Display Adapters / i386 interpreter

Display Adapters / i386 interpreter

[tom_gall]

Hi All,

  You'll excuse the very strange question I have and maybe this isn't
quite the right spot so feel free to correct me but here goes!

  On various display adapters alot of them have their own "BIOS" which
is executed to init the card. These tend to be written as an i386 kind
of thing. Well obviously on IA32 this isn't a big deal but how does
PowerPC hardware deal with these kinds of cards? Or doesn't it?

  Is there an IA32 interpreter of sorts that can run the small amount of
BIOS to bring up the card? Or is the approach different?

  Thanks much! I'd sure appreciate it, I'm doing some scouting of the
possibility of getting more / better card support of LinuxPPC on RS6000
hardware. Not being too familiar with this kinda issue I thought I'd
turn to the great global brain for help.

http://oss.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/linux

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Re: Display Adapters / i386 interpreter

[Jeff Garzik]

tom_gall@vnet.ibm.com wrote:
>   Is there an IA32 interpreter of sorts that can run the small amount of
> BIOS to bring up the card?

That's the solution that PPC (AFAIK), Alpha AXP, and XFree86 all use.
(though XFree uses vm86 mode if present/possible, and also runs the BIOS
for non-primary adapters)

	Jeff


--
Jeff Garzik              | Nothing cures insomnia like the
Building 1024            | realization that it's time to get up.
MandrakeSoft, Inc.       |        -- random fortune

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Re: Display Adapters / i386 interpreter

[Geert Uytterhoeven]

On Tue, 2 May 2000 tom_gall@vnet.ibm.com wrote:
>   On various display adapters alot of them have their own "BIOS" which
> is executed to init the card. These tend to be written as an i386 kind
> of thing. Well obviously on IA32 this isn't a big deal but how does
> PowerPC hardware deal with these kinds of cards? Or doesn't it?
>
>   Is there an IA32 interpreter of sorts that can run the small amount of
> BIOS to bring up the card? Or is the approach different?

Yes, there's Gabriel Paubert's vm86 emulator for PPC. It's known to work with
(at least) various S3 based boards.

Search the mailing list archives to find it.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

						Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- Linux/{m68k~Amiga,PPC~CHRP} -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
							    -- Linus Torvalds


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