1 Plex86/Bochs VGABios 2 -------------------- 3 4 The goal of this project is to have a LGPL'd Video Bios in plex86, 5 Bochs and qemu. 6 This VGA Bios is very specific to the emulated VGA card. 7 It is NOT meant to drive a physical vga card. 8 9 10 Cirrus SVGA extension 11 --------------------- 12 13 The Cirrus SVGA extension is designed for the Cirrus emulation in Bochs and 14 qemu. The initial patch for the Cirrus extension has been written by Makoto 15 Suzuki (suzu). 16 17 18 Install 19 ------- 20 To compile the VGA Bios you will need : 21 - gcc 22 - bcc 23 - as86 24 - ld86 25 26 Untar the archive, and type make. You should get a "VGABIOS-lgpl-latest.bin" 27 file. Alternatively, you can use the binary file "VGABIOS-lgpl-latest.bin", 28 i have compiled for you. 29 30 Edit your plex86/bochs conf file, and modify the load-rom command in the 31 VGA BIOS section, to point to the new vgabios image file. 32 33 34 Debugging 35 --------- 36 You can get a very basic debugging system: messages printed by the vgabios. 37 You have to register the "unmapped" device driver in plex86 or bochs, and make 38 sure it grabs port 0xfff0. 39 40 Comment the #undef DEBUG at the beginning of vgabios.c. 41 You can then use the "printf" function in the bios. 42 43 44 Testing 45 ------- 46 Look at the "testvga.c" file in the archive. This is a minimal Turbo C 2.0 47 source file that calls a few int10 functions. Feel free to modify it to suit 48 your needs. 49 50 51 Copyright and License 52 --------------------- 53 This program has been written by Christophe Bothamy 54 It is protected by the GNU Lesser Public License, which you should 55 have received a copy of along with this package. 56 57 58 Reverse Engineering 59 ------------------- 60 The VGA Bios has been written without reverse-engineering any existing Bios. 61 62 63 Acknowledgment 64 -------------- 65 The source code contains code ripped from rombios.c of plex86, written 66 by Kevin Lawton <kevin2001 (a] yahoo.com> 67 68 The source code contains fonts from fntcol16.zip (c) by Joseph Gil avalable at : 69 ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/screen/fntcol16.zip 70 These fonts are public domain 71 72 The source code is based on information taken from : 73 - Kevin Lawton's vga card emulation for bochs/plex86 74 - Ralf Brown's interrupts list avalaible at 75 http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/ralf/pub/WWW/files.html 76 - Finn Thogersons' VGADOC4b available at http://home.worldonline.dk/~finth/ 77 - Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book 78 - Francois Gervais' book "programmation des cartes graphiques cga-ega-vga" 79 edited by sybex 80 - DOSEMU 1.0.1 source code for several tables values and formulas 81 82 83 Feedback 84 -------- 85 Please report any bugs, comments, patches for this VGA Bios to info (a] vruppert.de 86 You can find the latest release at : http://www.nongnu.org/vgabios/ 87 For any information on bochs, visit the website http://bochs.sourceforge.net/ 88 For any information on qemu, visit the website http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/ 89 90 91 History 92 ------- 93 vgabios-0.6c : Apr 08 2009 94 - Volker 95 . added DPMS support to cirrus vgabios (patch from Gleb Natapov) 96 . use VBE LFB address from PCI base address if present 97 . added support for a lot more non-standard VBE modes (e.g. widescreen modes) 98 . minor bugfixes 99 100 vgabios-0.6b : May 30 2008 101 - Volker 102 . added PCI data structure for the Cirrus VGABIOS images 103 . minor bugfixes in biossums utility, VBE support and makefile 104 105 vgabios-0.6a : Aug 19 2006 106 - Volker 107 . added minimal support for the video parameter table (VPT) 108 . Cirrus SVGA now supports the "no clear" bit in Cirrus and VESA mode 109 . Bochs VBE protected mode interface improved 110 . save/restore video state support for Bochs VBE and standard VGA added 111 . generate vbetables.h dynamicly 112 . VBE video memory increased to 8 MB (VBE dispi ID changed to B0C4) 113 . lots of 4bpp VBE fixes (all 4bpp VBE modes now enabled) 114 . VGA compatible setup for VBE modes added 115 116 vgabios-0.5d : Dec 29 2005 117 - Volker 118 . Bochs VBE protected mode interface added (based on a patch by malc (a] pulsesoft.com) 119 . biossums utility now supports VGABIOS sizes up to 64 kBytes 120 . VGA mode 0x11: all color planes must be enabled in this 2-color VGA mode 121 122 vgabios-0.5c : Jul 07 2005 123 - Volker 124 . BIOS configuration word usually reports initial mode 80x25 color text 125 . vgabios function 0x0e (write teletype): linefeed (0x0a) only increments the 126 cursor row value 127 128 vgabios-0.5b : May 24 2005 129 - Volker 130 . fixed return value for the default case in the VBE section (non-debug mode) 131 . removed unused stuff 132 133 vgabios-0.5a : Mar 07 2005 134 - Volker 135 . Cirrus SVGA extension (initial patches from Makoto Suzuki, improvements 136 from Fabrice Bellard) 137 . vgabios image size is now exactly 32k with a checksum 138 . a lot of vgabios and vbe functions rewritten in assembler 139 . dynamicly generated VBE mode info list 140 . write character function for CGA and LINEAR8 modes 141 . read/write graphics pixel for some graphics modes 142 . text scroll feature for some graphics modes 143 . VBE 8-bit DAC support 144 145 vgabios-0.4c : Nov 06 2003 146 - Christophe 147 . fix font problem on initial screen of NT4 Loader 148 149 vgabios-0.4b : Nov 04 2003 150 - Volker 151 . fix offset of character tables 152 . optimizations of CRT controller accesses 153 . VBE i/o registers changed to 0x01CE/CF 154 (suggestion from Daniel Gimpelevich) 155 . "noclear" flag stored in BIOS area 156 . fix character height returned by get_font_info function 157 158 vgabios-0.4a : Aug 17 2003 159 - Volker 160 . VBE mode search rewritten (VBE modes with LFB bit removed) 161 . many bugfixes and optimizations 162 . write character function implemented for graphics modes 163 . support for 15bpp, 16bpp, 24bpp and 32bpp VBE modes added 164 . SVGA mode 0x6A added 165 . VBE modes 0x102, 0x117, 0x118 and 0x142 (Bochs specific) 166 167 vgabios-0.3b : Nov 23 2002 168 - Christophe 169 . added lfb-mode numbers (patch from mathis) 170 . updated the Makefile 171 . removed display of copyrights. 172 . changed the Copyright string to "LGPL VGABios developers" 173 - Volker 174 . set the cursor shape depending on the current font height 175 . clear BL before calling int 0x10 function 0x1103 in vgabios_init_func 176 . added some text font functions 177 - Jeroen 178 . Forced to new DISPI (0xb0c1) interface (requires latest bochs vbe code) 179 . Added multibuffering support 180 . Added new DISPI interface for: virt width, height, x offset, y offset 181 . Added LFB modes (to be used with the vbe-lfb patch in bochs) 182 see VBE_HAVE_LFB in vbe.c (currently default enabled) 183 . updated TODO & docs for changes after bochs 1.4 184 185 vgabios-0.3a : Mar 10 2002 186 - Christophe 187 . Fixed bug in function ah=13 188 - Jeroen 189 . updated vbebios implementation to new api 190 . added vbe_display_api documentation 191 . added 640x400x8, 640x480x8, 800x600x8, 1024x768 192 (>640x480 needs a special bochs patch atm) 193 . added 320x200x8 vbe support (uses the standard 320x200x8 vga mode to 194 display, this allows for testing & having something on screen as well, 195 at least until bochs host side display is up & running) 196 . adding lfbprof (vbe) testprogram (+some small fixes to it) 197 . merging with vbebios 0.2 198 199 vgabios-0.2b : Nov 19 2001 200 - Christophe 201 . Fixed bug in function ah=13 202 203 vgabios-0.2a : Nov 09 2001 204 - Christophe 205 . Included bugfix from techt (a] pikeonline.net about grayscale summing 206 . Added the "IBM" string at org 0x1e as Bart Oldeman suggested 207 . Fixed DS and ES that where inverted in the int10 parameters list! 208 . The following have been implemented : 209 - function ax=1a00, ax=1a01, ah=1b 210 - function ax=1130 211 . Added debug messages for unimplemented/unknown functions 212 Must be compiled with DEBUG defined. The output is trapped 213 by the unknown-ioport driver of plex/bochs (port 0xfff0 is used) 214 215 vgabios-0.1a : May 8 2001 216 - Christophe 217 . First release. The work has been focused only on text mode. 218 . The following have been implemented : 219 - inits 220 - int 10 handler 221 - functions ah=00, ah=01, ah=02, ah=03, ah=05, ah=06, ah=07, ah=08 222 ah=09, ah=0a, ah=0e, ah=0f, ax=1000, ax=1001, ax=1002, ax=1003 223 ax=1007, ax=1008, ax=1009, ax=1010, ax=1012, ax=1013, ax=1015 224 ax=1017, ax=1018, ax=1019, ax=101a, ax=101b, ah=12 bl=10, 225 ah=12 bl=30, ah=12 bl=31, ah=12 bl=32, ah=12 bl=33, ah=12 bl=34 226 ah=13 227
