Has any one tried XFree86 4.1.0 release? It claims to have support for the
cg14...

-----Original Message-----
From: port-sparc-owner@netbsd.org [mailto:port-sparc-owner@netbsd.org]On
Behalf Of Erik E. Fair
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 5:05 PM
To: Simon J. Gerraty
Cc: port-sparc@netbsd.org
Subject: Re: xsrc/xfree works on netbsd/sparc


The on-board graphics in an SPARCstation 20 is the cgfourteen (aka
"SX"). It will only work if there is a VSIMM in the correct slot on
the motherboard; otherwise it won't even probe. VSIMMs for this are
strange looking RAM modules, with a sidecar & edge connector. They
come in 4MB and 8MB sizes. There are two slots for them on the
motherboard, but they do not combine - the second one is for a second
head, for which you must also have a funny Sbus module with a 13w3
connector on it. I think there is also an internal connector cable
for that.

Alas, NetBSD (and Linux) appear to support this video device only in
cgthree (unaccelerated 8-bit) emulation. What we need is for someone
with the motivation and skill to fix that, or someone to prod Sun
into releasing the source code to their driver(s) for this device so
that we can write our own using those as a reference (it's unlikely
that Sun ever produced a register-level programming manual for this
thing; I'd bet that the source code is the only documentation that
there is). Given the evolution of graphics and the age of this
device, it can be argued that there is no intellectual property left
in it worth protecting. The trick will be to convince Sun of that.

	Erik <fair@clock.org>