Cent.Mbeck%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@xx.lcs.mit.edu (Mark Becker) (09/09/87)
Alright... MINIX looks like a lot of fun. And I'm looking forward to my Operating Systems class when we start studying it. I've got the text [bravo, Dr. Tanenbaum!], a set of MINIX 1.1 diskettes from the professor, and have spent several days plugging the software into various clones and "real things". So far, everything I've plugged it into has worked, even Radio Shack's 4000 (80386-based) displays the "MINIX 1.1" header and attempted to boot (drive with wrong select code precluded furthur testing). But when I ask about technical documentation, the general response is: "Who uses that stuff?" or "Sorry, proprietary information, not available". I've got an EE degree with a strong CS background, can read schematics and generally know how to push bits around at the assembly language level. I enjoy writing assembly language. But where the heck does someone new to the PC-world FIND the documentation on this stuff?? Random problem: Every machine equipped with an EGA card seemed to have display problems, to wit: at various random times the screen would blank. Pressing -RETURN- until the last displayed line scrolled off would restore the display. Mono and CGA cards don't seem to have the problem. Has anyone else noticed this? Is there a fix? Regards, Mark -------
jum@focus.UUCP (Jens Uwe Mager) (09/12/87)
>Random problem: Every machine equipped with an EGA card seemed to have >display problems, to wit: at various random times the screen would >blank. Pressing -RETURN- until the last displayed line scrolled off >would restore the display. Mono and CGA cards don't seem to have the >problem. Has anyone else noticed this? Is there a fix? We have got the same problem on a Toshiba T1100, which is supposed to emulate a CGA card, so this does not appear to be bound to EGA cards. -- Jens-Uwe Mager jum@focus.UUCP
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (09/16/87)
In article <369@focus.UUCP> jum@focus.UUCP (Jens-Uwe Mager) writes: >>Random problem: Every machine equipped with an EGA card seemed to have >>display problems, to wit: at various random times the screen would >>blank. Pressing -RETURN- until the last displayed line scrolled off >>would restore the display. Mono and CGA cards don't seem to have the >>problem. Has anyone else noticed this? Is there a fix? > >We have got the same problem on a Toshiba T1100, which is supposed to >emulate a CGA card, so this does not appear to be bound to EGA cards. >-- This problem has been reported many times before. MINIX 1.1 assumed that all video cards used the 6845 chip. The EGA card doesn't. MINIX 1.2 has a fix that makes it work fine with the IBM EGA card. Many EGA clones aren't compatible with either the 6845 or the IBM EGA card. Finally I gave up in disgust and installed the soft scrolling fix that Larry Hubble posted earlier. This went out a few days ago. I think that with this fix the resulting system (call it MINIX 1.2a) should work on any EGA card system. If anyone notices otherwise, post something. Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)