From owner-freebsd-hackers  Thu Jan 27 22:19:51 2000
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To: John Baldwin <jhb@freebsd.org>
Cc: hackers@freebsd.org,
	Brian Fundakowski Feldman <green@freebsd.org>, msmith@freebsd.org,
	rnordier@freebsd.org, yokota@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp
Subject: Setting the video mode during boot (was: Re: VGA card (mis)behavior)
In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 27 Jan 2000 18:57:58 EST."
             <200001272357.SAA64004@server.baldwin.cx> 
References: <200001272357.SAA64004@server.baldwin.cx> 
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 15:25:06 +0900
From: Kazutaka YOKOTA <yokota@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp>
Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
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>> The word at 0x463 in the BIOS data area tells at which I/O address the
>> CRTC is sitting on.  It's 0x3b4 for the monochrome adapter and EGA/VGA
>> in a monochrome mode, and 0x3d4 for CGA and EGA/VGA in a color mode.
>> 
>> So, we should try to set the mode 3 when we find 0x3d4 and the mode 7
>> for 0x3b4.
>
>I knew someone would know. :)  I'll try to work on a patch for this tonight
>if I have time.  Would it be ok if this was done very early on, like before
>the loader binary itself was started?  IOW, do it in btxldr?  We might also
>want to do it in boot1.

There probably isn't much space in boot1.

While boot2 and loader(8) print string on the video adapter via BIOS,
btxldr appears to assume the video card is in the text mode (whether
it is mono or color) and directly goes to the text buffer address
(0xb8000 for color and 0xb0000 for mono).

I think we may set the video mode at the very beginning of btxldr.
But, even if we cannot find space to do so in btxldr, I won't moan.
Because I don't think we will loose vital information even if we don't
see btxldr's banner.  So, setting the video mode during boot2 or in
loader(8) should be sufficient, I would expect...

Kazu


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