> Is it a reasonable thing to ask of a 3041 to generate a signal for
horizontal
> and vertical retrace? For 1024x768 at 70 hz you need to generate
53,761
> retrace signals per second all that have to be accurate within a
minimum of 1/
> (1024*768*70) = 1/55,050,240 of a second. Which gives you one
pixel accuracy
>
> Isn't that an easy thing to do directly? I think using a second 3041
just
> for an Xserver is a great idea. Handling keyboard I/O, serial I/O
seems
> fairly direct. Handling time critical video retraces sounds like it's
> not but then I'm in software.....
>
> This would make better use of the main's cpu ram, cache, cycles,
context
> swiches, memory bandwidth for running linux or applications. The
secondary
> processor would worry about I/O and running the Xserver. I'd say
of
> all those things we are shortest on cache (most comprable
machines have
> 128 k cache).
>
> If this become impracticle maybe we should add a 256 k cache
instead.
>
> This way we get the advantages of an X11 specialized accelerator
(directly
> implements all of the Xprotocol) without the disadvantage of porting
> X11 to a unsupported chipset. You only need to learn one chip
instead of
> two. X11 should compile fine on a mips chip, as well as gcc.
>
> Basically if the hardware guys can put it together it should be great.
>
I like the Idea, but what about the cost's. You have to add over $100
for the second CPU.
I don't like the Idea to make the timing signals from the CPU. it's to
critical, and i don't think it will bring us a big boost. In this cas better
lets look about an MIPS 2000 for Graphics acceleartion and i/o and a
simple design for the video control hardware
peter
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EDAG-Fulda | P. Katzmann | E-Planung | Steinauer Str.| 6400 Fulda
tel. 0661/6000-454/464 | W. Germany | in: pet@informatik.ee.edag.de
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