Dev ROM 2018-11-08, no graphics.

The current Titanium OS5.27 beta ROM 2018-11-08 was tried as a softload, both a direct download and local build, but the softloaded ROM failed to startup. The start bleep was heard but the Titanium was stuck at a black screen. An OS5.27 locally built ROM dated 27-Oct-18 softloads and works.

Clues.

https://www.riscosopen.org/viewer/revisions/logs?ident=1541630317-861464.html

https://www.riscosopen.org/viewer/revisions/logs?ident=1541629683-530634.html

Better news is that this beta ROM version lights up perfectly on RPCEmu.

What does *Status show for Mode and MonitorType?

The new code isn’t quite as forgiving as the old code if you’ve got a dodgy monitor type selected – meaning the VDU driver might not initialise at all. And from some brief testing here on a BB, I think that’s enough to stop ScreenModes from taking over when the MDF/EDID gets loaded during the boot sequence. (Previously I think the kernel would have forced the system into mode 0, even if the video driver wasn’t capable of displaying that mode – not great, but I guess better than the new logic)

Would it not be better to do what Windows does (used to do?) and in the absence of anything else, attempt to spit out bog standard 60Hz 640×480 VGA?

MODE 0 is an anachronism so crufty it’s surely buried under tonnes of cobwebs, harking back to a time when only posh people had “multisync” monitors and all the rest of us used what was basically a repurposed telly that was quite capable of dealing with the BBC Micro’s high resolution mode…

What does *Status show for Mode and MonitorType?

Both were Auto.

MonitorType EDID works. The Titanium is configured to use an MDF which is based on EDID but with legacy and other modes added, Hopper etc..

if you’ve got a dodgy monitor type selected

MonitorType Auto – dodgy??

AOC Q2770P 2560×1440 monitor, used at either 1920×1080 or 2048×1152.

Thanks for the pointer, the Titanium is making pictures again.

MonitorType Auto should work in theory – some of the machines I was testing with were configured like that. I’ll dig around and see if I can see any potential failure cases.

What is the current situation with this? I have not used my Titanium for a while. Having downloaded the latest build, I find it fails to softload. A ROM dated 31-Oct-2018 is fine, as are a selection of earlier builds. However, the two most recent ROMs I have (10-Nov and 20-Nov) both fail to softload, halting at a black screen. Screen resolution is 1920×1080.

An aside rant: I do get a bit pi**ed at the filer grabbing the input focus at every opportunity – I just opened a filer viewer to check the stored ROMs – I store them with the date as a suffix to the name – and carried on typing the above, and then noticed the last twenty or so keystrokes had been blackholed!

What is the current situation with this?

With MonitorType configured to EDID ROMs of 08-Nov-18 and later do softload and boot to a display.

I did work out what the problem was with the Titanium – I just haven’t quite worked out what the correct fix is yet.

With MonitorType configured to EDID ROMs of 08-Nov-18 and later do softload and boot to a display.

OK, thanks. That does indeed seem to have fixed (or worked around) the problem.

My Titanium is now softloading and booting to the Desktop with MonitorType configured to Auto with a home built ROM of today’s, 2018-11-27, source code archive plus GC320Video 0.19 from cvs. Tomorrow’s build, that is. The current ROOL built ROM, 2018-11-25, fails with Auto.

Thanks everyone.