Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!think!snorkelwacker!spdcc!dyer
From: dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: X11 on NEXT
Keywords: X11 NEXT
Message-ID: <1270@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM>
Date: 18 Jan 90 08:27:39 GMT
References: <11675@csli.Stanford.EDU> <7545@cs.utexas.edu> <3750@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> <1218@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM> <19823@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer)
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Lines: 36

In article <19823@watdragon.waterloo.edu> tbray@watsol.waterloo.edu (Tim Bray) writes:
>dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) writes:
>>Here's a mind-blower: at EDUCOM we were demonstrating the NeXT
>>prototype X server...
>
>This is maddening.  Every couple of weeks, somebody inquires anxiously about
>NeX11T, and there's no answer, than dyer@ursa-major nonchalantly drops this
>one.  Somebody please tell me that the information's been posted and just not
>making it to this computer.  Please:  Is it R3 or R4?  Is really slow or
>just unacceptably slow?  Can you make it hide NeXStep?  How do the fonts
>look?  How does it work?

My response was addressing someone who didn't understand how X works.  It 
wasn't intended to be a teaser.  I can't speak about its availablility or
its schedule, since I'm not involved with the NeXT project.  The Project
Athena EDUCOM demo back in October 89 was using a development version which
was a little buggy, but still quite usable.  I have no idea to what extent
it's changed over the past few months.  Back then it was R3, of course.
I'd heard that one hold-up was the availability of R4, which of course
was only made generally available to the general public (including NeXT)
two weeks or so ago.  The performance didn't seem slow to this casual
observer, but I'd hold off on making any judgements at all.  The server
runs in a NeXT Step window, which I surmise is subject to whatever constraints
any NeXT Step window has.

It would seem obvious to me that it shouldn't be surprising that MIT might
possess and demo intermediate version of this software since they're doing
the development of the software.  Why is it so shocking that it would be
demoed at EDUCOM?  If it were any other piece of software, you'd realize
that running a demo at a trade show says nothing about its status as a product,
relatively bug free and ready to ship.

-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
dyer@arktouros.mit.edu, dyer@hstbme.mit.edu