[sac-forum] Re: HandyAvi, ToUcam, and RegiStax

Hi,
A little more research related to Macs.  I was perhaps over-cynical 
regarding
Microsoft's purchase of  Connectix.  Apparently, there is an application 
called
VirtualPC that is being offered presumably via the Connectix purchase by
Microsoft:  http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx.

For $249, you can apparently run any PC program on a Mac?

This would appear to be the Mac/PC solution.

Thanks,

Howard

Howard C. Anderson wrote:

>Hi Jeff,
>I can't believe the first response to my program is a request to make it
>work on some other system  :-)  
>
>HandyAvi is in Visual C++ and is essentially an MFC application.   Many
>calls to MFC/Windows-specific routines are involved. The system
>also makes calls to "Windows Multimedia" functions to handle AVI file 
>operations.
>"Windows Multimedia" is again very specific to the windows environment 
>and is
>not portable.  Gcc in a UNIX environment for example would be completely 
>unable to render
>anything usable.  I believe the same would be true for Mac compilers.
>
>I looked for a cross-compiler on the net and found this which presumably
>would allow you to use HandyAvi.  No guarantees though...
>http://spiderman.novit.no/dahls/Velo/mac.html.
>
>However, it looks like Microsoft may have plugged this "hole" though:
>http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/faqs/virtualizationfaq.mspx.
>
>When Motorola was just about to enter the Gate Array market, Xilinx 
>bought Neocad.
>Neocad was a small software house and had created all of Motorola's
>software for the Motorola Gate Arrays.  That Xilinx purchase then 
>created an insurmountable
>obstacle for Motorola.  Strategic buying of "enabling" companies is 
>apparently
>common and perhaps the cheapest way to disable competitors.  If Connectix
>had continued to sell software allowing PC software to run on Macs then 
>more
>Macs would presumably come into use?
>
>In the 70's, when I worked at Strategic Air Command Headquarters in Omaha,
>a highly-placed IBM official told me that the 360-series machines had 
>microcode
>that could be programmed so that their CPUs could be programmed to be ANY
>machine in existence at that time, i.e., with some effort, they could 
>make their
>machines work EXACTLY like a Honeywell 6180 for example, or a Burroughs
>B5500, or a CDC7600, etc.  I asked him why they were not saying much about
>that and he said the Telex lawsuit was creating enough difficulty 
>already and they
>didn't need the heat...  Sure would have solved some of our major problems
>though.  I used to spend 80% of my time writing conversion software to make
>things work on other types of machines.  I have no desire to return to 
>that era.
>The "Brooks Bill" required the government to buy computers from everyone
>making them.  Mix and match was total chaos and a major disaster.
>
>Anyway, bottom line is that I am quite certain that you would have to do a
>complete rewrite in any case.  If you are a Mac guru but not a Windows guru,
>very little would be gleaned from the source code.  I generally do not 
>provide
>source code.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Howard
>
>Jeff Hopkins wrote:
>
>  
>
>>>Hi,
>>>
>>>I have written a utility program that I named "HandyAvi" (other cuter
>>>names I
>>>thought up were all in use, e.g., MonAvi, AviUtil, etc.)
>>>I just placed it out in my web pages at:
>>>http://www.astroshow.com/handyavi/handyavi.htm.
>>>
>>>It allows you to do preprocessing of an AVI file to crop the images,
>>>select the "best" images, create a new AVI file from any set of selected
>>>images in the source file.  Easy to use and handy for working with
>>>the sorts of AVI files that the ToUcam and other webcams produce.
>>>
>>>I am using it to crop, sort, and select the best images for subsequent
>>>processing by RegiStax.  Speeds everything up significantly and
>>>allows control over the images that RegiStax has to deal with.
>>>
>>>Best part is that it is totally free...
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>
>>>Howard
>>>
>>>--
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>
>>>Howard     (in Tempe, Arizona)
>>>http://www.astroshow.com
>>>   
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>What language did you use? If it's C++ can I get the source code so I 
>>can compile if for a Mac?
>>
>>Jeff
>>
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>
>  
>

-- 

Thanks,

Howard     (in Tempe, Arizona)
http://www.astroshow.com

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