Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!gatech!purdue!i.cc.purdue.edu!j.cc.purdue.edu!pur-ee!uiucdcs!bradley!ninja
From: ninja@bradley.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att
Subject: Re: 6300 graphics and EGA cards
Message-ID: <9300048@bradley>
Date: 14 Jan 88 03:11:00 GMT
References: <1037@bakerst.UUCP>
Lines: 44
Nf-ID: #R:bakerst.UUCP:1037:bradley:9300048:000:1550
Nf-From: bradley.UUCP!ninja    Jan 13 21:11:00 1988


> There are two cards that are being offered for the new machines.
> They are the VDC400 and the VDC750.

Will they run in older 6300's as add ons ?

The older 6300 machines had adhered to the IBM CGA standard.  This means :

640 x 200 monochrome
320 x 200 4 colors
64 shades of grey if you have a monochrome monitor and run in color mode.

and that's it if I remember right.  THere might have been some Hercules
monochrome support but I doubt it.  Lotus 1-2-3 2.01 does come with an
80 x 50 screen driver for 6300's, but it works ONLY on 6300's so it's
not CGA or Hercules.

What I recommend to people here that want to do good color stuff on
6300's is :

*DON'T* buy an AT&T color monitor, they are way over priced

Get an EGA card.  They range in price from around $100 up to $600
for ones that will do the new IBM VGA standard as well as EGA.  Run
down to your local Radio Shack (or any local dealer) and pick up an
RGB monitor.  In general, the cost of these two items is within $50
of an AT&T color monitor alone (that's with a Radio Shack monitor
and a Taxan autoswitch EGA card).  This combination allows :

640 x 200 64 color
640 x 200 16 color
CGA support
Hercules monochrome support

Installation involves changing a dip switch and moving 1 jumper.

Recently I priced out an NEC multi-sync and the Taxan card for someone
at around $750.  That's less than the cost of the Display Enhancement
Board alone.

Unfortunately, if you've already sunk $500 or more dollars into an
AT&T color monitor, your only alternative is the DEB.

Frank McGee