wm@ogccse.ogc.edu (Wm Leler) (09/08/88)
PIX is a completely new version of the NeWS window system written in C++. It is basically NeWS with some nice interprocess communication operators added so that it can be run on parallel computers. These new operators are based on the Linda communication model developed at Yale University, modified to use PostScript dictionaries as tuple spaces. Even though PIX was developed to run on parallel computers, it also runs well on sequential machines. Lately, people have been asking us if we would be willing to distribute PIX. Unfortunately, the graphics libraries we are using are not public domain, and we cannot redistribute their sources (which would be necessary if people want to port PIX to their machines). Are there any good graphics libraries out there that we could use to replace the ones we are using? If someone has a good, fast PostScript interpreter, that would be a start, although the display requirements of PIX (and NeWS) are slightly different from those of PostScript since NeWS displays to a screen with multiple drawing surfaces. If someone is willing to help us get the graphics libraries running, that would be even better. We would also like to find out how much interest there is in PIX. What do we get out of this? We like NeWS. We would like to see it become *the* standard window system. We believe that if people had the opportunity to use it, they wouldn't want to use anything else. The best way to support this is to make a source version of NeWS available as cheaply and widely as possible. (Please don't let this start any flames about public domain software. We are strongly considering it. Another alternative is what Nicklas Wirth did with Pascal; he didn't make it public domain, but made sure it was widely available.) On the other hand, we don't want to be in the business of selling window systems either (we manufacture parallel computers and related software, and that keeps us quite busy!) For information on the differences between PIX and NeWS, you can write to me for a copy of the paper "PIX: The Latest NeWS." If you are in a position to collaborate with us, I'd love to hear from you. Wm Leler wm@cse.ogc.edu 503/690-1450 Cogent Research 1100 NW Compton Drive Beaveron, OR 97006-6998