Re: [9fans] Are nvidia-cards working with plan9?

[Lucio De Re <lucio@proxima.alt.za>]

On Mon, Oct 09, 2000 at 09:04:49AM +0000, Douglas A. Gwyn wrote:
>
> Lucio De Re wrote:
> > It still baffles me why nobody has produced a graphic card that
> > speaks a sensible protocol instead of being variously I/O and memory
> > mapped in the most unorthodox manners.
>
> A "sensible protocol" would be a flat frame buffer with
> a single color depth.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of

Surely that's not essential?  I'm thinking (but please keep in mind I'm
very much a graphics layman) of something like Tk's widgets and the means
to manipulate them as an extreme case.  3D, naturally, would require
extensions, but a language like Tcl, even if not necessarily to
everyone's tastes, would enable the construction of such extensions.  Of
course, one still needs the channel for the communication of commands and
responses between the graphic engine and the client, but is the above
idea really totally off the mark?

> > For that matter, why on earth did the mouse controller migrate
> > to the keyboard handler, when I have yet to see a single PC
> > clone with a video card that did not need a mouse?
>
> The mouse was never (on the PC platform) closely coupled
> with the display.  Typical PCs do not "need" a mouse, but
> it is more tedious to navigate in Windows via the keyboard.
>
Sorry, poor wording.  It migrated from the bus or the serial port, I
didn't mean to imply that it ever was on the display adapter.  I remember
Intel making some combination blit/mouse/network adapters in the late 80s
and early 90s, but they weren't terribly popular.  Then again, screen
capabilities in those days weren't exactly at the commodity level, and I
may be misremembering about the mouse as well.

My point is that graphics have more or less always been accompanied by
the mouse in the history of commodity computing.

> > The Ontel Amigo ... is it too late for that type of sensible
> > engineering to happen again?
>
> It really doesn't seem that such a design would be competitive
> today.
>
Considering the Tcl/Tk extreme measure mentioned above, I don't see the
obstacles.  Think Intel 860 (in today's terms) on the one side, and Power
PC on the user end.

> > The other question, unfortunately, is whether there is any room
> > for the double Steves of the world, I mean, garage engineering
> > making it big?
>
> I think you left out a "b".

Oops, I must more stupid than normally accounted for :-)  Private
explanation, please!  :-)  :-)  :-)

++L