Subject: Re: amidisplay: not a console?
To: Jukka Andberg <jandberg@NetBSD.org>
From: Gunther Nikl <gni@gecko.de>
List: port-amiga
Date: 07/22/2003 11:29:24
On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 08:50:42PM +0300, Jukka Andberg wrote:
> You seem to have figured out most of it by yourself but here's a summary:

  Yes, I managed to find some details after my request for help. Often one
  finds some answer only after one asked for help :-/

> - Console screen has fixed screen mode (640x400). If one needs to change
> that, the source of amidisplaycc needs to be modified. The first mode in
> its internal list is used for console screen.

  Why is there an entry for an wscons screen in /etc/ttys for ttyE0? Would
  enabling that one conflict with the console? I guess so, I did only enable
  screen 1, 2 and 3.

> - Other virtual terminals are configured in /etc/wscons.conf or with the
> wsconscfg utility. The 'screen type' parameter specifies the
> resolution/font size. Supported screen types are listed in man page of
> amidisplaycc (the term used there is display modes).

  I am still a little bit confused about the resolution. Some entries are in
  rows/line and some in pixel sizes. And then there is no way to query the
  display for the supported sizes but apparently thats a wscons limitation.

> - The grfabs code (which is also used by ite0/grf0) does the dirty
> work and decides the actual screen mode to use. The GRF_PAL, GRF_NTSC,
> GRF_AGA, etc options determine what kind of chipsets/modes are
> supported.

  I have an A4k with AGA. I thought I would only need GRF_AGA if I wanted
  real AGA screens but without GRF_AGA the display isn't initialized
  correctly. Is that a bug?

> >   L-Amiga or LALT-CTRL + function key. One surprising feature is the
> >   german keyboard encoding: switching to de (either manually or through
> >   /etc/wscons.conf) gives a german PC layout ;-) Having wscons for other
> 
> What's the surprise here? That it worked? ;)

  *g* I needed the bar (|) and apparently the key was dead and I found the
  key at its german PC location. I don't understand why its there since the
  german keys are based on the US-Amiga entry. With the US-Amiga encoding
  the bar key works (and the bar is at a different location on a real
  english PC keyboard) Strange.

> >   /dev/grf? would be nice, hm.
> >
> >   When I compiled a minimal wscons kernel I noticed that config activated
> >   NTSC despite the fact that I only have GRF_PAL in my config file. What
> >   is going on here?
> 
> No idea, there seems to be an open PR 3096 about it though.

  I missed that one. I manually removed GRF_NTSC from opt_amigaccons.h (?)
  but the kernel didn't work then.

> This is unfortunate as most of the screen types supported by amidisplaycc
> currently use screen height 400, which happens to coincide with the NTSC
> height, thus the grfabs code always selects an NTSC mode even if GRF_PAL
> is available. Screen types suitable for PAL should be added to
> amidisplaycc. Seems like the documentation could be improved too.

  First I didn't even know that there is a manpage for amidisplaycc ;-)
  Thanks for your work on amidisplaycc.

  Gunther

-- 
Linux is only free if your time has no value
 - Jamie Zawinsky