Subject: Re: FASTCONSOLE on cgsix
To: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>
From: Mark Dapoz <md@dementia.org>
List: port-sparc
Date: 11/06/1996 11:20:22
This may be of interest to people wishing to speed up their text console
at the cost of a bit of memory.  I tried it once and it does work.
				-mark

Article 46272 of comp.sys.sun.admin:
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From: abcc@perth.DIALix.oz.au (Arena Technology)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.unix.solaris
Subject: Re: Console is like molasses in January
Date: 8 Feb 1995 07:57:13 +0800
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mleese@hudson.cs.unb.ca (OMG) writes:

>In article <3h8au2$mn@news0.cybernetics.net> root@netmar.com writes:
>>
>>But in console mode (i.e. no windowing system running) the text display occurs
>>somewhere around 300-400 cps.  This is not my idea of speedy.

>Yep, this is normal.

>I havn't thought about this for a while, but seem to recall that the 
>screen writing is done via code in an EEPROM which is a tad sluggish.

Sure is... and here's the solution.

In <fYK60C4@quack.sac.ca.us> mrapple@quack.sac.ca.us (Nick Sayer) wrote:

The problem is twofold. First, the console is written
in FORTH, second, it's running in the ROM (which has a bunch
of wait-states per read). There's no solution to the
former, but for the latter, you can do this:

#! /bin/sh
eeprom 'nvramrc=probe-all install-console
ramforth
: cache-page dup pgmap@ cacheable swap pgmap! ;
up@ cache-page
here origin do i cache-page pagesize +loop
banner'
eeprom 'use-nvramrc?=true'
exit 0

Reboot after doing the above. Your console will be much, much faster
and you'll lose 200K of RAM. Just do it once. The effect is
(semi-)permanent. You can turn it off by either using L1-N to wipe
the nvram during boot or you can say 'eeprom use-nvramrc?=false'
if the OS is up to just disable it for the next reboot (don't forget
to 'true' it to re-enable it).

--
  Adrian Booth, Arena Technology, 7 Glenrowan Place, Willetton WA 6155 Oz 
   Phone: (09) 354 4936 | Fax: (09) 354 4115 | Email: arena@dialix.oz.au
    The autumn leaves are falling like rain.
    Although my neighbors are all barbarians
    and you, you are a thousand miles away;
    there are always two cups at my table.             - T'ang Dynasty