VP/ix & ATI Video Card Problems - SUMMARY

[Allan Schaffer]

---
here's another message that I sent out, which was probably lost when the local
hub went down.. :-)
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About a week & a half ago I posted a few questions about VP/ix's treating
of my ATI video card, and asked you all if you knew of a way to work around
the problems.. Here's what I found out:

[sorry, no attribution for those who answered.. but thanks to all]

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Problem 1:  When I boot VP/ix, my text font is changed to a very ugly EGA-
 style font.  It goes back to normal when I exit VP/ix, or when I run a
 Unix command from inside VP/ix (say, "ls"..).

Total Fix:  None

Quick Fix:  Save the boot image of VP/ix, (invoke using "vpix -s") then
 quit, and re-invoke VP/ix via "vpix -r".  This works for general text
 stuff, but reverts back to the "ugly" font after any sort of graphics,
 etc.. i/o.

Several people also suggested commenting both the EGAROM and VGAROM lines
out of my vpix.cnf file.  This didn't work though -- when I subsequently
invoked VP/ix, the screen went blank and never looked back..

[I ended up rebooting, and trying several various permutations.  Didn't find
 any]

One person had a very intresting suggestion -- Boot DOS, and copy the video
BIOS to a file (with Debug).  Then, point the VGAROM variable at it.  That
didn't seem to work for me, though.  

----------------------

Problem 2:  When I go into Turbo C++, in 50 line mode, my cursor disappears.

Total Fix:  None

Quick Fix:  Hit <INSERT> twice.  On my machine, the cursor goes "big" the
 first time, (indicating overwrite mode), then stays "big" the second time,
 but goes into "insert" mode.  Good enough for me.. :-)

----------------------

A curious side-note:  A few people wrote to me saying "I have the same
problem - let me know if you find out anything!" .... which isn't anything
strange.  What *was* interesting was that they ALL had ATI cards.

Hope this helps,

[off to buy an Orchid Card..]

Allan
Disclaimer:  My problems may have nothing to do with the ATI card.  I may
  have something configured improperly.  Consult your local ATI dealer. :-)
-- 
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Allan Schaffer                       | What's the best acceleration for a Mac?
aschaffe at polyslo.calpoly.edu         |         
..!uunet!polyslo!holodec!allan       |              9.8 m/s^2