• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

is this a video card?

M

Mike Chambers

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 2, 2006
Messages
2,621
i can't find any info on it. i was looking for a serial card and came across this in a drawer. it says "80 DATA - we develop technology" on a sticker on the back. it LOOKS like some sort of video/parallel card. doesn't look like a VGA to me.. possibly an EGA or CGA? maybe mono? it's from 1988.

card1.jpg


card2.jpg


card3.jpg


EDIT: it's a mono card. i put it in the 286. it didn't work on my tandy CGA monitor, so i connected my mono monitor from my BMI 8088, and it works great. this thing is not on TH99, maybe i should submit it.

EDIT 2: wow it's actually HERCULES clone! i set ultima 6 for herc mode, and it works on it. nifty. i've always wanted a hercules card.. :)
 
Last edited:
is it normal for the output on a herc card to have lines through it like this? it's only in graphics mode. text looks fine.

u6herc.JPG
 
I used to see similar cards (based on the same TD3088x chip, different layout) in many of the cheap generic 286s I used to pick up. That chip (but maybe not your card, maybe play with jumpers) will also do CGA and CGA-on-MDA (behave to software as CGA, but display on a MDA monitor).

The effect in the screenshot is due to the game displaying it's 320x200 CGA graphics at 720x384. I can't think of any games off the top of my head that had native Hercules graphics, though early versions MS Flight Simulator are a possibility (I seem to remember it supporting many many display modes).

Windows 3.0 has a Hercules driver that actually works quite well and looks decent.

There also the old 2SHOW image viewer that supports many pre-VGA displays.
 
I remember some game maybe called something like Starwars which would dump you right back on the command line if you didn't have Herc Graphics. I just went looking for it without any luck. One of these days I'll go through old disks - hopefully before they age too much. I don't actually play games, but I collect old esoteric programs.
 
Mike Chambers said:
is it normal for the output on a herc card to have lines through it like this? it's only in graphics mode. text looks fine.
Click to expand...

It depends on how the game is supporting Herc. If it's just trying to convert the CGA graphics over, then yes, you might see lines. Try a game that fully supports the full res of the Herc, like Flight Simulator 4.
 
Back in high school, we had a program called "HGCIBM.???" to run graphics on the computers. That program I think is a Herc emulator. I still rember typing in "hgcibm /e" and play games the rest of the computer class....
The computers we had were XT's with the ole green monitors. I sure would like to have a few of them now.
 
Ec1564 said:
Back in high school, we had a program called "HGCIBM.???" to run graphics on the computers. That program I think is a Herc emulator. I still rember typing in "hgcibm /e" and play games the rest of the computer class....
The computers we had were XT's with the ole green monitors. I sure would like to have a few of them now.
Click to expand...

I just found some info about that program:
http://cd.textfiles.com/essentialhb/08/7/0/

What the program does is to get the hercules to emulate CGA. The way it does is to replace the int 10h BIOS call, so it can't be used with programs that does direct CTR controll.
 
Try to find an old copy of SIMCGA--it allows CGA games (even the direct-access ones) to be played on herc-equipped systems.

(If you need a copy, drop me a line)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top