Memory Thermometer under X

[Kanef@CHARON.arc.nasa.gov (Bob Kanefsky)]

For years I and others have been running a memory-visualization tool
that shows the amount of virtual memory used as a thermometer in the
margin of the screen, outside the area used by the window system.  (It's
by DLW, Reti, SGR, and Qobi at MIT, and a 1988 version by Loeffler at
MCC.)  Now I'm preparing to switch to a UX1200S, which I'll be accessing
through X windows.  The thermometer tool "doesn't use the window system,
because [SGR] realized that all the hair in [a previous] window
implementation was to turn the window system off. This approach avoids
all kinds of issues, like exposure, activation, the screen manager's
quaint notion of autoexposure, use of screen space, etc. The result is
less flexible, but simpler."  Not surprisingly, it's not flexible enough
to work unmodified under X windows.  Specifically, it fails because the
:screen-array message returns an object of type tv:remote-indirect-drawable,
not an array.

It's an invaluable tool for people with memory-hungry applications.
(I've had virtual memory filled to the brim with everything from DNA
sequences to Earth and Mars images to graph-colorability search trees,
sometimes more than one at once, and I like to know when I have room to
load one more thing and when I need to Start GC Immediately.)  I'd hate
to give it up.  Has anyone tried to get it to work under X windows?

If no one has done so yet, I may give it a shot if I ever have time.  It may
be that it can be hacked simply to deal with the tv:remote-indirect-drawable
object.  Better yet, it should be possible to make it run in its own screen in
a separate X window, which gets around the original exposure issues.

--Kanef