mmcintos@uvicctr.UUCP (Mark J. McIntosh) (02/18/89)
I would like to hear about people's experiences with X display terminals.
They look like an economical way to make X available to someone without
buying a full-blown workstation.
So, all comments are welcome. Some people here are considering
buying one in the near future. I've only heard about the VISUAL ones.
There must be more choice than that. What one would you (not) recommend?
If this has all been discussed before, just send me a summary of
the past discussion or point me to where I can get it.
Please reply by e-mail (use the address below). If interest
warrants, I will post a summary. Our news connection reliability
seems to be only fair right now :-(.
Thanks,
--
Mark J. McIntosh <mmcintos@sirius.uvic.ca>
_____________________________________________________________________________
University of Victoria, ECE Dept. | "...the mystery of life isn't a problem to
Box 1700, Victoria, BC, Canada | solve but a reality to experience."
V8W 2Y2 (604) 721-7211 | from Dune
UUCP: ...!{uw-beaver,ubc-vision}!uvicctr!sirius!mmcintos mmcintos@uvicctr.UUCP (Mark J. McIntosh) (03/07/89)
I sent a request for X display terminal info on February 19, 1989. > I would like to hear about people's experiences with X display terminals. >buying a full-blown workstation. > > So, all comments are welcome. Some people here are considering >buying one in the near future. I've only heard about the VISUAL ones. >There must be more choice than that. What one would you (not) recommend? There have been other discussions ongoing within this newsgroup about X display terminals. I will try not to duplicate what has appeared since my request. The following is a summary of the responses. My thanks to all who responded. Thanks again, Mark. ...................................................................... From: uw-beaver!harvard!jmullins!faulkner (Don Faulkner) Date: Sun, 19 Feb 89 17:09:00 EST I have been using the Graphon GO-235 terminal with X-Windows for about 16 months or so now - first under X10R4, and, for the past two months, under X11R3. The host for X10R4 was a uVAX II. The current host (for X11R3) is a Sun 4/260. The terminal connects via RS-232 - if you have hardware handshake (Sun does...) you can push it to 32k baud. Really works well, and is probably one of the lowest cost options for a workable display (it has 1024 x 792 resolution...) Doesn't eat much cpu or memory (the server actually runs on the host machine...) 16 months ago, I paid about $1400 for the display and server. To contact graphon: 1-800-GRAPHON. ...................................................................... From: gatech!mailrus!sharkey!edsews.eds.com!ferguson Date: 20 Feb 89 14:47 -0800 [[ This kind person sent me a bunch of news articles regarding using X on PC's and some of the articles from the other current X terminal discussions in comp.windows.x. If anyone is interested, I can send it to them. If you read this newsgroup, you have likely seen most of them already. Mark ]] ...................................................................... From: <capone.gatech.edu!scott@gatech.UUCP> Date: Tue, 21 Feb 89 15:34:17 PST We recently had a demo of the NCD (I forget which model) terminal. It seemed pretty nice, but was significantly slower that my sun 3/50 (which runs R3 server with purdue+ speedups). I am not sure, however, if that can be attributed to the fact that what I used to guage this (ico) was running an much slower processor when I saw it on the NCD (when viewing the NCD demo, we ran ioc off a client 3/60, when using my 3/50, ico was a client on a sequent s81). It was fairly easy to set up and they claimed to support xdm, the new X session manager. One sticky point however, they did not support the xhost command...thus the thing was open for use by just about any client on the network. They say this will be added in a later release of their software. >From what I have heard, the technology in the NCD unit is nearly the same as in the VISUAL model...a 68000 with a lance ethernet chip. Both companies are suposed to be announcing higher end models at Uniforum this week. I could give you the name of a contact at NCD and perhaps VISUAL as well if you like. A third company (ACER/CounterPoint) has a model out as well, but I am not sure about it at all. I hear it is based on Intel 80x86 processors. - Scott Holt Ga. Tech ...................................................................... From: adam@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Adam Feigin) Date: Sun, 19 Feb 89 09:36:14 -0500 Indeed they are [[ more economical ]]. We currently have a Visual 640 X Display Station (XDS), which we like very much (we do have a few nits, which I'll go into later) Not only is it economical in terms of cost (compared to a workstation), but it requires almost 0 (zilch, zippo) sys_admin support either. You can always turn it off and reset it if it crashes, and no harm is done. (You might have to signal the display manager to restart it, though) > So, all comments are welcome. Some people here are considering >buying one in the near future. I've only heard about the VISUAL ones. >There must be more choice than that. What one would you (not) recommend? Like I said, we have a Visual 640 XDS, and like it, except for 2 nits. The screen is only 14inches, which is small if you're used to working on a 16 or 19 inch workstation screen. The other nit is that the refresh rate is a bit too low, and the flicker is noticeable, especially if you have lines close together (like twm for titlebars). I have seen and played with the Network Computing Devices NCD-16, and we have one on order. In my opinion, it is much nicer than the Visual, albeit a tad more expensive. It's got a 16inch screen, higher resolution(1024x1024 vs. 1024x800 for the Visual),70Hz refresh rate, and graphics accelerator hardware in addition to a 68K. It also seems easier to expand memory (When I spoke to the folks at NCD, they told me NOT to buy memory upgrades from them, to just go out and buy 1 MB SIMMS and plug them it !!) than the visual. There is also a X-Terminal made by Acer Counterpoint, but it has shitty resolution (640x480 !!). I would stay away from it. I know for a fact that Visual will have a 19inch model available (it's supposed to be demoed at UniForum in a week), and that both Visual and NCD are planning color models for mid-summer. Thats it. If you want any more info, just drop me a note. Internet: feigin@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu Adam Feigin Bitnet: feigin@crnlthry Workstation Consultant UUCP: {backbones}!cornell!batcomputer!feigin Cornell National Supercomputer MaBell: (607) 255-3985 Facility, Visualization Group "Sometimes a little brain damage can help" ...................................................................... From: uunet!lupine!mikeh Date: 22 Feb 89 18:45 -0800 [[ Yes! This is a commercial break. Unpaid, though. I have no connection with NCD, not even as a customer ]] My company, Network Computing Devices, has just introduced the NCD16 network display station (aka "X Terminal"). The NCD16 has a 16" *square* screen with 1024 x 1024 resolution. A 16" square screen has the same vertical dimension as a 19" screen but about 1.5 inches narrower. This allows us to give you a desktop footprint about the same as a 14" ASCII terminal. The NCD16 also support the notion of downloading its software over the network from a host computer versus having all the code in ROM, hence the name "network display station". (We also have a PROM version if that is required). I've already sent you some information on the NCD16 via mail [[ Thanks!]]. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Mike Harrigan VP Marketing Network Computing Devices ...................................................................... From: Ken Lee <uunet!daisy!klee> Date: 22 Feb 89 19:15 -0800 Organization: Daisy Systems Corp., Mountain View, Ca. Here's a collection of stuff from the net. [[ I edited this for brevity. There was a long product announcement from NCD which I chose not to repeat. Write to NCD if you want more info (see above message from their VP). There were also some of the articles from the "Thoughts about X terminals" series - not repeated here. ]] ........... >From klee >From: klee@daisy.UUCP (Ken Lee) Subject: X terminals Date: 25 Jan 89 20:20:19 GMT There's an article in the current issue of *Digital Review* about X terminals. They list these: Visual Technology (Lowell, MA), model 640X, 68000 cpu, 12MHz, 1024x800 monochrome, 14" screen, $1995 Networking Computing Devices (Mountain View, CA), model NCD 16, 68000 cpu, 12.5MHz, ASIC graphics processor, 1024x1024 monochrome, 16" square screen Tektronix (Beaverton, OR), model 4211 Graphics Netstation, 386SX cpu, TI 34010 graphics processor, 1024x768 color, 15" screen, $6495 Acer-Counterpoint (San Jose, CA), model Xebra 1000, 8086 cpu, 640x480 monochrome, $1000 DEC, no info As far as I know, only the Visual terminal is currently for sale. I've seen prototypes of the Acer and NCD terminals and they seem pretty stable. I think they're supposed to start shipping this quarter. The DEC terminal may still be in the vaporware stage. Ken Lee -- klee@daisy.uucp Daisy Systems Corp., Interactive Graphics Tools Dept. .......... >From pyramid!ames!garp!mit-eddie!polygen!peter Thu Jan 26 09:20:36 1989 Date: Thu, 26 Jan 89 10:41:49 EST From: ames!EDDIE.MIT.EDU!polygen!peter (Peter Ent) To: mit-eddie!garp!ames!pyramid!daisy!klee Subject: X Terminals Thanks for the terminal listing. I have seen another X terminal from Graph-on and it is VERY impressive. I don't know how it compares with the other terminals, but I give you some info: It runs a 68000 cpu with a 1024x768 (approx.) resolution. The price hasn't been set, but it's supposed to be between $1K and $2K. The server resides on the connected machine (via 19.2 serial line!!!). The server can run concurrenly with your workstation's normal server. The Graph-on server sends compressed, propritary code to the terminal. The only slow thing at the moment is bitmap transfers, and they aren't so bad. For example, in the "bitmap" program, the time a sun server takes to draw the dotted grid lines is very slow compared to the Graph-on terminal, which has been optimized to draw the dotted lines. It literally brought up the grid in one shot (32x32 icon). It also holds fonts locally until freed and other things. I haven't seen the actual reviews of the other terminals, but the Graph-on terminal, since the server resides on the host, isn't restricted to (rather, restricted by) an application using bitmaps, pixmaps, fonts, lots of windows, etc. It was really very fast. --peter ent Poygen Corp. Waltham, Mass. (617) 890-2888 ........... Date: Thu, 26 Jan 89 13:17:10 EST From: ames!EDDIE.MIT.EDU!polygen!peter (Peter Ent) To: mit-eddie!garp!ames!pyramid!daisy!klee Subject: Re: X Terminal Here's the info: GraphOn Corp. 1980 Concourse Dr. San Jose, Ca. 95131 (408) 435-8400 Their representative out here is: Malay Thaker. I don't have his local number. I checked and they are on uunet as "graphon." --pete ent .......... From: sgi!lassen!ian (Ian Clements) Date: 30 Jan 1989 0840-PST (Monday) To: daisy!klee In article <2554@daisy.UUCP> you write: >There's an article in the current issue of *Digital Review* about X terminals. >They list these: ... > DEC, no info > >I don't know if any of these are currently for sale. I've seen prototypes >of the Acer and NCD terminals and they seem pretty stable. I think they're >supposed to start shipping this quarter. The DEC terminal may still be >in the vaporware stage. The discless VAXstation-2000 is sold as an X terminal. I don't know the US price for this but we pay 2000 pounds (3300 list price). This comes with a 15" monochrome display, uVAX-II with FPU, 4Mb RAM, ethernet controller, and a disc-controller which is only of use if you intend to buy either a winchester or TK50 cartridge drive (either of which cost more than the workstation). Mark Lomas (tmal@uk.ac.cam.cl) University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory England ......... >From wyse!vsi1!ames!elroy!orion.cf.uci.edu!uci-ics!blanche.ics.uci.edu!raj >From: raj@blanche.ics.uci.edu (Richard A. Johnson) Subject: NCD-16 X Windowing Terminal (A Review) Summary: Really nice. A few software bugs. Date: 15 Feb 89 02:09:20 GMT Reply-To: Richard A. Johnson <raj@blanche.ics.uci.edu> We recently picked up one of the NCD-16 X Windowing terminals (the one which was at the Usenix in San Diego in case you know the one to which I'm referring) for a 1 week evaluation. (We would have liked to keep it longer but these things are really in demand and NCD doesn't have too many of them as yet. (We got serial number 50 or so! Something like that.) I thought I'd give everyone our impressions of it. General description: -------------------- 16 inch black and white square non-interlaced monitor. Resolution of 1024 x 1024. IBM-PC style keyboard layout. .5 - 4.5 Mb of memory (using SIMs) There are 4 SIM slots in the base. The unit has .5 Mb with nothing installed in these slots. You can put in 256K SIMs or 1Mb SIMs. (Are other size SIMs available? I don't use Macs so I don't know too much about SIMs really.) (Our unit had 1.5 Mb using 256K SIMs. We wish we had some 1Mb SIMs to try it with, but I couldn't find any at the time.) Software is at rev. 3 of X11. (Visual is currently in Beta testing of Rev. 3.) Supports thick and thin ethernet plus SLIP. Good points: ------------ The 16 inch screen is a LOT better than the small 14 inch Visual one. Also the non-interlaced monitor doesn't flicker like the Visual screen does. (This "flicker" is really evident if you use "twm". The header bars when you're focused on a window are really bothersome on the Visual, but are nice and clean on the NCD-16.) The pixels are closer together on the NCD and thus pictures appear sharper. The keyboard feels rather nice. I liked it a lot better than the Visual keyboard. (And MOST keyboards are better than a Sun, so that was no competition! :-) ) Setup and use was very straight forward. If you know enough about networking to set something like this up, then you can figure out how to do it easily. (By the way, we didn't have a manual, but we set it up with no problems.) The NCD system has a special graphic processor. This was really evident to me when I ran "texx" and panned around the zoomed image. On a Sun this flickers so badly that it's a really pain in the !@#$%, but on the NCD it was really smooth and fast. A few orders of magnitude improvement! Honest! The hardware has a little network activity light. It was nice when wondering why something (like getting a font) was taking so long. Bad points: ----------- It doesn't have NFS access for font files. It uses TFTP. This seems slower than the Visual using NFS. They said they will shortly have NFS (another month or so). Apparently you can't have more than around 20 or so TCP connections at once. This was a problem for us (the support staff), but probably wouldn't be one for general users. They said they could increase the limit and asked what was a good number. I told them 50 or so at least, but closer to 100 would be even better. It doesn't support compressed fonts. I haven't told them about this yet. I'll report back on their response when I do. We found 1 minor bug and 1 major one: 1) Minor: "xset fp" seems to do one of two things; both wrong. Sometimes it will set the font path to "(none)". This results in all font manipulations failing making the terminal unusable. Sometimes it simply "bombs" the system in such a way that it tells you push a letter to affect a system reboot. Both of these are bad, but you can avoid them by simply explicitly resetting the same font path. I haven't told them about this one either. I'll let you know. 2) Major: Sometimes the whole system just "locks up". When this happens the little network monitoring light stays on constantly and no mouse buttons or keyboard input works. The system still tracks the mouse but that's all. Killing X programs doing output on the system doesn't have any effect. They said they haven't seen this but they'll take note of it and see what can be done. Summary: -------- If I could get one in my office right now, I'd gladly give up my Sun 3/50! The increase in speed of the unit more than makes up for the lack of real estate in my opinion. Others in our support group feel the same way. We'll probably order a few of them, however we'll have an agreement with them first that we continue getting free software updates until they support NFS, have fixed all of the bugs we found, and maybe until they support compressed fonts. They're worth checking into. Definitely. By the way, I was told they plan a larger (19 inch) unit later this year (but who doesn't? 8^) ). Phone contacts: Main number for NCD: (415) 694-0650 I talked to Judy Estrin, who refered me to Janak Pathak, the sales manager. I hope this long message has been of some help to someone... Richard A. Johnson raj@ics.uci.edu (Internet) UCI ICS Assistant Support Manager ucbvax!ucivax!raj (UUCP) Postmaster / Network Services raj@tertius.ics.uci.edu (via Nameservers) ...................................................................... From: mailrus!ames!claris!apple!amdahl!amiga!boing!dale@uw-beaver.UUCP Date: 24 Feb 89 0:46 -0800 Organization: Boing, Milpitas, Ca. In article <621@uvicctr.UUCP> you write: > > I would like to hear about people's experiences with X display terminals. >They look like an economical way to make X available to someone without >buying a full-blown workstation. > Although I'm not selling an X terminal, we are preparing an equivalent that runs on the Amiga computer. The advantage that the Amiga version of X11 has over X terminals is running clients locally and local mass storage. An 880k floppy can store the server and enough fonts for most people's requirements. Anymore and they can be gotten via NFS off a central server. Most of the X11R2 demos and clients now run on the amiga such as uwm, bitmap, and xcalc. There should be no problem porting most window managers to run locally on the amiga thus releaving some of the network bandwidth problem. Several of my beta testers are on the net, if you are interested in their comments about amiga X, maybe you could post a request for info on how well it runs to those that have it and summarize results along with the X terminal results. Dale -- Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc. {uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!dale ...................................................................... -- Mark J. McIntosh <mmcintos@sirius.uvic.ca> =_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_= University of Victoria, ECE Dept. | "...the mystery of life isn't a problem to Box 1700, Victoria, BC, Canada | solve but a reality to experience." V8W 2Y2 (604) 721-7211 | from Dune UUCP: ...!{uw-beaver,ubc-vision}!uvicctr!sirius!mmcintos