A new hardware and software package from Integrated Inference Machines looks like being the most effective way yet of adapting MS-DOS personal computers to work as X terminals. Integrated Inference, from Anaheim, California, developed the X/PAC package when it found the need to integrate two different windowing systems running on its proprietary 450 Series 40-bit symbolic processing engines. One model, the 450i attached processor inference engine, was front-ended by an Intel-based micro running Microsoft Windows, while the 450e Ethernet network node unit ran under X Window. Integrated Inference decided to combine the two in its X11/AT server software, which runs on top of Microsoft Windows and converts X Window subroutine calls to Microsoft Windows calls. Now the company has added a TCP/IP kernel, network interface card drivers and an MS-DOS diagnostic and installation support software program to create the X/PAC system. The main hardware component is the AT Multifunction Card, which functions as a network interface card and extended memory card – 2Mb to 16Mb, and the Ethernet interface circuitry includes the Fujitsu Etherstar VLSI chip for high speed network operation. The whole package costs from $1,600. Integrated Inference begins shipping to dealers and end users this month: in the UK it is available through UniPalm Ltd of Hardwick in Cambridge. The company is now working on an MS Windows 3.0 version, and on a Presentation Manager/X Window integrated product. Integrated Inference senior vice-president Charles Ross said that a sizeable number of our X11/AT buyers intended to convert hundreds or even thousands of their PCs into PCs that could double as X-terminals. UK company Visionware Ltd in Leeds also offers Microsoft Windows and X Window integration in a software-only package costing from $350 in the US: Visionware has a US office in Minneapolis.
