Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!wupost!uunet!mcsun!dxcern!vxcrna.cern.ch!roeber
From: roeber@vxcrna.cern.ch (Frederick Roeber)
Subject: 24-bit Static color: will clients like it?
Message-ID: <1993Apr26.123918.1@vxcrna.cern.ch>
Sender: news@dxcern.cern.ch (USENET News System)
Reply-To: roeber@cern.ch
Organization: CERN -- European Organization for Nuclear Research
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1993 11:39:18 GMT
Lines: 24

I'm writing an X server for some video-generation equipment.  The
hardware is "truecolor" in YUV space; in X terms it has a 24-bit
static color visual.  I would really like to have the server just
present this static visual, but I'm not sure if this will be 
acceptable to "most" X clients.  The three problems I see are:

  1) The colormap, though huge, is static.
  2) All pixels would be 3 bytes wide.
  3) Because the hardware actually lives in YUV space, the
     translation RGB->YUV will introduce some rounding error.

Being more of a server guy than a client guy, I ask: will these
limitations thwart many X clients?  Or will most of the X stuff
floating around blithely accept what they're given?  I could write
the server to also present a pseudocolor visual of, e.g., 8 bits, 
but I'd rather avoid this if not necessary.

I know there are no absolutes, but I'd appreciate hearing people's
opinions and suggestions.  Thanks!

-- 
Frederick G. M. Roeber | CERN -- European Center for Nuclear Research
e-mail: roeber@cern.ch or roeber@caltech.edu | work: +41 22 767 31 80
r-mail: CERN/PPE, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland | home: +33 50 20 82 99
