francis@hslrswi.hasler.ascom.ch (Francis Demierre) (01/14/91)
This article describes a configuration problem of the SCO 2.2.3 on a PC AT clone equipped with a TRIDENT VGA display adapter and requests for help. If you are not interested, PRESS 'n' or 'q' now ..... (Last chance ;-) ) Hello NetLand, Here in ASCOM Hasler, I have installed the SCO XENIX version 2.2.3 on a PC AT clone equipped with a TRIDENT VGA card (Trident Microsystems, Inc.). (Exact config at the end of article) When I tried to boot with the 2.2.1 BOOT diskette, the following was happening: 1) Usual RAM test (Cold boot) 2) The TVGA Card video BIOS banner is displayed 3) Systems starts booting installation diskette 4) Request for the Filesystem Diskette is displayed 5) A few seconds later the system reboots itself and loop to 2) above. When I tried to boot with the 2.2.3 BOOT diskette, the systems boots ok but garbage is printed onto the screen. The text is just not rendered correctly but the system works; i.e. the panel for system language selection is on the screen. Finally, I installed SCO XENIX 2.2.3 from a terminal connected to COM1: in the hope I could solve the console problem later. Unfortunately, I could not solve it ! The system comes up ok but the display still shows garbage character although the system works ok when I type commands (blindly). The card does not include any switch to lock it into EGA mode so I tried several C programs to try switching the card (Basically getting the current mode of the tty with ioctl() CONS_CURRENT cmd, for which the driver returns '4' (EGA) and then opening /dev/ega to get the current display mode which happen to be '22' (EGA 25*80 color) or to try programing it in different modes). Unfortunately, none of my trials did succeed :-( I also tried the stty(1) command with all sorts of combinations but still no success ... I also tried playing with the DIP switches, especially switch 5 (Fast/Slow address decode) and switch 6 (8 or 16 bit data path) + Jumper J2 (Automatic Bus size detection / 8 bit BIOS interface). NO SUCCESS :-(( I did not mention but, of course, everything is OK under DOS and all emulation modes can be used without problems. Did anybody succeed installing SCO XENIX 2.2.3 on an IBM AT (or clone) which has a VGA card as the primary display adapter ? Anything I missed, any trick, patch, workaround ???? Please, preferably E-mail your answers directly to me unless you think the subject is of general interest. Thanks in advance, Francis ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Configuration: - Hyundai PC AT with 640 Kbytes on mother board 512 Kbytes extension memory 2 Serial/Parallel Adapters ( Mouse on COM1: ) 1 HD+Floppy(A:) Adapter - TVGA card with 256K On-board RAM (16 bits Bus version) installed in a 16 Bits Bus slot. Switches: 1-4 : Monitor type 5 : Fast/Slow address decode = Fast 6 : 16 / 8 Bits data path = 16 bits ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Francis Demierre UUCP: ...!mcsun!chx400!hslrswi!francis Internet: francis@hasler.ascom.ch -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
paulz@sco.COM (W. Paul Zola) (01/16/91)
In article <1723@hslrswi.hasler.ascom.ch> francis@hslrswi.hasler.ascom.ch (Francis Demierre) writes: } [woes attempting to install a VGA card under SCO XENIX 2.2.3 deleted] } }---------------------------------------------------------------------- }Francis Demierre UUCP: ...!mcsun!chx400!hslrswi!francis } Internet: francis@hasler.ascom.ch }---------------------------------------------------------------------- I am posting this because a similar question came up about a week ago. Very simply: You can't use a VGA card with any 2.2 SCO XENIX release designed for AT machines. We added VGA support to the 2.3 release of XENIX. 2.2.3 has been reported to work with a few VGA cards if they are set in EGA mode: there used to be a SLS (xnx086) to add support for the IBM VGA card and compatibles, but it's been discontinued. I tell you three times: If you want to use a VGA card with SCO XENIX, get the 2.3 release. Discounted upgrades from 2.2 to 2.3 are available: contact your provider for details. I hope this helps remove some of the confusion. - Paul Zola Software Support Engineer paulz@sco.COM Gotta tend the earth if you want a rose. - Emily Saliers DISCLAIMER: I speak for myself, and not for SCO.