Re: [MiNT] SV: OT Highwire

[Patrice Mandin <mandin.patrice@orange.fr>]

Le Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:03:08 +0100 (MET)
Jo Even Skarstein <joska@online.no> a _crit:

> > From: Mark Duckworth [mduckworth@atari-source.org]
> > Sent: 2008-11-12 18:56:11 CET
> > To: Rob Mahlert [rmahlert@charter.net]
> > 
> > I think what we really need is ways to get our machines to be higher 
> > resolution (new video cards, CTPCI, with 3d support), 3d api developed 
> > and a modern desktop developed.  It would really make the machines feel 
> > a lot better.  It always made me sad that the macs had such great high 
>
> All this stuff really doesn't matter as long as we don't even have a
> decent e-mail app for GEM. IMHO we need applications more than new OS
> features, and in order to be able to develop applications we need
> better development tools which allows faster and easier development of
> GEM apps.

The fact is that recent applications need an OS that provides the
necessary services. As for MiNT, for me it means at least:
- virtual memory (so we can at least run huge applications)
- thread support (don't know how much work is needed for it, seems Pexec
() stuff is not enough, as used by tfork() in mintlib). According to
manpage, tfork() is not a real thread, where everything is shared.
- device drivers for hardware (so applications don't have to switch to
Supervisor mode to make something).

Any of these requires a huge/particular amount of work. I suppose this
is why we still do not have it in MiNT kernel. And any browser (as
application you would like to run) would requires at least either
threads or virtual memory.

-- 
Patrice Mandin
WWW: http://pmandin.atari.org/
Programmeur Linux, Atari
Spécialité: Développement, jeux