Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!jbs@eddie.MIT.EDU
From: jbs@eddie.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: The Mythical \"X on a Dumb Terminal\" server, part 53
Message-ID: <9694@eddie.MIT.EDU>
Date: 16 Jul 88 22:19:55 GMT
References: <16524@brl-adm.ARPA>
Sender: uucp@eddie.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: jbs@eddie.MIT.EDU (Jeff Siegal)
Organization: MIT EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 21

In article <16524@brl-adm.ARPA> valdis@sun.mcs.clarkson.edu writes:
>Somebody proposed that we use a downloadable 256-char font with appropriate
>pixel definitions to cover all possible bit patters.

I never proposed such a thing.  Please re-read my article.  


(back from re-reading so soon?)

Now, note that I did not say anything about a downloadable font, nor
did I say that I wanted to access every possible bit pattern.  Each
character on the terminal would be dealt with, by the server, as one
"pixel"--one that can contain some number of different values, not
that unlike a color display.  The server would not display a character
by painting it pixel-by-pixel; it would simply set one pixel to the
correct value.

(again) The goal here is not to do graphics on a character terminal.
It is to do characters on a character terminal--using a consistent,
(roughly) device-independent, network-transparent protocol: X.

Jeff Siegal