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Date:      Sun, 08 Sep 1996 15:08:34 -0700
From:      Arve Ronning <arver@sn.no>
To:        Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Cc:        sos@FreeBSD.ORG, Arve.Ronning@alcatel.no, durham@w2xo.pgh.pa.us, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, j@uriah.heep.sax.de
Subject:   Re: Support for fixed-scan monitors
Message-ID:  <323343E2.297D@sn.no>
References:  <199609080131.LAA27126@godzilla.zeta.org.au>

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Bruce Evans wrote:
> 
> >> If I remember right you can set the PC to boot into whichever you
> >> want by setting the BIOS to either monochrome og vga. Syscons could
> >> then take over the device that the BIOS used as default. As I see
> >> it there is no need to muck with the bootblocks....
> >
> >With MDA *and* VGA present...Hmm...
> >Some BIOSes may be able to do that, but the ones I've tried have failed either
> >by silently resetting the primary to VGA or by not initializing the MDA correctly
> >on the next power-on boot (I thought my MDA monitor had departed for good, but it
> 
> Syscons (and pcvt) should start the same device as the BIOS, anyway.

Given the quirks of BIOSes, that would have to be the [CEV]GA. I don't think
syscons knows which device is being used by BIOS (please correct me if I'm wrong
here). I haven't checked pcvt. So, I believe this is mostly a matter of choice
(and not of using what BIOS uses).

> The new option(s) could reverse the default, or force MDA (fail the probe
> if none), or force [CEV]GA.  Then it should be possible to switch to
> the other screen, or use both (syscons on one and pcvt on the other :-).
> That sounds nifty :). (using syscons *and* pcvt I mean:).

However, what if the screen used by BIOS is on a monitor which doesn't accept the 
default scan rates (my situation) ? During boot, we would not see :
a) the BIOS messages
b) the '>> FreeBSD....Boot:' prompt
In this case, there is little we can do about a) (except perhaps hack the BIOS :(.
But we *can* do something about b) by hacking the bootblocks (which is what I did:).

BTW, I forgot to say (yesterday) that my patches are for *2.1.5R* !

	- Arve




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