From b0ce7d8c4da171870b54f15e8fe7adaeaef853cf Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Ian Darwin Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2016 21:27:02 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] Rework the README a bit --- README.adoc | 51 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------------------- 1 file changed, 29 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-) diff --git a/README.adoc b/README.adoc index acb03c55..a61a96d2 100644 --- a/README.adoc +++ b/README.adoc @@ -1,15 +1,16 @@ = The OPEN LOOK and XView CD-ROM (Archived) Lifetimes ago, I wrote a book for O'Reilly Media called -_X Windows User Guide: The OPEN LOOK Edition_. -For those unfamiliar with the history, there were three implementations -of the OPEN LOOK specification: +_X Windows User Guide, Volume 3: OPEN LOOK Edition_. +For those unfamiliar with the history, OPEN LOOK was a very good +UI specification, of which there were three different implementations: -. NeWS, the Network Extensible Window System, originated by James Gosling -at Sun, who later invented the Java language; -. OLIT, the OPEN LOOK Intrinsics Toolkit, based on the Unix X Toolkit; -. XView, by Sun Microsystems, based on the programing paradigm of -their earlier SunView toolkit. +. NeWS, the Network Extensible Window System (an entire window system +written in PostScript), originated by James Gosling +at Sun (same James Gosling who later invented the Java language); +. OLIT, AT&T's OPEN LOOK Intrinsics Toolkit, based on the Unix Xt Toolkit; +. XView, by Sun Microsystems, using XLib and based on the programing paradigm +of their earlier SunView toolkit. Of these three, to my knowledge only XView was ever released in source form, certainly so at the time. @@ -23,34 +24,40 @@ in return for getting a bunch of their stuff included into the Common Desktop Environment (CDE). In the aftermath of O'Reilly's decision not to publish the book, -I made it available on CD-ROM, and sold it through Amazon, +I made it available on CD-ROM. +You can read the original README file from the CD-ROM in the file +README-orig.txt in this directory. + +We mostly sold the CD-ROM through Amazon, making me one of the few hundred earliest Amazon sellers other than major publishers. In all we sold a few hundred copies over several years. -At this time, it seemed that Bruce Tognozzini's wish that OPEN LOOK -"be towed out to sea and given a decent burial" had come true, -and so I abandoned sales and put the CD-ROM up for FTP download. - -You can read the README-orig.txt[original README file here]. +At this time, it seemed that Bruce Tognozzini's (of _Tog on Interface_ fame) +wish that OPEN LOOK "be towed out to sea and given a decent burial" +had come true, and so I abandoned sales and put the CD-ROM up +for FTP download as an ISO image. After several changes of server and server software, this arrangement fell apart. So now I am putting what's left of it up on GitHub for anyone to pick over the remains. This was created by reading -from one of my last remaining copies of the CD. +an early CVS archive I made at the time, merged with some additional +files in a file I found on my hard drive called "olcd.tar" and +a few from one of my last remaining copies of the CD. +That's why some of the GIT log dates are from 2001 and some from 2016. == Caveat Lector: Some files are missing. -First, I've removed all binary programs, since what worked on +First, I've removed all binary programs and libs, since what worked on Linux or Solaris in the mid-1990's just isn't going to be useful today. Ditto for the search index, which had been built for a proprietary indexing program. -Second, this repository is cobbled together from an original CVS -repository that I used when making the CD back in the day, -plus a couple of other sources including one old copy of the -physical CD, so there is no guarantee that it -is exactly what's on the CD. +Second, this repository is cobbled together from sources as +described above, so there is no guarantee that it +is exactly the same as what was on the CD. +As well, there were a few minor revisions to the CD as we found +minor glitches, so there isn't even a single set of "what was on the CD". -If you can find any of the missing files, well, this is GitHub, +If you find any of the missing files, well, this is GitHub, so clone the repo and send a pull request. Or, for individual files, you could just email them to me.