From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Feb 18 12:42:43 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA29982 for hackers-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 12:42:43 -0800 (PST) Received: from genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au [129.127.96.120]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA29972 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 12:42:36 -0800 (PST) Received: (from msmith@localhost) by genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au (8.8.2/8.7.3) id HAA06461; Wed, 19 Feb 1997 07:09:47 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith Message-Id: <199702182039.HAA06461@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: pcvt/132 columns In-Reply-To: from Hellmuth Michaelis at "Feb 18, 97 11:03:54 am" To: hm@kts.org Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 07:09:45 +1030 (CST) Cc: ccsanady@nyx.pr.mcs.net, joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, FreeBSD-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL28 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Hellmuth Michaelis stands accused of saying: > > In the PC world, there is already a generic graphis driver for setting the > state of the board available, its called BIOS. The only problem the free > BSD's have, is to access it. This is, of course, not really a useful solution. Please people, don't assume that the last decade has been devoid of programmers that understand the PC's video subsystem - none of the ideas that have been raised recently are original, and the fact that they haven't been implemented should tell you something very important. > If we could access the BIOS, it would be responsible for switching back and > forth into the card-supported video modes, and neither the console driver > nor the X server would have to care anymore about it. Yeah, and you're really going to trust the BIOS on the card to work in a non-DOS environment? Hell, even W95 isn't that stupid. If you're serious about using the BIOS, how about you sit down and work out - how to identify a 32-bit-happy VESA BIOS. - what external resources a sample of them require (memory assumptions, interrupt expectations, etc). With those two covered, it would be possible to use the BIOS for some things, but it's not a useful general solution. > hellmuth michaelis hm@kts.org hamburg, europe -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[