[Info-vax] OpenVMS graphics - once more

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <mdae47$4jp$1 at pechter.eternal-september.org>,
	pechter at S20.pechter.dyndns.org (William Pechter) writes:
> In article <ck3p70Ff8bpU1 at mid.individual.net>,
> Bill Gunshannon <billg999 at cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
>>In article <c3243$54dbfbfd$5ed4324a$3194 at news.ziggo.nl>,
>>	Dirk Munk <munk at home.nl> writes:
>>> John E. Malmberg wrote:
>>>> On 2/11/2015 8:52 AM, David Froble wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> So, back to VMS.  In my opinion, (we're all entitled to one), if VSI is
>>>>> going to be serious about a VMS GUI for the masses, continuing with
>>>>> x-windows isn't going to cut the mustard.  They would need to come up
>>>>> with a new GUI that had the "look and feel" of MS weendoze.  Not saying
>>>>> that would be enough, but anything less would just be a waste of time
>>>>> and money.
>>>>
>>>> X-11 look and feel is not the problem.  It should not be hard to port
>>>> any of the various Linux GUI Shells to VMS.  If the GTK+ 2.x+ port ever
>>>> gets done, you might be surprised at what will simply compile and work
>>>> with out any source changes.
>>>>
>>>> VMS graphics are based on Motif and CDE, neither of which are common in
>>>> the Linux/Windows/OS-x and and now Android.
>>>>
>>>> X-11 is a problem though for mobile and portable devices.  VNC can
>>>> survive, but there can be a lot of latency in updating.  RDP attempts to
>>>> deal with that, but is not a public standard protocol AFAIK.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> As others have pointed out, medium to high end video drivers are an issue.
>>>>
>>>> Modern video cards have effectively two APIs.
>>>>
>>>> One is a public one that has the video card run in the lower performance
>>>> modes.  Essentially, your $50+ video card is emulating a less than $20
>>>> video card.
>>> 
>>> I suppose you are referring to the VESA Bios Extensions?
>>> 
>>>> Open source drivers are available for these modes.  In some
>>>> cases some of the high performance modes have been figured out or
>>>> released, but not the highest performance modes.
>>>>
>>>> The other is private one that needs a binary driver from from the video
>>>> card vendor, or the chip set vendor.  This is for the high performance
>>>> modes.
>>>>
>>>> When you load a linux distribution that only contains GPL components,
>>>> many of them will provide an installer that will go to the chip set
>>>> vendor to download the closed source drivers when they detect the
>>>> advanced video chip-sets.
>>>>
>>>> Other Linux distributions will just include the closed source drivers as
>>>> they are not so strict about what they include, so you do not realize
>>>> that the source is not available.
>>>>
>>>> The specifications for writing the high performance drivers for many
>>>> video chip sets are secret, and you can not even get them with an NDA
>>>> agreement.
>>>>
>>>> If you are an x86 based OS, you probably want to find a way to use
>>>> unmodified linux or Windows binary drivers, especially for graphics
>>>> devices.
>>> 
>>> My laptop has two graphics devices, the Intel HD4000 GPU embedded in the 
>>> CPU, and a Nvidia card. I the laptop doesn't need high performance 
>>> graphics, the Intel GPU is used. If it does need high performance, it 
>>> can switch to the Nvidia card  (it never does).
>>> 
>>> The Intel drivers don't receive many updates, the Nvidia drivers almost 
>>> every month so it seems.
>>> 
>>> I suppose VSI could get a lot of information on the Intel GPU, and as I 
>>> wrote before, the Intel graphics are more than sufficient for typical 
>>> VMS work.
>>
>>I think this pretty much sums it up.  It is not the low level graphics
>>capabilities that are the problem.  It is the VMS X implementation.
>>Given something more modern than the DECWindows we have I could do (and
>>actually usually do) most desktop tasks on VMS.  No one is going to use
>>VMS to play World of Warcraft (although I might try Minecraft!! :-).
>>But things like Open Office and better IDE's can all be don on VMS.  All
>>it would take is a version of X-11 modern enough to let these Open Source
>>programs be built on VMS.  I know it is a major undertaking, but all the
>>sources to current X-11 distributions (there are 2 but one has one out in
>>the marketplace) are available.  And that includes X-servers for numerous
>>video cards.  
>>
>>bill
>>
>>-- 
>>Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
>>billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
>>University of Scranton   |
>>Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>   
> 
> There's even another possibility.  If there was an available Linux emulation 
> layer under VMS it's possible you could even run MS-Office under it.
> 
> Since you will have x86-64 architecture you don't have to emulate the 
> CPU or instruction set fully.  Porting a Virtual Machine Layer under
> VMS might be interesting as well.
> 
> Crossover Office https://www.codeweavers.com/ will run Office 2010 
> under Linux with X11.  It also will do Quicken 2015 as well.
> 
> Current version is 14.0.3
> 

Maybe it's just me, :-)  but the link above gets nothing and if you use
just HTTP: you get a black page with three useless, unanswered questions.

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>