SammyFox wrote:

Is this a fancy mode I'm not aware of or is that an EGA card that might be in the computer?

Composite CGA ? My dad's old copy of LSL supported that..

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=composite+cga

Yep, looks like composite alright.

Many CGA-era games supported extra colors over composite, and Sierra ones are some of the better-known examples. This is known as artifact coloring - a trick, in fact, that leverages the bandwidth limitations of NTSC and turns them into an advantage. Here's a brief description of how it works. Wozniak originally used the same principle in the Apple II, to generate color over composite without including dedicated color circuitry at all.

In normal circumstances, composite on CGA gives you "only" 16 colors. But then, you have this... 😉

There where also EGA Upgrade for the Compaq Portable Systems.

That work even in Monochrom on Internal Screen.

Looks way to clear to me to be composite colors. More likely it's EGA.

Well, as Vile pointed out, Sierra made better use of Composite CGA. 😀
For comparison, I took a few screenshots (in DOSBox) with my father's copy of LSL1..:

Jo22 wrote:

Well, as Vile pointed out, Sierra made better use of Composite CGA. 😀

But even they couldn't hide the color interferences. Your last screenshot is a the perfect example for that: even in DOSBox with pixel-perfect output, black-on-white (top row with score) or white-on-black (bottom row with input) is smudgy. On SammyFox' pictures however, it's not - it's almost razor-sharp. So this can't be composite video output.

Maybe he has a EGA Wonder with Compaq Option inside ? 😀

Who knows ? 😀
I guess without a sneak peek inside the portable, we can't be 100% certain.

I also took some EGA screenshots with DOSBox. Please notice the vibrant, neon-like colours.
The 3rd screenshot "graphics by" has a green tone that fits less to the OP's screenshot than the Composite screenshot above.
Edit: Also have a look at the window over "lefty's". It's both red in Composite CGA and the OP's screenshot, while it's pink in EGA.

VileRancour wrote:

Wozniak originally used the same principle in the Apple II, to generate color over composite without including dedicated color circuitry at all.

Man, this guy's a genius

I figure I'll try with other games once I am bothered to get a 3 inch floppy disk drive in there, those 5 inch floppies are REALLY old and most of them are corrupted.

That and one of the floppies happened to be infected with the Stoned virus and like an idiot I got my only boot floppy infected as well, and Stoned completely ruins the file system on 1.2mb floppies haha

derSammler wrote:

even in DOSBox with pixel-perfect output, black-on-white (top row with score) or white-on-black (bottom row with input) is smudgy. On SammyFox' pictures however, it's not - it's almost razor-sharp. So this can't be composite video output.

Nah. Look at Sammy's last photo - the super-artifacted edges of the "Lefty's" sign, the "O" in "HOTEL", the greenish + reddish color fringes on the black power pole, all are dead giveaways that it's composite. Compare with Joe's last EGA shot; "Lefty's" is white there, and the sidewalk is deep blue. Very unlike the TV photo. The colors in DOSBox's composite CGA shot are a much closer match.

Also, what sort of EGA card can plug into "an old LCD TV" just like that? 😉

BTW, comparing to DOSBox isn't very trustworthy because:
- The composite emulation in 'vanilla' DOSBox is rather inaccurate, even the one in current SVN. The latest composite CGA code (huge thread on top of the Patches board) gives much better results.
- Since we're talking about composite, results will vary quite a bit even on real displays. Internal filtering (especially in LCD TVs) can cause text to appear either less or more smudgy than you'd expect.

I apologize, I have to confess a small mishap happened to me in my last capture. 🙁
The neon sign was blinking and I didn't notice that it was in the wrong state. I'll do better next time.

Speaking of the portable, I just found an old advertisement for the Compaq Portable 286.
It's available at http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mob … ing/18/343/1658

Unfortunately, it says little about the internal graphics hardware.
It says: "the same monitor shows high-resolution text as well as graphics"

Which I believe could be a reference to anything from an MGA(HGC)/CGA combo card to
a custom "Super CGA" graphics hardware as found in Toshiba T3100, Olivetti M24 and AT&T 6300.
These were quite popular choices in PC emulator boards for Atari ST (PC-Speed) and Amiga (ATonce).
I'm speaking under correction now, but I believe they were supported in MS Quick-Basic 4.x.

The other matches of the search engine gave results for the Compaq SLT/286,
which is also a portable, but one of an entirely different type, made in '88
(laptop-style, VGA graphics, rechargeable battery).

Perhaps, if SammyFox is lucky, the Compaq has an old diagnostics tool on the hard disk.
Something like SI by Symantec/Central Point, CheckIt! by TouchStone or MSD from MS-DOS 5/6.
This way, we could make sure what graphics hardware is in charge (maybe it was upgraded ?)

derSammler wrote:

Jo22 wrote:

Well, as Vile pointed out, Sierra made better use of Composite CGA. 😀

But even they couldn't hide the color interferences. [..]
On SammyFox' pictures however, it's not - it's almost razor-sharp. So this can't be composite video output.

VileRancour wrote:

BTW, comparing to DOSBox isn't very trustworthy because: - The composite emulation in 'vanilla' DOSBox is rather inaccurate, eve […]
Show full quote

BTW, comparing to DOSBox isn't very trustworthy because:
- The composite emulation in 'vanilla' DOSBox is rather inaccurate, even the one in current SVN.
The latest composite CGA code (huge thread on top of the Patches board) gives much better results.
- Since we're talking about composite, results will vary quite a bit even on real displays.
Internal filtering (especially in LCD TVs) can cause text to appear either less or more smudgy than you'd expect.

I admit that DOSBox wasn't the ideal choice, maybe PCem or another precise emulator would have been more accurate for this comparison. 😊
Without period-correct hardware it is hard to tell what a system was really capable of.

Sadly, I don't have the things required at hand. The CGA card I do have isn't very, uhm, faithful in terms of colours.
And even more importantly, I do lack a classic NTSC monitor for testing.

I do have a modern CRT TV set whitch is multi-norm (PAL/NTSC;50/60Hz),
but that's neithersubsitute for a blurry low-end TV set with CVBS-input, nor a high-end video monitor with comb-filters.

VileRancour wrote:

Also, what sort of EGA card can plug into "an old LCD TV" just like that? 😉

Good point! 😀

Jo22 wrote:

Sadly, I don't have the things required at hand. The CGA card I do have isn't very, uhm, faithful in terms of colours.

I happen to have those things at hand, so let's settle it then 😀

LSL1 running on a 5160 with an IBM CGA card ("new-style" NTSC output stage), composite signal going to a '99 Brother CRT TV:

Same game / machine / card / cable.... this time on a 2010 Akai LCD TV:

I accidentally a pop-up in this shot 😜 but it just goes to show that a modern TV set's filtering can make the text quite sharp -- even over composite.
In fact, this extra sharpness goes overboard in places. See the noisy serrated edges on the "Lefty's" neon sign, compared to the fairly smooth appearance on the CRT.

I'm not sure why the sign itself is a different color from what you guys are seeing, probably different releases of the game (some of the more discerning Sierra-heads could undoubtedly help out here). But I think we can safely conclude that Sammy's card is CGA too.

This thread makes me think: it'd be nice to have a little resource/site somewhere with a bunch of reference photos, showing what all those composite CGA games actually look like (as opposed to emulator shots, or RGB-converted captured frames...)

Thank you very much for the pictures, Vile.
I really like the picture of your Brother CRT (uses dot/slot mask ?) 😀

VileRancour wrote:

I'm not sure why the sign itself is a different color from what you guys are seeing, probably different releases of the game (some of the more discerning Sierra-heads could undoubtedly help out here). But I think we can safely conclude that Sammy's card is CGA too.

Yes, quite possible. Sierra released a lot of different variations of its games.
I learned the hard way when I tried to get SQ III running (an SCI0 game).
So many engine/interpreters and drivers out there.

VileRancour wrote:

This thread makes me think: it'd be nice to have a little resource/site somewhere with a bunch of reference photos, showing what all those composite CGA games actually look like (as opposed to emulator shots, or RGB-converted captured frames...)

I for one like the idea. Quite a few people don't remember how things uesd to look like / were meant to look like (myself not excepted).
On other platforms, video game consoles in particular, I noticed RGB (+LCD) is currently beeing hyped among the players.
Despite the circumstance that game developers and artists used the details of PAL/NTSC connections (RF/Composite) to their advantage originally.
When it comes to authenticity, scan lines are pretty much the only thing that it is beeing cared for (even though that used to be more of an arcade/computer thing).

SammyFox wrote:

I figure I'll try with other games once I am bothered to get a 3 inch floppy disk drive in there

Sound good. 😀 Please keep us up to date.

SammyFox wrote:

those 5 inch floppies are REALLY old and most of them are corrupted.

I've had mixed experience with old floppies in general. Often it were the 3.5" disks that failed, but sometimes it were the 5.25" disks, too.
If you can, make sure the disk drive itself is clean. Often, a dirty floppy can contaminate the read/write heads on the floppy drive.
In that case, it doesn't hurt to use a bit of purfied water and/or cleaning alcohol (isoprophyl) on a Qtip (cotton swap) to clean them.
Especially tih those old, robust 5.25" drives, chances are little that you change the adjustment (just remember to be gentle).

SammyFox wrote:

That and one of the floppies happened to be infected with the Stoned virus and like an idiot I got my only boot floppy infected as well, and Stoned completely ruins the file system on 1.2mb floppies haha

Oh yes, I remember those disks. When I got that M35 PC clone by Nixdorf (old German company), it came with an, uhm, gift (->Poison in German, btw).
The gift/present was "FORM.A.", an old virus. It was "installed" on both the original 20MB fixed disk, as well as on the system disk..
Luckily, I still had my dad's old copy of Turbo-Antivirus (he bought a copy of it after he once was a victim of Herbstlaub/Cascade),
which I still use as a matter of routine. Otherwise, I would have infected my other media. 😅

Jo22 wrote:

I really like the picture of your Brother CRT (uses dot/slot mask ?) 😀

Slot mask (a close-up view here). It's not perfect, and if you look closely it's possible to see that the red/green/blue beams don't line up 100% correctly towards the middle/right of the screen... but it's a nice 14" set that works quite well as a "monitor". 😁

Jo22 wrote:

VileRancour wrote:

This thread makes me think: it'd be nice to have a little resource/site somewhere with a bunch of reference photos, showing what all those composite CGA games actually look like (as opposed to emulator shots, or RGB-converted captured frames...)

I for one like the idea. Quite a few people don't remember how things uesd to look like / were meant to look like (myself not excepted).

Getting nice photographs of the screen isn't easy, though. Phone cameras obviously don't cut it... I took this one with a nice (borrowed) DSLR camera, but there are still too many variables to tweak. At least I was able to sorta fix the moire and white-balance issues.

On other platforms, video game consoles in particular, I noticed RGB (+LCD) is currently beeing hyped among the players.
Despite the circumstance that game developers and artists used the details of PAL/NTSC connections (RF/Composite) to their advantage originally.
When it comes to authenticity, scan lines are pretty much the only thing that it is beeing cared for (even though that used to be more of an arcade/computer thing).

Indeed - there are other reasons why correct composite emulation could be important, especially on those other platforms. Such as transparency effects: https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2015/03/ … -composite.html
Scanlines that are simply applied on top of a razor-sharp digital emulation of RGB are just jarring... it's better to either emulate the whole thing or not at all. 😀