don@brahms.udel.edu (Donald R Lloyd) (12/01/90)
There's been talk for quite some time now about device-independent
graphics libraries to allow the Amiga to once again become competitive in
the relatively high-end graphics markets. Apparently this is being worked
on, and will be nice to see when it gets here.
Recent Amiga VS NeXT discussions have brought up sound & DSP boards,
and mentioned that the DSP boards currently available for the Amiga
have almost 0 software support.
To remedy this, what I'd like to see is a device independent _sound_
library, so future products would be easily used by all sound software.
I don't know much about sound or DI libraries, but I imagine one for
sound wouldn't be too much more difficult than one for graphics.
(I may be way off there, and if I am I'm sure I'll hear all about it :-).
With the rising importance of multimedia and the Amiga's prominent place
in that market, such a library would be very useful. It would also
make provisions for future Amigas to encorporate something other than Paula.
Commodore would be, to the best of my knowledge, the first o implement
such a library, which would add tremendously to their credibility in the
"mainstream" industry.
--
Gibberish Amiga 3000 owner/fanatic
is spoken Contact don@brahms.udel.edu for more information.
here. DISCLAIMER: It's all YOUR fault.dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) (12/02/90)
In article <16390@brahms.udel.edu> don@brahms.udel.edu (Donald R Lloyd) writes: > > There's been talk for quite some time now about device-independent >graphics libraries to allow the Amiga to once again become competitive in >the relatively high-end graphics markets. Apparently this is being worked >on, and will be nice to see when it gets here. > It is already hear! Slight commercial for --- here, hit n to skip. > There's been talk for quite some time now about device-independent >graphics libraries to allow the Amiga to once again become competitive in >the relatively high-end graphics markets. Apparently this is being worked >on, and will be nice to see when it gets here. It is already here! It is called X Windows. It is not only device-indepenent but it is also an industry standard that is supported on almost all those other high-end workstations we get compared to. You can right now work on code that works with a 1008x1024 16 color frame buffer on an Amiga with enough chip memory. That same program can access a frame buffer card on any other machine on the network that may have a full color 1kx1k display with even more colors. The complete MIT set of libraries ,xlib, Xt, and Anthena widgets are available for Lattice programmers. Also nearly ready is the XView2.0 programming libraries. We are the only nonunix platform the has those available now. Programs developed using the X Window System are nearly 100% portable to other X Window compatible workstations. Most of the X applications ported to the Amiga, compiled, linked, and ran with ZERO changes to the original MIT C source code. The X11 System for the Amiga now supports Commodore's tcpip (AS225) package as well as TSSnet (DECnet) from Syndesis. The 3.2 release uses the new SANA local domain device for local connections. For more info please email back. Dale Luck -- Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc. {uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!dale