#VGA Installation
5 messages in this thread
I just bought a BOCA SuperVGA card and installed it in my A2000 with a 286BB. I
really wasn't expecting it to work but thought I'd give it a try anyway.
(Wal-Mart has a great return policy!). After installing it, I couldn't get the
BB to boot at all.
My question is…
Is installing a VGA card as simple as seating it in one of the IBM slots on the
A2000 and booting the BB. The BB documentation mentions the possiblity of
having to disable the CGA and MONO graphics emulation to get VGA to work. With
CGA and MONO disabled how do you make the transition to VGA? The VGA
documentation indicated needing to do some IBM system setup also. How can you,
if you don't have ANY graphics. (I know my ignorance of IBM systems is very
evident.)
Check the docs to the VGA card to see if it indicates you need a device driver
or .COM program to run to activate the board. If it does, then you'll have to
yank the board, install that software, then replace the board and reboot. If
it doesn't require a driver or a .COM (many don't) then it should
autoconfigure.
Disable CGA and MONO, then run PCMONO as usual. Switch the monitor from taking
input from the Amiga side to the VGA card, and you SHOULD get the IBM display.
If you don't, then try fiddling with the various jumpers for different IRQs on
the VGA board (see its docs for details). The BB requires certain hardware
interrupts and IO ports for itself, and some VGA cards (like my really nice
Stealth VRAM, alas) won't give them up, being greedy little bastards. In that
case you're SOL.
In general, the more vanilla a VGA card is (IE 512K rather than 1MB, normal VGA
rather than SVGA, etc.) the better the chances are that it will work with your
BB.
Bob
I gave it a few more tries but could never get it to boot. So I exchanged it
for the vanilla variety. After a one or two false starts I was able to get it
to work. Thanks for the help.
– via Whap!
Turn mono and CGA off, make sure IRQ 2 is disabled on the VGA board, set
you system prefs (CTRL,ALT,ESC) to EGA/VGA.
Dave
Elite MicroComputers – Flying high on AutoPilot
None of this worked. I "downgraded" to a plain 512K VGA and it works fine.
Thanks for the help.
– via Whap!