sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer) (05/31/85)
I have a new AT with the EGA (no other display adapter), and have been
quite disturbed by the lack of compatibility with a lot of existing
software, most notably Borland's stuff: Sidekick and Turbo Pascal--who
knows what else I'll come across.
When using a monochrome monitor, Turbo works fine, but Sidekick causes
the screen to be twisted into an unrecognizable, ominous-looking (monitor
destroying? I haven't let it run long enough) pattern. When run with
a vanilla IRGB monitor, neither program works--Turbo clears the screen
and does not produce any more output, and Sidekick's menu box is pushed
far to the right, half-way off the screen, looking as if the vertical
hold was maladjusted.
Are there any other EGA owners out there? Am I doing something wrong?
Is this an AT problem or an EGA problem or some combination? Are there
any patches to these or other programs that fix the problem?
--
/Steve Dyer
{decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbncca!sdyer
sdyer@bbnccv.ARPAbjorn@dataio.UUCP (Bjorn Benson) (06/02/85)
We have an EQA here on an AT and while I have not tried Borland's stuff I have noticed that the EGA is destroying the monochrome monitor: every time you turn the machine off, the electron beam goes on to ull intensity and draws in the center of the screen. No amount of adjusting the knobs will fix this. Consequently, after ~five months of use there is a hole in the phosphor in the center of the screen. Any hints, helps or comments? Bjorn Benson ..!uw-beaver!entropy!dataio!bjorn
george@mnetor.UUCP (George Hart) (06/04/85)
> We have an EQA here on an AT and while I have not tried Borland's stuff > I have noticed that the EGA is destroying the monochrome monitor: every > time you turn the machine off, the electron beam goes on to ull intensity > and draws in the center of the screen. No amount of adjusting the knobs > will fix this. Consequently, after ~five months of use there is a hole in > the phosphor in the center of the screen. > > Any hints, helps or comments? > Bjorn Benson > ..!uw-beaver!entropy!dataio!bjorn Try powering the monitor down before you power down the machine. Annoying but better than ruining your screen. -- Regards, George Hart, Computer X Canada Ltd. {cbosgd, decvax, harpo, ihnp4}!utcs!mnetor!george
sdyer@bbnccv.UUCP (Steve Dyer) (06/05/85)
> When run with > a vanilla IRGB monitor, neither program works--Turbo clears the screen > and does not produce any more output, and Sidekick's menu box is pushed > far to the right, half-way off the screen, looking as if the vertical > hold was maladjusted. > I wish to correct one piece of mis-information in this, my previous posting. Turbo Pascal works fine in non-enhanced color mode. Doubtless it was some renegade program which caused Turbo to seize up once; in the midst of the other incompatibilities, it appeared that this was another EGA problem. Sidekick still doesn't work as-is, nor, interestingly, does IBM's own "Professional Debug Facility." Patches for both of these problems can be found on the IBM PRO SIG on Compuserve. I applied the one to IBM's debugger and it now works like a charm. The patches listed for Sidekick 1.11C don't agree with my version of Sidekick which is 1.10B. But I applied the "brute force" method, and replaced a handful of "OUT DX,AX" (EEH) instructions with "NOP" (90H) instructions, and it now appears to work. The consensus on the EGA is that IBM has attempted to be BIOS-compatible, but accessing CGA registers or the actual display memory map is not always kosher. I have taken care of most of my incompatibility problems now. (But why should I feel like I've purchased a PC-(in)compatible when I've gone with IBM?) -- /Steve Dyer {decvax,linus,ima,ihnp4}!bbncca!sdyer sdyer@bbnccv.ARPA