Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!stretch.cs.mun.ca!matthew1
From: matthew1@stretch.cs.mun.ca (Matthew J. Newhook)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: >Graphics Lib, GUI, ..., "X Lit"?
Message-ID: <1990Sep15.133059.15723@stretch.cs.mun.ca>
Date: 15 Sep 90 13:30:59 GMT
References: <3493@rwthinf.UUCP>
Organization: CS Department, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Lines: 38

u31b3hs@cip-s03.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Michael Haardt) writes:

>In the article "Graphics Lib, GUI, ..., "X Lit"?", H T Bunnell made
>some suggestions for grafics with MINIX.  He posted it yesterday,
>so I don't include it.  

>I made some experiments considering grafics in Minix.  I need grafics
>to write a previewer for my own little troff.  I use HGC and this are
>my experiences related to the suggestions:

>1. I use four virtual terminals in textmode.  My programs always use
>   page 2 for grafics, so that no terminal screen is corrupted after
>   returning to text mode.  Therefore, I woldn't like a screen always
>   running in bitmapped mode.  Virtual terminals are fine and fast.

>2. A. Directly read or write to a /dev/screen device will be *very*
>      slow for drawing lines or something like that.  I tried to access
>      video memory through /dev/mem and my 386 seems to be an 8088.

Why don't you integrate the graphics primitives (ellipse, line, pixel,
pattern fill etc...) rendering in the kernel?  I've just written a fairly 
comprehensive set of graphics primitives for an atari ST, and it would 
definitely would not be hard to change to work on a PC.  The only 
difference would be the calls to render_pixel, render_byte and 
solid_rectangle.  These could be made pointers to functions to account
for different video cards (or different machines), so all of these
primitives would be portable...  It wouldn't add that much code to
the kernel, and it sure would make the graphics fast, and efficient.

>Michael Haardt

>"Englich is not my native language..."
>------------------------------- ciao ----------------------------------
-- 
----------------matthew1@stretch.cs.mun.ca 
"Living in the limelight; the universal dream for those who wish to 
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