I recall most of the Turbo XT class machines that I encountered as kid being CGA, and the EGA->VGA transition felt very fast as I remember a bunch of later 286 IBM machines with integrated VGA.

Im not much of a purist tho, if I’m running an XT/286 today it has a vga card in it.

My dad had XTs and 286s in the 80s and had used Hercules, then went VGA..
As far as I know. He also had a Schneider PC 1512 or 1640 (8086/V30 PCs), but can't remember monitor type.
He was into into productivity stuff, skipped CGA altogether.
Though he remembers that some friends/customers did "weird things",
such as attaching TVs to their computers. So that likely was CGA via modulator. Or CGA on modded TVs (Composite in).
He had a few copies of SIMCGA on his backups, since he was a Hercules user.

Edit: My Siemens-Nixdorf 8810 M35 (dated 1984) has integrated CGA on-board.
The only thing useful about it is the Cinch/RCA connector (mono video out).
It allows attaching a video monitor, such as a green monitor. Or an old TV with composite input.
Second card installed is a Hercules compatible, for real use. Like running Windows 3 or GeoWorks Ensemble.
The CGA side is also useful to me for testing CGA software, occasionally.

Edit: About EGA vs VGA.. It's tricky. The IBM EGA was bad, too limited without upgrades.
Many games and applications need 256 KB of RAM, rather than the basic 64 KB of IBM EGA.
Third-party EGA cards had 256 KB of RAM, some could do 800x600 16c or
simulate VGA mode 11h (640x480 mono) and 12h (640x480 16c) on advanced monitors. With default EGA palettes.
VGA cards had the advantage that they could display highest EGA resolution, mode 10h (640x350 16c), without a special monitor.

Edit: Long story short, I have two XTs at moment.
- The Siemens-Nixdorf 8810 M35 with CGA and Hercules, for best compatibility. Also for dual monitor operation. Debuggers, CAD programs etc.
- The Commodore PC10 with Paradise VGA card. For experiencing my childhood software on a PC/XT class machine.

Both PCs are supposed to have Covox Speech Thing compatible plugs.
There are games like SimAnt that run on Hercules, too, while supporting Covox.
The PC10 has a Sound Blaster 2.0, also not the least for AdLib and CMS support (both were rivals in 1987).

Edit:

I'm thinking of the "typical guy" who isn't going to spend obscene amounts of money on a computer and thus did not spring for the 386 with SVGA in 1987, for example.

That's funny, because that 386 guy could have been totally me! 😁
While I always think of myself being more of the humble guy,
I'm ending up for some kind of over-specced configuration for whatever reason.. 🤷‍♂️

My first 286 ended up having 4 MB and a CD-ROM drive, for example.

Same happens with the XTs I have. They have EMS cards and.. mice. Totally rat!
So I don’t know if I ever had been the typical guy at the time.
By 1990, I either have had VGA or an EGA card with a multisync monitor or EGA monitor.

Being able to run current EGA/VGA software at the fullest might simply have been too tempting, I do imagine.
Money, or the lack of it, wouldn't have stopped me.

I guess I would have bought a shiny Super VGA card with 512 KB of RAM via installment payment (very common here).
- Even if I had to pay monthly for three years, at worst.

If I had kept using CGA, then on a dedicated vintage PC. Such as a Sanyo MBC 550/555.
For sake of nostalgia or for being able to run beloved CGA titles.

I mean, games like StarFlight would have looked nice through an IBM CGA.
Via composite output, on an NTSC version of a Commodore 1702 monitor.
- Unfortunately, NTSC video monitors or NTSC TVs weren't sold in Germany here.

So I would have tried to get one from the occupied sectors.
The US Americans or Candians had NTSC stuff.

TV broadcast stations maybe had old NTSC equipment, too..

So yeah, it's hard to answer (what if..).

Still, in most cases, the CGA card would have been most useful to me because it can be attached to a composite display.

A composite-modded black/white TV had a soft image,
so it would have been nice for displaying pixelated lo-fi CGA graphics.

The East Germans had such TVs in wide use, because real video monitors were rare.
Maybe I could have had imported one of their modded Junost or Robotron TVs..

Typos fixed.

In the mid 90's when 486's came out, a second hand 386sx which only needed to run Win 3.1 and business software was hard to pass up.

Somebody may have gotten by on an uber 286 and Win 2.1, but if there's specific programs you need that only worked on Win 3.1 then the low cost option was a 386sx.

The Amstrad Mega PC was a 386sx + cache + a 16-bit 486 CPU... which is the cost-optimised option for running 16-bit high performance 2D games. You could spend $500-1000 more on a 32-bit 486 and have the same performance in those 2D games, but have an upgrade future...

MikeSG wrote on 2025-03-30, 08:00:

The Amstrad Mega PC was a 386sx + cache + a 16-bit 486 CPU... which is the cost-optimised option for running 16-bit high performance 2D games. You could spend $500-1000 more on a 32-bit 486 and have the same performance in those 2D games, but have an upgrade future...

The Amstrads always had been interesting.
The PC1512 with custom graphics, the PC1640 with EGA, the Amstrad PC2286 with Paradise VGA..

The Amstrad Mega PC was such an underpowered beast, but had VGA (256 KB?).
I've often wondered how many people had installed Windows 95 on that thing!
The original Windows 95 was available on diskettes, too, after all.
But running Windows 95 in plain VGA in 16c wasn't a fun experience, I suppose.
If it had a Paradise chip and 256 KB, it could have done 640x400 256c at best. Via Windows 3.0 drivers.

Edit: I'm trying to imagine what the typical use case of the Mega PC was.
Was it the "family PC" in the floor or in the "study" room?
Or was it the kids' computer in the bedroom, so they have a single computer for playing games and doing homework?
As a substitute for a dedicated Sega Mega Drive in living room?

Jo22 wrote on 2025-03-30, 08:12:

The Amstrads always had been interesting. The PC1512 with custom graphics, the PC1640 with EGA, the Amstrad PC2286 with Paradise […]
Show full quote

MikeSG wrote on 2025-03-30, 08:00:

The Amstrad Mega PC was a 386sx + cache + a 16-bit 486 CPU... which is the cost-optimised option for running 16-bit high performance 2D games. You could spend $500-1000 more on a 32-bit 486 and have the same performance in those 2D games, but have an upgrade future...

The Amstrads always had been interesting.
The PC1512 with custom graphics, the PC1640 with EGA, the Amstrad PC2286 with Paradise VGA..

The Amstrad Mega PC was such an underpowered beast, but had VGA (256 KB?).
I've often wondered how many people had installed Windows 95 on that thing!
The original Windows 95 was available on diskettes, too, after all.
But running Windows 95 in plain VGA in 16c wasn't a fun experience, I suppose.
If it had a Paradise chip and 256 KB, it could have done 640x400 256c at best. Via Windows 3.0 drivers.

Edit: I'm trying to imagine what the typical use case of the Mega PC was.
Was it the "family PC" in the floor or in the "study" room?
Or was it the kids' computer in the bedroom, so they have a single computer for playing games and doing homework?
As a substitute for a dedicated Sega Mega Drive in living room?

I was thinking of the upgraded one with the Winbond 311/312 chipset, CL-GD5420 VGA (512KB-1MB), 486SLC CPU.. Re: Amstrad Mega PC

It was a little high priced. I imagine it was for both the kids/family as well as work PC, and/or for 16-bit developers.

Totally suitable for Win95.

For TTL displays, the most popular by and far was MONO. Yes, IBM offered CGA in an attempt to cater to the home market. But what was seminal, were what people expected from IBM, office machines. IBM PCs were fairly expensive, and if you weren't playing games, but doing word processing and spreadsheets, you opted for the sharper text, and the less expensive display type. EGA was a premium. Now clone makers wanted to cash in on the fairly open, copyable platform, and helped bring costs down a bit. But everyone of your suggestions of Turbo XT+EGA, 286+EGA, and 286+VGA really were premium models. The seminal class of the machine was just the IBM PC/XT. Even if you got fancy and bought a faster Turbo XT or 286, you still got MONO, because you were just interested in making spreadsheets go faster.

Now, with the popularity of the PC, selling like hotcakes, there were still plenty of EGA or VGA sold in those early days. So that's why there are still people that have that around. Though arguably, VGA was inevitably more popular than EGA was, so I guess VGA even more so. But then the truth is, MONO was very popular enough to last into the 90s. So for TTL, MONO persisted while VGA killed off the CGA/EGA.

The tipping point was when Windows gave more of a reason to run graphics on the computer around 1990. So VGA+ suddenly came into demand, and SVGA quickly replaced that too when the price dropped to meet demand. Sound also came into demand, and the PC also was viewed as a gaming machine for once. So basically what I'm saying, is it's really MONO for XT through 286 at least until 1990, then VGA and SVGA was a drop in replacement , when the XTs dropped off completely.

For me, it's CGA/MONO for the XT. EGA is really just a foot note, unless you have a really specific reason. VGA is really too slow for an XT to use any of its added features, so use VGA only if you really have to, kind of thing. In 286, if you run it, VGA is acceptable, although still is a little slow for many later games.

I agree, EGA was probably a bit more popular in the 80s then, but because VGA kicked it's pants and really compatible, it got dropped quickly, and forgotten. But as I said before, MONO probably was still going strong.

The 386SX was almost certainly a VGA system. They likely sold as a cheap alternative to having a 32-bit instruction set, for that, the 286 could not provide. Speed arguable. I remember them being the reason why Windows got really popular. Good graphics, sometimes even bundled with sound. The 286 was looked down on especially by then.

So it makes the most sense for most people of CGA/MONO for XT and VGA+ for 286+. For 486, you might as well run any VLB video card if available 😉 Today, I do run all of the above in my machines... because I have reasons for each. Almost 100% of my items I've had since I acquired them in the 90's. So... I'm not so sure if it makes any sense to search for a TTL display for any reason. Or to buy TTL cards. But if you have them, why not? Again, I'd mostly recommend to run these as I previously said for a reasonable experience.

I had a Samsung S330 XT computer, which came with EGA and 2 floppy drives and no HDD.
My friend a few months later got a 286 12MHz with VGA and a 10MB HDD. About 3-4 years later I moved to a 386 DX33 with VGA and 40MB HDD, then added a Sound Blaster 1.5 card to it.
Those computers were all expensive and required our parents to financially plan for them.

For me, it's CGA/MONO for the XT. EGA is really just a foot note, unless you have a really specific reason. VGA is really too slow for an XT to use any of its added features, so use VGA only if you really have to, kind of thing. In 286, if you run it, VGA is acceptable, although still is a little slow for many later games.

I second that that VGA on an XT is slow, quite slow.
Though not necessarily slower than the other graphics standards.
It's rather that the VGA is being limited by the 4,77 MHz 8088 and the 8-Bit bus, I think.

With an 8 MHz 8086/V30 XT (and on a 16-bit slow on top of it), it would be acceptable, I think. Such as Amstrad PC2086.

I'm saying this because I'm currently experimenting with Commodore PC10 with a Paradise VGA.
And the VGA games ran not that bad, actually.

I was able to run some RPGs and platform games in 640x480 16c, for example.
And graphics adventures such as Wonderland or Gateway, also in 640x480 16c.
Wonderland in 800x600 16c, even, albeit very cozy. Not exactly sluggish, though.

Games like Lemmings or Jetpack or Jill of Jungle were playable at ok speed, too.
Though loading times were a bit longer than unusual.

Also, many of my DOS MCGA/VGA games didn't start because they needed a real 286 (V20 wasn't enough).

In retrospect, I think that even XT owners past 1990 still had good reason to upgrade to VGA if they wanted to keep using the PC normally.
There were so many shareware programs such as Neopaint, various graphics viewers or star gazing programs written with VGA in mind.

Communication software for online services or fax might have had put a VGA card to good use, too.
Our former Minitel-like online service was very hi-res/with lots of colours.
VGA in 640x480 16c wasn't completely good enough, even.

That's why software such as Amaris BTX had optional Super VGA support in 1987-1990.
I suppose that's when a 4,77 XT with an 512KB Super VGA card made sense.

In principle, I'm doing something similar right now with Minuet online suite.
I run it in 640x480 256c (mode 101h) in order see 256c GIF files.

Edit: There was that AOL client software based on PC GEOS..
It ran on XTs, but likely looked best on EGA/VGA.

Another exception might be astronomy/stargazing software (popular between ca. 1986 and 1996).
An old IBM PC with a VGA card and an 8087 co-pro still was useful for moon phase predictions or a virtual planetarium.

The i8087 was outdated and cheap at the time (1990) and most astro software could use it,
such as SkyGlobe (supports 800x600 16c SVGA with-S switch).
So yeah, as an older laboratory PC, the PC/XT was still okay in 1990 to ca 1992..

Gamers, however, might have considered upgrading to a newer motherboard or a whole new PC by 1990.
That's understandable. First person shooters and action games were slow on a PC/XT.

PS: I recommend trying out "TheFast", a PD utility.
It will make text-output 5x faster on an PC/XT.
Norton Commander now runs normal on that Commodore PC, the scrolling nolonger crawls.

Edit: I'm just thinking out loud. I probably wouldn't have bought a 4,77 MHz PC in 1990, just to then right away upgrade it to VGA..
However, if I had gotten one as a gift for free.. Maybe I had invested in an VGA card?
To play some games my family members or friends could have had provided me with?

PS: Sorry if that sounds weird, my father was radio amateur at the time already and used PCs differently to normal people.. 😅
What I listed above probably are less common use cases, so please don't be mad about it.

For example, what comes to mind are terminal programs such as Terminate, Telemate or Bananacom.
Or the terminal application in PC-Tools Desktop 7!
With an EGA/VGA card, these programs look so cool and ansi.sys can be used.
That's great for visiting ANSI BBSes! ^^

For such things alone, I would consider a EGA/VGA card..

Graphical packet radio programs like Graphic Packet might have run on an XT, too, making a nice terminal out of it.
But again, that's the weird stuff! Not gaming related! 😅

And as I mentioned before, I probably had been ending up more like the 386 guy.
If I had to buy my daily driver, I mean.

The hot-rod 286 I really got in early 90s wasn't that expensive.
It was bare bone (mainboard with VGA, PSU, chassis) and sold cheaply.
In retrospect, it rather were the peripherals that were worth something at the time.
The 4x 1MB SIMMs, the multimedia kit (soundcard+CD), the 80MB Conner HDD, the Mustek handy scanner, old HP LaserJet Plus, Creatix modem etc.

If I knew better, I could have ended up with a barebone 386 just as well at the time.
That's what I meant to say. It's hard to find a definite answer here.

Edit: This is interesting, the PC game "Flight of the Intruder" (1990) wants a Turbo XT!
It says "Turbo XT speed minimum", a 286 is being recommended.
The requirement seems true for all graphics cards versions, I've seen it on the German cover of a plain CGA version too.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/2637/flight-of … 2/cover-164843/

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-03-30, 04:48:

I suspect back in the day, 286+EGA was more common in the late 80's, if you had a 286, that is, and not an XT... and then 286+VGA became more common for a couple of years before fading out in favor of late 386 or early 486 systems.

Our first family computer was a 286 with EGA graphics in 1989. It was later upgraded to VGA graphics some time in 1990-1991.

I had an uncle that had an XT or Turbo XT machine with CGA graphics, maybe around 1987 or 1988? We also had a neighbor that had a Turbo XT with monochrome graphics around 1987, along with a Commodore 64.

A friend of mine got a 20MHz 386 in the early 90s. I remember being jealous of his system. We didn't get an upgrade until we got a 486 in 1994.

Are you guys running real CGA or EGA in your XTs and 286s, or VGA?

I have a mix of Tandy XT/286 hybrids, along with some 286s. I run VGA graphics in all of them (even the Tandy's) because it's just so much more versatile. I have considered running CGA or EGA in some XT or 286 era systems, but it would be more of a novelty. There isn't any practical benefit to running EGA over VGA in most cases.

Though I'd rather run monochrome over CGA or EGA, but I don't have a monochrome monitor yet.