[9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[André Günther]

Hi dear Plan9 fellows,

my Name is André Günther. I'd like to participate in the gsoc with an  
implementation of a drawterm on the iPhone platform.

In this Mail I'd like to do the following 2 things:
	1) Say some words about me and motivation of this project.
	2) Present preliminary suggestion how I would proceed with the project.

I'd like to ask you to:
	1) Discuss if this project is actually wanted.
	2) If 1) is positive: Discuss my application.


Me and my Motivation:
I am 21 and an undergraduate in Philosophy and Cognitive Science at  
the university of Freiburg. During the course of my studying i've been  
taking several computer science classes. The reason I am not studying  
computer science is, because I have the feeling for problem solving an  
autodidactic method is sufficient for most cases and for which it is  
not I am taking those specific classes.
I have about 8 years experience with programming C and working in unix  
like environments. I am working on the mac platform for about 5 years  
now and aquired some ObjC skills. That means I have done Cocoa  
development. So I am familiar with apple like APIs and also the whole  
XCode environment. I haven't done any iPhone development yet, but I am  
pretty confident, that I can acquire those skills with my background  
in no time. (I have no apple developer license for the iPhone, but I  
have an iPhone and I am able to test custom applications on it. I  
would of course apply for a license if I do the project)
Unfortunately I can't show you any recent work of mine, because it's  
all internal university stuff I am doing for the lab, which I am not  
supposed to post anywhere.

I've been following Plan9 shallowly for some while now. But just  
recently got more into it. I am using it exclusively in a Qemu/ 
Drawterm fashion. I'd like to explore more of Plan9 in the future.
Though I don't feel confident just now messing with kernel sources or  
other important infrastructure, a drawterm port may just be the best  
thing to do. My mac experiences will come in handy, too.

Why is the port necessary?
Well Plan9 is awesome. Being able to drawterm into it with my iPhone   
would be totally awesome. I don't know how you guys feel about this.  
Please discuss!

How to proceed:
Because I might have just failed with the above text, I don't want to  
go into much detail now. Still a small outline here:

I think there are two parts to the question:
	1) How does drawterm theoretically transform into an iPhone  
application.
	2) What are the technical things to deal with

1) is much about interface design. Clearly the iPhone doesn't have a  
keyboard nor a three button mouse.
For the keyboard it might be sufficient to provide the standard  
onscreen keyboard apple provides. For the mouse I haven't yet wraped  
my mind around the problem. Double tapping and gestures come to my  
mind though. Another possibility would be to have onscreen virtual  
mouse buttons, but that might be not the best solution.
Also Bladerunner type of zooming gestures might come into handy, with  
such a tiny screen, which is clearly another limitation of the  
hardware platform.

2) The drawterm code base is pretty much self contained and C based.  
The iPhone OS is pretty much a stripped down OSX and should be stable  
enough for that and doesn't amount to much more than a recompile.
So the main part is providing the draw/audio and other devices.  
Reusing osx code is not possible, because the iPhone doesn't share  
that particular API the code base is using.
Here a new implementation using ObjC and the iPhone API is necessary.


Best wishes,
André Günther

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Federico G. Benavento]

do we need drawterm for the iphone? is anyone going to use it?

I mean, it's a tiny screen, typing on handhelds sucks, plus is not
that there is killer app Plan 9 has that  you _must_ run.

am I forgetting something obvious?

On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 5:57 PM, André Günther <Andre.G@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> Hi dear Plan9 fellows,
>
> my Name is André Günther. I'd like to participate in the gsoc with an
> implementation of a drawterm on the iPhone platform.
>
> In this Mail I'd like to do the following 2 things:
>        1) Say some words about me and motivation of this project.
>        2) Present preliminary suggestion how I would proceed with the
> project.
>
> I'd like to ask you to:
>        1) Discuss if this project is actually wanted.
>        2) If 1) is positive: Discuss my application.
>
>
> Me and my Motivation:
> I am 21 and an undergraduate in Philosophy and Cognitive Science at the
> university of Freiburg. During the course of my studying i've been taking
> several computer science classes. The reason I am not studying computer
> science is, because I have the feeling for problem solving an autodidactic
> method is sufficient for most cases and for which it is not I am taking
> those specific classes.
> I have about 8 years experience with programming C and working in unix like
> environments. I am working on the mac platform for about 5 years now and
> aquired some ObjC skills. That means I have done Cocoa development. So I am
> familiar with apple like APIs and also the whole XCode environment. I
> haven't done any iPhone development yet, but I am pretty confident, that I
> can acquire those skills with my background in no time. (I have no apple
> developer license for the iPhone, but I have an iPhone and I am able to test
> custom applications on it. I would of course apply for a license if I do the
> project)
> Unfortunately I can't show you any recent work of mine, because it's all
> internal university stuff I am doing for the lab, which I am not supposed to
> post anywhere.
>
> I've been following Plan9 shallowly for some while now. But just recently
> got more into it. I am using it exclusively in a Qemu/Drawterm fashion. I'd
> like to explore more of Plan9 in the future.
> Though I don't feel confident just now messing with kernel sources or other
> important infrastructure, a drawterm port may just be the best thing to do.
> My mac experiences will come in handy, too.
>
> Why is the port necessary?
> Well Plan9 is awesome. Being able to drawterm into it with my iPhone  would
> be totally awesome. I don't know how you guys feel about this. Please
> discuss!
>
> How to proceed:
> Because I might have just failed with the above text, I don't want to go
> into much detail now. Still a small outline here:
>
> I think there are two parts to the question:
>        1) How does drawterm theoretically transform into an iPhone
> application.
>        2) What are the technical things to deal with
>
> 1) is much about interface design. Clearly the iPhone doesn't have a
> keyboard nor a three button mouse.
> For the keyboard it might be sufficient to provide the standard onscreen
> keyboard apple provides. For the mouse I haven't yet wraped my mind around
> the problem. Double tapping and gestures come to my mind though. Another
> possibility would be to have onscreen virtual mouse buttons, but that might
> be not the best solution.
> Also Bladerunner type of zooming gestures might come into handy, with such a
> tiny screen, which is clearly another limitation of the hardware platform.
>
> 2) The drawterm code base is pretty much self contained and C based. The
> iPhone OS is pretty much a stripped down OSX and should be stable enough for
> that and doesn't amount to much more than a recompile.
> So the main part is providing the draw/audio and other devices. Reusing osx
> code is not possible, because the iPhone doesn't share that particular API
> the code base is using.
> Here a new implementation using ObjC and the iPhone API is necessary.
>
>
> Best wishes,
> André Günther
>



-- 
Federico G. Benavento

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Devon H. O'Dell]

2009/3/25 Federico G. Benavento <benavento@gmail.com>:
> do we need drawterm for the iphone? is anyone going to use it?
>
> I mean, it's a tiny screen, typing on handhelds sucks, plus is not
> that there is killer app Plan 9 has that  you _must_ run.
>
> am I forgetting something obvious?

Tiny screen, but reasonable resolution. Should find out who put it on
the ideas page for GSoC; it wasn't me (so clearly somebody is
interested). Besides, look at the DS port. Smaller screens, lower
resolution (even combined, I think). Whether it's novelty or not isn't
for me to say, but I can see how it would be useful.

--dho

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Federico G. Benavento]

ok, you can't compare porting inferno to the ds with drawterm for the iphone
drawterm is an app to get to a Plan 9 server, inferno is a self contained
operating system where you can get the advantage of writing your
own apps for it.

for this port to be useful you need 1) an iphone;  2) a cpu server to cpu
and 3) that killer app that makes want to drawterm from the iphone.

I think writing that killer app, whatever that is makes more sense.


On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 9:24 PM, Devon H. O'Dell <devon.odell@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/3/25 Federico G. Benavento <benavento@gmail.com>:
>> do we need drawterm for the iphone? is anyone going to use it?
>>
>> I mean, it's a tiny screen, typing on handhelds sucks, plus is not
>> that there is killer app Plan 9 has that  you _must_ run.
>>
>> am I forgetting something obvious?
>
> Tiny screen, but reasonable resolution. Should find out who put it on
> the ideas page for GSoC; it wasn't me (so clearly somebody is
> interested). Besides, look at the DS port. Smaller screens, lower
> resolution (even combined, I think). Whether it's novelty or not isn't
> for me to say, but I can see how it would be useful.
>
> --dho
>
>



-- 
Federico G. Benavento

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

One nice thing about drawterm is it lets you export the iphone's
interfaces to Plan 9 -- that could lead to much more interesting
possibilities beyond typing at the shell.  Probably a better approach
would be to look at providing an octopus client for iPhone though...

      -eric


On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 7:39 PM, Federico G. Benavento
<benavento@gmail.com> wrote:
> ok, you can't compare porting inferno to the ds with drawterm for the iphone
> drawterm is an app to get to a Plan 9 server, inferno is a self contained
> operating system where you can get the advantage of writing your
> own apps for it.
>
> for this port to be useful you need 1) an iphone;  2) a cpu server to cpu
> and 3) that killer app that makes want to drawterm from the iphone.
>
> I think writing that killer app, whatever that is makes more sense.
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 9:24 PM, Devon H. O'Dell <devon.odell@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2009/3/25 Federico G. Benavento <benavento@gmail.com>:
>>> do we need drawterm for the iphone? is anyone going to use it?
>>>
>>> I mean, it's a tiny screen, typing on handhelds sucks, plus is not
>>> that there is killer app Plan 9 has that  you _must_ run.
>>>
>>> am I forgetting something obvious?
>>
>> Tiny screen, but reasonable resolution. Should find out who put it on
>> the ideas page for GSoC; it wasn't me (so clearly somebody is
>> interested). Besides, look at the DS port. Smaller screens, lower
>> resolution (even combined, I think). Whether it's novelty or not isn't
>> for me to say, but I can see how it would be useful.
>>
>> --dho
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Federico G. Benavento
>
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[andrey mirtchovski]

one problem with the iPhone is that you can't run third-party apps in
the background. that pretty much kills drawterm dead.

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

Wait, why?

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2009, at 8:02 PM, andrey mirtchovski
<mirtchovski@gmail.com> wrote:

> one problem with the iPhone is that you can't run third-party apps in
> the background. that pretty much kills drawterm dead.
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[andrey mirtchovski]

dropping the connection to the plan9 host every time you do something
else not a showstopper?

On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 7:07 PM, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
> Wait, why?

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

Guess it depends on how you are using it.  Wonder if you could save
enough state to recover -- probably just Vnc at that point though.

Would octopus have the same problem or would Op help solve the state
problem?

      -eric

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2009, at 8:11 PM, andrey mirtchovski
<mirtchovski@gmail.com> wrote:

> dropping the connection to the plan9 host every time you do something
> else not a showstopper?
>
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 7:07 PM, Eric Van Hensbergen
> <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Wait, why?
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Nathaniel W Filardo]

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On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 08:21:12PM -0500, Eric Van Hensbergen wrote:
> Guess it depends on how you are using it.  Wonder if you could save  
> enough state to recover -- probably just Vnc at that point though.
>
> Would octopus have the same problem or would Op help solve the state  
> problem?
>
>      -eric

There's also aan and recover4e, or do I misunderstand the problem?

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Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[andrey mirtchovski]

there are a couple of other problems that I see with dt on the iPhone:

- platform: google may be much more interested in seeing apps for the
G-phone than they are for the rival (but then, a g-phone version may
be much easier to do, and not worth a gsoc)

- barrier to entry: the student should have an iPhone (the simulator
is only somewhat sufficient).

- barrier to entry: the iPhone development kit costs $99 (that's not
the SDK, which is free) and puts you through a few too many hoops just
to order a development token for your phone, then much more stuff to
put it into the AppStore. it's not pretty.

i don't want to turn anyone off from the idea: if anyone thinks it's
worth it go for it.

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Devon H. O'Dell]

2009/3/25 andrey mirtchovski <mirtchovski@gmail.com>:
> there are a couple of other problems that I see with dt on the iPhone:
>
> - platform: google may be much more interested in seeing apps for the
> G-phone than they are for the rival (but then, a g-phone version may
> be much easier to do, and not worth a gsoc)
>
> - barrier to entry: the student should have an iPhone (the simulator
> is only somewhat sufficient).
>
> - barrier to entry: the iPhone development kit costs $99 (that's not
> the SDK, which is free) and puts you through a few too many hoops just
> to order a development token for your phone, then much more stuff to
> put it into the AppStore. it's not pretty.
>
> i don't want to turn anyone off from the idea: if anyone thinks it's
> worth it go for it.

The only thing barring the student who wrote this proposal from
completing it is the iPhone development kit (which I will fund if he's
accepted and I have to, $99 really isn't that much) and a bunch of
people on this list saying it's a bad idea. I think the 3.0 SDK fixes
some of the problems that have been mentioned in this thread, and I
think it does raise interesting challenges. He already has an iPhone,
ObjC experience, and XCode experience.

Also:

> ok, you can't compare porting inferno to the ds with drawterm for the iphone
> drawterm is an app to get to a Plan 9 server, inferno is a self contained
> operating system where you can get the advantage of writing your
> own apps for it.

Except that drawterm ends up being a mini-Plan 9 kernel like
everything else out there. The concepts aren't so different. Either
way, SSH clients exist for the iPhone. Are those useless because it's
hard to type commands on native keyboards and the text is tiny.

--dho

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Pietro Gagliardi]

Killed. From the license agreement for iPhone developers (which  
requires a free Apple Developer Connection account to view; sorry):

"3.3.3 Without Apple’s prior written approval, an Application may not  
provide, unlock or enable a enable additional features or  
functionality through distribution mechanisms other than the App Store."

drawterm may be used to gain access to a large repository of optional  
software (/n/sources/contrib, /n/sources/extra).

An ill-informed lawyer may bring this up:

"3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other  
executable code by any means, including without limitation through the  
use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or  
otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an  
Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's  
Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s)."

This is a shaky one. While drawterm does not itself run code, it  
allows you to connect to a computer that runs its own programs.

But even if we did overcome all this...

We have scribble, and rio is optional, so I don't think input is too  
much of a problem. A pain, yes, but not a problem.

How about determining button 1, 2, 3? Triple-touch? You might get  
tired too easily.

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Devon H. O'Dell]

2009/3/25 Pietro Gagliardi <pietro10@mac.com>:
> Killed. From the license agreement for iPhone developers (which requires a
> free Apple Developer Connection account to view; sorry):
>
> "3.3.3 Without Apple’s prior written approval, an Application may not
> provide, unlock or enable a enable additional features or functionality
> through distribution mechanisms other than the App Store."
>
> drawterm may be used to gain access to a large repository of optional
> software (/n/sources/contrib, /n/sources/extra).

So can SSH, but there are SSH clients anyway.

--dho

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

I have the developer kit, I'd be willing to submit the resulting app
for free distro.  That's at least one less barrier.

    -eric

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2009, at 8:31 PM, andrey mirtchovski
<mirtchovski@gmail.com> wrote:

> there are a couple of other problems that I see with dt on the iPhone:
>
> - platform: google may be much more interested in seeing apps for the
> G-phone than they are for the rival (but then, a g-phone version may
> be much easier to do, and not worth a gsoc)
>
> - barrier to entry: the student should have an iPhone (the simulator
> is only somewhat sufficient).
>
> - barrier to entry: the iPhone development kit costs $99 (that's not
> the SDK, which is free) and puts you through a few too many hoops just
> to order a development token for your phone, then much more stuff to
> put it into the AppStore. it's not pretty.
>
> i don't want to turn anyone off from the idea: if anyone thinks it's
> worth it go for it.
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

If this were true there would be no vnc for iPhone, and there is.  If  
vnc is okay, drawterm or octopus would be too.

     -eric

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2009, at 9:03 PM, Pietro Gagliardi <pietro10@mac.com> wrote:

> Killed. From the license agreement for iPhone developers (which  
> requires a free Apple Developer Connection account to view; sorry):
>
> "3.3.3 Without Apple’s prior written approval, an Application may no 
> t provide, unlock or enable a enable additional features or function 
> ality through distribution mechanisms other than the App Store."
>
> drawterm may be used to gain access to a large repository of  
> optional software (/n/sources/contrib, /n/sources/extra).
>
> An ill-informed lawyer may bring this up:
>
> "3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other  
> executable code by any means, including without limitation through  
> the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other  
> APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in  
> an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by  
> Apple's Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s)."
>
> This is a shaky one. While drawterm does not itself run code, it  
> allows you to connect to a computer that runs its own programs.
>
> But even if we did overcome all this...
>
> We have scribble, and rio is optional, so I don't think input is too  
> much of a problem. A pain, yes, but not a problem.
>
> How about determining button 1, 2, 3? Triple-touch? You might get  
> tired too easily.
>
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

Also, figuring out how multitouch works with plan 9 would be valuable  
in itself -- although admitadly could be done without an iPhone.

     -eric

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2009, at 9:03 PM, Pietro Gagliardi <pietro10@mac.com> wrote:

> Killed. From the license agreement for iPhone developers (which  
> requires a free Apple Developer Connection account to view; sorry):
>
> "3.3.3 Without Apple’s prior written approval, an Application may no 
> t provide, unlock or enable a enable additional features or function 
> ality through distribution mechanisms other than the App Store."
>
> drawterm may be used to gain access to a large repository of  
> optional software (/n/sources/contrib, /n/sources/extra).
>
> An ill-informed lawyer may bring this up:
>
> "3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other  
> executable code by any means, including without limitation through  
> the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other  
> APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in  
> an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by  
> Apple's Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s)."
>
> This is a shaky one. While drawterm does not itself run code, it  
> allows you to connect to a computer that runs its own programs.
>
> But even if we did overcome all this...
>
> We have scribble, and rio is optional, so I don't think input is too  
> much of a problem. A pain, yes, but not a problem.
>
> How about determining button 1, 2, 3? Triple-touch? You might get  
> tired too easily.
>
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Anthony Sorace]

i think the drawterm port would be interesting, but how to deal with
the mismatch between the touch and 3-button-mouse interfaces seems
like a big issue. i don't yet have an iPhone or iPod Touch, but for
me, drawterm would push me over for the later.

for André (or anyone with similar interests), i'd second eric's
suggestion of considering the Omero client using native widgets. you
could do this with either ("real") OS X or the iPhone, which makes it
a bit more accessible. i'm not sure anything other than the inferno
interface exists today, and it'd be a neat proof-of-concept, and a
useful project using some of the existing skills you're talking about.

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Pietro Gagliardi]

Also, we obviously cannot use rio, unless we greatly restrict the
user's visibility. Unless we provide zooming?

Maybe a text-based environment that runs exclusively off rc, sam,
acme, etc. with the standard keyboard at the bottom:

<Exit                drawterm      Commands>
------------------------------------------------------
cpu% cat message
this is a message
cpu% cp message /mnt/term/whatever
cpu% cat /mnt/term/whatever/message
this is a message
cpu% ftpfs -m/n/andlabs andlabs.com >
/dev/null
cpu% cp message /n/andlabs
------------------------------------------------------
(apple keyboard goes here)


Hitting the Commands button would yield a menu to the likes of the rio
Button 2 menu (cut, paste, snarf, plumb, send).

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Noah Evans]

Theory and practice are different. As previous posters have noted, VNC
apps in the app store give us carte blanche on drawterm as long as we
don't run anything dynamically on the phone itself.

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Pietro Gagliardi <pietro10@mac.com> wrote:
> Also, we obviously cannot use rio, unless we greatly restrict the user's
> visibility. Unless we provide zooming?
>
> Maybe a text-based environment that runs exclusively off rc, sam, acme, etc.
> with the standard keyboard at the bottom:
>
> <Exit                drawterm      Commands>
> ------------------------------------------------------
> cpu% cat message
> this is a message
> cpu% cp message /mnt/term/whatever
> cpu% cat /mnt/term/whatever/message
> this is a message
> cpu% ftpfs -m/n/andlabs andlabs.com >
> /dev/null
> cpu% cp message /n/andlabs
> ------------------------------------------------------
> (apple keyboard goes here)
>
>
> Hitting the Commands button would yield a menu to the likes of the rio
> Button 2 menu (cut, paste, snarf, plumb, send).
>
>
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

I think rio is probably not useful, but a purely text based
environtment isn't interesting either...

        -eric

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 25, 2009, at 9:53 PM, Pietro Gagliardi <pietro10@mac.com> wrote:

> Also, we obviously cannot use rio, unless we greatly restrict the
> user's visibility. Unless we provide zooming?
>
> Maybe a text-based environment that runs exclusively off rc, sam,
> acme, etc. with the standard keyboard at the bottom:
>
> <Exit                drawterm      Commands>
> ------------------------------------------------------
> cpu% cat message
> this is a message
> cpu% cp message /mnt/term/whatever
> cpu% cat /mnt/term/whatever/message
> this is a message
> cpu% ftpfs -m/n/andlabs andlabs.com >
> /dev/null
> cpu% cp message /n/andlabs
> ------------------------------------------------------
> (apple keyboard goes here)
>
>
> Hitting the Commands button would yield a menu to the likes of the
> rio Button 2 menu (cut, paste, snarf, plumb, send).
>
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Bakul Shah]

On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:25:07 CDT Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com>  wrote:
> Also, figuring out how multitouch works with plan 9 would be valuable
> in itself -- although admitadly could be done without an iPhone.

Exactly what I was thinking while reading this thread!  An
intuitive multitouch interface that goes beyond cut-n-paste
would go very well with a 3D graphics protocol. 9gl anyone?!

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Tom Lieber]

On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 11:14 PM, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think rio is probably not useful, but a purely text based environtment
> isn't interesting either...

The only thing I could see anyone using this for is if they wrote an
iPhone-tailored UI for controlling... something... and needed to
control it sometime between leaving their work computer and arriving
at their home computer. Not having this phone I couldn't care less
whether drawterm is ported, but allowing others to make mobile
interfaces for their stuff without needing a developer license and
without having to learn anything outside the 9 universe doesn't sound
like a bad deal.

--
Tom Lieber
http://AllTom.com/

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Jeff Sickel]

A text based environment isn't that interesting, but a 9p transport
that allows the end user to cache and store files on the device to be
reviewed through currently provided renderers/decoders (pdf, jpeg,
tiff, myriad of audio formats, html/xml) would be ideal.  Given that
we're starting to see more utilities that do similar things but over
other transport means (http, sync utilities, etc) I think enabling the
iPhone OS with 9p and a cache stored natively would be a significant
benefit to future applications.  And with the new APIs for copy/paste,
a 9p based cache could be a great transport for data synchronization.

-jas


On Mar 25, 2009, at 10:14 PM, Eric Van Hensbergen wrote:

> I think rio is probably not useful, but a purely text based
> environtment isn't interesting either...

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Paul Lalonde]

iJuke ;-)
On 25-Mar-09, at 8:24 PM, Tom Lieber wrote:

>
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 11:14 PM, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com
> > wrote:
>> I think rio is probably not useful, but a purely text based
>> environtment
>> isn't interesting either...
>
> The only thing I could see anyone using this for is if they wrote an
> iPhone-tailored UI for controlling... something... and needed to
> control it sometime between leaving their work computer and arriving
> at their home computer. Not having this phone I couldn't care less
> whether drawterm is ported, but allowing others to make mobile
> interfaces for their stuff without needing a developer license and
> without having to learn anything outside the 9 universe doesn't sound
> like a bad deal.
>
> --
> Tom Lieber
> http://AllTom.com/
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Federico G. Benavento]

my questions were more about the real usage of iphone's dt
my short sighted vision of the gsoc is this, I didn't use any
of the stuff that gsoc 2007 got us, though I recognize the
inferno ds port.
but for the rest, it might be interesting, but is someone
using that stuff?

iphone's drawterm sounds like something that very few
people will use (the ones that have a cpu server and an
iphone) in not that much often, of course it could be
interesting to have it, but...

I think that gsoc is a good chance to get going stuff that
we need and we will really use.

think of the openssh port, I did that, not for a gsoc and
people use it, some guy even wrote a filesystem which
suits lot's of people's needs.



On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 12:20 AM, Bakul Shah <bakul+plan9@bitblocks.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:25:07 CDT Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com>  wrote:
>> Also, figuring out how multitouch works with plan 9 would be valuable
>> in itself -- although admitadly could be done without an iPhone.
>
> Exactly what I was thinking while reading this thread!  An
> intuitive multitouch interface that goes beyond cut-n-paste
> would go very well with a 3D graphics protocol. 9gl anyone?!
>
>



-- 
Federico G. Benavento

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[erik quanstrom]

> > ok, you can't compare porting inferno to the ds with drawterm for the iphone
> > drawterm is an app to get to a Plan 9 server, inferno is a self contained
> > operating system where you can get the advantage of writing your
> > own apps for it.
>
> Except that drawterm ends up being a mini-Plan 9 kernel like
> everything else out there. The concepts aren't so different.

the devices drawterm does provide are not essential
parts of the kernel.  the fact that drawterm exists is proof.

- erik

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[André Günther]

Hi,

here's the guy again that made the original post:
It seems the idea is almost dismissed and I am sorry for wasting your  
time once again, but I'd like to reply to some arguments:

1) Close the iPhone App and your drawterm session is gone

A part of the project could be to write a server that holds the real  
drawterm connection and simulates a drawterm up to the point that  
another drawterm could connect to it and continue the session. Much  
like a irc bouncer.

2) Using drawterm on such a screen is a big pain in the ass

For clicking: Just think of a horizontal iPhone. With one hand you  
point. With the other hand you lay on buttons in a side bar that can  
modify your clicks. ([1] for a simple mockup (examplary: left hand for  
pointing, right thumb for modifying)

Managing rio windows might be possible by giving some extra brainpower  
to the drawterm, like resizing/moving windows with gestures and also  
creating new or deleting windows with gestures.

I imagine both clicking and managing rio become very fluent after you  
get used to it.

__This also might  be a test how the mouse philosophy of plan9  
transfers to touch devices. which is an interesting aspect for the  
project also for the future__

3) Extra applications...

I just give here a small list of devices one could export on an  
iPhone, just to give you an idea:
	- Screen
	- Multitouch
	- Audio (In and Out)
	- Camera
	- Global positioning data
	- the ssd disk on the iPhone
	- 3dimensional rotation of the phone

I am sure just about everyone can pick up some of these to think of an  
application he would find useful for everyday work.


Best wishes,
André
[1] http://www.minithink.org/mock.jpg
(Sorry for the image quality)

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Francisco J Ballesteros]

If we got o/live running on iPhone it wouldnt matter
if you drop the connection.

The layout and all the editing state is kept in the cpu server.
Thus it's very much like a screen blank/ resume instead of a
shutdown, reboot.


On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 2:21 AM, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
> Guess it depends on how you are using it.  Wonder if you could save enough
> state to recover -- probably just Vnc at that point though.
>
> Would octopus have the same problem or would Op help solve the state
> problem?
>
>     -eric
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Mar 25, 2009, at 8:11 PM, andrey mirtchovski <mirtchovski@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> dropping the connection to the plan9 host every time you do something
>> else not a showstopper?
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 7:07 PM, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Wait, why?
>>
>
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Pietro Gagliardi]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 724 bytes --]

On Mar 26, 2009, at 3:32 AM, André Günther wrote:

> [1] http://www.minithink.org/mock.jpg
> (Sorry for the image quality)

I just tried giving that to Interface Builder. Apparently, toolbars  
can only be on the horizontal in Cocoa Touch. But this is an  
interesting start.

The problem of how to make rio work on a small device still exists.  
How about replace rio with a two-fold environment:

1) Window Choosing/Managing. If you click a window, you can either  
bring it up or move/resize.
2) Window: When you choose to bring up a window, you can work in that  
window. There should be a Zoom/Pan button which will allow you to  
modify the area you work in for higher visibility in larger windows.


[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1644 bytes --]

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On Mar 25, 2009, at 10:32 PM, "Federico G. Benavento" <benavento@gmail.com
 > wrote:

>
> I think that gsoc is a good chance to get going stuff that
> we need and we will really use.
>

My personal belief is that this is a really bad, if not dangerous
criteria for projects.  The goal for gsoc should not be to assign work
for stuff 'we need' -- if we need something we should be doing it
ourselves.  The goal should be to create interesting projects that
attract new developers and ideas to the system -- and ones tha

>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 12:20 AM, Bakul Shah <bakul+plan9@bitblocks.com
> > wrote:
>> On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:25:07 CDT Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com
>> >  wrote:
>>> Also, figuring out how multitouch works with plan 9 would be
>>> valuable
>>> in itself -- although admitadly could be done without an iPhone.
>>
>> Exactly what I was thinking while reading this thread!  An
>> intuitive multitouch interface that goes beyond cut-n-paste
>> would go very well with a 3D graphics protocol. 9gl anyone?!
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Federico G. Benavento
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[hiro]

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 11:42 AM, Pietro Gagliardi <pietro10@mac.com> wrote:
> On Mar 26, 2009, at 3:32 AM, André Günther wrote:
>
> [1] http://www.minithink.org/mock.jpg
> (Sorry for the image quality)
>
> I just tried giving that to Interface Builder. Apparently, toolbars can only
> be on the horizontal in Cocoa Touch. But this is an interesting start.
> The problem of how to make rio work on a small device still exists. How
> about replace rio with a two-fold environment:
> 1) Window Choosing/Managing. If you click a window, you can either bring it
> up or move/resize.
> 2) Window: When you choose to bring up a window, you can work in that
> window. There should be a Zoom/Pan button which will allow you to modify the
> area you work in for higher visibility in larger windows.
>

you should look at dynamic window management, try out dwm and wmii
from suckless.org

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Federico G. Benavento]

> My personal belief is that this is a really bad, if not dangerous criteria
> for projects.  The goal for gsoc should not be to assign work for stuff 'we
> need' -- if we need something we should be doing it ourselves.  The goal
> should be to create interesting projects that attract new developers and
> ideas to the system -- and ones tha
>

this is a bit misleading, if someone wants to explore small screens,
multi-touch and whatelse, why not getting a linux phone and starting
there?

I mean, drawterm for the iphone! why not for symbian?


-- 
Federico G. Benavento

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Uriel]

Why not Inferno for iPhone or Symbian or Android? If one is going to
research multitouch/small-scree GUIs, one will want to write
applications, and being able to write apps in Limbo for either
platform would be a big win, plus you get all the drawterm
functionality for free, and could be the basis of an Octopus port.

Porting drawterm is a dead end with very little potential of either
learning anything interesting or being useful in the future.

uriel

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 1:30 PM, Federico G. Benavento
<benavento@gmail.com> wrote:
>> My personal belief is that this is a really bad, if not dangerous criteria
>> for projects.  The goal for gsoc should not be to assign work for stuff 'we
>> need' -- if we need something we should be doing it ourselves.  The goal
>> should be to create interesting projects that attract new developers and
>> ideas to the system -- and ones tha
>>
>
> this is a bit misleading, if someone wants to explore small screens,
> multi-touch and whatelse, why not getting a linux phone and starting
> there?
>
> I mean, drawterm for the iphone! why not for symbian?
>
>
> --
> Federico G. Benavento
>
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 7:30 AM, Federico G. Benavento
<benavento@gmail.com> wrote:
>> My personal belief is that this is a really bad, if not dangerous criteria
>> for projects.  The goal for gsoc should not be to assign work for stuff 'we
>> need' -- if we need something we should be doing it ourselves.  The goal
>> should be to create interesting projects that attract new developers and
>> ideas to the system -- and ones tha
>>
(damn iphone interface cut me off! how's that for irony) -- what I was
going to say was

...ideas to the system -- and ones that provide opportunities for
folks to learn Plan 9
ways of doing things and incorporating new approaches into Plan 9
(like multitouch).
This is more of a general concern than specific support for the
drawterm on iphone
project idea.

>
>But, the main point of this paragraph isn't to support multi-touch, just to steer folks away
>this is a bit misleading, if someone wants to explore small screens,
>multi-touch and whatelse, why not getting a linux phone and starting
>there?
>
>I mean, drawterm for the iphone! why not for symbian?
>

I'd have no problems with those suggestions either, as far as multitouch
goes there are probably even further platforms -- even just support of
2 simultaneous mice.
But the student seems keen on iphone, and if there is a mentor
similarly interested then
I don't see a problem.

         -eric

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Devon H. O'Dell]

2009/3/26 Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com>:
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 7:30 AM, Federico G. Benavento
> <benavento@gmail.com> wrote:
>>I mean, drawterm for the iphone! why not for symbian?
>>
>
> I'd have no problems with those suggestions either, as far as multitouch
> goes there are probably even further platforms -- even just support of
> 2 simultaneous mice.
> But the student seems keen on iphone, and if there is a mentor
> similarly interested then
> I don't see a problem.

+1

>         -eric

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[erik quanstrom]

On Thu Mar 26 08:53:03 EDT 2009, uriel99@gmail.com wrote:
> Porting drawterm is a dead end with very little potential of either
> learning anything interesting or being useful in the future.

inferno is a red herring.  you might as well suggest qnx as
an alternative.

while drawterm might not be appropriate as is for the platform
in question, drawterm is still the best option for connecting
to a localish plan 9 system from a machine that's not running
plan 9.  it requires no local administration.  that's a big deal.
i already have two independent systems and 50 users to manage.

9vx could replace drawterm in our environment, but i think
the following work is required.  9vx needs
- to be able to boot with no local files other than the executable,
(i.e. directly from a plan 9 fs)
- to have native networking built in,
- to be harmonized with plan 9 devices.  (i don't think users will
accept "if you're on 9vx, do this; if you're on a cpu server, do that".)

(booting from a plan 9 fs could be an interesting gsoc project,
especially if the kernel were (sort-of) pxe loaded so that clients would
only need a local copy of the loader and changes would then be
automaticly distributed.)

so please stop saying that 9vx or inferno make drawterm obsolete
until that's actually true.

- erik

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Devon H. O'Dell]

2009/3/26 erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net>:
> so please stop saying that 9vx or inferno make drawterm obsolete
> until that's actually true.

Additionally, both 9vx and inferno do actually execute code, which
would facilitate a breach of the SDK license.

> - erik

--me

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Brian L. Stuart]

> 9vx could replace drawterm in our environment, but i think
> the following work is required.  9vx needs
> - to be able to boot with no local files other than the executable,
> (i.e. directly from a plan 9 fs)

Actually, I've been using it this way for a while.  More
precisely, when I'm on my home network it boots like a
terminal talking to my file server.  When I'm away from
my home network, it boots off a local fossil/venti partition.
It did take some relatively minor changes, but if they're
not in the tree, they might have fallen through the cracks.
I even threw in the plan9.ini parsing so I could give
myself a menu and set the appropriate variables.  (I'm
not using it for any other plan9.ini sorts of things.)

The relevant bits of my 9vx.ini file are:
[native]
nobootprompt=local!#S/sd00/
venti=#S/sd00/arenas
user=glenda

[home]
nobootprompt=tcp
fs=172.30.1.2
auth=172.30.1.2
user=stuart

> especially if the kernel were (sort-of) pxe loaded so that clients would
> only need a local copy of the loader and changes would then be
> automaticly distributed.)

Now that could be fun.

BLS

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Bakul Shah]

I wasn't commenting on the GSoC; just reinforcing Eric's
point that a multitouch interface would be very interesting
in itself and pointing out that such a device in conjunction
with a 3d extension would be even more fun!  But yes, a
multitouch interface design would make a nice GSoC project.
Nothing directly useful may come of it but one never knows.
Look at bumptop.com -- that interface started out as a
student project. Look at the kind of things people do with
openframeworks.cc code.

Plan9 can be a far simpler platform for things like that.
Imagine a multitouch device that dynamically creates a set
of pointer streams /dev/mt/{0,1,...} with each mt/n acting
like /dev/mouse. Or you can have a single multiplexed stream,
where each read returns, for example,

 keychar ptr-index x y msec [blob-size [blob-type]]

When you lift your finger the blob-size becomes 0.  If you
don't press it again within some time period and within a
small distance of its expected position, the ptr disappears.
Or something like that! A program to map camera input to
/dev/mt would give you a cheap multitouch device.

As for GSoC, if students pick projects that get their
creative juices flowing *and* if they can produce something
tangible (but not necessarily useful) in threee months,
that'd be success in my eyes.  FWIW.

On Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:32:31 -0300 "Federico G. Benavento" <benavento@gmail.com>  wrote:
> my questions were more about the real usage of iphone's dt
> my short sighted vision of the gsoc is this, I didn't use any
> of the stuff that gsoc 2007 got us, though I recognize the
> inferno ds port.
> but for the rest, it might be interesting, but is someone
> using that stuff?
>
> iphone's drawterm sounds like something that very few
> people will use (the ones that have a cpu server and an
> iphone) in not that much often, of course it could be
> interesting to have it, but...
>
> I think that gsoc is a good chance to get going stuff that
> we need and we will really use.
>
> think of the openssh port, I did that, not for a gsoc and
> people use it, some guy even wrote a filesystem which
> suits lot's of people's needs.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 12:20 AM, Bakul Shah <bakul+plan9@bitblocks.com> wr=
> ote:
> > On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:25:07 CDT Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> =
> =C2=A0wrote:
> >> Also, figuring out how multitouch works with plan 9 would be valuable
> >> in itself -- although admitadly could be done without an iPhone.
> >
> > Exactly what I was thinking while reading this thread! =C2=A0An
> > intuitive multitouch interface that goes beyond cut-n-paste
> > would go very well with a 3D graphics protocol. 9gl anyone?!
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --=20
> Federico G. Benavento
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Akshat Kumar]

>> especially if the kernel were (sort-of) pxe loaded so that clients would
>> only need a local copy of the loader and changes would then be
>> automaticly distributed.)
>
> Now that could be fun.
>

I smell the feminine stench -- flowers and butterflies -- of GSoC project
proposal in every character of that message.


or perhaps I have sinusitis
so this is all imagined
ak

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[erik quanstrom]

> >> especially if the kernel were (sort-of) pxe loaded so that clients would
> >> only need a local copy of the loader and changes would then be
> >> automaticly distributed.)
> >
> > Now that could be fun.
> >
>
> I smell the feminine stench -- flowers and butterflies -- of GSoC project
> proposal in every character of that message.
>
>
> or perhaps I have sinusitis
> so this is all imagined

i believe you owe the list an apology for this
offensive and unacceptable comment.

- erik

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[J.R. Mauro]

On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 07:54:57PM -0500, Eric Van Hensbergen wrote:
> One nice thing about drawterm is it lets you export the iphone's
> interfaces to Plan 9 -- that could lead to much more interesting

I doubt you'll be able to do that with the insane restrictions Apple puts on
officially-sanctioned apps. You'd have to work via the iPhone jailbreak to
expose anything other than a very small, sandboxed directory on the phone via
drawterm.

> possibilities beyond typing at the shell.  Probably a better approach
> would be to look at providing an octopus client for iPhone though...
>
>       -eric
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 7:39 PM, Federico G. Benavento
> <benavento@gmail.com> wrote:
> > ok, you can't compare porting inferno to the ds with drawterm for the iphone
> > drawterm is an app to get to a Plan 9 server, inferno is a self contained
> > operating system where you can get the advantage of writing your
> > own apps for it.
> >
> > for this port to be useful you need 1) an iphone; �2) a cpu server to cpu
> > and 3) that killer app that makes want to drawterm from the iphone.
> >
> > I think writing that killer app, whatever that is makes more sense.
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 9:24 PM, Devon H. O'Dell <devon.odell@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> 2009/3/25 Federico G. Benavento <benavento@gmail.com>:
> >>> do we need drawterm for the iphone? is anyone going to use it?
> >>>
> >>> I mean, it's a tiny screen, typing on handhelds sucks, plus is not
> >>> that there is killer app Plan 9 has that �you _must_ run.
> >>>
> >>> am I forgetting something obvious?
> >>
> >> Tiny screen, but reasonable resolution. Should find out who put it on
> >> the ideas page for GSoC; it wasn't me (so clearly somebody is
> >> interested). Besides, look at the DS port. Smaller screens, lower
> >> resolution (even combined, I think). Whether it's novelty or not isn't
> >> for me to say, but I can see how it would be useful.
> >>
> >> --dho
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Federico G. Benavento
> >
> >
>

--
				J.R. Mauro

()  ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org   - against Microsoft attachments

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 1:04 PM, J.R. Mauro <jrm8005@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 07:54:57PM -0500, Eric Van Hensbergen wrote:
>> One nice thing about drawterm is it lets you export the iphone's
>> interfaces to Plan 9 -- that could lead to much more interesting
>
> I doubt you'll be able to do that with the insane restrictions Apple puts on
> officially-sanctioned apps. You'd have to work via the iPhone jailbreak to
> expose anything other than a very small, sandboxed directory on the phone via
> drawterm.
>

That makes zero sense.  As per the VNC discussion, there's already
precedent for exporting screen and interfaces.
That does leave room for apple to restrict access to camera, location,
orientation, etc. -- but I see no reason why they would.

         -eric

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[andrey mirtchovski]

> That makes zero sense.  As per the VNC discussion, there's already
> precedent for exporting screen and interfaces.
> That does leave room for apple to restrict access to camera, location,
> orientation, etc. -- but I see no reason why they would.

as far as I can see Veency (the VNC server) is for jailbroken iphones only.

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Tom Lieber]

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 2:29 PM, andrey mirtchovski
<mirtchovski@gmail.com> wrote:
>> That makes zero sense.  As per the VNC discussion, there's already
>> precedent for exporting screen and interfaces.
>> That does leave room for apple to restrict access to camera, location,
>> orientation, etc. -- but I see no reason why they would.
>
> as far as I can see Veency (the VNC server) is for jailbroken iphones only.

VNC clients

-- 
Tom Lieber
http://AllTom.com/

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[J.R. Mauro]

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 1:04 PM, J.R. Mauro <jrm8005@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 07:54:57PM -0500, Eric Van Hensbergen wrote:
>>> One nice thing about drawterm is it lets you export the iphone's
>>> interfaces to Plan 9 -- that could lead to much more interesting
>>
>> I doubt you'll be able to do that with the insane restrictions Apple puts on
>> officially-sanctioned apps. You'd have to work via the iPhone jailbreak to
>> expose anything other than a very small, sandboxed directory on the phone via
>> drawterm.
>>
>
> That makes zero sense.  As per the VNC discussion, there's already
> precedent for exporting screen and interfaces.

No, it makes perfect sense, if you actually know that there are VNC
clients on the phone, but not servers. You should look these things up
before saying I'm talking nonsense. Apple is fanatical about
controlling access to resources on the phone, even from apps that run
on the phone. The result of writing drawterm with Apple's SDK will be
a very crippled vnc/ssh type client.

> That does leave room for apple to restrict access to camera, location,
> orientation, etc. -- but I see no reason why they would.

Because it's Apple.

>
>         -eric
>
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[andrey mirtchovski]

let's rephrase the project. screw the iPhone temporarily (cool as it
may be) and do a straight cocoa drawterm rewrite.  a cocoa-native
drawterm can explore all the functionality of the iphone interface
(gestures, etc) and much more, without all the restrictions that apple
forces on iPhone developers.

the only problem is, without the iPhone tag it just doesn't sound so
cool anymore, does it? :)

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Uriel]

A 9vx, p9p or inferno cocoa port is a project that seems fairly
reasonable and I think everyone (even those that don't use Macs) can
agree on (and then if somebody wants they can port it to the other
draw users).

uriel

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 7:50 PM, andrey mirtchovski
<mirtchovski@gmail.com> wrote:
> let's rephrase the project. screw the iPhone temporarily (cool as it
> may be) and do a straight cocoa drawterm rewrite.  a cocoa-native
> drawterm can explore all the functionality of the iphone interface
> (gestures, etc) and much more, without all the restrictions that apple
> forces on iPhone developers.
>
> the only problem is, without the iPhone tag it just doesn't sound so
> cool anymore, does it? :)
>
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[lucio]

> the only problem is, without the iPhone tag it just doesn't sound so
> cool anymore, does it? :)

Apple restrict the iPhone for the same reason all religions interfere
with sex: it is a measurement of the success of their marketing that
people still buy their product despite the discomfort.

That will only stop when the faithful move to a new, improved
religion.

++L

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

I have VNC lite on my iphone, which amazingly isn't jailbroken...

      -eric


On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 1:29 PM, andrey mirtchovski
<mirtchovski@gmail.com> wrote:
>> That makes zero sense.  As per the VNC discussion, there's already
>> precedent for exporting screen and interfaces.
>> That does leave room for apple to restrict access to camera, location,
>> orientation, etc. -- but I see no reason why they would.
>
> as far as I can see Veency (the VNC server) is for jailbroken iphones only.
>
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 1:39 PM, J.R. Mauro <jrm8005@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> That makes zero sense.  As per the VNC discussion, there's already
>> precedent for exporting screen and interfaces.
>
> No, it makes perfect sense, if you actually know that there are VNC
> clients on the phone, but not servers. You should look these things up
> before saying I'm talking nonsense.
>

The difference between a VNC client and drawterm (from a rules
perspective) is difficult to see -- lets stop being paranoid about
evil empires.
Let's remember that this (unbelievably lengthy) thread was started as
a student's idea.  I'm merely trying to debunk roadblocks which others
seem to want to through in his way.  As I am prevented from mentoring
in GSoC, my opinion of whether this is a good or a bad project is
immaterial -- let's just stop the FUD.

      -eric

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[andrey mirtchovski]

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 1:27 PM, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have VNC lite on my iphone, which amazingly isn't jailbroken...
>
>      -eric

sure, but that's a client. i thought you were talking about exporting
iPhone's screen and interfaces as one would using a vnc server.

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 2:57 PM, Charles Forsyth <forsyth@terzarima.net> wrote:
>>The difference between a VNC client and drawterm (from a rules
>>perspective) is difficult to see
>
> i supposed the difference was /mnt/term
>

Yeah, but there are plenty of apps which allow the phone to act as a
file server.
It likely won't be the whole phone, just the dt's Documents directory.

        -eric

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 2:36 PM, andrey mirtchovski
<mirtchovski@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 1:27 PM, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I have VNC lite on my iphone, which amazingly isn't jailbroken...
>>
>>      -eric
>
> sure, but that's a client. i thought you were talking about exporting
> iPhone's screen and interfaces as one would using a vnc server.
>

The comparison is that since drawterm initiates the connection, from
the uninitiated point of view it is acting as a client (/mnt/term
aside) -- the fact that it is actually serving the frame buffer,
keyboard, mouse, etc. to the other side of the connection is protocol
semantics -- not something that would get Apple's panties in a bunch
IMHO.

        -eric

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Charles Forsyth]

>The difference between a VNC client and drawterm (from a rules
>perspective) is difficult to see

i supposed the difference was /mnt/term

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Pietro Gagliardi]

On Mar 26, 2009, at 3:35 PM, Eric Van Hensbergen wrote:

> I'm merely trying to debunk roadblocks which others
> seem to want to through in his way.

I don't want to throw a roadblock in this student's way. (In fact,
drawterm on iPhone benefits me too, though that benefit would come in
or after June :-| ) I just tried to point out a few hurdles. That's
what design and development is for: jumping hurdles.

On Mar 26, 2009, at 2:50 PM, andrey mirtchovski wrote:
> a straight cocoa drawterm rewrite
On Mar 26, 2009, at 3:00 PM, Uriel wrote:
> A 9vx, p9p or inferno cocoa port is a project that seems fairly

I can do one of these; which is the most needed/wanted?

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Devon H. O'Dell]

2009/3/26 Pietro Gagliardi <pietro10@mac.com>:
> On Mar 26, 2009, at 3:35 PM, Eric Van Hensbergen wrote:
>
>> I'm merely trying to debunk roadblocks which others
>> seem to want to through in his way.
>
> I don't want to throw a roadblock in this student's way. (In fact, drawterm
> on iPhone benefits me too, though that benefit would come in or after June
> :-| ) I just tried to point out a few hurdles. That's what design and
> development is for: jumping hurdles.

I think Eric's sentiment is more towards that those `hurdles' aren't
actually hurdles at all and are misinterpretations that caused about
20 posts debating whether it was actually a hurdle.

> On Mar 26, 2009, at 2:50 PM, andrey mirtchovski wrote:
>>
>> a straight cocoa drawterm rewrite
>
> On Mar 26, 2009, at 3:00 PM, Uriel wrote:
>>
>> A 9vx, p9p or inferno cocoa port is a project that seems fairly
>
> I can do one of these; which is the most needed/wanted?

If you get one, you should get all. Unfortunately, the code bases for
all of these things differ slightly. Some have bugfixes that others
don't have. In my mind, 9vx is the most needed / wanted. Others will
say Inferno. I think fewer would say p9p.

--dho

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Uriel]

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 10:22 PM, Pietro Gagliardi <pietro10@mac.com> wrote:
>> A 9vx, p9p or inferno cocoa port is a project that seems fairly
>
> I can do one of these; which is the most needed/wanted?

Personally I have no preference, any of the three would be great to
have, probably the p9p one is the one better tested, in better shape
and a better starting point, but I'm mostly guessing.

uriel

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

If you take the right approach you should be able to pave the way for
all three.  Just keep the interface modular and implement the hooks
for the target you are most comfortable with.

     -eric

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 27, 2009, at 8:21 PM, Uriel <uriel99@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 10:22 PM, Pietro Gagliardi
> <pietro10@mac.com> wrote:
>>> A 9vx, p9p or inferno cocoa port is a project that seems fairly
>>
>> I can do one of these; which is the most needed/wanted?
>
> Personally I have no preference, any of the three would be great to
> have, probably the p9p one is the one better tested, in better shape
> and a better starting point, but I'm mostly guessing.
>
> uriel
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Anant Narayanan]

On 26-Mar-09, at 8:36 PM, andrey mirtchovski wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 1:27 PM, Eric Van Hensbergen
> <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I have VNC lite on my iphone, which amazingly isn't jailbroken...
>>
>>      -eric
>
> sure, but that's a client. i thought you were talking about exporting
> iPhone's screen and interfaces as one would using a vnc server.

Legitimate iPhone apps can access the screen, camera, accelerometer,
gps and a portion of the filesystem. One could technically write a
drawterm that "polled" for instructions from a remote CPU server and
act on the local devices.

Not sure if Apple would construe this as "executing remote code
fetched through a web service" - that's for a lawyer to discuss - but
technically speaking, it is *possible* to remotely control and receive
input from the iPhone screen, camera, accelerometer, gps etc; all
using the official SDK.

--
Anant

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[erik quanstrom]

> Legitimate iPhone apps can access the screen, camera, accelerometer,
> gps and a portion of the filesystem. One could technically write a
> drawterm that "polled" for instructions from a remote CPU server and
> act on the local devices.
>
> Not sure if Apple would construe this as "executing remote code
> fetched through a web service" - that's for a lawyer to discuss - but
> technically speaking, it is *possible* to remotely control and receive
> input from the iPhone screen, camera, accelerometer, gps etc; all
> using the official SDK.

seems like a risk not worth taking.  i'd hate to have a project
fail due to a forseeable problem.

- erik

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[J.R. Mauro]

On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 10:51 PM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@coraid.com> wrote:
>> Legitimate iPhone apps can access the screen, camera, accelerometer,
>> gps and a portion of the filesystem. One could technically write a
>> drawterm that "polled" for instructions from a remote CPU server and
>> act on the local devices.
>>
>> Not sure if Apple would construe this as "executing remote code
>> fetched through a web service" - that's for a lawyer to discuss - but
>> technically speaking, it is *possible* to remotely control and receive
>> input from the iPhone screen, camera, accelerometer, gps etc; all
>> using the official SDK.
>
> seems like a risk not worth taking.  i'd hate to have a project
> fail due to a forseeable problem.

There is always the possibility of leveraging the jailbreak, which
would also let us possibly do something better than just drawterm.
FUSE was ported to the darwin kernel, I don't see why 9P can't be. But
I doubt google would want anything to do with that.

Still a decent side project for someone who really wants to do
iPhone+Plan 9 development.

>
> - erik
>
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[ron minnich]

On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 8:02 PM, J.R. Mauro <jrm8005@gmail.com> wrote:

> There is always the possibility of leveraging the jailbreak, which
> would also let us possibly do something better than just drawterm.
> FUSE was ported to the darwin kernel, I don't see why 9P can't be. But
> I doubt google would want anything to do with that.
>
> Still a decent side project for someone who really wants to do
> iPhone+Plan 9 development.

maybe I'm missing something but ... why not just do this on the G-1? I
mean, you've got a company (Apple) that you are afraid is going to
view what you are doing as criminal, or you have a company with a fine
that is designed to 3rd party apps. I realize the iPhone has some kind
of "cool factor" going for it, but ... who needs this kind of problem?

ron

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[J.R. Mauro]

On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 11:40 PM, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 8:02 PM, J.R. Mauro <jrm8005@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> There is always the possibility of leveraging the jailbreak, which
>> would also let us possibly do something better than just drawterm.
>> FUSE was ported to the darwin kernel, I don't see why 9P can't be. But
>> I doubt google would want anything to do with that.
>>
>> Still a decent side project for someone who really wants to do
>> iPhone+Plan 9 development.
>
> maybe I'm missing something but ... why not just do this on the G-1? I
> mean, you've got a company (Apple) that you are afraid is going to
> view what you are doing as criminal, or you have a company with a fine
> that is designed to 3rd party apps. I realize the iPhone has some kind
> of "cool factor" going for it, but ... who needs this kind of problem?
>

Where or even what gets done isn't that important to me, I'm just
tossing ideas out. Drawterm on the iPhone would be nice for me, since
I have one, but I have no idea how many Plan 9 users have one. Nor do
I know how many have a G-1 for that matter.

In my experience, these 'wow-factor' apps for phones get a lot of
initial attention, but are never used seriously. Not to sound like a
Negative Nancy, but how much utility will everyone really get out of
such a port?

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Anthony Sorace]

to ron's latest point:
seeing it on the G1 would be great, too. but we have a student with an
iPhone who's said he'd like to do it, and at least a handful of people
here have said they'd like to see it, and have the device. if the same
conditions get met for the G1, i see no reason we wouldn't entertain
applications from students for that port, too (although it seems
likely we'd end up picking one or the other).

on the unrelated 9p-on-darwin idea:
no, there's no theoretical reason it couldn't be done. getting a
Darwin kernel module would also be of broader use than the iPhone,
obviously. i'd be pretty worried about that being a summer project
unless the student already had intimate knowledge of the Darwin
filesystem hooks.

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Uriel]

On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Anthony Sorace <anothy@gmail.com> wrote:
> to ron's latest point:
> seeing it on the G1 would be great, too. but we have a student with an
> iPhone who's said he'd like to do it, and at least a handful of people
> here have said they'd like to see it, and have the device.

How many people can actually claim that they will for certain use such
iphone drawterm? Because the idea of using rio or acme from a
touchscreen doesn't seem very practical to me (to put it very mildly).

And I'm really curious, can somebody provide a number? Because this
requires not just an iphone, but a remote Plan 9 system, plus some
hypothetical task that is doable with the given interface (and which
is not better accomplished with simply running sshd).

Also, a very important question to ask for all GSoC projects is: what
is the value of the partial work if the project stalls or GSoC ends
before it is finished? And in this case it would be another abandoned
dead end.

So far I see many people posing very substantive objections, and
others saying 'it would be nice'....

uriel

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Jack Johnson]

On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 8:26 PM, Uriel <uriel99@gmail.com> wrote:
> How many people can actually claim that they will for certain use such
> iphone drawterm? Because the idea of using rio or acme from a
> touchscreen doesn't seem very practical to me (to put it very mildly).

Is there a similar project that would be more useful for the device?
Inferno plug-in for Safari?

Work backwards.  What (new) would you do if someone else did the hard
bit, and now what does that hard bit look like?

-Jack

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Tharaneedharan Vilwanathan]

hi,

sorry if i have missed any prior discussion, but i would like to
mention that i am curious about this effort.

to me, iphone (or similar device) seems to be an appropriate device
that is small enough  to be a portable drawterm device (eventually it
could become cheaper too). one can quickly connect it to a TV or a
hybrid monitor and get a bigger display.

i have tried this before in iphone with acme running in my mac:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/12/modified-vnc-software-enables-remote-access-on-iphone/

and i got this link today:
http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/brianmadden/archive/2009/03/30/citrix-releases-an-ica-client-for-the-apple-iphone-is-this-the-future-of-windows-apps-on-mobile-devices.aspx

so in my opinion, this is a good effort.

thanks
dharani

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Uriel]

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 6:57 AM, Tharaneedharan Vilwanathan
<vdharani@gmail.com> wrote:
> hi,
>
> sorry if i have missed any prior discussion, but i would like to
> mention that i am curious about this effort.
>
> to me, iphone (or similar device) seems to be an appropriate device
> that is small enough  to be a portable drawterm device (eventually it
> could become cheaper too). one can quickly connect it to a TV or a
> hybrid monitor and get a bigger display.
>
> i have tried this before in iphone with acme running in my mac:
> http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/12/modified-vnc-software-enables-remote-access-on-iphone/

So, was acme usable with a touch screen as input? And does this mean
that VNC clients already provide the desired functionality?

> so in my opinion, this is a good effort.

I'm not sure how that conclusion follows from the rest of your email.
Can you clarify?

Assuming that there are no overwhelming user interface issues (which
seems like a huge assumption to me), what actual useful functionality
would a drawterm port provide that vnc/ssh doesn't?

I would remind people too that Google is going to *pay good money* for
this work, so I think it is reasonable to ask how worthy it is.

Peace

uriel

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Tharaneedharan Vilwanathan]

hi uriel,

i guess i should have revised the mail before sending.

i just checked how acme looks in this tool. i didnt try to use all
features of acme. i am sure it will have problems. the original post
in engadget also says it is not fully ready.

this apart, long back when iphone was released, i saw a video news
where japanese already use smartphones as their computer (if i
remember correctly, the video even showed a phone connected to
keyboard, mouse and a monitor).

all of this made me think, trying to have drawterm in iphone is a nice idea.

assuming next version of iphone has better video, faster network
connectivity, etc., things can get better.

thanks
dharani

On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 11:00 PM, Uriel <uriel99@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 6:57 AM, Tharaneedharan Vilwanathan
> <vdharani@gmail.com> wrote:
>> hi,
>>
>> sorry if i have missed any prior discussion, but i would like to
>> mention that i am curious about this effort.
>>
>> to me, iphone (or similar device) seems to be an appropriate device
>> that is small enough  to be a portable drawterm device (eventually it
>> could become cheaper too). one can quickly connect it to a TV or a
>> hybrid monitor and get a bigger display.
>>
>> i have tried this before in iphone with acme running in my mac:
>> http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/12/modified-vnc-software-enables-remote-access-on-iphone/
>
> So, was acme usable with a touch screen as input? And does this mean
> that VNC clients already provide the desired functionality?
>
>> so in my opinion, this is a good effort.
>
> I'm not sure how that conclusion follows from the rest of your email.
> Can you clarify?
>
> Assuming that there are no overwhelming user interface issues (which
> seems like a huge assumption to me), what actual useful functionality
> would a drawterm port provide that vnc/ssh doesn't?
>
> I would remind people too that Google is going to *pay good money* for
> this work, so I think it is reasonable to ask how worthy it is.
>
> Peace
>
> uriel
>
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[André Günther]

I know it's difficult to argue with you, also because just about every  
email of you is repeating the same stuff.

Now the "VNC might suffice" objection is new and i want to reply to  
it. Again I am repeating myself here, but obivously there's not other  
way telling you:

The only thing I personally see to make remote access on devices such  
as the iPhone an useful and enjoyable experience is to work with the  
multitouch capabilities. Thus providing an easy way for mouse chording  
and also certain gesture support for managing the screen space (like  
zooming, maximizing a certain window, scrolling etc.)
All these things are not possible with the VNC, because VNC doesn't  
know about content, drawterm can.

Another reason is the exporting device functionality drawterm  
provides, again VNC can't give you that.

In addition, you repeat the worthlessness of the project. Again look  
at the past conversation and you find two basic points of view, your  
one renders the effort useless. That doesn't make the other ones  
invalid.

Even if you don't find anything remotely useful to the iPhone as a  
drawterm device whatsoever... you still might find the following ones  
interesting, which would be sideproducts of the process and available  
to every Plan 9 user:
	- gesture detection
	- a cpu bouncer

And last but not least: You got the first opportunity to play with  
moultitouch on Plan 9. I know this is part of "science" and "research"  
you obviously don't like.
But here I want to keep the spirit alive that Plan 9 somehow made  
possible. Plan 9 is and was a research project.

Best wishes,
André


On 31 Mar 2009, at 08:00, Uriel wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 6:57 AM, Tharaneedharan Vilwanathan
> <vdharani@gmail.com> wrote:
>> hi,
>>
>> sorry if i have missed any prior discussion, but i would like to
>> mention that i am curious about this effort.
>>
>> to me, iphone (or similar device) seems to be an appropriate device
>> that is small enough  to be a portable drawterm device (eventually it
>> could become cheaper too). one can quickly connect it to a TV or a
>> hybrid monitor and get a bigger display.
>>
>> i have tried this before in iphone with acme running in my mac:
>> http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/12/modified-vnc-software-enables-remote-access-on-iphone/
>
> So, was acme usable with a touch screen as input? And does this mean
> that VNC clients already provide the desired functionality?
>
>> so in my opinion, this is a good effort.
>
> I'm not sure how that conclusion follows from the rest of your email.
> Can you clarify?
>
> Assuming that there are no overwhelming user interface issues (which
> seems like a huge assumption to me), what actual useful functionality
> would a drawterm port provide that vnc/ssh doesn't?
>
> I would remind people too that Google is going to *pay good money* for
> this work, so I think it is reasonable to ask how worthy it is.
>
> Peace
>
> uriel

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Federico G. Benavento]

I'm impressed by how the "it'd be nice" position is stronger than
"it'd be useful" one.

--
Federico G. Benavento

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[yy]

2009/3/31 André Günther <Andre.G@gmx.de>:
> The only thing I personally see to make remote access on devices such as the
> iPhone an useful and enjoyable experience is to work with the multitouch
> capabilities. Thus providing an easy way for mouse chording and also certain
> gesture support for managing the screen space (like zooming, maximizing a
> certain window, scrolling etc.)
> All these things are not possible with the VNC, because VNC doesn't know
> about content, drawterm can.
>

Indeed, multitouch support in Plan9 would be *very _useful_*. Not only
iPhone like devices, but also synaptics touchpads available in most
laptops (Asus and all these new netbooks being the most obivious
example) support multitouch. Being able to use these devices as a
portable terminal without the need to carry around an extra mouse
would be great. 2 and 3 fingers gestures as a button chording
replacement looks like a natural and logical thing to me, YMMV.
3 mouse button are becoming more difficult to find every day, while
synaptics devices are the new standard input device.

OTOH, I don't really know how difficult would be to port iPhone
multitouch to synaptics touchpads, but only the user interface
research would be an advancement in this direction.

hth,


-- 
- yiyus || JGL .

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Uriel]

While 'experimenting with multitouch' is a worthwhile goal (although
highly speculative, chording *and* text input are fundamnetal to the
Plan 9 user interface, both of which seem really hard with
multitouch); doing so by porting drawterm to the iPhone seems like an
incredibly rounabout way to do so.

Adding new input interfaces to inferno, 9vx or even p9p; would be
infinitely simpler, and a much better long term platform for research
(which would require much simpler setup).

As for exporting devices, I ask again: what is the practical
(including research) purpose of that?

To me this whole project seems to be high-risk/low-reward, with
worthwhile goals that could be much more easily accomplished with much
less risk via other routes which don't share any of the technical and
legal risks and would have much more potential to be useful in the
future.

Peace

uriel

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 8:24 AM, André Günther <Andre.G@gmx.de> wrote:
> I know it's difficult to argue with you, also because just about every email
> of you is repeating the same stuff.
>
> Now the "VNC might suffice" objection is new and i want to reply to it.
> Again I am repeating myself here, but obivously there's not other way
> telling you:
>
> The only thing I personally see to make remote access on devices such as the
> iPhone an useful and enjoyable experience is to work with the multitouch
> capabilities. Thus providing an easy way for mouse chording and also certain
> gesture support for managing the screen space (like zooming, maximizing a
> certain window, scrolling etc.)
> All these things are not possible with the VNC, because VNC doesn't know
> about content, drawterm can.
>
> Another reason is the exporting device functionality drawterm provides,
> again VNC can't give you that.
>
> In addition, you repeat the worthlessness of the project. Again look at the
> past conversation and you find two basic points of view, your one renders
> the effort useless. That doesn't make the other ones invalid.
>
> Even if you don't find anything remotely useful to the iPhone as a drawterm
> device whatsoever... you still might find the following ones interesting,
> which would be sideproducts of the process and available to every Plan 9
> user:
>        - gesture detection
>        - a cpu bouncer
>
> And last but not least: You got the first opportunity to play with
> moultitouch on Plan 9. I know this is part of "science" and "research" you
> obviously don't like.
> But here I want to keep the spirit alive that Plan 9 somehow made possible.
> Plan 9 is and was a research project.
>
> Best wishes,
> André
>
>
> On 31 Mar 2009, at 08:00, Uriel wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 6:57 AM, Tharaneedharan Vilwanathan
>> <vdharani@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> hi,
>>>
>>> sorry if i have missed any prior discussion, but i would like to
>>> mention that i am curious about this effort.
>>>
>>> to me, iphone (or similar device) seems to be an appropriate device
>>> that is small enough  to be a portable drawterm device (eventually it
>>> could become cheaper too). one can quickly connect it to a TV or a
>>> hybrid monitor and get a bigger display.
>>>
>>> i have tried this before in iphone with acme running in my mac:
>>>
>>> http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/12/modified-vnc-software-enables-remote-access-on-iphone/
>>
>> So, was acme usable with a touch screen as input? And does this mean
>> that VNC clients already provide the desired functionality?
>>
>>> so in my opinion, this is a good effort.
>>
>> I'm not sure how that conclusion follows from the rest of your email.
>> Can you clarify?
>>
>> Assuming that there are no overwhelming user interface issues (which
>> seems like a huge assumption to me), what actual useful functionality
>> would a drawterm port provide that vnc/ssh doesn't?
>>
>> I would remind people too that Google is going to *pay good money* for
>> this work, so I think it is reasonable to ask how worthy it is.
>>
>> Peace
>>
>> uriel
>
>
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Noah Evans]

One of the principle reasons for the DS(and pending DSi port) was the
novel interfaces the system provided. While we can't hack on the
iPhone on an OS level directly(like we did with the DS) a drawterm
that conformed to Apple's guidelines could provide a novel interface
to experiment with new forms of input and ways of hooking into Plan 9.

If the iPhone drawterm:

1. made the typescript style of plan 9 accessible on a mobile device.
2. connected to a default public cpu server(like tip9ug)
3. was available for free in the app store

It would be a *great* way for new users to experiment with Plan 9 and
learn about what makes Plan 9 interesting.

Noah

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 4:36 PM, Uriel <uriel99@gmail.com> wrote:
> While 'experimenting with multitouch' is a worthwhile goal (although
> highly speculative, chording *and* text input are fundamnetal to the
> Plan 9 user interface, both of which seem really hard with
> multitouch); doing so by porting drawterm to the iPhone seems like an
> incredibly rounabout way to do so.
>
> Adding new input interfaces to inferno, 9vx or even p9p; would be
> infinitely simpler, and a much better long term platform for research
> (which would require much simpler setup).
>
> As for exporting devices, I ask again: what is the practical
> (including research) purpose of that?
>
> To me this whole project seems to be high-risk/low-reward, with
> worthwhile goals that could be much more easily accomplished with much
> less risk via other routes which don't share any of the technical and
> legal risks and would have much more potential to be useful in the
> future.
>
> Peace
>
> uriel
>
> On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 8:24 AM, André Günther <Andre.G@gmx.de> wrote:
>> I know it's difficult to argue with you, also because just about every email
>> of you is repeating the same stuff.
>>
>> Now the "VNC might suffice" objection is new and i want to reply to it.
>> Again I am repeating myself here, but obivously there's not other way
>> telling you:
>>
>> The only thing I personally see to make remote access on devices such as the
>> iPhone an useful and enjoyable experience is to work with the multitouch
>> capabilities. Thus providing an easy way for mouse chording and also certain
>> gesture support for managing the screen space (like zooming, maximizing a
>> certain window, scrolling etc.)
>> All these things are not possible with the VNC, because VNC doesn't know
>> about content, drawterm can.
>>
>> Another reason is the exporting device functionality drawterm provides,
>> again VNC can't give you that.
>>
>> In addition, you repeat the worthlessness of the project. Again look at the
>> past conversation and you find two basic points of view, your one renders
>> the effort useless. That doesn't make the other ones invalid.
>>
>> Even if you don't find anything remotely useful to the iPhone as a drawterm
>> device whatsoever... you still might find the following ones interesting,
>> which would be sideproducts of the process and available to every Plan 9
>> user:
>>        - gesture detection
>>        - a cpu bouncer
>>
>> And last but not least: You got the first opportunity to play with
>> moultitouch on Plan 9. I know this is part of "science" and "research" you
>> obviously don't like.
>> But here I want to keep the spirit alive that Plan 9 somehow made possible.
>> Plan 9 is and was a research project.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> André
>>
>>
>> On 31 Mar 2009, at 08:00, Uriel wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 6:57 AM, Tharaneedharan Vilwanathan
>>> <vdharani@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> hi,
>>>>
>>>> sorry if i have missed any prior discussion, but i would like to
>>>> mention that i am curious about this effort.
>>>>
>>>> to me, iphone (or similar device) seems to be an appropriate device
>>>> that is small enough  to be a portable drawterm device (eventually it
>>>> could become cheaper too). one can quickly connect it to a TV or a
>>>> hybrid monitor and get a bigger display.
>>>>
>>>> i have tried this before in iphone with acme running in my mac:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/12/modified-vnc-software-enables-remote-access-on-iphone/
>>>
>>> So, was acme usable with a touch screen as input? And does this mean
>>> that VNC clients already provide the desired functionality?
>>>
>>>> so in my opinion, this is a good effort.
>>>
>>> I'm not sure how that conclusion follows from the rest of your email.
>>> Can you clarify?
>>>
>>> Assuming that there are no overwhelming user interface issues (which
>>> seems like a huge assumption to me), what actual useful functionality
>>> would a drawterm port provide that vnc/ssh doesn't?
>>>
>>> I would remind people too that Google is going to *pay good money* for
>>> this work, so I think it is reasonable to ask how worthy it is.
>>>
>>> Peace
>>>
>>> uriel
>>
>>
>>
>
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Charles Forsyth]

>Inferno plug-in for Safari?

We had a go at a plug-in for Firefox in gsoc2007.
These things (like drawterm, or a hosted Inferno port) are either very easy
or very hard. "very easy" because if the environment is suitable, the portability
interface for hosted Inferno is basically trivial:
    513 FreeBSD/os.c
    477 Irix/os.c
    539 Linux/os.c
    528 NetBSD/os.c
    798 Nt/os.c
    524 OpenBSD/os.c
    422 Plan9/os.c
    437 Solaris/os.c
it needs a way to create shared-memory processes; a way for them to block, be made ready, and exit;
a way for a process to allocate more shared memory; a way to interrupt a process when blocked or in a system call (Nt loses badly there); and some trivia.

if graphics is needed to get a basic system running:
    755 MacOSX/win.c
    795 Nt/win.c
    564 Plan9/win.c
   1620 port/win-x11a.c
(no prizes for spotting the outlier there)

for the original IE plugin, it was more involved:
    840 Nt/ie-os.c
    224 Nt/ie-win.c
although most of the code in ie-os.c is the same as os.c; the ie-win just connects to separate code that
actually links to IE:
   1242 emu.cpp
     54 factory.cpp
    697 inferno.cpp
     59 main.cpp
(a lot of that is automatically generated; and there are now easier ways to do it, by the way)
next to MacOSX, that's probably the biggest example of "hard".

the firefox plug-in was potentially "hard" (because the people that
define browser plug-in interfaces aren't good at defining operating systems)
and became "very hard" because its ways are not our ways,
and by the time the gsoc student realised that, it was too late.

several people had earlier bounced off a plug-in for netscape.
(i don't know the details because i wasn't involved.)

with both firefox and netscape (and no doubt with Safari) it could well
be that more knowledge or more effort would have it end up in the "fairly easy"
or "not to hard" category, but so far that hasn't happened.

obviously i'm leading up to say that perhaps Safari is much
nicer to us than all the other browsers, but given its environment,
i wouldn't start out with that assumption, especially a second time
for GSoC.

with both the Safari and some other suggestions, i think i'd be a little happier
if more of the ground work had been done during the last few months and
GSoC were completing the tasks or even exploring their application,
not setting out.

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

The fact that rio and/or acme have a limited usage model with such a
device and/or multitouch in general is a shame -- wouldn't it be nice
to fix that.  Drawterm (or ports to devices like the DS) are not ends
in themselves but a means to exploring new interface models, ideas,
and applications.  Likewise I hope the student reaches beyond simple
drawterm support and implements an example iPhone environment/app
within Plan 9 that matches it's interface model better than rio.

As far as counting who would use this, that seems misdirected - GSoc
is for the students to learn and get interested in plan 9, not for the
community to get work done.

          -eric

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 31, 2009, at 1:00 AM, Uriel <uriel99@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 6:57 AM, Tharaneedharan Vilwanathan
> <vdharani@gmail.com> wrote:
>> hi,
>>
>> sorry if i have missed any prior discussion, but i would like to
>> mention that i am curious about this effort.
>>
>> to me, iphone (or similar device) seems to be an appropriate device
>> that is small enough  to be a portable drawterm device (eventually it
>> could become cheaper too). one can quickly connect it to a TV or a
>> hybrid monitor and get a bigger display.
>>
>> i have tried this before in iphone with acme running in my mac:
>> http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/12/modified-vnc-software-enables-remote-access-on-iphone/
>
> So, was acme usable with a touch screen as input? And does this mean
> that VNC clients already provide the desired functionality?
>
>> so in my opinion, this is a good effort.
>
> I'm not sure how that conclusion follows from the rest of your email.
> Can you clarify?
>
> Assuming that there are no overwhelming user interface issues (which
> seems like a huge assumption to me), what actual useful functionality
> would a drawterm port provide that vnc/ssh doesn't?
>
> I would remind people too that Google is going to *pay good money* for
> this work, so I think it is reasonable to ask how worthy it is.
>
> Peace
>
> uriel
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[J.R. Mauro]

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 8:01 AM, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
> The fact that rio and/or acme have a limited usage model with such a device
> and/or multitouch in general is a shame -- wouldn't it be nice to fix that.

This is a very good point. As much as I like rio, I can't help but be
aggravated by it sometimes, and it would be nice to have someone take
a fresh look at interacting with it and possibly solve some of the
shortcomings.

>  Drawterm (or ports to devices like the DS) are not ends in themselves but a
> means to exploring new interface models, ideas, and applications.  Likewise
> I hope the student reaches beyond simple drawterm support and implements an
> example iPhone environment/app within Plan 9 that matches it's interface
> model better than rio.
>
> As far as counting who would use this, that seems misdirected - GSoc is for
> the students to learn and get interested in plan 9, not for the community to
> get work done.
>
>         -eric
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Mar 31, 2009, at 1:00 AM, Uriel <uriel99@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 6:57 AM, Tharaneedharan Vilwanathan
>> <vdharani@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> hi,
>>>
>>> sorry if i have missed any prior discussion, but i would like to
>>> mention that i am curious about this effort.
>>>
>>> to me, iphone (or similar device) seems to be an appropriate device
>>> that is small enough  to be a portable drawterm device (eventually it
>>> could become cheaper too). one can quickly connect it to a TV or a
>>> hybrid monitor and get a bigger display.
>>>
>>> i have tried this before in iphone with acme running in my mac:
>>>
>>> http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/12/modified-vnc-software-enables-remote-access-on-iphone/
>>
>> So, was acme usable with a touch screen as input? And does this mean
>> that VNC clients already provide the desired functionality?
>>
>>> so in my opinion, this is a good effort.
>>
>> I'm not sure how that conclusion follows from the rest of your email.
>> Can you clarify?
>>
>> Assuming that there are no overwhelming user interface issues (which
>> seems like a huge assumption to me), what actual useful functionality
>> would a drawterm port provide that vnc/ssh doesn't?
>>
>> I would remind people too that Google is going to *pay good money* for
>> this work, so I think it is reasonable to ask how worthy it is.
>>
>> Peace
>>
>> uriel
>>
>
>

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 9:36 AM, J.R. Mauro <jrm8005@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 8:01 AM, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The fact that rio and/or acme have a limited usage model with such a device
>> and/or multitouch in general is a shame -- wouldn't it be nice to fix that.
>
> This is a very good point. As much as I like rio, I can't help but be
> aggravated by it sometimes, and it would be nice to have someone take
> a fresh look at interacting with it and possibly solve some of the
> shortcomings.
>

I think the key here is devices like the iPhone beg a different model
-- rio and ACME were developed for graphical, mouse/keyboard setups
(with relatively large screens I might add) -- smaller devices or
devices with different models (like set top boxes or game consoles)
really require a different set of tools/apps.  I think this is one of
the things that was interesting about the Plan B approach -- different
front-ends for similar back ends.  I doubt anyone wants to use the
iphone as a developer workstation, but it might be nice to make it an
additional screen for faces, or as the student points out and
additional user-interface to someone's work environment.

As far as fixing rio and ACME, I would urge anyone looking at that to
come up with a complementary solution as opposed to messing with the
existing model.  I don't see any reason why alternative interfaces
can't co-exist which support keyboard-only interaction (ron's smackme
comes to mind as well as wmii's model) as well as multitouch on
laptops (actually the iphone's new cut/paste model might work for
multitouch trackpads -- and while not as natural as the existing
chording method might make ACME useable when one finds oneself without
a three button mouse handy).  Another avenue to pursue is looking at
using gestures to replace chords -- it seems like pinch and expand
might be natural replacements for cut and paste.  I don't think the
community or the system benefits form limiting our options (but lets
keep them options -- I still prefer chording when possible ;)

        -eric

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[J.R. Mauro]

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 10:57 AM, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 9:36 AM, J.R. Mauro <jrm8005@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 8:01 AM, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> The fact that rio and/or acme have a limited usage model with such a device
>>> and/or multitouch in general is a shame -- wouldn't it be nice to fix that.
>>
>> This is a very good point. As much as I like rio, I can't help but be
>> aggravated by it sometimes, and it would be nice to have someone take
>> a fresh look at interacting with it and possibly solve some of the
>> shortcomings.
>>
>
> I think the key here is devices like the iPhone beg a different model
> -- rio and ACME were developed for graphical, mouse/keyboard setups
> (with relatively large screens I might add) -- smaller devices or
> devices with different models (like set top boxes or game consoles)
> really require a different set of tools/apps.  I think this is one of
> the things that was interesting about the Plan B approach -- different
> front-ends for similar back ends.  I doubt anyone wants to use the
> iphone as a developer workstation, but it might be nice to make it an
> additional screen for faces, or as the student points out and
> additional user-interface to someone's work environment.
>
> As far as fixing rio and ACME, I would urge anyone looking at that to
> come up with a complementary solution as opposed to messing with the
> existing model.  I don't see any reason why alternative interfaces
> can't co-exist which support keyboard-only interaction (ron's smackme
> comes to mind as well as wmii's model) as well as multitouch on
> laptops (actually the iphone's new cut/paste model might work for
> multitouch trackpads -- and while not as natural as the existing
> chording method might make ACME useable when one finds oneself without
> a three button mouse handy).  Another avenue to pursue is looking at
> using gestures to replace chords -- it seems like pinch and expand
> might be natural replacements for cut and paste.  I don't think the
> community or the system benefits form limiting our options (but lets
> keep them options -- I still prefer chording when possible ;)
>
>        -eric
>

Yes, that's sane. The interaction model depends very much on context,
and there is no one-size-fits-all interaction model. Being able to
switch models on the fly would also be nice.

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[Fco. J. Ballesteros]

o/live assumes that in many cases you may have
a mouse with just one button and some way to
issue mouse-3 clicks. (eg., touch pads).
The result was the circular menu implementation
and a different interaction language.

However, it does not consider multitouch at all.

>  From: ericvh@gmail.com
>  To: 9fans@9fans.net
>  Reply-To: 9fans@9fans.net
>  Date: Tue Mar 31 17:00:43 CET 2009
>  Subject: Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone
>
>  On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 9:36 AM, J.R. Mauro <jrm8005@gmail.com> wrote:
>  > On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 8:01 AM, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
>  >> The fact that rio and/or acme have a limited usage model with such a device
>  >> and/or multitouch in general is a shame -- wouldn't it be nice to fix that.
>  >
>  > This is a very good point. As much as I like rio, I can't help but be
>  > aggravated by it sometimes, and it would be nice to have someone take
>  > a fresh look at interacting with it and possibly solve some of the
>  > shortcomings.
>  >
>
>  I think the key here is devices like the iPhone beg a different model
>  -- rio and ACME were developed for graphical, mouse/keyboard setups
>  (with relatively large screens I might add) -- smaller devices or
>  devices with different models (like set top boxes or game consoles)
>  really require a different set of tools/apps. I think this is one of
>  the things that was interesting about the Plan B approach -- different
>  front-ends for similar back ends. I doubt anyone wants to use the
>  iphone as a developer workstation, but it might be nice to make it an
>  additional screen for faces, or as the student points out and
>  additional user-interface to someone's work environment.
>
>  As far as fixing rio and ACME, I would urge anyone looking at that to
>  come up with a complementary solution as opposed to messing with the
>  existing model. I don't see any reason why alternative interfaces
>  can't co-exist which support keyboard-only interaction (ron's smackme
>  comes to mind as well as wmii's model) as well as multitouch on
>  laptops (actually the iphone's new cut/paste model might work for
>  multitouch trackpads -- and while not as natural as the existing
>  chording method might make ACME useable when one finds oneself without
>  a three button mouse handy). Another avenue to pursue is looking at
>  using gestures to replace chords -- it seems like pinch and expand
>  might be natural replacements for cut and paste. I don't think the
>  community or the system benefits form limiting our options (but lets
>  keep them options -- I still prefer chording when possible ;)
>
>   -eric

Re: [9fans] GSOC: Drawterm for the iPhone

[David Leimbach]

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On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 11:42 PM, Federico G. Benavento <benavento@gmail.com
> wrote:

> I'm impressed by how the "it'd be nice" position is stronger than
> "it'd be useful" one.
>

Some would argue plan 9 isn't useful at all.  In fact, I bet most people
would argue that, and that we're a minority.

How big is the intersection of plan 9 users and iphone users?  :-)

I use both, but wouldn't use drawterm on the iPhone, so I think I just
diminished the audience for this app to maybe 2 or 3 people if I had to take
a wild guess :-)

Dave


>
> --
> Federico G. Benavento
>
>

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