[GEM Development] GEM not going forward... Comments?

[Shane Gough]

Hi Michael,

> I think, it should not be impossible to build a 32-bit GEM. Pointers
> used in the API are pointer to a typedef struct. eg:
>
> EXTERN WORD appl_find( CONST BYTE FAR *ap_fname );
>
> The same ist with the VDI. From the view of the application, it should
> bo no problem and the Atari GEM proves this.

In PC-GEM at least the VDI parameters are treated as an array of WORD
values and the corresponding C structures are all aligned on WORD
boundaries. Is this the same on Atari GEM? For some 32 bit processors
this is non-optimal and a portable 32 bit GEM would have to take that
into account.

> I am afraid, a GEM for Linux will come a little bit late. Yes, it can
> be a nice lightweight GUI. But most small Linux systems with GUI have
> enoughr power for X and use X with a toolkit.

X is still fairly heavyweight. One application I thought of was a VDI
driver that used a VNC framebuffer to provide a remote GUI on small
systems that have no local display.

Regards,
Shane