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EGA card -> MDA Monitor

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First post, by muon

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Hi! Recently I acquired a EGA card (picture below)
IMG-7586.jpg

The manual is this : http://www.mediafire.com/file/u3x65l14pj1jvsq … card_manual.pdf

In that manual I read that if the j4 (jumper) is 3-2 and switchers 1 in OFF, 2 in OFF, 3 in ON, 4 in OFF monitor is monochrome.

Does this mean that I should plug in an MDA monitor to the EGA card ? MDA and EGA monitor are incompatibles. It is different from the EGA card emulating MDA on an EGA monitor.

Thanks in advanced

PD:I don't know if I explained myself very well

Reply 1 of 5, by Grzyb

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Yes, EGA set to "monochrome" monitor needs a 18kHz/50Hz monitor, ie. MDA/Hercules.
Note that with such a setup, you won't be able to use all EGA modes, only 80x25 text and 640x350 3-gray graphics.

Żywotwór planetarny, jego gnijące błoto, jest świtem egzystencji, fazą wstępną, i wyłoni się z krwawych ciastomózgowych miedź miłująca...

Reply 2 of 5, by mkarcher

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Grzyb wrote on 2020-07-01, 13:11:

Yes, EGA set to "monochrome" monitor needs a 18kHz/50Hz monitor, ie. MDA/Hercules.
Note that with such a setup, you won't be able to use all EGA modes, only 80x25 text and 640x350 3-gray graphics.

Exactly. And the 80x25 text mode is video mode 7 (activated in DOS using "MODE MONO"), not modes 2/3 ("MODE BW80"/"MODE CO80"). An EGA card with a monochrome monitor is supposed to behave as "enhanced MDA" card, not as "monochrome super-resolution CGA" card. This means you can build a dual-monitor system with EGA/monochrome and CGA/color, just like you could with MDA/monochrome and CGA/color.

Alas, you can not use two EGA cards (one with a color monitor and one with a monochrome monitor) at the same time, because some of the EGA resources are not switched to different addresses depending on the monitor connected.

Reply 5 of 5, by Grzyb

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rmay635703 wrote on 2020-07-03, 14:32:

What software actually uses EGA mono?

There's plenty, eg. Windows 3.0 comes with "EGA Monochrome (286 only)" driver, but not Windows 3.1.
Not many games, though - I'm only sure about Sim City, there's surely more in the strategy/simulation genres, but not in the action genre - it's all 320x200.

Can it emulate something else using a TSR?

No, at least I've never seen such a TSR.

Żywotwór planetarny, jego gnijące błoto, jest świtem egzystencji, fazą wstępną, i wyłoni się z krwawych ciastomózgowych miedź miłująca...

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