Has anybody considered using SDL (the simple direct media layer, see 
www.devolution.com/~slouken/SDL for details) to created the needed 
screen/io glue code for Squeak's VM?  From what I learned in the SDL 
tutorial, it seems to be ideal.

SDL is available for X, Windows and BEOS.  There are unofficial (or 
work-in-progress) ports for Solaris and MacOS.  This would allow to create 
one source for all major platforms.

SDL uses DirectX on Windows and X or X/DGA on Unix.  THis allows fast and 
direct, but still platform independent access to the underlying graphics 
hardware.  My current reason, to stay with Windows is the poor graphics 
performance of the current X port.  I think, using DGA (direct graphics 
access, something like Windows' DirectX for X), a faster Linux VM could be 
created.

But SDL not only defines an API for screen access but also for mouse and 
keyboard IO.  Keyboard IO is currently bad as for example all VM (I know) 
generate slightly different keycode for not-so-common key combinations.  A 
unified version would help here, too.

Finally, SDL defines socket access, sound access (OSS on Linux, DirectSound 
on Windows) and even a platform independent API for multithreading 
(pthreads library).  Then there're quite a few extension libraries 
available for free.  For example an MPEG video player, CD audio access, 
true type fonts, multi-channel sound, image reader, multiple guis (not that 
we'd need this), and last but not least a voxel engine and an MP3 player.

bye
--
Stefan Matthias Aust  //  Bevor wir fallen, fallen wir lieber auf