QUESTIONS USING PCSIM ACROSS A NETWORK TO AN
ITEM: RTA000022314
QUESTION:
I have a customer who is interested in using the PCSIM program
on an IBM RS/6000, but displaying on a LAN-connected SUN workstation,
which has a monochrome monitor 1150x900, running Openwindows (X11R3
server). He would like to know if this environment will be capable
of displaying monochrome graphics in the DOS session on the Sun.
Second question: Again running PCSimulator across a network, this
time the XServer machine supports color. What happens if the
PCSIM makes calls to the XServer, and cannot allocate all 256 VGA
colors, (because the window manager is using 15)? Does the application
bomb, or try to run with fewer colors?
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A: PC Simulator has only two modes of operation: VGA and Monochrome.
The monochrome format is primarily text; however, some ASCII graphics
characters can be presented. This is not the same as monochrome
graphics mode, which can not be simulated on the PCSIM. An example of
monochrome ASCII graphics characters would be a few different fonts, some
lines and corners, reverse video, underlines, and a few other character-
wide configurations. The dmode variable is set to "M" on the command
line or in your simprof file.
VGA mode on the other hand is much more complicated because it is first
an X client, then a memory-stored matrix of pixels that are manipulated
by DOS through the simulation executable which is also in memory. The
architects of PCSIM did not enable the rather limited X portion of this
scenario to be inherited by any X-Servers other than our own, presumably
because of the complexity of making the rest of the configuration work.
Another likely reason is that PCSIM was never really intended to be
operable across a network because of the very high volume of network
traffic needed to update the pixel matrix in memory.
With that background, let me answer your questions more specifically:
1. The Sun Openwindows environment, although X, will not display a
remotely executing VGA PCSIM session. Non-IBM X servers have been
specifically excluded from support by the product.
2. A monochrome PCSIM session will work fine on the Sun and any other
system that shows PCSIM a recognizable $TERM environmental variable.
(By that, I mean any terminal type for which a terminal configuration
file has been created in /usr/lpp/pcsim/tty.)
3. Monochrome graphics are limited to those that are understood by the
group of extended ASCII characters. The simulation on a terminal is
almost identical to what you would get on an IBM 5151 monochrome mon-
itor on a PC. For this reason, the pixel matrix you provided 1150x
900 would have no meaning in monochrome mode which is a character
matrix (25x80).
4. There are only two modes, monochrome (M) and VGA (V). There is no
dmode other than V that supports color.
5. If one of these modes is not possible, the PCSIM application will not
even start. This circumstance is not limited to Sun. We can't even
support a remote Simulator session on AIX PS/2 or RT. I've also
tested it in the past on X systems running on DEC and HP. I might
note that remote VGA sessions are possible on other RS/6000s or on
X-stations; however, this is ill advised. Video performance is very
poor. (If interested, you may want to use PCSIM and PERFORMANCE key-
words in the ASKQ library for some ideas on why performance across
the network is poor.)
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This item was created from library item Q572920 BCKRM
Additional search words:
ACROSS BCKRM COLOR GRAPHICS IX MAR92 MEASURE MONITOR MONITORING
MONOCHROME NETWORK NETWORKING PC PCSIM PERFORMANCE QUESTION RISCSIM
RISCSYSTEM SIMULATOR SOFTWARE TERMINAL TP TUNE VIDEO X-WINDOWS
XSERVER XSTATION XWINDOWS
WWQA: ITEM: RTA000022314 ITEM: RTA000022314
Dated: 01/1996 Category: RISCSIM
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