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Hercules Plus and/or InColor Detection and Font Setting

deathshadow

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Whilst I have a working inColor card in my collection, my Google-fu is failing me at coming up with any meaningful information on programming the text mode fonts on it. I also remember that the GB112 (aka Hercules Plus) could also do custom fonts.

Lowest target for my project is MDA, but I was thinking on H+/EGA/VGA I could make it look better using custom fonts even though it's pure text mode.

I did run across a couple sources claiming that normal hercules could do soft fonts... that's BS isn't it? I mean that was the whole point of the "plus" cards. Were there commonplace clones of the plus, and any way to detect them?
 
Unless you revert to bitmapped graphics, the regular Herc can only display what's in the font ROM.
That was the big thing with the Plus.
Don't know much about the InColor. I was offered a freebie, but I already had EGA, so I turned the offer down.
 
There is some Hercules InColor programming info here.

I bought a NIB InColor last year. I don't have time to scan the manuals but I archived the floppies. The program disk contains some programming examples. There's also a "Write On!" word processor included that uses RAMFonts.
 

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I did run across a couple sources claiming that normal hercules could do soft fonts... that's BS isn't it?

There was this origin story about the founder of Hercules Technology engineering the original graphics card because he needed an inexpensive high resolution display capable of displaying non-Western languages in better clarity than CGA. I would guess that these incorrect sources get that muddled up and assume that soft fonts were part of the original specification because, well, it was ”invented to display text”, right?
 
There is some Hercules InColor programming info here.

I bought a NIB InColor last year. I don't have time to scan the manuals but I archived the floppies. The program disk contains some programming examples. There's also a "Write On!" word processor included that uses RAMFonts.
Thank you very much. Exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. I've also got someone sending me a manual for it. When I get it I'll scan and share.
 
I would guess that these incorrect sources get that muddled up and assume that soft fonts were part of the original specification because, well, it was ”invented to display text”, right?
As good an explanation as any.
 
I should have just gone straight to John Elliot's reference for the MDA. I didn't think he had any herc data, but it's at the bottom.


Apparently there's actually a card identifier on one of the ports:

  • Reading from port 03BAh returns vertical sync in bit 7, and a card ID in bits 6-4:
    • 000: Hercules
    • 001: Hercules Plus
    • 101: Hercules InColor
    • 111: Unknown clone (see below)
    Only trust this ID once you've checked that there's a vertical sync present; if bit 7 is the same for 32768 reads in succession, then there isn't.
 
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