On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, Michael R Zucca wrote:

> > > Since the internal video of the IIci shares memory with the rest of the
> > > machine, if you turn off internal video or fail to hook up a monitor to
> > > the monitor port the memory map chnages enough to confuse NetBSD.
> > 
> > Is it confused to the point where there is effectively no display in this
> > case?
> 
> It's confused to the point where it won't boot NetBSD :-)
> 
> Actually, from recent messages it seems that the memory map problem only
> occurs if you have a 1 meg SIMM in Bank A. If you put a larger SIMM in
> bank A you can boot with nothing on the internal video with no problem.

As I mentioned, it seems to boot fine (with a complaint about rc.conf not 
being setup, going to single-user when I'd specified multi-user in the
booter), and the unexpected behavior was that the 8/24 card didn't get the
console - only serial console!

> > Well since I'm actually planning on running the machine headless, I don't
> > care about internal video at all.  Actually, if it really isn't
> > initializing DRAM video at all, I can live with serial console, since it
> > will be headless and I want the performance gain of no DRAM video.  Am I
> > understanding this correctly?
> 
> Not quite. Your options are as follows:
> 
> - Try putting a 2 Meg or larger SIMM in bank A and trying to boot headless
>   avoiding the DRAM video slow-down

Well it does seem to boot ok (just the 8/24 card now goes unused...)

> OR
> 
> - Putting a monitor adapter or rig a paper clip to make the machine think
>   there's a monitor on the internal video port and deal with the DRAM
>   slow down.

I guess I should be asking then: is there any way to use the 8/24 card for
the console and avoid the DRAM internal video?  Or is serial console my
only option?  (I'm assuming the 8/24 card can be used for X either way,
even though it isn't cleared upon booting NetBSD...)

--
Nathan Raymond