[fpc-pascal] Accessing ROM BIOS Font in Linux.

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Thu, 17 Jan 2008, Anthonyh63 at comcast.net wrote:

> A task I used to do regularly when programming in Turbo Pascal
> was to read the BIOS Rom Font.    I first picked this up to make
> "Splash" Screens for Text Mode programs that wrote out big
> several lines high using the character it was made of
> 
> FFFFF  PPPPP         CCC
> F            P        P      C
> FFF       PPPP        C
> F            P                C
> F            P                  CCC
> 
> Something like that.    Using the ROM Bios font
> allowed me to make a call like BigWord('FPC');
> without having the font be part of the program.
> I haven't been able to locate my old source but can probably
> find them.   If I remember correctly they are located at
> 16 bit real mode address F000:FA6E.     I also used
> them as a failsafe while in Graphics mode if BGI font
> file was not loaded.   I wrote text output routines using
> putpixel and the ROM fonts.    I also used them when
> divising my own 2d graphics primitives in Pascals
> built in assembler (I never completely finished this).  
> 
> I'm looking into doing some SDL programming and want
> a fallback text output method if font files aren't available. 
> 
> The question.   Is this font accessible from linux; do I have
> to be root ?    How do I make the 16 bit segment/offset address
> into a 32 bit pointer to access these fonts ?  

This font is not accessible. Linux does not allow direct hardware 
access unless you write a device driver.

Michael.