Data Sheet
Data Sheet
The raison d'être of the Toolbox is to serve as an information resource, providing an ever-expanding library of learn-by-example materials, as well as a wide range of technical information, for people endeavoring to create applications to operate on Silicon Graphics systems.
Among other things, the Toolbox contains SGI source code (plus compiled executables), technical documentation (unreleased as-well-as released), public domain/copyleft/shareware source ported to the IRIS, data files (audio, inventor, image, geometry), and utilities (where source isn't available), for the purpose of helping developers learn about, and implement code for, IRIS workstations. This software and information is intended for use by both beginning and advanced IRIS programmers.
For all issues relative to the content of the Toolbox, pleeze contact:
For all other issues relative to the Toolbox, pleeze contact:
In the past, the medium for dissemination has been a single compact disk. With the advent of 1995, the Toolbox is expanding its range-of-publication mechanisms to include World Wide Web (WWW) server sites with an HTML graphical user interface (GUI) "front-end".
This "web-toolbox" project offers enormous potentials for the establishment of a depth and range of a dynamic, multi-layered interface like never before. Crafting the on-going design and implementation of such an interface is elevating the organization and presentation of software and technical information to an evermore exceedingly efficacious level.
The philosophy driving the ongoing creation and production of the Toolbox is to provide our developer community with as much leading/bleeding edge software, hardware information, documentation, FAQ lists, binary tools and utilities which are not available to the general SGI customer base so as to be as "up-to-the-minute" as possible in understanding where SGI is going.
Since the inception of the Toolbox in 1991, the principle "guiding light" underlying the above-stated philosophy has been to provide as much "learn-by-example" source code as possible to aide developers in their own projects and implementations. The Toolbox "school of thought" is based on the idea that there can never be too much example code to provide programmers with module, function, or code-segment "templates" to leverage their own "learning curves" off of.
With the increasing complexity of the IRIX operating system and the numbers of released software and hardware products, there will always be a constant need to provide as much "self-referencing documentation" as possible, in the form of optimized source code implementations demonstrating one of the correct ways to write code for a given software product on a given hardware platform. The Toolbox is dedicated to providing learn-by-example source code implementations that will assist software and hardware developers in tackling the various and complex sets of issues inherent in such third-party development.
The following provides a useful cross-segment of the kinds of materials the Toolbox contains as an informational resource to developers:
Throughout 1995 and beyond, there will be a wider range of information and materials available because of the existence of html-links across the World Wide Web, and the impact of the timeliness of new Toolbox additions which will now be available "overnight" instead of the past's 3-month cycle of CD-production. Along with this new attribute of timeliness, there will be an increasing emphasis on collaboration with developers outside SGI as well as engineers and product managers inside SGI to produce more essential and effective tools and information for software and hardware developement.
A Developer Toolbox Style Guide is being developed at to provide an articulation of the methodology the DTjanitor operates with while organizing and formatting any given item currently in, or soon to be added to, the Toolbox tree. Relevant portions of this Guide will be avialable to developers who are interested in contributing work they have produced which they feel the larger audience who receives the Toolbox might benefit by.
Up to now, this sort of collaboration within the engineering and product marketing communities of SGI has provided a great deal of material that populates the Toolbox. It is hoped that such a process of collaboration can be expanded outwardly to developers-at-large outside the company.
Version 5.1 of the Developer Toolbox is entirely built upon IRIX 5.3. No guarantees are made as to whether the source included herein now compiles or runs on releases prior to IRIX 5.3, and, in fact, the binaries included will probably not run correctly on anything but IRIX 5.3.
For all issues relative to the content of the Toolbox, pleeze contact:
For all other issues relative to the Toolbox, pleeze contact:
Copyright © 1995, Silicon Graphics, Inc.