dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) (06/09/89)
A very preliminary (Alpha) version of X11R3 color for the Amiga
is available for qualified testers.
It is based on the R3 version (currently in Beta testing
for the Amiga).
Supports 1,2,3,4 bitplanes. for 2,4,8,16 colors from a pallete
of 4096. Cursors have their own colormap since they are
supported in hardware.
Please email/snailmail/call if you are interested.
Equipment requirements:
A2000 class machine
3 megabytes of memory
Ethernet board
7 megabytes of mass storage.
Dale Luck/GfxBase 408-262-1469
--
Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc.
{uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!daleprotcoop@bnr-public.uucp (Joel Avery) (06/10/89)
I hope that X11 does not represent the future of the Amiga windowing environment ... please Mr. Luck, tell me it is not so. 3 meg of memory needed !? 7 meg of mass storage!? One of the things I brag to people here at work about is that while they run Un*x and X-windows in a 8meg/40meg environment, they often run out of memory when multitasking. At home on my Amiga with 512k and 2 floppies, I can do much better, plus my windows are much faster. When I had 1.5 meg of memory, I could just scream with all kinds of stuff running. If the Amiga were to use X11, sure it would be 'standard', but oh what a hog it would be. I, for one, would be sure to drop her. Please, oh please tell me this cannot be so. ------------------------------------------------------------- Alan W. McKay | My opinions are mine, yours are yours. | Eat Food | NEPEAN, Ont. | I in no way pretend to represent the | and | 613-763-8980 | the options of my employer. So there. | LIVE !! |
jimm@amiga.UUCP (Jim Mackraz) (06/11/89)
In article <566@bnr-fos.UUCP> protcoop@bnr-public.UUCP (Joel Avery) writes:
)
)I hope that X11 does not represent the future of the Amiga windowing
)environment ... please Mr. Luck, tell me it is not so. 3 meg of
)memory needed !? 7 meg of mass storage!? [...]
Have no fear.
As always, you will have the best of all worlds, each in a screen
of its own. I think it's safe to say that X will never be a required
part of your Happy Amiga Setup. If I'm wrong, it would mean that
the future has more wonderous potential than I can imagine, either
in the price of storage or the quality of compiler shrinking
X.
X fits in nicely, running in an Intuition screen. A fine X terminal, and
if you drag it from the top, there's a computer running back there.
jimm
--
Jim Mackraz, I and I Computing "He's hidden now, but you can see
{cbmvax,well,oliveb}!amiga!jimm The bubbles where he breathes."
- Shriekback
Opinions are my own. Comments are not to be taken as Commodore official policy.dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) (06/11/89)
In article <566@bnr-fos.UUCP> protcoop@bnr-public.UUCP (Joel Avery) writes: > >I hope that X11 does not represent the future of the Amiga windowing >environment ... please Mr. Luck, tell me it is not so. I like choices... The X Window System represents a what may become the accepted interface to programs on most if not all engineering and possibly all professional workstations in the future. The Amiga needs to be able to play ball with all the other players in this industry, whether it be via networks, compatible file formats, or just making the names of similar commands the same. makedir or mkdir? They do the same thing. X Window System brings alot to the Amiga Party. There is alot that the Amiga Window system can learn from X and vice versa. You should see the source to X, it could use a dose of amiga software technology itself. The concept of a network transparent graphics/window system is very appealing to most people. It allows for better distribution of resources. We can take advantage of the particular advantages of hardware and software. The Amiga is great at graphics. She lacks a bit in the database and number crunching field (compared to a Cray). Even more so she lacks in available applications running on her...... X Windows helps provide that. There are many applications CAD/CAM, DTP, CASE, etc. that are being written/ported specifically for/to the X Window system. With X11 on the Amiga we get to take advantage of these programs in a networked environment. If the Amiga does a good job of presenting the program to the user maybe the writer of the application would be convinced to actually make it available native on the Amiga. Under X11 the graphics calls are perfectly transportable. All the programmer needs to worry about is the specific os differences, like file io, etc. The Amiga user interface=== Intuition was designed to allow the application programmer total freedom in the design of their user interface. On the Amiga, the user interface system is actually two parts... Intuition AND Workbench. Intuition has no idea what an ICON is yet it is very important part of the UIMS. The Amiga has one. The X Window system has at last count (I think) at least 6 choices of UIMS. Offering nearly the ultimate in choices of pop up/pull down, tiled/overlapped, etc. User Interface options. Because there is such an effort to make applications work with any UIMS the end user can very likely be assured that the applications they run on their machine will actually act similar to other applications under their choice of UIMS. Enough of theory and some of the reasons why I chose to bring X11 out for the Amiga Computer. > 3 meg of >memory needed !? It is not good to jump to conclusions about required testing environments and minimal environments. Even your 512k ram amiga is really a 3/4m machine. 256k of rom are installed. The X Window system shares some concepts of the Amiga however the implementations do not always coincide. This means duplicated code. For example the Amiga struct Rect is { (xul,yul), (xlr,ylr) }, where as the X Window rect is { xul,yul, width,height }. So there are many area where I wish we could make use of the optimized Amiga routines, but am unable to do so. I'm very happy that we can coexist in a separate screen like any other application that may use a separate screen. Also the three meg is an estimate assuming a NUMBER of concurrent running Amiga X tasks. as well just plain amiga programs running as well. > 7 meg of mass storage!? Again a 7 megs is for testing. We have nearly 2 megs of fonts!!!! Maybe you should check out what the X Window system entails before complaining about the resource requirements. Have you checked out your local desk top publishing packages for the Amiga. How many megabytes do they need for their fonts? We have not stated using shared libraries for the Xlib nor the X toolkits yet. There are several problems that need to be overcome with the integration of a socket library, standard c library into a shared/reentrant environment. The Amiga shared libraries are a needed thing and it is completely in the plans to supply this to X program on the Amiga. > One of the things I brag >to people here at work about is that while they run Un*x and >X-windows in a 8meg/40meg environment, they often run out of memory >when multitasking. At home on my Amiga with 512k and 2 floppies, >I can do much better, plus my windows are much faster. When I had >1.5 meg of memory, I could just scream with all kinds of stuff running. The Amiga graphics/layers windowing system is a very sophisticated and targeted environment. It was designed to speed graphics on programs living on the machine as well as provided special functions because of the special capabilities of the Amiga chip set. The os style funtions are very limited and provide only a subset of what most Unix programmers are used to without talking directly to devices/hardware. When programmers are not seperated from the hardware but a veneer of software for resource control they can write much more streamlined code, however all of the resource control must be done by the application instead of the system, which makes it HARDER to write well behaved applications. I wonder exactly what kinds of programs you are comparing between the Amiga and the Unix environment. There are so many factors I think you are missing that might temper your arguments. Most of those unix machines habe probably 4 (four) times the amount of display bits to update in the same amount of time. Most machines that I know of have not incorporated real blitters yet. Many are still languishing in the archaic cpu does all the work mentality. It turns out that the X window system has many similar concepts as the Amiga graphics/layers/intuition. Trust me. I know ;-) I was there. >If the Amiga were to use X11, sure it would be 'standard', but oh >what a hog it would be. I, for one, would be sure to drop her. So you are ready to pass judgment already? Seems a little premature. Usually decisions are made on a cost/benefit analysis. I'm not sure you are aware of the total benefits of the X Window System for the Amiga, nor am I sure you know what the costs are either. >Please, oh please tell me this cannot be so. The future of the Amiga Windowing environment? I believe in inventing technology/concepts when necessary. However when available technology is available for the asking, then I can only say lets use it and build on it. >Alan W. McKay | My opinions are mine, yours are yours. | Eat Food | -- Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc. {uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!dale
garvin@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu (Michael A. Garvin) (06/12/89)
[Line eater? What line eat
[Many posts about X on the Amiga not included.]
About X11 on the Amiga and the memory/disk requirements and the
"future" of the Amiga windowing environment... here are my $0.02 worth...
We here in the NCSU CC Systems department are looking into the Amiga
X11 package for a number of reasons, primarily due to the fact that it would
present a cost-effective X terminal. Now, many things play into that
statement. When I say cost-effective I mean more than mere $$$. One has to
look at diskless X terminal as being cheap and cost beneficial, but you have
to remember that they are net hogs (inherent in any diskless workstation).
You can step up the ladder to something such as a micro with X, but your
options are limited there. The Mac is the competition which the Amiga will
have to live up to (and, hopefully, excel past) in order to fill this niche.
Cost wise, the Amiga wins. Moving on up the ladder entails Suns, DEC
equipment, etc., and higher cost.
Why would I, the customer, look at the Amiga? For one, with the X
system on a local disk I would be looking at lower traffic than a diskless X
terminal. Yes, one terminal does not an EtherNet load hog make, but in an
environment where one might have many dozen machine talking to a single or
even multiple servers over one or two networks the load will build up.
Another reason is (again) the cost. Dale Luck's numbers (and, when we
hopefully get our system and we can test the Amiga versus other machine, we
can verify with our own test runs) look good. Clearly, the X Amiga will be
able to hold its own against other machine costing MUCH more. Add to all
this the TCP/IP and NFS supplied with the AmeriStar card and you have a VERY
attractive setup.
Now, for the "windowing" aspect. No, no, X is NOT the future on the
500/1000/2000. Maybe the 3000 machine will take this into consideration if
it leans towards a workstation, but WorkBench is the Amiga's environment. I
look to X as another software package available, and, in this case, as a
network windowing package (among other things). It is not a replacement.
On an workstation X is intended to be THE windowing environment. And
rightfully so, in my mind. As for memory and disk, well, when was the last
time you looked at the size of the X11 release and built it? That's what
virtual memory is for. Now, if the VM on the Amiga discussion ever comes
to fruition, then maybe things will change. But until then I find 3 meg to
be reasonable for this application.
Personally, I happen to love the idea of X on the Amiga. It's high
time we began to see this for what it is: war. Specifically, Amiga vs. Mac.
And we're starting to fall behind in several areas. I'm not intending to
start a flame war here, or to start another "which is better, Amiga or Mac?"
discussion. I'm just pointing out that the tide is shifting. I know many
people around this area who now favor the Mac. These are people who, about
1 year ago, would have REALLY looked at the Amiga. But poor service,
lacking software in some areas, and a bad reputation on the part of C-A have
turned their heads. Again, don't get me wrong, I love my Amiga. And I hope
that things are turning. We have many examples to prove this such as X11,
more 3D CAD/rendering/animation packages, improved hardware (with Agnes),
better service from the manufacturer, and ever increasing hardware and
software available.
So, in short (which is what this was supposed to be), I don't see X
as the Amiga's future. I see it as another outstanding application
available for the Amiga, one just like any other. I hope I haven't offended
anyone with this (specifically, Mr. Luck), and I hope I haven't fired out
much bad info. And I hope I haven't cast to gloomy a cloud over the
situation.
As always, everything here is open to discussion/flames. If it's
worth noting, please post. And thank you for your support.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
garvin@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu Michael Garvin NCSU Computing Center
Dislaimer: The above is my personal opinion, and not that of NCSU or the CC.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------protcoop@bnr-public.uucp (Joel Avery) (06/12/89)
I am afraid I have jumped to too many conclusions too soon. I now see the benefits of having the Amiga run X11. I also see that it is not in the near future that Amiga will drop Intuition in favour of WorkBench. You speak wisely, Mr. Luck, when you say that I am passing judgement too soon. I am now anxious to see X11 running on Amiga. I hope you can get it going. I realize that something like this could sell tons of more Amigas too! At my place of work we use NFS and X11. All of our work stations run off a file server. If the Amiga could run X11, she too could be used at my office. Wow! I didn't think that could be possible. This means that if Commodore plays its advertising correctly, they could convince companies such as the one I work for to purchase a 5-7000 dollar Amiga instead of a 15-25 thousand dollar HP or SUN. This would help sales in another way since many people could now have a machine at home just like the one at work! _I_F_ Commodore plays its cards right, we could have the next best thing to sliced bread. Sorry that I was so quick to judge, I couldn't see the forest through the trees. ----------------------------- Alan W. McKay | My opinions are mine, yours are yours. | Eat Food | NEPEAN, Ont. | I in no way pretend to represent the | and | 613-763-8980 | the options of my employer. So there. | LIVE !! |
joel@dtscp1.UUCP (Joel Rives) (06/12/89)
In article <566@bnr-fos.UUCP> protcoop@bnr-public.UUCP (Joel Avery) writes: > >I hope that X11 does not represent the future of the Amiga windowing >environment ... please Mr. Luck, tell me it is not so. 3 meg of >memory needed !? 7 meg of mass storage!? One of the things I brag >to people here at work about is that while they run Un*x and >X-windows in a 8meg/40meg environment, they often run out of memory >when multitasking. At home on my Amiga with 512k and 2 floppies, >I can do much better, plus my windows are much faster. When I had >1.5 meg of memory, I could just scream with all kinds of stuff running. >If the Amiga were to use X11, sure it would be 'standard', but oh >what a hog it would be. I, for one, would be sure to drop her. >Please, oh please tell me this cannot be so. While your arguments are sound, they hold true only within the narrow scope of your personal environment. There are several reasons why someone or some organization might wish to run the X Windowing System on an Amiga. One such instance that pops to mind is a cluster of Amiga workstations, which are intermixed with workstations of another brand -- say Sun or DEC. An organization might wish to maintain uniformity and portability across their entire environment -- no matter what type of workstations they currently own or might buy in the future. Universities fall under this category in a BIG way. Certain development environments (such as the one i work in) are also prime candidates for inexpensive workstations that run X. Joel Rives
bauer@loligo.cc.fsu.edu (Jeff Bauer) (06/14/89)
In article <566@bnr-fos.UUCP> protcoop@bnr-public.UUCP (Joel Avery) writes: > >I hope that X11 does not represent the future of the Amiga windowing >environment ... please Mr. Luck, tell me it is not so. 3 meg of >memory needed !? 7 meg of mass storage!? ... I'm interested in knowing the speed of the server code -- how much of the Amiga graphics library calls did you use? You should be able to optimize the server code to make a VERY fast X server, subjective to, say, the color sun3 server. Also, I hope you say that you really DON'T need the ethernet connection, unless, of course, you need it for the socket library and network access. I'd just like to build & install the standard X libraries & include files so I can build the applications right out of the src tree and have them run. The 3 meg limit looks real, assuming similiar code densities between a sun3 & amiga -- while the working set of the X server and one xterm is on the order of 500K, the entire memory space of both binaries is around 2,656K for X11R3... -- Jeff Bauer bauer@loligo.cc.fsu.edu Control Data Corporation (904) 644-2591 ext. 113
dale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) (06/14/89)
In article <575@bnr-fos.UUCP> protcoop@bnr-public.UUCP (Joel Avery) writes:
=of WorkBench. You speak wisely, Mr. Luck, when you say that I am
=passing judgement too soon.
And one other thing, stop calling me "Mr. Luck", I prefer Dale. %)
--
Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc.
{uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!daledale@boing.UUCP (Dale Luck) (06/14/89)
In article <777@loligo.cc.fsu.edu> bauer@loligo.cc.fsu.edu (Jeff Bauer) writes: > >I'm interested in knowing the speed of the server code -- how much of the >Amiga graphics library calls did you use? You should be able to optimize the >server code to make a VERY fast X server, subjective to, say, the color sun3 >server. Several graphics call are used. However there is direct blitter code in the server to deal with graphics that the amiga graphics is not designed for. The product that is shipping now is monochrome only and compares very favorably with a sun3/50 run X11 > Also, I hope you say that you really DON'T need the ethernet connection >unless, of course, you need it for the socket library and network access. Ethernet is only needed for network access. The server and the supplied clients run fine without a network card since they communicate via an amiga message passing scheme. >I'd just like to build & install the standard X libraries & include files so >I can build the applications right out of the src tree and have them run. The libraries and files needed to build clients on the Amiga are still being worked on and are not yet available externally. >Jeff Bauer bauer@loligo.cc.fsu.edu >Control Data Corporation (904) 644-2591 ext. 113 -- Dale Luck GfxBase/Boing, Inc. {uunet!cbmvax|pyramid}!amiga!boing!dale
protcoop@bnr-public.uucp (Joel Avery) (06/15/89)
O.K. ... Dale it is. I just don't feel right calling someone I don't know buy their first name. But since you insist, I'd be glad to call you Dale. -Alan P.S. Does this mean I can come over for Christmas dinner? :-) ----------------------------------------------------------- Alan W. McKay | My opinions are mine, yours are yours. | Eat Food | NEPEAN, Ont. | I in no way pretend to represent the | and | 613-763-8980 | the options of my employer. So there. | LIVE !! |