On 7/29/06, Dieter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I've never seen a common off the shelf graphics card that had jumpers
> designed for setting unusual video modes.
So the junk in the big box stores gets something wrong, therefore you
want to get it wrong also?
> In fact, what you're describing is a very vertical-market sort of
> thing, almost into Tech Source's territory. If someone wants this,
> they should expect to pay more money, in which case we can easily
> accommodate them.
Something posted recently mentioned a price of $200 for the OGC
board. That's already pretty high for a framebuffer, and now
you're talking about charging extra for some header pins?
First of all, $200 is the other person's estimate, not mine.
Secondly, I see it as one of my jobs to maintain a critical stance on
all features people ask for so that the most important ones are what
are left after critical analysis. The analysis on this is not
completed. And feature creep will kill this project.
You seem to be suggesting that header pins are going to be a solution
to this problem. There'll surely be header pins. But header pins are
no solution to video modes we've not conceived of. A header would
allow you to select from a limited set of known modes. So far, people
have been talking about supporting modes we don't know about yet.
A board that will drive any display is a great selling point, even
for buyers that plan to use a multisync monitor. Jumper pins are
an easy way to allow setting the mode without any special hardware.
Ok, let's see... we'd need:
- Maybe 12 bits for the dot clock
- 12 bits for the h res
- 12 bits for the v res
- 4 bits for each of the v and h fp, bp, and sync (24 total)
So, you're saying that you want a header with 60 pairs of pins on it?
Actually, I'm sure this is an underestimate.
Header pins don't add much to the cost. Ship the board with no
jumpers installed, which means assume a multisync monitor. Install
one jumper to mean use the software programmed mode. Need an odd
mode? See the docs and add jumpers.
I don't see why the software tool couldn't just set a bit in the
firmware somewhere that indicated to use the software mode.
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