2 Jul
2008
2 Jul
'08
9:30 p.m.
Thought some of you PERQ fanatics out there might be interested in an
update... I've had some time to work on projects the past few days and
so I picked up my poor, neglected PERQ emulator and brushed it off.
And this is the result:
http://yahozna.dyndns.org/computers/perq/emulator/perq-5th.png
http://yahozna.dyndns.org/computers/perq/emulator/perq-chess.png
As you can see the emulator is now capable of booting POS from an image
of my real PERQ's hard drive! I had to hack in a few things I'm not
proud of -- most notably, a simulation of the RASTEROP QCode instruction
since emulating the real thing has proven to be a nightmare -- but I
plan on doing a proper emulation of the stuff I've hacked around as I
work out more of the hardware details...
If you want to try it out and see the glory of POS (and who doesn't,
really?) you can download version 0.1 at:
http://yahozna.dyndns.org/computers/perq/emulator/perqemu0.1.zip
Includes all you need to get going. You'll need a Windows machine with
.NET Framework 2.0. (Yes, I hear the jeering from the peanut gallery.
Sorry I didn't write this for your OS. If you want to help with a Mono
port when I get this thing more finished, let me know :)).
Be sure to read the readme.txt file as it covers some work-arounds for
some annoying emulation issues.
Well, back to the grindstone. Need to implement GPIB tablet, disk
writes, hardware cursors, serial, ethernet, video timing, real RasterOp
emulation, 16K CPU support... and whatever else I've forgotten...
- Josh
3 Jul
3 Jul
6:56 a.m.
Josh Dersch wrote:
Includes all you need to get going. You'll need a
Windows machine with
.NET Framework 2.0. (Yes, I hear the jeering from the peanut gallery.
Sorry I didn't write this for your OS. If you want to help with a Mono
port when I get this thing more finished, let me know :))
:-)
Is it written in such a way that a port will be easy? (if it *needs* .NET,
maybe not! :-) It's beyond my expertise, but my assumption about emulators
was always that the guts don't really change across (modern) platforms - it's
mainly the graphics layer that will be tightly coupled to the OS.
Good work, anyway!
cheers
Jules
9:33 a.m.
On Jul 3, 2008, at 9:56 AM, Jules Richardson wrote:
That's the whole point of .NET. Proprietary lock-in is the only
reason Microsoft is in business today. Sleazy, but very effective.
Includes all
you need to get going. You'll need a Windows machine
with .NET Framework 2.0. (Yes, I hear the jeering from the peanut
gallery. Sorry I didn't write this for your OS. If you want to
help with a Mono port when I get this thing more finished, let me
know :))
:-)
Is it written in such a way that a port will be easy? (if it
*needs* .NET, maybe not! :-) It's beyond my expertise, but my assumption
about emulators was
always that the guts don't really change across (modern) platforms
- it's mainly the graphics layer that will be tightly coupled to
the OS.
The PCB layout software that I use (called, oddly enough, "PCB")
runs on UNIX platforms with X11. Some time ago, DJ Delorie (of DJGPP
fame, also has a project featured on the front cover of this month's
Circuit Cellar Ink) did a huge amount of work to decouple the innards
of PCB from the GUI. He calls the result "HID" (Human Interface
Device) and it has been used to create instances of PCB with a Motif
GUI, a GTK+ GUI, and someone (Der Mouse, is he here?) is even working
on a raw X11 GUI.
That sort of abstraction is nontrivial to achieve, but it is
possible.
Good work, anyway!
Seconded!
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
10:20 a.m.
He calls the result "HID" (Human Interface
Device) and it has been
used to create instances of PCB with a Motif GUI, a GTK+ GUI, and
someone (Der Mouse, is he here?) is even working on a raw X11 GUI.
Mouse is here, yes. :) "Working on" is perhaps somewhat misleading at
the moment, because other things have dragged me away from it recently;
"partly done but on hold" would be more accurate. I don't know when
I'm going to pick it back up again, but I certainly intend to.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
10:26 p.m.
On Jul 3, 2008, at 1:20 PM, der Mouse wrote:
Excellent. I look forward to seeing it when it's ready.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
He calls the
result "HID" (Human Interface Device) and it has been
used to create instances of PCB with a Motif GUI, a GTK+ GUI, and
someone (Der Mouse, is he here?) is even working on a raw X11 GUI.
Mouse is here, yes. :) "Working on" is perhaps somewhat misleading at
the moment, because other things have dragged me away from it
recently;
"partly done but on hold" would be more accurate. I don't know when
I'm going to pick it back up again, but I certainly intend to. 
4 Jul
4 Jul
2:23 p.m.
Hehe, sounds like my Dymo Labelwriter project for the Amiga. I thought of the idea at the
start of 2006. I have the necessary docs (for the model I have), but haven't had the
time to write any code yet!!
Regards,
Andrew B
aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk
--- On Thu, 3/7/08, der Mouse <mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG> wrote:
From: der Mouse <mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG>
Subject: Re: Further PERQ Emulator progress (and a download!)
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
Date: Thursday, 3 July, 2008, 6:20 PM
He calls the result "HID" (Human Interface
Device) and it has
been
used to create instances of PCB with a Motif GUI, a
GTK+ GUI, and
someone (Der Mouse, is he here?) is even working on a raw X11 GUI.
Mouse is here, yes. :) "Working on" is perhaps somewhat misleading
at
the moment, because other things have dragged me away from it recently;
"partly done but on hold" would be more accurate. I don't know
when
I'm going to pick it back up again, but I certainly intend to.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
3 Jul
3 Jul
10:38 a.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
On Jul 3, 2008, at 9:56 AM, Jules Richardson wrote:
That's the whole point of .NET. Proprietary lock-in is the only
reason Microsoft is in business today. Sleazy, but very effective.
In the case of
.NET, there's the whole Mono initiative
(http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page) which is an open source .NET
runtime on top of your favorite unix variants. C# and the CLR are
openly specified (ECMA/ISO). There's no particular reason that PERQemu
couldn't be compiled under Mono, but I haven't tried it.
Additionally, I plan on releasing the source to this once I get it to a
state I'm happy with. (The code right now is... ugly, let's say.) So
if you want to rewrite it in C or Fortran 77 or MIX you can feel free :).
Includes
all you need to get going. You'll need a Windows machine
with .NET Framework 2.0. (Yes, I hear the jeering from the peanut
gallery. Sorry I didn't write this for your OS. If you want to
help with a Mono port when I get this thing more finished, let me
know :))
:-)
Is it written in such a way that a port will be easy? (if it *needs*
.NET, maybe not! :-) Seconded!
Thanks :).
-Dave
--Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
10:27 p.m.
On Jul 3, 2008, at 1:38 PM, Josh Dersch wrote:
In the case of .NET, there's the whole Mono
initiative (http://
www.mono-project.com/Main_Page) which is an open source .NET
runtime on top of your favorite unix variants. C# and the CLR are
openly specified (ECMA/ISO). There's no particular reason that
PERQemu couldn't be compiled under Mono, but I haven't tried it.
I wonder how difficult it'd be to set up the build environment for
that.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
4 Jul
4 Jul
12:57 a.m.
At 10:38 AM -0700 7/3/08, Josh Dersch wrote:
Dave McGuire wrote:
We've used Mono at work in production for several years now. The
crazy thing being, I've been the one building new versions of Mono,
even though I've not been writing anything in C#. Having said that,
I've been working on learning C# the last couple weeks, and quite
honestly rather like what I see. I'm rapidly starting to consider C#
and .NET as the best reason for having a Windows box. I've installed
Mono on my G5, and the main problem I see with .NET, Mono, or
Portable.NET, is that none of them run on OpenVMS. Using a language
that doesn't support OpenVMS is a personal problem for me.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
On Jul 3, 2008, at 9:56 AM, Jules Richardson
wrote:
That's the whole point of .NET. Proprietary lock-in is the only
reason Microsoft is in business today. Sleazy, but very effective.
In the case of
.NET, there's the whole Mono initiative
(http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page) which is an open source .NET
runtime on top of your favorite unix variants. C# and the CLR are
openly specified (ECMA/ISO). There's no particular reason that
PERQemu couldn't be compiled under Mono, but I haven't tried it. Includes
all you need to get going. You'll need a Windows
machine with .NET Framework 2.0. (Yes, I hear the jeering from
the peanut gallery. Sorry I didn't write this for your OS. If
you want to help with a Mono port when I get this thing more
finished, let me know :))
:-)
Is it written in such a way that a port will be easy? (if it
*needs* .NET, maybe not! :-) 
1:27 p.m.
Josh Dersch wrote:
Additionally, I plan on releasing the source to this once I get it to
a state I'm happy with. (The code right now is... ugly, let's say.)
So if you want to rewrite it in C or Fortran 77 or MIX you can feel
free :).
I wonder how many people on this list like myself think FORTRAN IV.
Strange how the standards people like to mess things up.
I think after K&R C langauges went dowhill.
Seconded!
Thanks :).
-Dave
--Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
3 Jul
3 Jul
3:19 p.m.
...
Have a look at Qt. Have a look at wxWidgets (which is what I use).
There is no need to write separate interfaces; in my experience, 98% of
the code is the same across windows and osx (I haven't attempted to get
a linux port running)
I do agree that reengineering the model/view abstraction after the fact
is a lot of work, but that error is easily avoided.
It's
beyond my expertise, but my assumption about emulators was
always that the guts don't really change across (modern) platforms -
it's mainly the graphics layer that will be tightly coupled to the OS.
The PCB layout software that I use (called, oddly enough, "PCB") runs
on UNIX platforms with X11. Some time ago, DJ Delorie (of DJGPP fame,
also has a project featured on the front cover of this month's Circuit
Cellar Ink) did a huge amount of work to decouple the innards of PCB
from the GUI. He calls the result "HID" (Human Interface Device) and it
has been used to create instances of PCB with a Motif GUI, a GTK+ GUI,
and someone (Der Mouse, is he here?) is even working on a raw X11 GUI.
That sort of abstraction is nontrivial to achieve, but it is possible. 
4:30 p.m.
Jim Battle wrote:
Have a look at Qt. Have a look at wxWidgets (which is what I use).
There is no need to write separate interfaces; in my experience, 98%
of the code is the same across windows and osx (I haven't attempted to
get a linux port running)
Indeed, I'm hearing very good things about Qt, and getting a bit of
pressure to rewrite LisaEm using that instead of wxWidgets, but I find
wxWidgets to be robust and perfectly fine for LisaEm. I'm not sure
what wxWidgets 3.0 will bring, but I'm looking forward to it. There
are of course licensing issues with Qt, but if you're not going to
produce anything commercial, it's perfectly fine to use Qt. Otherwise
wx seems a better choice.
wx has a hidden interface for directly manipulating wxBitmaps. wx is
very fast at blitting these to the display, but slow at drawing inside
wxBitmaps. I've managed to use the hidden rawbitmap interface very
nicely for both OS X and win32, however, under Linux it doesn't work too
well, so I've instead uses the wxImage classes and convert the image to
a wxBitmap before blitting. It's a little bit slower, but works just fine.
The only serious problem I've see with wx is the lack of proper sound.
It'll play WAV files just fine, but that's the problem - they must be
files. There is a way to load them in memory and play them back, but
I've found it doesn't always work, and I've had to compose a WAV file in
memory, write it to /tmp and then tell wx to play the file. I'm sure I
could use some other library such as Allegro for this, but meh, it
really should be properly handled under wx. (I've no idea if this is
handled properly in Qt or not.)
For sound emulation you want to be able to compose a sound buffer
containing the wave and play it back on the fly and also you should be
able to add more data to the sound buffer or somehow work with it like a
circular buffer... Lisa's sounds are very limited (just square waves
produced by a VIA's shift register, so it's not too bad.)
Ideally you should be able to play MIDI files (or play them from
memory), work with multiple voices, and be able to handle envelopes for
notes, etc. it would be really cool for example to be able to build a
C64 SID emulator using wxWidgets for example.
Of course the real problem is that since it was written in .NET it will
have to be a whole rewrite into C or C++ or something that either Qt or
wx supports. I'd opt for pure C for all the low level stuff and C++ or
something else for the UI. mono and .Net are nice and all, but I'd say
they're far from an ideal platform for an emulator. Yes, I know,
there's a PC emulator written in JAVA, today's machines are capable of
running an emulator inside a virtual machine (ok, with JIT compilation),
but why put up with all the overhead?
wxWidgets works beautifully under Linux with GTK. I've had issues
providing binaries that would work under multiple distros (it's hard to
compile statically with GTK), so perhaps it's best to just provide
source and contact the ports managers for the distros you're interested
in.
There's also a pure X11 version of wxWidgets that can be used, but I've
found it clunky and slow compared to the GTK one - and also some stuff
that worked under GTK didn't work under X11 there. But GTK is fairly
universal. (Ok, it would be nice if a wxQT existed too, but that's less
critical.) I haven't been able to get LisaEm to work under Solaris,
although it should, it's probably some sort of endian issue or
something, but there is a wxMotif as well - certainly would work on any
platform that still uses Motif, though it might run better if GTK+ was
installed on Solaris... :-)
One idea I'ved toyed with but haven't done anything with is using wxLua
as the UI and C for the core emulation. It might be worth looking at,
well providing you allow the C code to do all the heavy work of
refreshing the display as well. The benefit here is that it makes it
easier to edit the UI.
Anyway, I'm very happy to see a PERQ emulator, in any form.
5 p.m.
Ray Arachelian writes:
Of course the real problem is that since it was written in .NET it will
have to be a whole rewrite into C or C++ or something that either Qt or wx
supports. I'd opt for pure C for all the low level stuff and C++ or
something else for the UI. mono and .Net are nice and all, but I'd say
they're far from an ideal platform for an emulator. Yes, I know, there's
a PC emulator written in JAVA, today's machines are capable of running an
emulator inside a virtual machine (ok, with JIT compilation), but why put
up with all the overhead?
I like C# (and 'managed' code in general) because it allows me to focus on
the problem rather than the tool. I can fool around with ideas and write
fairly clean code in C# very quickly and I don't have to worry about mundane
details like memory management, bad pointers, and stupid "shoot yourself in
the foot" mistakes (I consider myself a good programmer, but that doesn't
mean I don't appreciate a language that helps me write better code). I
wrote most of the code for this emulator in my spare time over just 5 weeks
at the end of 2006, it just got moved to the back burner until recently.
Yes, it's probably not as fast as something written in pure C but I'm not
too concerned about that. The portability issue is unfortunate, but I'm
hoping that Mono will make it possible to run it on non-Windows platforms.
(It looks like Mono now has some manner of Winforms support, so it may not
even be necessary to make any changes at all...)
I wouldn't mind rewriting it in C after getting everything worked out in C#,
to make it more palatable for other OSes. But it helps me immensely to
write it in a high-level OOP language first to keep my code (and my mind) in
order. (I don't consider C++ to be "high level" :)).
I've tried to keep the emulation code fairly abstracted from the UI (there's
really only a window and keyboard/mouse input, so it should be trivial to
port to a different system if need be.)
Anyway, I'm very happy to see a PERQ emulator, in
any form.
Thanks. It's been a fun process and I hope that someone somewhere gets some
use out of it once I get it working better :).
Josh
4 Jul
4 Jul
12:37 a.m.
On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:00:31 -0400
"Joshua Alexander Dersch" <derschjo at msu.edu> wrote:
I like C# (and 'managed' code in general)
because it allows me to
focus on the problem rather than the tool.
Well. C# is just an other reinvention of
that wheel. M$ reinvented it
purely to chain customers to their products. There have been Java and
Smalltalk before. They could just use Java, but Java is "not invented
here"...
I would use Smalltalk. I don't know of any other language that can
express statements in such a natural way with such a high grade of
flexibility, orthogonality and abstraction.
But implementing an emulator in a language that is interpreted by a
virtual machine? I don't know...
But we get OT.
--
tsch__,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
12:58 a.m.
On Jul 4, 2008, at 12:37 AM, Jochen Kunz <jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de>
wrote:
On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:00:31 -0400
"Joshua Alexander Dersch" <derschjo at msu.edu> wrote:
I'll refrain from comment, other than saying that every language has
been a reinvention of Lisp, Fortran, Smalltalk or Simula :).
I like C# (and 'managed' code in general)
because it allows me to
focus on the problem rather than the tool.
Well. C# is just an other reinvention
of that wheel. M$ reinvented it
purely to chain customers to their products. There have been Java and
Smalltalk before. They could just use Java, but Java is "not invented
here"...
I would use Smalltalk. I don't know of any other language that can
express statements in such a natural way with such a high grades of
flexibility, orthogonality and abstraction.
But implementing an emulator in a language that is interpreted by a
virtual machine? I don't know...
I don't want to sideline my own thread any longer (anyone have any
questions or comments related to the PERQ or the emulator? ;)) but c#
(and Java) are not interpreted. They're just-in-time compiled in most
cases. There's no reason either of them couldn't be compiled to
native code (and I believe there are native Java compilers out there.)
Josh
But we get OT.
--
tsch__,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
10:38 a.m.
On Thu, 3 Jul 2008, Joshua Alexander Dersch wrote:
I like C# (and 'managed' code in general)
because it allows me to focus on
the problem rather than the tool. I can fool around with ideas and write
fairly clean code in C# very quickly and I don't have to worry about mundane
details like memory management, bad pointers, and stupid "shoot yourself in
the foot" mistakes
"In C++ it's harder to shoot yourself in the foot, but when you do, you
blow off your whole leg." Bjarne Stroustrup.
11:55 a.m.
New subject: C++ (was Re: Further PERQ Emulator progress (and a download!))
Fred Cisin wrote:
"In C++ it's harder to shoot yourself in the
foot, but when you do, you
blow off your whole leg." Bjarne Stroustrup.
With all due respect to Mr. Stroustrup, it is NOT any harder to shoot
yourself in the foot with C++ than with C. It has all the problems of C
plus a whole lot of new ones.
Eric
C++ is a fairytale language. Unfortunately, the fairytale is not The
Goose that laid the Golden Eggs, but rather The Emperor has no Clothes.
-- Peter van der Linden
C++ is already too large and complicated for our taste.
-- X3J16, (SIGPLAN notices, June 1992)
C++ will do for C what Algol-68 did for Algol.
-- David L. Jones
If you think C++ is not overly complicated, just what is a protected
abstract virtual base pure virtual private destructor and when was the
last time you needed one?
-- Tom Cargin
It has been discovered that C++ provides a remarkable facility for
concealing the trivial details of a program - such as where its bugs
are.
-- David Keppel
When your hammer is C++, everything begins to look like a thumb.
-- Steve Haflich
C++ has it's place in the history of programming languages. Just as
Caligula has his place in the history of the Roman Empire.
-- Robert Firth
If C++ has taught me one thing, it's this: Just because the system is
consistent doesn't mean it's not the work of Satan.
-- Andrew Plotkin
Being really good at C++ is like being really good at using rocks to
sharpen sticks.
-- Thant Tessman
Whenever the C++ language designers had two competing ideas as to how
they should solve some problem, they said, "OK, we'll do them both".
So the language is too baroque for my taste.
-- Donald E Knuth
To me C++ seems to be a language that has sacrificed orthogonality and
elegance for random expediency.
-- Meilir Page-Jones
I consider C++ the most significant technical hazard to the survival of
your project and do so without apologies.
-- Alistair Cockburn
C++ is the only current language making COBOL look good.
-- Bertrand Meyer
C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a
lot of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much
easier to generate total and utter crap with it. Quite frankly, even if
the choice of C were to do *nothing* but keep the C++ programmers out,
that in itself would be a huge reason to use C.
-- Linus Torvalds
12:26 p.m.
Fred Cisin wrote:
"In C++ it's harder to shoot yourself in the
foot, but when you do, you
blow off your whole leg." Bjarne Stroustrup.
I prefer the "C++ is stapling on extra legs on a dog to make an octopus"
line, but I'm not sure who said it. D looks really promising from what
I've read, but not having used it for any real project, it's hard to say.
12:35 p.m.
On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 3:26 PM, Ray Arachelian <ray at arachelian.com> wrote:
Fred Cisin wrote:
"Object-Oriented Programming is the roman numerals of computing" -- Rob Pike
"In C# you want to shoot yourself in the foot when you realize you
just wrote a big project... in C#" -- Me
Yeah, I spent a summer coding C#; working in Maui, great co-workers,
but writing C# in Visual Studio under Vista really soured me.
John
--
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
"In C++ it's harder to shoot yourself in the foot, but when you do, you
blow off your whole leg." Bjarne Stroustrup.
I prefer the "C++ is stapling on extra legs on a dog to make an octopus"
line, but I'm not sure who said it. D looks really promising from what I've
read, but not having used it for any real project, it's hard to say.
3 Jul
3 Jul
7:12 p.m.
New subject: DEC Gigi key caps?
Hi everyone,
I have a Digital GIGI, missing two keys (Set-Up, and No Scroll). Does anyone
have spares of these? The actual switches look to be in good condition,
fortunately.
Mike.
4 Jul
4 Jul
1:21 a.m.
On Thu, Jul 03, 2008 at 07:30:12PM -0400, Ray Arachelian wrote:
could use some other library such as Allegro for this,
but meh, it
really should be properly handled under wx. (I've no idea if this is
handled properly in Qt or not.)
Indeed. And I really should be able to use the wheelbrace from my car
to sew a patch on my jeans.
For sound emulation you want to be able to compose a
sound buffer
containing the wave and play it back on the fly and also you should be
able to add more data to the sound buffer or somehow work with it like a
circular buffer... Lisa's sounds are very limited (just square waves
produced by a VIA's shift register, so it's not too bad.)
Ideally you should be able to play MIDI files (or play them from
memory), work with multiple voices, and be able to handle envelopes for
notes, etc. it would be really cool for example to be able to build a
C64 SID emulator using wxWidgets for example.
Why would you use a graphics toolkit to write an audio app? Wouldn't it
be better to use an audio toolkit to handle the sound and leave the
graphics toolkit to do the graphics?
Incidentally, I'm surprised no-one has mentioned SDL for this yet.
Gordon
3 Jul
3 Jul
10:32 p.m.
On Jul 3, 2008, at 6:19 PM, Jim Battle wrote:
Have a look at Qt. Have a look at wxWidgets (which is what I use).
There is no need to write separate interfaces; in my experience,
98% of the code is the same across windows and osx (I haven't
attempted to get a linux port running)
Qt was discussed at great length and eventually dismissed, but I
don't recall exactly why. The main point of PCB's HID system wasn't
cross-platform portability, though, but GUI portability. Some people
wanted Motif, some people wanted GTK+, MacOS X runs either one
beautifully, and we don't give a crap about Windows...
It's beyond my expertise, but my assumption
about emulators was
always that the guts don't really change across (modern)
platforms - it's mainly the graphics layer that will be tightly
coupled to the OS.
The PCB layout software that I use (called, oddly enough,
"PCB")
runs on UNIX platforms with X11. Some time ago, DJ Delorie (of
DJGPP fame, also has a project featured on the front cover of this
month's Circuit Cellar Ink) did a huge amount of work to decouple
the innards of PCB from the GUI. He calls the result "HID" (Human
Interface Device) and it has been used to create instances of PCB
with a Motif GUI, a GTK+ GUI, and someone (Der Mouse, is he here?)
is even working on a raw X11 GUI.
That sort of abstraction is nontrivial to achieve, but it is
possible. I do agree that reengineering the model/view
abstraction after the
fact is a lot of work, but that error is easily avoided.
PCB has been around for a very long time...I believe it originally
got its start in Atari ST land eighteen years ago, and ported to X11
fourteen years ago. The need for that type of abstraction really
couldn't have been anticipated from the start. ;)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
5798
days inactive
5799
days old
21 comments
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-
aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
derschjo＠mail.msu.edu -
derschjo＠msu.edu -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
frustum＠pacbell.net -
gordonjcp＠gjcp.net -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jkunz＠unixag-kl.fh-kl.de -
jules.richardson99＠gmail.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
mike＠fenz.net -
mouse＠Rodents-Montreal.ORG -
ray＠arachelian.com -
slawmaster＠gmail.com