Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!bu.edu!bu-cs!mirror!prism!rob
From: rob@prism.TMC.COM
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Quality Color Text with CGA?
Message-ID: <206900159@prism>
Date: 15 Jan 90 15:33:00 GMT
References: <130154@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Lines: 29
Nf-ID: #R:sun.Eng.Sun.COM:-13015400:prism:206900159:000:1359
Nf-From: prism.TMC.COM!rob    Jan 15 10:33:00 1990


acm@grendal.UUCP writes:

>I've written an application that a number of people want to run.  I wrote
>it in plain CGA text mode, making use of color text.  Because I use a
>VGA card and monitor at home the text looked fine while I was developing
>it, but when I run it on a stock CGA card with an el cheapo CGA RGB monitor
>the text is almost unreadable.  I have tried it on an EGA card/monitor
>system and it looks fine.

   It depends on what you mean by 'unreadable'. To someone used to an
EGA or VGA, CGA text will seem very fuzzy. Depending on how your program
is written, you may also get 'snow' on a CGA screen.

   The 'snow' can be avoided with proper programming. The fuzziness of the
text is a result of the CGA's lower resolution. Short of upgrading to an EGA 
or VGA, not much can be done about it.
 
>So, my question is... Do my users have to use an EGA card *and* EGA monitor
>to use my program or could they just use an EGA monitor hooked up to their
>existing CGA cards?

   An EGA monitor by itself won't help things, nor will an EGA or VGA
card hooked to a CGA screen (some of these combinations won't work at
all). You'll need to upgrade both the screen and the video board.

   It's possible that your CGA monitor is poor, and that a new one would 
make the text at least tolerable. 'Tolerable' is about the best any CGA
can do, however.