Having addressed Digital Equipment Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc compatibility, X-terminal manufacturer Tektronix Inc of Wilsonville, Oregon is now providing IBM Corp terminal emulation software and a family of X terminals for Token Ring networks. Tektronix expects its X terminals emulating the 3270 to be hugely successful with users wanting to replace terminals with a windowed environment without the pain of retraining staff on a new system. Tektronix reckons there are over 2m 3270-type terminals installed in the US alone and claims that its 3270 emulation allows users to access 3270 applications running on IBM mainframes, workstations, or servers, or on the wide area network. Under X Window, the user can also retrieve data from several sources simultaneously and switch between applications. A 3179G emulation will enable users to display 3179G graphics applications from an IBM host as well as using windows for current applications. Tektronix sees a ready market among banking, financial services, insurance and utilities industries that have adopted an IBM-compatible Token Ring network: although these markets have not yet embraced X technology, Tek reckons they would benefit from the technology immensely. Prior to the Tektronix announcement, such users were confined to an IBM system using the PS/2 board or waiting for the Network Computing Devices Inc plug-in board option that is announced but not yet available. Tektronix says it designed the XP10T series of five terminals for high bandwidth and very high reliability – this has been achieved by placing everything on one board including the graphics, X, the local network logic and the local network cable connectors: there are no edge connectors. The models are compatible with the existing Tektronix XP10 and XP330 series and are built around the Texas Instruments Inc 340X processor and the Super Eagle/Falcon Token Ring local network chip set. The terminals will be delivered with two serial ports and from 4Mb to 16Mb memory, a Flash memory socket on the logic board as standard, X11.5 and Tektronix’s version 6.0 X terminal software. The technology was developed in conjunction with OpenConnect Systems Inc, Olicom A/S of Denmark and Texas Instruments. The 3270 and 3179G emulation packages are UKP270 and UKP455 respectively. Prices for the XP10T series start at UKP1,295 for XP11T, UKP2,745 for the XP12T, UKP2,145 for the XP17T, UKP3,845 for the XP18T and UKP4,455 for the XP19T; available May.
