Secrets of WinFX Revealed
Following newly released fragments of source code from the forthcoming ‘Longhorn’ Operating System, the surprising truth about the much-awaited WinFX/Avalon desktop rendering system can now be revealed, writes our vapourware correspondent.
Previous analyses of the system had suggested that the revolutionary graphics technology worked by taking advantage of advances in graphics cards technology over the last five years, rendering and caching layers of images offscreen. ‘But it isn’t like that at all’, claims software engineer Tim Large, who has studied the code in detail. ‘I first got an inkling of the truth while hot-swapping graphics cards in a system running early alpha versions of Longhorn. I expected the monitor to blow up at the least, but it just kept on running. I couldn’t figure out how it did it, and I’d heard about the source code availability. I knew under the license I’d have to shoot myself after reading it, but I figured what the heck I’m a lousy shot, and downloaded it.’
‘The WinFX subsystem bypasses the graphics card completely. It’s powered by a little man in a box sitting on the main chipset bus who, like, intercepts the rendering instructions and draws on the screen really quickly. It’s incredible. It even kept rendering when I powered the box down.’
‘Listen’, continued Mr. Large, ‘I gotta go now. Nice knowing you.’
News of this extraordinary technological breakthrough has fuelled speculation as to the identity of this mystery ‘little man’, with the top contender on everyone’s lips being Rumplestiltskin. So far, Microsoft has refused to comment on the matter, beyond stating that it was a part of the deal that the individual’s name not be mentioned.
Mr. Large is currently unavailable for comment while recovering from a foot injury in a private hospital.