Re: SS20 cg14 help

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

> [The SS20] can do both [8 and 24 bpp], at the same time.

Indeed.  It makes for a very usable system, with 8bpp's speed for
undemanding applications like terminal emulation but 24bpp available
when (comparatively) good colour is called for.  One of the first
things I did when I started using a cg14 was to build a ddx layer that
knows how to do both on the screen at once.

Not quite as nice as it would be if we knew, for example, how to use
the blitter, but still substantially faster than 24bpp by itself.

> The wsdisplay driver will run the console on the cg14 in 8 bit for
> speed and switch to 32bit for X, the wsfb driver should know which
> pixel format to use in both XFree86 and Xorg.

If wsdisplay can't describe both pixel formats - and how to select
between them - it sounds like a reason to not use wscons X, at least on
the cg14. :)

> There is a cg14 driver for XFree86 but all it does is to do the
> switch between 'native' 8bit and 24bit on its own and to provide a
> hardware cursor, which wsfb can do as well ( using the appropriate
> ioctl()s )

I'm a little surprised at the implication that nobody has already done
a both-depths-on-the-screen-at-once cg14 layer for recent X; If anyone
is interested in basing one on my dual-depth code, I'm happy to share.

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