Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!gatech!bloom-beacon!think!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!decvax!decwrl!pyramid!prls!philabs!sbcs!root From: root@sbcs.UUCP (Root) Newsgroups: comp.windows.news Subject: NeWS up and running on Amiga Message-ID: <479@sbcs.UUCP> Date: Thu, 16-Jul-87 10:54:02 EDT Article-I.D.: sbcs.479 Posted: Thu Jul 16 10:54:02 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 18-Jul-87 19:05:59 EDT Distribution: comp Organization: Computer Science Dept, SUNY@Stony Brook Lines: 47 The following was posted to comp.sys.amiga - if you read both groups, apologies that you've seen this article twice.. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a port of Suns NeWS window system up and running on the Amiga. For now, all that is running solidly is the server (and one or two of their utilities). The code has been integrated with Ameristar network stuff, and one can run demos, etc off the Sun and watch the stuff go on the Amiga screen. Much to Suns credit (thanks guys!), the port was fairly easy to do as most of the OS specific code was isolated in ~3 files. The version I have working uses the Sun supplied Pixrect drivers - I'm working on a native version which uses the Amiga graphics library + blitter. The toughest part of the port was isolating all the implicit violations of the stdio library that were made throughout the NeWS code - close second was finding a "feature" that they implemented in an attempt to save a few kBytes of core (went like this: if(namep < &edata) then {name is in the data segment, don't bother to allocate memory for buffer} - of course the Amiga has no notion of Unix like heap memory allocation, so their assumption failed). To date, I've worked almost a week on the port. I'm not really interested in debating the religious issues of X -vs- NeWS (as I use both window systems frequently), but I will say that NeWS' ability to be programmed in PostScript (and from shell scripts, no less!) opens up some fascinating possibilities for rapidly prototyping applications without having to resort to C, Pascal, etc. I also find their termcap programmable terminal emulator (psterm) quite novel in that to emulate almost any character terminal, all one has to do is write an /etc/termcap entry. Neat idea. The only downside to NeWS that I've found so far is that the server is quite HUGE (~270K text + 50K data/bss) - so if you haven't purchased extra memory yet, you're dead. As for distributing AmigaNeWS, I've been told by Sun that I cannot distribute it under any circumstances - before you go bashing them, though, remember that they've had quite a few folks working for YEARS on NeWS, and believe it or not, they would like to recoup their investment. Can't say I blame them. Anyways, I hope to get them a copy of the reference port of NeWS so at the very least they can distribute it to other source licensees. Rick Spanbauer SUNY/Stony Brook PS. NeWS is probably a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.