XLIB Programming Manual, Rel. 5, Third Edition

Chapter 1. Introduction

In September 1987, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology released the first snapshot of what may well become one of the most significant software technologies of the 1990s: Version 11 of the X Window System, commonly referred to as X11. X11 may not change the world, but it is likely to change the world of workstations.

The X Window System is being adopted as a standard by nearly every workstation manufacturer and should eventually replace or be supported under their proprietary windowing systems. Versions will also be available for personal computers and supercomputers.

For the first time, portable applications can be written for an entire class of machines rather than for a single manufacturer’s equipment. Programmers can write in a single graphics language and expect their applications to work without significant modifications on dozens of different computers.

What’s more, since X is a network-based windowing system, applications can run in a network of systems from different vendors. Programs can be run on a remote computer, and the results displayed on a local workstation. Proprietary networks have been around for a while. However, network cooperation of different computers has been held up by the lack of a common applications language. Now there is one.

Vendors hope that X will lead to a software explosion similar to the one that occurred in response to the PC standard on microcomputers.

1.1 Versions of X

X was developed jointly by MIT’s Project Athena ...