paul@philabs.philips.com (Paul Matz) (12/13/88)
We are in the process of developing a hybrid Unix/DOS system that uses a VGA display for the DOS application. We've had some interesting and strange results. Here are some of them, and some questions for the masses: o With a VGA card installed in an AT slot, and the appropriate lines in boards.pc and setup.pc un-commented (distribution version of boards.pc contains VGA definition that is commented out), it seems impossible to start a DOS task that uses the display connected to the VGA card, as its "primary" display device, without also openning a blank DOS window on the 386i monitor. Using the "-w" option to start DOS from a sunview command window, the error message: can't un-track memory, permission denied. is received, and the sunview window where the command was issued hangs and finally coredumps. It seems that there is conflict between the software emulated text-only (monochrome or CGA?) interface and the hardware on the VGA card that is also capable of doing that work. Is there a way to fool VP/ix into thinking the VGA card is just another peripheral, eliminating this conflict, while still providing the VGA characteristics to a DOS application? o Is there a list of VGA cards that Sun has tried and are known to work well? o Does DOS on the 386i make a distinction between the "primary" and "secondary" display, as does DOS on a PC? o Will "DOS -w" ever work from a serial login or rlogin connection? "DOS -w" seems to work in a psterm window running under NeWS. Am I being fooled? Does sunview need to be running for DOS to work? Please send any responses to: ppgbms!paul in addition to posting responses. Thanks (wishful thinking) Regards, Paul Matz PPG Biomedical Systems Pleasantville, NY. 914-741-4685 ppgbms!paul