crunch@well.UUCP (John Draper) (02/25/86)
NAPLPS CONFERENCE SUMMARY
-------------------------
(fairly long)
Last Sunday, the Programmers Network held the first on-line live conference
on graphics standards. The meeting was held on the WELL, at 6 pm (west)
9 pm (east). The system was heavily loaded just before the conference began
and a lot of people were reported to have problems logging in at that time.
Dispite the problems getting in, the conference went smoother than expected.
Our next scheduled meeting will take place on a weekday evening. Probably
on a Monday, when the network charges are the lowest.
The attendees of the meeting are:
John Draper - Acting as moderator, a registered amiga developer, and old-time
micro hacker. Author of EasyWriter, the first Word Processor program marketed
for the Apple II, and a FORTH system ver 1.7. Currently doing consulting
and moderating special projects for the Programmers Network. Founded the
Programmers Network on the WELL last July, now have 800+ members, a lot of
which are noteable commercial software developers. Net address:
(ihnp4!ptsfa!well!crunch)
David Paktor - Currently works for Tymenet as a senior Systems programmer
with network operations. About 12 years experience with Micros, Mini's
and Mainframes (The 3 M's), and very strong in Real time Process control.
Programming languages include Pascal, Forth and more recently C. Net
address: ihnp4!ptsfa!well!paktor
Eric Black - Currently working for Chronon Computer Corp. Working on a
super RISC mini running UNIX. Experience in SigGraphs Core Library
standard. Net address: ihnp4!ptsfa!well!eblack
Lance Franklin - presently in Raleigh, NC, Works as a Contract programmer
for the most part only HP-1000s right now. lot of work with graphics
packages on the HP-1000. Net address: ihnp4!ptsfa!well!ltf
Glen Tenney - Presently one of the hosts of the Amiga Conference on the WELL,
currently the implementor of the MVP Forth for the Amiga. Briefly checked
in but couldn't stay long. Net address: ihnp4!ptsfa!well!tenney
After about 5-10 minutes of introductions, we all agreed to start up
an on-line bibliography on NAPLPS, and are looking for all sources of
information on NAPLPS, and other graphics standards. Does anyone on
Usenet know of good reference material on NAPLPS, GKS, PHIGS and other
graphics standards??
None of the people checked in have ever implemented NAPLPS, but all will
be making some sort of commitment towards the project.
We all agreed to put the result of our NAPLPS study project in the Public
domain and keep it as a non-commercial project. We also hope that system
administrators will also consider the benifits of graphics standards and
storage of graphics data for Educational and Commercial use.
Eric Black wants to make enhancements to the UNIX UUCP program to include
NAPLPS or other suited standards.
Because some of the members present weren't familiar with NAPLPS, Each of us
tried to explain it to the others. A portion of the transcript follows:
<paktor>John, I don't even know what NAPLPS is; hoped I'd find out here. could
you fill in a bit...?
<eblack>I know that AT&T has been pushing NAPLPS, if we can find
<eblack>a contact person there I'm sure we can get more info that we can
<eblack>digest in a month.
<crunch>Ok, NAPLPtands for North American Presentation Level protocol
<eblack>It's basically a high-level description language oriented towards pictur
es & graphic data.
<crunch>It is an "engine" that "looks" for a special escape sequence, then it t
akes ascii and generates pictures.
<eblack>It's similar in spirit to the Postscript language used by Apple laser pr
inters, uses
<eblack>smarts on the receiving end to cut down on
<eblack>data transmitted.
<crunch>It is supposed to be pretty efficient.
<eblack>Commands range from polygon data & fills/patterns to raster data at
<eblack>the low end. For its intended applications (e.g.
<eblack>on-line catalogs with "pictures" it's quite nice. Examples of NAPLPS
<eblack>in use in the Bay Area are all those color CRETS with tourist help
<eblack>you see at the airport and other spots (oops
<eblack>that's CRTs).
The group set up some project priorities, which are:
-- Build up a library of information on graphics standards.
-- Implement a NAPLPS Decoder, to be eventually hacked into a device
driver for the Amiga.
NAPLPS data is on a system called Chariot in Boulder Colo. Operated by
Dave Hughes. More sections relating to other standards were discussed below.
<crunch>Also I think we all should keep our eyes open. Lets not forget Usenet
might
<crunch>have a special newsgroup relating to NAPLPS.
<eblack>It doesn't.
<paktor>Who promotes PHIGS?
<ltf>none that I've seen...but Net.Graphics or Mod.Graphics might supply some he
lp.
<eblack>It does, however, have groups for video, graphics, and analog(TV)
<crunch>Does anyone have any literature from SIGGRAPH on NAPLPS??
<eblack>SIGGRAPH doesn't like NAPLPS.
<crunch>We should post a request for naplps on net.graphics. Anyone want to vo
lunteer??
<ltf>what are they into....GKS?
<eblack>NOOOOO!!!! Core! GKS is from Europe, and
<crunch>We should get them all.
<eblack>SIGGRAPH fought like dogs for Core over GKS.
<ltf>Made in America, eh?
<eblack>PHIGS is even higher-level, and hsa come out of academia and some
<eblack>corners of industry (i.e. CAD/CAM). I'm not sure what
<crunch>So we have PHIGS, GKS, and NAPLPS right?
<eblack>organizations embrace PHIGS.
<eblack>All three are oriented toward different ends. Each
<eblack>has a place under the sun. NAPLPS is
<paktor>and CORE. A few words on core, someone, please?
<ltf>doesn't the Air Force have their own protocol too?
<paktor>FTAirForce
<eblack>suited toward lower-cost graphics hardware, low-bandwidth transmission c
hannels.
<ltf>jeeze, paktor, no need to get violent!
<eblack>Hence, NAPLPS is worth pursuing, or any of the others, depending on what
<eblack>we hope to accomplish.
<eblack>Back to my earlier question -- what?? Just
<eblack>educating ourselves on the various graphics standards? Making
<ltf>NAPLPS seems to be the one most likely to be encountered by the average con
sumer.
<eblack>sample programs to deal with the various methods?
<eblack>Yes, I agree, for consumer-oriented products NAPLPS is more viable.
<eblack>AT&T has had experimental markets somewhere using NAPLPS decoders runnin
g from
<eblack>the phone (modem) to normal TV sets for things
<eblack>like shop-at-home (love that term!?) and such. Dunno how
<eblack>well it's faring so far.
<ltf>what is ViewData(?) using?
<eblack>VieoTex is different from NAPLPS, and is its only
<paktor>sorrrry...
<ltf>(not sure I'm remembering the name correctly)
<eblack>direct competition. AT&T fought hard to get NAPLPS
<eblack>supported rather than VideoTex, which is what ViewData and others use.
NOTE: Due to heavy system loads, some of the text appears out of context,
but answers make sense if you read two or more responses down.
Discussions on the relationship of IFF and NAPLPS and their differences
resulted in the need to study further the possibility of transferring between
IFF and NAPLPS. Because NAPLPS experts couldn't make it into the Conference
this weekend, we all agreed to study this relationship further. I sort of
got nominated to put the word out for more expertise on NAPLPS, so if anyone
else claims to be an expert on graphics standards, we appreciate hearing
from you. If you cannot attend the live on-line meetings, just mail us
over UUCP and we will compile a list of sources and make it available to the
Net. We are looking for students who have written papers on graphics
standards, or plan to.
A few corrections on WELL access, First, the Pac Tel Packet network
access to the WELL is ONLY available from 408 and 415 area code and NOT
state wide, Second, the WELL is accessable through Uninet at $6/hr
non-prime time from almost anywhere in USA.
An attempt will be made to set up a guest account for prominent people
who are knowledgable in NAPLPS and would like to make a guest appearance.
If anyone on Usenet knows about graphics standards, and wants to speak
at one of our meetings, just mail me (crunch) for access arrangements.
It has been a very productive first meeting, and our next meeting will
probably take place in about 2 weeks. I agreed to moderate 2 more meetings
then Lance agreed to pick up when I leave.
I plan on moderating other projects for the programmers Network relating
to the Amiga, These are:
UVCO - Visual conferencing program which currently exists on the Macintosh.
The origional program was written by Harry Chesley and Bob Perez of
Compuserve. This project will be starting up
within 2 weeks. The meeting times will be announced. This VCO
(Visual conference program) basically uses ICONS which represent "faces"
for each of the participants. The Faces are uploaded into a public
area available for Downloading anytime before the conference starts.
A "conference table" is displayed with the
faces of the participants sitting around the table. When a person wants
to express a facial expression, a certain character "tilda" is transmitted
to the host, followed by a number. The "micro" at the other end sees this
as a "facial expression change" and appropriatly makes the change in everyone
elses system. The program will work on any terminal so participants won't
have to have a micro that supports it. In fact the NAPLPS conference is
set up the handle the VCO format. This project will implement a VCO for
the Amiga.
GADGET/SPRITE editor - This project will also be starting up within 3 weeks
and will be working on Programming Tools for the AMiga which can speed up
program writing. When writing code that handles menus and
gadgets, programmers often struggle with complicated structure initializations
which introduce potentual errors and positioning problems. This project will
be working on a nice public domain Gadget editor that "generates" C source
code structure initializations and writes them to a file. Other proposals
include the creation of a "gadget resource file" similar to the Macintosh
type ideas of resources, with similar types of file formats.
These are some of the projects planned this spring by the Programmers
Network. If anyone is interested in becoming a participant in any of these
projects, just Email to me and I will put your name on a mailing list and
contact you prior to the first project meeting.
The Programmers Network is a non-commercial gathering place where
Programmers get together on-line and exchange ideas, knowledge, and
software writing tools. A special conference has been set up on the
WELL where programmers can communicate. Some of the topics are:
-- Job references
-- Classes and tutorials
-- Special Projects
-- Rumors and gossup
Anyone is welcome to join and participate in the numerous projects
sponsored by the Programmers Network.
John Draper (crunch)
UUCP: ihnp4!ptsfa!well!crunch
BIX: crunch
Delphi: crunch
WELL: crunch