[comp.graphics] Xwindows on PC

v056pfqe@ubvmsa.cc.buffalo.edu (Richard M Humphrey) (05/05/91)

I got a great deal on a 386-33 which I'm going to run under Unix. That's
not a problem, but I want to use X windows and I don't know if it's available,
but that's not so much a problem as this:
If I get this PC what kind of display should I buy that will run X windows.
Thanks!
							-Rich
humphrey@acsu.buffalo.edu
	or 
V056PFQE@UBVMSA.CC.BUFFALO.EDU

mstgil@sol (Marc Ph. A. J. St.-Gil) (05/06/91)

v056pfqe@ubvmsa.cc.buffalo.edu (Richard M Humphrey) writes:

>I got a great deal on a 386-33 which I'm going to run under Unix. That's
>not a problem, but I want to use X windows and I don't know if it's available,
>but that's not so much a problem as this:
>If I get this PC what kind of display should I buy that will run X windows.
>Thanks!
>							-Rich
>humphrey@acsu.buffalo.edu
>	or 
>V056PFQE@UBVMSA.CC.BUFFALO.EDU

Better get a superVGA card and a 16+" monitor that can handle an absolute
minimum of 1024x768 if you want to do _anything_ productive.  I don't ever
officially recommend anything less.  This means about a $3000 investment,
+/- $1500 for quality and awesome deals.
--
Marc St.-Gil, UNIX Systems Administrator   mstgil@{sol,vaxa,vaxb}.acs.unt.edu
 University of North Texas  817/565-2324   mstgil@{ponder,solo}.csci.unt.edu
 Academic Computing Services   DISCLAIMER: My employers had no idea I was
 PO Box 13495, Denton TX, 76203            going to say that.

leigh@gothamcity.jsc.nasa.gov (Albert Leigh) (05/06/91)

In article <74931@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>, v056pfqe@ubvmsa.cc.buffalo.edu (Richard M Humphrey) writes:
|> I got a great deal on a 386-33 which I'm going to run under Unix. That's
|> not a problem, but I want to use X windows and I don't know if it's available,
|> but that's not so much a problem as this:
|> If I get this PC what kind of display should I buy that will run X windows.

There are a few PC/Unix vendors who support X-Windows.  The big boys are
Santa Cruz Operation and Interactive (a Kodak Company).  Both of these systems
come with X11R3 and Motif (1.0 I think).  Other vendors are Esix, UHC, Dell, etc.  Anyway, SCO has a lot of Xenix flavor and so far SCO does not have 256- color support yet.  SCO comes with OpenDesktop (therefore, their OS is called ODT) and Interactive comes with Looking Glass.  Later this year, most vendors should support X11R4 by the time MIT releases X11R5!!!  Some vendors also provide OpenLook.  I would say Interactive (***) is a better development system for graphics applications.  It supports a long









 list of VGA cards (to 256 colors and resolutions to 1280x1024) such as ATI, Compaq, CompuAdd, DELL, Genoa, Hercules, Hyundai, Matrox, Orchid, Panasonic, Paradise, Parallex, Princeton, Renaissance, Sigma, STB, Tatung, Trident, Tseng Labs, Video-7, etc...  I've got a SONY 1304 non-interlace 1024x768 multiscan (14") and am very happy with it.

Here are the addresses:

The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
400 Encinal St, P.O.Box 1900,
Santa Cruz, CA 95061
1-800-SCO-UNIX

Interactive Systems Corporation (***)
2401 Colorado Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90404
(800) 346-7111

ong@d.cs.okstate.edu (ONG ENG TENG) (05/06/91)

From article <mstgil.673482580@sol>, by mstgil@sol (Marc Ph. A. J. St.-Gil):
> v056pfqe@ubvmsa.cc.buffalo.edu (Richard M Humphrey) writes:
> 
>>I got a great deal on a 386-33 which I'm going to run under Unix. That's
>>not a problem, but I want to use X windows and I don't know if it's available,
>>but that's not so much a problem as this:
>>If I get this PC what kind of display should I buy that will run X windows.
>>Thanks!
>>							-Rich
>>humphrey@acsu.buffalo.edu
>>	or 
>>V056PFQE@UBVMSA.CC.BUFFALO.EDU
> 
> Better get a superVGA card and a 16+" monitor that can handle an absolute
> minimum of 1024x768 if you want to do _anything_ productive.  I don't ever
> officially recommend anything less.  This means about a $3000 investment,
> +/- $1500 for quality and awesome deals.

You don't need $3000 or even $1500.  Get a Tseng ET4000 chipset 
1024x768 noninterlaced with 1meg for $200 and a Swan VGA15 
1024x768 noninterlaced for $600.  This $800!

When I worked in Dallas (actually Plano), my boss has a 386 at home
with X-window on it.  He used to bring work home (uses a Sparc in the
office) and vice verse.  I don't know where he gets the X-windows and
probably couldn't tell you for a few days.  I am sure others have some
idea.  (He uses the VGA 640x480x16).

siamak (Siamak Ghasemian) (05/07/91)

   There are a few PC/Unix vendors who support X-Windows.  The big boys are
   Santa Cruz Operation and Interactive (a Kodak Company).  Both of these 
   systems come with X11R3 and Motif (1.0 I think).  Other vendors are Esix, 
   UHC, Dell, etc.  Anyway, SCO has a lot of Xenix flavor and so far SCO 
   does not have 256- color support yet.  SCO comes with OpenDesktop 
   (therefore, their OS is called ODT) and Interactive comes with Looking 
   Glass.  Later this year, most vendors should support X11R4 by the time 
   MIT releases X11R5!!!  

For the record, Metro Link has been shipping X11R4 and Motif 1.1 since
last November for SCO, ISC and ESIX.  They support a wide variety of
boards including SVGA's, TARGA, 8514's and 340x0 based TIGA boards.
Their servers do 16 color, 256 color and 32767 color (hardware permitting :-)

They recently came out with a shared library version of the Motif library
(libXm.a) which has greatly decreased the size of our clients (on disk and
in memory.) 

We use their servers for monitoring and control applications at Nuclear
Power Plants and are quite pleased with their stability, performance and 
responsiveness to questions.

  Metro Link, Inc.
  2213 W McNab Rd
  Pompano Beach, Fl 33069
  305-970-7353
  sales@metrolink.com