arne@yc.estec.nl (Arne Lundberg) (02/21/90)
Our salesman has been talking about the new X terminals from HP for a while now, but we have not been able see one yet. Has anyone got any real experience which these terminals. - How do they compare to the traditional X terminals from NCD and Visual etc? - What is the speed compared to a lowcost HP workstation, this means a 340 or similar. - Noise level, are they without a fan? - How is server downloading, font access and login handled? Support for XDMCP? Thanks in advance, Arne Lundberg European Space Technology Centre, Noordwijk, the Netherlands arne@yc.estec.nl or ALUNDBER@ESTEC.BITNET Phone: +31 1719 84865, Fax: +31 1719 12142, Telex: 39098
burzio@mmlai.UUCP (Tony Burzio) (02/23/90)
In article <1063@esatst.yc.estec.nl>, arne@yc.estec.nl (Arne Lundberg) writes: > Our salesman has been talking about the new X terminals from HP > - How do they compare to the traditional X terminals > from NCD and Visual etc? > - What is the speed compared to a lowcost HP workstation, > this means a 340 or similar. > - Noise level, are they without a fan? > - How is server downloading, font access and login handled? > Support for XDMCP? I saw a color HP X terminal at UniForum in DC last month. While I wasn't allowed to try and break it (:-) I was impressed with its' speed. Windows update instantly after a move, and new windows appear faster than on our 370TurboSRX. There is a very intuitive series of set-up screens, so configuring the display should be very easy even for novice users. Very nice. When choosing an X terminal over a workstation, you have to ask yourself if 1) CPU power is sufficient elsewhere (the X terminal doesn't have any) and 2) how much RAM will your applications need (large widget programs will bomb on a low RAM X terminal, and at ~$500 per MB RAM this could push X terminal cost up to a WStation). A problem with the HP X terminal, which is different from NCD, is that the X terminal can only startup from an HP computer. Our local SE said that ports of the HP X terminal boot software are in progress, but don't count on fast software releases from HP :-) I didn't notice if it had a fan, but HP fans seem to all be very quiet (when compared to a uVAX2000 anyway :-) Visual X terminals seem to be quite slow in comparison to the new HP. Our on-site demo showed many bugs and a very confusing set-up sequence, although the sales reps did say that it works much better with X11R3, which is supposed to be coming in the mythical V7 of HP-UX. NCDs' terminal seemed to be equally fast as the HP, and they also support DECnet. Forget SLIP RS-232 communications for X, it's too slow. Given a choice, I like the HP, but NCDs' terminal is more flexible for multi-vendor environments. Get a demo of both first. Network hint for the day: Do NOT have X terminals and discless UNIX machines on the same ETHERNET as a VAX cluster. The performance will be much worse, since the Suns and VMS VAXen seem to compete about who can overload the network fastest :-) We use a bridge to contain the VAX cluster traffic. ********************************************************************* Tony Burzio * Beware raiders! Martin Marietta ADTO East * mmlai!burzio@uunet.uu.net * *********************************************************************
kempff@hppad.HP.COM (John Kempff) (03/01/90)
/ hppad:comp.sys.hp / burzio@mmlai.UUCP (Tony Burzio) / 7:38 am Feb 23, 1990 / In article <1063@esatst.yc.estec.nl>, arne@yc.estec.nl (Arne Lundberg) writes: > Our salesman has been talking about the new X terminals from HP > - How do they compare to the traditional X terminals > from NCD and Visual etc? > - What is the speed compared to a lowcost HP workstation, > this means a 340 or similar. > - Noise level, are they without a fan? > - How is server downloading, font access and login handled? > Support for XDMCP? I saw a color HP X terminal at UniForum in DC last month. While I wasn't allowed to try and break it (:-) I was impressed with its' speed. Windows update instantly after a move, and new windows appear faster than on our 370TurboSRX. There is a very intuitive series of set-up screens, so configuring the display should be very easy even for novice users. Very nice. When choosing an X terminal over a workstation, you have to ask yourself if 1) CPU power is sufficient elsewhere (the X terminal doesn't have any) and 2) how much RAM will your applications need (large widget programs will bomb on a low RAM X terminal, and at ~$500 per MB RAM this could push X terminal cost up to a WStation). A problem with the HP X terminal, which is different from NCD, is that the X terminal can only startup from an HP computer. Our local SE said that ports of the HP X terminal boot software are in progress, but don't count on fast software releases from HP :-) I didn't notice if it had a fan, but HP fans seem to all be very quiet (when compared to a uVAX2000 anyway :-) Visual X terminals seem to be quite slow in comparison to the new HP. Our on-site demo showed many bugs and a very confusing set-up sequence, although the sales reps did say that it works much better with X11R3, which is supposed to be coming in the mythical V7 of HP-UX. NCDs' terminal seemed to be equally fast as the HP, and they also support DECnet. Forget SLIP RS-232 communications for X, it's too slow. Given a choice, I like the HP, but NCDs' terminal is more flexible for multi-vendor environments. Get a demo of both first. Network hint for the day: Do NOT have X terminals and discless UNIX machines on the same ETHERNET as a VAX cluster. The performance will be much worse, since the Suns and VMS VAXen seem to compete about who can overload the network fastest :-) We use a bridge to contain the VAX cluster traffic. ********************************************************************* Tony Burzio * Beware raiders! Martin Marietta ADTO East * mmlai!burzio@uunet.uu.net * ********************************************************************* ----------
kempff@hppad.HP.COM (John Kempff) (03/02/90)
Sorry about that previous note. Notes reposts the note when the editor is killed. > / hppad:comp.sys.hp / burzio@mmlai.UUCP (Tony Burzio) / 7:38 am Feb 23, 1990 / > In article <1063@esatst.yc.estec.nl>, arne@yc.estec.nl (Arne Lundberg) writes: > > Our salesman has been talking about the new X terminals from HP > > - How do they compare to the traditional X terminals > > from NCD and Visual etc? > > - What is the speed compared to a lowcost HP workstation, > > this means a 340 or similar. The 700/X xstones performance is about half of a 340M (340 with Mono monitor). Note that the 340M was only running the X server, the xstones benchmark program was running on another Unix machine. > > - Noise level, are they without a fan? Yes they have a fan. The fan noise will the same as that found on a HP340 work station. > > - How is server downloading, font access and login handled? > > Support for XDMCP? The server and fonts are down loaded using tftp. The address of the machine containing the fonts/server and the network parameters of the X terminal is either supplied by bootp or manually configured into the X terminal. This network configuration can be password protected. Currently the HP's X terminal, known as the "HP 700/X family of X Window graphic terminals" do not support XDMCP. This will be added in the near future. Currently the login into a system is handled by XDM which is supplied on the X terminal software tape. XDM will automatically place a login window onto the terminal display after it is powered up. It also monitors the terminal, and kills all processes associated with a XDM login session after the terminal is powered down. > I saw a color HP X terminal at UniForum in DC last month. While I > wasn't allowed to try and break it (:-) I was impressed with its' > speed. Windows update instantly after a move, and new windows appear > faster than on our 370TurboSRX. There is a very intuitive series of > set-up screens, so configuring the display should be very easy even for > novice users. Very nice. When choosing an X terminal over a workstation, > you have to ask yourself if 1) CPU power is sufficient elsewhere (the > X terminal doesn't have any) and 2) how much RAM will your applications > need (large widget programs will bomb on a low RAM X terminal, and at > ~$500 per MB RAM this could push X terminal cost up to a WStation). A > problem with the HP X terminal, which is different from NCD, is that > the X terminal can only startup from an HP computer. Our local SE > said that ports of the HP X terminal boot software are in progress, but > don't count on fast software releases from HP :-) I didn't notice if > it had a fan, but HP fans seem to all be very quiet (when compared to > a uVAX2000 anyway :-) Visual X terminals seem to be quite slow in > comparison to the new HP. Our on-site demo showed many bugs and a > very confusing set-up sequence, although the sales reps did say that > it works much better with X11R3, which is supposed to be coming in the > mythical V7 of HP-UX. NCDs' terminal seemed to be equally fast as > the HP, and they also support DECnet. Forget SLIP RS-232 communications > for X, it's too slow. To clarify few points. The Software for the X terminal is only HP update (install) format for HP-UX 7.0. Since the update format is TAR, it can be installed onto any unix system. The only caution is HP cartridge tapes are not readable on non HP cartridge drives. The software is also available on 1/2 Mag tape. Since the X terminal is just an X11R3 server, any unix machine on the network can connect to the display. The only other requirement for install the terminal onto a network, it having an tftp server available. The 700/X terminal has be successfully installed onto SUN, Dec and 386 PCs systems running unix. There are bound to be more out there that I don't know about. > > Given a choice, I like the HP, but NCDs' terminal is more flexible > for multi-vendor environments. Get a demo of both first. > > Network hint for the day: Do NOT have X terminals and discless UNIX > machines on the same ETHERNET as a VAX cluster. The performance will > be much worse, since the Suns and VMS VAXen seem to compete about who > can overload the network fastest :-) We use a bridge to contain > the VAX cluster traffic. Good point. When we (HP) performed load tests with our X terminals, it was found that the interactive performance would start to degrade when the LAN was loaded to 15%. Diskless LAN traffic can saturate the LAN for short periods, causing delays in the X windows traffic. > > ********************************************************************* > Tony Burzio * Beware raiders! > Martin Marietta ADTO East * > mmlai!burzio@uunet.uu.net * > ********************************************************************* > ---------- Contact you local sales office for more info on the 700/X. John Kempff | ## ## | ######## / ######## X Windows Support Eng. | # # | ####### / ####### Panacom Automation Div. | # | ###### /_ __ ###### H E W L E T T Waterloo, Ontario, Canada | # | ##### / / / / ##### | # # | ##### / / /__/ ##### Email:kempff@hppad.hp.com | ## ## | ###### / ###### P A C K A R D Phone:(519) 886-5320 | | ####### / ####### FAX: (519) 886-8620 | TERMINAL | ########/ ########
diamant@hpfcjohn.SDE.HP.COM (John Diamant) (03/02/90)
Tony Burzio (burzio@mmlai.UUCP) writes: > A problem with the HP X terminal, which is different from NCD, is that > the X terminal can only startup from an HP computer. Our local SE > said that ports of the HP X terminal boot software are in progress, but > don't count on fast software releases from HP :-) I'm a little surprised to hear that comment, considering HP's X terminal (the 700/X boots using BOOTP and TFTP just like NCD's does). In fact, just about every X terminal I've seen uses BOOTP and TFTP for booting. As far as I know, if you can boot an NCD, you can boot an HP. John Diamant Software Engineering Systems Division Hewlett Packard Co. ARPA Internet: diamant@hpfclp.sde.hp.com Fort Collins, CO UUCP: {hpfcla,hplabs}!hpfclp!diamant Disclaimer: This is a personal response and does not constitute an official statement of Hewlett-Packard Company. Contact your HP sales rep. for an official HP response.