[comp.sys.sgi] Statement of Direction - IRIX 4.0

karlton@sgi.com (Phil Karlton) (12/09/90)

		Statement of Direction - IRIX 4.0

With release 4.0 of IRIX, SGI will be providing a native implementation
of X11 Release 4, Motif 1.1 with an enhanced Motif window manager,
Display PostScript, and the IRIS Graphics Library in an integrated
presentation system. This integration will supersede and replace the
NeWS based implementations of 4Sight found in IRIX releases 3.3 and
earlier; as of IRIX 4.0, application programs with NeWS specific
dependencies will no longer function. In particular, NeWS based
layout and customizations will not function.

SGI has been able to provide an outstanding graphical appearance to the
look-and-feel interface through significant engineering additions to
the basic licensed release (e.g., NeWS enhancements to create 4Sight).
SGI is continuing this value-added commitment through significant
restructuring of a number of the components of IRIX 4.0.  By placing
the X server in full control of window services on the IRIS, SGI will
be able to overcome the difficulties associated with running X as a
client to the NeWS server in 4Sight. Additionally, the integration of
X, Display PostScript and GL with Motif will enable the development of
state of the art graphics applications that utilize the best industry
standards and take full advantage of the IRIS graphics hardware.

The value-added features available through this integration include the
ability to have an arbitrary hierarchy of X and GL windows including
those windows associated with buttons, sliders and other widgets, to
see the full color capabilities of X11 R4, to use the Motif toolkit
with GL applications, to have full X application pixel accuracy and to
have access to PostScript screen rendering. Also, GL rendering will
become network transparent with 4.0 release due to the integration of
DGL with the GL.

doelz@urz.unibas.ch (12/10/90)

In article <1990Dec8.160035.12417@odin.corp.sgi.com>, karlton@sgi.com (Phil Karlton) writes:
> 
> 		Statement of Direction - IRIX 4.0
> 

.. release date ? 

I'm interested ... (even a beta were fine if available - Im 
afraid that our software needs some time to work after such a 
major change... )

Reinhard 

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SERRER@NRCM3.NRC.CA (Martin Serrer) (12/10/90)

Phil Karlton writes...

>With release 4.0 of IRIX, SGI will be providing a native implementation
>of X11 Release 4, Motif 1.1 with an enhanced Motif window manager,
>Display PostScript, and the IRIS Graphics Library in an integrated
>presentation system.......................etc.

Bravo!!!!
  When can we expect to see this on our hot little disks?  pant pant... :-)

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Martin Serrer                           Systems Lab., Bldg. M2, Montreal Rd.|
| 613-993-9442                            National Research Council of Canada,|
| serrer@syslab.nrc.ca                    Ottawa,  Ontario,  Canada  K1A-0R6  |
+------------------- Software Rusts, Rust never Sleeps -----------------------+

jit@SLIC.CELLBIO.DUKE.EDU (Jit Keong Tan) (12/11/90)

==> 
==> Phil Karlton writes...
==> 
==> >With release 4.0 of IRIX, SGI will be providing a native implementation
==> >of X11 Release 4, Motif 1.1 with an enhanced Motif window manager,
==> >Display PostScript, and the IRIS Graphics Library in an integrated
==> >presentation system.......................etc.
==> 
==> Bravo!!!!
==>   When can we expect to see this on our hot little disks?  pant pant... :-)
==> 
==> +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
==> | Martin Serrer                           Systems Lab., Bldg. M2, Montreal Rd.|
==> | 613-993-9442                            National Research Council of Canada,|
==> | serrer@syslab.nrc.ca                    Ottawa,  Ontario,  Canada  K1A-0R6  |
==> +------------------- Software Rusts, Rust never Sleeps -----------------------+
==> 


Well, let's not get too excited yet.  I wonder if they (sgi) will
give it away free with any of the developer's option.
Especially I don't have the X11 developer's toolkit.
I really hate to see myself to be excluded from this supposedly
greate things.

Any words from SGI (P. Karton) ?

Thanks.


--------------------------------------------------------
Jit Keong Tan     | internet: jit@slic.cellbio.duke.edu
(919) 684-8098    | bitnet  : tan00001@dukemc.bitnet
--------------------------------------------------------
U.S. Mail:
Duke University Medical Center
Department Of Cell Biology
Box 3709
Durham, NC 27710

osmoviita@cc.helsinki.fi (12/11/90)

In article <1990Dec8.160035.12417@odin.corp.sgi.com>, karlton@sgi.com (Phil Karlton) writes:
> 		Statement of Direction - IRIX 4.0
> 
> With release 4.0 of IRIX, SGI will be providing a native implementation
> of X11 Release 4, Motif 1.1 with an enhanced Motif window manager,
.. 
> The value-added features available through this integration include the
> ability to have an arbitrary hierarchy of X and GL windows including
> those windows associated with buttons, sliders and other widgets, to
> see the full color capabilities of X11 R4, to use the Motif toolkit
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   

Will this say that we are finally going to see full 48bit RGB output in 
hardware too? (16 bit integers for each primary -- 16 bit DACs.)

chrisa@beldar.ma30.bull.com (Chris Anderson) (12/11/90)

>						Also, GL rendering will
>  become network transparent with 4.0 release due to the integration of
>  DGL with the GL.

Please tell me this does *not* mean that all my GL programs will now
achieve the Truly Blazing Performance of X applications :-)

--

 ______________________________.
/_____________________________/|
|     Chris Anderson          ||
| chrisa@beldar.ma30.bull.com ||
|_____________________________|/

bhagwan@topgun.UUCP (Allen McPherson) (12/11/90)

Nice.
Any statements on PEX or Pthreads?

-- 
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Los Alamos National Laboratory   Advanced Graphics and Parallel Systems
P.O. Box 1663  MEE-10  MS:K488   bhagwan@agps.lanl.gov
Los Alamos, NM   87545           (505) 667-8495

nevajdic@slcs.slb.com (Cathy Nevajdic) (12/12/90)

Any plans for *supporting* distributed files systems from a non-sgi servers? How about ability to set up local root and local swap with everything else served from the non-sgi server?  I'm running out of disk space and I don't like duplicating files on all the sgi's.  On that note, I don't want to waste an sgi by making it a file server.  It's like putting your race horse out to pull the cart.

Cathy
- 
				
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Cathy Nevajdic				     +  Internet:  nevajdic@slcs.slb.com
Schlumberger Laboratory for Computer Science +  SINet:	  slcs::nevajdic
P. O. Box 200015			     +  Telephone: (512)331-3709
Austin, Texas 78720-0015		     +  Fax:	  (512)331-3760
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arritt@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (12/13/90)

In article <1990Dec8.160035.12417@odin.corp.sgi.com>, karlton@sgi.com (Phil Karlton) writes:
> 		Statement of Direction - IRIX 4.0
> 
> With release 4.0 of IRIX, SGI will be providing a native implementation
> of X11 Release 4, Motif 1.1 with an enhanced Motif window manager,
> Display PostScript, and the IRIS Graphics Library ...

[more stuff deleted...]

The graphics improvements will be great; however, numerical computations
also are important to some of us.  The "Statement of Direction" focused
completely on graphics, with no reference to computation.  Is this because
it is only part of a larger "Statement", or because SGI really doesn't
plan to do much with the numerical stuff?   (Yes, I know what the "G"
stands for in SGI ...)

If IRIX 4.0 will bring improvements to the numerical side of life, it would
be nice to have a corresponding "Statement of Direction" for customer
comments and suggestions.
________________________________________________________________________
Raymond W. Arritt                     | 
Assistant Professor                   |
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy        |  "everyone knew that as time went
Univ. of Kansas                       |   by they'd get a little bit older
Lawrence, KS  66045                   |   and a little bit slower..."
arritt@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu             |               
arritt@ukanvax.bitnet                 |
                           

jsw@xhead.esd.sgi.com (Jeff Weinstein) (12/13/90)

In article <4195.2763c5cb@cc.helsinki.fi>, osmoviita@cc.helsinki.fi writes:
> In article <1990Dec8.160035.12417@odin.corp.sgi.com>, karlton@sgi.com
(Phil Karlton) writes:
> > see the full color capabilities of X11 R4, to use the Motif toolkit
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   
>
> Will this say that we are finally going to see full 48bit RGB output in 
> hardware too? (16 bit integers for each primary -- 16 bit DACs.)

   No, what this means is that a full range of Visuals will be available
to support the various hardware modes.  For example there will be a 24 bit
TrueColor visual on machines with 24 bit planes.  I think all SGI machines
use 8 bit DACs.  It seems silly to me to use anything more since I don't
believe the human eye is that sensitive.  Supposedly normal humans can only
see 6 bits, and some specially trained people like radiologists can see
8-10 bits gray scale.

	--Jeff

Jeff Weinstein - X Protocol Police
Silicon Graphics, Inc., Entry Systems Division, Window Systems
jsw@xhead.esd.sgi.com
Any opinions expressed above are mine, not sgi's.

jsw@xhead.esd.sgi.com (Jeff Weinstein) (12/13/90)

In article <CHRISA.90Dec10151356@beldar.ma30.bull.com>,
chrisa@beldar.ma30.bull.com (Chris Anderson) writes:

> >						Also, GL rendering will
> >  become network transparent with 4.0 release due to the integration of
> >  DGL with the GL.
> 
> Please tell me this does *not* mean that all my GL programs will now
> achieve the Truly Blazing Performance of X applications :-)

   The only time DGL gets into the picture is when you go over the
network.  Local programs will still use the same old GL.  When you
run GL programs under 4Sight are they hindered by the Truly Blazing
Performance of NeWS?
	
	--Jeff

Jeff Weinstein - X Protocol Police
Silicon Graphics, Inc., Entry Systems Division, Window Systems
jsw@xhead.esd.sgi.com
Any opinions expressed above are mine, not sgi's.

baskett@forest.asd.sgi.COM (Forest Baskett) (12/14/90)

While Jeff may not be able to see more than 6 or 8 bits per color
many of us can.  Our most sophisticated and demanding customers use
12 bits per color in some of their work and it is clear that 10 bit
DAC's would more fully cover the color spectrum that you can see
even on today's monitors.  I believe that systems will eventually
improve but it's hard to tell when.  Eight bits per color is very
well established economically and is tough to displace.

Forest Baskett
Silicon Graphics

buck@drax.gsfc.nasa.gov (Loren (Buck) Buchanan) (12/15/90)

In article <9012132005.AA26677@forest.asd.sgi.com> baskett@forest.asd.sgi.COM (Forest Baskett) writes:
>While Jeff may not be able to see more than 6 or 8 bits per color
>many of us can.  Our most sophisticated and demanding customers use
>12 bits per color in some of their work and it is clear that 10 bit
>DAC's would more fully cover the color spectrum that you can see
>even on today's monitors.  I believe that systems will eventually
>improve but it's hard to tell when.  Eight bits per color is very
>well established economically and is tough to displace.

I agree with Forest that eight bits is going to be tough to displace, 
because for many applications that is enough.  I disagree with Forest
on today's monitors, I don't think all monitors are that good (but then
Forest may only be familiar with those sold by SGI ;-).  Another thing
about all of this, is the environment the monitors are put in.  I don't
think a 10 or more bit system will do much good in brightly lit office
environment (unless someone has developed brighter phosphors).  I am
not certain I would want a light valve based monitor just to have much
brighter highs.  In fact for my environment, I could not justify going
beyond eight bits unless it was real cheap (the only added cost being,
of course, the memory and the DAC), and even then it might be a hard sell.

B Cing U

Buck

Loren Buchanan     | buck@drax.gsfc.nasa.gov   | #include <std_disclaimer.h> 
CSC, 1100 West St. | ...!ames!dftsrv!drax!buck | typedef int by
Laurel, MD 20707   | (301) 497-2531            | void where_prohibited(by law){}
Phone tag, America's fastest growing business sport.

tima@agora.uucp (Tim Anderson) (12/15/90)

In article <9012101719.AA05345@slic.cellbio.duke.edu> jit@SLIC.CELLBIO.DUKE.EDU (Jit Keong Tan) writes:
>==> 
>==> Phil Karlton writes...

      [announcement of X and GL jumping in bed together, with SGI supplying the
      sheets...]

>==> Bravo!!!!
>==>   When can we expect to see this on our hot little disks?  pant pant... :-)
>==> 
>
>Well, let's not get too excited yet.  I wonder if they (sgi) will
>give it away free with any of the developer's option.
>Especially I don't have the X11 developer's toolkit.
>I really hate to see myself to be excluded from this supposedly
>greate things.
>
>Any words from SGI (P. Karton) ?
>

I to am waiting with baited breath for the cost of this little maneuver. Our
company is having a hard time coughing up bucks every time SGI sneezes. It
probably wouldn't be so bad if we were able to finish our port before
everyone jumps ship to X and GL...

Not that I don't like the SGI. I just wish the bloody thing didn't cost us
an arm and a leg...

tima@agora.hf.intel.com

jonah@dgp.toronto.edu (Jeff Lee) (12/19/90)

In <1990Dec18.174344.9228@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> I wrote:
>In article <1990Dec8.160035.12417@odin.corp.sgi.com>
>	karlton@sgi.com (Phil Karlton) writes:

>>With release 4.0 of IRIX, SGI will be providing a native implementation
>>of X11 Release 4, Motif 1.1 with an enhanced Motif window manager,
>>Display PostScript, and the IRIS Graphics Library in an integrated
>>presentation system.

>Will this version of the X11 server accept connections from remote
>clients?  I can't seem to get the 3.3.1 Xsgi to talk to off-host X11
>applications.  And here I thought X11 was a networked graphics
>protocol.

My apologies to SGI.  Their server does indeed accept network connections.
But I SWEAR that it didn't work yesterday and I didn't change a thing...  |-(

Jeff Lee -- jonah@dgp.toronto.edu

zrzr0111@helpdesk.rus.uni-stuttgart.de (Kurt Jaeger aka PI) (12/19/90)

Hi !

Will this version of IRIX contain a Korn Shell ?

		So short, PI

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