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SubjectRe: Intel x86 Kernel Console irregularity
1) You can set the screen to a known state with "vga=normal" in the boot 
loader.

Now about your graphics card.
Is it a very old CGA compatible card not a VGA card?
You see I've got an old 286 with an AT&T 6300 compatible card which can do
80x50 _but_ the VGA BIOS interrupts don't work so programs cannot tell if
the screen is in a nonstandard size.

The only way I've found to detect the size is to write newlines
through the BIOS until the BIOS scrolls the screen ... yuk!

It may be a good idea to map "vga=default" to "vga=normal" if the screen
is CGA, it's certain we don't want to use any of the other standard CGA
modes!

--
Rob. (Robert de Bath <http://poboxes.com/rdebath>)
<rdebath @ poboxes.com> <http://www.cix.co.uk/~mayday>

On Fri, 6 Aug 1999, Tom Gallagher wrote:

> I know this doesn't happen very often but:-
>
> If the BIOS (or Boot ROM) leaves the screen not in the normal 80x25 text
> mode (in my case the screen was in 80x50 mode) then when the kernel boots it
> thinks the screen only has 25 lines so will scroll at line 25 rather than
> 50. The console is then totally messed up and no amount of setfont will
> rectify the situation. With the first few lines displaying not in the
> viewable screen area and ncurses programs complaining about invalid
> coordinates.
>
> Perhaps it would be good if the kernel specifically sets the screen mode
> into a known state before booting.
>
> Just a thought for you all.
>
> >From Tom
>
>
>
>
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