The page: http://www.osdev.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Text_UI
has an error in the sample code.
It should be something like:
void kprintc(int x, int y, unsigned char bc, unsigned char fc, unsigned char c)
{
unsigned short attrib = ((bc << 4) | (fc & 0x0F)) << 8;
volatile unsigned short *where;
where = 0XB8000 + ((y*160) + (x*2));
*where = c | attrib;
}