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Date:      Fri, 07 Feb 2003 14:19:44 -0500
From:      Walter <walterk1@earthlink.net>
To:        Dax Eckenberg <deckenberg@dweebsoft.com>
Cc:        Questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: monochrome monitor
Message-ID:  <3E4406D0.6000800@earthlink.net>
References:  <3E43EACE.6050104@earthlink.net> <146201c2cecd$fb631f30$0a0aa8c0@dweebsoft.com> <3E43F01D.7000002@earthlink.net> <147a01c2ced1$a03f87c0$0a0aa8c0@dweebsoft.com> <3E43F681.80206@earthlink.net> <14ad01c2ced4$df329d20$0a0aa8c0@dweebsoft.com>

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Dax Eckenberg wrote:
>>Dax Eckenberg wrote:
>>
>>>>Daxbert wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>I have a monochrome monitor I'd like to plug
>>>>>>in to a pentium-based FBSD router.
>>>>>
>>>>>Does your system's bios support older video?  Video selection is normally found on the "first" bios setup page.
>>>>
>>>>Thanks.  I put back the VGA monitor card and
>>>>checked.  On the BIOS set-up page it shows
>>>>the display type as "VGA/CGA" but stippled
>>>>out, as it also stipples out the amount of
>>>>memory.
>>>>
>>>>There are other video related memory settings
>>>>to be played with, but I'm guessing monochrome
>>>>is not an option.  True??
>>>>
>>>
>>>Well, I just remember from the "old" days being able to choose between VGA, CGA, MGA??.  Where MGA usually referred to a
>>
> Hercules or
> 
>>>other monochome adapter.
>>>
>>>The stippling (sp?) may be due to the BIOS auto-detecting the video type.  It may very well detect "Mono/MGA/something" when the
>>>monochome card is installed.
>>>
>>>So, does your host boot, just without video suport?  Or does it sit there and beep at you as if there was no video card
>>
> installed?
> 
>>It booted and ran fine with only the mono card in there,
>>just no video.  With both cards now, the VGA works and
>>still no mono.  (Before today I only had the VGA in.)
>>
>>I'm guessing either the BIOS does not handle mono, or
>>maybe just this mono card.  Thanks for your help so far
>>and whatever other things you might suggest to look at,
>>but it seems like a dead end at the moment.
>>
>>Walter
> 
> 
> I would suggest that you change your boot loader to use the serial console as default.  You'll still miss all of the BIOS POST
> information which is being delivered to the non-working mono video, but at least you'll get everything after the initial boot blocks
> are read.  That's presuming you have another host / dumb terminal to connect to the serial port.

I don't know how to configure a serial console, but that
doesn't matter since I don't have one of those. Thanks
anyway.  I'll keep an eye out for one at the local used
PC store, and for now just live with the present monitor.


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