Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!hsdndev!husc6!genrad!stardent!jch
From: jch@Stardent.COM (Jan Hardenbergh)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Porting Uipex to the Sparc
Message-ID: <1991Apr24.162746.626@Stardent.COM>
Date: 24 Apr 91 16:27:46 GMT
References: <1991Apr21.194404.24089@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk>  <47728@ut-emx.uucp>
Organization: Stardent Computer, Concord MA
Lines: 33


In article <1991Apr21.194404.24089@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk> logiej@.glasgow.ac.uk (James R Logie) writes:
>
>	Has anyone ported the University of Illinois PEX implementation
>uipex to a Sparc Station. If not I will attempt this myself but don't
>wish to do this if the problem has already been solved.

A word to the wise, if you are planning to invest lots of time and
energy into a PEX server, you should become a member of the MIT X
consortium and get the Beta version of the X11R5 release (available
sometime soon).  The PEX-SI (sample implementation) is scheduled to be
on it.

This implies the the PEX-SI will be part of the public release of X11R5,
but that won't be available in the near term - those consortium people
like to keep thier word and so they use weather prediciton analogies
to specify thier release dates - something about it getting cold again.

I have not looked at the guts of UIPEX, but it is based on either PEX
version 3.2 or 4.0.  It will not be interoperable with the first large
crop of PEX products - based on PEX 5.0P.  Since UIPEX was used as the
basis for at least Kelvin Sung's thesis, it has pretty good
documentation, as does the PEX-SI.  The PEX-SI has great user man pages.

I do not want to discourage anyone from porting UIPEX as a great way to
get some 3D graphics into X.  It's here now and seems to have been done
well. I just want to warn people considering big investments that they
should join the X consortium and get the Beta for X11R5 - or if
possible, just wait until X11R5 goes public.

-- 
-Jan "YON" Hardenbergh       jch@stardent.com         (508)-371-9810x261
Stardent Computer, 6 N.E. Tech Center, 521 Virginia Rd,Concord, MA 01742