From: Jon M. Taylor <taylorj@gaia.ecs.csus.edu>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 19:30:37 -0700 (PDT)

Re: GGI and XFree86 and stuff

On Thu, 12 Aug 1999, James Simmons wrote:

> > > Can you describe (avoiding NDA-specific details) the advantages and best
> > > uses of STREAMS?  
> > 
> > 	Sure, since Trio and Virge also have STREAMS.  The STREAMS is
> > Savage4 is mostly the same.  STREAMS basically gives you another hardware
> > viewport which can address its own linear framebuffer region and can be
> > sized and positioned independently of the primary framebuffer stream.  It
> > was originally designed for TV-in-a-window, but can be used generically. 
> > The window can be scaled to any dimensions and the hardware will do
> > scandoubling and/or linear interpolation.  One nice use of this is to
> > display a VGA ModeX mode without having to use ModeX.  I plan to use
> > STREAMS on Savage4 to implement GLX-in-a-window at some point....
> >
> 
> Wow! I could use that to provide the windowing effect for /dev/gfx.

	Not really, because...

> Are multiple viewports allowed? 

	Nope.  There's just the two streams, primary and secondary. 
Technically there's a third which is used for the hardware cursor, but it
isn't useful for anything _but_ the hardware cursor.

Jon

---
'Cloning and the reprogramming of DNA is the first serious step in 
becoming one with God.'
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