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SubjectRe: [linux-fbdev] Re: atyfb with 2.3.30 ond x86
Peter Samuelson writes:
>
> [me]
> > > Sounds like Open Firmware. It was designed for *exactly* this
> > > problem: initializing a peripheral at boot time on multiple
> > > platforms. I don't know who all jumped on that bandwagon but a lot
> > > of PowerPC people did (I know of PowerMacs and some RS/6000s).
> > > Intel platforms (surprise!) never bothered....
> [Richard B. Johnson]
> > But they do!
>
> No, they don't. Read again, I was referring to methods of
> cross-platform POST stuff (emphasis on cross-platform), such as Open
> Firmware does. Basically OF implements a FORTH VM that the card
> firmware executes on, and thus the same card can init itself on any
> platform that (a) uses OF and (b) has the right bus.
>
> I don't know the whole story but I suspect that PC BIOS people never
> got interested in doing OF because all hardware vendors who wanted to
> hawk cards for PC users were already using Intel code for their BIOS
> hooks. (And screw those Mac users anyway.) Pragmatically, it seems
> the OSF/1-on-Alpha people chose to write an x86 VM to leverage this,
> rather than license an implementation of OF with its FORTH approach.
>
Those FORTH cards are _d***_ expensive compared to the mainstream.
Besides that most BIOS implementors *only* speak x86. Also nobody
would have stepped forward to suggest a FORTH VM for the mainstream
hw i.e. the intel based platforms. Since there is more money in
making cards for this platorm than for all others combined HW vendors
are not particularly interested in making such cards.
I personally like the FORTH VM appoach better, also, however we are
not going to change the market.
I personally 'd be very interested to get my softbooting stuff in
XFree86 3.9 running on PPC, too. This way there would at least be
a chance to use affordable mainstream graphics cards for secondary
heads - although I know it's a dirty solution.

Regards,
Egbert.

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