DOS Dual Monitor \ VOGONS

DOS Dual Monitor

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First post, by TK1

Posted on 2020-05-06, 08:33

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I am wishing to use two monitors under DOS but am struggling to find information. From what I understand you can only have one colour and one monochrome display.

I have no free ISA slots so was wondering if there was any PCI cards that would do the job for the monochrome display?

I am also seeing PCI to ISA bridge cards. Would something like that work?

I also see defence to some duel head cards being able to drive both monitors from the one card but am struggling to find information. One comment mentioned Matrox but did not give a specific card. Anyone have more information?

I also understand that the older cards will not take a standard vga monitor. Are there any adapters to plug newer monitors to these old cards?

Any information would be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Reply 1 of 5, by gdjacobs

Posted on 2020-05-06, 15:14

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TK1 wrote on 2020-05-06, 08:33:

I am wishing to use two monitors under DOS but am struggling to find information. From what I understand you can only have one colour and one monochrome display.

Apparently Mechwarrior 2 allows this. Dual monitor support is going to be application dependent as DOS doesn't provide video drivers.

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Reply 2 of 5, by mpe

Posted on 2020-05-06, 15:38

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The problem is that you cannot have 2 VGA cards as there would be a conflict of resources. This is because the VGA standard mandates IO ports and mem-ranges to be at specific fixed ranges where BIOS and software would call them.

What is possible is VGA + MDA or Hercules which was common as the Hercules could be configured to use non-conflicting range.

I used a similar setup for software development back in the days. Usually you could have a debugger running on the second screen.

or VGA and non-VGA card (like 3DFx Voodoo). But then the problem is that software needs to be written specifically to use two graphics cards which wasn't common back in DOS days.

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Reply 3 of 5, by rmay635703

Posted on 2020-05-06, 15:49

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CGa + MDA the classic dual screen

Reply 4 of 5, by chinny22

Posted on 2020-05-06, 16:32

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If you want to duplicate the same image, Nivida cards will output the same image over the VGA and DVI at dos level.
I'm not aware of any software that can "extend the desktop" to use windows terminology

It is possible to convert CGA or EGA to VGA but it is a conversion not just an adapter, first relevant google hit to give you an idea.
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?592 … version-circuit

Reply 5 of 5, by TK1

Posted on 2020-05-06, 22:47

TK1 Offline

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Thanks for the replies. Your replies certainly pointed me in the correct direction. The dual monitor setup is for old professional CAD software. The second screen is use purely for text.

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