Re: Resurrecting the vax lcg framebuffer driver?

[Björn Johannesson <rherdware%yahoo.com@localhost>]

Hello again.

I sent this mail yesterday evening, I guess the list doesn't allow attachments?
After I wrote that mail Hans Rosenfeld dug up a version he had been working on
many years ago. Sadly, this did not work either.
Even though he said he had used it on a VLC.
Something seems different on this machine...
So it would be really great if people could try the version with
the acceleration code intact too. Links towards the end of this mail.

Original mail follows:
No luck getting the acceleration going, however I now have a
working unaccelerated version with colour support that can be console (no
serial console needed).

I did get ahold of Blaz, sadly he could not be of any real help as he
had misplaced/lost all the relevant documentation, notes and code
snippets he had when devoloping this (and the spx driver).
It is also like ten years ago so his memory was a bit fuzzy. :)
However I might have a lead on at least some of the documentation.

He did however think that the acceleration just might work on a
vaxstation 4000/60 with lcg framebuffer... (longshot)
If anyone on this list has one and would be willing to try that would be
great. Both using serial console and not. Please report back to me with
your findings (on or off this list). Note that it can hang your
vaxstation hard enough to necessitate a power cycle. Have fun. :)

Or perhaps someone would be willing to give me a /60? ;)

It would also be good if someone with a 4000/60 could try the
unaccelerated version. Just to make sure it still works on those
machines.

If you want to play with this copy lcg.c to src/sys/arch/vax/vsa,
uncomment both relevant lines in your kernel config ('lcg0 at' and
'wsdisplay at lcg0'), enable ttyw0 in /etc/ttys if you are using serial
console. You can also enable ttyw1, ttyw2... for more vt:s.
This is -current (7.99.1) tree but it should work on several earlier
releases.
The acceleration code is still in there but #ifdef'd out (LCG_NO_ACCEL).

If you don't want to or can't compile a kernel you can get them from
http://2.248.109.164/lcgfb.zip
http://2.248.109.164/lcg.c
both the accelerated and unaccelerated are in that zip file.

Relevant lines from dmesg:
lcg0 at vsbus0 csr 0x21801000 vec 440 ipl 15 maskbit 2
lcg0: framebuffer size 1280x1024, depth 8 (magic 0x5)
lcg0: using font QVSS (8x15), console size: 160x68
wsdisplay0 at lcg0 kbdmux 1

/Björn