wtm@uhura.neoucom.EDU (Bill Mayhew) (06/13/90)
1. Re: usning a Kraft generic mouse with VP/ix. Much may depend on the the mouse driver. Many mouse drivers use the IRQ 5 interrupt (the lpt2: irq). It is likely that the kernel programs the 8259 interrupt controller to not receive interrupts from IRQ 5 wihile the kernel is executing time slices other than VP/ix. This means that interrupts from the mouse movement will be lost. It may be necessary to obtain an AT&T mouse (maybe a Logitec Bus Mouse will do) and use the AT&T mouse driver that comes with the Unix. I do not have VP/ix on my system, so I can not comment on how well the AT&T mouse works; one would hope(insert smiley) that the AT&T mouse is well integrated. 2. Re: keyboard lock-up. AT&T mentions in the 3.2.1 manuals that there are problems with the keyboard MPU chip (8748 or whatever it is) on some non AT&T systems. The mention of the keyboard problem is in the back of the 3.2.1 release notes manual. There is a part number for a replacemnt chip. My manuals are at home and I am at work, so I can't give the number right now. 3. Re: Cursor. You can muddle through the console(7) section trying to figure out the ioctl(2) calls to program the display. I don't know about the 3.2.2 manuals, but the expamples in the 3.2.1 manual are sort of buggy. I used it a while back to gain access to the 8253 channel used to make sounds with the speaker. They mention to include console.h, but I belive the definitions have been moved to sys/kd.h. I beleive you have to change another include file too, but it has been a while since I worked on it. Anyway, one of the ioctl() calls allows you to access the 6845 registers on the video display, so you should be able to program your cursor. While on the subject, I found the TAM translation library to be really buggy too. I worked on porting some TAM applications from the 3b1, and found it to be quite a bit of work. If you are using a monochrome display, use caution when programming the 6845. On some moniotrs, botching the scan registers in the 6845 can stop the scan on the monitor, which in turn destorys the monitor becuase the transistor that drives the flyback transformer remains on solid. If the horizontal drive transistor stays on, the flyback smokes rather quickly. This is not a problem with color monitors. Peter Norton's DOS programming book has inforamtion about programming the 6845. ==Bill== -- Bill Mayhew Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine Rootstown, OH 44272-9995 USA 216-325-2511 wtm@uhura.neoucom.edu ....!uunet!aablue!neoucom!wtm