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[Gasp!] VGA on a 5150?!?

F

Floppies_only

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Hey Gang,

I was wondering if anyone could tell me if it would be possible to acquire an eight-bit VGA card for my IBM PC? eBay seems to have oddles of "PCI" VGA cards but nothing that's eight bit. Are they unobtainium nowadays?

The monitors seem to be pretty easy to get aholt of.

Thanks,
Sean
 
Floppies_only said:
Hey Gang,

I was wondering if anyone could tell me if it would be possible to acquire an eight-bit VGA card for my IBM PC? eBay seems to have oddles of "PCI" VGA cards but nothing that's eight bit. Are they unobtainium nowadays?

The monitors seem to be pretty easy to get aholt of.

Thanks,
Sean
Click to expand...

There are VGA Cards that are 8-bit.

But you can't really run VGA Software, the 5150 is too slow, but you can run text and cga programs on it, even EGA stuff is dead slow.

The best part about a 8-bit VGA card is taking advantage of modern VGA Screens such as LCD.

I currently have a one inside a 5150, connected to a VGA Monitor, works no problem, the card that came with it was CGA, but I didn't have a CGA Monitor and composite output is beyond total crap.

:)
 
If you have any 16-bit ISA VGA cards lying around, try one and see if it works in your PC. A fair number of them support 8-bit mode. You have nothing to lose by trying.
 
gerrydoire said:
There are VGA Cards that are 8-bit.

But you can't really run VGA Software, the 5150 is too slow, but you can run text and cga programs on it, even EGA stuff is dead slow.
Click to expand...

I tried as a test running Maniac Mansion on my 386 with the turbo off. In EGA mode it's like molasses at 4.77 Mhz. In CGA mode it's a little slow, but otherwise playable.

gerrydoire said:
I currently have a one inside a 5150, connected to a VGA Monitor, works no problem, the card that came with it was CGA, but I didn't have a CGA Monitor and composite output is beyond total crap.

:)
Click to expand...

Composite mode has readable text in either 40-column mode or 80-column with the color off, but unfortunately most applications automatically set mode 3 (80-column text w/ color on) if they detect a color card.

Monochrome composite monitors like the Tandy VM-4 come in handy here. There were also dual RGB/composite displays such as the Commodore 1902.
 
gerrydoire said:
But you can't really run VGA Software, the 5150 is too slow, but you can run text and cga programs on it, even EGA stuff is dead slow.
Click to expand...

Oh, I disagree with that wholeheartedly. I think it depends on what the program (ie. game) is trying to do. EGA and VGA 16-color modes have some logic that, if programmed correctly, can drastically speed up things like polygon drawing and sprites. Flight simulators typically do this properly.

Now, if you're talking about games that run in stock MCGA 320x200 256-color mode, then yes, animation can be sluggish. But even then, you can play 256-color adventure games where graphics are more important than speed of animation.

Having 80x50 text mode in a clear font is very nice if all you want to do is run apps :)
 
I want to use the VGA monitor in text mode. I just want to see Microsoft Works' shades of blue. Will that work at 4.77 MHz?

The only graphics programs I anticipate using are Flight Simulator and "Space War".

Sean
 
Last edited:
per said:
Of course, unless it's using low-level CGA programming.
Click to expand...

My application is Microsoft Works version 2.00a, which came out in 1989, after VGA did. I believe that I will have the option of setting up the program one one set of disks for MDA, and on another set for VGA with a color monitor. Then I can reboot and switch from one to the other as the inclination strikes me. The data disk can be the same for both instances of the program.

If I recall correctly, Works can make the static go away on a CGA monitor. It keeps changing some parameter and asking you if it went away, once it does you go to the next step. But CGA uses that horrid 8X8 text box. Bleck! MDA and VGA both have the good-looking 9X16 box.

Sean
 
Floppies_only said:
But CGA uses that horrid 8X8 text box. Bleck! MDA and VGA both have the good-looking 9X16 box.
Click to expand...
Tandy CGA uses 8x9 text, by inserting an extra blank scanline between each row of text. It makes a small but important difference in readability -- the bottom of a "g" won't touch the top of a "T" on the row below it, for example.
 
Floppies_only said:
I want to use the VGA monitor in text mode. I just want to see Microsoft Works' shades of blue. Will that work at 4.77 MHz?

The only graphics programs I anticipate using are Flight Simulator and "Space War".

Sean
Click to expand...

I wouldn't bother trying to run too many games on a 4.77 PC or XT, the performace would be beyond bad.

Back in the days of the XT, only turbo PC's from Taiwan were even remotely capable of runnings the most basic of games, they ran at 4.77 and 8mhz in turbo mode (been there done that)
 
Don't I know it! I tried Flight Sim 2 on a plain C64 few weeks ago. It would take like 5 to 7 seconds to update the view, sometimes would take much longer than that. I shut it off fairly fast. Of course, that was after the 5+ minutes to load the program off the 1541 diskette unit.
 
A well programmed EGA game can work tolerably well on a 5150. I tried Commander Keen and it ran acceptably on mine.

With the 5150 comes load times which I, for one, am unused to experiencing.
 
IMO the biggest reason for using a VGA card in an 8-bit system is the ability to use an analog monitor. 9-pin TTL monitors are getting harder to find and eventually will start failing. So it's good to have the ability to use a standard monitor. I like the video cards that have both 9-pin TTL and 15 pin analog outputs so you can use either type.
 
Chuckster_in_Jax said:
IMO the biggest reason for using a VGA card in an 8-bit system is the ability to use an analog monitor. 9-pin TTL monitors are getting harder to find and eventually will start failing. So it's good to have the ability to use a standard monitor. I like the video cards that have both 9-pin TTL and 15 pin analog outputs so you can use either type.
Click to expand...

...or better yet, monitors that can do both analog and digital (MDA,CGA,EGA,VGA) as well as D-sub 15 and DA-9 connectors (e.g. Mitsubishi Diamondscan, Sony 1302..., etc.) A few even have composite and RGB BNC inputs.
 
Didn't IBM offer VGA as a full-length 8-bit ISA card? Then with an IBM VGA monitor, you could have a completely "factory" solution for adding VGA to a PC.
 
vwestlife said:
Didn't IBM offer VGA as a full-length 8-bit ISA card? Then with an IBM VGA monitor, you could have a completely "factory" solution for adding VGA to a PC.
Click to expand...
I have seen a dump of it's BIOS extension somwehere, so the card does exist. However, IBM must have made that VGA card sometime durning 1987, and that's right before they stopped making PC's (exept for PS/2 & related). As of my view, the card is about as rare as the PGA, if not rarer.
 
vwestlife said:
Didn't IBM offer VGA as a full-length 8-bit ISA card? Then with an IBM VGA monitor, you could have a completely "factory" solution for adding VGA to a PC.
Click to expand...

At present I don't mind using a clone VGA card because I've read that they don't require card-specific drivers the way EGA cards do. The way I found that out was after I brought a 286 home from the thrift store and wiped the hard drive prepatory to re-installing DOS on it. Much to my dismay, when the computer ran in EGA mode it would crash. I almost got that one to load Google's homepage, but it would crash (took forever to load before it did). I had not made a copy of the files in the root directory so I had to get a whole different EGA card and driver. I didn't know where to get the driver alone. Anyway, I haven't heard that VGA cards have this problem.

Sean
 
per said:
I have seen a dump of it's BIOS extension somwehere, so the card does exist. However, IBM must have made that VGA card sometime durning 1987, and that's right before they stopped making PC's (exept for PS/2 & related). As of my view, the card is about as rare as the PGA, if not rarer.
Click to expand...

I own that card and dumped its BIOS. IBM actually made it not for the PC, but for the PS/2 Models 25 & 30. It was designed as an upgrade for the MCGA adapters on those system's motherboards. It works just fine with a 5150 (assuming third BIOS).
 
vwestlife said:
Didn't IBM offer VGA as a full-length 8-bit ISA card? Then with an IBM VGA monitor, you could have a completely "factory" solution for adding VGA to a PC.
Click to expand...

Possible, but since everyone else was better at making things for a PC other than IBM, it doesn't matter much.
 
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