Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!dali.cs.montana.edu!caen!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!hubcap!ncrcae!ncr-sd!se-sd!cns!dltaylor
From: dltaylor@cns.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Dan Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: 2.0 Compatibility
Message-ID: <941@cns.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Date: 8 May 91 02:06:33 GMT
References: <mykes.2036@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG> <913.28202b13@vger.nsu.edu>  <dillon.7299@overload.Berkeley.CA.US> <91126.101931DXB132@psuvm.psu.edu>
Organization: NCR Corp. SE-San Diego
Lines: 30

In <91126.101931DXB132@psuvm.psu.edu> DXB132@psuvm.psu.edu writes:

>Oh really, then why is Commodore's own gfx card not supported under
>the OS? (at the moment). Literally zillions of program will require
>updates to support device independent graphics.

ONLY hardware-specific programs, which may be zillions :-(,  will have
to be re-written.  Programs that make all system interactions through
properly implemented (discounting bugs) LIBRARY calls will still work
when the LIBRARIES are device-independent, or are SELECTED at load
time, depending on the hardware configuration.  This makes the libraries
non-trivial to update, but not application code, which is as it should
be.

We know that printer.device is independent, within its design parameters,
which didn't include PostScript.  It will not be impossible, but rather,
IMHO, highly desirable, for Intuition.library, etc. to have the same level,
or more, of device independence.  There is a performance hit, for extra
layers of indirection, but that could be eliminated by having the OS load
"hardware-specific" versions of the libraries, for instance:
	SYS:libs/Intuition.library.<insert Zorro product code here>
whenever Intuition.library was opened.  I'm not sure which is better,
overall, though, between the extra indirection, and the more-complicated
loader.  Either beats rewriting applications.

I do know that rewriting the libraries, while releasing 2.0, while releasing
UNIX, is probably too much for the C= staff.  I would hope that some
progress toward device-independent libraries would be made by 3.0(?).

Dan Taylor