Re: [PATCH 0/6] Support for LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 LCD display

["Noralf Trønnes" <noralf@tronnes.org>]

Den 02.08.2017 00.26, skrev David Lechner:
> On 08/01/2017 01:08 PM, Noralf Trønnes wrote:
>> (cc: Daniel Vetter)
>>
>>
>> Den 01.08.2017 18.51, skrev David Lechner:
>>> On 07/30/2017 12:14 PM, Noralf Trønnes wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Den 29.07.2017 21.40, skrev David Lechner:
>>>>> On 07/29/2017 02:17 PM, David Lechner wrote:
>>>>>> The goal of this series is to get the built-in LCD of the LEGO 
>>>>>> MINDSTORMS EV3
>>>>>> working. But, most of the content here is building up the 
>>>>>> infrastructure to do
>>>>>> that.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Some general comments/questions:
>>>>>
>>>>> I have noticed that DRM doesn't really have support for monochrome 
>>>>> displays. I'm guessing that is because no one really uses them 
>>>>> anymore?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The repaper driver was the first monochrome drm driver and I chose to
>>>> present it to userspace as XRGB8888 and convert it to monochrome.
>>>> The reason for this is that everything, libraries, apps, plymouth 
>>>> (boot
>>>> splash, no rgb565) supports it. I didn't see any point in adding a new
>>>> monochrome drm format that didn't have, or probably wouldn't get
>>>> userspace support (by libraries at least). The application of course
>>>> needs to know this to get a good result.
>>>>
>>>> tinydrm_xrgb8888_to_gray8() does the conversion:
>>>> https://cgit.freedesktop.org/drm/drm-misc/commit/drivers/gpu/drm/tinydrm?id=379ea9a1a59a5a32c8db6f164e80a3fd00cb3781 
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> The LEGO EV3 display is just an LCD (not the backlit kind). It has 
>>>>> two modes of operation. It can to 2bbp grayscale or it can do 1bpp 
>>>>> monochrome. The grayscale isn't the best (looks splotchy in 
>>>>> places), so it would be nice to be able to choose between these 
>>>>> two modes. How would I implement something like that?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Do you expect anyone to use grayscale if it doesn't look good?
>>>> Maybe better to add it later if there's a demand for it.
>>>
>>> I don't expect many people to use it at all. The people that do will 
>>> be hackers like me that want to see what it is capable of, so I 
>>> think I will keep it grayscale by default.
>>>
>>
>> It looks like the best way to satisfy your needs is to add specific 
>> formats.
>>
>> Video for Linux have these:
>>
>> include/uapi/linux/videodev2.h
>>
>> /* Grey formats */
>> #define V4L2_PIX_FMT_GREY    v4l2_fourcc('G', 'R', 'E', 'Y') /* 8 
>> Greyscale     */
>> #define V4L2_PIX_FMT_Y4      v4l2_fourcc('Y', '0', '4', ' ') /* 4 
>> Greyscale     */
>> #define V4L2_PIX_FMT_Y6      v4l2_fourcc('Y', '0', '6', ' ') /* 6 
>> Greyscale     */
>> #define V4L2_PIX_FMT_Y10     v4l2_fourcc('Y', '1', '0', ' ') /* 10 
>> Greyscale     */
>> #define V4L2_PIX_FMT_Y12     v4l2_fourcc('Y', '1', '2', ' ') /* 12 
>> Greyscale     */
>> #define V4L2_PIX_FMT_Y16     v4l2_fourcc('Y', '1', '6', ' ') /* 16 
>> Greyscale     */
>> #define V4L2_PIX_FMT_Y16_BE  v4l2_fourcc_be('Y', '1', '6', ' ') /* 16 
>> Greyscale BE  */
>>
>>
>> Maybe we can add formats like these:
>>
>> include/uapi/drm/drm_fourcc.h
>>
>> #define DRM_FORMAT_MONO        fourcc_code('Y', '0', '1', ' ') /* [0] 
>> Monochrome */
>> or
>> #define DRM_FORMAT_Y1        fourcc_code('Y', '0', '1', ' ') /* [0] 
>> Monochrome */
>>
>> #define DRM_FORMAT_Y2        fourcc_code('Y', '0', '2', ' ') /* [1:0] 
>> Greyscale */
>>
>> Daniel, what do you think?
>
> 2 of the first 3 tinydrm drivers are monochrome (and I would like to 
> write a driver for the Seeed/Grove I2C OLED displays which are also 
> monochrome), so I think the 1bpp modes would definitely be useful.

David, I'm curious about those displays what controller/interface they use.
I have been hoping that it would be possible to use regmap as an
abstraction for many of these controllers and their registers.

For MIPI DCS it wasn't possible because it's command oriented with
arguments. Since zero arguments is possible, a register with no value
is nonsense, even though the regmap implementation happily let me do it.
There's also the problem that regmap doesn't support registers with
different widths. Which is a problem if all registers are 8-bit wide,
except the GRAM register being 16-bit on RGB565 formats.

regmap is especially helpful with controllers that also have
gpios/keypad/touch/pwm, since the mfd (multi function device) subsystem
has good support for sharing regmaps between drivers. Multi function
devices are split into several drivers.

Noralf.