I have a problem on the product I am developing. We are using QNX 4.25,
and Photon 1.13. The target system is a Versalogic VSBC6, single board
computer. The display is a flat panel display, and the SBC uses the C&T
65550 graphics chip. This board supports using a splash screen that gets
displayed on startup, which is what we want. It appears that it is 640 x
480 by 16 colors (4 bit color), in other words vanilla VGA.
The problem comes in when we run mode switcher to switch the display to
our chosen mode (in our case 640 x 480 by 24 bit color). Mode switcher
apparently fails and the mode of the screen is not changed, if we
execute the mode switcher while we are in the splash screen mode. The
identical mode switcher command works just fine, if we start from
standard text mode.
Anybody have an idea of what to do. QNX has not been particularly
responsive (it must be hardware, or just startup in the desired graphics
mode and don’t use mode switcher). I have gotten the mode switcher
toolkit, but I’ve been far to busy to delve into the obscurities of it
at this time.
I have a problem on the product I am developing. We are using QNX 4.25,
and Photon 1.13. The target system is a Versalogic VSBC6, single board
computer. The display is a flat panel display, and the SBC uses the C&T
65550 graphics chip. This board supports using a splash screen that gets
displayed on startup, which is what we want. It appears that it is 640 x
480 by 16 colors (4 bit color), in other words vanilla VGA.
The problem comes in when we run mode switcher to switch the display to
our chosen mode (in our case 640 x 480 by 24 bit color). Mode switcher
apparently fails and the mode of the screen is not changed, if we
execute the mode switcher while we are in the splash screen mode. The
identical mode switcher command works just fine, if we start from
standard text mode.
Anybody have an idea of what to do. QNX has not been particularly
responsive (it must be hardware, or just startup in the desired graphics
mode and don’t use mode switcher). I have gotten the mode switcher
toolkit, but I’ve been far to busy to delve into the obscurities of it
at this time.
So to summarize, your vendor has added a splash screen to your video
BIOS, and when we try to use this modified video BIOS to go from the splash
screen to the mode you have chosen, it doesn’t work, and you feel that we
should purchase one of these boards and allocate some of our manpower to fix
this problem they have created for you at our expense.
You also feel that giving you the source to the mode switcher so you can
fix it yourself, or offering to do a custom mode switcher for you at your
expense is not being responsive.
So to summarize, your vendor has added a splash screen to your video
BIOS, and when we try to use this modified video BIOS to go from the splash
screen to the mode you have chosen, it doesn’t work, and you feel that we
should purchase one of these boards and allocate some of our manpower to fix
this problem they have created for you at our expense.
Hey, no need to get snippy. I’m sorry if you were somewhat offended by
my post,
but it wasn’t a personal attack. Rather, I’m simply seeking information,
and I’m
trying to tell the story of what has happened. Unfortunately, in the
world of PC’s
there are precious few standards, and BIOS vary greatly. You know, our
SBC vendor (Versalogic) has spent a fair amount of time and effort to
investiagate
this problem. If QNX is serious about the embedded market place, they
better learn
that support and service is the name of the game. There are several very
decent
RTOS out there. And support and service typically will tip my scales
each and every time.
You also feel that giving you the source to the mode switcher so you can
fix it yourself, or offering to do a custom mode switcher for you at your
expense is not being responsive.
Well offering is one thing, getting back to me is another. I’ve asked
our local
QNX rep repeatly for quotes to do this work. However, he has never
gotten back to me.
So I’d call that not being responsive.
I’d love to roll up my sleeves and dig into the mode switcher code, but
I just
don’t have the time or budget to do that at this time.
I’m sorry if anybody is offended by anthing I said in any of these
posts.
It isn’t my intention to offend anyone, it’s just fustrating when one
has
a problem like this. Overall, I really like QNX. However, their support
has
been less than great. They have solved only a few of the problems that
I’ve
brought to them, via our purchased support agreement. I realize that
tech support
for an RTOS is very difficult, with so many different types of
configurations, and not all problems have an easy solution.
You also feel that giving you the source to the mode switcher so you can
fix it yourself, or offering to do a custom mode switcher for you at your
expense is not being responsive.
Well offering is one thing, getting back to me is another. I’ve asked
our local
QNX rep repeatly for quotes to do this work. However, he has never
gotten back to me.
So I’d call that not being responsive.
That’s interesting.
I’m sure that I responded to this question from one of our tech support
people, and one of the options was for us to do a custom mode switcher.
What was the name of the rep you contacted?
I’d love to roll up my sleeves and dig into the mode switcher code, but
I just
don’t have the time or budget to do that at this time.
No problem.
I’m sorry if anybody is offended by anthing I said in any of these
posts.
It isn’t my intention to offend anyone, it’s just fustrating when one
has
a problem like this. Overall, I really like QNX. However, their support
has
been less than great. They have solved only a few of the problems that
I’ve
brought to them, via our purchased support agreement. I realize that
tech support
for an RTOS is very difficult, with so many different types of
configurations, and not all problems have an easy solution.
Well in this case it seems pretty clear that the out of the box solution
won’t do what you need, so your options are to deal with the issue yourself,
or have us do it as a custom job.
If you let me know who you’ve been dealing with, I’ll chase it down on
my end.
You could also mention what the other unresolved problems you had were
here… you may get a better response.