Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!acorn!john
From: john@acorn.co.uk (John Bowler)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: MS Windows in X Windows
Summary: Why not?
Message-ID: <2629@acorn.co.uk>
Date: 3 Aug 90 19:47:26 GMT
References: <1990Jul31.153302.29567@cbnewsj.att.com> <9008011254.AA04550@sri-sparc>
Reply-To: john@acorn.UUCP (John Bowler)
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, UK
Lines: 29

In article <9008011254.AA04550@sri-sparc> rush@CACFS.ARMY.MIL (David A. Rush) writes:
>Lisa:
>
>You probably won't be able to run MS Windows within X.  MS Windows,
>like many DOS programs, directly accesses the video hardware, making
>it virtually impossible to keep it inside someone else's window.  
>(Although Desqview can do it, I think.)

This shouldn't be a problem.  Most multi-processing systems which are
supporting a DOS environment have to intercept accesses to the machine
hardware.  All the non-386 based DOS emulators have to emulate the
hardware anyway.  The only real problem is dealing with direct access to
the frame buffer of a VGA (or better) display - the processing overhead
involved in keeping the *real* screen up-to-date can get large.

>                                         You might have better luck using
>MS Windows running as an X window manager.  I believe there are
>a couple of these products out there in the real world (ie. for $$$).

It depends what you mean by X.  Having an MS Windows environment present
a conformant interface at the protocol level or the ICCCM level might be
difficult.  It seems like a far better idea to keep the nasty non-standardised,
grab the hardware and run DOS applications in a safe box on their own and
let the nice highly conformant extremely portable X applications look after
them.

John Bowler (jbowler@acorn.co.uk)

Oops, almost forgot the :-).