McGuffey@DOCKMASTER.ARPA ("MAJ DAVID C. MCGUFFEY") (01/29/88)
This is my last plea for someone to come forward with a
windowing library for the H/Z-100. I know they exist (in some
form or another)--one only has to look at programs like "Perks",
etc. Our community (H/Z-100 users) is dwindling--losing out to
the IBM world. If we can't keep pace, we will be gone from the
scene, just like the H-89 community.
I have WINDOWS on the 100 which is somewhat broken in that
the print driver is buggy. I have a mouse which will run under
WINDOWS drivers (sloooooooooly), or under drivers provided to
interface with MS-FORTRAN/Pascal, or under the driver which comes
with Painter's Apprentice--as long as I'm willing to reset the
machine when going from one program to another. No one I can
find is writing programs which will run under WINDOWS on the 100.
Nor can I find a program which provides functionality similar to
WINDOWS for the 100. I don't see this kludged approach in the
IBM world. The days of stand-alone programs connected together
with intermediate files and pipes/filters is about gone; it is
being replaced by icon driven environments which allow one to go
from program to program without much concern about where/how the
intermediate results are stored--productivity and ease of use are
the goals. I happen to like my 100 *alot*, but it is getting
harder to resign myself to an obsolete and unsupported software
environment.
If someone with the capability were to provide, publish, or
sell a library with windowing and mouse routines which could be
linked to programs under development, I dare say that we could
extend the life-cycle of the 100 a couple more years, maybe even
more (current IBM display technology is just now catching up to
the 640 x 480 display in the 100; we should be able to keep pace
with them until they go beyond that standard). If someone
doesn't step up to the task, we will go the way of the H89 in
short order. Even the S-100 buss community isn't standing still.
They have Concurrent DOS, running multiple (and intermixed) Z80,
68000, 68020, 80286, and 80386 cpu boards, display boards which
emulate the MGA, CGA, HGA, EGA (and soon to be VGA) standards,
SCSI controllers driving 600+ MB hard disks, and I/O boards which
handle 4-32 serial/parallel ports. They also have other
operating systems which allow them to run PC-DOS programs in a
window, etc., etc., ... Where are we? I hope we not going to
stand still.
Personally, I don't have the time to develop a seamless
icon/mouse driven environment which sits on top of MS-DOS, but I
would be willing to pay for such a product--as long as I'm not
the only one interested in it (one of a kind products tend to put
people into bankruptcy--look at our Gov't). It would have to be
cost effective--worth more to extend the life of my system a
couple of years than to do wholesale replacement to PS/2 Mac II,
or S-100 buss with a 386 cpu. Is there any interest out there?
signed: about ready to join the crowd