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Re: How to generate discussion



Hi Jeff,

Yes, this mail list has never had too much traffic on it except in  
the very early days of its creation.  Back then, for a brief time  
there was actually *too much* traffic, at least for some of our  
overseas subscribers.  For whatever reason, it's been fairly quiet  
since.

I try to answer questions that arise on this mailing list and I try  
to keep everyone apprised of what we're up to here, but currently  
nobody here has enough time to deliberately try to start up  
discussion.

The idea of allowing native code to be embedded in applications is  
indeed something that we've considered.  We even briefly tried to  
find some developers who were interested in working out an API/ABI  
for such a deal.  This topic even came up in our discussions with  
Apple's MAE group earlier this week.

>From our point of view it is a capability we can provide.  However, I  
think most developers would prefer to see us get our new color code  
up to speed now instead of adding this extra feature.  If you're a  
programmer and you have an idea for something you'd like to  
accelerate this way, let us know.

Since most programs have a relatively small amount of time critical  
code, and since such code is usually pure computation (i.e. very  
little interaction with the user interface), such acceleration would  
make a lot of sense for compute intensive work.

Here's what our priorities are:

	Get all versions of Executor to build simultaneously with
	demo versions available for all platforms.  This will show
	people what we've accomplished of late.  Current state:
	the builds are running nicely in-house, although we are in
	the process of shuffling the support files and rewriting some
	of the demo licenses.

	Get our File Browser into the Executor community.  Current
	state: "Go" (our internal name for our file browser) seems
	to work fairly well on a Mac, but has incredibly mickey-mouse
	icons and still has occasional trouble under Executor.

	Fix bugs introduced by our new routines and finish the
	unfinished parts of 32-bit color Quickdraw.  Current state:
	no known bugs in our new synthetic CPU, we're finding and
	fixing color bugs every day still.

	Work on investment and partnerships.  Current state:  NTK is
	bringing some more Asian friends to the table.  We're also
	trying to convince Apple to invest.

	Work with Mac developers (this is where your suggestion would
	come in).  Current state:  we haven't approached developers
	recently -- we want Executor/DOS 1.99x to be a little more
	stable first.

	Get Executor to the point where you can drop in System 7.5
	and suddenly have an enormous degree of compatibility
	(including the Mac Finder, INITs, CDEVs, AppleTalk, etc.).
	Current state: awaiting funding; this is expensive.

The above list is largely ordered by date, although there's obviously  
some overlap.  As we complete each of the above steps, we believe the  
Executor community will increase substantially.  Perhaps then this  
mailing list will see some more activity.

	--Cliff
	ctm@ardi.com

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jeff Tupper <sloth!csri.toronto.edu!mooncake>
To: sloth!nacm.com!executor
Subject: How to generate discussion
Date: 	Thu, 3 Nov 1994 12:20:24 -0500
Sender: sloth!nacm.com!Executor-Owner
Precedence: bulk


Hi,

  A short time ago I subscried to this list, but now I want some  
discussion.

Actually, I subscribed yesterday and my mailbox is not exactly  
overflowing.
What sort of things are discussed here? One thing I was wondering if  
is
there is any plans to allow for "native" code to be embedded into mac
apps so that critical portions of a program may be emulated faster.