microwindows VS fbpdf

Interesting link!

If we look at this directory:

https://github.com/ghaerr/microwindows/tree/master/src/drive...

Most notably the source files that start with 'scr_', and of those most notably: scr_sdl2.c, scr_win32.c, scr_x11.c, scr_djvesa.c, scr_fb.c -- we see that this windowing system can apparently run on top of an existing windowing system, whether that system is SDL2, Win32, X11, VESA, Linux's framebuffer -- or several others.

Which makes it interesting and worthy of study...

Note that I am sure there are probably a whole lot of other windowing systems out there that also support these, let's call them "back-end" (for lack of better terminology) pre-existing windowing systems.

In other words, a windowing system -- on top of another windowing system...

Sort of like running X on top of Win32, or Win32 on top X...

But the posibilities of higher level and lower level windowing system are really unlimited -- mix and match, basically...

In conclusion -- excellent link!

I worked on this [1] Linux tablet 20 years ago, and we had working versions, but it doesn't really count as they weren't put into mass production. I don't know how many were built in the end (I left to co-found a webmail service). Sometimes it's depressing how long it takes for something to actually come to fruition. The screenshots in [1] are our custom UI based on NanoX [2], and an Opera port for the web browser screenshot (it worked). I wanted a production version for years after I left...

[1] https://linuxdevices.org/freepad-norways-alternative-to-swed...

[2] https://github.com/ghaerr/microwindows

Until 2017, I kept my resume in troff (well, groff, really). After searching a bit, I finally re-did it in LaTex.

So I have to ask why? Going up a level to http://litcave.rudi.ir/, it's for the author's own personal needs, but what needs could possibly motive what we see there? I'm astounded.

> Off the top of my head, I don't know of a terminal that actually implements the entire (very complex) set of Unicode text rendering behaviors

There are likely two problems with this:

First, nobody actually seems to know how bidirectional text should interact with terminal control sequences, or indeed how it should be typeset on a terminal in the first place (where are the paragraph boundaries?). There is the pre-Unicode bi-directional support mode (BDSM, I kid you not) in ECMA-48[1] and TR/53[2], which AFAIK nobody implements nor cares about, and which doesn’t seem to actually; there are terminal emulators made by bidi-language users[3], which AFAIK nobody has written down the behaviour of; there is the Freedesktop bidi terminal spec[4], which is a draft and AFAIK nobody implements yet either but at least some people care about; finally, there are bidi-language users who say that spec is a mistake[5].

Second, aside from bidi and a smattering of other things such as emoji, there is no detailed “Unicode rendering behaviour”, there are only standards specific to font formats, the most recent being OpenType, which is dubiously compatible across implementations, decently documented only through painstaking reverse engineering (sometimes in words[6], sometimes only in Freetype library code), and generally full of snakes[7]. And it has no notion of monospace font—only of a (proportional) font where all Lat/Cyr/Grk characters just happen to have the same advance.

AFAICT that is not an oversight or negligence, but rather a concession to the fact that there are scripts which don’t really have a notion of monospace in the typographic tradition and in fact are written such that it’s extremely unclear what monospace would even mean—certainly not one or two cells per codepoint (e.g. Burmese or Tibetan; apparently there are Arabic monospace fonts[8] but I’ve no idea how the hell they work). Not coincidentally, those are the scripts where you need that shaper, otherwise nothing works.

[1] https://www.ecma-international.org/publications-and-standard...

[2] https://www.ecma-international.org/publications-and-standard...

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8086417

[4] https://terminal-wg.pages.freedesktop.org/bidi/

[5] http://litcave.rudi.ir/

[6] https://github.com/n8willis/opentype-shaping-documents

[7] https://litherum.blogspot.com/2019/03/addition-font.html

[8] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10395464

+1 for the Dell Mini 9. In fact, I use it daily for most things, as I got one in mint condition for only a few euros. Tiny Core Linux, framebuffer mode, text-only browsing, Ali G. Rudi's framebuffer tools [1]. I also added a matte screen protector, which is fine against eye strain.

I really don't want to go back to neither a traditional GUI experience, nor, somewhat surprisingly, to a bigger screen. This is a bit odd, but it is much easier to stay focused with a small screen. You'll write more one-liner scripts to help your workflow. A machine the size of an A5 writing pad. It's a nice experience.

The keyboard is also surprisingly tolerable. And, due to being fanless, the machine is spookily quiet, which helps even more with the focusing.

There should be a lot of old netbooks lying around. I imagine they were often used only a few times and then forgotten in that bottom drawer, because, maybe you do need to be somewhat a geek to use one of these in a dedicated manner. I couldn't imagine using my Mini 9 with a traditional GUI, or even a mouse. For terminal-only work, though, it is really great.

So I guess all these old, peanuts-prized machines could be interesting to frugal computing / retrocomputing people, which seems to be a growing niche among younger folks.

1: http://litcave.rudi.ir

I use Tiny Core Linux in framebuffer mode every day. Ali G. Rudi's framebuffer tools were a huge inspiration: https://litcave.rudi.ir/

I've also been curious about fbui (in-kernel windowing system). Not sure how well it works with current kernels, though: https://github.com/8l/fbui

Having really modest needs, I even made an effort to use FreeDOS for essential tasks (writing, PDFs, some scripting), but gave up quickly as I cannot live without a good PDF pager. I also had trouble with constant fan noise on DOS (you'll need some hacks to maybe get around this). It is still mind blowing how fast FreeDOS (or e.g. the even more barebones SvarDOS) boots. It took literally about 2 seconds to greet myself with the good old "C:\>".

Also, it is a system that fits inside the head of even an ordinary person. This is really refreshing these days.

Same here, kind of. I'm reading this thread in Linux framebuffer mode and w3m, a text-mode browser. You can see images with this setup, but only by hovering a particular image link and launching an external viewer.

This has been my main computing setup for about half a year now, and it works surprisingly well (I'm neither a coder nor a web dev, though). Majority of the sites I visit are definitely bearable in text-only mode. It's a flexible setup, too, since I can seee the images if I need to.

For more inspiration, see Ali G Rudi's framebuffer tools [1] and a great site on w3m [2].

1: https://litcave.rudi.ir

2: http://w3m.rocks

You may be interested in the work of Ali Gholami Rudi. Scroll down to the "framebuffer" section: https://litcave.rudi.ir

Apart from things like writing his own C compiler and typesetting systems, Rudi implemented several GUI programs that work on Linux without Xorg or Wayland. He claims there on his site he doesn't even use Xorg any more.