Subject: Re: wscons, pccons & pcvt
To: None <dribbling@thekeyboard.com>
From: Andrew Gillham <gillham@vaultron.com>
List: port-i386
Date: 10/03/2000 11:50:43
dribbling@thekeyboard.com writes:
> Hello Andrew!
> 
>   AG> Also the PCCONS console will be around for some time.
>     > It is a plain text console without any fancy EGA/VGA
>     > features or virtual consoles, etc.  It should work on
>     > anything, even cards that wscons may not have been
>     > tested on yet.
> 
> Sounds good.  Does it emulate a VT100 (or something) or is
> it a "glass teletype"?

It is a "pc3" terminal emulator.  (whatever that is. :)

>    AG> ...if you are low on RAM, etc then pccons should work
>      > for you.
> 
> I read somewhere that pccons was used on boot diskettes as
> it's smaller than things like wscons. Any idea just how much
> smaller?  I'm guessing this is something that gets compiled
> into the kernel, am I right?  Do you think I'm likely to run
> up against something important that won't run without
> wscons?

I did some testing with small kernels last week or so and I think wscons
accounted for around 120-150KB, but I would have to test it again.

If something doesn't work with pccons then it is broken. :-)

Seriously though, the only programs that need to really know what kind
of console driver you have a things like X.  And X works with both.

Also, as Manuel noted wscons runs on different platforms that i386, but
on the i386 only the "PC" type video cards work.  AFAIK anyway.  A DEC
tga card (PCI) from an Alpha won't work in an i386 machine.

Meanwhile the list of supported non-PC devices in wscons is available if
you do a 'man wsdisplay' on a recent NetBSD box.

-Andrew