RE: X server for original PC (8088/8086)

[Ken Seefried]

From: tony duell 
> On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 5:56 PM, Steven M Jones  wrote:
>>
>> Before anyone gets too excited about the blistering speed of the 60
>> MHz TMS34010, ... However, since it has a
>> graphics-optimized instruction set, it was still able to do some
>> things noticeably faster than the 16 MHz 80186 would have.

Price/performance for the tms34010 was terrible; it was somewhat
faster at graphics (bit-oriented) ops than an 80186 (or other
contemporary processor), but it was several times more expensive.  TI
tried to sell around that by claiming it was a complete general
purpose processor in addition to graphics processor so you could build
a whole system using the tms34010 as the brains.  Unfortunately, if
you actually did that, you found that it could manage kbd/mouse/net
*or* do graphics, but not really both.

It was also integer-only, and had a slow, 16-bit memory interface that
killed performance unless you used expensive VRAMs (this was before
VGA made VRAM cheap).

And TIGA never really took off.

Bonus: the development tools were pretty awful.  One of the weirder C
compilers I've used.

Intel came up with the i82786 around the same time that was cheaper,
and it looked like you could cook up a cheap 80186+82786 X Term setup
that would be competitive.  However, I never saw a product like that,
just a couple of PC/AT plugin cards (Belltech BLIT).

> Somewhere I have a thing badged 'Princeton Ultra-X'...It uses an 80188 for I/O
> (including 10Mbps ethernet). The Xserver is in EPROMs and appears to run on
> the TMS34010 graphics processor.

Yup...I worked for the company that designed those.  Good times
(really...I learned a *lot* about a lot of things), but glad I was an
ops guy and not an engineer or developer.  There were probably 20
other shops making X Terminals at the same time, 'cause that was the
future.  I recall having stacks to play with because the market for
them evaporated far sooner than marketing predicted.

KJ

Re: X server for original PC (8088/8086)

[Jules Richardson]

On 08/20/2016 02:48 PM, Mouse wrote:

[small pizza-box X terminal]

I had a similar unit from NCD, [...]



Back in the day I remember using monochrome NCD X terminals though,
and those things were just great - it would be nice to find one again
one day.


I own two NCD X-terminals; if you can drop by Ottawa, I wouldn't mind
unloading one onto someone who'll appreciate it properly. :-)


You're actually south of me, despite my being in the US, but the trip out 
west is a little bit of a stretch (at least, just for a terminal) - I think 
it'd be around 900 miles. But thanks, though - I'll park that bit of info 
in my brain though just in case I'm ever out in your neck of the woods 
anyway; I can always contact you and see if you still have a spare one.



The displays were large, and I want to say the aspect ratio was
either portrait or maybe square, rather than any kind of modern
landscape nonsense :-)


IIRC the ones I have are 4:3 landscape, but they could be square; it's
been a while since I had much to do with them.

Mine are in storage, not amenable to easy checking at the moment, but
IIRC their NCD model number is 19r.


Yes, I think the 19r's are 4:3 - I remember those having quite nice styling 
and very curved screens (actually, I wonder if they're the same physical 
CRT inside as Sun used on some of their old workstation displays) so they 
still look quite nice (and of course being monochrome the display quality 
is very good)


cheers

Jules

Re: X server for original PC (8088/8086)

[Mouse]

>> [small pizza-box X terminal]
> I had a similar unit from NCD, [...]

> Back in the day I remember using monochrome NCD X terminals though,
> and those things were just great - it would be nice to find one again
> one day.

I own two NCD X-terminals; if you can drop by Ottawa, I wouldn't mind
unloading one onto someone who'll appreciate it properly. :-)

> I just did some searching and can't even find a photo of one online.

I may be able to take a picture at some point.

> The displays were large, and I want to say the aspect ratio was
> either portrait or maybe square, rather than any kind of modern
> landscape nonsense :-)

IIRC the ones I have are 4:3 landscape, but they could be square; it's
been a while since I had much to do with them.

Mine are in storage, not amenable to easy checking at the moment, but
IIRC their NCD model number is 19r.

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Re: X server for original PC (8088/8086)

[Jules Richardson]

On 08/20/2016 09:06 AM, tony duell wrote:

Somewhere I have a thing badged 'Princeton Ultra-X'. This is a pizza-box type
slab that goes under a VGA montor and links to a keyboard and mouse and is,
of course a standalone Xterminal.

It uses an 80188 for I/O (including 10Mbps ethernet). The Xserver is in EPROMs
and appears to run on the TMS34010 graphics processor.


I had a similar unit from NCD, which if I remember right had an m88k CPU as 
its heart. That one was 8-bit color (at 1024x786, I think), so maybe a 
little newer than yours. I have no idea what happened to it!


Back in the day I remember using monochrome NCD X terminals though, and 
those things were just great - it would be nice to find one again one day. 
 I just did some searching and can't even find a photo of one online. The 
displays were large, and I want to say the aspect ratio was either portrait 
or maybe square, rather than any kind of modern landscape nonsense :-)


cheers

Jules

RE: X server for original PC (8088/8086)

[tony duell]

> On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 5:56 PM, Steven M Jones  wrote:
> > Models Display  Resolution  Planes  Processor  Coprocessor
> > -- ---  --  --  -  ---
> > 700/X Grayscale  19" 1024x768 834010/60MHz 80186/16MHz
> > 700/X VGA Color  14"  640x480 834010/60MHz 80186/16MHz
> > 700/X Hi-Res Color   16" 1024x768 834010/60MHz 80186/16MHz
> 
> Before anyone gets too excited about the blistering speed of the 60
> MHz TMS34010, it should be noted that each TMS34010 instruction cycle
> takes eight clock cycles, so the instruction cycle rate is only 7.5
> MHz, and of course many instructions take multiple instruction cycles,
> so the instruction rate is even lower.  However, since it has a
> graphics-optimized instruction set, it was still able to do some
> things noticeably faster than the 16 MHz 80186 would have.

Somewhere I have a thing badged 'Princeton Ultra-X'. This is a pizza-box type
slab that goes under a VGA montor and links to a keyboard and mouse and is,
of course a standalone Xterminal.

It uses an 80188 for I/O (including 10Mbps ethernet). The Xserver is in EPROMs
and appears to run on the TMS34010 graphics processor.

-tony

Re: X server for original PC (8088/8086)

[Eric Smith]

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 5:56 PM, Steven M Jones  wrote:
> Models Display  Resolution  Planes  Processor  Coprocessor
> -- ---  --  --  -  ---
> 700/X Grayscale  19" 1024x768 834010/60MHz 80186/16MHz
> 700/X VGA Color  14"  640x480 834010/60MHz 80186/16MHz
> 700/X Hi-Res Color   16" 1024x768 834010/60MHz 80186/16MHz

Before anyone gets too excited about the blistering speed of the 60
MHz TMS34010, it should be noted that each TMS34010 instruction cycle
takes eight clock cycles, so the instruction cycle rate is only 7.5
MHz, and of course many instructions take multiple instruction cycles,
so the instruction rate is even lower.  However, since it has a
graphics-optimized instruction set, it was still able to do some
things noticeably faster than the 16 MHz 80186 would have.

Re: X server for original PC (8088/8086)

[Jerry Kemp]

similar story, many lifetimes ago in the mid 1990's (1994-1996).

I was supporting a small ISP in a (US side) border town with T1 Internet 
connectivity.  I was dialing in to provide remote support using an HP Vectra 
running Solaris 2.5 (not 2.5.1 yet :( ) with a US Robotics 28.8 modem.  No SSH.


I never attempted a full desktop, but several times I recall running X11 based 
apps, exporting the Display to my local x86 Solaris PC.


It was always slow, but once loaded and running, it was enough to get the task I 
needed complete.


None of that would ever fly today.  or even a decade ago.

Jerry


On 08/19/16 05:32 PM, Mouse wrote:

While I wouldn't want to use such a combination over, say, 1200bps dialup, i$


I decided to try this.

I just set up a SLIP link between my main desktop head (a
SPARCstation-20) and a handy peecee, running at 9600/8/N/1 on each end.
I then sshed through the SLIP link to the peecee and started a terminal
emulator, displaying on the ssh-forwarded X display.  (My own terminal
emulator, running with just base X fonts - in particular, with
server-side font rendering.)

It's no speed demon, but it is entirely usable.  I've had less usable
ssh sessions between cities when the inter-city links were heavily
loaded.

This is without even LBX, which I would expect would improve
performance substantially but which has proven resistant to use.  (I've
been unable to get anything but connection rejections out of it; I
don't know why, but don't want to hare off on chasing after that with
an email pending.)

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Re: X server for original PC (8088/8086)

[Steven M Jones]

On 08/19/2016 11:08, Chris Hanson wrote:
>
> Back in the day, did anyone produce an X11 server for DOS-based
> 8086/8088 systems, say with support for Hercules or CGA graphics?
> Or was that strictly a 286-or-better thing, given the overall
> constraints of the 8086 architecture?

I realize this pretty divergent from your question, but... ISTR there
was a barebones X terminal that used the 8086, but I can't find it via
Google. I got to prod at one on some occasion, it was pretty much a joke.

Don't recall what might have been under the covers handling the video,
but the theme was low-spec. Contrast to the HP 700/X terminals used a
combination of 34010 and 80186:

Models Display  Resolution  Planes  Processor  Coprocessor
-- ---  --  --  -  ---
700/X Grayscale  19" 1024x768 834010/60MHz 80186/16MHz
700/X VGA Color  14"  640x480 834010/60MHz 80186/16MHz
700/X Hi-Res Color   16" 1024x768 834010/60MHz 80186/16MHz

( From SunFLASH Vol 26 #9, Feb 1991 )

--S.

Re: X server for original PC (8088/8086)

[Mouse]

> While I wouldn't want to use such a combination over, say, 1200bps dialup, i$

I decided to try this.

I just set up a SLIP link between my main desktop head (a
SPARCstation-20) and a handy peecee, running at 9600/8/N/1 on each end.
I then sshed through the SLIP link to the peecee and started a terminal
emulator, displaying on the ssh-forwarded X display.  (My own terminal
emulator, running with just base X fonts - in particular, with
server-side font rendering.)

It's no speed demon, but it is entirely usable.  I've had less usable
ssh sessions between cities when the inter-city links were heavily
loaded.

This is without even LBX, which I would expect would improve
performance substantially but which has proven resistant to use.  (I've
been unable to get anything but connection rejections out of it; I
don't know why, but don't want to hare off on chasing after that with
an email pending.)

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Re: X server for original PC (8088/8086)

[Glen Slick]

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 2:54 PM, Chris Hanson
 wrote:
>>
>> The only thing that comes to mind is DESQview/X, and IIRC, that required a 
>> minimum of a 386.
>
> There was plenty more than DESQview/X, and there were X11 servers that ran on 
> 286.
>

There was PC DECwindows which ran on a 286 system on top of a Rational
Systems DOS extender, and on a 386 or better system on top of a Phar
Lap DOS extender. Those were based on ports of X11R2 - X11R4 source in
the 1988-1989 time frame. By then there was no thought of trying to
fit any sort of implementation in a real mode 8088 system.

(Working on PC DECwindows was my first real job out of college)

Re: X server for original PC (8088/8086)

[Chris Hanson]

On Aug 19, 2016, at 2:40 PM, Zane Healy  wrote:
> 
>> On Aug 19, 2016, at 11:08 AM, Chris Hanson  
>> wrote:
>> 
>> Back in the day, did anyone produce an X11 server for DOS-based 8086/8088 
>> systems, say with support for Hercules or CGA graphics? Or was that strictly 
>> a 286-or-better thing, given the overall constraints of the 8086 
>> architecture?
>> 
>> (There were plenty of mouse-and-window systems for the PC/XT back then, I 
>> expect black & white X11 over a serial link would not be *that* bad…)
>> 
>> -- Chris
>> 
> 
> The only thing that comes to mind is DESQview/X, and IIRC, that required a 
> minimum of a 386.  

There was plenty more than DESQview/X, and there were X11 servers that ran on 
286.

> I tend to think that X11 over serial would be nothing short of nightmarish.  
> After all, that’s why we have VNC.

I'm very specifically talking about pure black & white, with server-side 
bitmap-only fonts, and also (though I didn't originally say so) with an X 
client itself written in the 1980s that only really bare-bones X11R3 or so and 
only uses black & white. And running on a workstation of that era, of course.

While I wouldn't want to use such a combination over, say, 1200bps dialup, it 
doesn't seem like it would be utterly awful via a direct connection at whatever 
the serial port on a PC with an NEC V20 (8086-compatible and around 8 MHz) 
could handle reliably.

  -- Chris

Re: X server for original PC (8088/8086)

[Zane Healy]

> On Aug 19, 2016, at 11:08 AM, Chris Hanson  wrote:
> 
> Back in the day, did anyone produce an X11 server for DOS-based 8086/8088 
> systems, say with support for Hercules or CGA graphics? Or was that strictly 
> a 286-or-better thing, given the overall constraints of the 8086 architecture?
> 
> (There were plenty of mouse-and-window systems for the PC/XT back then, I 
> expect black & white X11 over a serial link would not be *that* bad…)
> 
>  -- Chris
> 

The only thing that comes to mind is DESQview/X, and IIRC, that required a 
minimum of a 386.  

I tend to think that X11 over serial would be nothing short of nightmarish.  
After all, that’s why we have VNC.

Zane

Re: X server for original PC (8088/8086)

[Mouse]

> (There were plenty of mouse-and-window systems for the PC/XT back then, I ex$

If the serial link runs at a relatively high data rate (eg, 115200) or
LBX support is in use and the data rate is at least medium (eg, 19200),
probably.

If not...well, it depends on how patient you are, I suppose, but _I_
wouldn't want to have to use it.

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