VOGONS


First post, by tokroger

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Well, situation is like this.. Place where I work, there's an old PC, 286-12 MHz, with 8-bit ISA graphics card, CGA/EGA i think, there´s a 9 pin connector. There's also parallerport built on graphics card. There's also super I/O-card on another ISA-slot and on that card is paraller and serialports.

Machine this computer controls is connected to graphics parallerport and I/O-cards serial port. Now that ancient CRT connected to this machine gave up. I have noticed that old CRT:s, atleast working ones, are really hard to find, i´ve tried but with no success.

My actual question is...is it possible to put another, let's say 15pin VGA-graphics card, 8- or 16-bit, on empty ISA-slot, connect more modern CRT to it and still use that old card as parallerport. I've noticed that it's easier to find working old graphics card than CRT. There's not any manuals left for that I/O-card so it would be too hard to get it work right such short notice, i'm not that good with bunch of jumpers 😀

Reply 1 of 3, by King_Corduroy

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You could just use a CGA to VGA adapter I think can't you? I don't think there is any reason to get another isa gfx card unless you just feel like it.

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Reply 2 of 3, by keropi

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either get another vga and use the lpt port on the i/o card (or an extra lpt card) or just get the cheap converters as suggested above, they are dirt cheap now: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/301250849489

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Reply 3 of 3, by mr_bigmouth_502

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Unless you specifically need the parallel port on the old graphics card, I would replace it with an ISA VGA card, and just hook it up to a newer monitor. Assuming it's a DOS machine, it shouldn't make too much of a difference. If it's running Windows 3.x however, then you may need to run Windows Setup to change what graphics adapter it's set for.

I was just looking at the adapters they were selling on eBay, and they look far more sophisticated than the DB-9 to VGA converters I've seen. It may be worth giving one a try, especially if you don't feel like fooling with how the computer itself is set up, though I wonder how well the adapter itself can actually handle CGA/EGA signals.

Either way, you'll be able to use a newer monitor, and not have to deal with the old, broken CRT. Repairing CRTs is kind of a dying art, as most people don't have much of a use for them besides retro gamers and other people who are fascinated by vintage technology.