[rescue] SPARCclassic X - what software did this run?

Andrew Liles blah at spilk.org
Wed Sep 6 20:01:12 CDT 2017


I found this FAQ regarding the Sun Xterminal softwareb& no leads on the
actual package/tar/installer though :(

http://www.bakercomputeranddata.com/doc/faq/xterminal

-a.

> On Sep 6, 2017, at 5:52 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
>
> On 09/06/2017 04:49 PM, Skeezics Boondoggle wrote:
>> The package we used (or at least started with) way back in the '90s was
>> called "Xkernel," IIRC, and it was exactly that:  a very minimal SunOS 4
>> kernel, the basic set of executables and /dev tree required to support the
>> X server, and a shell script to replace "init".  We ran it very
comfortably
>> on 8MB SS1s and SS2s, long before the Classic was out, but early versions
>> of Netscape triggered memory leaks in Xsun that caused it to pack it in
>> every few days.  16MB was much more comfortable.  As older diskful
machines
>> were too sluggish and expensive to patch and maintain running SunOS or
>> Solaris, we could pull disks and reconfigure them in minutes to be almost
>> zero-maintenance X terminals, which was great for academic institutions
>> where the interval between grants meant desktops languished while
resources
>> got allocated to beefier servers instead.
>
>  Ahh I remember Xkernel well.  At Digex in the early 1990s we ran a
> bunch of X terminals based on Xkernel as a starting point, which we
> modified pretty heavily from there for our applications.  These were on
> the desks of our sales and support staff.  The machines were Sun-3/50s,
> 3/60s, and a few 3/140s.  They were back-ended by a Sun-4/380, the staff
> server.
>
>> I even created a version of Xkernel for NeXTstep 3.3 (called it
>> "NeXTkernel", naturally) so that you could turn lovely black NeXTstations
>> into X terminals.  But I'd be hard pressed to dig that code up at this
>> point.  Searching for Xkernel brings up a competely different "x-kernel"
>> project, or a "Melodic death metal band from Kiev, Ukraine." :-)
>
>
>  Nice! :)
>
>          -Dave
>
> --
> Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
> New Kensington, PA
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