goer@sophist.uucp (Richard Goerwitz) (07/08/89)
I've seen an aweful lot of information about backwards
compatibility of various auto-switch VGA boards. When
people talk about backwards compatibility with Hercules
cards, though, I never hear which Herc card they are
talking about. Do any of these VGA boards provide com-
patibility with software written for the Hercules Plus?
This concerns me, as I am looking for a VGA board that
I can use with currently existing foreign language soft-
ware I have on hand - software which is written for the
Hercules Plus.
-Richard L. Goerwitz
goer@sophist.uchicago.edu
rutgers!oddjob!gide!sophist!goerleonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) (07/11/89)
goer@sophist.uucp (Richard Goerwitz) writes: >I've seen an aweful lot of information about backwards >compatibility of various auto-switch VGA boards. When >people talk about backwards compatibility with Hercules >cards, though, I never hear which Herc card they are >talking about. Do any of these VGA boards provide com- >patibility with software written for the Hercules Plus? >This concerns me, as I am looking for a VGA board that >I can use with currently existing foreign language soft- >ware I have on hand - software which is written for the >Hercules Plus. To the best of my knowledge, *no one* other than Hercules supports RAMFont. Pity. But don't give up hope. Hercules makes a VGA card. It doesn't have the extended modes that some companies offer. It only supports VGA monitors. It's *real* basic. But it is also *cheap* (list $299, I've seen it mail order for $179). It doesn't support the Hercules mono or color card graphics, but it *does* come with a program that lets you toggle between it and your old Hercules card. The active card runs fine and doesn't have any problems. As long as a program doesn't attempt to identify the card on it's own, you'll be fine. If it does, it'll see the VGA card and quit looking. I've run a program that was hard coded to use a Herc mono card while I had the VGA active. The output went to the mono monitor and when the program ended, the DOS prompt came up on the VGA. -- Leonard Erickson ...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard CIS: [70465,203] "I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters." -- Solomon Short
goer@sophist.uucp (Richard Goerwitz) (07/12/89)
In article <1546@bucket.UUCP> leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) writes: > >To the best of my knowledge, *no one* other than Hercules >supports RAMFont. Pity. > >But don't give up hope. Hercules makes a VGA card.... >It doesn't support the Hercules mono or color card graphics, but >it *does* come with a program that lets you toggle between it and >your old Hercules card. The active card runs fine and doesn't >have any problems. This may sound a bit funny, but is *Hercules* Hercules compatible? In other words, does their VGA provide backwards compatibility with their own latest version of the Herc card (the Plus)? Flame: When will some smart company realize that the entire world does not speak English (or maybe a W. European language), and de- sign its operating systems so that they don't have to be hacked for all those millions and millions of people whose alphabets go "back- wards" or which have extensive diacritics? There are huge untapped markes in the Middle East, for instance. The poor Herc Plus was a fix to help offer our brain-damaged English and W.-European only machines do something new and interesting.... -Richard L. Goerwitz goer@sophist.uchicago.edu rutgers!oddjob!gide!sophist!goer
chasm@attctc.DALLAS.TX.US (Charles Marslett) (07/16/89)
In article <4405@tank.uchicago.edu>, goer@sophist.uucp (Richard Goerwitz) writes: > In article <1546@bucket.UUCP> leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) writes: > > > >To the best of my knowledge, *no one* other than Hercules > >supports RAMFont. Pity. A small VGA manufacturer, AHEAD something-or-other, makes a board that is RAMFont compatible. I don't know of any others, though. The company I work for once tried to license or buy the chip AHEAD uses, but things did not really have a chance of working out. The major features were up to 16(w)x32(h) character cells, and up to 16K characters -- I think those match the RAMFont exactly (though they may be supersets, ???). > >But don't give up hope. Hercules makes a VGA card.... > >It doesn't support the Hercules mono or color card graphics, but > >it *does* come with a program that lets you toggle between it and > >your old Hercules card. The active card runs fine and doesn't > >have any problems. Actually, any decent VGA or EGA card should do this. The one exception is that the very early Herc mono cards did not have the register at 0x3BF to control the 4K vs. 32K vs. 64K video buffer decode, so they will not coexist with any (normal) video card. A PGA or PGA clone would be the only compatible color card for it. Fortunately, one of my test cards is the only one of these I have ever seen! > This may sound a bit funny, but is *Hercules* Hercules compatible? > In other words, does their VGA provide backwards compatibility with > their own latest version of the Herc card (the Plus)? Nope! > -Richard L. Goerwitz > goer@sophist.uchicago.edu > rutgers!oddjob!gide!sophist!goer Charles Marslett STB Systems, Inc. -- BIOS Guru for video thingees we make chasm@attctc.dallas.tx.us [Note: apply all standard disclaimers]