The San Jose, California-based Video Electronics Standards Association is pushing a new VXE 1.0, VESA XGA Extensions Standard, which it says broadens compatibility with IBM Corp’s Extended Graphics Array from Micro Channel to the AT bus, EISA, and Local Bus. With VXE 1.0, software developers can now write XGA driver code that will run on all personal computer bus architectures: the standard has been developed over the last year with the participation of chip makers, board and system manufacturers and independent software vendors. The XGA architecture was originally introduced by IBM solely for the Micro Channel bus but these things don’t remain proprietary for long these days, and VXE 1.0 defines the XGA BIOS which enables software to query XGA-compatible hardware for information on the capabilities and characteristics of an XGA implementation; at the hardware level. VXE 1.0 defines a set of register-level functions that enable developers to write a single version of an application or driver to run on VESA XGA-compatible video subsystems in AT, EISA, Local Bus and the Micro Channel-based personal computers. It includes bus master support for all buses, and video subsystem set-up requirements, the Video Standards Association says.
