Subject: kern/1505: rcons font is broken on little-endian machines
To: None <gnats-bugs@gnats.netbsd.org>
From: Jonathan Stone <jonathan@DSG.Stanford.EDU>
List: netbsd-bugs
Date: 09/24/1995 18:30:52
>Number:         1505
>Category:       kern
>Synopsis:       rcons font is broken on little-endian machines
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    kern-bug-people (Kernel Bug People)
>State:          open
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Mon Sep 25 12:20:01 1995
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Jonathan Stone
>Organization:
	Stanford DSG
>Release:        1995-09-24
>Environment:
	
System: NetBSD Reno.Stanford.EDU 1.0A NetBSD 1.0A (NEWCONF) #291: Tue Sep 12 01:23:29 PDT 1995 jonathan@Reno.Stanford.EDU:/greyhawk/n1/src/NetBSD/src/sys/arch/pmax/compile/NEWCONF pmax


>Description:
	A -current kernel configured with "rcons" (or rconsole) support
	gets a font definition from sys/dev/rcons/rcons_font.c. This
	file #includes a font bitmap that appears to be in big-endian
	bit- or byte-order.  This produces unreadable gibberish
	on a Decstation running NetBSD configured with "rconsole"
	console output.
>How-To-Repeat:

	Configure a NetBSD/pmax kernel from 1995-09-24 -current source.
	When booted, console output is illegible chicken tracks.
>Fix:
	Remove the entry for rcons_font.c from sys/conf/files.

	Add it back to the port-specific (e.g., sys/arch/sparc/conf/filse)
	configuration files for which it _is_ appropriate.

Longer-term, having a #include of a well-known but machine-dependent
file containing a font definition may be cleaner.  It doesn't address
the issue of using PROM  fonts, or even that a ``natural'' font height
and depth may vary across different hardware platforms and/or different
vendor's framebuffers.

>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: