[Trion-kernel-dev] More resources

[Manuel H. <mho...@ph...>]

Hi all,

last night I was thinking about further ideas for resources that can be
shared and divided and I think that Trion would be just the right OS to
implement these ideas.

The monitor is obviously a resource consisting of an array of pixels. It can
be divided and parts (or all) of it can be granted to application programs -
this ist most commonly done with rectangular regions of the screen, known as
windows. But of course there could also be circular regions or whatever, so
nobody limits us to using ordinary windows.

Keyboard and mouse are also resources and can be used by one program at a
time, which is then said to own the focus. It receives all the keyboard and
mouse events. But of course nobody would keep a computer user from
connecting more than one keyboard or mouse. Normally this doesn't make sence
because there is only one focus and it doesn't matter on which keyboard
something is typed. But what if there are several focuses? That would make
it possible to use two or more applications at the same time.

But what would this be good for? One user probably can't use two keyboards
at once. But if there are several users, they can work simultaneously
(provided there is enough space on the screen or maybe two screens). Of
course this idea of a multi-user system is not new but already used by Unix
and it's clones. But as far as I know this only works via a network, with
one server running all the software and several clients or terminals. I
haven't heard of any OS supporting several users physically on the same pc.

Sorry for being quite inactive recently... I have just started my diploma
thesis...

Regards,
Manuel