 BETA TESTER REQUESTED


We are seeking beta testers for Postgres95. In order to be a beta tester, we
are asking that you must be familiar with Postgres 4.2. That is, if you have
trouble installing Postgres 4.2 (or earlier versions) on your machine,
Postgres95-beta is definitely not the right package for you to start
with. (However, please note that existing databases from 4.2 are not
compatible with Postgres95.)


About Postgres95
----------------
Postgres95 is a derivative of the last official release of Postgres (version
4.2). The code has been ansi-fied and trimmed by 25%. There are a lot of
internal changes that improve performance and code maintainability. Postgres95
runs about 30-50% faster on the Wisconsin Benchmark compared to v4.2. Apart
from bug fixes, these are the major enhancements:

  *  The query language POSTQUEL has been replaced with SQL (implemented in 
     the server). We do not support subqueries at the moment. (However,
     subqueries can be imitated with user defined SQL functions.) Aggregates 
     have been re-implemented. We also added support for GROUP BY. The libpq 
     interface is still available for C programs.  

  *  In addition to the monitor program, we provide a new program (psql)
     which supports GNU readline.
  
  *  We added a new front-end library, libpgtcl, that supports Tcl-based
     clients.  A sample shell, pgtclsh, provides four new Tcl commands 
     to interface tcl programs with the Postgres95 backend.

  *  The large object interface has been overhauled. We kept Inversion large 
     objects as the only mechanism for storing large objects. (This is
     not to be confused with the Inversion file system which has been
     removed.)

  *  The instance-level rule system has been removed. Rules are still 
     available as rewrite rules.

  *  A short tutorial introducing regular SQL features as well as those
     of ours is distributed with the source code.

  *  gmake (instead of BSD make) is used for the build. Also, Postgres95 can 
     be compiled with an unpatched gcc (data alignment of doubles has been 
     fixed).

Postgres95 is free and the complete source is available. It is subjected to
the same copyrights as earlier versions of Postgres.
 
Platforms
---------
Postgres95 has been compiled and tested on Alpha (OSF 2.1, 3.0), DECStation
(Ultrix 4.4), SPARC (SunOS 4.1.3), SPARC (Solaris 2.4), and HP 9000/700 
(HP-UX 9.0).

The Postgres 4.2 Linux port (courtesy of Kai Petzke) has also been integrated
into Postgres95. However, we haven't tested the port for a couple months.

A Windows NT port is in the works. Interested party should contact the authors
or Jon Forrest (forrest@cs.berkeley.edu).

Support
-------
The POSTGRES project has officially ended in 1994 and the POSTGRES group
no longer exist at Berkeley. Hence, there is no official support for
Postgres95. (However, the authors will be available for questions during
beta-testing.)

If support is critical, you should consider a commercial product such as
Illustra (which is the commercial version of Postgres).

Contact
-------
Postgres95-beta is available for ftp. If you are interested in being a beta
tester, please send mail to Andrew Yu (andrew@CS.Berkeley.edu) or Jolly Chen
(jolly@CS.Berkeley.edu), not to the entire postgres mailing list. 


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