Re: QVSS wscons driver

[Dave McGuire <mcguire%neurotica.com@localhost>]

On 01/03/2015 09:25 PM, Charles Dickman wrote:
> I spent some of the Christmas break from work writing a wscons driver
> for the QVSS (VCB01) video controller. qv.c in the NetBSD source tree
> is ancient (from Ultrix?), so it was pretty much useless for anything
> but a hardware reference. The video portion is based on the smg driver
> and serial port/keyboard on the dz driver.
> 
> The board is split into two devices: wsdisplay attaches to qv for the
> video portion and wskbd attaches to lkkbd attaches to qvaux for the
> keyboard portion.

  Very nice work.  This is great to see.  Thank you!

> The mouse is similar, but I don't have a DEC serial
> mouse. You can see the boot messages below.

  No mouse?  Send me your shipping address in private mail.

> Not sure if anybody else has the hardware to run it, but I can share.
> It would be cool to get it into the NetBSD source tree, but it needs
> some test and polish.

  Hardware to run it?!  Jeeze.  There are four or five such systems
within half an hour's drive of here (at different places) and probably
twenty machines here at my place. =)

> It may be academic now, but I have a few questions:
> 
> Are there schematics for this board? Google failed me here.

  I haven't seen them online.  I *might* have them on paper.  I will
have to dig.

> I'm using this with a KA650 processor, does the KA650 support the
> VCB01 as a console?  It doesn't do it automatically with what I have
> here.

  I think it should, but I'm pretty sure the only framebuffer I've ever
used with a KA650 is a VCB02 so I can't say for certain.  What release
of firmware do you have on your KA650, is it possibly an older one?

  I know lots of stuff was added to the KA650s ROMs after they were
introduced, and I know the very early KA650 ROMs were little more than
the KA630 code re-jiggered to run on a KA650.  Dusty memories suggest
the KA650 was rushed to market before it was quite done; maybe the
earlier ROM code didn't do VCB01s.

                 -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ/3
New Kensington, PA