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Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1993 09:52:00 -0500
From: Lindsy McDonnal <peugh@wam.umd.edu>
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To: wing@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: 
Cc: stolk@fwi.uva.nl, cschaffe@flounder.rutgers.edu, dove@well.sf.ca.us,
        edan@netcom.com, fontenot@comet.rice.edu, graham@cs.montana.edu,
        groenewo@fwi.uva.nl, hjtoi@jyu.fi, jw@ddsdx2.jhuapl.edu,
        lyn@matt.ksu.ksu.edu, peugh@wam.umd.edu, pulkka@cs.washington.edu,
        vexar@watserv.ucr.edu

* Arbitrary placement of object (now you only ahve 8*16 places).
-- Definitely

* Placement of objects in arbitrary angle.
-- Very good idea.  


* Zoom of objects and scenes.
-- Also very good.  I was thinking about ways this could be done inside
   the MUD, and it gets very difficult, so having the client do it.  Good
   idea

* Bigger coordinate system, for complex scenes
-- I don't know, it appears that the scenes can be complex enough with
   256X256.  Besides, if we were to make these numbers bigger, every
   coordinate has to go to 3 bytes to transmit rather than 2.  Which
   I would think would increase the client server traffic drastically.

* Depth (to make it possible to put a object high up on the screen,
without having to make it be blocked by others. Could also be used for
semi 3-d effects).
-- You really should be able to fake this with point number 1 in place

* 24-bit colors, I don't like 8, bit much, I think it's better to he a
set numbers of pixels per rgb-color. Maybe 3*6, or 3*5 could do,
though.
-- Can't really tell you about this, I only have a monochrome monitor.

* New shapes, circles, ellipces, beizer(sp)- or spline-curves, would
save space for complex objects.
-- Agreed.  Such new concepts would be a great addition to our set of 

   BSX primitives.

* Fonts. (The most inportant change, imho, I would love 'em).
-- Yes, definitely, with the rotation and arbitrary placement, it then
   becomes able to write text on the graphics display.

Now, what would I like to see?

* Clients for a broader range of machines.  IBM w/ TCP, Mac w/TCP, NeXT 

  machines and other such commodities.

* More utilities available on other platforms.

* Expand the client to allow certain commands to be tied to menus such
  as
   Direction
     micro_<dir> (maybe not this in the menu, but as a seperate set of buttons)
     <dir>
   Personal Items
     inventory
     score
     Whatever else we can put in here.
   User Specified
     <Such as a command file, where they can allocate a menu item,
      and tie a piece of text to it.>

Well, have to leave now.  Classes to attend.

Dave.