"we now begin the tale of ratmandu and whitewolf . . . "

As the toolbox continues to grow, the voices of ratmandu and whitewolf will be heard more and more throughout its electronic corridors. We start now the embarkation of their journey and invite you to join them in the journey of discovering the unknown and infinite possibilities of existence.

September, 1996 marks the release of the v6.1 DT CD. With the development of the web-form of the DT, we are moving slowly-but-surely towards a graphical user interface "DT front end" which can finally unlock the true power of this library resource. With the accelerated evolving nature of the DT, it is approriate here to clarify yet again usage of the term "Version Y.N".

Historically, the "Version Y.N." number was defined in terms of Y indicating the year number of DT release (v1.0 was published in September, 1991), while N denoted which release during a given year. While Y started at "1", N starts anew each year with "0". There were 2 DT's published in 1992. With the advent of 1993, we were "volunteered" to up this to 4-times-a-year. 1994 saw us miss the boat with v4.3 which never manifested due to the efforts beginning that fall to "web-i-fy" the Toolbox.

1995 was a difficult transition at best, as we produced only two CD releases for the year. It is regretable that you the developer only saw the fact of 2 releases arriving at your desk, and have been unable to see how much process and automation has been crafted to manage the building and growth of 3 DIFFERENT flavors of the DT:

1. there is the internal-to-SGI website where we initially put new material which provides us a "soak tank time" to observe how things go with a limited "insider audience";
2. there is the external-to-SGI secure DT website on https://www.sgi.com/toolbox, which only internet-connected developers are able to visit (we expect to have our first mirror site active in Munich this summer);
3. and thirdly, there is the archival tried-and-true DT in the form of this DT Web-on-CD set -- all three flavors of the DT come from a distinct and separate set of trees including source, build-workarea, and built-image trees for each flavor.

Tom Murphy has been the guiding light and chief architect of the processes which have created these distinct forms of the DT, and, creation of the processes to implement such differentiation has taken a great deal of time and energy. The v6.0 DT-on-CD was the first to truly be a set of CDs with all three CDs together totaling 1.6+ gigabytes of content. The mechanism Tom created and implemented to handle all this was by far the most complex and challenging he has yet tangled with during his time as janitor extraordinaire.

While the "Version Y.N." does not have the same relevance for the web-form of the DT as it does for the distinct CD releases, it is a useful convention -- even on the websites -- as a time-marker delimiting the phases of continued DT growth. We hope you find the v6.1 DT more of the sort of information resource you came to expect up through the release of v4.2 and v5.1, and, with the added dimension of content access provided via this hyper-linked web interface, that the materials contained herein are available in a form heretofore unrealized for your ease-of-use, access, and assistance.

pheedbak to the janitor is always appreciated and valued.

dave "information ferret" ratcliffe: dave@sgi.com, 415/933-3556, fax: 415/967-6239

Tom "the mechanic" Murphy: murphy@sgi.com, 415/933-9134, fax: 415/967-6239

or, DTjanitor@sgi.com which sends mail to both of us simultaneously.

For all other issues relative to the Toolbox, pleeze contact:

devprogram@sgi.com, 415/933-3033, 1-800/770-3033, fax: 415/969-6327.

---

Copyright © 1995-96, Silicon Graphics, Inc.