Roger asks:
> Does anybody have any experience/information regarding an X-terminal
> accessing a 3000.  I realize you need a UNIX box to boot the
> X-terminal, and then you could do a VT (with the extra cost software)
> over to the 3000.  My question is: I've read that X-windows is
> supported on the 3000 - but how is it supported?  What can I do with
> it?  Any and all information appreciated.
 
You probably only need BOOTP and TFTP support to boot the X terminal,
which is available from 3rd parties and (I think) will be included
in MPE/iX 5.5.  X support on the 3000 consits of the ability to
compile and link an X (Motif actually, but not the latest version)
client application and run it.  No pre-compiled X clients are
provided.  Specifically, there is no windows manager (mwm, vuewm, etc.)
suppored on the 3000.  The official HP answer is that a Unix
system is needed not only to boot the X terminal, but to provide
a place for the window manager to run.  I believe that some of the
more recent X Terminals may have windows manager functionality
built in, so this plus BOOTP and TFTP from somewhere might give
you an all-3000 X terminal solution.  Whether this will do you
any good is questionable:
 
There is often quite a bit of confusion about talking to a 3000
with an X terminal because of all the differnt pieces inviolved,
X's backwards usage of the words 'client' and 'server', and so on.
What do you actually want to do?  Often you'll find that what you
want is either impossible, or does not require any X support on
the 3000 at all.  For example, X does not include any concept of
'loggin in' to a system, nor is there an X based terminal program
(that I know of) that is supported on the 3000.  Thus what you may
think of as the most basic functionality (logging on from your
'terminal' to the system and being able to type mpe commands)
may in fact be the most difficult thing to do.
 
To get a 3000 window on any X terminal (or workstation) requires two
things.  An X-based terminal program displaying a terminal window
on your screen, and a connection from that terminal program to
the system you want to log into.  People often think that these
are the same thing.  For example, the usual way to get from an X
station to a 3000 is to run a copy of the program 'hpterm' on an
HPUX system somewhere (which will get you a terminal window with
a connection to the system it is running on) and then within that
unix session you can now see in the hpterm window, you run a copy
of the 'vt3k' program to establish a VT connection to the 3000,
which will get you a ':' prompt.  vt3k has nothing to do with
terminals, terminal emulation, or terminal screen control protocols.
It knows nothing about X and could not display a window if it's
life depended on it.  Similarly, hpterm has no clue about 3000s,
and no way to connect to one.  hpterm can only give you a terminal
emulation window to the system that hpterm is running on.  Since
hpterm has not (yet?) been ported to the 3000, you can only use
hpterm to talk to a unix system.  Fortunately, you have vt3k to
run on the unix system to complete the picture and connect the
hpterm window (indirectly) to the 3000.
 
X does everything backwards from what we are used to.  X does not
let a program running on your system (the X terminal) connect to
another system.  It lets a program running on a system somewhere
(the program is referred to as an X 'client') connect to your
display (called an X 'server' because it services requests from
clients which want to display information to you) and interact
with you.  So there's this catch-22 problem of getting something
going on your X terminal, since there first has to be a program
running on some other system before you can have a window from
which you can request programs to be started (there are protocols
implemented by X terminals that let them both 'boot' from a system
and get that system to startup a session for them at the same time
that will display on the X terminal to get around this problem).
When people talk about 'supporting X terminals' they usually mean
not only X (which the 3000 has) but all this other stuff as well.
 
Sorry to ramble on about basic X stuff (which I'm sure Roger and
many other people already know), but many people are confused by
it (or will be now :-)
 
G.