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+<HTML>
+
+<TITLE>Mesa Introduction</TITLE>
+
+<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mesa.css"></head>
+
+<BODY>
+
+<H1>Introduction</H1>
+
+<p>
+Mesa is an open-source implementation of the
+<a href="http://www.opengl.org/" target="_parent">OpenGL</a> specification -
+a system for rendering interactive 3D graphics.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A variety of device drivers allows Mesa to be used in many different
+environments ranging from software emulation to complete hardware acceleration
+for modern GPUs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mesa ties into several other open-source projects: the
+<a href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/" target="_parent">Direct Rendering
+Infrastructure</a> and <a href="http://x.org" target="_parent">X.org</a> to
+provide OpenGL support to users of X on Linux, FreeBSD and other operating
+systems.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<H1>Project History</H1>
+
+<p>
+The Mesa project was originally started by Brian Paul.
+Here's a short history of the project.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+August, 1993: I begin working on Mesa in my spare time. The project
+has no name at that point. I was simply interested in writing a simple
+3D graphics library that used the then-new OpenGL API. I was partially
+inspired by the <em>VOGL</em> library which emulated a subset of IRIS GL.
+I had been programming with IRIS GL since 1991.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+November 1994: I contact SGI to ask permission to distribute my OpenGL-like
+graphics library on the internet. SGI was generally receptive to the
+idea and after negotiations with SGI's legal department, I get permission
+to release it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+February 1995: Mesa 1.0 is released on the internet. I expected that
+a few people would be interested in it, but not thousands.
+I was soon receiving patches, new features and thank-you notes on a
+daily basis. That encouraged me to continue working on Mesa. The
+name Mesa just popped into my head one day. SGI had asked me not to use
+the terms <em>"Open"</em> or <em>"GL"</em> in the project name and I didn't
+want to make up a new acronym. Later, I heard of the Mesa programming
+language and the Mesa spreadsheet for NeXTStep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the early days, OpenGL wasn't available on too many systems.
+It even took a while for SGI to support it across their product line.
+Mesa filled a big hole during that time.
+For a lot of people, Mesa was their first introduction to OpenGL.
+I think SGI recognized that Mesa actually helped to promote
+the OpenGL API, so they didn't feel threatened by the project.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+1995-1996: I continue working on Mesa both during my spare time and during
+my work hours at the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University
+of Wisconsin in Madison. My supervisor, Bill Hibbard, lets me do this because
+Mesa is now being using for the <a href="http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/%7Ebillh/vis.html" target="_parent">Vis5D</a> project.
+</p><p>
+October 1996: Mesa 2.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.1 specification.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+March 1997: Mesa 2.2 is released. It supports the new 3dfx Voodoo graphics
+card via the Glide library. It's the first really popular hardware OpenGL
+implementation for Linux.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+September 1998: Mesa 3.0 is released. It's the first publicly-available
+implementation of the OpenGL 1.2 API.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+March 1999: I attend my first OpenGL ARB meeting. I contribute to the
+development of several official OpenGL extensions over the years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+September 1999: I'm hired by Precision Insight, Inc. Mesa is a key
+component of 3D hardware acceleration in the new DRI project for XFree86.
+Drivers for 3dfx, 3dLabs, Intel, Matrox and ATI hardware soon follow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+October 2001: Mesa 4.0 is released.
+It implements the OpenGL 1.3 specification.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+November 2001: I cofound <a href="http://www.tungstengraphics.com" target="_parent">
+Tungsten Graphics, Inc.</a> with Keith Whitwell, Jens Owen, David Dawes and
+Frank LaMonica.
+I continue to develop Mesa as part of my resposibilities with Tungsten
+Graphics and as a spare-time project.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+November 2002: Mesa 5.0 is released.
+It implements the OpenGL 1.4 specification.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+January 2003: Mesa 6.0 is released. It implements the OpenGL 1.5
+specification as well as the GL_ARB_vertex_program and
+GL_ARB_fragment_program extensions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+June 2007: Mesa 7.0 is released, implementing the OpenGL 2.1 specification
+and OpenGL Shading Language.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+Ongoing: Mesa is used as the core of many hardware OpenGL drivers for
+the XFree86 and X.org X servers within the
+<A href="http://dri.freedesktop.org/" target="_parent">DRI project</A>.
+I continue to enhance Mesa with new extensions and features.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<H1>Major Versions</H1>
+
+<p>
+This is a summary of the major versions of Mesa.
+Mesa's major version number has been incremented whenever a new version
+of the OpenGL specification is implemented.
+</p>
+
+
+<H2>Version 7.x features</H2>
+<p>
+Version 7.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 2.1 API. The main feature
+of OpenGL 2.x is the OpenGL Shading Language.
+</p>
+
+
+<H2>Version 6.x features</H2>
+<p>
+Version 6.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.5 API with the following
+extensions incorporated as standard features:
+</p>
+<ul>
+<li>GL_ARB_occlusion_query
+<li>GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
+<li>GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
+</ul>
+<p>
+Also note that several OpenGL tokens were renamed in OpenGL 1.5
+for the sake of consistency.
+The old tokens are still available.
+</p>
+<pre>
+New Token Old Token
+------------------------------------------------------------
+GL_FOG_COORD_SRC GL_FOG_COORDINATE_SOURCE
+GL_FOG_COORD GL_FOG_COORDINATE
+GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORD GL_CURRENT_FOG_COORDINATE
+GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_TYPE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_TYPE
+GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_STRIDE GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_STRIDE
+GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY_POINTER GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY_POINTER
+GL_FOG_COORD_ARRAY GL_FOG_COORDINATE_ARRAY
+GL_SRC0_RGB GL_SOURCE0_RGB
+GL_SRC1_RGB GL_SOURCE1_RGB
+GL_SRC2_RGB GL_SOURCE2_RGB
+GL_SRC0_ALPHA GL_SOURCE0_ALPHA
+GL_SRC1_ALPHA GL_SOURCE1_ALPHA
+GL_SRC2_ALPHA GL_SOURCE2_ALPHA
+</pre>
+<p>
+See the
+<a href="http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html" target="_parent">
+OpenGL specification</a> for more details.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<H2>Version 5.x features</H2>
+<p>
+Version 5.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.4 API with the following
+extensions incorporated as standard features:
+</p>
+<ul>
+<li>GL_ARB_depth_texture
+<li>GL_ARB_shadow
+<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar
+<li>GL_ARB_texture_mirror_repeat
+<li>GL_ARB_window_pos
+<li>GL_EXT_blend_color
+<li>GL_EXT_blend_func_separate
+<li>GL_EXT_blend_logic_op
+<li>GL_EXT_blend_minmax
+<li>GL_EXT_blend_subtract
+<li>GL_EXT_fog_coord
+<li>GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
+<li>GL_EXT_point_parameters
+<li>GL_EXT_secondary_color
+<li>GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
+<li>GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias (plus, a per-texture LOD bias parameter)
+<li>GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
+</ul>
+
+
+<H2>Version 4.x features</H2>
+
+<p>
+Version 4.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.3 API with the following
+extensions incorporated as standard features:
+</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>GL_ARB_multisample
+<li>GL_ARB_multitexture
+<li>GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
+<li>GL_ARB_texture_compression
+<li>GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
+<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_add
+<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
+<li>GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
+<li>GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
+</ul>
+
+<H2>Version 3.x features</H2>
+
+<p>
+Version 3.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.2 API with the following
+features:
+</p>
+<ul>
+<li>BGR, BGRA and packed pixel formats
+<li>New texture border clamp mode
+<li>glDrawRangeElements()
+<li>standard 3-D texturing
+<li>advanced MIPMAP control
+<li>separate specular color interpolation
+</ul>
+
+
+<H2>Version 2.x features</H2>
+<p>
+Version 2.x of Mesa implements the OpenGL 1.1 API with the following
+features.
+</p>
+<ul>
+<li>Texture mapping:
+ <ul>
+ <li>glAreTexturesResident
+ <li>glBindTexture
+ <li>glCopyTexImage1D
+ <li>glCopyTexImage2D
+ <li>glCopyTexSubImage1D
+ <li>glCopyTexSubImage2D
+ <li>glDeleteTextures
+ <li>glGenTextures
+ <li>glIsTexture
+ <li>glPrioritizeTextures
+ <li>glTexSubImage1D
+ <li>glTexSubImage2D
+ </ul>
+<li>Vertex Arrays:
+ <ul>
+ <li>glArrayElement
+ <li>glColorPointer
+ <li>glDrawElements
+ <li>glEdgeFlagPointer
+ <li>glIndexPointer
+ <li>glInterleavedArrays
+ <li>glNormalPointer
+ <li>glTexCoordPointer
+ <li>glVertexPointer
+ </ul>
+<li>Client state management:
+ <ul>
+ <li>glDisableClientState
+ <li>glEnableClientState
+ <li>glPopClientAttrib
+ <li>glPushClientAttrib
+ </ul>
+<li>Misc:
+ <ul>
+ <li>glGetPointer
+ <li>glIndexub
+ <li>glIndexubv
+ <li>glPolygonOffset
+ </ul>
+</ul>
+
+
+</body>
+</html>