tpn+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Tom Neuendorffer) (08/04/90)
Following are several announcements regarding various things happening
with ATK and the ITC.
Patch 6 Available:
Patch 6 has been a long time in coming.
It all started when HP sent us some patches to deal with the latest
version of HPUX. These changes required some changes to the andrewos.h
file, which in turn was going to require everyone to recompile the
world. Since this was not a great situation, we decided to reorganize
the way system files were dealt with, removing most of the IFDEFS from
andrewos.h and moving all of the system dependent code to system.h.
Thus, the next time one vendor decides to change their OS, only people
with those machines will need to recompile . It was also decided that ,
since everyone was going to have to recompile everything anyway, we
might as well put in all of the updates that we have been thinking about
for a while. These include
Improved low-level color and line style support
There are a number of new or modified methods, along with
appropriate hooks through the view class, for setting the colors and
line styles (line join, line cap, dash pattern) of the graphic
state. The graphic.doc file describes these methods in detail. Some
minor fixes to Zip are included in this patch, but color and line
style support in Zip is not yet ready.
Support for the IBM Risc System 6000
This port includes support that allows class to take advantage of
the AIX OS primitives for doing dynamic loading.
Support for mach-based I-386 machines:
Now you can run ATK on your toshiba lap-top :)
Support for PS/2 AIX 1.2
Support for clipping regions
Support for using the ISO 8859-1 character sets.
This includes:
1. Code to allow the ISO characters to be edited and viewed in a
window, along with a font-alias file that permits the use of the X11
iso fonts.
2. Code to store the ATK data-stream text in a seven-bit form,
allowing it to be mailed with standard mailers and easily sent and
received in electronic mail with the Andrew messages program.
3. Code and troff macros to print the characters properly.
4. A compose character function, allowing the entry of the extended
characters from a standard keyboard, without requiring knowledge of
special keystrokes.
5. Keymap changes to allow the use of iso mapped keyboards.
Bug fixes too numerous to name.
Naturally getting the bugs out of all of these took time. In addition
there was the minor distraction of flying to California to put on the
first ATK conference :). However I am happy to announce that Patch 6 is
now available for ftp from the patches directory on emsworth. The patch
is in two parts , patch.06a and patch.06b. In addition, the log files,
which were voluminous enough themselves, are stored separately as
patch.06r. This will upgrade you to ATK Version 15.0.
Note:
Due to the large number of changes, we recommend that you back up your
current system prior to applying the changes, and then force a complete
remake of the system by doing a make Clean prior to the make World.
Also, if you picked up the alpha version of the patch (stored as
patch.006), you can upgrade to the release version with the patch
'fix.alp' in the alpha-patches directory.
ATUG slides available:
Many of the slides presented at the Andrew toolkit user group meeting
are now available for ftp from emsworth.andrew.cmu.edu. (128.2.30.62).
The file AtugSlides.tar.Z can be found in the 'misc' directory. Included
in this file is an attendee list and the conference schedule. Files are
in ATK format.
Survey:
I will soon be posting a brief survey of ATK users. A major disadvantage
of our distribution through the X- tape has been the fact that we really
don't know who out there is using ATK. I would like to attempt to
rectify this situation by getting some feedback from the readers of this
newsgroup. I also hope to gather a list of ATK related projects that I
can make available to other researchers in the hopes of fostering
additional collaboration between ATK users.
As an extra added incentive, I have a small collection of early ATK
memorabilia, (certainly destined to be worth millions someday :) that I
will happily mail to a user chosen at random from the survey
respondents. As an even greater incentive, the majority of respondents
will not receive this collection :>.
ATK and the ITC:
I would also like to state for the record that with regard to ATK work
at the ITC,
"The rumors of my death have been somewhat exaggerated".
While we currently only have a small group dealing solely with ATK, we
are continuing to be quite active, as the current patch file
demonstrates. In addition, other groups in the ITC are developing new
insets to support their own projects, and I hope to see some interesting
developments coming from them.
The Future of ATK
We have begun discussions with some of our more serious users regarding
the possibility of additional funding for ATK work at the ITC. More
information on this will hopefully be forthcoming, however if your
organization would be interested in providing partial funding for a more
concerted ATK support and development effort, you are more than welcome
to get in touch.
Coming attractions.
In future patches we hope to provide a number of new things including
Motif work
A more Motif look and feel for ATK . Thanks to Mark Pawliger of IBM,
we now have a package that replaces the x window support with
another that provides for pull-down menus. There are a few problems
yet to deal with, but at some point we hope to provide users the
option of a more 'Motifized' ATK
Input from the Labs
We have also gotten a number of patches and new insets from Charles
Hayden at Bell Labs that we hope to integrate soon.
Meta-X package
We will be releasing the code for a Meta-X package. This package is
different than the one recently posted by Bill Janssen. It will
allow calling of procedures with arguments. Procedure name
completion will also be available.
A Two-D layout inset
A new substrate on which to create documents and applications.
Addendum
So that is where things stand. I am going to be on vacation until Aug
20, but the rest of the ATK group will be around to deal with any
problems.
Our best regards ,
The ATK group
Tom Neuendorffer (Mgr.)
Gary Keim
Susan Straub
Stephan Green
Rob Ryan
ATK is brought to you by the Information Technology Center
John Howard, Director
The ITC is a joint project of Carnegie Mellon and IBM
Andrew is a trademark of IBM