From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Sep 22 16:02:08 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id QAA02514 for hackers-outgoing; Sun, 22 Sep 1996 16:02:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from phaeton.artisoft.com (phaeton.Artisoft.COM [198.17.250.211]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id QAA02484 for ; Sun, 22 Sep 1996 16:02:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from terry@localhost) by phaeton.artisoft.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id PAA01275; Sun, 22 Sep 1996 15:59:15 -0700 From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199609222259.PAA01275@phaeton.artisoft.com> Subject: Re: splash-page on bootup.. To: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au (Michael Smith) Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 15:59:15 -0700 (MST) Cc: terry@lambert.org, jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com, brandon@glacier.cold.org, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org In-Reply-To: <199609221100.UAA20269@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> from "Michael Smith" at Sep 22, 96 08:30:32 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] 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 > > > You're in a difficult situation... even a static GIF image would probably > > > be difficult because you don't know what you have for console until you > > > have probed the video.. animation I would think is out of the question > > > due to the way I understand the kernel works during the probe phase. > > > > Animation is possible using color register cycling. This is how the > > "startrek" bar of the Microsoft "Plus! Pack" is animated. > > The problem with animation during startup is that during the device > probes (the bits that the original proposition was trying to cover > with the splash (bad idea IMHO, but I understand the reasoning)), you > can't guarantee that you will get your interrupt regularly to do your > palette cycles. The animation would be cheezy to say the least. I > don't actually thingk that animation is terribly useful. This is only because we are stupid and use DELAY() instead of a calibrated timer list of one-shot outcall functions. Using a spinloop is just inherently stupid. There is no reason why you couldn't interleave operations, other than the facts that DELAY() is a spinloop and the code is not written correctly to allow kernel preemption by timer outcall. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.