Can we make a new parhelia win9x driver?

[UtwigMU]

Because they're targeting Parhelia at 2D/3D workstations.

Wintendo is not a workstation OS.

NT4.0, Win2k, WinXP and Linux are.

The penetration of 9x in the marketplace they are targetting is by their estimates too low to be considered commercially sound to invest human and financial resources into writting drivers.

As simple as that.

You can use basic VGA drivers.

WRT to your average gamer (not 1337 enthusiasts like us who build their own computers - 1337 in the eyes of average buyers that make up small percentage of 20% computers that are sold to home users), (s)he generally buys sealed box every few years.

The Wintendo is no longer shipping, so why bother. Apparently certified AutoCAD drivers are more commercially viable than 9x drivers - you get the idea.

Now WRT to Matrox.
1 make Parhelia
2 ? (Writting 9x drivers doesn't fit in here apparently)
3 profit


If you're rich enough, contact matrox sales and order enough (like a few 100 to a few 1000) Parhelias that they'll find it commercially viable to write 9x drivers.

If not forget it.

Personally I consider people who run 9x as main OS on 300+ MHz CPUs masochists.

[WyWyWyWy]

Ohayo Kuriton

You managed to push your Parhelia further yet?

As for the driver, I have already talk to the people who made the third party G-series drives (especially the BeOS G400 author). And they all agree it is pretty much impossible without a lot of time spent on reverse-engineering it. By the way, my initial thought was to read the G400 specs and guess from there, but it probably has changed too much now.

[bsdgeek]

Hey it's WyWyWyWy, haven't seen you since June 23rd.

[Kuriton]

@UtwigMU

What's Wintendo? I don't know that.
Perhaps, Windows9x?

Yes, Surely, they are old operating systems nowadays.
I want Matrox to develop their drivers if it is possible.
But, I know that isn't realistic, so I won't ask that to Matrox directly.

Yeah, we can use basic VGA drivers on windows9x, but they can't display more than 16 colors.
If it is, I am in trouble.

What's WRT? I don't know that too.
I sometimes can't understand your English because my hearing is still incompletely.

hehehe, I'm not as rich as like that, so I can't buy parhelia any more.

@WyWyWyWy

Hey! I haven't seen you for a long time.
I don't have handled any more parhelia since I had showed you my cooler parhelia.
And my parhelia operates healthy.
Other side, I am interested in water cooling for parhelia.

Really!? If you talked with persons that made third-party drivers, please teach me that more.
If you know the web sites about that, please give me the URLs.
I am also interested in G550 drivers.

@bsdgeek

me too

By the way, it is no joke I want to implement VS2.0, I really want to get it one day.
Because I like parhelia

[UtwigMU]

WRT = With regard to.

[WyWyWyWy]

Yes I have been made homeless for about a month due to dodgy landlord(s), and then wait to have broadband reconnected, and then harddisk failure, and then blaster worm...

Kuriton, here is the address

http://web.inter.nl.net/users/be-hold/BeOS/MGAdriver/index.html

Notice that Rudolf Cornelissen does not currently have a Parhelia, but he is very experienced at the G-series and device driver programming.

Moreover, if you are really interested in these low-level kind of stuff, you might want to find the DDK (driver development kit), although a DDK for 98 could be very hard to find now... unless your company has some sort of MSDN Universe archive.

Then of course find a old copy of MSDN Library to read those articles and examples.

EDIT:
By the way, my drill died so I can't make waterblocks (yet).

[Kuriton]

Hi.

@UtwigMU

I see. My English step goes to front a little.

@WyWyWyWy

Thank you for the url you told.
I might get some hints from G-siries drivers.
I'll take a long time because my reading English is very slow.

Yes, I searched DDK from Microsoft sites.
And I found the DDK on MSDN subscriber downloads page, but I couldn't download that because I was not MSDN subscriber.
I don't want to join to MSDN because they need some costs.

[cadwal]

You can always search for win98ddk.exe on the web. The legality of those files available are of course questionable although at one time the DDK was freely available from http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/ddk/d.../win98ddk.exe. I would assume that redistribution was not actually allowed.

I am also unsure on the relationship between the DDK and Win98/Win98 SE. I do not know if there is a special DDK for Win98 SE.

[Kuriton]

I'll study how to make device drivers, and I want to use windriver!

[Wombat]

Originally posted by WyWyWyWy

As for the driver, I have already talk to the people who made the third party G-series drives (especially the BeOS G400 author). And they all agree it is pretty much impossible without a lot of time spent on reverse-engineering it. By the way, my initial thought was to read the G400 specs and guess from there, but it probably has changed too much now.

Don't forget that the G400 drivers were based partially on the G200 specs that had been released. There was a time when Matrox had the best Linux, best open-source video drivers because of smart moves like this. Unfortunately, Matrox has pretty much ceased making smart moves.

[WyWyWyWy]

Originally posted by Wombat
Unfortunately, Matrox has pretty much ceased making smart moves.

Except for sponsoring a P750 to MURC competition

[Kuriton]

@Wombat

Yes. Nowadays, Matrox don't open some critical information.

When I tried to use WinDriver, I read/written a memory data, and I could succeed in creating the red line on the desktop.
But, I don't know some critical information of parhelia, for example, I/O, memory, registers and interruputs.

I might ask Rudolf something to want to know.
I can't understand their architecture well now.

Can I ask Matrox to open sources of parhelia drivers?

@WyWyWyWy

When I look at the site you told me, I found some technical information of GoBe format, but I couldn't read the document because I didn't have GoBe.

[WyWyWyWy]

Hmmm that is a problem.

Do you have an old pc?
If so you can install BeOS (downloadable from http://www.beosmax.org ) and then download the trial version of GoBe Productive at BeBits.com.
Don't try to run it on your Parhelia because as far as I know, it is not compatible apparently. Your G550 is very well supported by Rudolf

You can also try the bootable CD distribution of BeOS... here:

http://www.bebits.com/app/3225

But it hasn't been updated for a while and you might have problems installing GoBe on it, but you can try.

Sorry my BeOS is dead, otherwise I would have converted it for you

However... there is a new GoBe Productive 3.0 for Windows, although there is no trial version. But if you *somehow* managed to get a copy of it... then...

By the way, have you used BeOS? It was really good in its era
It has good Japanese support too.

[Kuriton]

Hi WyWyWyWy.

I have a NEC PC9821 as an old PC, but it's architecture is very apart from IBM PC/AT.
So I can't install BeOS now.

I am sorry that GoBe for windows doesn't support trial version.
And I don't have any software which related to BeOS.

I'll send an email to Rudolf.

P.S.

I found an interesting phenomenon on WinDriver.

Look at this picture.



There is a normal desktop of WinDriver GUI.

Then, I read/write parhelia memory on hardware diagnosis of WinDriver.



Look at the upper right.
You'll find strange dots on the desktop.
Their dots is relate with memory(BAR0) offset.



And I tried to write data "741B5B59" to memory offset from 20040 to 20060.

http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Oakland/8833/14.gif

http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Oakland/8833/15.gif

http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Oakland/8833/16.gif

http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Oakland/8833/17.gif

In conclusion.



I only found the information of parhelia.
If I change the Data "XXXXXXXX", its dot color changes.

And I could only succeed in making .inf file.



Thanks.

[magog]

Originally posted by runderwo
You could always email Matrox Developer Relations and ask for specifications. (rolls eyes)

I think they don't want anyone programming their hardware besides themselves. Matrox today is very different from the G400 days, unfortunately.

Yes it seems so, because SciTech (http://www.scitechsoft.com) needed a year to get specs. In G400 days it was not that hard to get the specs.

Maybe the SciTech SNAP driver for will be available with Parhelia support soon.
Last time I asked how long it will take to get the driver out, they said some info from Matrox was still missing (HAL = Hardware Abstraction Layer).
Because they got OpenWatcom 1.1 out of the door, they can maybe spent more time on the SNAP drivers.

The windows SNAP driver seems to be frosen at the moment, but maybe someone want' s to ask at there SNAP Windows newsgroup:

http://www.scitechsoft.com/support/support_home.html

[EDIT] For those who don't know SciTech: They only have 2D drivers, because not one vendor does open their 3D specs to 3rd party developers.