Subject: Re: cg12, cg14 drivers?
To: None <port-sparc@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Greg Earle <earle@isolar.Tujunga.CA.US>
List: port-sparc
Date: 02/03/1996 14:38:22
> On Fri, 2 Feb 1996 17:02:06 +1100 
>  Paul Mackerras <paulus@cs.anu.edu.au> wrote:
> 
>> Has anyone done drivers for the Sun CG12 and/or CG14 video cards?
>> Or where one would find the documentation for writing a driver?
> 
> No one's done them, to my knowledge.  You could probably call Sun and ask 
> nicely for docs, but they're fairly new cards, so I dunno...

The CG12 - a.k.a. the GS - is a moldy oldie now.  It's a 3-slot (!!!) SBus
card, so no one in their right mind would want one.  Not to mention the
fact that it's slower than a tortoise.  I used to run one all the time
(SS2/GS) when I was at Sun just so I could see all the software that broke
if you used a 24-bit default visual.

The CG14 - a.k.a. the SX - is of course much more recent/interesting.  But it
has some kind of funky interaction with the memory architecture, so without
docs there probably isn't a prayer at doing a proper driver for it.  And lord
knows, since the GX Sun has been tighter than a sphincter when it comes to
giving up graphics device docs ...

On the potential bright side (for us), the CG14 seems to be willing to
emulate (to some degree) a CG3 in a pinch); I accidentally fired up my
built-from-scratch Solaris R6 server on an SX system one day, and damned
if the thing didn't come up ...  (of course, no acceleration, etc. but hey)

	- Greg