From:  Dean Swan at MITEL on 08/17/99 11:23 AM

Andreas,

     The stylus interface works, as you've implemented it.  It's just not very
usable.  Because WinCE doesn't show the mouse cursor, and there is essentially
only one button with now Cmd or Option keys, a lot of the Squeak interface is
inaccessible (especially in Morphic).  This is compounded by the fact that
touching the stylus to the screen also generates a mouse down event, so
specifying a new screen location also commences a click or drag operation.  It
often takes several attempts to get a pane menu, and quite frequently you end up
scrolling the pane instead (under the non-morphic interface).

     The 'more serious' issues are something that I'm still tracking down, but
is related to #ProcessorScheduler class #relinquishProcessorForMicroseconds:.  I
haven't taken more than a cursory look at the source for your MIPS VM, but in
poking around in Smalltalk, I've found some problems.  I currently suspect that
they are actually WinCE problems.
     A couple of people (myself included) have commented on the apparent
sluggishness of the UI on the Casio E100/105, but I was pretty sure it isn't an
interpreter problem because a lot of things like sound synthesis and the
character recognizer work fine and feel fast.  Morphic reveals this sluggishness
quite dramatically.  Trying out  the SameGame morph, which is quite UI
intensive, but not all that processor intensive revealed a lot.  To make it
work, you have to click and hold for several seconds, and many times need to
repeat this action before the click is acted on.

     My first thought on this was that perhaps the #idleProcess was giving up
too much time to WinCE, so I tried changing it as follows:

     idleProcess
          "A default background process which is invisible."

          [true] whileTrue: [true].
               "[self relinquishProcessorForMicroseconds: 1000]."

This resulted, fairly quickly, in a WinCE dialog box popping up that said:
'Squeak is going to CRASH right NOW.'

     That's about as far as I've gotten with it so far, since Squeak is just an
evenings and weekends thing for me.  I've also thought that perhaps the lost
clicks thing that others have mentioned in desktop Windows VMs might be related
to what's going on.





                                   -Dean Swan






"Raab, Andreas" <Andreas.Raab at disney.com> on 08/16/99 08:14:20 PM

Please respond to squeak at cs.uiuc.edu

To:   "'squeak at cs.uiuc.edu'" <squeak at cs.uiuc.edu>
cc:    (bcc: Dean Swan/Ogd/Mitel)

Subject:  RE: New Squeak Porting Proposals




Dean & Brian,

I'm wondering what your problems are - could you explain what you mean by
'fixing the stylus support' and issues that are 'more serious'?! Since I
don't have an E-105 it is really hard to guess what you're talking about. If
you know how to fix this stuff just do it and send me a copy of your changes
- I'll happily integrate it into the next version.

  Andreas
--
+===== Andreas Raab ========= (andreasr at wdi.disney.com) ==+
| Walt Disney Imagineering        Phone: +1 818 544 5016  I
I Glendale, CA                    Fax:   +1 818 544 4544  I
+======< http://isgwww.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~raab >========+


> ----------
> From:   Dean_Swan at Mitel.COM
> Reply To:    squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
> Sent:   Monday, August 16, 1999 3:21 PM
> To:     squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
> Cc:     recipient list not shown
> Subject:     Re: New Squeak Porting Proposals
>
>
>
> From:  Dean Swan at MITEL on 08/16/99 06:21 PM
>
> Brian,
>
>      I have been working on getting Squeak to a "really usable" state on a
> Casio
> E-105, and you're quite correct.  There are a number of issues with the
> WinCE
> port of the Squeak VM, some more serious than just the issues with the
> stylus.
> I'd certainly be interested in anything that is being done in this area.
>
>      I don't currently own a Palm device, but it presents some interesting
> issues that are similar to those faced on the E-105, at least in terms of
> user
> interface and dealing with a fairly small dispaly.
>
>                                    -Dean Swan
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Brian Rice <water at tscnet.com> on 08/14/99 05:18:48 PM
>
> Please respond to squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
>
> To:   squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
> cc:    (bcc: Dean Swan/Ogd/Mitel)
>
> Subject:  New Squeak Porting Proposals
>
>
>
>
> Hello all.
>      It seems that there are some simple problems to be fixed before the
> WinCE
> port of Squeak is going to be really usable.  I'd like to have the source
> for that project opened up so that stylus support can be fixed.  Of course
> I'd like to help with this, but I'm not familiar with programming a
> stylus.
>  Also, it seems that a Palm Pilot port would be a great benefit,
> considering that new versions have plenty of memory for the environment.
> I'm collecting info on the hardware, but I'm new to this, and could use
> some help.
>      If anyone has pointers, please let me know.  Also, I am looking into
> making a Squeak based on Self or Omega or another simple prototype-based
> language (make our own, perhaps?).  It would allow the system to run
> faster
> (polymorphic message-sends and dynamic recompilation) and use a slightly
> smaller memory footprint, to say nothing of making programming and
> reflection simpler.  It would also allow Squeak to use the direct
> manipulation interface, Seity, or some derivative.  Also, Morphic would
> probably run better, as it was designed for that language.
>      Hopefully, even the bytecode style VM could be replaced by one that
> manipulates syntax trees or something like that (see the Oberon/Juice
> language project).  All of this should give a base-level performance boost
> and reduce the memory footprint as well, though it may take a while to
> implement.
>
> If you are interested in any of these ideas, please contact me.  Thanks.
>
>      Brian
>
>
>
>
>
>
>