linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] x86: provide a DMI based port 0x80 I/O delay override

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Date:	Sun, 30 Dec 2007 17:40:18 -0800
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	"David P. Reed" <dpreed@...d.com>
CC:	Juergen Beisert <juergen127@...uzholzen.de>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Rene Herman <rene.herman@...access.nl>,
	Islam Amer <pharon@...il.com>, Pavel Machek <pavel@....cz>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
	Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] x86: provide a DMI based port 0x80 I/O delay override

David P. Reed wrote:
> 
> 
> H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>> Now, I think there is a specific reason to believe that EGA/VGA (but 
>> perhaps not CGA/MDA) didn't need these kinds of hacks: the video cards 
>> of the day was touched, directly, by an interminable number of DOS 
>> applications.  CGA/MDA generally *were not*, due to the unsynchronized 
>> memory of the original versions (writing could cause snow), so most 
>> applications tended to fall back to using the BIOS access methods for 
>> CGA and MDA.
>>
> A little history... not that it really matters, but some might be 
> interested in a 55-year-old hacker's sentimental recollections...As 
> someone who actually wrote drivers for CGA and MDA on the original IBM 
> PC, I can tell you that back to back I/O *port* writes and reads were 
> perfectly fine.  The "snow" problem had nothing to do with I/O ports.  
> It had to do with the memory on the CGA adapter card not being dual 
> ported, and in high-res (80x25) character mode (only!) a CPU read or 
> write access caused a read of the adapter memory by the 
> character-generator to fail, causing one character-position of the 
> current scanline being output to get all random bits, which was then put 
> through the character-generator and generated whatever the character 
> generator did with 8 random bits of character or attributes as an index 
> into the character generator's font table.
> 

[Additional history snipped]

This is all true of course (and a useful history lesson to those not 
familiar with it) but what I wrote above is still true: due to the lack 
of synchronized memory (it doesn't have to be dual-ported, just 
synchronized, if it has enough bandwidth), most DOS applications *in the 
i386+ timeframe* just invoked the BIOS rather than dealing with the 
synchronization needs themselves (anything compiled with a Borland 
compiler using their conio library, for example.)

Hence the variety of software that poked directly at CGA/MDA as opposed 
to EGA/VGA was smaller, but I never claimed it was uncommon.

	-hpa


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