On Fri, 6 Feb 1998, David Burrows wrote:

> On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, Paul Apprich wrote:
> > 	After downloading the 1.3 vax sets (56k modems are a must now!),
> > extracting them in /usr/netboot/netbsd-vax (my root for the VS3100, wd0a
> > was too small for everything), copied the latest gennetbsd kernel to
> > /dev/sd0a,renamed it to netbsd rebooted and after doing B /1 DKA0, this is
> > what happened: 
> > 
> > -DKA0
> > 
> > howto 0x1, bdev 0x2a, booting...done (31448+22260)
> > >> NetBSD/vax boot [980110 22:29] <<
> > : rom()netbsd
> >  83 BOOT SYS
> > ?4D DEVOFFLINE
> >  84 FAIL
> 
> It looks like you copied the boot file into the root partition, otherwise
> you wouldn't have gotten that far.  Apparently there are at least two
> problems with Vax & NetBSD.  One of them is the graphic console isn't
> supported, I assume you are using a serial console?

	I am well aware of that. I had posted some info on where in 
memory the video matrix resides on this machine.

  The other problem is
> (I've heard) that you need to use a PIO kernel, because the DMA scsi code
> doesn't always work, although I've had some success, I can't really
> tell because when I attempt to boot from the internal scsi disk, it
> doesn't get as far as initialising the network.  I don't know why because
> I havn't yet plugged in a serial console to find out. :)
> 
	What is its name? Where can it be found? I have used gennetbsd 
from the 1.3 kernel listing from ftp.netbsd.org.


> However, I can successfully netboot from a linux box, and read/write to
> the hard disks fine. (With the DMA kernel)
> 
> I would REALLY like to be able to use the graphic console though, the only
> information I can gather is that the code to handle the text, is stored on
> a ROM chip of which the address is lost when NetBSD boots.  Could anyone
> knowledgable of the source and vax hardware vouch for the complexity of
> adding such support?  Unfortunately I am knowledgable of neither.. :(

	Karl Maftoum had posted some C source code on the VS2000. The 
addresses in the memory map are the same as well as its mapping.



> 
> Regards,
> 
> Dave.
> 
>