Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!jesup From: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) Newsgroups: comp.unix.amiga Subject: Re: Graphics on Amiga Unix??? Message-ID: <18787@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 11 Feb 91 10:20:22 GMT References: <992@amix.commodore.com> <1991Feb11.031630.15334@stb.info.com> Reply-To: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 33 In article <1991Feb11.031630.15334@stb.info.com> michael@stb.info.com (Michael Gersten) writes: >In article <992@amix.commodore.com> ford@amix.commodore.com (Mike "Ford" Ditto) writes: >>For now, X is the "portable" way to do graphics; there may be GKS or >>some similar library later. > >Wait a sec...you mean that there is no access to layers.library or >intuition.library? > >Is there any good reason why a unix process can't link against >a library that has the same calling interface as these two creatures >and supports the same features? Granted, it may be as simple as a >library that does IPC to a program that has the ROMS as part of its >program space (which would actually be useful as it would then take >up MUCH less space than X, and be usable in a 2 meg configuration). Getting any of the AmigaDos ROM code to run under Unix would require MAJOR rewrites of at least the lower-level code such as exec. (The higher-level you go, the less that needs rewriting, but the more modules below it that need to be). I don't think the current Unix kernel has any equivalent to (for example) WaitBlit. Most Unix resource locking I've seen in the past was done as files, a rather high-overhead operation for low-level interleaved access - fine for high-level exclusive long-term access. I could be wrong, if so the Unix guys will correct me. -- Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com BIX: rjesup The compiler runs Like a swift-flowing river I wait in silence. (From "The Zen of Programming") ;-)