Starting an X11 client on another machine, without ssh

[Bill Freeman]

Way back when I was at Digital (as it then was) and before, we used to have
a tool called 'xon'.  It took as an argument the DNS name or IP address of
a server on the net, connected to it, started a shell or optionally specified
command, with the DISPLAY environment variable all set up, and maybe permissions
as well (probably with xhost rather than .Xauthority).

Googling doesn't seem to turn up xon, so it was either a local tool, or it
has long fallen out of favor.  Maybe it was rsh based.

Does anyone remember this thing?  It seems like ssh is overkill for talking
to a VM on your own box.

(And having figured out how to get rid of the -nolisten TCP when the X server
is started, ssh's -X or -Y are certainly overkill.)

Bill