soren@t.dk said:
> My impression is that the BIOS display type (usually called 'VGA/EGA' /
>  'mono' or something like that) (see i386/isa/nvram.h:NVRAM_EQUIPMENT)
> is only intended as a hint to the operating system. 

If I set the display type to "MONO" in the BIOS setup,
it will be silently reset to EGA/VGA on the next boot,
so it is not suitable as a hint.

> I think the display driver is supposed to choose (default) colors
> based on it.

The display driver does already figure out whether the
card is a monochrome one (or a VGA emulating an MGA).
It will not try to use the green foreground in this case.
It seems that Allen's Monitor looks like a color one to
the VGA card, the card is in color mode, and the software
has no way to find out that it is a grayscale display.
So it needs to be manually enforced - perhaps a runtime
switch could be added.

best regards
Matthias