[rescue] [geeks] Last Call - Ultra 5/10 parts

[Joshua Boyd]

On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 11:35:52PM -0400, Mouse wrote:
 
> > PCI was arch-independent,
> 
> Pff!  Why do Alphas have an x86 emulator in ROM?

Because they weren't smart enough to jump on the OpenFirmware bandwagon.

PCI is arch-independent, but boot firmware in the host computer may
need to know how to use some cards (disk, network, perhaps a frame
buffer, etc).  Options are that the firmware contain drivers for every
possible card or the firmware somehow gets the drivers from the card
itself.  PC's have a standard for X86 code on the card, and Sun/Apple
used incompatible with each other standards for Forth on the card.
 
> > (Does anyone really praise the last-generation Sun homebrew graphics,
> > the MAJC stuff?)
> 
> I don't recognize the MAJC name.  But I praise very little in the
> graphics world from the last decade or two, because it's frickin' ALL
> undocumented.  Even the cg6, possibly the snappiest Sun SBus video
> card, I've never seen any documentation on how to use its transform
> engine.  (Actually...the ZX might be a better performer, if I could
> find out how to drive the damn thing.  The cg6 at least has enough
> known to accelerate 2D graphics.)

MAJC was a chip used for the 2001 XVR-1000 and the 2003 XVR-4000, so
both over a decade old. It is very closed though.

I was going to ask why you say the CG6 has a 3D transform engine, but
then I found:
http://www.hotchips.org/wp-content/uploads/hc_archives/hc01/3_Tue/HC1.S8/HC1.8.2.pdf
which on the "TEC FEATURES" page clearly states "3D Transforms", then
mentions 51MFlops, and Scaling, Rotation, Translation.

Has anyone tried decapping a sample chip and taking photos with an
electron microscope?  What about running SunPHIGS code in qemu
(assuming there is some amount of CG6 support there already).

Also, does anyone have this paper in PDF form: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=63673

I think that would be very interesting to read.