on 3/12/00 8:54 AM, Monroe Williams at monroe@pobox.com wrote something
like:
 
> Here's a couple of questions for the list:
> 
> - If someone wanted to add knowledge of certain video hardware to
> NetBSD-macppc with the intention of supporting resolution switching and bit
> depth changes in the console, where would be the best/most proper/least
> insane place for said person to start?  A new device that attached instead
> of ofb* on this hardware?

    Definitely, attach it directly to whatever bus it happens to be on.
(forward thinking to eventual NuBus PPC support) As a side thought, I think
it would be pretty neat/helpful/useless to be able to use wscons and break
up the video to a raster console (NetBSD) on one virtual screen and have OF
on another smaller virtual screen. Just a thought.

> - Is there any infrastructure in place for changing console video modes in
> other NetBSD ports?  (ioctls, command line utilities, etc.)

    As far as my limited knowledge goes me thinks i386 is the only port that
has all of the above. What port pmax does since 90% of us are using fixed
freq. frame buffers, is to change the size of the font like NetBSD does in
OF. It shouldn't be too hard to pass res. switching flags to the PPC kernel
though, and by far a much better solution.
 
> - Has anyone talked to the XFree86 folks about support for accelerated X on
> NetBSD-macppc?  It looks like they already support NetBSD-i386 and LinuxPPC
> (and Linux for alpha as well), and their developer page states that they
> refuse to include any GPL or LGPL code in their core distribution.
> (Kindred spirits to the NetBSD project?  Hmmm...)

    Well they have drivers for just about every mainstream pci/AGP graphics
card including Rage 128. I had inquired a bit back about how dissimilar
PC/Mac versions of the same ATI cards are. (i.e. All In Wonder vs. XClaimVR)
I'm sure the XFree86 source would probably be the best place to start on
figuring out X support, which you should be able to reverse engineer console
support into NetBSD. (rcons maybe?)

    The biggest hurdle to all of this is as always, getting it organized and
getting started. 


    Just my non-informed && likely completely wrong $.02



    Chris
-- 
    
    "I use to be indecisive, now I'm not so sure..."