appiah4 wrote:

I'm fairly certain that my own PC, with a Hercules card, could output 12 (or maybe 16) shades of grey onto the monitor we had, that is why my dad always claimed it was superior to green monochrome PCs even though they could display in color, albeit a single one. So I'm guessing we had a Hercules card with a compatible Greyscale monitor.

No. Hercules was mono, pixel was either lit or not. You might think about CGA, which could display four colours, but was often connected to monochrome monitors that could display four shades or four levels of intensity.

Check this image: http://jawnesny.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/ROCKFORD.jpg

OldCat wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

I'm fairly certain that my own PC, with a Hercules card, could output 12 (or maybe 16) shades of grey onto the monitor we had, that is why my dad always claimed it was superior to green monochrome PCs even though they could display in color, albeit a single one. So I'm guessing we had a Hercules card with a compatible Greyscale monitor.

No. Hercules was mono, pixel was either lit or not. You might think about CGA, which could display four colours, but was often connected to monochrome monitors that could display four shades or four levels of intensity.

Check this image: http://jawnesny.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/ROCKFORD.jpg

Nope, this is not it.

I am 100% positive that the card in the PC was Hercules and we could display over a dozen shades of green on the monitor. What the card and monitor exactly were, I can not remember. I am sure my dad referred to the setup as being 'Hercules' as opposed to being 'Monochrome'. He was probably wrong with the terminology, but I am fairly certain my eyes showed me greyscale 'colors' when playing Prince of Persia, and I am 100% certain it was not CGA because my friends with CGA could go inside the windows in Alley Cat and I could not.

According to Wikipedia:

As the Hercules card did not actually have color-generating circuitry, nor could it connect to a color monitor, color appeared as simulated greyscale in varying patterns (in essence, a primitive form of half-toning or dithering.)

I'm assuming this is what I was seeing on screen. Or possibly mine was a Hercules InColor card that apparently had EGA-like capabilities, and was hooked up to a greyscale monitor? I can not remember, I was too young.

appiah4 wrote:

I am 100% positive that the card in the PC was Hercules and we could display over a dozen shades of green on the monitor. What […]
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I am 100% positive that the card in the PC was Hercules and we could display over a dozen shades of green on the monitor. What the card and monitor exactly were, I can not remember. I am sure my dad referred to the setup as being 'Hercules' as opposed to being 'Monochrome'. He was probably wrong with the terminology, but I am fairly certain my eyes showed me greyscale 'colors' when playing Prince of Persia, and I am 100% certain it was not CGA because my friends with CGA could go inside the windows in Alley Cat and I could not.

According to Wikipedia:

As the Hercules card did not actually have color-generating circuitry, nor could it connect to a color monitor, color appeared as simulated greyscale in varying patterns (in essence, a primitive form of half-toning or dithering.)

I'm assuming this is what I was seeing on screen.

Two options: either it was not Hercules and had more shades of green or it was Hercules, in which case the illusion of intensity was created by dithering. Tertium non datur.

For comparison, have a look at these similar two cases that are not Hercules, but illustrate how similar it can be for human eye. Check the first photo in this thread: Metal Mutant compared on plasma screens of Toshiba T3100e (CGA) and Toshiba T5100 (CGA/EGA) These are two versions of the same game in the same resolution and monochrome, but one is displayed on the plasma screen that can only use two levels of intensity (on/off) and the other one is displayed on the plasma screen with four levels of intensity. Note how they look the same from afar, but when you look up close, the difference is obvious.

Memories tend to add additional aliasing, you know. 🤣

EDIT: typos, grammar

I guess Hercules' dithering was indistinguishable from actual greyscale color to our computer virgin eyes 😎

I am pretty certain that the original IBM MDPA card could display characters in either regular or high intensity. Is it possible for hercules to produce high intensity pixels in bitmap mode?

aww man the mysterious microspeed deluxe AT keyboard is just a rubber dome

Was just looking for scsi isa card, ended up buying everything from a guy for $80 + shipping.

Missing in picture is:
Sidewinder 3d pro with manual
Rise of the traid cd with manual
MegaRace cd with manual
TFX with manual

2 x scsi cd-rom
3 x agp graphic
1 x s3 pci
2 x adaptec scsi isa

Comanche cd - complete
Grand prix2 - complete
Road and Track Thee need for speed ( not SE ) - complete
Rally Championships - complete
Silent Thunder - Complete
S2 - complete

2 x keyboards that i always forget what they are called, i normally call them keyboard for special folks 😉

IBM Personal Computer 300GL p 166mhz

Grand Prix 2.. Envy rising.

mmm old IBM desktops

oeuvre wrote:

mmm old IBM desktops

I'm a Compaq man myself but IBMs are nice too.

Got a couple different lots on the way from the same seller.

This lot should have V3-3000 in both AGP and PCI. The other card I really wanted from this lot was the Socket 7 SBC.

I was the only bidder for this lot of motherboards that ended quite close to the lot above.
Not sure I will have much use for any of them, but for the price I figured I could resell the boards individually if I don't want some/all of them.

Gah! I bid on that lot of cards too! Along with the Voodoos there were two GeForce 4 Tis and a Hercules 3D Prophet Kyro (probably a Kyro 2). There's also a number 9 S3 card, an S3 Trio 3D, and a whole slew of other misc stuff. A really nice lot for sure! Congrats!

cyclone3d wrote:

Got a couple different lots on the way from the same seller.

This lot should have V3-3000 in both AGP and PCI. The other card I really wanted from this lot was the Socket 7 SBC.

cards.jpg

I also had my eye on this, but it was a bit out of my range - knew you'd be all over it though! 😀 A nice score!

Think the Kyro is a 4500?

My big purchases for the day\week\month are on their way to me now. I nabbed a bunch of items out of a scrap lot for a very nice price. Included in the lot was an Asus V7700 Geforce 2 GTS 64MB, Real3D Starfighter AGP (almost brushed it off as a Matrox AGP card and let it go... glad I looked at it more closely!), Yamaha XG YMF-724 PCI (probably Labway), Soundblaster CT2940 (CQM version, no backplate)... and... an AWE64 Gold! 😁

Also managed to grab a PAIR of working Roland MT-200 MIDI sequencers. One even has the original box! The seller checked the firmware version and both are 1.12, which is newer than the version on the MT-200 I already have, so I'm going to try to figure out how to use one of these to update the one I already have. I really wish I could locate the v2.04 firmware. These sequencers are basically identical in function (for gaming) to an SC-55, but they have the ability to play and edit MIDI tracks directly from a floppy disk, which makes them sort of a self contained MIDI jukebox. 😀

JidaiGeki wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

Got a couple different lots on the way from the same seller.

This lot should have V3-3000 in both AGP and PCI. The other card I really wanted from this lot was the Socket 7 SBC.

cards.jpg

I also had my eye on this, but it was a bit out of my range - knew you'd be all over it though! 😀 A nice score!

Think the Kyro is a 4500?

When it was at $50 with a few days left I figured I wouldn't even bother bidding on it. Was kinda surprised I got it for the price I did.

😀

Yeah, Kyro is a 4500.

cyclone3d wrote:

When it was at $50 with a few days left I figured I wouldn't even bother bidding on it. Was kinda surprised I got it for the pri […]
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JidaiGeki wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

Got a couple different lots on the way from the same seller.

This lot should have V3-3000 in both AGP and PCI. The other card I really wanted from this lot was the Socket 7 SBC.

cards.jpg

I also had my eye on this, but it was a bit out of my range - knew you'd be all over it though! 😀 A nice score!

Think the Kyro is a 4500?

When it was at $50 with a few days left I figured I wouldn't even bother bidding on it. Was kinda surprised I got it for the price I did.

😀

Yeah, Kyro is a 4500.

You got it by $1, just so you know. 😉

Sun-faded Creative 3D Blaster Banshee (sealed)

Finally picked up a MediaVision PAS16 which i'm really happy about.

rikukos wrote:

Sun-faded Creative 3D Blaster Banshee (sealed)

https://i.imgur.com/M7IuEM9h.jpg?1

Looks a little beat up. Was the shrink wrap the important part to you? Otherwise I'd probably just opted for one in better condition but without seal. Just my 2 cents.

blurks wrote:

rikukos wrote:

Sun-faded Creative 3D Blaster Banshee (sealed)

https://i.imgur.com/M7IuEM9h.jpg?1

Looks a little beat up. Was the shrink wrap the important part to you? Otherwise I'd probably just opted for one in better condition but without seal. Just my 2 cents.

You make it sound like they're laying around in thrift stores all over the world...