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From: dipirro@amber.DEC (I'm not overweight...I'm undertall.)
Newsgroups: net.works
Subject: Re: X window system
Message-ID: <1184@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: Mon, 17-Feb-86 09:50:24 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.1184
Posted: Mon Feb 17 09:50:24 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Feb-86 06:39:50 EST
Sender: daemon@decwrl.DEC.COM
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 38

In article dated 14-Feb-1986 by Grant Munsey, he states:
 
>I am consulting for a company that is interested in using the
>X window system. Is there anybody out there that has information
>on X?
 
The X-Window software was produced through a joint effort between DEC
and MIT's Project Athena. It originally ran on the VAXstation-100
workstation/terminal (which DEC no longer sells) and was then ported to the
VAXstation-I, VAXstation-II, and finally the VAXstation-II/GPX. X-Windows
was a research tool originally. It has now been incorporated into
ULTRIX-32w, an ULTRIX windowing system available from DEC and supported by DEC.
(ULTRIX-32w is "layered" on ULTRIX-32m, the ULTRIX available for uVAX).
It is not currently available on VMS.

X-Windows is a very simple, pliable windowing environment. It provides a
window model as well as an input model for workstation peripherals. The
X server process communicates with the hardware and provides the model that
applications see. The user interface (or window manager) is merely an
application. ULTRIX-32w comes with a window manager developed by the ULTRIX
group. However, this can be replaced at customer installations if desired.

Applications are provided with subroutine libraries that facilitate
communication with the X server and perpetuate the model(s). The connection
between application processes and the X server is a socket connection,
which under ULTRIX has been optimized when the communicating processes are
on the same node. However, this permits compute-intensive applications to
run on different nodes than the X server (or workstation) node.

ULTRIX-32w is currently available from DEC with its terminal emulators,
window manager, server software, device drivers, and associated programmer's
documentation. There are also some sample applications around, but I don't
know if they come with the kit. X-Windows is still evolving and will be
available on future workstations from DEC as well.


Steve DiPirro
Digital Equipment Corp.