[UI] Re: Promoting Squeak/Smalltalk

[tim Rowledge]

On 30-Jan-08, at 1:20 PM, Andreas Wacknitz wrote:
>
> - Are there any actual VMs and images for ARM, MIPS or something  
> similar?
Why do you think a special image is needed? I've supported Smalltalk  
in various forms on RISC OS (the original ARM supporting OS) for 20  
years and can assure you no special image has ever been needed for any  
particular processor. It's the OS that makes the difference - assuming  
vaguely decent C development tools - and then only really to the VM.  
Barring of course small matters in FFI type image support.

If you have a machine with a functioning processor and an SDK that can  
compile a VM then you can make Squeak run on it.  How do you think we  
got Squeak running on non-Mac machines in the first place?

>
> - What about Linux on non-Intel?

What about it? Certainly Ian P. used to run a PPC laptop with linux  
and Squeak. I worked on a linux/ARM machine for one job.

Not to mention that realistically speaking there are only two CPU  
architectures that matter these days - intel-x86-descended-whatever  
and ARM. Pretty much everything else is now minor niche market. Cell  
might possibly become important sometime.

>
>
> Another, often discussed problem area for Squeak is its not standard  
> conforming GUI.
Which standard do you want? There's rather a lot of them, most awful.  
Win3.0? Win 3.1? 95? XP. please, not Vista.... Mac OS-7.6? 9.1? OSX  
10.1/2/3/4/5? TWM? Gnome? KDE?
Any of them could be implemented if people actually wanted them enough  
to pay for the work.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Useful random insult:- He has a tenuous grip on the obvious.