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Date: Thu, 3 Nov 94 20:27:12 -0700
From: "Clifford T. Matthews" <iclone!ctm@sloth.swcp.com>
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To: Jeff Tupper <csri.toronto.edu!mooncake@sloth.swcp.com>
Subject: Re: How to generate discussion
Cc: executor@nacm.com
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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
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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.