Re: NetBSD 5.0 and SPARCstation 5 not a lucky combination

[der Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

> 1234569.123456789.123456789.9.12345678*

> I've left it at the default (which I think is something like
> 1152x864x76).

Unless you have a relatively unusual monitor connected,
1152x900xsomething.  The boot-time message should say.

> Given that an extremely similar issue has been reported on another
> 170 MHz SS5, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps it's some sort of race
> condition that's evident with the faster CPU.  In another response
> that seems possibly relevant:
>> I _have_ had cg6s wedge, when software doesn't drain the command
>> queue often enough.
> Are there any cg6 experts that would like to comment on this?

Actually, much of this could be explained by assuming that locking is
broken somewhere, so that the registers set up before writing a
character get stomped on by something else before the character gets
written.  I'm having trouble explaining characters misplaced by less
than a character cell any other way.  (Well, short of broken hardware,
which seems implausible under the circumstances.)

I don't know the cg6 enough to be sure, but I suspect that postulating
suitable stompage could also explain the wedges.  (The problems I sawa
were that my aargon code - which draws directly on cg6s - would wedge
when run on certain cg6s but not others.  Adding suitable drain calls,
waiting for the 0x10000000 bit to clear in the register at offset 0x10,
cured it for aargon.  (I've never seen any authoritative programmer's
doco on the cg6; I don't know whether this is the correct fix or not.)

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