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BIOSFONT(4)		    Kernel Interfaces Manual		   BIOSFONT(4)

NAME
       biosfont	-- retrieve font bitmaps from BIOS memory

SYNOPSIS
       /dev/biosfont

DESCRIPTION
       The special file	/dev/biosfont is an interface to retrieve font bitmaps
       from  the  BIOS	memory.	  The  fonts represented are the native	system
       fonts.  The complete ASCII set (256 characters) can be retrieved.

IOCTL INTERFACE
       The characters can be retrieved using the ioctl() call.	The parameters
       are:

       BIOSFONT_ASCII
	       The call	identifier for to use for biosfont calls.

       &ch     A reference to an instance of t_biosfont	which  is  defined  in
	       the header file.	 t_biosfont has	two fields:

	       u_char bitmap[8]
		       The  output,  contains  the  bitmap scanlines.  The top
		       scanline	is stored in bitmap[0],	the bottom scanline is
		       stored in  bitmap[7].   The  scanlines  themselves  are
		       stored little endian (MSB first).

	       u_char nr
		       ASCII  code of character	to retrieve, range is bound to
		       0 <= nr <= 255

COMPATIBILITY
       Due to a	braindead endianness implementation the	driver is only guaran-
       teed to work on i386 and	amd64 architectures.  These are	also the  only
       architectures known to the author to actually have the bitmap fonts.

FILES
       /usr/local/include/biosfont.h
	       The header file to include when accessing the driver.

       /dev/biosfont
	       The device node for the driver.

       /boot/modules/biosfont.ko
	       The kernel module to load when using the	driver.

HISTORY
       The  biosfont driver was	first written in August	2003, and rewritten in
       April 2006 when the original sources were lost (oops).  It was released
       to the public on	May 7, 2006.

FreeBSD	ports 15.0		 May 10, 2006			   BIOSFONT(4)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=biosfont&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.0>

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