red-ray wrote on 2026-02-05, 10:41:

Feliksas wrote on 2026-02-05, 09:24:

Well, I've also found a couple posts here and there claiming it's PReP, but that isn't easily verifiable
Mine has the 332MHz 604e
the Matrox 220 GPU might be the culprit.

Yes it is, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjXZh-a9WZE

Actually, I'm not so sure it is pure PReP anymore 😀

10 > dev /  ok    
20 > .properties 
3name                    IBM,7043-140
4model                   IBM,7043-140
5compatible              IBM,7043-140
6clock-frequency         03f64598 
7device_type             chrp
8pc-emulation            
9exception-relocation-size 
10                        00100000 
11processor-hole          
12system-id               0002035macadd
13#address-cells          00000001 
14#size-cells             00000001 
15platform-open-pic       f96c0000 
16
17 ok
180 > 

Feliksas wrote on 2026-02-06, 15:17:

I've actually ordered an S3 Trio64V+ 86C765, planning to replace the BIOS on it and try

I'm not 100% sure, but it comes to my mind that IBM PPC has gone a different road than Sun and Apple, and they don't need specific FCode VGA BIOSes. Instead they have built a small 8086 emulator in a firmware, and execute the usual VGA BIOS using CPU emulation. Don't know if it applies to all IBM firmware though. Can you please try your Matrox in a 80x86 machine to check whether it has a usual VGA BIOS?