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- Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
- Path: sparky!uunet!haven.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!sgiblab!sgigate!odin!twilight!zuni!anchor!olson
- From: olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson)
- Subject: Re: X Terminal: I want my WorkSpace!
- Message-ID: <pgbdl9o@zuni.esd.sgi.com>
- Sender: news@zuni.esd.sgi.com (Net News)
- Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc. Mountain View, CA
- References: <l#pnyvc.jchauvin@netcom.com>
- Date: Sun, 6 Sep 92 05:19:38 GMT
- Lines: 52
-
- In <l#pnyvc.jchauvin@netcom.com> jchauvin@netcom.com (John H. Chauvin) writes:
- | Image my surprise when I found out that the WorkSpace
- | will not work on X terminals. My question is:
-
- Why should that surprise you? Like all but the most recent
- programs that we ship (and still many of them!) WorkSpace
- is primarily a GL program, not an X program. A diskless low end
- Indigo isn't a whole lot more expensive than color X terminals
- so perhaps that might be a viable alternative, although I personally
- think that is a waste of a good machine, since ethernet is slow
- enough (at best just over 1 Mbyte/sec; at worst much less) that you
- spend a lot of time waiting for the net.
-
- | Does SGI have any plans to provide a version which will
- | run on a X terminal? If so, when? How about adding more
-
- Probably, in some future release.
-
- | capability to the application along the lines of Hewlett
- | Packard's HPVue which works on all terminals that support X.
- | Compare the jot program to the editor that is supplied with
- | HPVue. Jot is a joke!!!! (Zip is much better) If my users
- | see a HP workstation, they will refuse to work on an SGI machine.
-
- I know that our UI folks (I'm not part of that group) would be
- interested in knowing just what it is about the HP Vue environment
- that you like so much; I'm casually aware of some of its features,
- they probably know them better.
-
- | My understanding is that most SGI users are "power unix users"
- | who have no need for a GUI. Well if SGI want to expand its
- | market share it must address the useability issue.
-
- To some extent we are, but it still doesn't get anywhere near
- the budget that fast graphics gets, because that is still the
- primary reason customers buy our machines (and fast CPU's, of
- course).
-
- | (Other vendors are!) You can at least offer it. Users can decide
- | for themselves if they want to use it. If gl is so important
- | to SGI, why don't they sell a X/gl terminal?
-
- Because it isn't worth the cost of development to us. There *are*
- other vendors working on them, but primarily for OpenGL. We would
- rather put our resources into doing systems, as I understand it
- (I do *not* officially speak for the company). Certainly I think
- it would be a bad decision for us to work on X or GL (or PEX, or
- whatever) terminals, rather than systems.
- --
- Let no one tell me that silence gives consent, | Dave Olson
- because whoever is silent dissents. | Silicon Graphics, Inc.
- Maria Isabel Barreno | olson@sgi.com
-