Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!super!udel!gatech!bloom-beacon!husc6!rice!titan!phil From: phil@titan.rice.edu (William LeFebvre) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Amiga as an X terminal (was "Memory and the A2024 Hedley monitor") Summary: I didn't know about Ameristar's "other" board! Message-ID: <1864@kalliope.rice.edu> Date: 7 Sep 88 15:22:45 GMT References: <8808060100.AA11069@jade.berkeley.edu> <3550@cadnetix.COM> <1859@kalliope.rice.edu> <1560@sbcs.sunysb.edu> Sender: usenet@rice.edu Reply-To: phil@Rice.edu (William LeFebvre) Organization: Rice University, Houston Lines: 44 In article <1560@sbcs.sunysb.edu> root@sbcs.sunysb.edu (root) writes: >In article <1859@kalliope.rice.edu>, phil@titan.rice.edu (William LeFebvre) writes: >> In order to be a reasonably usable X terminal, it would need an Ethernet >> interface. Those are still rather expensive, even for the 2000. And to >> put one on a 500 would cost even more, because one would need a Zorro II >> slot. > > Dale Luck's X port for the Amiga uses Ameristar's Ethernet > product. It would have to: there is no other Ethernet interface for the Amiga, is there? > The package costs the same as equivalent HW/SW in the PC marketplace, > eg Sun PC-NFS. True, but that price is high for this purpose. I understand that Visual is coming out with an X terminal, called the 640, for around $2000. It has a higher resolution screen and will probably cost less than a 2000 + Ameristar board. That was my point: an Amiga-based X terminal might not be cost effective when compared to the new X terminal products that are certain to appear in the near future. Of course, you are getting an entire workstation for that extra money........ > Ameristar has shown a combo > 2-8 mByte memory board/Ethernet interface for the A500; it most > assuredly DOES NOT need Zorro II slots. This I had not heard. I knew that Dale Luck had shown X running on a 500 with an Ameristar card, but not having actually seen it I didn't know how the card was connected to the 500. Marco Papa mentioned that an ethernet card for the 500 might go for as low as $300. If this is true, then 500 + ethernet card might very well make a cost effective X terminal. I realize that the soon-to-be-released version of Amiga-X is just version 1, but I sincerely hope that Dale adds color capability in one of the next few versions. Because although the Amiga might be questionable as a monochrome X terminal, it would make an incredibly cost effective (and fast) COLOR X terminal! William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University