Re: X Windows

[glyn@cs.UAlberta.CA (Reade Glyn Devin)]

In article <C7voGx.1B3@news.cso.uiuc.edu> bazyar@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Jawaid Bazyar) writes:
>glyn@cs.UAlberta.CA (Reade Glyn Devin) writes:
>
>>does anyone actually know an (approximate) quantitative amount
>>for the space required for X?  Let's make the assumption
>>that just one widget set (say Athena) is supported.  What I'm
>>wondering is perhaps with the improved availability of low-cost
>>hard drives, perhaps this is not too much of a limitation.
>
>  Again, if someone is interested in this, instead of attempting
>to port the actual X-Windows, why not simply find out what the 
>protocols are and write an X -> IIGS-GUI interpreter?  Not only will
>the end result actually fit on most IIGS hard drives, it will be as
>fast as the IIGS gui is already, which is to say "Pretty Darn Quick".

(Speaking theoritically, as I do not intend to port it:  )

Although I wasn't explicit in my previous post, this is what I had in
mind.  While I had mentioned the Athena widget set, it was just for
the sake of argument since that one is in most X implementations.  If
the port _was_ to be done for the IIgs, it would be best to just select
a different intrinsic widget set (nobody uses athena, anyway), say a
GS intrinsic (XgsToggleSchnibExpansionWithReallyLongName() ?)  Since
the upper levels (Widgets and Applications) are based on the intrinsics,
that aspect of porting other programs would not be _too_ bad.

[Someone mentioned porting motif -- why bother when we already have a
GUI with which everyone is already familiar?]

Of course (as Jawaid mentioned) you would still have to redo (once) the
protocol and Xlib.  Normally, any use of these should be through the
intrinsics, but since this is not a _requirement_, you would have to
allow for the possibility of (for example) an application doing protocol
calls.

Although someone already clarified this, my original question was _not_
on the size of the complete X implementation, just _one_ interface; we
would not need all of motif, openlook, athena, and every other intrinsic
out there.

BTW:	If anyone is wondering why we're discussing this when we don't
	intend to work on it -- well, gedanken (sp?) experiments are
	valuable in themselves :)

--
	G. Devin Reade		glyn@cs.ualberta.ca