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The X Window System didn't immediately have X terminals

(utcc.utoronto.ca)
110 points zdw | 3 comments | 23 Jun 25 03:50 UTC | HN request time: 0.678s | source
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somat ◴[23 Jun 25 13:25 UTC] No.44355587[source]▶
The tricky thing about justifying an X terminal is that it requires a nice graphics system and probably a nice cpu to drive that graphics system as well, so really the only thing you don't need is storage. basically it is hard to save money because you are buying most of a nice computer anyway.
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1. justin66 ◴[23 Jun 25 16:18 UTC] No.44357307[source]▶
A cursory look at Byte Magazine from September of 1987: a 233MB Priam hard drive for $2888 dollars. That's with a crappy RLL interface rather than SCSI.

If you think about a lab full of computers doing relatively simple Unix work, and how much money would be saved by just having a single drive (and all other things being equal, which they of course aren't), it's not trivial.

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2. toast0 ◴[24 Jun 25 06:33 UTC] No.44363393[source]▶
Plenty of Unix systems could be booted from NFS. Assuming no local storage, and that you need X, the question is, what's the difference in cost and capability between a X terminal and a diskless unix station that runs X? You've also got to consider costs to run a NFS server for your diskless unix stations vs costs to run a desktop server that backs all the X sessions.
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3. justin66 ◴[24 Jun 25 18:17 UTC] No.44369094[source]▶
X terminals predate usable, widespread NFS implementations by a few years, I think. I wonder if the migration away from X terminals might be as simple as that.