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[ColorForth] video accelerator


I just got some ATI Mach64 accelerator code to work.. it'll take 20-30 lines
of Forth to accomplish what took 2000 lines of C in the VBE/AF driver I was
looking at as an example :)  Whoever said sample code is the best 
documentation, right on!  This C code was hard to follow, of course, since 
it had a constant for every I/O address, making it _harder_ to correlate 
with the documentation :) But at least it gave me a clue.

This works on my ATI RAge IIC.. it's got a lousy reputation for 3D, but 
it's still several times cheaper and faster than a "good" card a few years 
older. I probably won't even bother with the 3D or MPEG functions even if
I can find documentation. But anyway, if this card is any indication, it
won't be hard to program for some higher-end graphics coprocessors.

I wonder, now that I'm starting to accumulate support for various hardware,
whether it's worth the trouble to autodetect it and only compile the
necessary code. I don't mind editing the code as long as it's organized.
Either way, you wouldn't have to compile (or even download) code you won't
be using, unlike DOS, LInux, Windows, etc.. this Forth OS concept is gonna 
work out great.

I'll post my code on retro.tunes.org in a few days, once I clean it up.

Tom Novelli
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