RE: Programming for MiNT

[Peter Ross <pross@soho.ios.com>]

Basically, W is an  X-like windowing system for MiNTOS that allows users
of 4 meg, monochrome ST systems to enjoy the benefits of a rich GUI'ed 
Unix environment.  I is very useful to ST/STe systems that are limited to 
4 megs when the Pak 030 is not imployed.

I think that a cross development system should be made that would allow
Atari/C-Lab developers to create software which would compile for W and
X systems  using WTK (The W Tool kit) and Python.  We will have to wait
until Tk is compiled for the ST/TT/Falcon world before we could get there.
Unix is THE universal operating system.  It isn't like you are only programming for Atari computers.  The most important thing would be to impliment some sort of library that would allow thorough support for the ports and enhanced hardware on  Atari computers, just as would be done for  Amiga, NeXT and Mac users.  Being that all available Motorola systems have their multimedia hardware on the motherboard (sound, graphics, MIDI (on the ST=>Falcon))  it seems that creating X software for Motorola systems would be easier than trying to include every graphic and sound card created for the PC.  A cross development system that includes the necessary 
libraries for the Four major Motorola groups: Atari, Apple, Amiga, and NeXT
could be created.  The Falcon and the NeXT are probably the only two Motorola systems that could emulate General Midi (GM) by utilizing the 
DSP.  There are lots of programs created for the PC that utilize the GM format for music sequencing and gaming.  Perhaps a GM system could be developed for the Falcon to assist in the accurate portrayal of X windows music programs that support GM.