Legacy X-Terminal Software?

Feren asks: "While working on a project for a non-profit organization I'm involved with, I recently acquired a batch of Sun Microsystem "XTerminal-1" machines, along with one or two Tektronix machines. With the Sun X-terminals I've been able to kludge together a sort of working system to get them to boot and run X, although when I read Sun's documentation, they talk about such things as the 'Xserver jumbo patch' or 'SPARC Xterminal(TM)software version 2.0' as being a better way to make them run. Yet I can't find this software anywhere, and the Sun rep I speak with regularly at my real job is just as clueless as I am about these devices and their software. I have the sneaking feeling these products hit their EOL (End Of Life) quite some time ago. Similarly I cannot find any information on where to locate/download/purchase software for the Tektronix boxes. Has anybody ever gotten ahold of this elusive software? Has anybody ever considered building a site for legacy X devices such as these, like a repository for software?"

"I know the software licenses used to be a huge boon to the Xterminal manufacturers, but since most of them aren't supporting these devices anymore (nor even have spare copies of documentation or software to sell individuals like myself) I wouldn't predict there being a great deal of trouble in obtaining permission to post this software for general consumption, so long as there was no charge to retrieve it.

Would there be any interest in such a site or repository if it was created? Does anybody know where to get the software to run these machines? Granted, they're not fast or the latest word in thin-client, but they are still usable and relatively cheap to acquire... if you can only find the software to make them go."

Comments

SLXT

[Anonymous Coward]

Search freshmeat for SLXT. It is a small (sparc) Linux distro for using old sun equipment as xterminals.

Neoware/HDS @Workstation

[legodude]

On a related note, if anyone knows where to get software for the Neoware/HDS @Workstation I'd be extremely happy. I'm a student with one unit and I can't afford the $300 that Neoware wants. Thanks Mike

NetBSD

[jfunk]

I successfully ran NetBSD on an old diskless Sun3/80. It worked like a charm.

You might be able to store NetBSD on a server and get the terminals to boot from the network.

Still supporting these:(

[malice95]

Hehe,

Up until 3 months ago.. my company still had
30 or 40 Sun xterms, and tektronix's. We were
paying 30k plus a year to keep them supported.
Thankgod they are quickly being replaced with PC's. Yes.. I need your pity:)
What model xterms and tektronix boxes do
you have and I will see if I can dig up the software for you.

malice95

Re:Still supporting these:(

[Feren]

Malice: I can't find your email address.... I'd like to talk to you about seeing if you can find any information/software. -Feren

Re:Still supporting these:(

[green pizza]

One nice thing about XTerms is after you configure them, it's very hard to mess them up.

In our math department we have three labs of terminals (two are Tektronix NC4XX terminals, and the other has much newer SunRay1 terminals) as well as various NCD, Tek, and Sun terms all throughtout the building. The various terminals are on a switched 10/100BT network with 1000BT running to the servers. No hard drives on the terminals, just power them up, they grab their (tiny) bits of boot code off a tftp server, and bring up an extensive menu of options (WinDD to Windows/Citrix servers, XDMCP to the Sun and Linux servers, Telnet/SSH to various machines, etc). The best part is, it doesn't matter which terminal you're on or where you are. And when a terminal breaks (rare), just swap it for a different one. The whole setup works beautifully.

linkage

[heliocentric]

A little poking around on the net lead me to some linkage I found valuable about SLXT.

From the freshmeat page:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/slxt/

You can find the home page.
http://www.pucebaboon.com/SLXT/

On the home page there are the system requirements and some info about incompatibility (RH 6.0 is listed as a recent find of incompatibility) including the thought that linux kernels newer than 2.3 could be an issue.

I for one am going to look into this conecpt, but seeing these caution flags have me worried.

Sites for info on old Sun hardware

[acoopersmith]

• http://www.obsolyte.com/
• http://www.sunhelp.org/

Also, the "Xserver jumbo patch" is just the SunOS or Solaris patch for the Xserver, available from sunsolve.sun.com. (For most OS versions, it's included in the OpenWindows patches and labeled as the Xsun patch.)

They want you to buy new hardware

[eap]

While it's true that they should not care what you do with the X terminal sofware, I doubt they are going to let anyone redistribute it for free. Sun is in the hardware business, and every piece of legacy hardware out there that remains usable is cutting into potential sales for new hardware.

It's sort of the same reason why Microsoft discontinues support for their older operating systems. Software/hardware that you already own isn't making them any money, so there is little motivation for them to help you out, unless of course you have some sort of support contract with them.

Tektronix TekXpress

[jazztunes]

I have two versions of this software, versions 6 and 8. It is used to boot old tektronix xterms. Click here to see one of my xp114c terminals in action:

http://www.beyondzee.com/xp114c/

I had fun chasing this software down, (a guy from Italy sent it to me!) but it would be nice if it was available to anyone else who might need it. If someone has a repository for this type of thing, I'd be glad to submit it.

However, would there be any licensing issues? My understanding is that the NCD, who bought tektronix xterminal division, currently produces software that supports legacy terminals.

A couple tips

[fliplap]

Well there's the standard google search...sometime helpful sometimes not.
But what i've found to be the most useful for finding info about old terminals is the usenet group comp.terminals
And last of all (not related to your machines) anyone with an old HP x-terminal might have a look at http://www.ductape.net/~brianm/xterm/ this is where i found the software for my HP 700/RX

Sorry i couldn't be of more help and good luck finding the software, i know it can be a pain

Looking for Xterm boot software, too

[green pizza]

I have a number of older Tektronix NC2XX (NC200/217/219) and Tektronix XP358 terminals I'd like to get going once again. From what I understand, they're by nature licensed for at least some version of their boot software (tekxp) which I haven't been able to round up as of yet.

Not much, I know...

[shumacher]

Have you had a look at

http://sunsite.kth.se/sun/sunflash/www/march.1995/ sunflash/75.04.sparc-xterm.html

Good luck.