From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Date: Wed,  2 Aug 1995 11:48:48 -0400
From: Berry Kercheval kerch@parc.xerox.com
Subject: aux/vga
Topicbox-Message-UUID: 111d7c02-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025
Message-ID: <19950802154848.spIyPkeCqATNDsIVgH6EvnFurJQcCb_6svbS9UgXN7o@z>

>>>Boyd Roberts said:
 > 
 > Then I run aux/vga -l and the weirdest thing happens:  I get two half
 > screens, side by side, which are identical; the mouse tracks in both
 > and 8 1/2 runs fine.  I think I'm close at this stage, but I'm at a
 > loss to understand what's happening (the only thing I know about PC
 > hardware is that diskette rhymes with whiskette).  Any clues?

This sounds like a bug I had when I was doing a port of the X11R4 server to 
MS-DOS (for my sins, don't ask) about 4 years ago.  Time has muddied the details,
and my jerk boss would insist they were proprietary anyway (he's not my boss anymore,
thank God) but I seem to remember that it had to do with the VGA board 
being in 4-bit deep mode (16 colors) when the program thought it was in 8-bit
deep mode (256 colors) or maybe vice versa.  

I recently had a similar occurence on a Linux laptop, where Mosaic was too
stupid to understand about Visuals other than 8-bit deep and 1-bit deep.

Shit.  What a mess.  I can't wait for my plan9 CDROM to arrive....

  --berry

(P.S. I realize I probably haven't specifically helped Boyd, and have 
whined a lot, but I hope I have pointed him at the right place to look)

Berry Kercheval :: Xerox Palo Alto Research Center