Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!mbkennel
From: mbkennel@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Matthew B. Kennel)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Contents of windows
Keywords: LoTech
Message-ID: <8078@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 2 May 89 06:40:10 GMT
References: <4434@stiatl.UUCP> <4037@ficc.uu.net>
Reply-To: mbkennel@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Matthew B. Kennel)
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 38

In article <4037@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
>In article <4434@stiatl.UUCP>, meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes:
>> Excuse this lo-tech intrusion, but what about all the 386 systems, running both
>> DOS and Unix (or even - gak - the O word)? And X Display Stations, such as the
>> XDS terminals from Visual?
>
>The smallest X terminal I know of is the Acer Xebra. From its specs it sounds
>like a disguised IBM-PC with 640K and a Hercules card. Given the limitations
>of the hardware, 640K sounds like scads of memory. The Amiga runs in 512K
>with both the application and the windows sharing that memory.

How many bits do you need to save for each window?  A workstation's
windows I presume would take up significantly more memory:  A sun is
1152x900 (??) vs. 640 x 200?  In BW I suspect that most Suns would have
plenty of memory for backing store, but with color, things might get tight.

Can the Amiga run the whole server and clients in 512K of memory, when
that 512 also includes the frame buffer???  It MUST have shared libraries
then, which many Eunixes seem to lack.

I think the Amiga's choice to make backing store available for every window
and then return errors when it's out of memory seems like a mistake: I would
rather have things work but run slowly than crash quickly.  By extension, 
why have virtual memory at all?  Just return an error code when it runs out.

Another question: does backing-store only apply to the visble parts of the
window, or could you conceivably make a gigantic window that you only
see a little bit at a time.  If backing-store were required for the whole
window, this would be bad news.

>-- 
>Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
>
>Business: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180.
>Personal: ...!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com.

Matt Kennel
mbkennel@phoenix.princeton.edu