From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed Dec 20 1: 8: 9 2000 From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Dec 20 01:08:08 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from newmail.netbistro.com (newmail.netbistro.com [204.239.167.35]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id C5A2237B402 for ; Wed, 20 Dec 2000 01:08:07 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 16651 invoked by uid 1020); 20 Dec 2000 09:08:06 -0000 Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 01:08:06 -0800 (PST) From: Jon Simola X-Sender: jon@newmail.netbistro.com To: Mike Smith Cc: Nathaniel G H , freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Text mode video operations In-Reply-To: <200012182142.eBILgCQ09290@mass.osd.bsdi.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: jon@netbistro.com Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Mon, 18 Dec 2000, Mike Smith wrote: > > Speaking of video operations... does anybody know where I can find > > some decent VGA programming documentation? (Or, if possible, someone > > who knows a few obscure details.) A lot of old VGA card manuals had the basic programming instructions, using INT 10h calls. By old, I mean ISA cards with less than 1Meg of RAM. Also check out Raplh Brown's Interrupt list at: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/ralf/pub/WWW/files.html It's got just about everything you could ever want to know about what Int 10h functions exist, and how to use them. > > I specifically need to know, if possible, how to display hardware- > > rendered character- and software-rendered pixel-based images on the > > same display at the same time. > > Standard VGA does not offer this functionality; your current approach is > the only way to go. I've done this before (back when my 386-25 was new). Int 10h func 09h will draw characters from the VGA ROM in a simple graphics mode (ie 13h, 320x200 8bit colour unbanked). Past that, I just wrote my own font renderer. In 3 years of assembly-level VGA programming I learned quite a few "obscure details" :) If you're trying this on recent hardware, I'd pretty much echo what Mike Smith said. You either BITBLT characters into your framebuffer, or use a font renderer (ala freetype). --- Jon Simola | "In the near future - corporate networks Systems Administrator | reach out to the stars, electrons and light ABC Communications | flow throughout the universe." -- GITS To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message