Re: [9fans] ATI Xpert98 "OEM" Edition - doesn't work with Plan9

["Douglas A. Gwyn" <gwyn@arl.army.mil>]

Keith Nash wrote:
> I have obtained an ATI Xpert 98 "OEM" card.  Like the real Xpert 98 it uses
> the Rage XL chipset and has 8Mb of RAM.

According to ATI's Web site before its recent restructuring,
there are actually a couple of different chipsets (XL vs. LT PRO)
used for products named "Xpert 98".

> 0xC0080  CB 90 90 0D 0A 41 54 49 20 52 41 47 45 20 53 44   .....ATI RAGE SD
> 0xC0090  52 41 4D 20 42 49 4F 53 20 50 2F 4E 20 31 31 33   RAM BIOS P/N 113
> Is there any way to get this card to work with Plan9?

Yes, the Plan 9 installation guide (troubleshooting section)
should explain how to do this.  Basically, edit vgadb to
add another entry that matches a unique portion of the BIOS,
e.g. at C0085 "ATI RAGE SDRAM".  Then it might either work or
"sort of" work, the latter case consisting of bad framing in
Rio (multiple panes, tearing, or something of the sort), in
which case the MACH64 driver needs to be hacked to use
different timing.  (Probably easier to get somebody in the US
to ship you a retail Xpert 98.)  Don't forget there are two
vgadb files, one on the floppy and one in /n/9fat (use Plan 9
command "9fat:" before trying to edit the latter); once you
have the system running you need to also fix up the /n/9fat
version and reboot.