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From: brtmac@hobbes.ksu.ksu.edu (Brett McCoy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Monochrome VGA
Message-ID: <2435@deimos.cis.ksu.edu>
Date: 1 Aug 89 17:39:37 GMT
References: <18950@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu>
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Reply-To: brtmac@hobbes (Brett McCoy)
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Organization: Kansas State University Computing and Telecommunications
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In article <18950@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu> nr3m@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Matthew A Henry) writes:
>[I apologize if this is a repost, but am not sure if it went out
> the first time.]

I never saw the first one, so as far as I can tell, the first one
must have never got out.

>I am currently shopping for a 286 AT clone and am considering using
>monochrome VGA for two reasons: 1) Reasonably low cost; and 2) the
>ability to run software written for various graphic standards.  The 
>second reason has me somewhat confused.  According to the August issue
>of PC Magazine, where they have a review of monochrome VGA monitors,
>"A color VGA system will show CGA and EGA graphics on its screen; a
>monochrome VGA system will do likewise-without the special drivers
>that are required by Hercules".  Is this true of all VGA cards?  I
>also see VGA cards, like the Paradise VGA Plus, that is also MDA
>Hercules compatible.  Would that work with a monitor that is only 
>compatible with a VGA adapter?  If I bought an adapter with 800x600
>resolution, hoping to some day have a color monitor which could handle
>that resolution, work now with a monitor with 640x480 max resolution?
>In short, will a low cost monochrome VGA monitor be able to display VGA,
>EGA, CGA, MDA Hercules, and MCGA with the appropriate VGA adapter?

I'm not sure how everything works, but I can tell my experiences with
my hardware.  I have an Orchid ProDesigner VGA card w/512k (upgrade),
and a Magnavox Profesional VGA Monochrome monitor.  It supports 640x480
graphics and does a very good job of displaying greyscale rendition of
the colors that the VGA can display.  I have found the blue seems to
show up mostly as black so you have to turn the contrast all the way
up to see it.  I think this is a problem with most greyscale monitors
though.  The Orchid ProDesigner has CGA,MDA, and Hercules emulation,
and all of them work on both Color and Monochrome monitors without
any special drivers.  I can not speak for other VGA cards, as this
is the only one I have ever worked with.


--
Brett McCoy                |  God is real, unless declared integer
brtmac@ksuvm.ksu.edu       |
bmc@phobos.cis.ksu.edu     |  If you don't get caught,
brtmac@calvin.ksu.ksu.edu  |  did you really do it?