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From: Søren Schmidt <sos@freebsd.org>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Simutaneous mono and vga under FreeBSD...
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 11:30:52 +0200
Organization: The FreeBSD Project
Lines: 54
Message-ID: <323FC14C.1121@freebsd.org>
References: <32388517.BA4@wsg.net> <3238632A.6516@www.play-hookey.com> <51eoiu$6ck@diemos.isdfa.sei-it.com> <323C1975.4FA7@www.play-hookey.com> <323CFF79.E96@freebsd.org> <323DBB81.4EAF@www.play-hookey.com>
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Ken Bigelow wrote:
>
> Søren Schmidt wrote:
> >
> >
> > Hmm, most (S)VGA cards cant map more than 64K at a time into the ISA
> > "hole"
> > anyway, so it will work just fine, ie VGA=a0000-affff MDA=b0000-bffff...
> >
> > However most modern SVGA cards can map in their ENTIRE memory in one
> > linear chunk at some arbitrary high address, and all modern Xservers
> > should use that mode for speed. No problem in having a MDA card also.
> >
>
> Ok, Ok, I give up. I had tried this approach on a number of VGA and SVGA
> cards a few years ago, and had nothing but trouble. Those cards wouldn't
> cooperate in any mode fancier than grungy CGA. Lotus used exactly that
> arrangement to put spreadsheets on the mono display and graphs on the
> CGA, but never got beyond that while I was using it.
Hmm, you might have been bitten by a related problem, that some very
old VGA cards didn't do the decoding of memcs16 right, so it would
map the poor old MDA card as 16bit...
Or you ran into one of the more "interesting" BIOS implementations
out there, in that case it would still work under FreeBSD though.
> If the newest SVGA cards can map fully outside the 384K "Upper Memory"
> space, this eliminates the basic problem I had with memory overlap
> (always assuming the ROM BIOS on the motherboard will tolerate it).
There newer was an overlap problem between MDA and (S)VGA, as all
VGA's (in graphic mode) maps into the Axxxx segment while the MDA maps
at Bxxxx (both text & graphics).
I'll admit that there exist a few SVGA chipsets that can map into
both segments (I think the ET3000 could do that), but none of them
used it as a default.
> > Ïn fact I have had this setup running for years, so it works fine belive
> > me :), may I suggest you go read a couble of books on the subject before
> > making these claims ??
> Don't get too high and mighty -- you're no more perfect than I am, and
> I'm not pretending to be so. Thwe whole purpose of newsgroups like this
> is to exchange ideas, not to insult each other. If it's done right,
> everybody learns something as we go merrily on.
Just because I happen to know what I talk about ?? :)
I now know again why I should keep of these newsgroups :(
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Soren Schmidt (sos@FreeBSD.org) FreeBSD Core
Team
So much code to hack -- so little time.