gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) (01/17/88)
In article <1676@sics.se> hans@sics.UUCP (Hans Eriksson) writes: > Isn't there anyone who does a NeWS port for the Mac's? Hugh Daniel was doing a port of NeWS to the Mac, running under MacOS, for Wedge Computer (or its subsidiary eXP) in Cambridge, Mass. They got as far as being able to demonstrate applications written entirely in PostScript, but never got IP or serial line networking to work. Then Wedge ran out of money, stopped paying Hugh, and neglected to tell him; after this went on for a few (non-)paychecks, he left. It's possible that Wedge could complete the port without him, but unlikely unless they start paying peoples' salaries again. However, Hugh and I and Keith Henson have formed a small company, the Grasshopper Group, to port NeWS to the Mac-II running A/UX. Since A/UX is Unix, it should be an easier port than to the MacOS environment. We hope to demonstrate it at Usenix/UniForum in Dallas in February, and sell it shortly thereafter. IP networking in the MacOS environment is not really "there" yet for application programs like NeWS (even NCSA Telnet needs special drivers that are not available to ordinary mortals). Perhaps in a few months when Mac networking has settled down, after we see if we can support a small company selling A/UX NeWS, and after the state of the Wedge port is clearer, we could consider a MacOS NeWS port as a second product. Disclaimer: I'm a third of this company, so a third of what I say is biased! -- {pyramid,ptsfa,amdahl,sun,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu gnu@toad.com "Watch me change my world..." -- Liquid Theatre