[comp.windows.x] Correction of some miss statements about the IBM RT/PC

DAN@YKTVMV.BITNET (12/07/87)

>We've been told by a person who used X10R4 that the driver for the color
>display of the PC/RT only let you use 2 of the 16 available colors at a
>time, i.e. you could have a fore & background color.
>
>Does anyone know of an X10R4 server for color PC/RTs which lets you use all
>the colors at once?
>
>dirk grunwald
>univ. of illinois

Reply:
    The IBM ACIS implementation of X 10.4 (runs under 4.2 BSD) is often
    confused with the IBM RT/PC X Windows 1.1 implementation of X 10.4
    (runs under AIX).  The ACIS version supports only a single level,
    addressable bit plane.  For the 6153 and 6155 displays, this means
    2 out of 2 colors (black & white) while for the 6154 display, this
    means 2 out of 16 colors.  There is no ACIS support for the megapel
    display.

    IBM RT/PC X Windows 1.1 supports full color, 16 out of 64 for the 6154
    display and 256 out of 4096 for the megapel display.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
>>IBM recently announced that X-11 on the RT under AIX will be available
>>in September of 1988.  So I doubt that you'll do anything with whathever
>>is in the SysV/RT subdirectory.
>>
>Read the announcement carefully - it doesn't say they will support
>X11,  just that they will support some of the functionality.

Reply: You are reading too much into words constructed or approved
by lawyers.
         There are many "... some severs may implement ..."
         phrases in the MIT documentation that need to be
         addressed specifically for the RT.
Without having the eventual implementation in hand it is hard to
say exactly what will be delivered. Almost certainly the full base
and hopefully some of the options.

In general IBM products aim for significant added functionality.

Walt Daniels
IBM Research

wesommer@athena.mit.edu (William Sommerfeld) (12/08/87)

In article <8712071729.AA08561@ATHENA.MIT.EDU> DAN@YKTVMV.BITNET writes:
>    ....  There is no ACIS support for the megapel
>    display.

I don't know much about what is or isn't ``supported'', but..

An RT/PC running ACIS 4.3 with a megapel display (1Kx1K 8 bit color)
was seen at EDUCOM running X version 11 in full color; it was really
impressive looking.

By comparison, DEC only had one display running X (the rest of their
machines were running VMS), and it was running version 10.

				- Bill