Wilsonville, Oregon-based Tektronix Inc may be out of the system business, but it’s determined to make its mark in X Window System terminals, and in its latest foray it has come out with a line of low-end XP10 models built around Texas Instruments Inc’s 32MHz TMS 34020 graphics processor for high-speed windowing and two custom ASICs. The TekXpress XP10 Series can be added to networks in server, workstation or multi-personal computer environments, enabling users to access virtually any networked MS-DOS, ASCII terminal, Macintosh or workstation application in their department or enterprise. Tektronix is aiming at the Unix office automation, transaction processing, financial services and decision support markets where simultaneous on-screen access to multiple applications is key to productivity. There are four models – 15 monochrome XP11 at $1,700; 15 grayscale XP13, $2,000; 14 XP15, with 16 displayable colours, $2,500; and 14 XP17, with 256 displayable colours, $2,900, all fourth quarter.The terminals support native Sun and DECwindows fonts and come with Tek’s X Window System Release 4, 4Mb to 12Mb memory, 128Kb ROM and IBM 101 keyboard (VT-200 keyboard optional) and three-button mouse. The screens are all 1,024 by 768, 70Hz refresh. In networking, users can choose between thicknet, thinnet or twisted-pair Ethernet. DECnet functionality is also available as an option and the Simple Network Management Protocol is supported. Tek also launched in the US a network consulting service to help TekXpress users.
