jmcneill@NetBSD.org said:
> Modified Files:
> 	src/sys/arch/i386/bios: vesabios.c vesafb.c
> Log Message:
> * VBE functions return a byte, not a word. Ignore the
>   rest of the garbage in the return register. 

Uhm, this is wrong. The AH part is even more useful
than AL. "0" means "successful", other values are
error indications.
Have a look at the VBE spec for details.
(What might make sense is to mask out the upper 16 bits
of EAX because just AX is significant.)

best regards
Matthias