[comp.windows.x] Is Xwindows overkill for my applications?

shino@anasaz.UUCP (Rei Shinozuka) (03/28/89)

I am working on a project that will involve utilizing a window-based
user interface.  This interface will be text only and will not require
a mouse.  Most of the user input will be forms.  

The application will have to run on MSDOS machines communicating with 
a UNIX
box (pyramid).  The MSDOS will probably someday become a UNIX 386 box.
The PC will serve as the user interface engine, the big UNIX box will
be the database server.

Is X windows overkill for this situation?  Can the server run on an MSDOS 
machine?  Are there good commercial implementations? 
If X windows is overkill, are there any packages that at least
provide the user interface window primitives that are compatible with
Xlib?  

Or am I better going to one of the hundreds of "ZZYZX windows"
packages that run on the PC?  I'm paranoid about buying into some
fly-by-night incompatible "window system" on MSDOS and paying for
it later by feature limitations, non-portability, bad design. 
Being a UNIX guy, I'm used to going with standards; my
impression of MSDOS is that most software is written & designed by 
three guys in a garage.  (Not the same 3 guys, of course.)

thanks in advance,

-rei