Re: Proper Break entry for Ctrl-Alt-Del

In a flurry of recycled electrons, Zonker Harris wrote:

>   There *are* a few BIOS makers who have incorporated
> some console redirection to the console...but I cannot
> name them today. (HP? Compaq? Award? Version(s)?)

The code exists in the Phoenix source, but is not enabled
bu default. Some hardware vendors will enable it, but not 
all. I don't know about Award.

>   The main downside was when the BIOS handed over the
> Power-On Self-Test to 'smart' drive and network adapters,
> which would then write directly to the screen again,
> versus reporting through the BIOS.

Again, speaking only of Phoenix, that bios scrapes the video
text memory and pushs that out the serial port, so it does
get all the option rom output. The downside is it doesn't do
any optimizations, you get repeated 80x25 frames and a heavy
data stream w/o flow control.

>   I haven't heard of BIOS makers watching for BREAK when
> they are in this console-redirection mode. It may not have

AFAIK, a few may do this, but *surprise* you need to enable
it in the bios.

ObRant: and most of the screens say things like "press f1 to enter
bios" and claim a vt-100 emulation. A vt-100 doesn't -have- an f1.
They mean pf1. And, of course, it all depends on which key mapping
and emulator you're using. But do they tell you what character
sequenve they expect? -Nooo- It's buried 4 levels deep in the source.
In x86 asm.

z!