*BSD News Article 76175


Return to BSD News archive

Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!hunter.premier.net!news-res.gsl.net!news.gsl.net!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in3.uu.net!shemesh.hq.tis.com!dira.rv.tis.com!not-for-mail
From: mark@dira.rv.tis.com (Mark Sienkiewicz)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,misc.consumers
Subject: Re: Why not buy Matrox Millennium
Date: 14 Aug 1996 18:34:27 -0400
Organization: Trusted Information Systems
Lines: 19
Message-ID: <4utk9j$9nr@dira.rv.tis.com>
References: <4j21ph$crr@slappy.cs.utexas.edu> <873f1tjxf1.fsf@xeno.xinside.com> <4uopgf$si4@cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu> <8720hb712j.fsf@xeno.xinside.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: dira.rv.tis.com
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.apps:20397 comp.os.linux.development.system:29792 comp.os.linux.x:38009 comp.os.linux.hardware:47574 comp.os.linux.setup:68728 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:1047 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:4625 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:4406 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:25506 misc.consumers:94501

In article <8720hb712j.fsf@xeno.xinside.com>,
Thomas Roell <roell@xinside.com> wrote:
>
>Actually given the upper idea about moving stuff like this into a
>kernel driver anyway raises the question for me, why to use a textmode
>at all. Why not simply switch into a graphics mode, and draw bitmap
>characters directly. Sun SPARC is doing that, all the PowerPCs are
>doing that as well ...

The text hardware works just fine.  It also works 1 or 2 orders of
magnitude faster than you can implement a graphic emulation of it.
It also works in a couple orders of magnitude less code complexity.

Before changing something simple and fast into something complex and
slow, you have to show a compelling reason why the complex/slow version
is better than the simple/fast one.

Mark S.