Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr!tektronix!psueea!parsely!percival!bucket!leonard
From: leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Atypical VGA question.
Message-ID: <1546@bucket.UUCP>
Date: 11 Jul 89 07:54:54 GMT
References: <4342@tank.uchicago.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: Rick's Home-Grown UNIX; Portland, OR.
Lines: 39

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