nyuada@csd1.UUCP (10/11/84)
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I was one of the first to order GSX-80 and DR-PLOT (a high level graphics
subroutine library) back in June '83 to develop a CPM-80 based business
graphics package. I found GSX-80 to be an answer to most of my problems.
GSX-80 is an extension to the CPM-80 operating system which consists of
a header which you bind to your graphics application program and many
drivers for different graphics devices. This allows you to produce graphics
for different devices through Digital Research high level languages and
Assembler (although in practice you would have to write an assembler
interface for those high level languages). GSX-80 was truly device
independent and you could write a graphics program for one device and
instantly produce the exact same graph on another device merely by changing
the assignment file. At that time several manufacturers distributed GSX
with their machines - these included NEC, Televideo, Visual, ALS CPM-80
card for the APPLE, DEC and Fujitsu. Essentially what this means is that
you can write a graphics program for one machine and (if you used a high
level DR language) instantly transport it to every machine that ran GSX-80
or GSX-86 (even under CPM/86 and IBM PC-DOS). This seemed like the software
developers ideal development system.
DR-PLOT used GSX-80 and allowed me to create rather professional looking
pie charts, bar charts, line graphs etc by simple subroutine calls from DR
languages.
The problem however was not with these products but with DR. The entire
GSX line of products (DR-KERNEL, DR-DRAW etc) were not written by DR
but by Graphics Software Systems (the company which Visicorp used for
its Vision window system; and that has written the software which IBM
announced for its new series of high res color graphics adapters). About
two months after I got DR-PLOT, DR withdrew it from the market citing
unresolved bugs. This seemed more like a marketing move since DR-DRAW
was written with DR-PLOT and anyone who had DR-PLOT could easily
reproduce a graphics package at least as powerful as DR-DRAW. Also from
my conversation with Graphics Software Systems, it seemed that they
were unpleased with the way DR was marketing their product. DR killed
DR-PLOT, DR-KERNEL and only allowed OEM's to distribute GSX-80.
GSX-80 though remained around and I believe you can still get copies either
from Westico or the Programmers Shop. I'm not sure what the exact status is
on that product other than that you can get it. Personally, I have been very
satisfied with the product. I have the assembler interfaces to most of
DR languages so if you have problems interfacing it contact me via UNIX
mail. It was about $60 when I bought it in June '83. I implemented a
fairly sophisticated graphics package on my S-100 system which ran
without a hitch on the Televideo, Kaypro and Rainbow.
About March of this year, DR announced something called the GSX Programmers
Toolkit. This package contains GSX-86 for IBM PC DOS and the right to
distribute GSX with your application and not pay any royalties.
It is however not available for GSX-80 unless you are an OEM. For $250
this was a great deal and I have since transported all my programs to
the IBM PC. Currently GSX-86 for the PC supports about 8 color graphics
adapters, 20+ printers, 5+ plotters and the new Polariod instant slide
camera. I have been very happy with GSX-86 and have it in several products
soon to be commercially available. DR will provide you bindings for PASCAL
MT+86, PLI86, CB86, DR C, and DR Fortran 77. I have written an interface
for Microsoft Pascal.
Sam Chin