🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Apr23.152155.2298@zoo.toronto.edu> you write:
>Anybody who caches a frame buffer is crazy. ...

Given how slow some of the frame buffers on PC clones are, upwards of 10
wait states per 16 bit word, caching could be a big performance win.

It should probably be write-through, though I can even imagine situations
where you're redrawing an entire window and, so long as you can flush it
when you're done, a little smudge during the repaint due to a write-back
cache wouldn't be offensive.

Recent models of screen buffer do remap all of the planes at the same
place in the address space, which makes a lot of this moot unless you can
do a page flush without a context switch.  But even that's possible on the
386 -- it does let you enable individual device addresses for user I/O.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl