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Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 18:12:19 +0000
From: Alex Burke <alexjeffburke@gmail.com>
To: FreeBSD-HACKERS <freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org>
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Subject: Low level hardware access in FreeBSD
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Reply-To: Alex Burke <alexjeffburke@gmail.com>
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Hi,

I am just wondering how I can access either BIOS calls, or preferably
registers under FreeBSD?

I am trying to write a simple system capable of displaying graphics on
the screen, and I am pretty sure I can mmap the VGA memory to my
programs address space.

However, to be able to output graphics onto the screen I think I need
to change the state of the VGA registers from text mode (I am guessing
thats what the console driver uses) to graphical mode (of which i know
there exist a couple) - but I think that involves programming
registers and I dont know how to do that under FreeBSD.

Also, for the FreeBSD console driver to pick the console back up once
it finished working, would I be required to reset the VGA registers
back to text mode?

Thanks, Alex J Burke.