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Xdaniver is a fast, colour X11R6 server for the Amiga's custom chip set
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under NetBSD 1.0 and NetBSD-current, supporting all the Amiga's display
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depths from 1 to 4 (upto 16 colours) on ECS machines and 1 to 8 (upto 256
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colours) on AGA machines (though, not all resolutions are available, see
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General Information below).
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Xdaniver is designed to be a drop-in replacement for the Xmono server provided
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with the X11R6 binary distribution supplied by Bernd Ernesti available from
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ftp.uni-regensburg.de or one of its mirrors.
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Unlike previous colour X servers for the Amiga that emulate a chunky pixel
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screen in fast RAM, use the standard frame buffer drivers provided with the
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X11R6 source code to draw and then use a chunky to planar conversion routine
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to write the results to the screen (all very slow), Xdaniver uses a heavily
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modified mono frame buffer driver to draw directly using the Amiga's planar
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format. The net result is much faster drawing and support for all the Amiga's
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custom display depths but, as usual, the fewer planes used, the faster the
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drawing operations of the X server. Even so, on my A1200 with a 33Mhz 68030,
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I'm getting reasonable performance when using 8 bit planes in Dbl NTSC mode.
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You will need to have first obtained and installed the X11R6 binary
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distribution available from ftp.uni-regensburg.de in
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/pub/NetBSD-Amiga/contrib/X11 or one of its mirrors. Xdaniver has been
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compiled to expect font and configuration files sitting under
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/usr/local/X11R6, if your setup is different you will need to provide a
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symbolic link from /usr/local/X11R6 to where your tree resides or supply
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several command line flags to the server.
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To get Xdaniver running as the default X server, copy the uncompressed binary
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into /usr/local/X11R6/bin, remove the current X file from that directory
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(which is a symbolic link to Xmono) and replace it with a link to Xdaniver:
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gzip -d < X11R6.Xdaniver.1.01.tar.gz | tar xvf -
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mv Xdaniver /usr/local/X11R6/bin
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cd /usr/local/X11R6/bin
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Note that on some setups, the devices /dev/kbd, /dev/mouse and /dev/view??
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have been created to be accessable only by superuser; Xdaniver needs to open
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these devices. To workaround this problem, log on as superuser and then
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either make Xdaniver setuid root:
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or give everyone access the devices:
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chmod 666 /dev/kbd /dev/mouse /dev/view??
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the latter option is a possible cause of a security hole if your machine is
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The default resolution of the server is 700x430 and the default depth 4. AGA
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users might what to increase the display depth by editing the startx script
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and providing a -depth <depth> argument to Xdaniver on the xinit line of the
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script. As always, the lower the depth, the faster the drawing and window
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manipulation of the server.
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The resolution can be altered similarly by suppling -width <width> and
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-height <height> arguments to the server.
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The NetBSD kernel selects actual screen modes by picking a mode who's
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natural, non-overscanned size best-fits the requested resolution.
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Unfortunately, for AGA users, the 1.0 kernel only has support for the
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Dbl-NTSC AGA display mode and only this mode has support for depths greater
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than 4. The NetBSD-current (work-in-progress) kernel also has support for
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Dbl-PAL but still no support for the Super72 or other super-hires modes
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(perhaps some kind, kernel-hacker could add support for them ?).
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If you have a 2 button mouse (like me) you might want to try and use the 3
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button mouse emulation. On other systems, it is usual for the left and right
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buttons to be provided and emulate the middle button by pressing both
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buttons together, however, the middle button is tends to be used more than
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the right button so I have provided two options:
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-emulateright (or -3), the two physical mouse buttons act as left and middle
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and pressing them both together emulates the right button.
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-emulatemiddle (or -2), the two physical mouse buttons act as left and right
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and pressing them both together emulated the middle button.
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When using screen depths of less than 6 (4 is the maximum for ECS machines)
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the lack of possible colours on screen at once causes problems for many X
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applications. Specifying -cc 2 as a command line argument to Xdaniver
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causes the server to switch the default visual type from PsuedoColor to
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StaticColor; to put it simply, the server prefills the colormap with a
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selection of 16 colours (depth 4) and when an application asks for a
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particular colour, its gets allocated one that is closest to one from the
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selection of 16. This removes the 'WARNING: Cannot allocate colormap entry
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for "XXX"' errors but at the expense of applications not being able to get
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the precise colour they wanted. Also, some badly written X applications fail
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altogether when presented with a StaticColor visual.
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The limited choice of display resolutions for AGA/ECS machines is a real
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pain - requires a kernel change to fix. Worse still, the kernel specifies
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the maximum overscan resolution on the Dbl-NTSC to be 724x482 but selecting
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anything more than 702x430 on my machine causes the screen either sheer
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diagonally (as if the bytes per row calculation in Xdaniver or the kernel is
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wrong) or completely loose sync (suggesting a custom chip register sync
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calculation bug). As other, non-aga modes aren't affected when selection
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overscan both problems seem to point to a kernel driver bug. Also, depths
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greater than 4 for AGA users are only supported by the kernel in the Dbl-NTSC
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mode (and Dbl-PAL with the current-NetBSD kernel).
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I know of one bug so-far (there will be more), The PutImage request of an XY
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format image expects the bitplane order to be the reverse of that specified
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in the X protocol but since virtually all applications use the Z (chunky)
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format, you are unlikely to come across this problem.
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The PutImage request of Z format images is a little slow - when I have time
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I'll try and add one of the fast assembly chunky-to-planar routines developed
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for doom style games/demos. Unfortunately, the current crop all require a
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picture size that is a multiple of 32 pixels and so cannot be used out-of-the-
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Some extra performance could easily be squeezed out of the terminal font
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drawing code (used by xterm) - when I have time I'll add the code.
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The Amiga's blitter and sprites are totally unused and will remain so
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until/if someone else adds support to the kernel. The blitter would help
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speed up screen scrolling and window manipulation and sprite support could
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be used for the X pointer shape (if small enough) which would speed up all
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drawing operations (no need to remove the software based pointer shape
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first, draw, then replace the pointer shape).
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I removed the X image extension (XIE) from the X server as it increased the
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size of the binary by some 400k. I haven't come across any applications that
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need it yet (I haven't been looking!) so if you need the extension for some
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reason send me e-mail and I'll build a server with the extension included.
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The 3 button mouse emulation is very simple - to emulate the 3rd button you
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have to press both button precisely at the same moment - I've got quite good
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at it now. When I have some spare time I'll add a timer so you will have a
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few milli-seconds between one button being pressed and the next and it still
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being registered as the emulated button.
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AGA users don't forget to provide the -A flag to loadbsd to enable the one
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AGA mode in the 1.0 kernel but only if you have a VGA, multisync or dual-scan
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Xdaniver has been tested on:
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A1200, 33Mhz 68030, 8Mb RAM and NetBSD 1.0 by myself.
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A4000/40, 12Mb RAM and NetBSD 1.0 by Andreas Holzhammer.
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A3000, 12Mb RAM and NetBSD 1.0 by Charlie Root, Stuart Park and others.
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A3000, 25Mhz 68040, 18Mb RAM and NetBSD-current by Michael K. Sanders.
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A2000, 8Mb RAM and NetBSD (version unknown) by Hubert Feyrer.
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Release and Bug Fix History
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---------------------------
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- Narrow (<32 pixels) Z format GetImage requests corrupted the stack
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and could cause the server to core dump. (Xpaint caused this problem)
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- Drawing dots (PolyPoint request) into a clipped window caused a
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c pointer to go out of range, causing a core dump (xv showed this
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- Simple 3 button mouse emulation using a 2 button mouse; specify
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-emulate_middle (or -2) or -emulate_right (or -3) on the server's
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command line and press both mouse buttons together emulate the 'missing'
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- Basic beep sound support added by sending bell characters to the
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- Source code released.
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Disclaimer and Copyright Notices
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--------------------------------
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Multi-depth planar frame buffer code:
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Copyright (c) 1995 by Daniver Limited.
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Copyright (c) 1994 by Eduardo Horvath.
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Copyright (c) 1987-1995 by the Regents of the University of California.
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Copyright (c) 1987 by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Mountain View, CA.
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Copyright (c) 1987-1995 by X Consortium.
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Copyright (c) 1987, 1989 by Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, Massachusetts.
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Copyright (c) 1989 Network Computing Devices, Inc., Mountain View, California.
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Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
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documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided
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that the above copyright notice appear in all copies. The Daniver Limited,
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the above companies and individuals makes no representations about the
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suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without
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express or implied warranty.
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Thanks to Bernd Ernesti for making the operating system server source code
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available for others to use and Eduardo Horvath and Andy Heffernan, who (I
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think) did the original Xmono server port.
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Also, many thanks to the first brave users who tested Xdaniver for me on other
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Amiga setups and found a few bugs in the process.
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Daytime: garyh@wet.sbi.com
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Home: gary@daniver.demon.co.uk
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afb/Xdaniver.doc
