On Sun, 06 Jan 2002 15:00:22 -0500, ZN wrote: > On 1/6/02 at 7:12 PM Thierry Godefroy wrote: > > .../... for Aurora (there, it > >looks like someone took for granted that once Aurora would be available, > >TT would write the screen drivers for free, the result is: no enhanced > >screen driver for Aurora!) > > Actually, TT was probably the very first person to receive the Aurora > specs, while it was still a prototype, and a long way from production. > Result: NOTHING. Not even an answer. For all I know, there was a shredder > linked to the output of his fax machine, since that was the only way he > communicated (if that could be called communication) at the time.
I'm afraid this is still the case... ;-( > Maybe I should ave promised money? Not that I am faulting TT, because I _DO_ > understand his posittion. OTOH, I never really dealt with the people who > wrote the software myself, rather that was done by Ron Dunnett. Originally, > I really wanted to make the specs completely public, but since I did get > signals about more colors (for the QXL, though) from different sources, I > decided to give the specs to only a few people, until I made them freely > available on my (ex) web site. Guess what: NOTHING, for years. Actually, the graphic cards device drivers are probably the most complicated and sophisticated ones (especially when you take all "ancillary" extensions into account, such as the pointer environment)... I for one would hesitate to write such a driver from scratch (there the sources availibilty of existing drivers is more than a critical prerequisite) ! I think that the only one who is able to write such drivers is... TT himself (with the QXL or Q40 SMSQ/E sources, I guess this could be implemented in a few days...). > IMHO before > the community was largely web connected, waiting for a response before the > hardware was built, would mean the hardware never would have gotten built > in the first place. The situation is a little bit different now, not as > much as you would think: > > > Note that this is not always the case (Nasta did publish the GoldFire > > specs and asked for advices)... > > And got VERY little. I am sure once the GoldFire becomes available, I will > hear no end to complaints about decisions made in it's design. However, at > this point, as detailed as the descriptions are (and they need to be to > make it possible to write software for it or decide about any aspect that > should be changed), they seem to be too detailed to have many people bother > actually reading them. Mind you, I did download all the specs of the GF a while ago (you even sent me some) and I did read _some_ but, here again, time is the limiting factor ;-( > This is highly disconcerting considering there are aspects of GF that are > 'new' to SMSQDOS. I must confess, that I do like a lot the onboard Ethernet concept... :-) > For instance, people will complain about disk operations > stopping everything, but when a solution is offered to this problem, which > involves hardware (and unfortunately, this is the only way to address it), > and associated changes to the drivers (or better yet OS because the feature > introduced is generally usefull), the feedback equals more or less zero > (with notable exceptions). Yes, I think I can remmember about a few emails we exchanged about the GF design and interrupts management... ;-) > I certainly hope this is not the way open > hardware developement on the QL is going to work. So I hope as well, or better abandon any hope for new QL hardware in the future ! > >What I would really love to see are open specs of hardware before it is > >actually prototyped, so that software writers have a chance to spot > >the potential programming difficulties/limitations and warn the designer > >about them before it is too late... > > Well, there's the GF stuff - feel free to open fire. But as much as I can understand, the actual specs are quite a bit outdated (ColdFire based, while the processor of your choice is now a 68EC060 IIRC), aren't they ? ;-) > >Soon the motivation will result from the choice: PCI support or no more > >cheap add-ons for the "QL" plateforms... > >But you are right, many things are still to be implemented, even in the > >current Q40/Q60 design. ;-) > > This begs the question: WHAT PCI expansion devices do you want to see on a > QL platform? I would be willing to bet they could easily be numbered on the > fingers of one hand... and that most of these already exist, just in QL > speciffic form. I don't deal with the present situation (there are still a few ISA cards available), but with the _future_ one: if there is no PCI-based successor to the Q60, then what the hell a future (say in five years) Q60 buyer will be able to use with it ? No ISA card = no floppy, no harddisk, no serial port, no parallele port, no network, no nothing but graphic, sound and keyboard ! > I am not opposed to PCI on a QL hardware platform as a bus, rather as a > bunch of connectors into which the user can plug in any old PCI card and > then expect it to magically work - this is like opening a can of worms. I am not prentending that "we" (TT, Mark, George, Wolfgang, myself, ...add any remaining assembly programmer I forgot here...) should implement ALL PCI cards (and moreover all brands and models) support: this is next to impossible (even for a handfull of excellent assembly programmers working full time for a full year) ! I just say that we _could_ support _some_ (OK, let's say "just a very few") basic PCI cards (I/O, Ethernet, Sound, perhaps even simple graphic cards). > .../... > The situation would be somewhat different if one decided to use a certain > chip that just happens to be PCI based on a new QL 'motherboard'. In this > case, although you are still subject to chip availability, at least you > only go through the above 'design process' only once - and of course, > starting off with a ship that you CAN get data for. Amen ! ;-) QDOS/SMS forever ! Thierry.
