From: Andrea Venturi <venturi@cineca.it>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 12:33:07 +0200

Re: NVidia is a _just_ a company

hello,
this is a quote of the message that mr. putnam of nvidia wrote me about
the programming of an old nvidia chip (nv1...); he told me that they
will soon release the specs with a public announce on their web site
also.

i suppose that we could "politely" flood  ;-) his mailbox ; just please
take down the anger!

ciao

andrea venturi



"James M. Putnam" <putnam at nvidia dot com> wrote:
> 
> From: Andrea Venturi <venturi@cineca.it>
> >
> > it was really a bargain because, i believe, this diamond card (edge 3d
> > 2000) was found in the deep of the store and put on sale just to clean
> > the corner ;-)
> 
>    They go for around $35US here.
> 
> > and i know of a Xfree server that can work on this card, but i believe,
> > without any acceleration at all; just a framebuffer..
> 
>    That's correct.
> 
> > i try to search also the SGS thomson site (it was your silicon foundry
> > ?) but there was no doc neither for their version of the chip..
> 
>    Same problem. We own the chip specs.
> 
> > perhaps, is it a problem of NDA?
> 
>    No, it's problem of not having any externally available documentation and
>    no non-Microsoft OS support.
> 
>    What docs we have on the NV1 is outdated, and in places incorrect. The chip
>    is quite complex, and requires substantial operating system support to
>    work properly under acceleration. That operating system support is only
>    available under the Microsoft operating systems for the NV1. We are working
>    on an OS-neutral implementation for Linux and the other OS', but that's only
>    for the NV3-NV4. Chances that we'll backport it for NV1 are infinitesimally
>    small.
> 
> > surely there is not a big interest in this chip on the 'net but i would
> > like to get out the most from this stuff, just for educational purpose!
> 
>    It's a much bigger job than simply writing a Mesa driver, unfortunately.
> 
>    May I suggest a nice Riva128 board? They're getting down to the $50US
>    price point.
> 
> --
> James M. Putnam, NVIDIA CORPORATION

-- 
andrea venturi - cineca - area csd
venturi@cineca.it - +39 0516171536

--
 An optimist believes we live in the best of all
 possible worlds.  A pessimist is sure of it!