lindahl@arrisun3.utarl.edu (Charlie S. Lindahl) (01/26/91)
Hello all.
Last nite PENCOMM came to our user group (DaNG -- Dallas Area NeXT group)
from the USENIX/UNIFORUM conference and demoed and spoke to the group.
Short impressions:
1) It definitely WORKS! Although the version they demonstrated didn't
do moving of the windows correctly (you had to go to the MOVE menu
to move windows), they had all of the standard X-clients running :
XEYES, XTERM, etc.
2) Speed is a little jerky (movement of windows), but acceptable. The
developer did say that there was a lot of performance tweaking to do
before the final release (target is "sometime in March", as I understoo
it --- please contact the company for details).
3) They stated that clients did NOT have to be modified to work under
their system.
4) Important point for me: they said that you CAN develop color X applications
on a Grayscale NeXT, even tho you can't display them on the "native"
screen.
5) Distribution currently takes 20-30Megabytes (this may change in the
actual release; please double-check with the company for specifics). This
includes the X man pages & X fonts, which take up the bulk of the
space.
6) They have not yet put the Man pages through the Digitial Librarian; this
is one of the first things I'm going to do when I get the product. They've
looked at it, and said something about the "MS" macro package for NROFF
generating weird stuff (I don't know MS or NROFF, so I can't comment).
7) One of the most impressive things was said when the developer was asked
"How long was this in development?" The answer was "I started in October
and we had a version running by the end of November". This is a tribute
to the competence of their developers ...
8) They were running on a NeXTStation and a NeXT ('040) cube.
9) No NeXT color support at present, although that is definitely in their
plans.
10) Price is CHEEP! Something around $250 (again, check the company directly
for their pricing; I don't have their price sheet in front of me).
CONGRATS to PENCOMM for doing a bang-up job! I am looking forward to the
final release ...
--
Charlie S. Lindahl
Automation and Robotics Research Institute
University of Texas at Arlington
Internet EMAIL: lindahl@evax.arl.utexas.edu
Standard disclaimer: Ain't no opinion but my own.