keithe (02/07/83)
Responses to: "Why not just purchase the IBM monochrome card? The monochrome card works fine with monochrome monitors. The color card is awful with monochrome monitors. The Amdek 310 (A?) I saw was as good as the IBM monochrome monitor; the 310 was the display for the Columbia IBM PC look-alike." First) I find it difficult to believe that the IBM monochrome card will drive a standard (i.e., b&w version of NTSC rate video) monitor, because the IBM monochrome H-rate is 18.4 kHz (cf. 15.75 kHz for standard) and its V-rate is 50 Hz (cf 60). But I haven't tried it yet - I will this afternoon and if it DOES work I'll let you know. Second) I tried out the Hercules card and found it deficient for my used in its lack of compatibility with existing software. The only patch sent with it is to the BASIC interpreter; AND it only works with hi-res graphics (i.e., BASIC's SCREEN 2). So you can toss your compiled code out the window, and a lot of games (which use low-res, SCREEN 1) don't work. I called Hercules and they said they are going to supply additions to the BASIC compiler to improve compatibility, but what I THINK (but am not sure) they need to do is to supply a replacement BIOS ROM so that (almost?) everything will work with it. Third) Enlightening criticisms/additions are welcomed. Keith Ericson at teklabs