LGR - Installing an 8-bit EGA Card on an IBM 5154
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
LanIost
I was going to leave a comment before I realized I already did, so I'll leave a different one. Clint, I discovered recently the different modes of CGA that allowed it to NOT look like ass (namely, the composite modes. Have you seen these? For my entire 31 years of my life I've pictured CGA as cyan and purple with like bright green (that is, clashing neon colors. Apparently it wasn't always like this and thanks to the wonders of dithering/blurring, CGA could actually display much more nuanced color schemes. The CGA modes in California Games here actually look WAY better than any normal CGA I've seen (think, Alley Cat) so this makes me wonder if it's taking advantage of an actual IBM monitor to display better than we normally would have seen growing up with our 486s and stuff. I dunno about you but I LOVED playing Stunts and other games in ALL of their modes.
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I was going to leave a comment before I realized I already did, so I'll leave a different one. Clint, I discovered recently the different modes of CGA that allowed it to NOT look like ass (namely, the composite modes. Have you seen these? For my entire 31 years of my life I've pictured CGA as cyan and purple with like bright green (that is, clashing neon colors. Apparently it wasn't always like this and thanks to the wonders of dithering/blurring, CGA could actually display much more nuanced color schemes. The CGA modes in California Games here actually look WAY better than any normal CGA I've seen (think, Alley Cat) so this makes me wonder if it's taking advantage of an actual IBM monitor to display better than we normally would have seen growing up with our 486s and stuff. I dunno about you but I LOVED playing Stunts and other games in ALL of their modes.
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Caseytify
A long time ago I picked up an IBM AT with an IBM EGA card and monitor. Only had 64k memory on the card. Also found a local Zenith 286 with a Zenith EGA card (256k) and monitor. Everything worked quite nicely but I had serious bills last year, so I sold both monitors. Still have the systems and the display cards. And, yes, the IBM card is full length. :) IIRC they both are. Both are set right now to display CGA instead, since I don't have an EGA monitor to hand any more.
I expect you didn't have the EGA version of early Sim City, or Lucasfilm's Battle of Britain? I used to play that one back in the day when I owned a -turbo- XT clone with Samsung EGA monitor.
. Haven't tried plugging an MDA monitor into one of those cards yet. Don't they have an EGA/mono function?
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A long time ago I picked up an IBM AT with an IBM EGA card and monitor. Only had 64k memory on the card. Also found a local Zenith 286 with a Zenith EGA card (256k) and monitor. Everything worked quite nicely but I had serious bills last year, so I sold both monitors. Still have the systems and the display cards. And, yes, the IBM card is full length. :) IIRC they both are. Both are set right now to display CGA instead, since I don't have an EGA monitor to hand any more.
I expect you didn't have the EGA version of early Sim City, or Lucasfilm's Battle of Britain? I used to play that one back in the day when I owned a -turbo- XT clone with Samsung EGA monitor.
. Haven't tried plugging an MDA monitor into one of those cards yet. Don't they have an EGA/mono function?
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Crystal
Oh wow. Hercules graphics mode. I remember having to type in it's command to enable it on my old 8088 (lovingly nicknamed -Rudy-) before playing anything more graphically demanding than Lotus 1-2-3. 25 MB HD, and delicious orange phosphorus monitor. Mmmm. You could even set the -colour- for the output, but it ended up just brightening the displayed lines, obviously. For the longest time I thought -Cyan- meant orange. Like Cayenne pepper.
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Oh wow. Hercules graphics mode. I remember having to type in it's command to enable it on my old 8088 (lovingly nicknamed -Rudy-) before playing anything more graphically demanding than Lotus 1-2-3. 25 MB HD, and delicious orange phosphorus monitor. Mmmm. You could even set the -colour- for the output, but it ended up just brightening the displayed lines, obviously. For the longest time I thought -Cyan- meant orange. Like Cayenne pepper.
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Caseytify
Nice. What struck me most about EGA was the 640x480 full-color text, compared to CGA's 640x200 2-color. EGA had the same crisp, easy-to-read text as the MDA along with 16 colors. Too bad the monitor ran something like $700 at the time
Had an EGA card/monitor with my turbo XT clone, and that kept me going until I upgraded to a 286 and picked up a Tseng Labs Windows accelerator card. That was fine until I encountered. Quake. :)
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Nice. What struck me most about EGA was the 640x480 full-color text, compared to CGA's 640x200 2-color. EGA had the same crisp, easy-to-read text as the MDA along with 16 colors. Too bad the monitor ran something like $700 at the time
Had an EGA card/monitor with my turbo XT clone, and that kept me going until I upgraded to a 286 and picked up a Tseng Labs Windows accelerator card. That was fine until I encountered. Quake. :)
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LMacNeill
Not only is that CGA card one of the super-long 8-bit cards - if you look closely, you can see its edge-connector is positioned in such a way that it will -only- fit in an 8-bit slot. The 16-bit ISA slot would make contact with the edge of the card that drops down just beyond the 8-bit edge-connector - meaning you could -not- install this card in anything -but- an IBM 5150. That-s hilarious!
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Not only is that CGA card one of the super-long 8-bit cards - if you look closely, you can see its edge-connector is positioned in such a way that it will -only- fit in an 8-bit slot. The 16-bit ISA slot would make contact with the edge of the card that drops down just beyond the 8-bit edge-connector - meaning you could -not- install this card in anything -but- an IBM 5150. That-s hilarious!
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Mark
Oh fwiw I think 128k is the minimum you need to use high-rez 640x350 16-colour mode on EGA even though it doesn't quite use all that memory. Same as but not quite as extreme as how 640x480 technically uses 256k on a VGA (and why MCGA can't do similar, because it doesn't have that much RAM) even though that's only actually 150kb. so if your card can do that mode, it's definitely a 128kb model.
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Oh fwiw I think 128k is the minimum you need to use high-rez 640x350 16-colour mode on EGA even though it doesn't quite use all that memory. Same as but not quite as extreme as how 640x480 technically uses 256k on a VGA (and why MCGA can't do similar, because it doesn't have that much RAM) even though that's only actually 150kb. so if your card can do that mode, it's definitely a 128kb model.
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Tomy
Yes only is that CGA card one of the super-long 8-bit cards - if you look closely, you can see its edge-connector is positioned in such a way that it will only fit in an 8-bit slot. The 16-bit ISA slot would make contact with the edge of the card that drops down just beyond the 8-bit edge-connector - meaning you could yes install this card in anything but an IBM 5150. That-s hilarious!
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Yes only is that CGA card one of the super-long 8-bit cards - if you look closely, you can see its edge-connector is positioned in such a way that it will only fit in an 8-bit slot. The 16-bit ISA slot would make contact with the edge of the card that drops down just beyond the 8-bit edge-connector - meaning you could yes install this card in anything but an IBM 5150. That-s hilarious!
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Ponyfox
My first PC was my dad's old IBM XT machine with 20MB harddrive (never managed to fill it up) and a CGA board. Enjoyed this video so much it felt more like a 5 minute video and was sad it ended so -fast-. Bonus points for letting us enjoy the mechanical sounds of the drive. And that lovely power down noise of the machine. Gosh. so many nostalgia tingles!
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My first PC was my dad's old IBM XT machine with 20MB harddrive (never managed to fill it up) and a CGA board. Enjoyed this video so much it felt more like a 5 minute video and was sad it ended so -fast-. Bonus points for letting us enjoy the mechanical sounds of the drive. And that lovely power down noise of the machine. Gosh. so many nostalgia tingles!
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Aris
I remember seeing in magazines back in the day ads for the Genoa Super EGA and various other so-called Extended EGA cards that supported higher resolution modes primarily for use in Autocad. The information I cannot figure out is if these super ega cards also displayed more than 16 colors. It would be cool if someone did a video on those cards.
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I remember seeing in magazines back in the day ads for the Genoa Super EGA and various other so-called Extended EGA cards that supported higher resolution modes primarily for use in Autocad. The information I cannot figure out is if these super ega cards also displayed more than 16 colors. It would be cool if someone did a video on those cards.
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Rat
hi, i have a Tseng Labs / eva 480 EGA, when i buyed, i tested and works, now a mount a XT and a can not make this card works, am very lost whit the configuration pins, this card have a 8 swichts, very different to the your card. If you can of course, you wanna help me? thanks, george from argentina
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hi, i have a Tseng Labs / eva 480 EGA, when i buyed, i tested and works, now a mount a XT and a can not make this card works, am very lost whit the configuration pins, this card have a 8 swichts, very different to the your card. If you can of course, you wanna help me? thanks, george from argentina
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