From owner-freebsd-emulation Sat Jan 24 16:15:28 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id QAA25755 for freebsd-emulation-outgoing; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 16:15:28 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-emulation@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from word.smith.net.au (ppp6.portal.net.au [202.12.71.106]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id QAA25749 for ; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 16:15:21 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from mike@word.smith.net.au) Received: from word (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by word.smith.net.au (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA00414; Sun, 25 Jan 1998 03:25:47 +1030 (CST) Message-Id: <199801241655.DAA00414@word.smith.net.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Donn Miller cc: emulation@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: doscmd & vga (raw mode) In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 24 Jan 1998 07:06:14 -0000." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 03:25:46 +1030 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-emulation@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org This message should have been posted to the -emulation list (to which it has been redirected). > I had a question about doscmd... I know that raw mode isn't yet > supported, and neither is vga mode. Does it need to cooperate with > syscons via the libvgl interface, or does it directly access video memory > via the bios/other? There is no "vga mode" as such. Raw mode works by taking over the console from the console driver (like X does), and placing the video hardware directly in the hands of the DOS application. > Does raw mode work on BSDI? I tried executing a > self-displaying picture with doscmd -r picture.exe and got > doscmd: fatal error reading program text. What needs to be done to do > access VGA? Also, VGA should be doable under X, even though it would be > much tougher. What needs to be done, for raw mode: - The correct console ioctl() and mmap() calls need to be organised to switch into/out of raw mode. These are the console* functions in tty.c (and related gumpf). - Port I/O access needs to be provided to the video controller registers. - The video BIOS needs to be mapped into the process' address space, and its entry vectors dug up. VGA under X is quite doable, and probably not a lot tougher. > P.S. This is far fetched, but I thought I might even be possible to do a > non-vga (libvga, syscons) port of netscape since the sources are going to > be released soon. This could be tough. It would be excruciatingly difficult; you would have to effectively replace Motif with your own GUI library. -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\