I installed FreeDOS with a video card installed, added the ctty entry in autoexec.bat, powered down, and removed the graphics card. The FreeDOS kernel messages

I installed FreeDOS with a video card installed, added the ctty entry in autoexec.bat, powered down, and removed the graphics card. The FreeDOS kernel messages came out at boot (over serial), but when it got to command.com, it just started printing '.' characters to my serial console. To be fair, I really didn't spend much time debugging.