Another important flash from our industrious news department, this time in
October 1991
:
NEWS: Microbytes: Quarterdeck X-Tends DOS with Desqview/X
by Ellen Ullman
With the long-delayed release of Desqview/X from Quarterdeck, the X Window System finally comes to DOS. X is closely identified with Unix, but the windowing protocol was designed from the outset to offer device independence, and there never was anything inherently Unix-based about X. It already runs on VMS and Macintosh platforms.
Why would DOS users want X? The answer is interoperability. With an X server running on a DOS machine, you can remotely run programs on any machine on the network--including Sun workstations--while interacting with the program using your own DOS machine. And Unix users can remotely run all the character-based DOS programs. You can display Unix/X and DOS applications simultaneously on either platform, a
nd you can copy and paste between Unix and DOS programs. What more could you want?
You would probably like to run Windows 3.0. You can, but only locally, and not in tandem with X applications.
Desqview/X consists of an upgraded Desqview 2.3 with the ported X server and Xlib and Xt libraries. Quarterdeck also includes its own X-compliant Desqview Window Manager. DWM is relatively small (approximately 70 KB) compared to the separately priced window managers based on 0SF/Motif (700 KB), Xol Open Look (1.5 MB), and Xview Open Look (300 KB). Support for NetBIOS and IPX is included, with an optional package available that provides support for TCP/IP, DECnet, and PC NFS.
Current Desqview users will find Desqview/X familiar. The desktop has been updated with the new DWM three-dimensional look, but the commands are unchanged. The X version adds some new features, including the ability to customize menus. Desqview/X also provides an icon editor and a new graphical program manager, tentatively called A
ppman.
A significant feature of Desqview/X is built-in support for scalable fonts from Adobe. The new X desktop will come with Adobe Type Manager, so when you resize a DOS window, the text will stretch or shrink to fit.
X applications are known for their large memory requirements, and Quarterdeck has gone to some trouble to accommodate the memory problem on the DOS platform. Desqview/X is built on top of Quarterdeck's new memory-extending QEMM 6.0. And to reduce the amount of memory that applications require, Desqview/X incorporates a new shared DOS extender and shared libraries from Rational Systems. Programs share a single instance of the DOS extender and X libraries, which are implemented as virtual, shared 16- and 32-bit OS/2-style dynamic link libraries.
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