Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ub!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!rochester!miller
From: miller@cs.rochester.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ti.explorer
Subject: Re: Do people still use Explorers?
Message-ID: <1990Nov29.185316.17253@cs.rochester.edu>
Date: 29 Nov 90 18:53:16 GMT
Sender: miller@cs.rochester.edu (Brad Miller)
Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department
Lines: 22


Basically the XL400/XL1200 is a VMEbus machine. Symbolics will sell you just
the CPU-board (which includes 20meg of memory, the FEP, etc.) to plug into
your sun. User access is via X, plus life support routines so the SUN (say
a 4/330, but anything with a VMEbus should work) supplies the disk, the
console, the network connection, and the UX piggybacks on all that. From
a user point of view, a screen comes up on your machine (any x server, not
necessarily the host machine - the host just needs to supply disk, and
a slot) which looks just like the console screen of a stand-alone symbolics,
has the same windows, etc. The keyboard is mapped into the symbolics character
set, (configurable to your tastes) and you are running!.

Note that you can plug in >1 board into a host, if you want to say, run
a centralized 4/490 with 6 or so UX boards in it for remote use. I find
running on the local machine only marginally faster than running remotely
on a Sparc 1. (in the previous relase the difference was much greater).
Network traffic is higher in the remote case, obviously.

-- 
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Brad MillerU. Rochester Comp Sci Dept.
miller@cs.rochester.edu {...allegra!rochester!miller}