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From: taylorj@ecs.ecs.csus.edu (Jon M. Taylor)
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,misc.consumers
Subject: Re: Why not buy Matrox Millennium
Date: 17 Aug 1996 01:47:53 GMT
Organization: California State University, Sacramento
Lines: 62
Message-ID: <4v38c9$u8@csusac.ecs.csus.edu>
References: <4j21ph$crr@slappy.cs.utexas.edu> <8720hb712j.fsf@xeno.xinside.com> <4uqa59$gn6@idefix.cs.kuleuven.ac.be>
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In article <4uqa59$gn6@idefix.cs.kuleuven.ac.be>,
Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@cs.kuleuven.ac.be> wrote:
>In article <8720hb712j.fsf@xeno.xinside.com>, roell@xinside.com (Thomas Roell) writes:
>|> In article <4uopgf$si4@cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu> jmcc@m5.vi.ri.cmu.edu (Jason Mcmullan) writes:
>|>
>|> > * Make sure user has the 'FooBar' chipset like he told me..
>|>
>|> That code is alredy in place.
>|>
>|> > * Do the X thang...
>|> > - VT Switch TIME!
>|> > * What size of screen did the user tell me he used? (XxY)
>|> > * Set card to that screen mode if possible, 80x25 otherwise
>|> > * ioctl(vt_Device,VT_RESIZEX,..) /* See include/linux/vt.h */
>|>
>|> I am thinking along this line ;-) However the code the sets a text
>|> mode would really belong into a kernel device driver. LINUX right now
>|> uses a dirty hack to abuse the normal BIOS to set the text mode
>|> initially during the boot phase.
>
>All you need is a frame buffer device, like in Linux/m68k! Only the kernel
>needs to know how to play with the graphics hardware. No user program ever has
>to care about this.
The Linux-GGI project is trying to create exactly this. Check
out HTTP://synergy.caltech.edu/~ggi for more info.
>|> Actually given the upper idea about moving stuff like this into a
>|> kernel driver anyway raises the question for me, why to use a textmode
>|> at all. Why not simply switch into a graphics mode, and draw bitmap
>|> characters directly. Sun SPARC is doing that, all the PowerPCs are
>|> doing that as well ...
>
>Yes, Amiga/Atari do the same under Linux/m68k because they don't have a real
>textmode.
You'll take a rather large speed hit by doing something like this
on a PC. Also, it will take up video memory unnecessarily. We have been
kicking around the idea of using unneeded video memory as a fast buffer
cache via the GGI, and a non-textmode-textmode would definitely cut into
efficiency here... Also, there will need to be some rethinking of what
constitutes a 'console' when we move beyond what we have now.
It would be a lot more flexible though - you could set your
console's character dimensions to 8x100 if you wanted |->. Seriously
though, it would also enable things like using stroked fonts, integration
of alternate character sets like chinese big5 into the stadard console,
more than sixteen possible text colors, multi-colored characters, a
Screen-like utility wherein the separate subscreens could be in different
video modes (play Doom and read your e-mail at the same time and on the
same screen!), etc etc etc.
Still, for most text-console-based things, the textmodes on PC
video cards are more than adequate, and faster too. Having separate
text-only video modes available is probably the only smart design decision
ever made in the history of PC hardware |->.
--
Jon Taylor = <taylorj@gaia.ecs.csus.edu> | <http://gaia.ecs.csus.edu/~taylorj>
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