UK X Window System software specialist IXI Ltd of Cambridge, releases its X.deskterm terminal emulation software at the Xhibition ’90 show in San Jose, California this week, enabling users to run character-based applications under the X Window-based OSF/Motif and Open Look graphical user interfaces. Most Unix applications are still character-based and are unable to take advantage of the user-friendly aspects of graphical user interfaces, but by using X.deskterm commands, IXI says, developers will be able to configure applications to run under the interfaces without the need to re-write them in X code – and the process is reckoned to take less than 10% of the original programming effort. X.deskterm takes an application’s character output and converts it to graphical display, where it will run in a windowing environment and take advantage of menuing, scroll-bar and all the usual windows facilities. OSF/Motif and Open Look versions of applications can be produced by using different versions of X.deskterm. The tool can also be used to add a graphical front-end to software written in languages that do not have an X library – such as Cobol and Fortran – or to applications that run under non-Unix operating systems – like Pick, IBM’s VM and MVS, and DEC’s VMS – which do not support X directly. X.deskterm is aimed primarily at the OEM market and at software developers, and is priced at less than $100 for a single run-time licence. Uniplex, NCR Corp and Cambridge Connectivity have already signed up for X.deskterm.
