[Simh] An idea for graphics support in SIMH

[Brian Knittel]

> On 7 Jul 2010 at 19:53, Michael Kerpan wrote:

> ... As to why the graphics would be done through RFB rather than
> through direct display, that's just to keep things cross-platform
> by off-loading the platform-specific work of displaying graphics
> to external programs rather than having code display routines for
> every platform SIMH runs on into the codebase. 

Exactly. The big win here is making TCP/IP the part that has to be 
abstracted for all SIMH host platforms, rather than the graphics 
display. It will still be challenging. 

Second, a (small) bonus is that it lets you run the VNC display client 
on any any computer, on any operating system. You can run SIMH on a 
machine that doesn't have its own graphics display, if necessary, and 
run the VNC client on another machine. I can see that being useful in 
some cases.

(And wansn't this talked about about 6 years ago? Didn't go anywhere?)

Also, re the conversation about some SIMH guests already having X 
support, that's fine, for a small corner of the SIMH universe
where X implementations were available. There is more to SIMH than
the MicroVAX. I'm talking about emulating OLD graphics hardware here, 
with (usually) very peculiar, OS-integrated driver support, from long 
before X existed. 

And the Tektronics stuff is, well, it's cute, but it's just
application software spitting control codes out a simulated serial
port, right? The good stuff all takes place in the add-on terminal.
The fun part here is resurrecting the native display devices 
themselves.

Unless someone is talking about making a SIMH 4014?

Brian
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_| _| _|  Brian Knittel
_| _| _|  Quarterbyte Systems, Inc.
_| _| _|  Tel: 1-510-559-7930
_| _| _|  http://www.quarterbyte.com