Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!THRUSH.STANFORD.EDU!jim
From: jim@THRUSH.STANFORD.EDU (Jim Helman)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: X windows for Silicon Graphics Machines (HELP)
Keywords: X, SGI, 4D
Message-ID: <8808020520.AA25180@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Date: 2 Aug 88 05:18:19 GMT
References: <1174@cod.NOSC.MIL>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 21

In article <1174@cod.NOSC.MIL> waagen@cod.NOSC.MIL (Don E. Waagen) writes:
>I need to know if X windows has been ported to the Silicon Graphics 4D
>or 3130 machines.  Any help will be appreciated.

SGI's new window system on the 4D series called FourSight, supports
X11, NeWS and GL, SGI's 3-D graphics library.  All of the standard
tools are implemented in NeWS.  ico and xclock are the only X
applications in the distribution.  And with good reason, the X support
seems to be the least well developed of the three interfaces.  It is
extremely slow and somewhat buggy.  But SGI did manage to beat Sun to
the market with a combined X/NeWS server.

How slow is it?  It's SOOO slow that it makes X11R2 on a color Sun-3
seem snappy, e.g.  3-5 seconds to scroll a full height xterm or
gnuemacs window.  Not bad for a 4D/70 rated at 10MIPS!

Still a not-quite-ready-for-prime-time X/NeWS server is better than
none at all....

Jim Helman (jim@thrush.stanford.edu)
Department of Applied Physics
Stanford University