From: dwex@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (david.e.wexelblat) Subject: Re: Free software and the future of support for Diamond products Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1992 00:08:51 GMT
In article <1992Sep12.035549.4743@zeos.com> kgermann@zeos.com (Ken Germann) writes:
> In article <1992Sep11.124831.10108@crd.ge.com> davidsen@crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
> >In article <1992Sep10.130359.24767@cbnewsj.cb.att.com>, dwex@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (david.e.wexelblat) writes:
> >
> >| Well, one of the responses to our Diamond mail survey was from Rick Kemp
> >| at SCO. I quote:
> >|
> >| We have no plans on supporting their cards at anything but
> >| 640x480 resolution. They have refused to tell us how their
> >| cards work, and we have told all of our distributors to
> >| discontinue carrying them (Gateway 2000 and Zeos).
> >|
> >| So we'll see. The fact that SCO is having trouble doesn't bode well
> >| for our winning this battle.
> >
> > Interesting, since SCO has a stealth X driver in their directory on
> >uunet. I have very little information about it beyond that.
> >--
> The solution for the support of X/Windows in the Freeware arena or
> any other arena would be to design a VESA based driver for these
> software packages. It would greatly simplify the need to design
> specific drivers for specific cards. Granted the VESA drivers may not
> take advantage of the hardware specific to the card; but, there would
> still be a driver available until someone changes their minds.
> How difficult would it be to support a VESA based driver under Unix?
> This would be a place to start.
>
>
> The problems with the support arose with the Speedstar 24X and Diamonds
> proprietary technology used on the card. The Speedstar and Stealth
> are both supported by ODT 1.x and 2.x now. The generic TSENG drivers
> , I am told should work for the Speedstar (ET4000) based card.
>
>
>
> --
> Ken Germann ZZZZ EEEE OO SSS ZEOS International, Ltd.
> support@zeos.com INET Z E O O S Technical Support Dept.
> uunet!zeos!support UUCP Z EE O O SS 530 5th Ave N.W.
> 800-228-5390 VOICE Z E O O S St. Paul, MN 55112
> 612-633-7337 ZZZZ EEEE OO SSS FAX 612-633-4607
[Sorry it took me so long to get back into the fray - I've been on vacation]
Unless I've missed something, a VESA compliant board supports a BIOS standard,
not a register-level standard. Unix, like other protected-mode operating
systems, does not use the BIOS at all, except during boot. So there's
no such thing as a VESA-compliant driver under Unix, unless someone hacks
the kernel to allow this to work.
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