Subject: Re: IMDISP 7.9 and VESA

From: [email-masked] (Ron Baalke)
Date: 29 Jan 1993 16:09 UT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Martin Connors) writes...
>Having had IMDISP7.7a give sort of good results with VESA VGA (nice  
>display of images except there were horizontal lines every 100 or so  
>lines), I downloaded 7.9 and find that I cannot get images to display  
>properly at all - sometimes nothing, sometimes a vertical white bar.
>Anyone got VESA experience with imdisp 7.9. BTW this is with a Local Bus  
>Tseng T4000-based clone? board, and I use a VESA driver (ETIVESA) in a DOS  
>shell under Windows.

IMDISP currently does not support VESA.  There were some experimental
VESA drivers put in about a year ago, and it somewhat works with some of
the ET4000 graphic boards.  IMDISP has never been advertised to work
with the VESA drivers, but I do plan to add them in.  Right now, the
VESA drivers are number 4 on my priority list.  First, I'm fixing a bug with 
the  DISP CEN command (so that the JEI CD-ROM can be released), and then
add lat/lon for the Magellan and Viking CD-ROMs, and add image tiling for the
Magellan CD-ROMs.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [email-masked]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Every once in a while,
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | try pushing your luck.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |

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From: [email-masked] (Ron Baalke)
Date: 1 Feb 1993 20:54 UT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Martin Connors) writes...
>In article <[email-masked]>  
>[email-masked] (Ron Baalke) writes:
>> VESA drivers are number 4 on my priority list.
> 
>Any timelines, Ron? I just spent several thousand dollars (well, only  
>Canadian dollars I guess) largely hoping to continue my Venus work at home  
>on a hot 486 with good graphics....and lots of other IMDISP users are  
>likely getting into VESA too. What is the best version to use in the  
>meantime? 7.7a seemed to work somewhat with VESA....

I really can't say. I work on IMDISP on my own personal time and I don't
get paid for it.  I spent this past weekend fixing a bug (missed the
first quarter of the Superbowl, too), so the VESA
drivers have now moved to number 3 on the priority list.  The best version
to get is the latest version: 7.9.  Adding in the VESA drivers 
is major work.  I'd figure it will take 2 months of evenings and weekends to 
add the VESA drivers, once I get started on it.  Version 8.0 of IMDISP has
been reserved specifically for the VESA driver version.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [email-masked]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | Never yell "Movie!" in a
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | crowded fire station.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     |

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From: [email-masked] (Mike Newberry)
Date: 1 Feb 93 21:16:20 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Martin Connors) writes:
>--
>Martin Connors         |
>Space Research         | [email-masked]  (403) 492-2526
>University of Alberta  |

I haven't any idea why IMDISP wouldn't work on a VESA compatible video
card.  VESA provides extensions to the basic video BIOS functions.  If
IMDISP will work on a non-VESA card, and it does, then it should also
work on a VESA based card.  Ron Baalke, one of the IMDISP programmers
says that IMDISP is not intended to be VESA compatible.  Therefore, since
VESA provides BIOS *extensions* which are not used by IMDISP, IMDISP should
indeed run.  There's somehting else going on here--maybe a bug in the IMDISP
code in which it sends an erroneous command to the card which does nothing
on a non-VESA card but accidentally executes a VESA function on the
VESA compatible card.

Mike Newberry

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From: [email-masked] (Martin Connors)
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 16:39:20 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked]  
(Stephen Strazdus) writes:
> Most of the
> drivers that are available with IMDISP should work for video cards which
> go in the VESA local-bus.  So for instance, if Martin has a VESA
> local-bus card which uses a Tseng ET4000 VGA chipset, he can probably  
use the
> ORCHID800 and ORCHID1024 drivers in IMDISP, and get either 800x600 or
> 1024x768 resolution.
> 
> Sorry for the PC discussion in sci.astro, but it seemed appropriate.

Yup, ORCHID1024 works well under IMDISP 7.7, but not under 7.9. VESA sort  
of works under 7.7 but not under 7.9. 7.7 has two lucky numbers in it so  
that must help! And I am sure (at least hope) many sci.space readers use  
IMDISP and our techie talk is thus relevant. Thanks!
--
Martin Connors         |
Space Research         | [email-masked]  (403) 492-2526
University of Alberta  |

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From: [email-masked] (Bruce Stock)
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 20:36:30 GMT

>From article <[email-masked]>, by [email-masked] (Martin Connors):
> It turns out that I can get 1024*768 256 color display using SET  
> IMDISP=ORCHID1024 under 7.7 of IMDISP. The orchid card and mine are both  
> based on ET4000 chips and that may explain this. Under 7.9 neither  
> ORCHID1024 nor VESA give an image. So my immediate problem is solved if I  
> use 7.7. I thank Ron Baalke and Archie Warnock for their supportive  
> replies and for their continuing volunteer efforts in providing IMDISP.
> --
> Martin Connors         |

I can get 1024x768x256 to work (using set dis orchid1024) on my Orchid
Prodesigner IIs using IMDISP 7.7 - 7.9 only at the DOS level.  When run
in a DOS window in Win 3.1 Enhanced mode (full screen, of course), only
7.7 still works, 7.9 displays garbage.  Thus I use 7.7 in preference to 
7.9 since the only thing I run these days at the DOS level is *windows*.

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From: [email-masked] (Ron Baalke)
Date: 1 Mar 93 19:22:33 GMT