Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!maverick.ksu.ksu.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!milo.mcs.anl.gov!midway!gargoyle!igloo!ddsw1!corpane!brooks From: brooks@corpane.UUCP (David E. Brooks Jr) Newsgroups: comp.windows.x Subject: Re: DESQview/X Message-ID: <3940@corpane.UUCP> Date: 17 Dec 90 14:57:45 GMT References: <9012110545.AA23163@fernwood.mpk.ca.us> Organization: Corpane Industries Inc., Louisville, KY Lines: 52 jns@fernwood.mpk.ca.US (Jerry Sweet) writes: [ Mentioned brochure about DESQview/X ] >It also claims to provide "remote DOS computing". The brochure describes >the capability thus: "Gives DOS users access to more powerful DOS programs >that are not capable of being run on their own machine." >This almost sounds useful, since, if it's true, you can then buy lots >of relatively cheap software for a single 386 PC running multiple DOS >sessions and use it to serve (in the non-X sense of serve) your other >X-based workstations spreadsheets and whatnot. Is this possible? I >dunno for sure, but that's the implication I get after a brief >not-very-careful and not-extremely-PC-wise reading of the brochure. >Any comments from the peanut gallery? I happened to be fortunate enough to attend the Fall 1990 Comdex show in Las Vegas, and I can at least tell you what I saw. Basically, I think it's pretty impressive. From what I can tell (and you can take it with a grain of salt, as my X experience is somewhat limited) it looks like a full X implementation, complete with libraries to compile your own X applications under DOS. And to prove it they had xeyes and xmaze (at least) running as X clients. I don't know which toolkits were provided. Also, I _THINK_ it was X11R4, but don't quote me on that. They had a network of DOS machines and Sun workstations, and dazzled us with numerious occurances of xmaze and xeyes, with DOS windows thrown in for good measure (DOS Shells, _NOT_ Microsoft Windows). Taking into consideration they were using 25Mhz '386 machines, the response was very good in all cases. However, there is one gotcha we discovered. DOS applications on remote machines are text-only (This is not a limitation with local DOS applications, I believe). Whether or not this is a problem/limitation depends upon the application(s) your looking to do. I don't recall a price being set at the show. Although they were using a Ethernet network at the show, they made no mention of what product or cards they were supporting for network access. Nor was there any mention of SLIP being supported. All in all, I was impressed with it, and plan to look into it further when time/money/situation permit. -- Dave -- David E. Brooks Jr UUCP : ...{ddsw1,ukma}!corpane!brooks Corpane Industries Incorporated -or- brooks@corpane.UUCP 10100 Bluegrass Parkway Phone: +1 502 491 4433 x122 Louisville, KY 40299 Quote: printf("%c", (char) 34)