On Fri, 5 May 2000, Michael Lorenz wrote:

> So what - we need to know what endianness the framebuffer expects and
> code the rest in C-macros like hton and so on...

Something like that.  The old raster console code, while unpleasant in
other ways, did seem to get this kind of thing right.  Have a look in
sys/dev/rcons/raster_op.c for some of the fun involved.

> would be bitchy to debug but sounds rather straight forward... btw. I
> never saw a framebuffer that disagreed with it's host CPU regarding
> endianness... not that this would mean anything.

What do PCI framebuffers look like?  I suspect some of them might be at
least a little fun.

> > Actually two additional oscillators -- there's a 25.125 MHz one for
> > 640x480 modes.  Anyway, if you want to code this, feel free.  I'm not
> > about to, but I'll incorporate worthwhile patches.
> I always thought that the a3k and the like where able to do 640x480 ? I
> never had one...

It can, but it does them by running off the 24 MHz clock and hoping the
monitor doesn't notice the difference.

> Well, according to the manual my A5k knows about 37 screen modes. Most
> of the time the 8bit mode is the 4bit mode +1 except 800x600. ( Sorry, I
> don't have the manual in front of me... so I don't know the real
> numbers. ) But it seems that most modes were - say, a="some mode with 1
> bit colour" then a+1="same thing with 2 bits", a+2="4bit", a+3="8bit".
> Should be pretty easy to do in BASIC. 

Yes.  The exceptions I can remember are 0/11/12/15, 1/9/13 and 16/17.

> >  You either want the name of a disc partition or of a network interface.
> ok, so next time I type "ea0" and expect some RARP from the network
> board ?

Yes, though you'll need the kernel I haven't uploaded yet, which has
another Ether3 bug fixed and RARP/bootparam support.

> > > I have an A4k with 4MB gathering dust, but without keyboard, mouse and
> > > harddisk. Unfortunately it is in germany.
> > Pity.  Such a thing would be very useful to me.
> Hmm, it's quite possible that I take a trip to London this summer. I
> could take the A4k with me but it isn't clear yet if the trip happens at
> all. You don't possibly know anyone who comes to Berlin anytime soon ?

I'm afraid not at present.  It may be worth e-mailing <www@netbsd.org> to
get it listed on <URL:http://www.netbsd.org/contrib/hardware.html>,
though, with a note that it's stuck in Berlin at the moment.

-- 
Ben Harris