CGA (as in RGBI).
Composite monitors weren't much of a thing for personal computers. They mainly existed for broadcasting. There were some available for home computers, but since most home computers had an RF output built in, most people would just use a television. A monitor was a luxury item for home computers. Later televisions would also have direct composite in (which could also be used to plug in a video camera or VCR), so they could take over that role. By that time, CGA (and hence composite) was no longer relevant in the PC world.
Not to mention that only NTSC was supported by composite CGA, and many countries had incompatible standards, such as PAL or SECAM, so finding a composite monitor that would work with an NTSC signal was difficult in various parts of the world.
Aside from that, PCs were mostly used for productivity, usually in textmode, and composite is horrible for text.
Certain monitors, such as the Commodore 1084/Philips CM8833 would support various types of input, so you could use them as either RGBI or composite.

Those who didn't play games so much sometimes opted for a monochrome video monitor.
They were less expensive, too.

An analogue monochrome video monitor uses the same Composite connector as a colour monitor (aka RCA, Cinch, Phono).

However, it only processes the Luma (brightness) and sync/blanking part.
This signal is called VBS.

Composite signal adds a Chroma signal atop of it, which degrades image quality. That's why Composite (CVBS, Color VBS) was so heavily being hated.

What we know as S-Video today carried both Luma(+Sync/Blanking) and Chroma on separate pins inside a Hosiden connecror.

The monochrome video, VBS, is the equivalent to RGB in the black/white world.
In fact, it's the native format that black/white TVs and b/w video monitors use internally.
They do have a single video tube, not three individual ones for R/G/B.

VBS can be very, very hires. In surveillance/security, professional monochromatic monitors were using the exact same signal, but could use up to 1000 lines.
The professional sector also used BNC connectors rather than RCA connectors and good coaxial cables.
(Originally, before the ~1980s, So-239 socket/PL-259 plug were also still common.)

So long story short, the underlying monochrome technology of Composite was/is of very high quality.
That's why monochrome monitors were used to display 80 char mode on home computers (Commodore 128 etc).

Composite CGA looks fine on a monochrome video monitor, too.
As long as no NTSC artifacts are being shown, I mean.

Another things to consider :
Many CGA games look like they were meant with monochrome video in mind.
The same neon colours that wpuld normal hurt your eyes suddenly become shades of gray that make sense!
There used to be a discussion about this here on Vogons, many years ago.
Very interesting.

Edit: Fun fact. In the 1970s, black/white television sets were being hacked by hobbyists to become VBS video monitors.
Since monochrome video tubes don't have a screen mask (no RGB pixels), their sharpness/focus depends on external components.
So they could be used as substitutes for real video monitors.

See manual of the Robot Model 400 SSTV converter.
It's being mentioned on page 6.

However, there was one problem. Very old TVs didn't have an internal DC power supply.
So they couldn't be powered by external power (say 12v), either, which was very bad.

Now, the problem was that these old TVs ran off AC directly, rather than being galvanic insulated by a proper power supply.
That made them vulnerable to voltage fluctuations, too.

It also meant, that the chassis could be connected to the "hot" side by accident if the power plug was inserted upside down in the wall socket.
Which meant that AC would be on the metal frame, metal ground.

That's why the antenna terminal input of the TV tuner was decoubled by a capacitor.
Once hacked, that decoubling would be gone.
A dedicated video transformer would have been necessarily, thus, for protecting both the TV monitor and the attached video source.

Interesting theory, except that composite output wasn't even available on many CGA clones.
I have seen a few monochrome CGA monitors, but they just used the 9-pin RGBI connector.
Here's an example of a monochrome CGA monitor (actually it is dual-sync, it can do both MDA and CGA, which was common for mono CGA monitors):
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/samsung/monitors … rvice_Jan90.pdf

A common example of a composite mono screen is the built-in screen of the IBM 5155 Portable. It uses an internal header on the CGA card, that was meant for an RF modulator. That is the same signal as what goes out to the RCA composite connector on the back of a CGA card.
I believe Compaq used the same approach for their Portable.

Hm. Yes, it seems to be absent from the usual HGC/CGA combo cards.
They seem to feature the TTL port only, as far as I can tell.
Maybe they focused on HGC support, with optional CGA support. Considering the on-board LPT port it's not that farfetched.

My Nixdorf M35 8810 has CGA via RCA on-board, though. And it's mono. Like the "Composite" output of an A500.

This site shows pictures of it, along with a mono monitor attached via RCA:
https://www.cpu-galaxy.at/CPU/Intel%20CPU/808 … 0own%208088.htm

Speaking of monitors, the Commodore monitors seem to have been not too unusual.
Commodore 1084, 1702 etc.
They got quite a remarkable user base, aside from the Commodore user base they were intended for.

According to my father, the stackable 170x models were about good enough to be used in commercial sector.
He once told me that he got one used 1702 which was originally used at "Südwestfunk", an ex-broadcaster here in Germany who shut-down in the mid 90s.

Many years later, after my father got it, I've used this monitor as my Nintendo monitor.
It had some sort of comb filtering, I suppose, because Composite image quality wasn't tzat bad.

Edit: Hm. I assume that both was common?

Real TTL CGA monitors attached via DE-9 and cheaper monochrome monitors via RCA?

Whereas US gamers had attached an NTSC monitor or TV via RCA?
- Maybe in addition to an existing IBM CGA RGB monitor (TTL), too, which was used for normal applications ?

Many Commodore monitors, including the popular 1084, were made by Philips, which was one of the leading brands of CRTs and broadcasting equipment at the time.
I have a Philips MDA/Hercules monitor in the same look as the 1084, and it's the best I've ever seen. It's an amber screen with relatively little ghosting for monochrome. It also has an auto-oscillation circuit to remain in sync when no signal is connected, or the signal is out of spec (something that is standard for colour monitors, as they are usually derived from televisions, which need oscillation to compensate for bad reception).
So unlike most MDA/Hercules monitors (including the original IBM one), you can't fry this one.

I don't think composite CGA was ever really a thing, not even in the US.
I know for a fact that John Carmack didn't even know that composite CGA existed when he developed Commander Keen in CGA, because that's what he said when he saw the recent composite patch for Keen:
https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/714415047695425537

Well, if a big name in PC gaming development like Carmack (who is American, so grew up in an NTSC-area) doesn't even know about composite CGA, its use probably wasn't very widespread.

Scali wrote on 2023-05-02, 13:43:

[..] […]
Show full quote

[..]

I don't think composite CGA was ever really a thing, not even in the US.
I know for a fact that John Carmack didn't even know that composite CGA existed when he developed Commander Keen in CGA, because that's what he said when he saw the recent composite patch for Keen:
https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/714415047695425537

Well, if a big name in PC gaming development like Carmack (who is American, so grew up in an NTSC-area) doesn't even know about composite CGA, its use probably wasn't very widespread.

Since I'm European, I can't say much about it, I guess.
I vaguely remember a story about the creation of the SMB3 clone, though.
The people involved had stolen, err, borrowed their office PCs from workplace over weekend to finish the game. Or so I heard.
Maybe they had EGA cards, thus, which had no functional Composite video.

Anyway, it's always fascinating to discuss these things with you.
There are many things about the XT and pre-VGA days I have missed.

Um, Composite CGA.. I assume it wasn't really intended as the main video output at the time, but more of an option or a fallback? 🤷‍♂️
Like the RF modulators available on other platforms of the day.
They were being available, so that users/kids could use a TV set for practicing, before upgrading to a real monitor.

Also, in the US, I imagine, NTSC TV sets were cheap and everywhere.
I wouldn't be surprised if kids/beginers/video game players had easy access to an used TV set that could placed side by side on the desk with the XT PC.
A little RF modulator bought at Radio Shack surely solved the connectivity problem of using Composite video out.

Hm. And monochrome video as such was an exception, maybe, since it wasn't being dependent on colour TV standards such as NTSC/PAL (mono standards were RS-170 and CCIR).

Aside from the 50/60Hz difference, which could be compensated for on a monitor (h-hold knob), monochrome output worked for all users worldwide. PAL/NTSC/SECAM systems could display it, no special circuitry had to be added on either side.

The DE-9 output of the CGA was primarily intended for RGB colour monitors, by comparison.
Unfortunately, real monochrome monitors without an RGB mask, but a very fine picture (no sub pixels), didn't accept RGB inputs.
Usually, I mean. Some models out there surely had them. Monochrome "multi-sync" monitors, so to say.

Thus, users who wanted to use bog standard monochrome video monitors may found the extra RCA port somehow useful, I suppose.

That being said, I wonder if the DE-9 output carries the necessary signals to assemble a TV compatible signal (VBS, Composite), maybe with a bit of additional circuitry.
I *think* there was a discussion about it at Vogons, but this was 10 years ago or so.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-05-02, 14:40:

Since I'm European, I can't say much about it, I guess. I vaguely remember a story about the creation of the SMB3 clone, though. […]
Show full quote

Since I'm European, I can't say much about it, I guess.
I vaguely remember a story about the creation of the SMB3 clone, though.
The people involved had stolen, err, borrowed their office PCs from workplace over weekend to finish the game. Or so I heard.
Maybe they had EGA cards, thus, which had no functional Composite video.

They originally designed Keen around EGA scrolling indeed. Nevertheless, they had full CGA support in the engine as well, which had to use a different type of scrolling altogether. So likely they had also read the CGA programming manual, and must have come across the composite mode, which is documented there.
Besides, various early CGA games supported composite mode... so they must have encountered such games in the past, and must have noticed the unique dithering patterns used.
But apparently they didn't understand what it was for, and what it would look like on real composite.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-05-02, 14:40:

Um, Composite CGA.. I assume it wasn't really intended as the main video output at the time, but more of an option or a fallback? 🤷‍♂️

Ironically enough, when the PC was launched, IBM did not have a matching CGA monitor. The 5153 wasn't introduced until 1983.
So I'm not sure what exactly IBM expected these early adopters to use. There were probably some third-party options available for RGBI... but getting a composite NTSC display may have been easier/cheaper to get hold of.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-05-02, 14:40:

Like the RF modulators available on other platforms of the day.

As said, the CGA card also has a header for an RF modulator. But afaik IBM never actually sold one (they did eventually sell one for the PCjr though). I don't think anyone else actually marketed RF modulators for PCs either.
But yes, you can connect a generic RF modulator to your CGA card, and use it on a TV.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-05-02, 14:40:

Also, in the US, I imagine, NTSC TV sets were cheap and everywhere.

Yes, although in the early 80s it wasn't that common yet to have anything other than RF in on a TV. Especially in the US they never had the SCART standard or something similar.
So you'd need to have a relatively new and more upmarket model to use composite directly.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-05-02, 14:40:

Unfortunately, real monochrome monitors without an RGB mask, but a very fine picture (no sub pixels), didn't accept RGB inputs.

The ones made for CGA did, such as the one I linked to earlier.
It takes RGBI and uses it to generate multiple luminance shades (which would happen automatically if you were to use the composite output).

Scali wrote on 2023-05-02, 15:00:

Jo22 wrote on 2023-05-02, 14:40:

Um, Composite CGA.. I assume it wasn't really intended as the main video output at the time, but more of an option or a fallback? 🤷‍♂️

Ironically enough, when the PC was launched, IBM did not have a matching CGA monitor. The 5153 wasn't introduced until 1983.
So I'm not sure what exactly IBM expected these early adopters to use. There were probably some third-party options available for RGBI... but getting a composite NTSC display may have been easier/cheaper to get hold of.

I didn't know that! That's an interesting coincidence, though, because the Apple II monitor was released about the same time (1983).
Visually, it wouldn't look to much out of place if being used with an IBM PC or PC/XT clone of is day.
Considering that both Apple II and the IBM PC share some bits in history (ISA connectors, modular/open design), this is extra interesting, I think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Monitor_II

I would like to say, that monochrome displays were more common in the IBM PC & compatible space, from what I remember. Most people used them to type up documents, or general productivity. And monochrome (with something like hercules) is good enough for games in those early days anyway. And more obtainable.

Of the few people that had color displays, usually had a Tandy, or even a PCjr. At least until EGA and then VGA became common enough. But EGA+ took a while to catch on, especially when most people used the 8088.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2023-05-02, 18:22:

I would like to say, that monochrome displays were more common in the IBM PC & compatible space, from what I remember. Most people used them to type up documents, or general productivity. And monochrome (with something like hercules) is good enough for games in those early days anyway. And more obtainable.

Of the few people that had color displays, usually had a Tandy, or even a PCjr. At least until EGA and then VGA became common enough. But EGA+ took a while to catch on, especially when most people used the 8088.

Analogue monochrome video monitors were very popular in the 1970s, also.
In the pioneering days of micro computers and computer enthusiasts.
When IMSAI 8080 and Altair 8800 were new and computer kits like the COSMAC VIP were being around.

I've seen plenty of photos and magazine articles of that time, too.
Please everyone have a look at magazines like Elektor or QST.
They were from the electronic hobbyist scene, back when homebrew / do-it-yourself (DIY) was still a thing.

These monochrome monitors were used to build video terminals, back in the days when ASCII keyboards still existed.

The Sharp MZ-80K, 80A, 80C and the Commodore PET had internal mono video monitors, as well.

In ham radio, RTTY decoders and SSTV converters used analogue monochrome video, too.
The only other output on these devices was RF, often, which was quite blurry.

Edit: The ZX80/81 ("3D Monster Maze") was a famous low-end system with black/white graphics, too.
It didn't even feature a direct video output, but RF.
The ZX Spectrum was in colour, but had a hi-res monochrome mode that was sonetimes used for ham software (SSTV).

Edit. Text edited.

Edit: The little green monitors can be seen in that Acorn video, for example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK5AZrg3ZD8&t=150

Jo22 wrote on 2023-05-02, 19:59:

the3dfxdude wrote on 2023-05-02, 18:22:

I would like to say, that monochrome displays were more common in the IBM PC & compatible space, from what I remember. Most people used them to type up documents, or general productivity. And monochrome (with something like hercules) is good enough for games in those early days anyway. And more obtainable.

Of the few people that had color displays, usually had a Tandy, or even a PCjr. At least until EGA and then VGA became common enough. But EGA+ took a while to catch on, especially when most people used the 8088.

Analogue monochrome video monitors were very popular in the 1970s, also.
In the pioneering days of micro computers and computer enthusiasts.

Absolutely, which is why you can say that monochrome really had the advantage already given the popularity in all the options you specified. I wouldn't be surprised if alot of people had black & white tvs still. I can't remember if we did in the early 80s. It was likely color, but still, it blew up at some point (not literally), and when replaced I certainly remember it was color tv. So those who were buying a CGA card without a monitor to hook to TV might not exactly cared about the CGA colors, unless they were really into graphics similar to things like the Apple II. IBM's composite option was quickly forgotten too.

I really wonder who really sold some of the initial "CGA" compatible digital displays that people would have bought for their PC. I know there were compatible displays available, but given that IBM didn't have their monitor ready initially, I would think that their monochrome card and monitor would have been preferred (for those who could afford the PC) for vast majority, with composite having a slight lead over CGA digital display for a very small amount of time. This was until CGA monitors became common enough to bring the price down that everyone who wanted color graphics got that. And in not long there would be hercules graphics too.

A complication that CGA has, is that it uses 16 colours RGBI, and has the 'brown' hack for what would normally be 'dark yellow'.
I've looked at some monitors and terminals from the late 70s and early 80s, and it seems that it was common that they had 8-colour RGB... so no intensity.
I haven't yet found an RGBI screen, let alone that it has the correct 'brown' for the CGA standard.
Then again, you could of course just use an RGB monitor, and only get 8 colours. It would still be perfectly usable.

I also found this... The Amdek Color II monitor was a popular monitor for the Apple II... and apparently it could be modified for 16-colour CGA:
http://www.tedfelix.com/Technology/Amdek.html

I remember attending a summer camp at a local university. All of the computers in the lab that was used for the pascal programming unit were the early 1981 type 5150s, and all of them were equipped with composite displays or glorified TV sets. It's the first and only time I'd seen a PC doing CGA in composite colour mode in the wild, and a very odd choice for a university computer lab to say the least. Maybe at the time they really needed the colour.

According to this, it looks like in 1983, the Amdek 310a mono ttl monitor was $230, and the color ii rgb ttl was $529. There was significant savings if you went with a composite monitor in either mono or color.
https://archive.org/stream/AmdekPriceCatalogJ … y_1983_djvu.txt

Hi again, I've found an interesting Wikipedia article about a IBM PC in homecomputer form factor, the Poisk-1.
It's a bit like a Schneider Euro PC, but from USSR.
It has (had) CGA-ish graphics on-board. Users seemed to have used a TV set, too.
And perhaps over RF modulator, judging by those old portable models with their tuning knobs.

Source: Wikipedia

The Ukrainian version of Wikipedia says :

"Due to the lack of a full-fledged video controller, there is no text mode, and all text is drawn pixel by pixel in the graphics mode through the BIOS .
Also, 32 KB of video memory is located in the computer's RAM (in models with 128 KB, the user had 96 KB, and in models with 512 KB - 490 KB)."

"The following video modes of the CGA standard were supported :

320x200, 4 colors
640x200, 2 colors.

Code page 866 was used to display Cyrillic characters ."

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisk_(computer)

Of course, that's not exactly representative. It's nevertheless interesting, though.

It seems that CGA was chosen because it was based on conventional TV technology.
If the stereotype is kind of true, the USSR were a bit behind the times when it comes to such things as colour TV.
B/W TVs, b/w tube cameras and b/w video monitors on the other hand were widely available and could be made with lesser resources.
That being said, I'm just a layman here. I'm not looking down on anyone or mean to spread any false information.

What comes to mind, however, is that the USSR historically had bad power supplies.
They didn't have the necessary capacitors.
That's why their morse code transmission on shortwave had that special, squeaky sound.
The power supply was breaking down during transmit (missing caps).

Edit: A broken Junost TV that I had disassembled in the past was a mess.
No modular design, at all. Cables everywhere and a very crude/messy power supply.
Luckily, it had an optional 12v input, too. Using that would have been the most wise decision. The internal PSU was scarry.

Another story that comes to mind, also amusing..
My grandfather didn't like colour TV when it was new. He found it to be highly unprofessional and of low-quality.
That's why he wanted to watch the news on a serious, big black&white TV.
He simply couldn't stand watching the news speaker in colour!
Now, problem was, that large, pure black/white TVs were out of production in W-Germany already.
So he imported a high-end model from E-Germany, which must have involved a lot of legal troubles.

Anyway, that's an interesting story, maybe.:
E-Germany was the only country left to operate old-fashioned b/w TV transmittters.
They were being turned on for pure b/w TV programme, to provide higher visual quality.
E-Germany also used SECAM for colour TV, albeit an incompatible version to French television.
Most of their citizens still had a b/w TV sets near the fall of the Berlin wall.
Those who had colour TVs, also had upgraded their TVs to PAL compatibility in order to secretly receive TV programme from W-Germany.
This was an open secret and was silently tolerated by the E-Germany government in order to keep their citizens calm.

Of note is that the Poisk-1 was introduced in 1989, so it was very late to the party.
Also, it appears to be designed to be a home computer, supporting even cassette tape (I actually found a schematic and code for adding a cassette interface to a PC via the printer port on Russian sites about the Poisk-1).

But yes, in general the Soviet Union was well behind the West, both in terms of capabilities and of quality.
They had various computer systems, generally based on 8080 or Z80-clones. There was a home market for ZX Spectrum-clones:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ZX_Spectrum_clones

As we know from the development story of Tetris, there actually were real IBMs behind the iron curtain, mostly found in universities and such.

Scali wrote on 2023-05-06, 10:32:

Of note is that the Poisk-1 was introduced in 1989, so it was very late to the party.
Also, it appears to be designed to be a home computer, supporting even cassette tape (I actually found a schematic and code for adding a cassette interface to a PC via the printer port on Russian sites about the Poisk-1).

Yes, by North American and European standards it surely was very late.
That often mentioned technology embargo of the time maybe was one reason for that (we discussed that years ago already, I vaguely remember).
However, even then, Taiwan had access to Japanese hardware, I assume. The NEC V30 could have had been cloned/imported, in theory, since it was an 8086 derivative.
Or it could have been secretly re-labeled as an K1810VM86 series chip, since pinout was same.

From what I read online, some users in the 90s in (ex-) USSR had owned 286 PCs with Hercules graphics.
The Covox Speech Thing also was popular among users, since it could be assembled easily.
With a TSR, they could emulate Sound Blaster in software. A patcher program for DOS games was also available, the rumor says..
But I can't confirm this. However, I think it might be possible.
Some of the poorer users may got their hands on outdated PCs that no one in the west had any use for anymore.
Some of these might have been unused (NOS), even.

Here's a picture of an eastern SB clone made of discreet parts without any microcontroller.
It would fit the picture of a forgotten generation
of computer users in the 90s who had played CGA games via SIMCGA on Hercules systems.

http://www.deep-shadows.com/hax/wordpress/?page_id=364

Scali wrote on 2023-05-06, 10:32:

But yes, in general the Soviet Union was well behind the West, both in terms of capabilities and of quality.
They had various computer systems, generally based on 8080 or Z80-clones. There was a home market for ZX Spectrum-clones:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ZX_Spectrum_clones

I think the same. The knowledge was kind of there, but not the resources.
The GDR also had focused on ZX Spectrum clones by the late 80s.
Which their own engineers working on the national computers such as KC85/KC87 etc. didn't really like. They felt it was a step backwards.
But at least, the USSR knew how to produce Z80 and i8086 CPUs.
Both which were very solid by the design.
The NASA also had used the 8086 in their early space shuttle computers.

Scali wrote on 2023-05-06, 10:32:

As we know from the development story of Tetris, there actually were real IBMs behind the iron curtain, mostly found in universities and such.

I've seen them, too! There was an article in an 1980s issue of CHIP Magazine.
The PC/XTs were funny looking, indeed. Especially the monitors looked strange, not like your typical Hercules monitor.
Judging by that 8x8 font on the photographed monitors, it was likely CGA or a custom character generator.
From what I remember reading, Norton Commander was a defacto standard in USSR.
It was even visible on monitors in the article.
Rumors said that no PC user in USSR ever saw the DOS prompt, because Norton Commander was pre-installed.
Judging by various the USSR boot diskettes containing DOS and DOS clones that I saw online,
I believe that stereotype seems to be true.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-05-10, 05:12:

From what I read online, some users in (ex-) USSR had owned 286 PCs with Hercules graphics. ... Some of the poorer users may got their hands on outdated PCs that no one in the west had any use for anymore

Yes, in mid nineties, ru was extremely poor all the way to 2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Russian_financial_crisis
Judging by pictures of places far away from Moscow and ru soldiers stealing toilets not much has changed in a lot of places.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-05-10, 05:12:

Covox ..With a TSR, they could emulate Sound Blaster in software. A patcher program for DOS games was also available, the rumor says..

even today its difficult https://github.com/volkertb/temu-vsb https://github.com/crazii/SBEMU and requires protected mode (386). In theory could also be accomplished with NMI, but I only ever saw NMI used for emulating basic PC peripherals in palmtops (keyboard) and computers utilizing weird CPUs like NEC V40 (Olivetti Prodest non standard DMA made to work with DOS)

Jo22 wrote on 2023-05-10, 05:12:

Here's a picture of an eastern SB clone made of discreet parts without any microcontroller.

cant emulate SB without microcontroller? you need something on the other side replying to commands and at least setting dma frequency

>Actually, emulating Sound Blater 1.0 is easy. There are only two output modes: immediate byte-to-DAC output and DMA output. Also care must be taken to emulate SB responce behaviour so games could detect that SB is resent. Since all games used standart library from Creative, SB detection pattern was known and was hard-wired into emulator. By using simple trigger-switching, it was possible to emulate SB without microcontroller.

ah, so hardcoded detection response and immediate output? no idea how he implemented dma

No idea why we are talking about sound cards here, but hey 😀 similar thing from Czech:
'Czech home-made sound card from 1992/1993' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL8u9aRfaK8

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-05-10, 05:41:

No idea why we are talking about sound cards here, but hey 😀 similar thing from Czech:
'Czech home-made sound card from 1992/1993' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL8u9aRfaK8

Thanks a lot for the link! 😃

Edit: The video is very interesting!
The card looks tidy, too! Like a prototype to a commercial version.
It's also the first time I actually saw someone making use of the ASM segment in MOD Play Pro! 😃👍

Back in the 90s, when I was still searching through shareware CD and had a 286 as my main PC, I was wondering what it would be good for.
A quad Covox Speech Thing, maybe? I kept thinking about that.

This was in a time when I was using Norton Commander daily, along with its internal text viewer.
By using code page 437, all the ASCII art in text files were being displayed correctly (like those schematics for the Covox plugs).

..

Soundcards.. Right. Um, well, I simply wanted to show that not all places are/were the same. 😅
And that older standards, like CGA, may have been in use in a way we didn't imagine.

The original question was if Composite CGA or RGB CGA was commonly used.
In the western world of the 1980s, "real" CGA monitors in colour (digital, TTL) were being preferred, it seems (EGA card users kept them, even).

Unless the users were home users and poor/or especially into PC games.
Then, they would attach a composite monitor to get these Apple II - type of colour graphics in games supporting it (Ultima II looked fabulous on Composite CGA).

And in other places (Europe), it might have been TVs with SCART lead.There were schematics for DIY in magazines like Elektor.
In USSR, Hercules and native Hercules games/CGA games via SIMCGA might have been a thing, not sure. Until VGA graphics became more common.

While humble monochrome CGA via RCA jack always was an option to users worldwide (if RCA was present)..