From: Isaac Connor <iconnor@convoke.com>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 10:28:47 -0500 (EST)

Re: KGI driver for banshee

On 30 Mar 1999, Stephane Chauveau wrote:

> 
> Hello, I have started a KGI driver for my 3DFX banshee card . I have no experience
> with VGA cards but the job progresses quickly (thanks to Daryll Strauss for
> the XFree86 driver). Last nigth, I have seen the stars and the flying GGIs for
> the first time on my console.

THANK YOU!

> 
> The current state v0.1:
> 
>  - card detection (pci info,memory,ioports,...) 
>  - the clock ship is limited to 135Mhz  (banshee supports 270Mhz) 
>  - text16 modes are not yet supported. 
>  - graphic modes : 
>       - 640x480x16 works fine (the only tested mode) 
>       - 640x480x8: My monitor does not shutdown so the mode is 
>         probably not so bad. Unfortunately, the screen is black
>         (a stupid problem with the palette initialization)
>       - small modes (<640x480) and large modes (>1024x768) 
>         are probably buggy.  
>       - modes from 640x480 to 1024x768 in 16/24/32 bpp have to 
>         be tested. I hope that they will work quickly.
>  - no acceleration
>  - bugs,bugs,bugs,...
> 
> A first driver will be available in a few days. Unfortunately, I will leave my
> job, my country and my email in a few weeks. It's not a good period to become
> an official maintainer. A volunteer ?

I am willing to act as a temporary maintainer.  I am currently the Mach64
maintainer.  Don't expect me to do a lot of work on the code, but I can
test, and merge into the CVS repository.

> 
> A question now. Is there a method to remove the kgicon module knowing that I
> did not write yet the code to save and to restore the initial text mode ?
> moreover, 'rmmod' fails because the module is used 63 times (by the
> consoles). I thought of using a second framebuffer (the vesafb for
> example). But then, how to associate the 63 consoles to this framebuffer
> before the 'rmmod kgicon' ?

Um, yeah, you can remove it, but it will leave the card in a bad state. As
to the second question.. I'll let someone else figure this out..

Isaac Connor
ATI Mach64 Maintainer