Ask HN: How were graphics card drivers programmed back in the 90s?

3•ferguess_k•1h ago

I read this doc and it completely blew my mind.

https://www.haiku-os.org/legacy-docs/benewsletter/Issue4-8.html

I have done a few simple embedded driver development but graphic cards, even in the 90s, look like beasts to me.

I don't think there is any books on this topic -- the best thing we have is Linux Device Driver, and I don't think any book is going to dive deep into graphic card driver development. If I want to know the details, I'll probably read the source code of OSS drivers.

I'm wondering if there are more stories or blogs like this (maybe in the 80s too, remember those Hercules cards?). It really warms me up thinking about sitting in a cube, writing code for device drivers, reading docs everywhere, banging my head on every solid wall until I start to see code in air, quaffing coffee one by one, going into deep night...I know it's way more romantic than the real story but I can't keep myself wondering about it.

Comments

PaulHoule•1h ago

These were pretty proprietary I remember.

ferguess_k•49m ago

Yeah I think that was the case and still the case for many companies (nVidia). From what I briefly looked up, good thing that we can now develop drivers for virtual graphic card, and there are OSS drivers from both Intel and AMD.

JohnFen•1h ago

During that time, I had a job for a major games company doing nothing but developing Windows graphics card drivers. They were moderately complex beasts (enormously complex compared to other device drivers), but not really that huge of a thing.

The biggest effort about them was reverse-engineering certain cards. The games often used very strange video settings, and the card manufacturers had poor, sometimes no, documentation about their operation at a low level.

Lumoscore•1h ago

From what I’ve seen, a lot of 90s driver work was exactly that mix of partial docs, trial-and-error with registers, and mailing some engineer at the card vendor hoping they’d admit to a bug. It wasn’t glamorous, but it’s kind of wild how much of it came down to persistence and a bit of luck

ferguess_k•32m ago

Thanks. I bet there were a lot of battle stories like what I read. Alas most of those went into history's garbage bin :/

I was even thinking about getting my hand on a few cheap physical cards (not sure which ones are cheaper), a Pentium box, and see if I can do anything -- even displaying some colors is fun enough.

How to Make an Antibody

Democratic Backsliding

Discovery of Unstable Singularities

They don't make 'em like that any more: tone controls

We built automated testing for vibe-coded apps

tldraw SDK 4.0

Apple iPhone 17 Review

Donations at Work: Funding Josh Matthews' Contributions to Servo

Hired Through GitHub: Part 1

'Restorative justice appeals' trump 'retributive vigilance' on social media

Some dogs can classify their toys by function

The Sad, Sad World of Tech Blogging During an Era of Technological Stagnation

Postgres 18 OAuth2 Authentication – Building a Custom OAuth2 Validator in Rust

Organs Cannot Simply Be Classified as Male or Female

How to Build a 'Simple' Focus Stacking System

I think "agent" may have a widely enough agreed upon useful definition

Station Your Canaries (Leading Indicators)

Quebec to stop offering free Covid-19 vaccines to the general population

Comparison of Compressed Air/CO2 Energy Storage and Carnot Battery

More Was Possible: A Review of If Anyone Builds, It Everyone Dies

Reflection: C++'s Decade-Defining Rocket Engine – CppCon 2025 [video]

Life without sex: study examines individuals' characteristics

A Trustworthiness-Based Metaphysics of Artificial Intelligence Systems

Inside the world’s most powerful AI datacenter

They traveled to Thailand. They wound up cyber scam slaves in Myanmar

Show HN: My lightweight prompt management and analytics tool.

Show HN: Neon Shower, a fun tool for animating light rays

Notion 3.0

Research: AI and Software Verification/Validation

Disentangling the Dual Role of NIC Receive Rings