[comp.unix.microport] X.V10R4 + W.G.E + Bell Tech + uPort + more stuff....

luis@titan.hbar.rice.edu (Luis Soltero) (12/18/88)

Things on the X front have been very quiet in this news group for some
time, so... i thought i would write this, provide some info, ask some
questions and see if i could get the ball rolling again.

First item: I finally found a vanilla version of X.V10R4.  it took
some doing since everyone has "rm -r"'ed X.V10R4 from their systems.
anyway i have made the MIT vanilla distribution available via
anonymous ftp to titan.rice.edu (128.42.1.30). there are some other
x10 goodies on titan as well.  look for things starting w/ x in the
~ftp/public directory.  i am willing to archive x10 code, so if you
have some, send me mail and i will put it on titan.  

most of the code will take some work to get running. xdvi ports
easily, it however is the worst dvi previewer i have ever seen.
anyone out there know if there is a better x.v10 previewer out there?
i have discovered settimer(3?) + some of the other berkeley time
related routines have been implemented in the X10 library (maybe its the
-lnsl_s library) but not documented.  i uploaded the missing include
files from a bsd system, compiled and was very surprised to see no link errors.


Second item: locus dosmerge under x.v10r4.  works fine.  i have
remapped my keyboard using Xkeymap and keycomp.  using trial and error
i have discovered what a lot of the scan codes are for the x keyboard.
remapping the keys to the escape code sequences documented in the
dosmerge manual has given me use of all the functions keys arrow keys
home, up, end, pgdn, ins gray +-, etc....  does anyone have docs
describing what the scan codes are for ALL the keys? (demitry can you
hear me?).  dosmerge does not use the vt100(xterm) block drawing characters.
i thought i would be a simple thing to hack at the xterm code and turn
it into a wy60 terminal emulator. unfortunately the vanilla xterm in
the mit distribution does not compile.  the port looks like a dificult
one.  so, my next question is... does anyone have sysV xterm source?
(demitry can you hear me?)


i hear thru the rumor mill that locus is working on a xv11 version of
dos merge which will allow dos applications to do graphics to an x
window. anyone have details?

which brings me to my last item:
How is the W.G.E x.v11 port coming along?  did bell find the x guru
they where looking for to finish the port?

in closing i will say that i have really enjoyed my W.G.E/X10 graphics
display system.  i don't know how i ever got by w/ out windows. i look
forward to hearing from you net landers. cheers....


--luis@titan.rice.edu

dar@belltec.UUCP (Dimitri Rotow) (12/21/88)

In article <LUIS.88Dec17183055@titan.hbar.rice.edu>, luis@titan.hbar.rice.edu (Luis Soltero) writes:
> 
> Things on the X front have been very quiet in this news group for some
> time, so... i thought i would write this, provide some info, ask some
> questions and see if i could get the ball rolling again.
> 
> 
> Second item: locus dosmerge under x.v10r4.  works fine.  i have
> remapped my keyboard using Xkeymap and keycomp.  using trial and error
> i have discovered what a lot of the scan codes are for the x keyboard.
> remapping the keys to the escape code sequences documented in the
> dosmerge manual has given me use of all the functions keys arrow keys
> home, up, end, pgdn, ins gray +-, etc....  does anyone have docs
> describing what the scan codes are for ALL the keys? (demitry can you
> hear me?).  dosmerge does not use the vt100(xterm) block drawing characters.

Yep!  I just went through the same thing to get Tigera's Word:Era (the Wang
look-alike) word processor running on my Blit.   The high level key sequences
and keyboard mapping info are buried inside the X documentation.  To get at
the actual key codes you need to find the include file that has them.  The
last time I looked that was part of our distribution's include files (as I
am not at my machine right now I can't see, but will follow up by private 
mail).  Note that some of the keys (F11 and F12, for example) don't have
scan codes attached.  Also note that you can get at the VT102 character
set block graphics by sending the right escape sequence through the 
xterm emulator.
 
> i thought i would be a simple thing to hack at the xterm code and turn
> it into a wy60 terminal emulator. unfortunately the vanilla xterm in
> the mit distribution does not compile.  the port looks like a dificult
> one.  so, my next question is... does anyone have sysV xterm source?
> (demitry can you hear me?)

I've been using a modified "ansi" termcap description from System V
Release 3.2 for most of my work.  I looked at modifying xterm source to
deal with Word:Era and others, and the combination of keyboard remapping
and moving up to 3.2 seems to have solved all compatibility issues.  For
some reason, the 3.2 release works slightly differently than 3.0, even 
though exactly the same xterm source, Word:Era binary, and termcap entry
are used.  

> which brings me to my last item:
> How is the W.G.E x.v11 port coming along?  did bell find the x guru
> they where looking for to finish the port?
> 

Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa Clause is coming to town soon.  The x guru we advertised
for was for overflow engineering, not the 11 project.   You know how X
is ... once you get in you get addicted !

> in closing i will say that i have really enjoyed my W.G.E/X10 graphics
> display system.  i don't know how i ever got by w/ out windows. i look
> forward to hearing from you net landers. cheers....

Amen!  I got cranking on my Blit a few weekends ago when I was stuck at
home with the flu for a few days and got to do some serious programming
for the first time in over a year.  Other than embarrassing our engineering
staff with a total lack of expertise, I got the RB (Raster Builder) 
program supplied with our Xray toolkit distribution (see 
/usr/new/Xr*/c*/u*/c*/RB) chopped and channeled so it works with the 
".1" outbitmap format we use in image files.  I also have an Xperimental
"xtoraw" converter that takes outbitmap format files and converts them
into "raw" images suitable for inclusion into Elan eroff files.  Between
the two, you can select any raster area off of your display into the
Raster Builder editor, modify it, store it, and convert it into a format
suitable for inclusion into eroff/troff documents.  These are, of course,
my own mindless primitive hacks and as such not supported by engineering
talent here, but they were enough effort for me to spend a couple of 
days parked in front of a WGE Blit doing some serious programming. I
just couldn't think to do serious development work without a high 
density window environment.

If we can find someone here to show me how, I will send you the altered
RB sources for your archive.  As you can imagine, the new "clip" capability
is triggering off a new wave of scanning in clip art on the Scanjet; I'd 
be happy to *trade* images with anyone.  The xtoraw filter uses some 
proprietary sources, but I'll send along the binary once I get it fully
debugged.

- dimitri rotow