Subject: Re: The Future
From: Samuel Rydh (samuel@ibrium.se)
Date: Fri Feb 18 2000 - 16:25:15 MST
On Fri, Feb 18, 2000 at 08:14:51PM +0100, Kyle Wheeler wrote:
> 1. Sound - an obvious discrepancy, and I'm sure it's been mentioned before.
> 2. Serial ports - another obvious one (I'd love to sync my PalmPilot
> with the Mac software).
To be implemented...
> 3. Multiple-button Mouse Support - they say it's implemented right
> now, but wouldn't it be nice if someone would write down how to do
> it? (I can't get button3 mapped to control-click for the life of me!)
You need to install an MacOS extension that sets the action
for each button.
> 4. The Time - The date works and works well. However, the time is
> never right. Sometimes it's behind, sometimes it's ahead, sometimes
> it thinks it's in Switzerland (really).
>
> These are more interesting, and probably harder to do -
> 4. Live device mounting
>
> It'd be nice if I could start MOL without a Zip drive in it, and
> later put one in and be able to use it? Or if I forget to unmount the
> HFS shared partition when I start MOL, could I flip back to Linux to
> unmount it, and THEN get read/write access in MOL without restarting?
> For example, I could then play Riven (over all 5 CD's) without having
> to restart MOL every time I need to go to a different island.
This should be pretty easy to implement (at least in the CD case).
> 5. Audio CDs (and Enhanced CDs)
>
> It may not be necessary, but it would be nifty if I could control my
> audio CD playback from within MOL. Along with this, I'd be able to
> use services like MP3.com's Beam-It software without restarting.
This takes slightly more effort.
>
> 6. Video Acceleration
>
> Fairly self-explanatory, but I don't know how this would be done -
> going through accelerated X? Using the Linux Kernel? Allowing MOL
> direct access to the PCI bus (would it "play nice" with the rest of
> Linux)? or perhaps special MacOS extensions to pipe accellerated
> video directly to MOL?
It would be possible to let MOL access the PCI bus directly (I got
the platinum chip working this way). The problem is that when
MacOS does not own the screen, then the register set must be
emulated. Also, there are troubles with interrupts and VBL.
Using a MacOS driver is a *much* better solution.
> 7. My other devices
>
> I have both an ixMicro TV Tuner card and a Yamaha CD-RW drive. Toast
> is ever so much nicer than any of the Linux CD-Burning software I've
> ever seen - could I use it in MOL? The TV card doesn't work very well
> in Linux - video quality is blocky and blurry. Under MacOS, with the
> ixMicro drivers, the video quality is much better - could I use it in
> MOL?
Well, a SCSI-CD-burner could eventually by supported by allowing
MacOS to send real SCSI commands to certain units. The TV card
is another story (almost certainly too complicated).
Cheers,
/Samuel
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