Andrew and X

[Jim Gettys]

	Andrew was done at the Information Technology Center at CMU.
It is available only to universities under license from IBM.  You should
contact someone there for information on what displays Andrew runs on, but
the number is large.

	X is a network transparent window system; client programs can
run on any machine in your network using your workstation's display
transparently.	X was developed at MIT by Bob Scheifler, myself and others
(Bob is in the Laboratory for Computer Science, I work for Digital at
Project Athena at MIT).  We started with some software called W done
at Stanford by Paul Asente and Brian Reid, though little of W besides 
some of the ideas remain at this date.

	Current applications include several window manager programs
(X attempts to seperate mechanism from policy), a terminal emulator
(~vt102 and Tek 4010), a number of demo programs, load monitor,
several previewers (Imagen and DVI), and a number of other utilities.

	The device independent part of X developed at MIT is available
from MIT for $100. X is copyright MIT, but there are no restrictions
against redistribution for profit.  No license with MIT is required to
get a distribution.  The device dependent implementations for the DEC
VS100, Sun and object for the VS2 are on the MIT distribution along with
a preliminary implementation for the Sun display.  Since the 4.3BSD
release is immanent, I am now removing what little Unix source code
comes on the distribution, and no license at all is required; if you
need that code, you will be able to get it from that tape.  

	Our current release matches the version on the 4.3BSD source
tape.  The VS2 and VS2/GPX implementations are available supported
(along with other Digital developed software, for example GKS) from
Digital as the Ultrix-32w product.
	Listed below are some of the machines on which X is now known to
be running (or which there may be active ports in progress), though the
implementations may not yet be available:

Available NOW:
____________________________________
Digitial Equipment Corporation:
	VS100		(Complete, MIT distribution)
	VS2		(Complete, MIT distribution or Ultrix 32w)
	VS2/GPX		(Complete, Ultrix 32w only)

Sun Microsystems Inc:
	Sun workstations EXCEPT Sun 1 color
			(incomplete, MIT distribution)

____________________________________
Not yet available, but demonstrable:

IBM
	RT/PC under 4.2a ONLY (APA8, APA16, ACIS displays)
			(Should be available early Summer; Brown University
			has been doing the port)

Masscomp		(Status unknown)

Jupiter Systems		(Status unknown)
___________________________________
Others who may be working on implementations:

Apollo

___________________________________
Other Server only implementations:

Xerox Dandelion		(Berkeley, status unknown; this allows programs
			running on various Unix machines to do their display
			on the Dandelion).

In addition, the client programs have been ported to the CCI and at
least one research machine in Digital; it is believed that porting
client programs to nearly any machine running Berkeley Unix should be
very simple.  There is also other activity porting X to other hardware;
the above list is incomplete, and there is no way for me to know who is
doing what with X unless they are kind enough to keep me informed.
Distributions have been requested and mailed to nearly every computer
manufacturer.  If you want X on XYZ piece of hardware, either do the
work yourself or bother the manufacturer to make it available.
We have our hands full with the six different displays we have to
deal with at Project Athena.

	To get a copy of X, send mail to "xrequest at athena.mit.edu".

				Jim Gettys
				Digital Equipment Corporation
				MIT/Project Athena
				jg at athena.mit.edu