ARM Club 3/TheARMClub_PDCD3.iso/hensa/misc/tornado/brief005/Readme

Text File | 1995-07-14 | 6KB | 105 lines

Tornado release I developer notes, v0.05 (14-07-1995):

Hello to all this has been mailed to;

I have spent the last few weeks regurgitating these protocols, data
structures and the rest from my written notes into binary form, checking
through them, and adding bits in. I hope you appreciate the hours of typing!

The protocols and structures here form the best part of the proposed Tornado
release 1 and 2, the first of which is timetabled for August 21st.

Any developers not present for part or all of the summer should let me know,
as I will need to take this into account.

Coding started last night, finally, weeks behind schedule, on the heap
manager. During the coding of that in C, I am also writing a preassembler
which converts the assembler output spat out by EasyC in Basic assembler, and
also inserts suitable code for the swi and error macros, saving the overhead
of a subroutine call to a veneer.

This release is being mailed to:
The Digital Databank BBS, sysop John Stonier, [e-mail].
    He will have the most recent update. This is for fidonetters.
micros.hensa.ac.uk, [e-mail].
    Depending on how quick the people there are, this is also the
    best source for the latest version of Tornado-related code.
    Essentially, this is for internetters.
Justin Fletcher, currently offline, but usually at [e-mail].
    He has contributed notes and ideas, and expressed a strong wish to
    participate.
Paul Corke, at [e-mail].
    He has contributed some notes, and expressed a wish to participate.
Other people I think would be interested.

Current developers: Me, Niall Douglas, at [e-mail]
    The founder!, but it was merely a matter of time before someone did.

Past developers:
None at the present time.


Ok, there we go. Here's a quick run-down of the schedule, which has changed
considerably since release 0.03, mainly putting much of release II into
release I :-(:

   Release I: First release is aimed for the end of the summer, around
August 21st. This will consist of the tfs: filing system, a mostly RMA based
FS, which can put sections to HD (for virtual memory purposes); a tornado
heap manager, with relocating blks referenced by negative handles (-1, -2
etc.), which is also linked heavily into tfs:; tornado 'keep-polling' code,
allowing total polling all the time (no pauses, even during loads etc.); the
Tornado shell, which will be the fileswitch for wimp apps (this is the
surprisingly hard bit!). Also, the inline file converter, which will convert
things like GIF's into Sprite unbeknownst to the application, and these rely
on subtasks, which probably will run as Wimp tasks in this release, but
moved to a seperate better multitasker later. Elementary crash-protection
will also be added, and a rudimentary Tornado app manager, along with very
basic Tornado demo apps used during the testing of Tornado, and hopefully OLE
and hotlinking, although this may be left. Essentially, this release will lay
the foundations of Tornado, and as such is the least rewarding and gruelling
work (slog?).
   Release II: Full Crash protection, OLE, hotlinking files, a proper tornado
app manager, and a few proper demo apps. This is aimed for Christmas 95, but
will be undoubtedly late, as lots of bug-fixing will probably be needed.
Also, much hacking into a lot of the operating system will be needed for
things like Crash protection, so this may take a while.
   Release 2.5: If Acorn by this stage haven't updated Filecore to handle
infinite length filenames, and infinite files per directory, then we will.
I'm praying to god we won't have to, as this isn't really what Tornado is
about, but hell I've always wanted to rewrite Filecore! Anyway, it is
possible it might be done for us, as I've had a bloke on to me wondering if
I'd like to test his filing system which does just this for him. It's in C,
and is written for every architecture ever made, so all the discs will be
interchangeable.
   Release III: A real push to get Tornado in the lime-light, with a few real
apps (eg; rewriting of the Filer, Displaymanager, Task manager, Draw, Edit,
Paint), and conversions of existing ones (by irritating writers to recode
their programs into Tornado ones). Trying to get AU to stick it on their
cover disc etc. Launch of the Tornado verification facility, which will allow
writers to send in their apps for approval. If it gets the stamp of approval,
then it can be assured it will comply with this, that and etc. May 1996.
   Releases IV to VII: I'll leave these out, as they aren't well defined at
present. Included in this is virtual single-tasking in windows (memory
consuming!), allowing the running of games in a desktop window. Believe it or
not, it is quite possible, even with direct screen writes. Essentially a
/real/ VMode. Also, extension of Tornado's facilities, for example you can
ask the word processor to find the address for a name and Tornado will load
in a database app, and search the hard disc for all the database files,
loading them and pulling all the addresses it finds. All this happens in the
background, and all you'll notice is some HD activity. Release: unknown, but
after summer 1996. Anyway, I have my Leaving summer 1996, so coding time will
be limited.

I think you'll agree that by the time release III is out, the RISC-OS desktop
will look and feel considerably different to the present. Things like OLE and
hotlinking supported by all applications, automatic loading and saving of
practically all file formats, no more losing your edited files due to things
like Address Exceptions etc etc. RISC-OS will once again have become /the/
platform to be aspired to. And it need not stop there, as new ideas and
features come out, these can be incorporated into Tornado too, thus making
RISC-OS all the richer still.

Cheers,
  Niall, at [e-mail].