Re: HP 9000-382 based instrument panics on cnopen()

>> 2. Is there a way to have the hp300 port use the simple text
>> interface that most graphics cards provide for its console, if I
>> can't (or I don't want to) use a "graphical" console?

> AFAIK no hp300 framebuffer has "text" mode such as VGA.

As far as I can tell, the notion of a hardware text mode is basically
an artifact of the peecee world - and has infested lot of PCI video,
because much of PCI wants to be peecee-compatible.

So "most graphics cards" provide such a thing only in the sense that
"most" graphics cards are for peecees, or at least intended to be
usable in peecees, which expect such a thing.

Once you leave that world, though, such a thing is a rarity.  I don't
think I've ever seen video hardware with such a thing anywhere else.
(Not that I've surveyed the field or any such.  But I have seen
assorted others from at least a handful of manufacturers.  Sun (sun3,
sparc, pre-PCI sparc64), HP (hp300, hp700), DEC (vax), Apple I think
(mac68k, macppc), NeXT (next)...the ones from, or designed to be usable
by, the peecee world are the only ones with anything like a text mode
in hardware.

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