X vs MGR (was Re: Unix Files (was Re: Xerox

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Thu Dec 17 23:32:14 1998

Ward Donald Griffiths III wrote:
> MGR continues to be popular on surviving AT&T 3B1 and 7300 Unix PCs.
> Took a small hardware mod to run it, but it's been stable for years.
> Since the Unix PC can't be upgraded to enough RAM to make X useable.

Doug asked:
> OK, I'll bite. What kind of hardware mod could MGR possibly require?

In a stock 7300 or 3B1, the video memory can't be mapped into the user
address space. The "VIDPAL" mod fixes this (at the risk that any process
can scribble on the screen memory).

There actually is a way to run MGR without the modification, but it is
extremely ssslllooowww.

Eric
Received on Thu Dec 17 1998 - 23:32:14 GMT