Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!wugate!wuarchive!swbatl!texbell!vector!attctc!chasm
From: chasm@attctc.Dallas.TX.US (Charles Marslett)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Device drivers damaging HW
Summary: Don't believe all you read!
Message-ID: <8805@attctc.Dallas.TX.US>
Date: 29 Jul 89 16:19:08 GMT
References: <13679@ea.ecn.purdue.edu> <4697@omepd.UUCP> <10841@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas
Lines: 38

In article <10841@watcgl.waterloo.edu>, gswan@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Geo Swan) writes:
> I have a copy of the "Programmer's guide to the EGA/VGA" here.
> The following is a quote from the second page of the chapter
> describing the control registers for the EGA (of which the
> VGA is a superset):
> 
>        "... In fact, some of these registers can be absolutely
> 	dangerous to modify.  Many popular displays will
> 	literally burn up if driven with improper timing for
> 	any length of time as a result of improper register
> 	settings."

The author might get into a bit of a fight with all the monitor
manufactures I work with -- ALL go to a great deal of trouble to
insure that the monitor will not be damaged if registers are written
improperly.  Only a few very inexpensive monitors will have this problem
(the care and/or circuitry needed to protect the monitor costs a dollar
or so, and can protect a $1000 monitor from accidental self distruction
-- cheap insurance if you ask me).

The primary reason for this is that if a driver can burn up the monitor, so
can CTL-ALT-DEL on an older PC.  For the entire memory countdown the CRTC
is not reprogrammed!  Just remember to turn off the monitor (even the
cheap ones) in that kind of time frame.  Even leaving a monitor turned on
overnight can be dangerous if a power fault causes the system to hang in
a funny state.

Lets go on, now that monitors are beaten to death, to the keyboard driver
problem and floppys shreading their heads at track 82 or 84 or whatever --
does anyone have any detailed knowledge about just what is the cause/vendor/
etc. associated with the damage?

Charles
===========================================================================
Charles Marslett
STB Systems, Inc.  <== Apply all standard disclaimers
Wordmark Systems   <== No disclaimers required -- that's just me
chasm@attctc.dallas.tx.us