Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

Posted Mar 25, 2011 6:26 UTC (Fri) by malor (guest, #2973)
In reply to: Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it by corbet
Parent article: Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

I think I must have skipped that, probably upgrading to a distro that was using ELF, but I remember damaging a monitor once, trying to write X modelines. I was terribly poor at the time, too, so I had to suffer with the monitor for several months, as it got darker and darker, until I could finally afford to replace it.

Good times, for a limited definition of good. :)

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

Posted Mar 25, 2011 7:08 UTC (Fri) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (5 responses)

Ha, yes. I did this too - destroyed a monitor by running it at slightly too high a refresh rate, on its maximum resolution, with a custom modeline. :)

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

Posted Mar 26, 2011 2:27 UTC (Sat) by roelofs (guest, #2599) [Link] (4 responses)

Ha, yes. I did this too - destroyed a monitor by running it at slightly too high a refresh rate, on its maximum resolution, with a custom modeline. :)

Yeah, we've all been there. Though in my case, the monitor in question (KFC 17", I think) claimed to support 1280x1024 at 60 Hz, so I didn't feel too bad about sticking them for an in-warranty replacement. I had to wait about six weeks for the damn thing, though.

Haven't destroyed anything since then, but ironically enough, I did end up mucking with modelines and deep X voodoo not too long ago, trying (futilely) to get a stupid onboard Intel chipset to do 1920x1200. I'm still kind of annoyed by that one...

Greg

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

Posted Mar 26, 2011 6:19 UTC (Sat) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (3 responses)

That was the big selling point of the expensive 'multisync' monitors -- you couldn't wreck them that way. :-) All monitors these days are multisync; they just ignore signals they can't correctly reproduce.

Fixed-frequency monitors were much cheaper, but they were scary to use with Linux. It was sooo easy to get a modeline wrong.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

Posted Mar 26, 2011 20:40 UTC (Sat) by roelofs (guest, #2599) [Link] (2 responses)

That was the big selling point of the expensive 'multisync' monitors -- you couldn't wreck them that way. :-)

"Expensive" being the key word... This was a multisync, but either it didn't have the circuitry to detect out-of-range signals, or else its parts were borderline. (It did survive my settings for at least a couple of months, and I believe its replacement did, too, though it's possible I tweaked things.)

Hmmm...just found a 1997 XF86Config:

Section "Monitor"

    Identifier  "KFC 17-inch"
    VendorName  "Kuo Feng Corporation"
    ModelName   "CA-1726"

    Bandwidth   110.0
    HorizSync   31-70   # multisync
    VertRefresh 45-90   # multisync

    [...]

    # 67Hz 1152x864 mode (hsync = 63.1kHz, refresh = 67Hz)
    Mode "1152x864"
        DotClock        100.0
        HTimings        1152 1200 1296 1504
        VTimings        864 866 869 904
        Flags           "-HSync", "-VSync"
    EndMode

    # better 1280x1024 mode (hsync = 64kHz, refresh = 60Hz)
    Mode "1280x1024"
        DotClock        110.0
        HTimings        1280 1288 1472 1712
        VTimings        1024 1025 1028 1054
    EndMode

EndSection

I had forgotten all about interlaced modes (one of the 1024x768 settings) and the need for special, lower-res modes to accommodate graphics cards that either didn't have enough memory to support 16bpp at full res (e.g., 2MB ATI Mach32) or couldn't crank up the dot clock high enough or both.

Good ol' days, indeed...

Greg

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

Posted Mar 26, 2011 23:09 UTC (Sat) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (1 responses)

I'm pretty sure that must be a later-generation XConfig. The ones I was working on weren't nearly that friendly. They were more compact, using single lines where you've got stanzas. It was best to use a calculator to figure out the correct numbers, and very easy to get it wrong.

Multisyncs aren't *supposed* to be killable by any input, but obviously your experience disagrees. :-)

What I always lusted over was the early Sony multisyncs. Those were beautiful monitors.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

Posted Mar 26, 2011 23:37 UTC (Sat) by roelofs (guest, #2599) [Link]

I'm pretty sure that must be a later-generation XConfig. The ones I was working on weren't nearly that friendly. They were more compact, using single lines where you've got stanzas.

Yup, my early-1994 ones were like you describe, and the one I excerpted still has equivalent commented-out lines like that:

#   ModeLine "1280x1024a" 110 1280 1320 1480 1728 1024 1029 1036 1077
#   ModeLine "1280x1024"  110 1280 1288 1472 1712 1024 1025 1028 1054

Was that an X11R5-vs-R6 change, maybe?

As you say, it was very easy to get wrong, which is why, in slightly later releases, the bundled text file(s) showing other people's working configs for card/monitor combos were so valuable.

What I always lusted over was the early Sony multisyncs. Those were beautiful monitors.

That they were. I eventually bought a used Hitachi 21" with the same (Trinitron-style) shadow mask; it's still sitting on my desk behind the LCD. :-)

Greg

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

Posted Mar 26, 2011 21:36 UTC (Sat) by jcm (subscriber, #18262) [Link] (6 responses)

I'm actually a fan. Part of me pines for the days when using a computer required the brain to be fully enabled. Blowing up a monitor with an incorrect modeline is a nice IQ test. Yea, it's nice that we're all encompassing these days, but I liked it when things kept out of my way.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

Posted Mar 26, 2011 22:54 UTC (Sat) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (5 responses)

I'd argue that if you have to keep your brain engaged to use a computer without blowing anything up, it's most emphatically not getting out of your way. :-)

There's still plenty of brain-bending stuff in Linux these days -- a great deal more of it, in fact. Things must be a hundred times as complex, overall, as they were back then. You don't need as much knowledge to use the system at a basic level, but becoming truly expert is far more difficult than it was, simply because there's so much more to know.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

Posted Mar 27, 2011 4:50 UTC (Sun) by jcm (subscriber, #18262) [Link] (4 responses)

I'm thinking about the LWN crowd - people who work on Linuxy stuff. I'm all for using EDID provided data and doing everything automatically for end users, and even happy with lots of the prettification on that front, but if you're going to really work with Linux in terms of the features and experience provided to end users, you should be forced to at least know what a mode line is, etc. If this kind of logic were broadly applied, the results could only be a good thing.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

Posted Mar 27, 2011 7:20 UTC (Sun) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (3 responses)

Modelines are among the most arbitrary wastes of time ever inflicted on Linux users (and I say this as an ex-graphics driver writer). You'd spend the afternoon reading docs and fiddling little numbers just trying to get the stupid video card and monitor to sync without flickering. The only lesson you'd remember is that most graphics hardware is junk... which you already knew.

You'd rather see people monkeying around with VESA tables instead of working with Linux? You advocate FORCING people to learn this antiquated stuff?? You should force them to key in the bootloader using front-panel switches instead, at least then they learn the machine architecture.

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

Posted Mar 27, 2011 17:38 UTC (Sun) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] (1 responses)

You should force them to key in the bootloader using front-panel switches instead
Ah, nostalgia. But was there really a version of linux that would run on a PDP-8?

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

Posted Mar 30, 2011 5:01 UTC (Wed) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]

> Ah, nostalgia. But was there really a version of linux
> that would run on a PDP-8?

No... not *yet*.

Just kidding. I don't think Linus would take that new arch. We've got enough archs that are pining for the fjords already...

But seriously, someone did write a UNIX for commodore 64 from scratch in the 1990s. It was called LUnix:

http://hld.c64.org/poldi/lunix/lun_about.html

Apparently it was written in pure assembly language. Wow...

Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it

Posted Mar 27, 2011 18:13 UTC (Sun) by jcm (subscriber, #18262) [Link]

Certainly some velue in the front panel switch suggestion as well. Having a good understanding of computer architecture is never wasted ;)

Clearly I'm exaggerating. But I don't always like the world we live in because things are sometimes getting a bit easy. This is why I think occasionally doing something arcane or forcing yourself to skip the fluff for a few minutes can only be useful education.