On 2 January 2018 at 21:02, Maciej W. Rozycki via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Dec 2017, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > > > > Hardware support say no support for LCG Graphics :-( > > > > There are a few people willing to work on graphics for old > > vaxstations, but there is no documentation. > > > > If anyone has documentation, the netbsd vax port mailing list would be > > very interested. > > The RAMDAC is standard, so as long as frame buffer memory is mapped into > the CDAL address space writing a dumb device driver should be pretty > straightforward with little reverse engineering effort. And CDAL address > decoding is I believe documented in the KA46 board specification. > > And all else failing you can always resort to TURBOchannel graphics wired > via a TURBOchannel adapter. While not supported by the console monitor, > it can be handled by the OS just fine, and several TURBOchannel graphics > drivers are already available for other ports, so it's just a matter of a > suitable kernel configuration (with minor patching possibly, depending on > how cleanly written the respective drivers are). > > I was able to get OS console output using at least the HX and one of the > HX+ options with my m90 and the (still very crippled and long neglected) > VAX/Linux port several years ago. The MX, CX and TX options should be > easily supportable too. Only accelerators (PixelStamp and PixelVision > architecture implementations) might cause trouble for one reason or > another (such as using DMA or requiring a TURBOchannel extender, which are > scarcer than hen's teeth). > I've been chatting to the NetBSD dev who wrote support for most of the sparc framebuffers (up to and including accelerated antialiased font console support where relevant), and if anyone has a spare VAXstation with a framebuffer they would be willing to part with (*) he would be very interested in writing driver support. (*) I'm happy to pay a reasonable amount to help find a beloved charge a caring new home involving active exercise with exciting new code :-p David