VOGONS


First post, by ubertrout

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Pretty much what it sounds like. I put my retro systems on a Belkin OmniView F1D066 and it - mostly - works fine. The ability to use a serial mouse for the 486 and PS/2 for all the others without swapping cables is really nice. And all the other systems work without a hassle. On the oldest system though (486 DX/2 50, turbo down to 25 if I hit it), some programs display in black and white while others work fine. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it. For instance the DOS editor program is in black and white consistently. Most recently and weirdly the install program for Sid Meier's Colonization was in monochrome while the game itself was in full color. Obviously it's better than the alternative but still weird. On the other hand Loom is running in monochrome, regardless of turbo setting.

The video card is a ATI Mach32 (pn 109-19301-00), and sound card is a Orpheus II LT and I'm using the latest Orphinit version. The system has 16MB of RAM. It's of course possible it's wonkiness with the KVM but the issue is reproducible on the one hand - and it sometimes works just fine, also reproducibly. Monitor is a Viewsonic PerfectFlat A70F.

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Reply 1 of 7, by Jo22

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Hi, I think that could be because of the VGA BIOS.
Programs that do set VGA modes directly via CRTC registers are usually in colour, no matter what.
Programs that rely on VGA BIOS may or may not appear in colour.
This depends on how VGA BIOS has detected monitor type (mono/color, there's a detection pin on the VGA connector).

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Reply 3 of 7, by jmarsh

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Jo22 wrote on 2024-04-15, 09:40:

(mono/color, there's a detection pin on the VGA connector).

There used to be a pin to detect monochrome monitors (pin 12). It was repurposed in later monitors for DDC, turning it into an I2C data pin. Unfortunately not all monitors have internal pull-ups (required for I2C to work properly) and since the (old) card doesn't have any either, the line ends up floating.

Reply 4 of 7, by ubertrout

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jmarsh wrote on 2024-04-15, 13:49:

There used to be a pin to detect monochrome monitors (pin 12). It was repurposed in later monitors for DDC, turning it into an I2C data pin. Unfortunately not all monitors have internal pull-ups (required for I2C to work properly) and since the (old) card doesn't have any either, the line ends up floating.

Is it possible this is an issue of using an older KVM? The monitor is a pretty nice late CRT, I'd think it has it.

Reply 5 of 7, by Tiido

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Every time I have seen this type of problem it is always because of monitor detection pins vs DDC type issue. In the end I mod the video card so it always detects a color monitor.
KVM might get in the way of the detection method in video card vs monitor alone, you can plug in monitor directly and see if it makes a difference. For what it is worth, my monitor and KVM both have the pullups mentioned and it doesn't stop the cards from occasionally detecting the display as monochrome.

T-04YBSC, a new YMF71x based sound card & Official VOGONS thread about it
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Reply 6 of 7, by Namrok

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I fixed this problem with one of my systems by getting a VGA coupler like this one here, and clipping off pin 12. It's an easy way to fix the problem without modifying a cable or the video card.

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Reply 7 of 7, by ubertrout

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I booted the system up again today and this time Loom displayed properly in color when I loaded it first. Might just be something loose but the system hasn't been moved at all. I'll need to play with the BIOS more though, and look into getting a coupler.