Sorry that this was not part of an obvious README, but MILO currently does
*not* do well with PCI VGA boards, as the PCI bus-related code doesn't
(currently) know enough/how to enable them to be accessed via both I/O space
and (bus) memory space. Not a big deal, but my first attempt is not ready
for prime time yet, and I ran into another, potentially *much* bigger,
problem...
Currently MILO only knows/works with standard VGA registers and memory
aperture. At least some PCI VGAs (I tried the ATI Mach32) perhaps do not
power-up in this mode, and *require* the normal BIOS initialization to get
them into stardard VGA mode. We are investigating the possibility of doing
BIOS emulation via an x86 emulator, but are not at all far along down this
path. Digital's SRM and ARC consoles both have such BIOS emulation
capabilities, but it is proprietary code and definitely *not* available for
MILO.
Best (current) solution I know of: find an ISA VGA of almost any flavor, and
use that while waiting for the rest to take place...
Best of the Best: find an ISA S3 928 board and use the XFree86 S3 server
available for anonymous FTP from ftp.digital.com:pub/DEC/Linux-Alpha/X11
(as well as gatekeeper.dec.com, same directory). Rumor has it that it may
also work with 864 and/or TRIO64 boards as well. Unfortunately, my first
attempt to get an S3 801-based board going were *not* good. No idea about
any of the other S3 chipsets; please let me know what luck you have if you
try any others.
--Jay++
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American Non Sequitur Society: we don't make sense, but we do like pizza...
Jay A Estabrook Alpha Migration Tools - Linux Project
Mailstop: TAY1-2 (DTN) 227-4202
Digital Equipment Corp. (external) (508) 952-4202
151 Taylor Street enet: jestabro@amt.tay1.dec.com
Littleton, MA 01460-1407 decnet: tallis::jestabro
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