SCO UNIX, VPIX, and Screen Blanking

[Roger Cornelius]

I'm experiencing a problem using vpix 1.2 and SCO UNIX 3.2.2.  I know
what's causing the problem and I've reported it to SCO, but I have an
unsupported video card so I'm hoping someone out there who has a supported
card can experiment with this.

SCO UNIX 3.2.2 includes a new kernal parameter "TBLNK" which when set
to a numeric value other than zero, causes the console screen to blank
after that many seconds.  A useful feature.  Setting TBLNK to zero
causes no screen blanking to occur.

The problem occurs when TBLNK is non-zero and vpix is started after the
screen has been blanked sometime since the machine was booted.  When
vpix first comes up, things appear normal.  But if you hit return at
the dos prompt, the cursor drops to the bottom left corner and stays
there until vpix is exited.  When a command is typed, it is displayed
at the proper place on the screen (next to the prompt), but the cursor
stays at the bottom left corner.

Any graphics program I've tried (couple of games and gif viewers) run
normally, EXCEPT (and this is a big except!) graphic data is garbled
when displayed.  You can issue commands, etc.  it's just the screen
thats screwed up.  This makes vpix unusable for anything using graphics.

This problem is directly related to TBLNK blanking the screen, because
vpix will work fine after booting the machine, up until the screen is
blanked the first time.  Setting TBLNK to zero, thus preventing the
screen from blanking at all, fixes the problem permanently.

If anyone else has noticed this problem I'd appreciate hearing from you.
It would also be interesting to see if the problem exists with earlier
versions of vpix under SCO UNIX 3.2.2 (provided it's not just my video
card causing it).

TBLNK can be set/changed via configure, under #6 "Multiscreens".
I'm using the ATI VGA Wonder card.

-- 
Roger A. Cornelius          rac at sherpa.UUCP         uunet!sherpa!rac