Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 07:09:45 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au> To: hm@kts.org Cc: ccsanady@nyx.pr.mcs.net, joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, FreeBSD-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: pcvt/132 columns Message-ID: <199702182039.HAA06461@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> In-Reply-To: <m0vwmOw-00001YC@ernie.kts.org> from Hellmuth Michaelis at "Feb 18, 97 11:03:54 am"
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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 [[
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