> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bijan Parsia [mailto:bparsia at email.unc.edu]
> Sent: Monday, April 02, 2001 12:25 PM
> To: squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
> Subject: Re: Dumb question about headless & Nebraska
>
>
> On Mon, 2 Apr 2001, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 2 Apr 2001, Kevin Fisher wrote:
> >
> > > Strangely enough, I've done this before...several years back I had a
> > > swiki running on Xvnc.  You're right, it is slow. :)
> >
> > I found it quite usable over a ISDN line - 8 bit deep, hextile
> coding. Not
> > for working, but to administer Swikis it's sufficient.
>
> Low level DSL works fine too. I have a little problem with display
> updating and 8bit is *key*.
>
> Stephan Pair (I think) did some work on VNC serving from Squeak. On the
> Swiki there's a page where I and others talk about VNC vs. a Nebraska like
> design.

Yes, I implemented the basic protocol and hooked in at the BitBlt level to
successfully get the display on a VNC client.  However, I didn't implement
any of the compression algorithms in VNC, and the bit twizzling that was
required on the Squeak side was a tremendous load on Squeak...so I think you
would have to implement the compression algorithms, write some primitives to
get a speed boost, and play around with where the BitBlt hooks are, and how
often you are generating updates (should be driven by the connection speed).

But, I think it's doable, and I think a protocol like VNC has certain
advantages over protocols like X or Nebraska, particularly as bandwidth
becomes less of an issue in coming years.

I like the all Squeak nature of Nebraska...it would be nice to have a Squeak
VNC client to go with a server.

- Stephen