Generally, because most programs would be able to take advantage of the VGA hardware directly.

andre_6 wrote on 2023-01-21, 18:01:

Seems to me that it's a dispersed topic, I can perfectly believe that DOS doesn't use display drivers at all, but then again why do DOS display drivers actually exist? I've had people in Vogons saying different things about this, which as a learning user is confusing.

These DOS "display drivers" are mainly for adjusting the screen refresh rate in SVGA modes and/or "enhancing" the video BIOS with additional modes (mostly VESA related) to improve compatibility.

Edit: Some old DOS programs such as older versions of Paintbrush which predates VESA do use an "external driver" to get the optimal SVGA mode for a specific video card.

kixs wrote on 2023-01-21, 11:23:

Vic Zarratt wrote on 2023-01-21, 04:44:

funny thing about lcd screens is, the first desktop LCD monitors were released in the UK by CTX, or Churntex in 1994 and TFT's were fairly common by 1998, so I find the requirement of bulky CRTs as somewhat trivial for most 90s PCs

I'm pretty sure you have mixed something up - like a wrong decade 🤣

No, because i had not one, but two Philips brilliance 151AX TFT desktop monitors and both had a manufacturing date of January 1998. the plastic swivel base broke on both of them so i don't have them anymore, so yeah, funny. (not)
The CTX one was reviewed in a 1994 UK issue of PC world, the editors gave it a poor review and deemed the technology as "immature"

Great. I'm impressed 😉

Still, they weren't common till some 5-7 years later. And technology even with newer monitors was not that good - at least for gamers and graphics professionals.

Would be interesting to know when users here made the switch to LCD monitor.

I made the switch to LCD around late 2000s for my main computer, starting with a Dell 19" TN monitor whose native resolution is 1440x900. This was prior 16:9 aspect ratio becoming commonplace.

My mum bought a fujitsu siemens scaleo 400 in late 2002 and it came with a CRT monitor. not too long afterwards she bought a goodman's lcd to replace it. she certainly bought it before we moved house in 2007.
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I use a liteon litepanel 150 (dated nov2002) with my cirrus 5446 based socket7, (typical 1996/7 era build) good picture quality where blacks are blacks and the vga pixels are nice and crisp, but a dos based screen centering utility is recommended, such as univbe or the utilities that came with the GPU (in my case, CL utilities for cirrus)
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most of the early LCDs were 4:3 ratio rather than 16:9, and to be fair, i didn't see 9:16 flat TV's in the mainstream until 2007/8ish (and my parent didn't buy one of those until 2011 for that matter)

Interestingly, on this new Commodore 64 build, https://youtu.be/Qhdc-jgwqVQ?t=372 , they pass the output through a bunch of trim pots "to reduce jail bars"

Seems like we could make a VGA interposer that would clean up the video signal.

douglar wrote on 2023-01-23, 21:35:

Interestingly, on this new Commodore 64 build, https://youtu.be/Qhdc-jgwqVQ?t=372 , they pass the output through a bunch of trim pots "to reduce jail bars"

Seems like we could make a VGA interposer that would clean up the video signal.

No idea what that would entail, is it a realistic / accessible prospect? My electrotechnical and soldering skills are pretty basic but would gladly give it a shot for example mimicking a video of the build up of an interposer for that use

More LCDs, from a late 2002 fujitsu-siemens ad: