James Alexander Jacocks <silence@wam.umd.edu> writes:

>I have a DecStation 5000/120 24mb and am having an interesting seemingly
>video-related problem when trying to boot a netbsd kernel.

>No matter which kernel I try (1.3, or 1.2), as soon as the kernel is
>recognized, and the sizes displayed, the screen seemingly becomes
>interlaced, and the text on the screen bounces up the screen back and
>forth.  Eventually, I get a prompt of some sort, but, due to the video
>situation, I am unable to read it.
>
>Here is my sysconfig:
>
>DecStation 5000/120
>24mb Ram (6x4mb modules)
>PMAGB-BA frame buffer
>19" Dec color monitor (the big big heavy one)
>RZ23L (rz0)
>Iomega Jaz (rz4)
>
>I currently have parts of Ultrix 4.4 on the rz23, and that boots and runs
>fine...
>
>Any help/suggestions as to what I have done wrong would be appreciated.

Hi,

If Ultrix boots on this machine, and it uses the graphics monitor as
system console, and NetBSD doesn't, you're probably not doing anything
wrong.  I do wonder about the monitor, though.  it sounds like the video
frequency from the card doesn't match the fixed-frequency monitor.
Other people have run NetBSD 1.2 and 1.3ALPHA on SFBs, so I'm guessing
it's something about your hardware.

Can you get the model number (like VR-2xx, or VR19) from the back of
the monitor and post it? and also the output of

	>> cnfg

with the model number and any version/submodel info of the PMAGB-BA?
(>> cnfg N, where N is the slot with the sfb, might have more info.)

I seem to remember that the SFB actually comes in two varieties, which
run at different video rates (60 and 66 Hz, or possibly 66 and 72).
But the driver in NetBSD only seems to use one speed. Perhaps you have
a monitor/card combination that Ultrix supports but NetBSD doesn't?

If so, it should be straightforward to fix, if we can figure out
the (sub)model info or card jumpers properly.