ruth@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Ruth Aylett) (03/06/90)
I am trying to prepare a case that when it's my turn to have my vt100
terminal upgraded to an X-windows terminal, I get a mac instead.
So what do people think of the practicalities of doing this? What is the
cheapest hardware package I could get away with? Do I need an SE, an
SE/30, or some kind of Mac II? How about memory, disk space, large
screen?, video card?, ethernet card?.
The idea would be to run one of the Mac X windows packages (eXodus or
MacX), as well as native Mac software (Persuasion, Word etc). My
terminal is currently on a serial connection to a pad, but I could
probably have a direct ethernet connection if I needed one.
Any help much appreciated!
Ruth Aylett
ruth@aiai.uucp
R.Aylett@ed.ac.uk
dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) (03/08/90)
In article <1937@skye.ed.ac.uk> ruth@aiai.UUCP (Ruth Aylett) writes: >The idea would be to run one of the Mac X windows packages (eXodus or MacX) The current release of eXodus appears to be robust and fully functional, but monochrome only and literally so slow as to be unusable, this on a Mac II with ethernet/MacTCP. I've seen faster X response over a 9600 baud SLIP line. Their next release is promised in April and is said to be much faster. However, if you buy their product now, you'll have to pay an upgrade fee, which is completely unreasonable. What they're shipping now is nothing but a technology demonstration. By no stretch of the imagination can it be called a "product". I'm keeping my eye out for MacX, which isn't released yet. You may want to look at White Pine's eXodus again once their new release ships, but I'd only order it on evaluation to make sure their promises of improved performance are true. -- Steve Dyer dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer dyer@arktouros.mit.edu, dyer@hstbme.mit.edu
dce@smsc.sony.com (David Elliott) (03/08/90)
In article <1989@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM> dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) writes: >I'm keeping my eye out for MacX, which isn't released yet. You may want >to look at White Pine's eXodus again once their new release ships, but >I'd only order it on evaluation to make sure their promises of improved >performance are true. I tried eXodus last summer, and after spending a lot of time getting it working, I didn't like it. It seemed to lack the polish I was expecting, but that may have been a feeling caused by the problems with it freezing and crashing. If it is more robust now, it may be worth a second look. I played with a beta copy of MacX recently, and feel that it is a nicely-done product. The mechanism for starting new commands via the menu is very nice, as is the ability to have two X displays and "Mac-style" windows. This last part, the ability to have a set of X clients that are displayed in Mac windows on the Mac desktop instead of on an X root window, is the nicest touch. While it may not look exactly like X, it's the easiest way for a MultiFinder user to have the best of both worlds. It also performed quite well on an SE/30. I didn't feel any slowness at all for everyday types of things (I didn't hit it with anything intensive, but I really don't spend my day with ico or 10 "cat /etc/termcap"s running on my workstation, so I don't usually try that). Overall, I think that either of these would be fine on a Mac with a 1024x768 or bigger screen. Anything smaller, irregardless of scrolling root windows, is just not going to cut it. I might be able to use MacX for xterms in "Mac-style" mode on a 640x480 (or 704x512) screen, but NCSA Telnet does that for me and it's free! -- David Elliott dce@smsc.sony.com | ...!{uunet,mips}!sonyusa!dce (408)944-4073 "...it becomes natural, like a third sense." -- Homer Simpson