[Linux-fbdev-devel] Hardware specs?

[Keith O'C. <Kei...@cs...>]

Hi everyone,
I'm in the position of needing to write a Radeon driver for a new system 
board being built here at our university. I figured my first steps would 
be to try and reproduce the radeonfb driver to change the resolution, 
and go from there.

Up until now I've been only developing graphics applications, so alot of 
these things are new to me - pixel clocks, horizontal timings, PLL, MTRR 
etc.etc.... it's all quite overwhelming. I've been reading as much as I 
can, but there are still big gaps in my understanding - how did everyone 
else get up to speed in this area?

My main problem is that although it's fairly easy to follow the radeonfb 
source and the fb in general, when it comes to what register does what 
I'm completely lost. Did the people who wrote the driver have technical 
specs from ATI telling them which did what? Are the specs openly 
available, only under NDA, or not at all?!

I'd really appreciate any tips anyone could give me on where I should be 
looking.
Thanks,
Keith

-- 

_____________
Keith O'Conor
Image Synthesis Group
Computer Science Department
University of Dublin, Trinity College
http://isg.cs.tcd.ie/keith