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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!newshost.nla.gov.au!act.news.telstra.net!imci3!imci4!newsfeed.internetmci.com!sgigate.sgi.com!nntp-hub2.barrnet.net!news.Stanford.EDU!usenet From: vladimir@Burner.dsg.stanford.edu (Vladimir Vukicevic) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Why to not buy Matrox Millennium Date: 24 Mar 1996 19:49:58 GMT Organization: DSG, Stanford University Lines: 51 Message-ID: <VLADIMIR.96Mar24114958@Burner.dsg.stanford.edu> References: <4j21ph$crr@slappy.cs.utexas.edu> <4j36ev$prl@news.Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE> NNTP-Posting-Host: burner.dsg.stanford.edu In-reply-to: Thomas.Weihrich@Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE's message of 24 Mar 96 09:45:32 GMT Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.apps:13614 comp.os.linux.development.system:19941 comp.os.linux.x:27508 comp.os.linux.hardware:34237 comp.os.linux.setup:47038 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:281 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:2763 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:2541 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:15936 In article <4j36ev$prl@news.Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE> Thomas.Weihrich@Informatik.Uni-Oldenburg.DE (Thomas Weihrich) writes: > > I perfectly understand Matrox's decision not to give away details on > their cards and programming interface. They are afraid of reverse > engineering - as are many of the pc card vendors - did you ever care to > read Adaptec's policy on giving out their hardware documentation (and I > do not mean jumper settings) ? I wasn't asking for their chip designs, but merely information about what bytes need to go where to make the card draw stuff. Many other manufacturers, such as BusLogic, have not been hurt at all by making their documentation available -- they have been helped, because BusLogic has the best support and the highest performance out of any of the Linux PCI SCSI drivers (perhaps this is the same for the BSD's as well). Matrox mentioned that they "are not like Cirrus or Diamond that uses a Generic S3 chip set [to] which every one has the source code" -- I don't see how you can have the 'source code' to a chip, unless they're referring to the actual chip designs. But even if they were, there are no companies making clone S3 chips now. Diamond used to have a policy similar to Matrox's regarding programming information -- they have since changed it, and it hasn't hurt them a bit. > Matrox did point at a source of information - X Inside. > > It is however a bit unlikely that X Inside will hand out technical > details on the Matrox cards as their developers did sign a non > disclosure agreement with Matrox. Which means that if you want to use > a Matrox card you will have to buy the X Inside X server. > BTW, their X server is excellent. I am using it and I like it a lot. > X Inside has an OpenGL implementation for their X server available > and does sell it a reasonable amount of money. It may be a bit expensive > for those though who want everything for free. Yes; but X Inside won't be any help getting a hardware-accelerated OpenGL implementation up.. in an earlier mail message, they are still finishing up software-only OpenGL, and will only take a look at hardware acceleration in the future -- mainly because (I figure) the only card which they currently support which can support hardware acceleration is the Millennium. I don't see what Matrox has to lose -- but perhaps they see it as that they don't have enough to gain. They definitively already make too much to be this arrogant; they target DOS, Windows 95, and Windows NT CAD and 3D users obviously -- they couldn't care less about Unix (even 3D on unix). I'm even surprised that there is a NeXTSTEP driver for the Millennium (I figure that NeXT had to write it). > Thomas Weihrich -- Vladimir Vukicevic -- vladimir@pobox.com