gnma76@sun1.eng.glasgow.ac.UK ("D.Ballance") (08/17/90)
I recently posted the following question: > >We are currently considering buying some dumb terminals/cheap pc's with >emulators to connect to a number of Sun workstations. We are currently >moving over from Sunview to X windows and would like any investment to >last for a few years at least. The terminals should ideally have both >VT100 (or similar) and Tektronic graphics. The options seem to be: >1) Buy cheap dumb terminals and throw them away in a couple of years >2) Buy PC clones and use a terminal emulator >3) Buy Mac's/Ataris/Amigas and use a terminal emulator. >4) Buy X-terminals (Not really an option ... would prefer to buy SUN SLCs) > >Now the questions: > >1) For what pc's is X-windows being developed? >2) How soon will it be ready? >3) How 'full' an implementation will it be? >4) What will the minimum level of hardware be (i.e. hard disk, Memory)? >5) Will it work on serial line interfaces or only on PCs with ethernet > connections? > >All comments welcome on our options. Please send all replies directly to >me and I'll summarise. > >Thanks >Donald > >P.S. Is there an archive of this and the xpc discussions list anywhere? > REPLIES: >1) For what pc's is X-windows being developed? Apparently a company called hummingbird communications ltd. has a product called HCL-eXceed Plus that will run on 286, 386 boxes. If you are considering P.C.s for your emmulation, than there is a 34010 based graphics card available from "digital image, 78 North Eastern Blvd, Nashua, NH 03060, U.S.A." They have a version of X window system which runs on DOS. Please contact them for further info. I don't know the exhaustive list, but 286 and 386 are safe bets. I wouldn't bother with 8086. I have it on my Mac. However, once you buy a MacII with big screen, you could buy a Sun SLC. If you need a Mac anyway..... The Amiga can support Xwindows fairly well with the right monitor (you can trade colors for resolution). >2) How soon will it be ready? Products ready now. >3) How 'full' an implementation will it be? Products Claim full implementation of X window System server One person commented: Essentially, X11R3, pretty much all the standard things except that any single resource can't be larger than 64Kb. At least, that's the way it was when I was last using X on a PC, say 6 months ago. >4) What will the minimum level of hardware be (i.e. hard disk, Memory)? For PC compatible: Assume it can reside on a hard-disk. Says it's optimized for > 1Mb of memory. Suppose EGA, VGA and superVGA modes. Runs in protected mode but, can get a real mode version for machines with <1Mb memory. Hard disk - it seems like the product was around 3-5 megabytes, in that range. Plus more for the LAN s/w, of course. We used VGA cards and appropriate monitors, but EGA did the trick for awhile in the beginning. I wouldn't bother with less than 1 MB of memory, even if I were paying for it out of my own pocket. we used 2 MB with pretty good results. your mileage may vary! The PC stuff generally suffers from the small monitor size (anything less than 800x800 is pretty unuseable to my mind) but there are products. We use a thing called X11/AT that runs the Xwindow-server as a window in MS Windows! For MAC: You want a large screen. Really. Some program's won't fit with a 640x480 screen. Also 4 Meg of memory and a 20 Meg hard disk. It taks up about 3 Meg on the disk. >5) Will it work on serial line interfaces or only on PCs with ethernet > connections? For PC compatible: It is possible for SLIP to work, but it's *slow*. we've done it here, because our customer wanted to see it, but it's not as usable. the higher the baud rate, the better the response time and the less spongy the interactive text entry. we're talking several seconds between characters typed at the lower baud rates, from the time typed till it shows up on the screen. For MAC: Appletalk or EtherTalk. Don't know of a version of SLIP that will support it. Addresses and Contacts: For: hummingbird communications ltd. product HCL-eXceed Plus I was told: Here's the address of the vendor who sent me the info. Cail Systems, 665 Hood Road, Markham, Ontario, Canada, L3R 4E1. The sales critter I talked with is George Lau. Phone numbers are (voice) (416) 940 - 9000, (fax) (416) 940 - 9007. in "Frequently Asked Questions about X" are a list of vendors for DOS based X servers. I have experience with GSS and Locus, and prefer the former. I also recieved a long and interesting reply from Leith (Casey) Leedom in which described his experiences with the GraphOn OptiMax 200 X11 Terminal. I'll just include his summary: --------------------start of summary------------------------------- In summary, I like the OptiMax 200 quite a bit and I think that Graphon is serious about supporting it. They've practically bent over backwards to make sure I'm happy with the terminal. [[ A good example was the fact that they were willing to email me new binaries when I had problems with the versions that came on the distribution tape. ]] I believe that the terminal has some [nondebilitating] problems, but GraphOn seems committed to addressing all the issues I've talked with them about. In my opinion it's currently the best way to get X11 across a serial link. All other techniques, like running the full X11 protocol across SLIP, have horrible performance. Also, since the OptiMax is so much cheaper than any of the other X terminals on the market and the cost of installing an RS-232 link is usually cheaper than an ethernet installation, I think that it's well worth looking at if you're interested in the X terminal scene on-site or over modems. The caveat to this is the last paragraph to my answer to 3 above which points out the bandwidth limitations of RS-232. Graphon's address and phone: Graphon Corporation 1980 Concourse Drive San Jose, CA 95131-9727 Phone: 800-472-7466 Phone: 408-435-8400 (outside the North America) FAX: 408-433-1711 Customer Support EMAIL address: xbugs@graphon.uucp Product Information EMAIL address: xinfo@graphon.uucp ----- Copyright 1989, Leith (Casey) Leedom. No part of this work may be republished in whole or part without the entire text of this copyright notice and disclaimer. My opinions are not necessarily those of the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, The United States Department of Energy, or any part of the California or United States governments. I speak for myself only. My opinions do not represent any bias of the aforementioned organizations. --------------------end of summary------------------------------- Thanks for replies go to: Bruce Barnett <barnett@com.ge.crdgw1> David L. Brooks <dob@gov.inel> Andy Chang <chang@com.locus.la.devnet> David Fetrow <fetrow@edu.washington.biostat.bones> Casey Leedom <casey@gov.llnl.gauss> Howard Lem <howard@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> bjoshi@com.stardent [Sorry all the addresses are in UK inverted notation] A compilation of all the replies is available on request. OUR DECISION: None as yet but will investigate the cost/requrements of the PC servers. However since most of the space PC's around here are 8086 based I think we will probably just go for cheap terminal emulators for now and go the X-terminal or SLC route when finances permit. Thanks for all the help Donald ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Donald Ballance, JANET: gnma76@uk.ac.gla.eng.sun1 | | Control Group, BITNET: gnma76@sun1.eng.gla.ac.uk | | Dept. Mechanical Engineering, gnma76%sun1.eng.gla.ac.uk@ukacrl.bitnet | | The University, INTERNET: gnma76%sun1.eng.gla.ac.uk@cunyvm.cuny.edu | | Glasgow. G12 8QQ. gnma76%sun1.eng.gla.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk| | GLASGOW 1990: European City of Culture ... See Glasgow, See Culture | -----------------------------------------------------------------------------