jordan@cs.columbia.edu (Jordan Hayes) (05/01/89)
Gregory Kemnitz <kemnitz@mitisft.Convergent.COM> writes:
It will require "enhancements" to X protocol in order to run.
Therefore, it will not run on a "vanilla" X terminal or
workstation server.
Hmmm. This is bad news. What are the details of the "enhancements"?
Anyone who knows care to talk about it at all? I was really excited
when I heard about PM/X, but now i'm confused. Can these
"enhancements" be implemented as extensions? Is Microsoft going to
provide binaries for it's products that can run on "bigger" machines (I
wouldn't mind using a '386 for a display/server, if I could run Excel
or Word on my PMAX or Sequent, for example -- there's no reason not to
believe that a PC wouldn't work just fine as "workstation" [defined as
the keyboard, display and network connector that you sit in front of,
in fact many people use machines that are less powerful/useful than a
'386 for their workstation, but compile, etc. on big machines]).
Don't go for PM/X. OSF/Motif is a compromise product between
IBM and DEC in that SAA/PM look and feel are maintained while
looking like DECwindows to the programmer.
I'm not particularly concerned about the eventual look-n-feel, but
rather the applications I can run on whatever window system I happen to
be using. Hey, I even run suntools sometimes when I *need* dbxtool :-)
...
My excitement about PM/X came from the idea of being able to use
certain applications on a UNIX machine ...
/jordan