PC386 RTEMS_VIDEO_80x50 incompatible with serial-line console

[Eric Norum]

I've submitted this as PR259, but Joel suggested that I might get a 
better response from this list.

I'm trying to produce an application which will work on hardware with a 
keyboard and video console and on hardware with just a serial line 
console.   The selection of console I/O is done at runtime by the 
RTEMS_RUNTIME_CONSOLE_SELECT code in i386/pc386/console/console.c  I'd 
like to use 80x50 on the video console, but when I define 
RTEMS_VIDEO_80x50 in i386/pc386/start/start16.S the application fails to 
work when run on hardware with just a serial line console.

The code in start16.S needs to check for the presence of a video adapter 
and not try to set up 80x50 operation if no adapter is present. I know 
too little about PC hardware, BIOS and assemblly language to be able to 
figure out how to do this myself, or even if this is possible.

Assistance eagerly awaited....
--
Eric Norum <eric.norum at usask.ca>
Department of Electrical Engineering
University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, Canada.
Phone: (306) 966-5394   FAX:   (306) 966-5407