Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!ria!uwovax!7103_2622
From: 7103_2622@uwovax.uwo.ca (Eric Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Graphics Lib, GUI, ..., "X Lit"?
Message-ID: <6966.26eff78e@uwovax.uwo.ca>
Date: 14 Sep 90 01:18:05 GMT
References: <69159@sgi.sgi.com> <58364@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Lines: 36

In article <58364@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>, templon@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (jeffrey templon) writes:
> How about MGR, the windowing interface from bellcore (available by anon
> ftp from bellcore.com)?  it seems similar to X and uses a client-server
> model.  i don't know if it would be possible to write some glue routines
> which would map X-windows calls to MGR routines.  there is some documentation
> on the C interface library at bellcore (mgr-man.out or something like that.)
> MGR already (the server; i guess the client would run on any machine) runs
> on suns, Macs, decstation 3100, and AT&T unix-pcs.  Other machines may be
> supported but I don't remember.  The reason it was ported to the unixpc
> is precisely the one you mentioned, X takes up too much memory space.

MGR does look nice. I've ported it to the atari ST (to run under MiNT,
not minix). Porting it to minix should be relatively straightforward,
once two things are added to the kernel: pseudo-ttys and a screen driver
that allows direct access to screen memory (e.g. the /dev/screen driver
I wrote for ST1.1). Having some sort of access to the blitter chip might
help as well; it visibly improves the performance.

MGR is not as big a memory hog as X, but it's not going to fit in small
model on PC's:

$ size mgr
text    data    bss     dec     hex
123784  57604   6392    187780  2dd84   mgr
$ ls -l x:\mgr*
-r--r--r--  1 1          315464 Jan  1  1980 x:\mgr.004

(the "x" pseudo-drive in MiNT is like the /proc filesystem in V9; the
"size" of the file is the amount of memory consumed by the running
system, in this case mgr with two windows open).
--
Eric R. Smith                     email:
Dept. of Mathematics            ersmith@uwovax.uwo.ca
University of Western Ontario   ersmith@uwovax.bitnet
London, Ont. Canada N6A 5B7
ph: (519) 661-3638