🚀 go-pugleaf

In <4oli35$sji@news1.ucsd.edu> David Foster <foster@bial1.ucsd.edu> writes:

>I would like to suggest that it is simply unacceptable to drop
>support for a relatively current piece of hardware, especially
>something as integral to the system as a frame-buffer, and 
>ESPECIALLY a "high-end" frame-buffer. 

Apart from intrinsic dropping of support in SunOS and/or Solaris, the
other major difficulty here is that "real" X-Windows, ie. X11R6 built from
source instead of Open Windows which not "real" X, does not support any of
Sun's frame buffers past the cg6 in any level of decency. There is
rudimentary support for the cg8, but it doesn't work. I've added support
to get my cg9 mostly-working with the 24-bit Xserver in R6, but even this
is not complete (the patch was written by a couple of individuals).

I queried folks at the X consortium about this once, and they said that
because they didn't have any Sun machines with 24-bit frame buffers, they
couldn't work on the 24-bit Xserver code. So at least they had a valid
point, which leads to the next question of why didn't Sun lend them a
couple of machines with various 24-bit frame buffers in them? It's not as
though it would have hurt Sun's multi-billion dollar revenue base... 

But it would have made X much more useful.

> When one pays extra money
>for this "high-end" solution, one expects it to be worth the
>expense. If Sun offers a product, Sun should support it. If
>that product didn't sell very well, I would say that Sun made
>a mistake, and now those of us who bought this "high-end"
>product are paying for it.

Especially 24-bit colour frame buffers, since Sun has completely alienated
anyone who wants quality colour video support to the point where I expect
most would have dropped their use of Sun boxes in favour of SGI machines.

Regards,

Craig.
-- 
             Craig Dewick. Send email to 'cdewick@jedi.apana.org.au'
                 The Core Matrix Foundation - Sydney, Australia
                        http://jedi.apana.org.au/core.html
 Always striving for a secure long-term future in an insecure short-term world