From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 22:50:58 -0400
From: rob@plan9.att.com rob@plan9.att.com
Subject: Does Plan 9 use graphics hardware
Topicbox-Message-UUID: 23f5557a-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025
Message-ID: <19950913025058.SX7mMmCAUttWG4AH4dw8rjaYZAtOSbknydAYgdHguXA@z>

>Does Plan 9 use hardware graphics accelerators?  If not, does the design
>allow efficient use of graphics accelerator hardware or does it require
>a dumb frame buffer?

It doesn't support such accelerators, but there are several ways to
consider adding support.  One might hide the interface between the
existing /dev/bitblt etc. files, so all programs can use the accelerator
on that hardware.  One might add new interface files, /dev/graphics
for example, that interested programs could look for to see if the
device is available, falling to the old way if the open fails.
The important point is, if possible and reasonable, to make the
interface available via files so that remote programs can access
the graphical hardware.

-rob