yeap. VGA is EGA and CGA compatible. Any VGA card is going to work probably fine with an LCD monitor.

VGA is *mostly* EGA compatible 😉
There are some games that have issues, but most work.

Incompatibilities I know about are:
- panning handling and timing (flickering screen)
- IRQ2 not activated on VGA (Gauntlet hangs)
- double scan register incompatibility (screen layout messed up)

Thanks a lot for the info. Am I right in thinking that if I use a modern LCD, I cannot use an EGA, CGA or monochrome video card with it? Or is there a "converter / adapter" that I can attach to one end of a VGA monitor cable, that will allow me to connect it to one of these types of video cards?

I've seen a convertor when I was searching at ebay, but I think it was too expensive, it required addition power, and if I remember well you had to make your own connector on it (perhaps some soldering needed). So I gave up, and I hope sometime I'll get a cga monitor to test my really old stuff....

Markk wrote:

I've seen a convertor when I was searching at ebay, but I think it was too expensive, it required addition power, and if I remember well you had to make your own connector on it (perhaps some soldering needed). So I gave up, and I hope sometime I'll get a cga monitor to test my really old stuff....

What do you mean? A 9-pin to 15-pin adapter?

Yes I believe things like that exist, they are often used by people fiddling with arcade machines - to hook up a CGA monitor to a VGA video adapter, or vice versa. They are expensive though.

Thanks a lot for the info. Am I right in thinking that if I use a modern LCD, I cannot use an EGA, CGA or monochrome video card with it? Or is there a "converter / adapter" that I can attach to one end of a VGA monitor cable, that will allow me to connect it to one of these types of video cards?

That's correct, CGA/EGA was 9 pin and a completely different signal to VGA which is 15 pin. Its not just a matter of changing the connectors, you actually need some circuitry to convert the signal as well.

I do have a 286 board here with an EGA adapter and monitor, and the EGA monitor is not particularly pleasant on the eyes. The 286 works perfectly with a VGA video card though so I'd just run with that if I were you rather than try and make a VGA monitor play nice with an EGA/CGA video card.

Generally speaking, are EGA (also also CGA) monitors a bit poor? And generally speaking, if they are a bit poor, would they be even poorer today, many years after they were originally sold?

sliderider wrote:

Markk wrote:

I've seen a convertor when I was searching at ebay, but I think it was too expensive, it required addition power, and if I remember well you had to make your own connector on it (perhaps some soldering needed). So I gave up, and I hope sometime I'll get a cga monitor to test my really old stuff....

What do you mean? A 9-pin to 15-pin adapter?

I mean sth like that : http://cgi.ebay.com/Arcade-Game-RGB-CGA-EGA-Y … =item35b236b1e6. Ok, this one is not so expensive, and it seems to have db15 and db9 connectors. But it still would be the last solution for me to use on a retro pc. Unless there is a way to hide that into the pc case, and perhaps power it from the psu.

Generally speaking, are EGA (also also CGA) monitors a bit poor? And generally speaking, if they are a bit poor, would they be even poorer today, many years after they were originally sold?

Well my EGA monitor is definitely not as good as a VGA CRT.
I've noticed that older CRT's tend to get blurry, probably because of the phosphor breaking down or something. Then there's a chance it may have burn-in to some degree as well.
A lot of older monitors have higher dot pitches which can make it seem blurrier and also are interlaced which can make it harder on the eyes too.

I must say, some of those adapters look interesting. The problem I have is that I don't own a single EGA or CGA video card, and they are probably quite rare now.

Some of my ISA VGA cards have a "switch box" near the bracket, where you can push up and down little dip-switches. Are some of these dip-switch settings to control if the ISA VGA card is in EGA or VGA mode? If so, perhaps that is good enough.

I can not agree that EGA monitors are generally more blurry. My EGA monitor is sharp. I also can not see a degradation in performance, but I don't know how intensively it has been used in the years. It is from TARGA and features also a analog RGB mode. (useable with 15 kHz signal from an amiga f.e.).

EGA itself is a digital signal. As for VGA cards I noticed that there are at least two types of EGA emulation.
Most common is that the EGA video is put out as compatible VGA signal on the VGA connector.
There is one BIOS for both modes.
I also experienced that some cards switch internally. I got the ATI VGA Wonder XL and if I connect a monitor to the EGA connector (this card has EGA and VGA connector) it switches internally completely. I get another BIOS (at least message) and EGA core. All modes that would be available with a usual EGA emulation by VGA are not available. The card behaves as EGA only.

I would not fiddle with the DIPs. In most cases it is just monochrome/color; 80/40 chars, interlaced but not EGA/VGA switching. This can already be detected by connecting a monitor to the specific connector.

Having an ISA VGA card, with both VGA and EGA connectors sounds very useful. Is this type of card, where you have both of these connectors on it, fairly rare? I have a bunch of ISA VGA cards, and unfortunately I don't remember any of them having an EGA connector alongside the VGA connector.

I think it was common for some early vga cards to have both vga and cga/ega connectors. I have one like this : http://82.114.193.227/vga2/index.php?option=c … dent-tvga8800cs If I remember well, the db9 output could be configured between cga and ega using the dip switches and some jumpers.

RG, I recall that you have a Paradise PVGA1a card somewhere in your stash... how about just use that? It's era-appropriate for a 286, and it's supposed to be fully compatible with EGA and CGA modes.

OT, do you mean this one? (very first pic, at the top). If so, that would be extremely convenient! 😀

Edit: I think you do mean that one! 😀 I can now see what you mean - that code [PVGA1A] is written on the big chip.

I think that by default all vgas are compatible with ega and cga modes. At least all my cards up to 1993 do so. There is an easy way to check that. Try a cga/ega game. For example Prince of Persia. You can try to run it by typing prince -ega or -cga and see what happens....

Thanks a lot for that tip. I will get this game, and test it using those command line parameters. Also, I am interested in h-a-l-9000's observations. I will also test the game Gauntlet. Also, it would be great if anyone can recommend games that cause the problems that h-a-l-9000 mentioned earlier -

- panning handling and timing (flickering screen)
- double scan register incompatibility (screen layout messed up)
and
- IRQ2 not activated on VGA --- Gauntlet hangs.

I think those incompatibilities he mentions have to do with vga card/lcd monitor combinations and not with specific games. I remember trying an old card on a 17" LG lcd monitor and having problems, while the same same on a 22" LG lcd tv-monitor displayed perfectly clear......

VGA has pretty good EGA-compatibiltiy, and "somewhat passable" CGA-compatibility.

(Why only "somewhat passable"? - no composite output; different refresh rates; some registers operate differently; tweaked CGA modes are not available; no option for text modes in CGA resolution; etc).

It isn't sufficient to test just one game and conclude that there is 100% compatibility. Prince of Persia might show CGA/EGA graphics just fine on a VGA card, but i can guarantee that games like Digger or Round 42 won't, as they use features that VGA doesn't emulate properly.

This doesn't have much to do with the choice of monitor, btw. The only incompatibilities I can think of that concern a monitor (LCD vs. CRT) are things that specifically rely on CRTC effects, like the overscan/border area, "copper bars" and other things that rely on how a CRT monitor physically operates, which means they won't work on an LCD, even when everything is purely VGA.