Thanks for the incredibly fast and valuable answers go to:
berc_at_pa.dec.com
Gyula Szokoly <szgyula_at_skysrv.Pha.Jhu.EDU>
Paul Rockwell <rockwell_at_rch.dec.com>
sarasin_at_yosemite.cop.dec.com
Reinhard Merz (MARB) <merz_at_telematik.informatik.uni-karlsruhe.de>
alan_at_nabeth.cxo.dec.com (Alan Rollow - Dr. File System's Home for Wayward Inodes.)
Andreas Bungert <bungert_at_rhrk.uni-kl.de>
1) Writing SCSI Drivers on DU for an old external SCSI frame grabber:
- I should use the user-level interface to the CAM drivers rather than
write a kernel driver -- easier, and less intrusive to the OS.
- In the online bookreader docs (CD Base OS) SCSI CAM is described.
- There are other books in the documentation telling how to write drivers,
including examples for frame buffers.
- There are companies that write device drivers for DU, e.g. www_at_tracertech.com
2) Using an internal PCI frame grabber card:
DEC sells video capture cards:
http://www.digital.com/info/Customer-Update/950715004.txt.html
a)FullVideo Supreme:
up to 640*480_at_30 frames/sec NTSC,768*576_at_25 fr/sec PAL,SECAM
costs ~$900 U.S.
uses alphavcr command.
programmng examples in /usr/examples (if MME has been installed...)
b)FullVideo Supreme JPEG:
similar specs
costs ~DM 6000,-
c)ATI Video Basic: up to 320*240_at_15 fr/sec NTSC, 384*288_at_12.5 fr/sec PAL,SECAM
I think I will look at the CAM documentation first. (At the moment I only have
access to man, not to the bookreader CDs, but hopefully I will manage that...)
Thanx again for the answers!
Rainer Landes eMail: Rainer.Landes_at_Physik.uni-karlsruhe.de
Tel. (+49) 721 608 3578
http://fphvax.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de/
Computer facilities of the Faculty of Physics, University of Karlsruhe, GER
=========================================================================
My original questions were:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello everybody!
DEC Alpha 600 5/266, DU3.2C,
DEC Alpha 3000/400, DU 3.2
RGBview 1050/2050
We've got a framegrabber device which connects to a DecStation 3100 under
VMS via the SCSI bus. The vendor of this box supplied us with VMS drivers
to write our own software, using simple function calls to the vendor's
library.
Now we are switching to DU on alphas an want to port our software, too.
The vendor says, that he is not interested in porting his library and the
drivers to DU (there are so few DEC Alphas out there...).
So, questions:
1) Where do we get documentation about how to write our own SCSI drivers
for this beastie? The box itself seems to be fairly simple: It is
waiting for an ASCII character on the SCSI bus and then acts accordingly.
The vendor said, he did a fast try to do it on DEC Alpha via the
documented rz drivers, but to no avail.
Problem seems to be, DEC only documented the rz and the tz drivers,
but not, how to write an own driver in general.
(I must admit, I'm not an experienced System Programmer yet...)
2) Alternatively, the Alpha 600 5/266 that we got, has PCI slots.
Does there exist a PC framegrabber card for the PCI bus which will work
in this alpha? Does there exist a driver for such a card working
on an DEC Alpha?
...
============================================================================
The answers:
============================================================================
From: berc_at_pa.dec.com
There are three frame grabbers. Check out:
http://www.digital.com/info/Customer-Update/950715004.txt.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Gyula Szokoly <szgyula_at_skysrv.Pha.Jhu.EDU>
> 1) Where do we get documentation about how to write our own SCSI drivers
...
Well, if you supply some more info (like what frame buffer, how much
money you are willing to spend, etc.), I can call up 'tracer'. They
are writing SCSI drivers for Digital Unix (we have a cd jukebox driver
from them, and the GEAR CD-R software is also based on the tracer SCSI
drivers). You might want to chek them out (www.tracertech.com or
sales_at_tracertech.com, support_at_tracertech.com). I'm not saying that they
have the solution for you, but the probably know who has it.
> Problem seems to be, DEC only documented the rz and the tz drivers,
> but not, how to write an own driver in general.
I think you need an extra product from dec (something like the CAM interface).
Gyula
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Paul Rockwell <rockwell_at_rch.dec.com>
>So, questions:
>
>1) Where do we get documentation about how to write our own SCSI drivers
...
Not being a driver guru, I can't give you a definite answer to your question.
But, you might want to look into the SCSI CAM documentation instead of writing
a kernel driver. A lot less work, and less intrusive to the operating system.
The user-level defined interfaces to the SCSI CAM drivers were made for this
kind of thing...
--------
+---------------------------+ Paul E. Rockwell
...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: sarasin_at_yosemite.cop.dec.com
Hello,
>Where do we get documentation about how to write our own SCSI drivers
>for this beastie?
See the man pages for SCSI cam. You can find them in the online bookreader
docs on the Base OS CD.
>Alternatively, the Alpha 600 5/266 that we got, has PCI slots.
>Does there exist a PC framegrabber card for the PCI bus which will work
>in this alpha?
Take a look at the FullVideo Supreme Cards for Alpha. It cost ~$900 U.S list.
you can get all of the info for the card at
http://www.digital.com It does
full motion video and frame grabbing using the alphavcr command. You can
also find source code to other multimedia commands in /usr/examples.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Reinhard Merz (MARB) <merz_at_telematik.informatik.uni-karlsruhe.de>
...
> 1) Where do we get documentation about how to write our own SCSI drivers
...
Wird wahrscheinlich nur durch DU-Internals-Training zu verwirklichen sein, oder
durch spez. Kurs bei DEC (zumindest gab's fruher mal Kurse, like ...writing a device
driver)
Da muestest Du Dich mal bei den DEC-Trainings-Leuten erkundigen.
...
> 2) Alternatively, the Alpha 600 5/266 that we got, has PCI slots.
...
AV321 heisst die Framegrabber-Karte fuer die PCI-ALPHA, kostet um die 6k DM.
Software gibt's vom DECcampus (MME).
gruss, reinhard merz
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: alan_at_nabeth.cxo.dec.com (Alan Rollow - Dr. File System's Home for Wayward
Inodes.)
The documentation includes a wide range of books on how to
drivers for various subsystems. The book on writing drivers
for SCSI CAM includes examples of kernel level drivers and
user level drivers using the User Agent interface. I think
the User Agent example is a frame buffer.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Andreas Bungert <bungert_at_rhrk.uni-kl.de>
Hallo Rainer,
in unserer alten Doku zu OSF/1 Version 1.2 von 1993 habe ich folgende
Buecher gefunden:
- Guide to Writing Device Drivers: Volume 1 Advanced Tutorial
Part Number: AA-PUBVA-TE
- Guide to Writing Device Drivers: Volume 2 Reference
Part Number: AA-PUBWA-TE
- Guide to Writing Device Drivers for the SCSI/CAM Architecture
Interface
Part Number: AA-PS3GA-TE
Dies sind drei richtige Buecher (zusammen ca. 7-8 cm dick, also nicht
nur diese Heftchen) aus der DEC OSF/1 Dokumentation. Ueber die Qualitaet
der Information kann ich Dir leider nichts sagen, aber auf den ersten
Blick sieht das Ganze sehr ausfuehrlich aus. Wie bereits erwaehnt,
beziehen sich die Buecher auf OSF/1 Version 1.2, die Part Numbers werden
wohl heute nicht mehr gueltig sein. Vielleicht kannst Du ueber sie
und ueber die Titel doch etwas bei DEC erreichen.
Ich hoffe, ich konnte Dir helfen.
Gruss, Andreas
==============================================================================
Received on Tue Mar 12 1996 - 12:28:58 NZDT