Subject:
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Re: Perl rules!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.geek
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Date:
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Wed, 21 Jul 1999 23:43:27 GMT
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Viewed:
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1253 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.geek, Steve Bliss writes:
> On Tue, 20 Jul 1999 21:14:40 GMT, "Don Heyse"
> <donnell_heyse@adc.spam.go.away.com> wrote:
>
> > > Yeah, whoever decided to do the segmented memory thing should have been
> > > shot. What a horrible idea. At least, it was enough to scare me off of
> > > learning 80x86 assembler.
> >
> > Wait a minute. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but the segmented
> > memory architecture allowed you to create absolutely *tiny* programs that
> > did wonderful things. And you could fit tons of these programs on an
> > affordable *floppy* disk.
>
> How did the segmented architecture enable the creation of tiny programs?
Relative pointers in the same segment take up half as much space as a 32
bit pointer. Depending on what you're doing, the savings here can be
considerable. .COM programs used nothing but relative pointers and fit
in less than 1 64K segment. That's tiny in my book. Nowadays, tiny
rarely fits on a 1.44 meg floppy. Also the trend toward RISC architecture
leads to code bloat for a lot of reasons that I'd have to look up. It's
been a while since I thought about it. I sorta gave in and joined the
bloat crew.
> > > Yeah, but what does that have to do with LDraw not supporting modes with
> > > more than 4-bit color?
> >
> > Isn't 4 bit color the lowest common denominator between VGA and EGA?
>
> So? This is SVGA, and most video cards seem to not offer 4-bit color modes
> in resolutions above 800x600. So LDraw will happily work in modes that
> most video cards can't deal with, and LDraw won't do modes that video cards
> will.
Perhaps the original drivers were written to support only standard VGA and
EGA and then were extended to support SVGA in compatible modes only.
640x480 x 4bits per pixel fits in one of those 64K segments and thus supports
tighter code (A feature at the time)
Hey, does LEDIT support any resolution other than 640x480? It seems more
responsive to keystokes than LDAO/LDLITE right now, so I can work faster.
(I do like to ALT tab to the VEC though :-)) If only netscape had an all
keyboard interface...
> > I *hope* it's linux. If you can hide the "knowledge requirement" behind
> > an interface suitable for the masses, and keep the power for the others,
> > then I think it has a chance.
>
> Unfortunately, many developers underestimate the need for the level of
> encapsulation required. But it would be cool to have a truly powerful
> engine driving a beautiful GUI, and I only have to turn the key to make it
> go.
>
> > By the way, is anybody actively building or porting any L-CAD utilities
> > to linux these days? I've seen hints, but that's all.
>
> I don't think so. The last I heard, Gyugyi had cross-platform plans for
> LDLite, but he later made statements alluding to the seduction of MS
> putting powerful calls into the Win32 API, making it harder to port LDLite
> across.
>
> There's some EMACS stuff for editing, you could search lugnet.cad.dev for
> references.
>
> Has anyone built code/object libraries for Linux which emulate some of the
> Win32 API? Have they worked? Did MS sue the authors/publishers?
There is the WINE project. Not ready for prime time yet though. Maybe
it'll never catch up. If so, we'll see the inevitable lawsuit.
Don
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Perl rules!
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| (...) OK, relative-addressing mode is good. But it doesn't require segmented memory. All it requires is an instruction format with a defined result. For example, the conditional-jump instructions on the 6502 microprocessor[1] only used relative (...) (25 years ago, 22-Jul-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Perl rules!
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| (...) How did the segmented architecture enable the creation of tiny programs? (...) So? This is SVGA, and most video cards seem to not offer 4-bit color modes in resolutions above 800x600. So LDraw will happily work in modes that most video cards (...) (25 years ago, 21-Jul-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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