New tarball available

[peterg at ptree32.com.au]

Hi Alex,

>I believe... but am not 100% sure that the older OF versions
>(at least what I'm using, 2.01f) can handle a pure ISO FS
>just fine.  It just doesn't recognize the ISO versioning
>stuff by default.

 I think that's right: problem is, the older OFW versions
don't understand the hybrid format, so at least the loader
should be able to read both (instead of just the hybrid
like my patched one does).

>Does syscons have the ability to use off the shelf VGA
>cards?  An accelerated console would be very keen indeed
>(something else NetBSD lacks).

 Syscons/VGA requires that the VGA card be set up in VGA 
mode. OFW doesn't do this: it puts the card into linear 
framebuffer 8-bit mode. I'm a bit out of my depth here, 
but I think that the onboard ROMs on VGA cards set up the
legacy VGA mode - I don't think they power-up that way.
So, I don't believe you can just stick an off-the-shelf
VGA card into a Mac and expect it to work.

 Now, regarding accelerated rendering: this is the domain
of the KGI-for-BSD project. Last time I looked they had
support for a number of cards that are in Macs, but I don't
think they have the syscons-style VTY switching yet.

later,

Peter.