Configuring dual displays in console mode

ucsdboy

ucsdboy

Hi everyone,

I just stuck my toe into the water of dual displays. I have Wayland running perfect with them, but I'd like to make it so they don't mirror each other when I'm in console mode. Is there any way to set them up in console mode so I can use one to extend the resolution of the other?

Thanks in advance!

Btw: I did check the handbook, reddit, and the interwebs in general and didn't find anything, hence the question.
 
ucsdboy said:
but I'd like to make it so they don't mirror each other when I'm in console mode. Is there any way to set them up in console mode so I can use one to extend the resolution of the other?
Click to expand...
Not possible. Remember, a TTY is based on a serial connection, even today. Serial connections do not understand the concept of multiple displays.

en.wikipedia.org

Teleprinter - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Starik said:
A PTY fakes a serial connection. Could you send the output of different virtual terminals to different monitors?
Click to expand...
Theoretically yes. I've not seen this done in console mode of modern computers; to my knowledge, neither the standard BIOS (which handles console mode before the OS boots), nor any OS that runs on the PC architecture does that. So in practice, no.

Historical amusement: The Four Phase Systems IV series computers (sold in Europe als the Philips P7000) had this as one of their main selling points. Just like today's PC, their console display was memory mapped, with a (coax) video connection between computer and display. But even though they had very little memory by modern standards (I think they maxed out at 1MB), they were able to have about 20 or 30 displays with keyboards physically connected, with a coax for each display, and a serial line for each keyboard. The keyboards immediately raised an interrupt of the CPU, which is why their OS was called "IDOS", for interrupt driven disk operating system. Because their keyboard response was so fast (one 9600 baud character from the keyboard, interrupt servicing of the CPU, and then a memory write to update the screen), they were popular as data entry machines for professional typists, and for software development editing tasks; they had an integrated development environment for languages such as COBOL and RPG-II in the late 70s.
 
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