sanborn@BRILLIG.UMD.EDU (Jim Sanborn) (09/16/87)
First Impressions of NeWS William Roberts Mel Slater Kieron Drake Antony Simmins Allan Davison Department of Computer Science Queen Mary College 190 Mile End Road LONDON E1 4NS Peter Williams QMC Interactive Systems Ltd 229 Mile End Road LONDON E1 4NS ABSTRACT The SUN Microsystems Network Extensible Win- dow System (NeWS) is a display system that uses the PostScript page description language to pro- vide fully device independent screen and input manipulation as a network service. This system has been available in the UK as a beta test product since April 1987 and this paper reports the work done with NeWS at Queen Mary College. A general introduction to NeWS is given, together with some more detailed information and reports of what each author has been doing with the system. We will try to predict the future of NeWS and its main rival (the MIT X-Windows system) and to suggest changes to the NeWS beta product that will be necessary for it to realise its potential. Keywords: NeWS, PostScript, workstation, window systems, device independence, graphics, X-windows August 1987 - 25 pages ------------------------------------------------------------- This paper can be obtained free of charge by writing to Sue White Research Coordinator Department of Computer Science Queen Mary College 190 Mile End Road LONDON E1 4NS ENGLAND or sending e-mail to suew@qmc-cs.UUCP.