*BSD News Article 10688


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From: vixie@pa.dec.com (Paul A Vixie)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: SVGA/TIGA driver?
Date: 2 Feb 93 10:54:38
Organization: DEC Network Systems Lab
Lines: 18
Message-ID: <VIXIE.93Feb2105438@cognition.pa.dec.com>
References: <C1nDuz.DFM@csn.org> <1993Feb1.164628.19846@cbnewsj.cb.att.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cognition.pa.dec.com
In-reply-to: dwex@cbnewsj.cb.att.com's message of Mon, 1 Feb 1993 16:46:28 GMT

I agree with David Wexelblat's analysis of the TI340x0/TIGA market.  I have
a full set of technical manuals for the 340x0, and it looks like it would be
fairly easy to get an assembler up and running for it, but the fine work of
building a stub library into the Xfree server bottom half, and getting the
neccessary code downloaded into the 340x0's DRAM, will be very hard and just
about totally nonportable from one card to the next.  TIGA is an interface to
code that you can run, but there is no standard among TIGA cards for how you
actually get the TIGA code downloaded or how you get any other code downloaded
for that matter.

It's just not worth it.  Given that a 928-based card will run about $329, and
have equivilent performance, I'm going to take my $2500 340x0 board out behind
the barn and shoot it.
--
Paul Vixie, DEC Network Systems Lab	
Palo Alto, California, USA         	"Don't be a rebel, or a conformist;
<vixie@pa.dec.com> decwrl!vixie		they're the same thing, anyway.  Find
<paul@vix.com>     vixie!paul		your own path, and stay on it."  -me