Subject: X support announcement at USENIX...

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 87 14:59:42 EST

I just heard from my boss that a number of vendors announced their support
for the X windowing system at the just concluded USENIX conference.

* Could someone please post the text of the announcement if available?

* How do the NeWS people out there feel about this announcement?  Will SUN
offer X as well as NeWS to keep up with the other workstation vendors?!?!?

* Does anyone have both NeWS and X running on a SUN?  (We hope to as soon as
we convert to 3.2 UNIX.)

* (As Pink Floyd once said) Is there anybody out there?

--Dwight Mckay, ECN Text & Workstation Software Support
[arpanet: [email-masked], usenet: ...ihnp4!pur-ee!mckay]
[Compu-serve: 75776,1521, office: EE 348B, phone: (317) 494-3561]

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 87 00:30:46 EST

Date: Mon 26 Jan 87 17:42:13-PST
From: Mark Richer <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: X support announcement at USENIX...
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked]

Yes, there has been an announcement that 11 vendors have adopted the MIT
X Window standard. There was a short blurb in last week's info world
and a longer article in something called Electronic News, which I got
a copy of from someone.

The 11 vendors are HP, DEC, Apollo, Data General, Masscomp, Siemens,
Sony, Stellar, Dana, Adobe, and Applix.  "The 11 firms pledged to
incorporate the three-year old MIT system for simultaneous screen display
of multiple applications into their Unix-based operating systems as the
windowing system of choice."  I heard from someone that DEC is also
adopting it for their own VMS os which the article didn't say, but
when are these articles ever 100% accurate?

The only surprise from my point of view was hearing that Adobe was planning
to develop a postscript-based graphics extension to X. HOwever, this goes
along with the news that ADobe will be releasing a C-interface to postscript
soon.  HOwever, the long article pointed out that there is some confusion
with regard to the extent that ADobe is endorsing X.

IBM, SUN, and Microsoft all were "supportive" of the action, but aren't ready
to exclusively endorse it for obvious reasons. However, X is available on the
SUN & RT anyhow so that wouldn't "gum up the works" too much anyhow. Obviously
SUN is in an awkward position. I imagine they will eventually support X and
NeWS as products, but I don't see any reason for NeWS to be shelved at this
early point in the history of network-based windowing standards.

AS far as emulation of X in NeWS, I guess it can be done. But one message I
saw seemed to say that the performance was a factor of 3 worse than just
running X itself? If that's true, I don't think people will be satisfied with
emulation alone when they want X compatibility.

Mark
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