SunRiver information...

[Jim Morton]

In article <866 at telly.UUCP>, evan at telly.UUCP (Evan Leibovitch) writes:
> 
> ...Well, one thing it won't be is a cheap way to implement multiple Xwindow
> servers on a 386. Most of the people at SunRiver's Uniforum booth had never
> 
> ...SunRiver may be a good route to go. I'm not sure about how appropriate
> it is for native Unix applications (as opposed to an intelligent serial
> card and semi-intelligent terminals).
> 
I would think the germane remark would be "I think having X up on 4/8/12
386 consoles like the SunRiver system offers will drive the 386 machine into
the ground." I'm still waiting to see decent X performance on ONE 386 console!
What we're seeing now with the advent of Xsight, PC-Xsight, X-terminals,
and SunRiver stations are a variety of ways to configure multiple graphics
stations on a single machine. Depending on whether you have DOS under Unix
users, text-mode versus graphic applications, and existing PC hardware should
determine which of these solutions is best for you. Some things to consider:

1) SunRiver gets you additional consoles, multiscreens, and 2 serial and 1
   parallel port per station - a nice "work center" configuration

2) X with EGA resolution just gets in your way - there really is not enough
   "desktop" area to do much window type stuff in. VGA, or things like
   Bell Technologies BLIT or Compaq's new high-res card are much better.

3) If you don't have graphic applications, VP/ix, or a psychotic need for
   ANSI color, SunRiver stations are kind of overkill - use an asynch.
   terminal.

4) If you're looking for X client machines, look for something that will
   offload the host machine of everything except the X protocol - do the
   graphics locally on an X terminal or PC with X client software. From
   what I've seen on the market right now, if you're going to spend $2000
   on an X client system, get PC X client software - that way you still have
   a DOS PC in front of you, reuse potentially existing PC hardware, and
   have something to use if the X server machine goes down. I'll change my
   mind when X terminals get under $1000 and have user-loadable firmware on
   removable media (or downloadable).

5) As far as SunRiver support of "native Unix applications", SunRiver, SCO,
   and ISV's like us have gone to great lengths to make sure that EGA and
   VGA graphic applications work on multiple SunRiver stations - the support
   really is in there for all those consoles, multiscreens, serial ports, 
   and parallel ports!

--
Jim Morton, APPLiX Inc., Westboro, MA
UUCP: ...harvard!m2c!applix!jim
      jim at applix.m2c.org