Plex86/Bochs VGABios -------------------- The goal of this project is to have a LGPL'd Video Bios in plex86, Bochs and qemu. This VGA Bios is very specific to the emulated VGA card. It is NOT meant to drive a physical vga card. Cirrus SVGA extension --------------------- The Cirrus SVGA extension is designed for the Cirrus emulation in Bochs and qemu. The initial patch for the Cirrus extension has been written by Makoto Suzuki (suzu). Install ------- To compile the VGA Bios you will need : - gcc - bcc - as86 - ld86 Untar the archive, and type make. You should get a "VGABIOS-lgpl-latest.bin" file. Alternatively, you can use the binary file "VGABIOS-lgpl-latest.bin", i have compiled for you. Edit your plex86/bochs conf file, and modify the load-rom command in the VGA BIOS section, to point to the new vgabios image file. Debugging --------- You can get a very basic debugging system: messages printed by the vgabios. You have to register the "unmapped" device driver in plex86 or bochs, and make sure it grabs port 0xfff0. Comment the #undef DEBUG at the beginning of vgabios.c. You can then use the "printf" function in the bios. Testing ------- Look at the "testvga.c" file in the archive. This is a minimal Turbo C 2.0 source file that calls a few int10 functions. Feel free to modify it to suit your needs. Copyright and License --------------------- This program has been written by Christophe Bothamy It is protected by the GNU Lesser Public License, which you should have received a copy of along with this package. Reverse Engineering ------------------- The VGA Bios has been written without reverse-engineering any existing Bios. Acknowledgment -------------- The source code contains code ripped from rombios.c of plex86, written by Kevin Lawton The source code contains fonts from fntcol16.zip (c) by Joseph Gil avalable at : ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/screen/fntcol16.zip These fonts are public domain The source code is based on information taken from : - Kevin Lawton's vga card emulation for bochs/plex86 - Ralf Brown's interrupts list avalaible at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/ralf/pub/WWW/files.html - Finn Thogersons' VGADOC4b available at http://home.worldonline.dk/~finth/ - Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book - Francois Gervais' book "programmation des cartes graphiques cga-ega-vga" edited by sybex - DOSEMU 1.0.1 source code for several tables values and formulas Feedback -------- Please report any bugs, comments, patches for this VGA Bios to info@vruppert.de You can find the latest release at : http://www.nongnu.org/vgabios/ For any information on bochs, visit the website http://bochs.sourceforge.net/ For any information on qemu, visit the website http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/ History ------- vgabios-0.5a : Mar 07 2005 - Volker . Cirrus SVGA extension (initial patches from Makoto Suzuki, improvements from Fabrice Bellard) . vgabios image size is now exactly 32k with a checksum . a lot of vgabios and vbe functions rewritten in assembler . dynamicly generated VBE mode info list . write character function for CGA and LINEAR8 modes . read/write graphics pixel for some graphics modes . text scroll feature for some graphics modes . VBE 8-bit DAC support vgabios-0.4c : Nov 06 2003 - Christophe . fix font problem on initial screen of NT4 Loader vgabios-0.4b : Nov 04 2003 - Volker . fix offset of character tables . optimizations of CRT controller accesses . VBE i/o registers changed to 0x01CE/CF (suggestion from Daniel Gimpelevich) . "noclear" flag stored in BIOS area . fix character height returned by get_font_info function vgabios-0.4a : Aug 17 2003 - Volker . VBE mode search rewritten (VBE modes with LFB bit removed) . many bugfixes and optimizations . write character function implemented for graphics modes . support for 15bpp, 16bpp, 24bpp and 32bpp VBE modes added . SVGA mode 0x6A added . VBE modes 0x102, 0x117, 0x118 and 0x142 (Bochs specific) vgabios-0.3b : Nov 23 2002 - Christophe . added lfb-mode numbers (patch from mathis) . updated the Makefile . removed display of copyrights. . changed the Copyright string to "LGPL VGABios developers" - Volker . set the cursor shape depending on the current font height . clear BL before calling int 0x10 function 0x1103 in vgabios_init_func . added some text font functions - Jeroen . Forced to new DISPI (0xb0c1) interface (requires latest bochs vbe code) . Added multibuffering support . Added new DISPI interface for: virt width, height, x offset, y offset . Added LFB modes (to be used with the vbe-lfb patch in bochs) see VBE_HAVE_LFB in vbe.c (currently default enabled) . updated TODO & docs for changes after bochs 1.4 vgabios-0.3a : Mar 10 2002 - Christophe . Fixed bug in function ah=13 - Jeroen . updated vbebios implementation to new api . added vbe_display_api documentation . added 640x400x8, 640x480x8, 800x600x8, 1024x768 (>640x480 needs a special bochs patch atm) . added 320x200x8 vbe support (uses the standard 320x200x8 vga mode to display, this allows for testing & having something on screen as well, at least until bochs host side display is up & running) . adding lfbprof (vbe) testprogram (+some small fixes to it) . merging with vbebios 0.2 vgabios-0.2b : Nov 19 2001 - Christophe . Fixed bug in function ah=13 vgabios-0.2a : Nov 09 2001 - Christophe . Included bugfix from techt@pikeonline.net about grayscale summing . Added the "IBM" string at org 0x1e as Bart Oldeman suggested . Fixed DS and ES that where inverted in the int10 parameters list! . The following have been implemented : - function ax=1a00, ax=1a01, ah=1b - function ax=1130 . Added debug messages for unimplemented/unknown functions Must be compiled with DEBUG defined. The output is trapped by the unknown-ioport driver of plex/bochs (port 0xfff0 is used) vgabios-0.1a : May 8 2001 - Christophe . First release. The work has been focused only on text mode. . The following have been implemented : - inits - int 10 handler - functions ah=00, ah=01, ah=02, ah=03, ah=05, ah=06, ah=07, ah=08 ah=09, ah=0a, ah=0e, ah=0f, ax=1000, ax=1001, ax=1002, ax=1003 ax=1007, ax=1008, ax=1009, ax=1010, ax=1012, ax=1013, ax=1015 ax=1017, ax=1018, ax=1019, ax=101a, ax=101b, ah=12 bl=10, ah=12 bl=30, ah=12 bl=31, ah=12 bl=32, ah=12 bl=33, ah=12 bl=34 ah=13