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

["André Günther" <Andre.G@gmx.de>]

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