Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: What doc do I need
Message-ID: <11306@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 16 Oct 89 05:21:26 GMT
References: <8910141319.AA04595@trout.nosc.mil>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 37

In article <8910141319.AA04595@trout.nosc.mil> lvirden@pro-tcc.UUCP (Larry Virden) writes:
>Along similar lines, has anyone made an effort to write something like XVT
>which is a virtual toolkit allowing one to write window programs which are not
>specific to a particular machine?  What I mean is has anyone written something
>like that for the GS?  This way I could write code that would run on either my
>GS, my friend's mac or my X machines at work!

My feeling is that such a project would be hopeless, due to the huge size of
the code necessary to fully implement an X-Windows library and server.  (Note
that the server would have to be coupled with the library, since the IIGS
does not currently have any multitasking support.)

Much better would be an implementation of NewSqueak or even the Blit routines.
Someday when I have time (and a better compiler!), I plan to tackle those.

>Finally, are folks out there porting various Unix routines and utilities to
>the GS?  If you are willing, I am willing to help to.  I hate to think of 2
>dozen ports of tar, compress, sort, etc. all to the GS when we could have
>instead 2 dozen DIFFERENT utilities.  A good make, a lint, a good shell (like
>bash, ksh, or something), c++, awk, etc. would all be great to have.

Be advised that UNIX source code is available only under proper AT&T
licensing, and at $2,000 (sublicensed) or more few of us can afford to
port genuine UNIX source code.  Instead, we have to cons it up ourselves
from scratch, or find some other source (such as the GNU project).  I've
implemented a few UNIX-compatible utilities in the public domain, but
nowhere near as many as one would want.

You can obtain an adequate MAKE, SORT, GREP, etc. in binary form from
vendors such as 360 Microsystems and ByteWorks.

It's hard to implement a nice UNIXy shell on the IIGS because of lack of
multitasking, although there are several attempts that rely on, in effect,
"chaining" shell->program->shell etc. to simulate subprocesses.  ProSel-16,
DAVEX, ECP-16, and maybe other (generally shareware) products can be found
on most large commercial information services.  I think most of them are
not APW-compatible, though, which is a problem.