🚀 go-pugleaf

Gavin.Flower@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Gavin Flower) writes:

>In article <BwrxtD.MMw@alsvid.une.edu.au> dmiller@elli.une.edu.au writes:
>>What is this "X-Windows" I see referred to?  I assume it is a Windows
>>version for cooperative processing?
>>
>>Furthermore, I have heard nothing but moans and groans about it's
>>performance.  Is it any good, or too much of a resource pig?
>>
>>Thanks for the help.


>Performance will obviously be inferior to a well designed single host
>GUI system like an Acorn Archimedes running Risc-OS, but "X-windows"
>is designed to be run over a network.

Gavin, 
	Although there is some truth in what you say, my experience tells me
that it ain't necessarily so.  No doubt there is overhead in formatting the
packets, sending them across the net, decoding them on the other side, etc.
However, the X-server relieves the X-client (the X-client is the program, but
in this instance I use "X-client" to mean the computer system on which the
program is running) of certain chores, such as manipulating bit maps, etc.
Thus, you have 2 processors running in parallel, more or less.  Also, the 
X-server can be implemented using a speciallized processor, such as one of the 
TI34xxx  chips, while the client is implemented using a general processor, 
such as a 68xxx, 80x86, or VAX etc.
	My experience running the X demonstration ICO on a VAXstation 3100
with VMS 5.4-3 vs. on a VXT 2000 connected to that same VAXstation is that
ICO runs faster on the VXT.  That is the extent of my testing.  You might be
right in the general case, but the answer isn't that simple.

Warmest regards


Jeff Silverman, Boeing Commercial Airplane.
silverman@ilvc.boeing.com