spe@SPICE.CS.CMU.EDU (Sean Engelson) (04/25/88)
I've heard rumours about an implementation of NeWS for the Mac II.
Does anyone know anything about this beast? To wit:
Does it require A/UX?
Is it reasonably efficient?
Is there a MacApp like package of classes for it?
How does it interface with Lisp (Coral or MacScheme)?
Where can I get it?
Answers to any or all of these questions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks very much,
-Sean Engelson-
Computer Science Department
Carnegie-Mellon University
--
Sean Philip Engelson I have no opinions.
Carnegie-Mellon University Therefore my employer is mine.
Computer Science Department
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My opinions are my own, and do not reflect official policy, either explicit
or implied, of the Carnegie-Mellon University Computer Science Department.
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ARPA: spe@spice.cs.cmu.edu
UUCP: {harvard | seismo | ucbvax}!spice.cs.cmu.edu!spevita@macbeth.steinmetz (Mark F. Vita) (04/29/88)
In article <1512@pt.cs.cmu.edu> spe@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Sean Engelson) writes: >I've heard rumours about an implementation of NeWS for the Mac II. >Does anyone know anything about this beast? To wit: > Does it require A/UX? I have a beta version of MacNeWS for the Macintosh II, from Wedge Computer. It's an implementation of the server side of NeWS 1.0 and runs under the Mac OS. There is also a NeWS for the Mac II from Grasshopper Group which runs under A/UX. I believe there is a third implementation in the works, for the Mac OS, but the name of the company escapes me at the moment. > Is it reasonably efficient? Ah, well, first a few caveats. This is beta software -- "engineering release 0.95". There are several NeWS operators which are missing. Also, naturally, there are a fair number of bugs. The current version supports only serial communication. You need to get a Sun and a Mac II in close proximity and run a serial cable between them. There is a component of the software which runs on the Sun and handles the serial communication between the server on the Mac and the client running on the Sun. Currently the baud rate is fixed at 19.2K. Eventually, Wedge plans on supporting TCP/IP, Ethernet, etc. As for performance: I haven't really tested it extensively, but my impression is that though the underlying hardware of a Sun 3 and a Mac II are roughly the same, performance is much slower than on a Sun 3 over Ethernet. I haven't able to determine if this is because of inefficiency in the server itself, or because of the slower serial communication (or possibly something else altogether). Wedge claims that the next release will offer substantially faster performance. > Is there a MacApp like package of classes for it? The standard NeWS classing mechanism is present. All of the standard Postscript libraries (i.e., liteitems.ps, etc) are included as well. > How does it interface with Lisp (Coral or MacScheme)? As I mentioned, since this is really only a server-side port, I don't think it's currently possible to write Mac programs which interface with the NeWS server. The product is intended to run the display side of client programs running on another machine. > Where can I get it? Wedge Computer, Inc. 2 Winter Street Waltham, MA 02154 (617) 891-1313 Price: $300 System Requirements: Macintosh II or Macintosh SE with 2 megabytes of memory and a 20 megabyte hard disk. Notes: - The above system requirements are from Wedge's literature. Though they claim it will run on a Mac SE, I would suspect that it would be agonizingly slow; it's barely acceptable on a II. Also, if it does indeed run on an SE, I can't see why it should not also run on a Mac Plus. - The distribution consists of four 800K Mac disks and a tape containing the Sun portion of the software. When installed, it takes about 3-4 meg of disk space on the Mac. Most of this appears to be font definition files. ---- Mark Vita ARPA: vita@ge-crd.ARPA General Electric Company UUCP: vita@desdemona.steinmetz.UUCP Corporate R & D vita@desdemona.steinmetz.ge.com Schenectady, NY desdemona!vita@steinmetz.UUCP
chul@sorak.kaist.ac.kr (Chul Chung) (04/30/88)
NeWS on MAC's A/UX: Two companies bring SUN's NeWS into Mac's A/UX. The cost of the NeWs is around $250. Supplier: 1. Grasshopper Group 212 Clayton St. SF, CA 94117 (415) 668-5998 2. Wedge Computer 2 Winter St. Waltham, MA 02154 (617) 891-1313 I didn't evaluate these. We are processing to buy it. It will take lots of time due to geographical distance(I'm in KOREA). If you get it and evaluate, please let me know. Chul Chung Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology(KAIST) chul%sorak.kaist.ac.kr@relay.cs.net