First post, by VileR
- Rank
- l33t
The VGA-compatible text mode Wikipedia article has some information which looks false to me. Basically, it states that the shaded block characters (0xB0-0xB2, ░▒▓) should have their last pixel columns doubled in 9x16 text mode, rather than blank.
This is quite at odds with every VGA card I've ever seen, where repeating those characters *does* visibly show blank columns between the character cells. On the other hand, I don't think I've seen a real IBM VGA in action -- if we had visual proof of how the original specification actually behaves, that'd put it to rest.
So, if you own an IBM PS/1, or PS/2 (VGA-based, not MCGA), or an ISA IBM VGA card, I'd like to request a photo of your monitor showing this in action. For example, one of these images:
- This screen from FreeDOS EDIT (choose Utilities -> ASCII table)
- The loading screen from Commander Keen 4
- Anything else that extensively uses the shaded block characters.
Yep, I realize that there's little point in sperging over details like this, but someone just emailed me regarding the VGA fonts on my website, and pointed me to the Wiki article (suggesting that my fonts may be following faulty documentation). So I thank you in advance for helping me settle the matter, and fighting the good fight against Wikipedia revisionism. 😁