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Knowledge mapWhat did X Window teach us?Industry concepts and standards

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What did X Window teach us?

Computation and the place where a person sees and controls it can be separated.

  1. Application clientsends requests via
  2. Network connectioncarries requests and events
  3. X server · display / input
Relationship sketch · arrows show responsibilities and connections, not a complete protocol sequence.

In X, the display server manages display and input, while a client application can run on another machine. This is the historical inspiration Robert identifies for treating display as a system device.

The architectural lesson is a boundary: application work need not be inseparable from one local screen. AFS-UI explores that boundary in an environment with addressable context and agents.

This is an influence, not X protocol compatibility. X’s terminology, transport and security assumptions are not automatically the semantics of AFS-UI.

Read the X Window concepts guide.

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Does architectural inspiration imply protocol compatibility?

No. The useful comparison concerns the separation of responsibilities.

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