The 88k CPU family wasn’t only used in workstations/servers. They also found their way into some X-Terminals, like those from NCD.

By a lucky incident I got my hands on an NCR 17c, a colo(u)r X11 Terminal featuring an 88100 @ 20MHz. All of the sudden I developed the sick ambition to run a “pure 88k X11 system”, so this NCD would be my display to start with. This is what the boring box looks from the inside:

After some searching I found the necessary “NCDWare” i.e. the boot-images and everything needed to get an X-Terminal running (Get it here). After some DHCP, tftp and NFS fiddling I had the latest X.org and KDE running in glorious 1280×1024 at 256 colors. But the host (In “X talk” that’s the client) was still running on an Intel x86 architecture. Yuck!

www.geekdot.com (old layout) in Konquerer running on the NCD X-Terminal:

Yes, it’s the Terminal (Whopping 40MB data and 12MB code RAM):

So out went the incredible fast MVME197LE and I compiled a rudimentary X.org on it… 2 days later that compilation was done: xdm on 88k, X11-Server on 88k. Ahhh, 88k purity 😉