ellard@bbn.com (Dan Ellard) (08/16/89)
About a week ago, I posted a request for information about X terminals. In addition to the many helpful people who responded to my request, I I also received several requests to post a summary of my research. Although I am still gathering information, here is what I've learned so far. The X terminal business seems to be evolving very rapidly, and there isn't any slow-down in sight-- every X terminal manufacturer that I have looked at has either introduced a new product in the last few months, or has announced a new product that will be available in a few months, or both. At this rate, it seems likely that within a short time X terminals will be available that will make current X terminals (or workstations, for that matter) look pretty shabby. I can't vouch for the validity of any of the information in this summary: the majority of it is second or even third hand. In any case, don't fill out any purchase orders without test-driving a terminal-- personal impressions should be very important when choosing something you have to work with every day for the next few years... There appear to be four major players in the X terminal market: GraphOn, NCD, NCR, and Visual. Acer-Counterpoint, HDS, MIPS and Tektronix were also mentioned. There are apparently X servers available for PCs and Macs, but I don't know who sells them. Rumors are circulating that DEC will join the fray soon. GraphOn: Unique software configuration, with the server actually running on the host, connected to the display/keyboard/mouse via a proprietary protocol with runs over a serial line. Some other X terms have SLIP as an option, but the word is that the GraphOn protocol is more efficient. An X terminal you can use over a modem, at least for text-oriented operations (loading a large bitmap would be very slow!) The display is very sharp, mouse OK, slightly non-standard keyboard. Inexpensive(? no exact price given) NCD: The NCD16 and NCD19 (new) appear to be leaders in performance among X terms. 1024 x 1024 resolution, 16" or 19" screen, many compliments on the quality of the display, color monitors available soon (now?). High performance. Cost: ~$3000. NCR: (NCR Towerview X-Station) 1024x840 resolution, 15" monitor, PS/2 style keyboard, mouse. (note: 1024x840 is not enough pixels for some applications, i.e. Framemaker, xfig, to fit entirely on the screen) Available soon: 1280x1024 19" monochrome and color monitors. Multi-tasking executive allows downloading of some clients to reduce the network load (maybe you need to be hosting the terminal from an NCR Tower in order to do this?) and several simultaneous telnet sessions (I guess for communicating with hosts that don't speak X-- could be a very nice feature for some systems) Most correspondents who saw both preferred the keyboard and display of the NCD over the NCR. Cost: ~$3000. Visual: The X-19: 1024x860 (some applications can't fit entirely on the page) 19" monitor, optical mouse. Display is very crisp, nicer than some previous Visual X terminals. Good performance. Visual has reportedly recently filed under Chapter 11, so it is easy to be pessimistic about the future of the company. Acer-Counterpoint: Not much information was sent to me about this terminal. It appears to be positioned at the low end (in terms of price and performance) of the market. HDS: HDS has a variety of monochrome and color configurations, up to 19" 1280x1024 resolution. I saw a color 15" monitor, and at 1280x1024 it was too fuzzy for my taste, and there seemed to be some bugs in the server when running at that resolution. At 1024x840, it looked a lot better, but that's giving up a lot of pixels. Performance was slow, at least compared to the monochrome Visual X-19 I tested. (HDS claims that their monochrome models run much faster than their color models.) The terminal I saw had a two button mouse, which was silly. A three button mouse is available, although it may cost something extra. Expandable up to 8 megs of RAM-- much more expandable than any other X terminal I know of. MIPS: MIPS reportedly has a product called the Xstation. It may be a repackaged NCD or Visual X terminal. Tektronix: Tektronix has announced three X terminals, the XN5, XN7 and XN11. The XN5 (and perhaps the XN7 also) is reportedly a repackaged NCD. The XN11 is Tektronix-designed high performance 19" color system. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dan Ellard -- ellard@bbn.com This line intentionally not left blank.