Alex McLintock (Alex.McLintock@chadwyck.co.uk) awoke and uttered:

>  Ok, I am now thinking of returning to VRML and the first step is to
> compile the publically available code.
>  
>  1) Is anyone out there doing VRML browsers for Acorns (either Risc OS or 
>     ported to RiscBSD)? I know of one - I think Gallileo reads VRML.

If you mean PD, I don't know of any.  Both the major commercial 3d
modelling tools (can't remember the names off hand) are in the process
of including VRML rendering support under RiscOS.

>  2) Is there any OpenGl support? I know very little about it so I guess 
>     it is too big a task.

It's a big task (like BIG), to write such a library from scratch, and
you need to be pretty much au fait with the field of 3D graphics.

Fortunately, there exists a freeware source library which is OpenGL
compatible; as far as I remember the author is on friendly terms with
SGI.

Have a look at http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~brianp/Mesa.html

>  3) When porting software to RiscBSD what OS do people start from? obviously 
>     if there is a NetBSD version then compile that - but what are the best 
>     alternatives?

Porting from one Unix to another is usually a fairly simple job
(certainly when compared to porting to the likes of RiscOS).  Most of
the time, it's a case of patching up a few system calls that end up in
different libraries, or have minor differences in behaviour - usually
a case of hacking an include file or two.  Often, porting to NetBSD is
not much more than picking the right options in the make file - more
often than not, packages can be built for a standard BSD, and NetBSD
(obviously) is most compatible with that.  Significant efforts in
porting arise when there's assembler in the package (which obviously
is completely non-portable), but that's relatively rare.