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From: izumi@fugitive.berkeley.edu (Izumi Ohzawa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Programming the NeXTdimension
Message-ID: <1990Oct24.083545.15889@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 24 Oct 90 08:35:45 GMT
References: <90285.084516SLVQC@CUNYVM.BITNET> <90290.23490234X3TAN@CMUVM.BITNET> <3706@amc-gw.amc.com>
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In article <3706@amc-gw.amc.com> kenb@d9.amc.com (Ken Birdwell) writes:
>I've heard that:
>    "Its currently not possible for outsiders to write software for the i860".  

>Now I hear that it'll be useless to me.  I just got done 
>talking with some guy 
>at NeXT and he said that they dicided they were 
>not going to give access to 
>the i860 directly. Why, whats the reason?  I couldnt care less about 
>PostScript, I need floating point speed.  Currently I write image rendering 

I do care about Display PostScript, but I agree with you.
I am very much interested in this, as I am contemplating doing
similar things.

I suspect the reason is that they want ALL software
to be compatible with all of their models.  And this requires
that you go through the DPS and the WindowServer.
Perheps, NeXT thinks that it's better not to have Ken's software
at all, it it breaks rules.

This is a STUPID policy.  There are things which are just plain
impossible unless you have direct access to i860 and other
hardware on board.  I suspect that Ken's application is just such
a project, and his software won't probably be sold as a install and
run product.  When/if he ships products he will probably ship them 
as a total system including the cube.

I am thinking of projects that will probably require going directly
to hardware.  I need high speed graphics generation capability
in a university lab settings.  I just need to build ONE system
which will allow me to do research for the next several years.

NeXTdimension is a tremendously capable board for its price.
I wouldn't be surprised if any of the companies involved in
industrial computer vision systems wanted to use NeXTdimension
as the heart of their system.

Why totally rule out such uses of NeXTdimensions.
Why shut the door to people who want to use a cube with NeXTdimension
in an embedded system?  This is potentially a very large market too.

It may not be totally unreasonable if NeXT requires
a non-disclosure agreement of some sort for the details of
hardware design.  I would be happy to sign one.

If NeXT refused to let us do these things even if we are willing
to sign a non-disclosure agreement, that is really bad.

Ken, I don't know what your positions are for signing such
an agreement, but I would be curious to know if they would still
refuse even with the intention of signing a non-disclosure.

If you are about tell me the benefits of DPS, don't bother.
I am already a convert.  I truely believe in DPS, and know its
benefits.  But some of the things I want to do can't be done
if I went through DPS.

You see, you can put up to 3 NeXTdimensions into a cube.
Not all of them have to run DPS.  I might run DPS on the first
but let me do whatever I want to do with the remaining two, please.


Izumi Ohzawa, izumi@violet.berkeley.edu