Subject: Re: more tested peripherals on the TS-7200
To: Toru Nishimura <locore64@alkyltechnology.com>
From: Jesse Off <joff@embeddedARM.com>
List: port-arm
Date: 01/10/2005 08:05:14
> The usefulness of VGA video card is limited.  The reason why VGA
> product is still persistent in embeded market is, ... DOS compatiblity.
> RISC can not run MS-DOS.  Fancy 16 colour screen software is not
> available for RISC.

I tend to agree on limited usefulness of VGA in embedded.  However, not
having embedded video is one of the reasons it was decided that the board
be a sub-port of evbarm rather than a port of its own.  Based on that, it
seems something along the lines of video capability may have merit for
NetBSD, if nothing else than from a marketing standpoint among other
potential NetBSD users.

There are some cute (literally, QT :-)) APIs that are more applicable to
doing graphics on non-x86 embedded systems.  For a lot of embedded uses,
even that may be overkill when all the designer really wants is access to
a framebuffer.  Running X itself is actally not that far off with 200Mhz+
SoC's.

Its also worth mentioning that Cirrus Logic has embedded video on its
other ep93xx chips.  Its tailed for >=QVGA graphics on LCD/TFT.

We use DOC's on a lot of our x86 products.  Our experience with them has
been similar to yours (bad).

//Jesse Off