fostel@cscadm.ncsu.edu (Gary Fostel) (03/28/90)
I am about to write a driver for a graphics board to be installed on
a SysV system running on a largish PC/AT platform. The board we are
testing with is a Targa graphics card tht does simple frame grabs and
displays and eventually this will be replaced by a "compatible" board
from Matrox called an Illuminator. The targa is very widely used under
PC/DOS and perhaps, maybe, pretty please, also by someone else under
sysV unix.
The driver is simplicity itself compared to most drivers for
a graphics subsystem, but alas we do not have sources for the UNIX
code nor do we have the exhorbitantly priced manuals from AT&T that
explain in detail how to write and install character and block drivers
for a SysV 386 UNIX. (They want $350 for this and it may be worth
it, but due to budget troubles here, paper clips and paper for xeroxing
are considered precious.)
Does anyone have those AT&T manuals and recommend them highly enough
to scrape up the money to buy them? Is the 386 SysV enough like
other "generic" unix systems that I can assume common kernel functions
are there with the names I expect? Not having the sources to this
UNIX guts my prefered approach of stealing code from other drivers
and adjusting as needed until it stops crashing....
If the lic. rules allow, even the sources for a simple SysV driver
might help so I could see what std kernel functions I can use. Not
sure about the legality of it.
Thanks for any suggestions. (Thanks even more if someone has already
done this for a Targa board and is feeling very generous towards a
poor state university down on its luck.)
----gary----
Gary Fostel
fostel@cscadm.ncsu.edu
Department of Computer Science
North Carolina State University
(919) 737-3195root@nebulus.UUCP (Dennis S. Breckenridge) (03/28/90)
In article <1990Mar28.045430.6491@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> fostel@cscadm.UUCP (Gary Fostel) writes: > > Does anyone have those AT&T manuals and recommend them highly enough > to scrape up the money to buy them? Is the 386 SysV enough like > other "generic" unix systems that I can assume common kernel functions > are there with the names I expect? Not having the sources to this I could not think of writing a driver without the BCS manuals. They are invaluable! Be aware that they are porting base specific (read that as 3B2/**) but it is the only place, short of the source, to get a list of kernel functions. The second part of the equation is procuring a copy of the Integrated Software Design Guide for the 386. This gives a good overview of a simple device driver, how to install it in the 386 driver layout, etc... Spend the 350 + whatever the ISDG is worth. I have done quite a bit of driver work without these manuals in the past an I found I was spending more time reverse engineering parts of the O/S than generating new code. Now driver work comes easy! ;-) -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dennis S. Breckenridge (604) 277-7413 dennis@nebulus.uucp VE7TCP EMACS: Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping! -----------------------------------------------------------------------------