> > > > X really needs a large address space so 32 bit addresses and pointers are
> > > > critical. I don't think a 286 can hack it. Plus it will be slow. Even a
> > > > 386 is a bit slow for X. If all you want is a diskless X-terminal there
> > > > are lots of ways to do this with a 3/4/586 and Linux.
> > 
> > There used to be DesqView/X (a long time ago) which would run on a 286
> > with 2MB (I think) and an EGA-card minimum.  However, I think ELKS
> > will be better of concentrating on the 8086 --- after all, Linux will
> > run on a 80386, and coding for the 80286 alone is rather a
> > niche-market.
> 
> DesqView/X certainly didn't run on 286 (IMO), 

Wrong.  The installation instructions for DESQview/X 2.3 pre-release 2
(in other places referred to as 2.26b) explicitly state that the
minimum requirement is a 80286 with 2MB RAM, 5MB disc-space and an EGA
card.  They also say that an 80386 with 4MB and VGA would be
preferable, but it isn't necessary (as a matter of fact the 2.26b only
used 286-code anyway).

> since it relied heavily on
> QEMM, memory manager that worked in 386 pmode. 

Nope.  There were two versions of QEMM at that time.  QEMM would run
on a 286 and (I think) even lower processors, provided the
memory-layout met some standard requirements.  QEMM386 would only run
on --- you guessed it --- 386.  I'm absolutely positive about this
since I have used QEMM on 80286s.

> Plus it needed 8 MB to
> run (or run decently), if memory serves correctly.

2-4MB.  Of course, there must have been different versions of
DESQview/X, so later versions might well have been more demanding.  On
the other hand, earlier versions might have been even more liberal in
what they required.

Note however that I still think it is the wrong way for elks to do
anything which would exclude the 8086/88.

Sven
-- 
 _       _   Lehrstuhl fuer Mustererkennung und Bildverarbeitung
| |_ __ | |__                                                        Sven Utcke
| | '  \| '_ \   phone:      +49 761 203 8274                   Am Flughafen 17
|_|_|_|_|_.__/   fax  :      +49 761 203 8262           79110 Freiburg i. Brsg.
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]   www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~utcke

Reply via email to