*BSD News Article 11703


Return to BSD News archive

Received: by minnie.vk1xwt.ampr.org with NNTP
	id AA2008 ; Wed, 24 Feb 93 13:01:00 EST
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsserver.jvnc.net!gmd.de!fanoe!veit
From: veit@fanoe.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Holger Veit)
Subject: Re: programming the VGA with 386BSD
Message-ID: <1993Feb23.121432.2024@gmd.de>
Sender: veit@fanoe (Holger Veit)
Nntp-Posting-Host: fanoe
Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, Germany
References: <1993Feb19.231451.6605@mcshub.dcss.mcmaster.ca> <1993Feb20.232342.519@cti-software.nl>
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1993 12:14:32 GMT
Lines: 33

In article <1993Feb20.232342.519@cti-software.nl>, pim@cti-software.nl (Pim Zandbergen) writes:
|> dsantry@maccs.mcmaster.ca (Doug Santry) writes:
|> 
|> >I was wondering if anyone knows how to program the VGA under bsd.  I
|> >want to change the videomode to one of my SVGA modes and then turn
|> >on pixels, when done return to the standard text mode.  I assume that the
|> >kernel wouldn't let me write bytes to my VRAM because my session doesn't
|> >own the memory.  I also don't know how to change the videomode since I would
|> >have to write to the video card's registers.  Is there anyway to get the
|> >card's BIOS routines to work under bsd?  I have never done any UNIX low-level
|> >programming before so some advice or a solution would be greatly appreciated.
|> 
|> You don't mention which SVGA card you want to use.
|> If it's an et4000 you may be able to port the et4000 library
|> written by John Temples and posted to alt.sources and comp.sources.misc.
|> It was written for System V, though.
                      ^^^^^^^^^
This might be one of the main problems. SysV uses KBENABIO syscall to allow access
to the i/o ports, which is not available with 386BSD. There are bad emulations
of this available, though, which entirely open Pandora's box instead of selectively
enabling access to some (the CGA/EGA/VGA) i/o ports only.

|> Pim Zandbergen                      domain : pim@cti-software.nl

Holger

-- 
         Dr. Holger Veit                   | INTERNET: Holger.Veit@gmd.de
|  |   / GMD-SET German National Research  | Phone: (+49) 2241 14 2448
|__|  /  Center for Computer Science       | Fax:   (+49) 2241 14 2342
|  | /   P.O. Box 13 16                    |    Three lines Signature space
|  |/    Schloss Birlinghoven              |    available for rent. Nearly
         DW-5205 St. Augustin, Germany     |    unused, good conditions