mrspock@hubcap.UUCP (Steve Benz) (04/10/88)
I've been kicking around the notion of buying a Wyse 700 or Amdek 1280 and writing a console device driver for it. For those unfamiliar with the hardware, those two systems (* which are completely identical *) are affordable (best price ~= $650) 15" b/w monitors and display adapter cards. They have a 1280x700 max resolution and can emulate a bunch of other graphics standards. But the real claim to fame is the fact that they can pull a pretty-darn-readable-for-somebody-with 20/20-vision 160x50 text screen. Think of the trouble you could make with four 80x25 screens on the same picture tube! Anyway, I know some of you folks have written some console drivers, and I know a bit about the subject myself. I was wondering if any of you might be interested in such a project, or tell me if such an animal already exists. A cheaper alternative might involve, say the new Hercules card (plus?) which has a 132x50 display mode. I'd jump at the chance to talk about that with you too. If interested, please send e-mail. - Steve mrspock@hubcap.clemson.edu ...!gatech!hubcap!mrspock
dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) (04/11/88)
I had visions of doing just that, but it appears that the current (2.2.x) Xenix
console driver is pretty much full of hard-wired knowledge of the most common
devices (Mono, CGA, EGA, Herc) with no ability to add a new "console" device
via some sort of devsw[] table, which makes transparent support of new devices
without source rather difficult. This is coming from my discussions with
people at both SCO and Microsoft. The recurrent statement was "this is one
part of the system which has to be rewritten", although I haven't heard whether
the rewrite is or isn't forthcoming. You can write a special-purpose device
driver, of course; it just would be nice to have most everything work within
the confines of the console driver.
In hi-res graphics mode, the Wyse 700 needs 128K of memory, but you only get
a 64K window at A0000. Even and odd scan lines are selected via a bit in
an IO port, sort of a CGA run rampant.
--
Steve Dyer
dyer@harvard.harvard.edu
dyer@spdcc.COM aka {ihnp4,harvard,husc6,linus,ima,bbn,m2c}!spdcc!dyer