[OpenBIOS] OpenBIOS PowerPC missing open firmware commands

[Alexander von Gluck]

On Tue, 19 Jul 2011 19:06:05 -0400, Tarl Neustaedter wrote:
> On 2011-Jul-19 18:50 , Alexander von Gluck wrote:
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> It sounds like your display driver didn't initialize them.
>>>>
>>>> Just to verify, your == OpenBIOS' display driver? Or should the OS 
>>>> do something?
>>>
>>> Correct. Either FCode from a card or some kind of builtin driver 
>>> that
>>> Openbios knows to attach to a PCI node.
>>
>> This doesn't seem right, these commands work on OpenFirmware as-is. 
>> Their goal is to clear the text OpenBIOS console and toggle the 
>> cursor.
>>
>> Example:
>>
>> Type:  toggle-cursor at the OpenFirmware prompt on any mac and the 
>> cursor will disappear / reappear.
>>        erase-screen and the OpenFirmware screen will erase.
>
> Correct. It sounds like the video driver in your environment isn't
> initializing, so these defer words aren't getting set up. The IEEE
> 1275 specification indicates these are required to be initialized as
> part of the terminal emulator package, which is the piece of code
> which knows how to translate from text to bits on a screen.
>
> There is a bunch more about this under the fb8-* words in the
> specification, particularly see the fb8-install method.

Thanks for the information. Do you know of a fb8-install method + 
arguments that would work on qemu and real hardware?

Here is the situation:
Our boot menu works on the Apple OpenFirmware implementation as-is 
without fb8-install. (and erase-screen, etc work)
Out boot menu needs fb8-install on OpenBIOS to function (which is the 
correct way from what I gather in the OpenFirmware specs)

Calling fb8-install alone on the Apple hardware (PowerMac 3,5 4.2.5f1) 
seems to cause the screen to lock up an no longer update.
Calling fb8-install alone on OpenBIOS does overlay erase-screen, etc... 
however they don't do anything (see attached)

Thoughts?

Thanks!
  -- Alex
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