[rescue] Small servers (was Re: WTT: 1.5G of PC2700 for 1G of PC100)

[Shannon Hendrix]

On May 4, 2008, at 00:10 , Joshua Boyd wrote:

> On May 3, 2008, at 11:15 PM, Jeff Cole wrote:
>
>> Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>>> What I really, really want is not serial BIOS where video is  
>>> converted... I want a real serial BIOS, designed to be serial from  
>>> the start.
>>
>> I recently obtained 1U box with a Tyan S5112 motherboard in it. It  
>> looks like it may support serial BIOS. One of the BIOS options is  
>> console re-direction.
>>
>> I haven't really had a chance to check it out yet, but, plan to do  
>> so in the next week or so.
>
> My experience with Intel chipsets with a BIOS doing console re- 
> direction is that it is fairly lame.  It tries to be just like using  
> the normal BIOS, but with all sorts of
> bad glitches.

ALL of them are like that.

What they do is read video memory and compile a list of changes, and  
convert that to vt100 commands to duplicate the changes on your  
terminal.

The slightest problems in timing, communication, or odd video updates  
throws it off.

-- 
Shannon Hendrix
shannon at widomaker.com