Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!necntc!dandelion!ulowell!apollo!dawson
From: dawson@apollo.uucp (Keith Dawson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: Apollo sourced X
Message-ID: <3aee8f9b.c32@apollo.uucp>
Date: 18 Mar 88 19:53:00 GMT
Reply-To: dawson@apollo.UUCP (Keith Dawson)
Organization: Apollo Computer, Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 61
Keywords: X11, ADUS

I'm the manager responsible for X development at Apollo. Let me try to end
the confusion that may have been engendered by the replies to a recent posting
by roger@mips.COM (Roger March).

  1) Does Apollo currently offer X as a supported product? About a
     year ago I got a badly mangled X10 from our local sales office
     and it was definitely unsupported at that time.
  
X is not a supported product at this time. We will offer an X product that
shares the screen with the DM and that allows access to all of the Domain
Graphics Resources. (A client that uses native graphics cannot be run
remotely; but any client that makes only Xlib calls can be remoted in the
usual way.)

N.B. -- while the X product will be coming out about the same time as SR10, it
does NOT depend on or require SR10. It will run on SR9.7 at first ship.
   
  2) If X is available, which version - 10R4, 11R1, 11Rx? Also what
     revision of the AEGIS ... er, Domain IX is required for it.
  
X.V11R1 is currently available through ADUS; within a few weeks, X.V11R2 will
be available as well. These versions are not supported by Apollo. The full MIT
source/documentation tree is provided on the tapes, as well as binaries, so
there is no need to build them.

Both will run on SR9.6 with a patch (provided) or on SR9.7. Both require
TCP/IP 3.0 or 3.1. Also required is Domain/IX, which runs on all releases from
SR9.5 onward.
  
  3) If X isn't currently available, when will it be and again what
     OS revision is needed?
  
See previous.
  
  4) Again if no X today, can I get a cleaned (or patched) version
     of the MIT distribution from Apollo? In the past, some alien
     and obscene behavior of Apollo's "cpp" has made building X a
     nightmare from the MIT tape.
  
On both tapes is a full binary tree with server and ~25 clients, including a
"switcher" feature for rapid transition between the DM and X environments.
(The switcher was not on MIT's X.V11R1 tape, but it is on MIT's X.V11R2. It
is present on both ADUS tapes, however.)

The problem with cpp is still present, but you need not be tripped up by it
if compiling X.V11R2. It affects only the imake facility. Should you need to
compile anything, you'll find that the makefiles on the released tape are all 
correct and don't need to be "imade."
  
  5) The Apollo server on the MIT tape appears to be mono-chrome
     only. Is there a color server available somewhere? I assume
     that the supported X will have a color server, or do I assume
     wrong?
  
Apollo's server for X.V11R1 was monochrome. The X.V11R2 server supports
pseudo-color, 4 and 8 planes. It performs faster in color than its predecessor
did in mono. The Apollo product X will incorporate color support, of course,
as well as the X/DM "share mode."
___________________________________________________________
Keith Dawson  Apollo Computer            617-256-0176 x8337
              330 Billerica Rd.  Chelmsford, MA  01824  USA 
              {decvax,umix,ulowell}!apollo!dawson