nanogui: vuilding for vga16
Subject:
Re: [nanogui] vuilding for vga16
From:
Alex Holden ####@####.####
Date:
18 Jul 2002 18:44:12 -0000
Message-Id: <3D37096E.10404@linuxhacker.org>
Paul Fox wrote:
> and this became obvious. without it, you sort of have to switch
> consoles to start the app, after starting nano-X. with this, or when
Use ./launcher.sh to run the app launcher program and the Terminal app
to start things from a command line from within Nano-X.
> but my screen doesn't have 256 colors. it only has 16. or am i missing
> your point somehow? (i confess i don't know much about pc display
> technology, of any vintage.)
I was just talking in general. Actually after looking at it a bit closer
I don't think Win3.1 is using 256 colours on my old VGA laptop. Some
info I found on the web said that the only VGA 256 colour mode (mode
0x13) only works at 320*200, and 640*480 only works with 16 colours. Any
higher than that is technically SVGA which brings up the spectre of
either drivers that are written specifically for each graphics chip or
using Vesa 1.0 to initialise the card for you (which only works in 16
bit mode). There has been some speculation in the past that a
specialised x86 emulator or a technique similar to how dosemu works
could be used to execute the Vesa 1.0 bios, or even that the boot loader
could perform the initialisation before booting the kernel.
> i did notice that while the demos were working, that the colors weren't
> being mapped usefully -- many areas that i assume should have some
> contrast, didn't. i should try the grey pallette again to see if it
That could be because the applications involved haven't been written
with greyscale in mind.
> and if a hammer don't fix it, well then what you've got is an
> electrical problem.
Once you've let the magic smoke out of a chip, nothing will get it back
in again.
--
------------ Alex Holden - http://www.linuxhacker.org ------------
If it doesn't work, you're not hitting it with a big enough hammer
