From: mcastle AT mcs213k DOT cs DOT umr DOT edu
Subject: xmas projects
To: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 12:25:43 CST


Well, with finals just about over, (and the need for a study break as an
excuse to write this note), I'd like to mention some projects that I will
be *trying* to work on over christmas break.

DLD (Dynamic link/unlink library).  
This port was nearly done in the first place.  I may give up on trying to 
track down that last bug I had, and just add support to read in a.out files 
that are appended to .exe files (via aout2exe and 
copy /b [go32,stub].exe+aout aout.exe).


MAKE. (GNU make facility) 
There are several possibilities here.  First is support of the gnuish
method of passing long commandlines via environment variables.  This would 
probably be easily accomplished by changing system() to _system() and writing
a system() that checked the environment variables and worked accordingly.
Another option would be to add support for go32 programs.  Using DLD, it might
be possible to just load in another go32 program and execute it, then unlink
it.  This would save all the forced paging out of programs (though most likely
it would all get paged out anyway as all the newstuff gets read in).  Problem
with this is that I believe that aout files must have their symbol tables 
intact (that is, don't compile with -s or run through strip).  This may make
for some executables that are too large and not worth the effort.  


PBMPLUS. (Graphics manipulation package)
I believe the someone else has already done the latest version, 
but has it been distributed?  I have compiled, but not thoroughly(sp?) tested
the package.  I also want the include the ppmqvga program which appears to 
be better suited for VGA displays.  


RLE/RAYSHADE. (Graphics manipulation libary and raytracer) 
I've done this before, but with gcc 1.xx.  I'd like to redo with the newest 
version.  I also had some problems with some of the RLETOxxx programs.  I'm
not sure what caused these problems, but I imagine it was the binary-io
thru stdin/stdout.

ppmtofli/flitoppm.  (graphics animation programs)
I some simple version of these a couple of years ago, but they only handled
320x200x256 frames.  

JUGGLE-PRO. (juggling animator)
A program a friend of mine wrote (see rec.juggling for details).  Calls for
ports to X has been hounding Eddie for months now.  Maybe I can use SUIT
to do it under DOS then should work under X (right?)

image-edit (yet another image editting program)
not likely to get done, but what the heck, I'm taking a computer graphics 
course next semester, and it will give me an excuse to try out the new 
SUIT libraries :->


I hope to get things done in this order (well, maybe a simple part of the
image editor first.  I need a better way of doing cuts and pastes of 24 bit
images besides using piclab).

I'm hoping if I post this, I'll commit myself more.  Wish me luck! 

mrc