This is for video drivers on newer hardware (+ some older).... I have
yet to see specs of any card that uses DMA [but IRQ usage is common -
almost universal].
This has been fought about, debated about, and flamed about for the last
5 years. I've been working on it for two, and I'm now to the point where
I want to start incorporating hardware-level drivers.
It seems kind of a waste to incorporate these driver-ideas into a
kernel... especially 'cause there's no such thing as a standard
interface between accelerated videocards, so there's no way to make this
a black-box approach without getting REAL expensive on ram!
[it would also prolly help in issues relating to getting systems like
Win/95 and Win/NT running under DOSEMU :]
(not that they're requiring CPU (opl0? 3? whatever.) would help any....)
incidentally... I'm not that concerned with making this libc-compatible....
[that's a userspace issue :]
Ciao!
- Teunis
PS... It'd also be useful for plug-in device drivers (eg. that hated
plug-n-play 'nonstandard'....)
BTW - plugnplay printer-port support is nice :)