Santa Barbara, California-based Tenon Intersystems Inc began shipping its promised X-server software for the Apple Computer Inc Macintosh, the MachTen XServer Release 3.0, at the end of last month. It is the first X server available from Tenon that is fully integrated with its microkernel-based MachTen operating system for the Macintosh, which is built on top of Carnegie Mellon University’s Mach operating system kernel. Tenon used to take the eXodus X-server software OEM from White Pine Software Inc of Nashua, New Hampshire, but says that its own version is order of magnitudes faster. Power Macintoshes will make excellent X-terminals says Tenon’s Anita Holgren, especially once the software is running native rather than in emulation mode later this year. It will be a free upgrade. A stand-alone version of the XServer is under way, so Macintosh users will have the option of running just the X-server or the whole Mach environment. Tenon says that it received a big boost in sales when Apple de-emphasised its A/UX Unix and a further boost when the PowerPC Macs came out: Apple has shown little interest in providing a Unix implementation for desktop PowerPCs, though it is fighting back on the X-server side, having recently struck up a cross-licensing deal with Age Logic Inc for an upgraded version of Mac X later this year (CI No 2,465). Tenon says MachTen will be made Spec 1170-compliant some time next year.
