Re: [Qemu-devel] VGA BIOS source code

[Filip Navara <xnavara@volny.cz>]

vaise@votreservice.com wrote:

>On Monday 31 May 2004 15:43, Fabrice Bellard wrote:
>  
>
>>Today, someone sent me a patch to emulate a CLGD54xx VGA card in QEMU
>>(currently ISA only card, but I asked the author to add PCI support). It
>>may be a good solution for Win 9x as I won't have time to work on the
>>planned Sis 6326 emulation in the near future.
>>    
>>
>
>I am wrong to say that it would be easier to write a pseudo video driver 
>specifically for qemu, who would directly talk to the host part, rather than 
>using a already written windows video driver but with obligation to adapt 
>qemu to this driver ?
>  
>
Depends. There are very few people who wrote drivers for closed source 
operating systems (like Windows in general) and even less people writing 
drivers for legacy closed source systems (such as Consumer Windows - 
9x/Me). Now you can imagine that these people make a great business from 
that and try to sell their experience and in the end there are only few 
persons who would write these drivers and open source them (without some 
company backing them with money).

>Is it what Filip Navara has done ?
>  
>
Basicly yes. I've done a driver that uses the simple Bochs/QEMU VBE 
interface using I/O ports, but it's only for Windows NT-based systems 
and not for Consumer Windows, so there is still gap that must be filled. 
I think that emulating a real video card AND the simple interface (like 
Bochs/QEMU VBE or VMware) is the way to go.

Regards,
Filip