Subject: Re: Color X on Quadra 700
To: Jon , Tim McNamara <timmcn@bitstream.net>
From: Kazuyuki Inanaga <happyday@pp.iij4u.or.jp>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 02/19/2004 16:35:05
Hi,

At 9:05 AM -0800 04.2.14, Jon wrote:
>
>Sadly it's worse than that.
>http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=112180 says it only goes
>to 832x624x24bit.  The Q700 does not support 16-bit video modes at all.
>
>If it is left at 8-bit it can reach 1152x870.

Yes, exactly. Thanks.
I re-assembled my Quadra 700 with 2MB of VRAM yesterday for Video
support testing.
  "re-assemble" means that I usually install Wonbat (Q650 Logic Board)
  in Q700 because it's faster and I didn't know the following.

At 10:34 PM -0600 04.2.13, Frederick Bruckman wrote:
>Sure. The spec is actually 4 30-pin SIMMS, or 128MB assuming that the
>largest SIMM available is 32MB, but in fact you can buy 64MB SIMMS, so
>it could go up to 256MB. NetBSD/mac68k is good to 2GB, at least, or
>more than you can put into any known Mac.

Does someone have any information about 30-pin 32MB or 64MB SIMM?
I run Google and found a few 30-pin 64MB SIMM, but it's someting special
and it doesn't seem to work on Quadra 700.

Anyway, I put 6 x 256KB VRAM (total: 2MB) on Q700.
As Jon pointed, it shows the following on MacOS 7.5.5.

Video Memory 2MB    VRAM (6x256K):
 Resolution
  640 x 480      24-bit
  832 x 624      24-bit
1024 x 768      n/a-bit
1152 x 870      8-bit

On NetBSD-1.6.1, only 256 colours (8 bpp) depth setting in the Booter
works properly.
In Thousands or Millions of colours, console shows ugly, broken lines,
and also 'startx' fails with;

>This is not a fatal error.
>Couldn't set video mode to desired depth.
>I gather there is no video ROM driver present for this display.
>X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).

I remember "Known problems with this Xserver";
ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/mac68k/contrib/Xmac68kColor/README

>* Doesn't work on some PowerBooks.
>* Doesn't work at all in DirectColor. Doesn't even fail gracefully!
>* Lies about which depths it supports. "xdpyinfo" returns every
>  conceivable depth -- even ones it can never support. It should only
>  report the current depth, since there's no mode switching, i.e., it
>  only supports the resolution that Mac OS was booted into when the
>  NetBSD Booter invoked the kernel.

I don't understand this exactly, just I know that Q700 + ColorX has
some problem(s) in 16 bpp.

At 10:13 PM -0600 04.2.13, Tim McNamara wrote:
>
>I'm running 1.6.1 on a Quadra
>700 with just the onboard video.  Seems to be limited to 256 colors and
>as such the rendering is pretty horrible visually and quite slow- but
>it *does* work and that's really something.  Nice to see color, even
>garish color.

2MB of VRAM makes a difference from onBoard VRAM 512K (256 colors)
even though ColorX runs at 8 bpp. 8 bpp (256 colors) X is not enough for
graphic of course, but not so bad for text in twm.
(Windowmaker is my favorite, and it shows ugly icons within 8 bpp ..)
Quadra 700 with 69MB runs X not "quite slow", it's 25MHz, so so.

>I've thought about changing the colormap to grey scale, but haven't
>done so yet, to see if the desktop is more legible.  Would performance
>and color rendering be better with a NuBus video card?  If so, is there
>a "best" option?

I tried "Futura II LX" (supported NuBus video card), but unfortunately
it goes down "uvm_fault, db> " on Q700. I don't remember any supported
NuBus video card better than Q700 onBoard Video.
(Other high-end NuBus video cards, such as Radius Thunder IV GX, are
not supported yet.)

Does anyone run Q700 ColorX with 16 bpp?

>I've also only got 20 MB RAM; IIRC the Quadra 700 will support up to 64
>MB under Mac OS- will it address all of that under NetBSD?

Yes, 4 x 16MB and 4MB onBoard, total 68MB.

dmesg:
Apple Macintosh Quadra 700  (68040)
cpu: delay factor 800
total memory = 69632 KB
avail memory = 60364 KB
using 896 buffers containing 3584 KB of memory

It's a good idea to inclease the size of RAM and VRAM.

Thanks,
Kazu Inanaga