From: hasty@netcom.com (Amancio Hasty Jr)
Subject: Re: public S3 design (Was: Free software and ... Diamond products)
Keywords: Diamond, free-software, S3, VGA, SVGA
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 00:58:54 GMT

In article <BvCyt0.JG4@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de> Torsten Duwe (duwe@informatik.uni-erlangen.de) writes:
>(I'm changing the subject because this thread has been straying far from the
>original topic) 
>
>hasty@netcom.com (Amancio Hasty Jr) writes:
>
>[...]
>>My end-goal is to acquire an affordable high end graphics svga
>>which we can program and that the board can be  purchased and supported.
>>Ideally, the card should cost below  $200 (US) mark.
>[...]
>>In dealing with both Diamond and Orchid, we have run into
>>a stumbling block as far as the ability to set the dotted clock 
>shouldn't that be: 'DOT Clock' (the frequency that clocks the dots) ?
>I'm not shure - my english isn't that good so forgive me if I'm wrong but
>with a dotted clock I'd associate something like a Swatch(tm:)
>>values in the S3 boards due to the use of custom clock synthetizers.
>>Both Diamond and Orchid, so far are not releasing the information
>>required to set the dotted clock values. In order to use
>>the higher resolutions available with svga monitors and to
>>increase the performance of graphics operations, the functionality
>>to set the dotted clock values is required.
>
>Doesn't performance depend solely on the main (bus/memory/whatever) clock ?
>... would be a bad thing if drawing speed was closely coupled to the pixel
>clock. 
>
>[...]
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>>The S3 set is a combination of an 8514/A and SVGA chipset.
>>Basically, all the control functions needed to set the
>>S3 are provided in the form of  VGA registers. All enhanced
>>graphics functions such as bitblt follow very closely the
>>IBM 8514/A register convention.
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>^ this can't be emphasized enough !! (in fact 'C911 enhanced 
>regs and functions are a subset of the 8514/A, but the missing parts
>shouldn't hurt too much)
>
>IS ANYBODY WORKING ON A PORT OF X.8514 TO THE 86C911 ? PLEASE send me mail
>because I AM. (part-time at least :-|  - totally screwed up last week 'cuz I
>downloaded (probably) incompatible parts [mit/server/..., x.8514, Xfree86])

I  have a working 8514/A server with modifications for the S3 chipset.

>
>[...]
>>(2) The S3 was designed with local bus in mind, and there are
>>    existing VESA local bus implementations as well as for other
>>    local bus implemantations.
>
>In my opinion local bus is unnecessary if you have an 'intelligent' SVGA to
>give complex commands to. Only memory to screen bitblt is an issue but that
>should be solved using more video RAM - hope the '928 is able to address more
>than 1 Meg.
The 928 is going to be able to address  more than 1MB also the 928
is about 30X times faster than the ET4000 according to S3 corporation.

Recent PC benchmarks under DOS have shown that a local bus implementation
of an S3 card can be 34 faster than its ISA counterpart.

>
>[...]
>>(4) S3 corportation provides a software development kit
>Yup! They're very DOS-infected but nice people.
>
>[...]
>
>>Thank you for support,
>>Amancio Hasty
>
>I'd suggest to use a programmable clock generator !-)   >:^)   >:^]   >:^) 
>Siemens for instance provides a PLL to lock a VCO to quartz accuracy - the
>chip's called TBB 200 or so - and the programming info is freely available.
>You may know of better/faster/cheaper chips but if you don't this might be
>something to start with.
>

Tnks for the info

>Currently not in need of a SVGA but very interested...
>
>	Torsten
>-- 
> Torsten Duwe      duwe@informatik.uni-erlangen.de |       Solaris 2.0 ???
> Friedrich-Alexander-Universitt Erlangen-Nrnberg |
> Informatik IV (Betriebssyteme, verteilte Systeme) |       please wait ...
>



Amancio Hasty