waltrip@capd.jhuapl.edu (01/22/91)
In article <1991Jan21.161504.22084@sapphire.idbsu.edu>, alex@sapphire.idbsu.edu (Alex Feldman) writes: > Thanks to the people who responded to my post. It appears that the > problem is that Mathematica on the NeXT runs as a native NextStep > application, and as such was incapable of opening a graphics window > on an X terminal. > > Suggestions included beating on NeXT and Wolfram for an X resident > version of Mathematica for the NeXT, using some other machine as a > front end and just running the Mathematica kernal on the NeXT, > giving up, and discarding our X terminals in favor of NeXTs, which > are better anyway. > > Wolfram said that they weren't interested. NeXT never said so, but > made it clear (rather rudely, I would say) that neither were they. I would suspect that NeXT has a full table already and probably wouldn't be able to take it on without having higher priority projects suffer. The prospect of having NeXTstep applications able to display on X servers, however, (or on some sub-class of X servers such as those which support Display PostScript extensions) might be of benefit to NeXT and represent an opportunity for third parties. Assuming that the NeXTstep environment will quickly lead to applications which are superior to X applications and will rival them in quantity of available apps, there should be a market for NeXT servers (or, at least, NeXTstep servers) that can serve X terminals and workstations. Eventually, these would be replaced by real NeXTstations because of the superior performance. Of course, for this to have a chance, the performance on the X terminals or workstations would have to be at least marginally acceptable (about like most X applications on most available equipment already are:^). That may be the first showstopper. The second showstopper, of course, would be that NeXT wasn't interested in licensing and releasing the necessary specs. And the third showstopper would be that it's a dumb idea and no third party or anyone else is interested anyway (or maybe that's the FIRST showstopper). > Running the front end elsewhere may be a solution in the long term, > but not for us at the moment. And loading up on NeXT's just isn't > going to happen. Especially not after their response to this. > As I recall, Mathematica is reasonable on DECstations and should display on X terminals. Of course, that's not as reasonable as if you could leverage off of an existing NeXTstation...but I'm not surprised NeXT doesn't care nor feel that it should be held against them that they don't care. Of course, it's nice when you "don't care" politely rather than rudely...but not everyone is a model of finesse at all times so perhaps you can overlook a little rudeness and go ahead and load up on those NeXTs for the good of your users:^). > [...material deleted...] c.f.waltrip DDN: <waltrip@capsrv.jhuapl.edu> Opinions expressed are my own.