Xref: utzoo comp.sys.misc:1812 comp.misc:3809
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!neff
From: neff@pitstop.UUCP (Mike Neff)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc,comp.misc
Subject: Re: The NeXT machine has been announced! (long)
Message-ID: <236@pitstop.UUCP>
Date: 15 Oct 88 01:31:12 GMT
References: <5806@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <254@acheron.UUCP>
Reply-To: neff@pitstop.UUCP (Mike Neff)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc., Mountain View, CA.
Lines: 48

In article <254@acheron.UUCP> clarke@acheron.UUCP (Ed Clarke) writes:
>
>My source code is at work, but the 'vendor' stuff is all in seperate 
>libraries and did not seem to be very large.  If you're not using
>a xxx86 machine, it should be portable to whatever you're on.  It
>might be possible to go to an Intel system if your compiler is good
>enough.  NeWS is nice, but only works on Sun's.
			    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is incorrect.  NeWS is also available for Mac II's from the
Grasshopper Group, and has been ported to other platforms as well, such
as Atari ST's (I'm not sure if anyone is marketing this commercially).
When the X11/NeWS merged product comes out it will be available
on many more systems such as Xenix based micros, etc.  NeWS is designed to be
portable and to be used by other vendors to encourage its use much the same
way X is.  Even though IBM has bought into NeXTstep, I still wonder whether
whether this toolkit is layered on a networked windowing system like X or
NeWS, or if it's kernel based.  Regardless, perhaps over time Jobs & co. 
could port their toolkit to sit on top of X or NeWS.  Maybe this is happening
already and hasn't been announced since it isn't ready yet ( I would hope so
for their sake. ).

>NeXT's are probably
>good, but the same is true.

See above comments.

>
>I understand that there is a version of X for MS/DOS.  Since that
>system only supports 640k, X can't be all that huge.  The vendor
>for that is Locus(?) and it requires an Excelan(?) card?  I don't
>use DOS much anymore and just heard it in passing.  Check the X
>newsgroups for real information.
>

X is nice too, but I hear that Locus has sacrificed some of X's functionality
in its DOS implementation due to the inherent lack of multitasking
capabilities on DOS/Intel machines which are needed for X.

>Sorry for the large posting, but I like X ...  
>-- 
>Ed Clarke
>uunet!bywater!acheron!clarke

Mike Neff
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Disclaimer:  The statements contained in this article are completely my own
and don't represent official statements of Sun Microsystems, my employer.