I wanted to write a short public letter on the subject of Linux/Alpha
and what might happen.
I'd like to preface this by saying that Linux and other unixy ports of
games do not make us money and that we do them just because well, we're
a bit soft in the head or something.
(don girly cheerleading outfit and poms)
Quake is going to be one of the most visible and strongly marketed games
for some time. Its release is the kind of thing which will spawn new
industries, as Doom did. It's the kind of wave which an obscure product
or phenomenon can ride on (and this always happens) to success and
exposure. If you're reading this, you have a computer, which means
you're prolly aware of the Doom phenomenon thing. Quake will, believe
it or not, be bigger.
Discounting hardware accelerated texture-mapping boards, the fastest
hardware to run the game at the time of release will be a Pentium
running DOS or Win95. There will be ports to other high-end platforms
such as Irix and OSF/1 Alpha boxes. However, none will sport the kind
of close-to-hardware support that DOS can offer. Well, almost none.
Turns out that Jon Toms and Hannu Savolainen are working on extensions
that will allow Linux to be the only advanced operating system to
approach DOS speeds. Jon Toms' X extension allows direct access to the
linearly mapped, page-flippable, frame buffer, with keyboard events
modified to properly reflect how keyboard interrupts work and mouse
events which reflect actual mouse mickeys. This is basically like an
alternative to svgalib for those that have S3's. Hannu Savolainen's new
driver allows direct access to the sound buffer, letting the process
paint sound in directly, only asking the kernel for updates on the DMA
position.
These features are the critical mass needed to make Linux a feasible,
indeed powerful game development and production platform and would make
Linux/Alpha equally as powerful if ported to it.
To sum up, I would be honored to demonstrate to the world a Linux/Alpha
Quake client running on a 21164 300Mhz Alpha, preferably beating on some
pansy in deathmatch, preferably a pansy on a Pentium, um, with a little
"Intel Inside" sticker on his/her forehead would be cool.
To that end, I would like to propose the Linux/Alpha development
community shoot for a specific goal, Linux/Intel-level stability and
timely, current support of these features by Jon and Hannu, by the end
of the first quarter of 1996. In exchange, I'd buy an Alpha, prolly
that new "Screamer" 300MHz 21164 one in "Byte", and have Linux/Alpha
Quake ready for release to demonstrate. Um, deal?
(doff cheerleader outfit)
Thanks for your time, and I welcome feedback.
PS. Quick book recommendation: _The Hacker and the Ants_ by Rudy
Rucker, I believe. I'm a late bloomer in cyber fiction. Mebbe this is
old news to you.
=-ddt->
Hannu Savolainen (linux sound driver author) : hannu@voxware.pp.fi
Jon Toms (studly XFree86 author) : jon@gte.esi.us.es
Dave Taylor (game boy) : ddt@idsoftware.com