linux-fbdev-devel

[Linux-fbdev-devel] Rage128 as secondary adapter

[Jon S. <jon...@ya...>]

I'm working on aty128fb to make it support a Rage128
as a secondary adapter. It needs a few new minor
changes to do this.

My main problem is that secondary adapters are not
initialized at boot.  I have a program (vbios.vm86)
that will initialize the R128, but instead I would
like to do it when the driver loads. vbios.vm86 goes
through a complicated process in real mode of
emulating the system boot ROM (same thing X does).

Can someone with access to the Rage128 documentation
tell me how to do this from protected mode? I have the
ROM mapped so the code can get to constants stored in
the ROM. What I need is a piece of C code equal to
what the ROM initialization does minus the part about
Int10 vector setup.

The programmers at ATI probably have a piece of code
available to do this since ATI's Windows driver can do
it.  I've tried emailing and signing up as a developer
without response.

=====
Jon Smirl
jon...@ya...

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Re: [Linux-fbdev-devel] Rage128 as secondary adapter

[Stefan R. <st...@su...>]

* Jon Smirl <jon...@ya...> [030109 18:47]:
> Can someone with access to the Rage128 documentation
> tell me how to do this from protected mode? I have the
> ROM mapped so the code can get to constants stored in
> the ROM. What I need is a piece of C code equal to
> what the ROM initialization does minus the part about
> Int10 vector setup.
 
I'm almost certain that the information you need is only
available when signing an NDA and thus could not be used
in open source drivers. Also a big problem for open source
firmware implementations such as openbios

> The programmers at ATI probably have a piece of code
> available to do this since ATI's Windows driver can do
> it.  I've tried emailing and signing up as a developer
> without response.
 
This is a pretty common experience.

Stefan.

-- 
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be
regarded as a criminal offense.                      -- E. W. Dijkstra

Re: [Linux-fbdev-devel] Rage128 as secondary adapter

[Jon S. <jon...@ya...>]

ATI has already released the much more sensitive data
of how to drive their Rage128 3D engine. It's all been
incorporated into X and is open source. 

I doubt if the procedure for resetting the board is
considered a trade secret. The problem is in getting
ATIs attention long enough to tell how to do it. It
may be as simple as poking an output port with a
special value. Hopefully someone with a manual can
tell me.



=====
Jon Smirl
jon...@ya...

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Re: [Linux-fbdev-devel] Rage128 as secondary adapter

[James S. <jsi...@in...>]

> I doubt if the procedure for resetting the board is
> considered a trade secret. The problem is in getting
> ATIs attention long enough to tell how to do it. It
> may be as simple as poking an output port with a
> special value. Hopefully someone with a manual can
> tell me.

Actually they are funny about it. We have asked before for this info. The 
good news is they are starting to lighten up about that. I have code to 
boot old Mach 64 cards without a BIOS. I haven't had time to fix it tho.
So it is a matter of time before they will release this info.

Re: [Linux-fbdev-devel] Rage128 as secondary adapter

[Jon S. <jon...@ya...>]

--- James Simmons <jsi...@in...> wrote:
> So it is a matter of time before they will release
> this info.
> 

If you can get me the info, I will do the work. I own
both Rage and Radeon cards so I can do some testing.
I'll also add DDC support if they'll give me that
info.

I spent last night disassembling their ROMs. The reset
procedure is not too difficult. But I would much
rather do it with support from ATI documentation. It
is easy to misinterpret a disassembly.

Do you have a personal contact there? Maybe they can
be convinced to publicly release documentation for
their older products. I'm sure NVidia doesn't care how
the Rage chip works any more. It would make a good PR
release about ATI being a community citizen. It would
also free their developer relations group from
hassling with open source developers on older cards.


=====
Jon Smirl
jon...@ya...

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