Binary Compatability?

[Steve Holzworth]

In article <8902282220.aa21482 at SEM.BRL.MIL>, mike at BRL.MIL (Mike Muuss) writes:
> Jim -
> 
	stuff deleted

> It is not at all clear to me that the choice you made w.r.t. the GL
> interface was at all necessary.  I'm quite certain that you could have
> carried support for all your different machines around in all versions
> of the libraries.  I believe this could have been implemented in such a
> way as to only require a single extra memory load (indirection) per
> subroutine call, a small price to pay.
> 
	Small Price!? I used to work for Ikonas Graphics Systems, writing
microcode.  I would go to >>extreme<< lengths to pull a Single instruction
out of the code.  Maybe your application doesn't require "balls to the wall"
speed that mine typically do.  If so, fine, but for some people, an extra
indirection for each graphics call would be foolish when the current scheme
of using shared libraries works quite well.

> Negative comment:  different SGI models are entirely too different,
> inside.  All the work that the GL has to do to hide the differences
> is unfortunate, and bothersome.

	We are a VAR for SGI products.  We sell a high-end CAD system for
civil engineering and land planning.  We ported from the 3000 series to a
4D70GT in about two weeks.  When I went to SGI in August to port onto the
Personal IRIS, it took all of a half hour to do.  Everything worked, and I
assure you, we push every bit of the hardware capabilities.

> Positive comment:  "IRIX" version 3.1, for the first time, actually
> does a pretty good job of doing things.  But I still seem to waste
> a lot of my time trying to accomplish things that should have been simple.
> 
> 	-Mike

I agree with David Rogers.  Every computer system I've ever worked with has
had a few quirks.  I have no complaints about SGI.

						Steve Holzworth
						Stephen Dedalus Incorporated