Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!clyde.concordia.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!yale!mintaka!bloom-beacon!LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU!mouse
From: mouse@LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re:  X terminals/ pc X terminals
Message-ID: <9010240817.AA15043@Larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
Date: 24 Oct 90 08:17:41 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 49

> I heard about an Xterminal by graphon corporation that employed a few
> unique features.  The host creates a compressed output (proprietary
> scheme) that allows an xwindow to operate (reasonably) over a serial
> line.

> 1:	how well does this scheme/product work?

It works about as well as you can get over a serial line.  I used one
of these briefly; it was being driven off a Sun-4 over a 19200 bps
line.  Text-type stuff worked just fine; bitmap-type stuff was a real
pig, as one would expect (just ain't no way you're gonna shove more
than 19K a second over that wire!).

The version I used limited pointer cursors to 16x16; this was an
unpleasant surprise (I have grumbled about this before; I'll restrain
myself here).  I do not know whether this has been fixed since, or
whether it is universally true of their products or not.

> 2:	The hardware that graphon uses is comparable to a PC, is there
> 	a comparable scheme/product that is essentially terminal
> 	emulation software?

If you mean, is there terminal emulation software that runs over serial
lines, the answer is yes, there are many such.  Any terminal qualifies,
for example :-)

I do not recall whether the box I used supported such a thing directly
or not.  I think it must have, because I have a hard time seeing how
the proxy server would have gotten started otherwise, but that is my
only reason for believing so.

> 3:	if q 1 and 2 are not reality, what is the best way to bring up\
> 	an xterminal with pc software.

This sounds as though you think the display end runs on a PC.  Well,
except in perhaps a very restricted meaning of "computer" in that
phrase, it didn't in the case I saw.  The box on the desk in front of
me was not a general-purpose computer; you could not use it except as
an X terminal (and, presumably as a dumb terminal to start the X
session).  If you want an X server for your PC, there are many such; I
know they exist for IBM DOS machines (and clones) and Macintoshes; I
don't know about any other of the machines normally thought of as PCs,
though many machines which really are PCs do have X servers (like
Sun-3/50s - just try to put multiple users on one and watch it die).

					der Mouse

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