phil@BRL.ARPA (Phil Dykstra) (03/26/88)
Does anyone have an X Window System server for either the 3d (oops, 3030) or 4d? Does SGI plan to provide one at some point? - Phil <phil@brl.arpa>
creon@ORVILLE.NAS.NASA.GOV (03/28/88)
Silicon graphics new window system (called 4sight, I believe) is being shipped now with its beta-test 4DGT machines. It is based on news and works pretty well, even in pre-release. It supports regular news. It also supports mex windows (more correctly "GL windows") and they work, though there are a few minor incompatibilities. (we have a 4DGT running 4sight). 4sight also supports X version 11, though I have not used it. All the X and news routines are in the new 4DGT graphics manual, so I presume they exist. I have only been porting mex based applications so far, and hence have not used them. 4sight is being released for the whole 4D family, in release 3 (I believe) of the SGI operating system for the 4D60 and 4D70, so they should also have news and X any day now. As for the 3000s, I know that some version of 4sight has been runnning in house at SGI on the 3000 family for some time now, and they told us, at a meeting with all their big shots present (Clark, McCracken, Chesson, Baskett) that they would release it. I hope they meant it. The alpha releases we have been using are buggy, of course, but the bugs have been cleaned up at rapid rate even in these (pre-) releases. The official (beta) release looks like it should be quite usable, given the rate of cleanup of bugs in the alpha versions. I should point out that it is quite a job that they have done (NeWs + X + GL windows), making available the full power of the hardware (through GL windows at least). The performance is, naturally, much higer performance than I have seen on any SUN, even on the bitmap-oriented stuff (at least on ther GT). Also, I have heard, many of the bugs in 4sight are bugs in the (licensed) SUN code, and just like NFS, sgi is realizing that they must rewrite most of what they licensed. I believe they showed the product at NCGA, though I was not there. Creon Levit MS 258-5 NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, California 94035 (415)-694-4403 creon@orville.nas.nasa.gov (internet)
ralphw@IUS3.IUS.CS.CMU.EDU (Ralph Hyre) (03/29/88)
What about for the 'older' machines, like a 2400T.
Any chance of an X11 for them?
--
- Ralph W. Hyre, Jr.
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