;; -*- MODE:TEXT; FONTS:(CPTFONT HL12B HL12BI) -*- 2INTRODUCTION* --------------- This document explains the Dual Monitor support available in the base 4.1 release. 2DEFINITIONS* ------------- * 1Screen* - See pages 1-1 to 1-5 and 5-1 to 5-3 of the Release 3.2 Window System manual. * 1Multiple Screens* - Allowing several screens of the same type to coexist in the system at the same time. Whereas now there is one screen of type STANDARD-SCREEN (MAIN- SCREEN), with Release 4.1, several screens of type STANDARD-SCREEN can be created and may exist. This is most useful when using an Explorer Color System, in that a color screen may be created and will coexist with the monochrome MAIN-SCREEN. This will be discussed in more detail below. Each screen will have its own set of windows. Only one screen can be exposed at a time. NOTE: This feature is fully supported in Release 4.1. More information on Multiple Screens can be found in the 4.1 Release Information Guide. * 1Dual Monitors* - Allowing the S/W to take advantage of the Color System Interface Board (CSIB) feature of supporting both a monochrome monitor and a color monitor at the same time. This is really taking the multiple screen concept a step further in that with Dual Monitors, two screens can be exposed at the same time. A monochrome screen (MAIN- SCREEN) will be exposed on the monochrome monitor, and a color screen (must be created first) will be exposed on the color monitor. The monochrome screen will contain its own set of monochrome windows, and the color screen, color windows. Full Window System functionality will be available on both screens. Also, a Who Line Screen will appear on each monitor. NOTE: This feature is only partially available in Release 4.1. * 1Mouse Transport* - Allowing the mouse to be moved off the edge of one monitor and have it appear on the other monitor. This, of course, is only available on Dual Monitor systems. NOTE: This feature will not be available in Release 4.1. 2Advantages of dual monitors.* ---------------------------- Dual monitors allow both a monochrome screen and a color screen to be exposed (visible) at the same time, meaning that monochrome windows and color windows can be visible at the same time. This still does not allow mixing of window/screen types. Dual monitors essentially extends the physical display surface of the system, and also allows part of the display surface to contain color windows. 2Steps to put the system into Dual Monitor mode.* ------------------------------------------------- After booting the 4.1 load and mcr bands, and login'ing in, perform the following steps. These instructions are for use with the 4.1 load and microcode bands shipped with Release 4.1, with no additional patches loaded. 1) Execute: 1(TV:CREATE-COLOR-SCREEN)* This should cause a color screen to be created, exposed, and selected. The screen will contain a Lisp Listener. Any other windows/applications can be created/invoked on the color screen, as normal. See misc. notes below about invoking Explorer system applications. 2) To switch back to the monochrome screen (MAIN-SCREEN), press 1TERM-CTRL-S*. This should expose the monochrome screen with the monochrome listener. Doing TERM-CTRL-S again would take you back to the color screen. TERM-CTRL-S works for screens like TERM-S does for windows. Press TERM-HELP for help using TERM-S and TERM-CTRL-S. Choosing the "Select Screen" item from the WINDOWS: column of the System Menu can be used in place of TERM-CTRL-S. 3) To go into Dual Monitor mode, execute: 1(TV:SWITCH-TO-DUAL)* This will cause the monochrome screen to appear on the monochrome monitor, and the color screen to appear on the color monitor. Pressing TERM-CLEAR-SCREEN may be needed to get the screen to look right. 4) When in dual monitor mode, TERM-CTRL-S will still switch to another screen, but now the other screen will not be deexposed. Note that TV:DEFAULT-SCREEN and TV:MOUSE-SHEET are set to the currently selected (active) screen. 5) To switch back into single monitor/multiple screen mode, execute: 1(TV:SWITCH-TO-SINGLE)*. Pressing TERM-CLEAR-SCREEN may be needed to get the screen to look right. 2Tips in using the system when in Dual Monitor mode.* ----------------------------------------------------- 1) To create a window on the color monitor, it needs to be an inferior of the color screen. Thus when an instance of a window is created, its superior (:superior) must be set to the color screen. You can find the color screen instance either on the tv:all-the-screens list, by (SEND *terminal-io* :superior) when in the color Lisp Listener, or tv:default-screen when the mouse is on the color monitor. If :superior is not specified when creating a window instance, it defaults to the value of tv:default-screen. 2Color maps and dual monitor mode.* ---------------------------------- Remember, the CSIB implements an 8 bit deep frame buffer. When using a color screen in the single monitor mode, all 8 bit planes are dedicated to the color screen. However, when in dual monitor mode, the plane buffer must be shared by two screens. Thus, one plane is used for the monochrome screen, and the other 7 for the color screen. The screen's plane mask sets the H/W plane mask, which ensures that output to one screen does not affect the contents of the other screen. That is, output for the color screen only affects 7 planes, and output for the monochrome screen one plane. Note that the hardware always scans all 8 planes of the frame buffer to generate the video for the color monitor. Thus, something special must be done so that only the image in the 7 planes dedicated to the color screen appear on the color monitor. The color map is used to do this. The color map used in a dual monitor situation is special in a way. Thinking of the default case where plane 7 is used for the monochrome monitor, only 128 colors remain for use by the color screen (monitor). Thus, only 128 colors of the color map are really used. However, this does not mean that it doesn't matter what's in the other 128 locations of the map. The reason being, as mentioned earlier, the entire frame buffer (including plane 7) is still scanned to generate the video for the color monitor. Therefore, we must account for whatever's in plane 7, either a 0 or a 1. So colors 0xxxxxxx and 1xxxxxxx in the color map should be the same so that regardless of what's in plane 7, the same color will be displayed on the color monitor. If these two colors were not the same, we would get one color (or image) on the color monitor where there were 1's in plane 7, and a different color (or image) where there were 0's in plane 7. As another example, suppose the plane dedicated to the monochrome screen were plane 4. The plane mask to use for the monochrome screen would be #x04 and for the color screen would be #xFB. The color map would have to be set up so that colors xxxxx0xx and xxxxx1xx were the same. All of this stated another way: Plane seven is designated as the plane for monochrome operations. The hardware scans the bits of this "plane" to set or clear pixels on the monochrome monitor. When writing to the monochrome plane, mask off the other planes using a plane mask value of #x80. When writing to the color planes, mask off the monochrome plane using a mask of #x7F. It is important to remember that pixels are still EIGHT (8) bit quantities, and that the color hardware still scans the frame buffer to generate color on the color screen. The color map must therefore be set up so that logical color 0xxxxxxx and 1xxxxxxx, where x represents either a 0 or 1, are the same color. Thus, when in dual monitor mode, every window should have a color map set up in this fashion. If not, a ghost image of the monochrome screen will appear on the color monitor. 2Caveats* -------- 1) Though a disk save and disk restore can still be performed, the screens may not get exposed properly when the band is restored (booted). It may be necessary to perform the TERM-CLEAR-SCREEN sequence several times, along with the TERM-CTRL-S sequence, to get the screens to be exposed properly. 2) If the same Explorer system application/utility (Program, Debug Tool) exists on both screens, doing a SYSTEM-? will not take you to the application on the other screen. For example, if one ZMACS editor exists on the monochrome screen and one on the color screen, and you do a SYSTEM-E when on the monochrome screen, the monochrome screen's ZMACS will be selected. If SYSTEM-E is performed again, a beep will occur. To get to the color ZMACS, you must first select (switch to) the color screen and then do a SYSTEM-E. Also, a SYSTEM-CTRL-E would create another ZMACS on the screen you were currently on. 3) Run bars may not function correctly when in Dual Monitor mode. 4) A Who Line Screen will always be visible on each monitor. Thus, the entire real estate of a monitor cannot be used. That is, a window can not be of size 1024 x 808. 5) As mentioned above, Mouse Transport is not available. The mouse moves from monitor to monitor via the TERM-CTRL-S key sequence or the Select Screen option from the System Menu. 6) Release 4.1 Dual Monitor support will not be officially supported by TI, as it is in experimental stage. It has not been tested very thoroughly, thus bugs should be no surprise. 2H/W installation/configuration* ------------------------------- To use Dual Monitors, both a color and a monochrome monitor must be available. With a CSIB installed, and the SIB removed, connect the fiber optic cable to the monochrome monitor. The keyboard and mouse must also be connected to the monochrome monitor. The RGB cables should be attached to the color monitor. There should be no slot dependencies.