mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Mark Interrante) (03/07/88)
A question on the applicability of network window systems to do work from home.
More specifically, how dense is the _typical_ communications between the host
server?
For example: If I were to have a NEWS workstation at home with a 9600
baud modem line how feasable is it for me to run applications such as
editors, compilers, painting tools, desktop publishing etc. with the
compute intensive processes on the mainframe and the graphics at home.
I am not asking for specific answers or flames I am trying postulate
what kind of capabilities I can expect if the new future.
Mark Interrante CIS Department
University of Florida
Internet: mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu Gainesville, FL 32611
(904) 335-8051bob@allosaur.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield) (03/07/88)
In article <12423@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Mark Interrante) writes: >A question on the applicability of network window systems to do work >from home. More specifically, how dense is the _typical_ >communications between the host server? GraphOn makes hi-perf graphics terminals with mice and local RasterOp intelligence, and distributes hacks to Xlib to create a server that will run on any BSD machine and spit GraphOn's protocol over a serial port to their terminal. This means that I could have, say, a GO terminal talking over a pair of TrailBlazers doing LZ compression to a Pyramid on campus. X applications would run on the Pyramid or anywhere else, just as before; it's just that the server would be running on the Pyramid, too, rather than on the Sun on my desk. I've wondered about how difficult it would be to do the same thing with NeWS as with X on the GraphOn terminals. You wouldn't have the compactness of expression in PostScript over the slowest link (from the server to its graphics engine), though clients would still talk PS to the server. One normally thinks of the server-graphics engine link as being very fast (DMA to a frame buffer) and the client-server link as potentially much slower (serial line or network IPC speed); perhaps turning around those constraints would cause re-thinking of the way we view clients and servers. Has anybody tried any of this stuff? The PO for our NeWS 1.1 sources hasn't gone out yet, and I can't convince "them" to get me a GO terminal just to play with (yet :-). Or is there a better scheme? -=- Bob Sutterfield, Department of Computer and Information Science The Ohio State University; 2036 Neil Ave. Columbus OH USA 43210-1277 bob@cis.ohio-state.edu or ...!cbosgd!osu-cis!bob
paul@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Paul W. Placeway) (03/07/88)
In article <7797@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> bob (Bob Sutterfield) writes:
< ... Or is there a better scheme?
I think that a better scheme would involve using a micro with decent
graphics as the home side (read Macintosh (or Amiga, PC-with-wheels,
etc. if you must)). Besides, when you wern't using it to do work over
the phone, it would still be usefull.
-- Paul
--
Everything is relative...mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Mark Interrante) (03/07/88)
Having a "terminal" with some processng capabilities was the intention of
my posting. Since I can get such processing power for under 2K (MAC, AMIGA,
CLONE).
Mark Interrante CIS Department
University of Florida
Internet: mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu Gainesville, FL 32611
(904) 335-8051reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) (03/08/88)
In article <12423@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Mark Interrante) writes: >A question on the applicability of network window systems to do work from home. >More specifically, how dense is the _typical_ communications between the host >server? >For example: If I were to have a NEWS workstation at home with a 9600 >baud modem line how feasable is it for me to run applications such as >editors, compilers, painting tools, desktop publishing etc. with the >compute intensive processes on the mainframe and the graphics at home. >I am not asking for specific answers or flames I am trying postulate The basic concepts were demonstrated with the Blit years ago. Although my Blit was tied into a micom switch at 9600 baud, Pike stated in his AT&T Technical Journal article in 1984 that people at Murray Hill were running them at home over dial up links at 1200 baud. Obviously, it was slower, but still quite usable With NeWS I would imagine you could program the server to handle most of those applications locally, provided you have enough memory in the server to handle them. -- George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation {gatech,rutgers,attmail}!codas!pdn!reggie Mail stop LF-207 Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL 34649-2826
kadie@uiucdcsb.cs.uiuc.edu (03/09/88)
>For example: If I were to have a NEWS workstation at home with a 9600 >baud modem line how feasable is it for me to run applications such as >editors, compilers, painting tools, desktop publishing etc. with the >compute intensive processes on the mainframe and the graphics at home. >I am not asking for specific answers or flames I am trying postulate There might be a slight problem if your host is a Sun. Suntools for the merged NeWs/X product will run under X not NeWs! So if you try to use any of the nifty tools (mailtool, chesstool, etc) your sun is going to be sending bitmaps across your phoneline. Carl Kadie Inductive Learning Group University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign UUCP: {ihnp4,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!kadie CSNET: kadie@UIUC.CSNET ARPA: kadie@M.CS.UIUC.EDU (kadie@UIUC.ARPA)