10 Aug
2012
10 Aug
'12
4:56 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Richard
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2012 5:52 PM
To: cctalk
Subject: Re: X Window server for NEC 7220
In article <002101cd7734$1216c7e0$364457a0$(a)YAHOO.COM>OM>,
"Andrew Lynch" <LYNCHAJ at yahoo.com> writes:
on?
Hi! The goal for the S-100 VGA board is to make
a register compatible
SVGA that uses commonly available VGA monitors. The application would
be an X server for the upcoming S-100 80386 CPU board. [...]
So your X server is basially running in an embedded environment?
Or are you planning on having some sort of unix for the X server to run
As distributed, the X server assumes things like a unix process model, bsd
sockets, virtual memory, etc.
--
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Hi
The plan is to run Linux or NetBSD on the S-100 80386 CPU board which would
also be running the X window server. I've installed and run NetBSD on other
obscure hardware and it is probably the easiest of the Un*x like OS to port
so I am assuming we'll start with it.
I just ordered the initial round of S-100 80386 CPU board prototypes this
morning. These will only use memory and IO on the S-100 bus which hard
limits the address space to 16 MB (24 bits). The next iteration and
production boards will use a mezzanine or "over the top" connector for a
DRAM board to get to 128/256/512 MB. We have to get the basic CPU working
first though.
Today I think I've discovered that there aren't any commented publicly
available VGA BIOS sources *at all* which really terrifies me. It may be
that the VGA approach is simply not viable on the S-100 bus if essential
initialization source code is not available. I hope I am wrong though.
However, we'll still have the backup plan to use other non-VGA compatible
chips.
Thanks and have a nice day!
Andrew Lynch