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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!hp9000.csc.cuhk.hk!saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!natinst.com!hrd769.brooks.af.mil!hrd769.brooks.af.mil!not-for-mail From: burgess@hrd769.brooks.af.mil (Dave Burgess) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: pccons expert wanted... Date: 20 Sep 1993 19:30:48 -0500 Organization: Armstrong Laboratory, Brooks AFB, TX Lines: 63 Message-ID: <27li06$ilk@hrd769.brooks.af.mil> NNTP-Posting-Host: hrd769.brooks.af.mil First, thanks to everyone that has helped me get my EGA monitor working. It seems as though we are at a stumped point, and I thought it would be a good time to trawl for experts one more time before I move to Omaha and possibly lose my net.access. I am using an Oak Technologies VGA card configured as an EGA card with an EGA monitor attached. I am trying to boot NetBSD with it. NOTE: If I could afford a VGA monitor, I would have already bought one and this question would be moot. The bootstrap message (on the NetBSD-current disk I created) comes up in glorious white on black. I can read clearly as the system proceeds to load each of the pieces of the kernel. The boot disk then asks for a root file system disk. At this point, the text that was displayed by the boot strap scrolls off the top of the screen. The cursor turns dark blue, and the system just sits there. The keyboard is still kind of active, i.e I can turn on the caps lock, scroll lock, and num lock; and turn them all off again. If I press enough keys, I can get the 'buffer overflow' bell to go off. Once in a while, I will even get a dark blue 'trap type 12: offset 0' to show up. I have tried the original 386bsd 0.1 disk, a patched boot disk, a NetBSD boot disk, a FreeBSD boot disk, and a Linux boot disk. They all exhibit more or less the same symptoms. I have listed the differences below: Original disk didn't turn the cursor blue; it turned it gray. All the others look identical (little surprise really, they all use about the same pccons routines) The Linux disk was the most disconcerting... I could read the bootstrap text, and could read the 'autoconfig' equivalent screen, but the screen did not scroll. The virtual consoles were active, and I was able to change from VC to VC. After I changed back to the initial VC, my cursor was on the screen, as though the scrolling for my card was not working. Anyway. Does anyone know what the difference is in the video handling between the bootstrap code and rest of the system? If so, I would appreciate hearing from you. The fact that the bootstrap works with the card and NetBSD doesn't in tantalizingly excrutiating. I am running a 386DX with an AMI BIOS, 4 Meg of memory, and a generic IDE hard drive controller. Everything else is pretty much bargain basement (as that is all my weak kneed budget can support). I have already waded in WAY over my head in the pccons source, and I don't see anything in there that should make this hard to do. The default mode for the card has the map address at B000 or B800, both of which are valid map addresses for the card and both of which correspond to addresses in pccons. The card does use IRQ-2 for 'sparklie reduction', but I am not using a network card; nor anything else at IRQ-2, so I don't think this should be a problem. -- ------ TSgt Dave Burgess NCOIC AL/Management Information Systems Office Brooks AFB, TX