Desktop app (X server + Window manager)

[toncho11]

I looked into https://github.com/ghaerr/elks/blob/master/elkscmd/nano-X/demos/nterm.c
Is it possible to have a simple "desktop" on ELKS where we start X server with a Window manager and a few icons to click on. The icons will be some simple applications. It will be cool even if it will require 286 or 386 to be fast enough. The idea is to have a single executable for that "Dekstop".

I was inspired by:
https://camo.githubusercontent.com/dc0f7e5042809c6e4b95253aa1569581d41b8455cd52fc74c2a9c038a91e1448/68747470733a2f2f6a63732e6f72672f696d616765732f70726f676d616e2d32303230303831302e706e67

What are you thoughts @ghaerr ?

[toncho11]

It is like xterm application, but instead of showing a terminal, 2 icons are visualized - one for xterm and one for nxtetris. Once an icon is clicked the app should appear in a window that can be resized, minimized or closed.

[toncho11]

And the NX server and "UNIX/Nano-X sockets" are very different from the standard X11 ones?

I suppose it will be very difficult to port this Window Manager to run on NX server:
https://github.com/jcs/progman

It just looks cool and it will be fun (and impressive) to see it run on ELKS.

[Oichkatzelesfrettschen]

If one has an ISA graphics card like the ATI Mach32 or Mach64 and the "Rage Pro and Derivatives Handbook" could there be reasonable 2D framebuffer acceleration with an appropriate VESA driver? (If I'm talking nonsense I'm sorry I'm just trying to brainstorm)

• Xfree86 has a driver that will work with all cards except the earliest Mach8 and Mach32. So I suppose it's possible to get those going.

But anyway, I digress. Could this driver (or the relevant portions for the specific compatible graphics cards) be ported to 16-bit and For microwindows X support?

I've found some technical docs while digging deep into these, but without knowing what I'm doing, it's useless to me. But I'm feeling like I should link everything here about these cards. Just in case. Is that OK?

But at least for a proof-of-concept it would be super neat to get a 4MB ISA Mach64 or a 2MB Mach32 performing a fully hardware-accelerated 2D WindowMaker desktop environment for example with an 8086 and an 80286 setup. Dual-booting Windows 3.1 on the 286 with 287 FPU? Epic.

Other GPUs? Quite a few seem to have Xfree86/Xorg drivers that could be ported by the appropriate individual for the task.

Would also need an active tester or two...

[ghaerr]

Hello @Oichkatzelesfrettschen,

But I'm feeling like I should link everything here about these cards. Just in case. Is that OK?

Sure, thank you for your thoughts!

Could this driver (or the relevant portions for the specific compatible graphics cards) be ported to 16-bit and For microwindows X support?

it would be super neat to get a 4MB ISA Mach64 or a 2MB Mach32 performing a fully hardware-accelerated

In general, there are two huge problems with getting a framebuffer-style driver running on a 16-bit only system: the first is that the driver code, even using far pointers, is still limited to accessing a mere 64k of bitmap/display data at a time, so most low-level draw code will need refactoring. I'm not actually aware of a single framebuffer-based video card that can run on less than a 386 (or 286 in protected mode) system. The other problem is that the 8086 systems are super slow when it comes to moving data around. So even if a GPU is processing stuff (other than triangles), just getting the data to/from the GPU isn't fast enough.

Here's a recent comment about how slow even an ASCII-based graphical mandelbrot generator is on an 8088.

I'd be interested to hear about any high-res graphics card that works on an ISA or similar memory bus or early IBM PC.

[Randrianasulu]

this thread on vogons contains some benchmarks for fast 286 + isa accelerators in windows:

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=77885&hilit=mach8+286&start=40

according to this link XGA and earlier 8514/A has isa variants (not by IBM) and XGA manual mentions real-mode 64 kb window for single-card real-mode operation:

https://www.os2museum.com/wp/the-8514a-graphics-accelerator/

https://www.os2museum.com/wp/the-xga-graphics-chip/

"Unlike the 8514/A, the entire XGA framebuffer could be directly accessed by the host CPU. There were three options: a 4MB aperture could be mapped anywhere in the 4GB address space, ideal for 32-bit operating systems and any number of XGAs; a 1MB aperture could be mapped below 16MB for 16-bit protected-mode operating systems; and a 64KB window was optionally available for a single XGA at the VGA A000h or B000h segment (real-mode accessible)."

I think I saw quite a lot of activity in 86box git for those cards (and I ran some OS/2 1.2 for 286 specifically with XGA 1024786256 once - not much to do while in there ...)

[Randrianasulu]

and here is demo of Windows 3.0 on upgraded Tandy 1000 SL machine, showing (slow) 1024768256c graphics:

https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/windows-3-0-on-the-tandy-1000-sl.56172/