Hi, VAXiy guys.  I normally live in MIPS camp, but emanuel stiebler
invoked port-pmax recently.

> I've heard conflicting stories on the VXT2000s.  Originally I'd heard that
> these systems were RISC cpu based and not VAX.  At some point later on
> someone mentioned that they were in fact VAX based.  I've never heard of
> anyone being able to netboot one with NetBSD/vax, and I've not seen (or
> don't remember seeing) any conclusive evidence as to whether these
> X-terminals are actually VAX based.

According to an article in Ditigal Technical Journal Volume 3, Number 4,
"X Window Terminal" there were several different hardware designs of Digital
X-terminals.  A chart inside says;

VT1200			VT1300			VXT2000
---------------------------------------------------------------
Mono			4 or 8bit plane		1 or 8bit plane
No virtual memory	No virtual memory	Virtual memory
2 to 4MB RAM		8 to 32MB RAM		4 to 16MB RAM
TMS34010		VAX CPU			VAX CPU
Special OS		VAXELN OS		Special OS
Special hardware	Available on several	Use standard
			different platform	hardware
---------------------------------------------------------------

VXT2000 was nothing other than a disk-less WS, which requires
dedicated server named 'InfoServer' for operating code downloading,
*virtual memory* backing store and font downloading.  So as many of X
terminal designers in then-emerging X-terminal market concluded, the
VXT2000 was a doomed failure design made by a hardware company like
SPARC Xterminal from Sun.

It's good to hear NetBSD on them anyway.

Tohru Nishimura
Nara Institute of Science and Technology