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Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:55:05 +0800
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To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
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Subject: Re: [9fans] Scanners
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Charles Forsyth wrote:
>> If Plan9 can 'plumb' a remote sound card, (a questionable example long
>> publicized) I'm sure it can do so with a mouse.
>
> it isn't plumbing, but export/import, and it's useful.
> i had a usable sound system on my r3000 indigo, but my PC had none.
> on the pc, i imported the indigo's /dev and played sounds that way.
> i could imagine uses even a continent away (alarm system imports remote
> /dev and announces trouble). next door might be more useful.
>
>

Welll - in the same room, it would seem 'sneakernet' would do well enough. Point
of fact, I use three kdb,vid,mouse and ... a swivel chair... less confusing than
sharing/switching among three disparate OS'en.

;-)

And I've actually considered remote audio I/O as part of a system for monitoring
a house that sits empty for months at a time, and responding to the doorbell ..
intrusion, et al ... but.. 'edge cases', both, if ever were. Easy enough to do
without Plan9. 'Too easy' to be fair.

'export/import' applied to remote resources - especially 'scarce' or expensive
ones (sound cards no longer are..) that could *send back* the results might make
a better present-day example.

If we could identify a few...

Couple of thoughts:

- hardware crypto devices  (cheap and cheerful in recent VIA CPU, seldom seen
otherwise)

- fast, specialty (expensive) graphics processing engines for storage to file,
or streaming-back not (necessarily) remote display. Ray tracing comes to mind...

- a 'ration' - free or purchased - of grid or supercomputing resources? (several
experts here - I'm not among them)

In any case, given that audio codecs are near-as-dammit ubiquitous on commodity,
and even 'server grade' and 'embedded' system boards these many years, I think a
better example than sharing a Soundblaster-equivalent is overdue.

I'm well aware that 'marketing' Plan9 is not really on anyone's radar here ..
but there could be a bit more done to convey the availability and value to the
like-minded potential fellow-travelers [1]. One benefit might include more
current device driver import/devel..

JM2CW

Bill

[1] FWIW - the 'Blue Gene' Plan9 work deserves better publicity. If/as/when one
hears that a certain 'hobby' alleged-OS is being run on such expensive kit, one
tends to question why it was even built...