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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!news.dell.com!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: Using VG-3000 VGA card in 'non-VGA' modes. Date: 13 Sep 1993 09:49:15 -0500 Organization: Armstrong Laboratory, Brooks AFB, TX Lines: 33 Message-ID: <27219p$fmr@hrd769.brooks.af.mil> NNTP-Posting-Host: hrd769.brooks.af.mil Now that the problem I had with crond is gone, I am on to other, more obtuse, difficulties... I am using a DFI VG-3000 Super-VGA board, which uses the Oak Technology OTI-037 chipset for its basis. This board offers several operating modes, including emulating MDA, Hercules, CGA, and EGA. Because of hardware limitations, I am forced to use the EGA emulation mode. Whenever I try to boot NetBSD-0.9, the boot-block banner comes up. The text is clearly visible and I can select whichever kernel I want to. Currently, I am using the standard 0.9 distribution kernel. If the video card is set up for any mode other than VGA Color, the system locks up and all activity ceases. If the video card is set up for VGA color, I can boot, mount the distribution floppy with the file system on it, and do an 'ls' or any other command. Of course, since my monitor is EGA, I can't read any of the text on the screen, but the pattern of random dots changes as the screen is filled and emptied with pixels. My first guess is that the pccons.c probe routine is finding the VGA memory and registers, and trying to use them. Since I have the card set up to emulate an EGA controller (switches on the card), I had hoped that NetBSD or FreeBSD might be able to use that mode. If anyone has any experience hacking around in pccons and would like to help me out, I would really appreciate hearing from you. -- ------ TSgt Dave Burgess NCOIC AL/Management Information Systems Office Brooks AFB, TX