On Mon, 18 Dec 2000, Mike Smith wrote:
> > Speaking of video operations... does anybody know where I can find
> > some decent VGA programming documentation? (Or, if possible, someone
> > who knows a few obscure details.)
A lot of old VGA card manuals had the basic programming instructions, using
INT 10h calls. By old, I mean ISA cards with less than 1Meg of RAM. Also check
out Raplh Brown's Interrupt list at:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/ralf/pub/WWW/files.html
It's got just about everything you could ever want to know about what Int 10h
functions exist, and how to use them.
> > I specifically need to know, if possible, how to display hardware-
> > rendered character- and software-rendered pixel-based images on the
> > same display at the same time.
>
> Standard VGA does not offer this functionality; your current approach is
> the only way to go.
I've done this before (back when my 386-25 was new). Int 10h func 09h will
draw characters from the VGA ROM in a simple graphics mode (ie 13h, 320x200
8bit colour unbanked). Past that, I just wrote my own font renderer. In 3
years of assembly-level VGA programming I learned quite a few "obscure
details" :)
If you're trying this on recent hardware, I'd pretty much echo what Mike Smith
said. You either BITBLT characters into your framebuffer, or use a font
renderer (ala freetype).
---
Jon Simola <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | "In the near future - corporate networks
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