Subject: Re: LEDs, LCDs and so on (was Re: More SPARCbook insanity )
To: Michael <macallan18@earthlink.net>
From: Greywolf <greywolf@starwolf.com>
List: port-sparc
Date: 04/18/2005 09:56:30
[Thus spake Michael ("M: ") 7:50am...]

M:
M:                          `.'     becomes `_*'
M:                          `-'     becomes `_***'
M:                          ` '     becomes `__'
M:                          `\n'    becomes `____'

Problem:

It looks as though '.' will collide with 'n', '-' will collide with 'U',
space collides with 'M'.

Not well thought out.

M:      The sequence is repeated after a one second pause.
M:
M: I didn't think about supporting morse code, but imagine a kernel panic on a box without serial interface(s) or any other way to get a 2nd console, the display taken over by XFree which decides to panic. Flashing the panic message suddenly sounds like a good idea.
M: Not /quite/ what I was thinking about ( low-overhead but still generic interface for internal use by the kernel ) but why not give it a userland interface too. We'd probably need a few ioctl()s to gather information about a given indicator, like type, label ( well, most of the time we /will/ know the original purpose. Doesn't necessary mean we'd stick to it though ), status ( on/off, in use by some kernel driver or not... )
M: PCish Port 80 cards would also be something we could (ab)use, even on non-PC hardware.


				--*greywolf;
--