# Re: Windows & Psychtoolbox **URL:** \ **Category:** Uncategorized\ **Created:** [October 11, 2000, 2:01pm UTC](https://psychtoolbox.discourse.group/t/re-windows-psychtoolbox/1283 "2000-10-11T14:01:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Allen\_Ingling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Allen\_Ingling](https://psychtoolbox.discourse.group/u/Allen_Ingling)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2000, 2:01pm UTC](https://psychtoolbox.discourse.group/t/re-windows-psychtoolbox/1283/1 "2000-10-11T14:01:20Z")
> \>My lab (me, assistant, & grad student) are gearing up to use the > \>psychtoolbox under Windows 2000. David's incarnation of > \>screendemo.m did not crash, though I'm not sure about timing > \>accuracy yet. My questions: > \> > \>1. Do you expect screen.dll to support multiple monitors in the near future? I wouldn't bet on it, although the answer really depends on how easy it is for the Windows OS to support multiple monitors. On the Mac, this support was almost transparent to us. If Windows makes it easy to direct OS calls to a second monitor, then the changes required in the source would be easy and you could probably do it yourselves in the OpenWindow code. > \> > \>2. Is there any chance you've got a TimeVideo equivalent for the PC > \>under development? Nope. Eventually ScreenTest (MATLAB version of TimeVideo) should work on Windows. > \> > \>3. I'd like to be of help as a regular tester for the Windows code. > \>I don't think I'm likely to be of serious help writing C code at > \>this point, but I can spend a bit of time testing things and writing > \>matlab code. Do you want to put me in touch with your Windows > \>programmer (is there one yet?). Yes, thanks. There isn't one yet but interviews are scheduled. The real answer to how fast things happen for windows is that if we manage to hire someone good, they'll happen pretty fast. > \> > \>4. OR...would you tell me to buy a Mac instead? I'd like to see the > \>Windows version become viable, am willing to help, but I don't have > \>the resources to push through major obstacles. I'm still buying Macs. I think the answer depends on what you want to do. The current Windows version will display images and patterns OK. The timing is crummy and we don't know how to check for a character without actually reading it. Those would be the first things to get fixed but how long it will take depends on how hard the underlying problems really are. I wish I could give you a sharper answer. > \> > \>5. Your strategic outlook: are new features likely to be added first > \>to the Mac version, then ported to Windows, for the foreseeable > \>future? I.e. do you want to keep Mac as the master, with any code > \>that runs under Windows guaranteed to run under Mac as well? Or > \>would it be OK to see temporary divergences of capabilities as new > \>features are added to one or the other platform? It's been a long time since we added any important new features to the Mac version. Most changes are just to keep it running as new hardware and OS versions appear. Our vision is to make the two platforms compatible at the MATLAB level. Probably to do that we'll have to remove features from the Mac version rather than add them. Once we get compatibility, we'll probably try pretty hard to keep it. The other possibility is that we'll try to provide the ability to test for capabilities and let the programs at the MATLAB level handle divergences gracefully (or not). Sorry this is so wishy-washy an answer, but I've gotten a bit cautious about promising too much for the Windows version. Neither Denis nor I can really commit to doing it ourselves and without that it is hard to judge how fast things will move forward. DB