>"Rufus J. Flywheel" <sulu @cml.com> writes:
>
>>VIEW is an HP product.  It was originally called VIEW/3000.
>
>
>
>>So HP changed the name to V/3000.
>>Then HP was sued by another company which had copyrighted that name.
>>So HP changed the name to V+ or V-Plus.
>>It's a terrible product.
>
>
>I almost resisted the opportunity - but the best part about temptation is
>giving in to it.
>
>No - no - no! VPlus is not a terrible product - it represents one of the
>earliest attempts to think about and implement a useful method of doing
>distributed user interface management. Granted the level of CPU availability
>in a terminal is limited (understatement of the year?) but the most
>important thing about VPlus is that the terminal does the work, and tells
>the host ONLY when it's finished. This means that all of the bandwidth wasted
>when users make mistakes, correct typos, etc is now available for other uses.
>
>Granted:
>
>1)  The serial connection used by terminals when VPlus was introduced was
>    unavailable for other use,
>2)  Single character keystrokes are not going to represent a terribly high
>    load on the CPU (but think about the history of serial interfaces on the
>    3k!)
>
>Now consider:
>
>X - 2 letters down the road, and a 'nice, sexy GUI environment', which is
>perfectly capable of bringing your network to a grinding halt, because every
>single mouse move, click etc gets sent over the network, and the host is
>responsible for telling the X display what to do!
>
>This is the reason that Motif/iX requires a separate Un*x box - to manage the
>windows.
>
>As much as WIndows is a maligned and somewhat yucky solution, it has the
>important feature that its GUI management is internal. This means that it
>can (theoretically at least) provide the same simple elegant control
>mechanisms that VPlus used, extended of course to cope with the added
>complexity of a GUI type environment.
>
>We should be working very closely with HP to see how the VPlus way of doing
>things can be meaningfully implemented on PCs, Workstation etc, etc.
>
></rant>
>
>Now I feel better!
>TOny
 
---------------------
 
 
Steve Cooper:
 
Are you listening?  (Or, rather, are you "VIEW"ing, or "V"ing, or
"V/3000"ing, or "V+"ing, or "V-Plus"ing) this?
 
I have been a Mac enthusiast since the days before the DOS crowd got the
idea of copying the Mac by tacking pretty graphics onto DOS.  So, "I've
been there, done that" in the non-HP3000 universe.  It turns out that this
issue is vital for the long-term health of the HP3000.  I wish I had the
time and attention to dedicate to this challenge.  But I'm busy enough
dealing with the abstract algebra of the bits and bytes of IMAGE/SQL root
files, datasets, and so on.  So, I'm glad to see a growing interest in the
graphical front end to such bits and bytes.
 
I know there are several peopple who have done outstanding work in this
area.  Let's hear from them and from their users.  Let's spread the word.
And let's help them improve their offerings.
 
Bits are bits, after all.  HP3000 bits are no different than Unix, Windows,
Mac, or Amiga,... bits.  All it takes to make them pretty is a little bit
of work.
 
 
A little bit of work goes a long way...
 
+---------------+
|               |
|            r  |  Alfredo                     [log in to unmask]
|          e    |                           http://www.adager.com
|        g      |  F. Alfredo Rego               Tel 208 726-9100
|      a        |  Manager, Theoretical Group    Fax 208 726-2822
|    d          |  Adager Corporation
|  A            |  Sun Valley, Idaho 83353-3000            U.S.A.
|               |
+---------------+