From: pfuetz@igd.fhg.de (Matthias Pfuetzner)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x.pex
Subject: Re: X Terminals with PEX support
Date: 4 Sep 92 08:55:25 GMT
Reply-To: pfuetz@igd.fhg.de (Matthias Pfuetzner)
Organization: Zentrum fuer Graphische Datenverarbeitung, Darmstadt, FRG

In article <1992Sep2.014239.9065@newshost.anu.edu.au> bdb112@rsphy3.anu.edu.au (Boyd Blackwell) writes:
>I have been impressed by the PEX support for phigs in ULTRIX 4.2A.  It falls short of
>dedicated hardware (e.g. sgi Indigo, or DEC PXG), but at least it is there, and it makes 
>software like AVS much more available.
>
>Has anyone heard of an X-terminals that support the PEX extensions? (and how do you find
>out - xdpyinfo sometimes mentions PEX, sometimes not!
>
>--
>	-Boyd Blackwell
>Plasma Research Lab, RSPhysSE, ANU/ GPO Box 4 /Canberra ACT 2601/AUSTRALIA
>internet: Boyd.Blackwell@anu.edu.au
>PHONE: +61 62 49 2482 +61 62 51 2605(h) FAX: Boyd Blackwell, PRL +61 62 49 1884

Hi Boyd!

If "xdpyinfo" mentions X3D-PEX, then there is the PEX-extension on that
specific X-terminal, If it doesn't mention, then there is no such extension.
Look at the PEX-FAQ just posted to this newsgroup.

To your first question:

I know of only one currently available PEX-terminal, the Tektronix XP29P. I
won't recommend it to anyone but developers. It's awfully slow, when it comes
to non uniform B-Spline things. But Tektronix will be offering an followup
product within the near future which will be much more faster than the XP29P.
Also SHOgraphics is developing PEX-terminals. I have had the chance to test
some of their alpha versions. They are REALLY fast!

When it comes to workstations and their support for PEX with their vendor
specific Xservers I know of IBM (you have to start the Xserver with the option
"-x pex", look at /usr/bin/X11/README.PEX), DEC (as you mentioned), Evans &
Sutherlands and all the Workstations/graphic-adapter pairs that are listed in
the X11R5 release notes with the MIT X11R5 Xserver.

But nevertheless there are always differences in the extent of the
implementation of the PEX protocol. Some do HLHSR, some don't do B-splines,
etc. If you need to rely on some of those PHIGS+ features first check if they
are supported. 

If you want to really use PEX-terminals put in as much RAM as you can!! You
won't get features like HLHSR, when you put the central structure store onto
the client side with some of these terminals. But this you have to do, when
the window in which you run PEX is quite large and the terminal hasn't enough
RAM. The Tektronix XP29P for example comes with 7 MByte as default. You won't
be able to even init PEX on a window that is screen large (1280x1024 Pixels in
8 bit color depth) with the structure store on the server side. This terminal
will get caught (no warnings, no error messages!) and you will have to turn of
the power to get it properly working again!! It works, when you init PEX with
the central structure store on the client side, then there is no problem,
execpt that you won't get any of the rendering capabilities of the terminal.

Hoping having helped a bit,
        Matthias
-- 
    Matthias Pfuetzner  |  @work:  +49 6151 155-150  | @home: +49 6151 75717
    6100 Darmstadt, FRG | ZGDV, Wilhelminenstrasse 7 | Lichtenbergstrasse 73
      pfuetzner@igd.fhg.de, pfuetzner@zgdvda.UUCP    |  Keith Packard said:
      R5 is different from R4. That's why we changed the release number :-)
Xref: sparky comp.windows.x.pex:505 comp.graphics:9223 comp.sys.sgi:12991