Gem Desktop

[parabyte]

okay this is a mammoth task and i have literally only just started.

how does Gem for nano-x sound?!!!

i see caldera gpl'ed the source, so i am pretty sure i am fine to redistribute it?

[ghaerr]

how does Gem for nano-x sound?!!!

Sounds great. But what you'll want to do is just port Gem directly to ELKS EGA/VGA hardware on IBM PC. Gem is a graphics window system itself so it doesn't need or use Nano-X-like functions, instead it draws directly to hardware. Its draw code will likely be able to be used relatively unmodified. The harder parts will be interrupt/timer and DOS or other OS routines.

this is a mammoth task

Could be, I haven't looked much at the source, but that would be wild if you can get it running. Let me know if you need help.

[parabyte]

I will not be using any of the hardware related code from gem. Basically the idea rewrite gem's api to point to nano-x's api.

And see how much of this K&R code i can replace with elk's lib's.

Gem is so minimal ontop of nano-x as its there already seems like the preferred route i wish to take.

Would be way easier if you had sdl cause of how gem's code works. i actually did a proof of concept port of gem calc to sdl on my main linux desktop a age ago. but i am guessing nano-x's api is tighter then sdl on elks?

[ghaerr]

The closest API in Nano-X to SDL is the "engine" routines, all of which start with GdXXX. This won't involve Nano-X, as NX is built on top of Gd's engine routines. SDL doesn't support windows either, it basically just allows drawing to a "surface" which is pretty much what the Microwindows Gd API is all about.

Here's the Microwindows layering:

So basically you'd be porting Gem to the "Nano-X/Microwindows engine" layer, which then sits on top of the various screen drivers. If you go this route, then you could port Gem on the desktop first using Microwindows built for X11, SDL or direct framebuffer.

However, a possible big problem is that I don't have Microwindows building with OpenWatcom yet - just ia16-elf-gcc in small model. This isn't too much a problem (yet), but images and icons use up memory quickly. This would all depend on how Gem manages memory.