Back to the A1097C monitor again

Getting "double-duty" out of something like a monitor is very gratifying in situations where space is limited, but even in those cases where I've gotten fixed-frequency beasties to work beautifully, it's been a disappointment. I got a friend a Photon board with BIOS modifications to suit the Sony GDM 1950, which I'd carefully adjusted and converged so its characters were crisp and sharp, yet there were interactions that didn't work out right. For example, and I don't know why this was, the monitor worked very well in DOS text mode (vga mode 3) and looked like a million bucks in 1280x1024x256-color mode in WIndows, yet when I wanted to use a floppy-port-interfaced tape drive, the thing fell apart. It just didn't work quite right. It takes years to get all the things working together, and the folks who build these cards have to get them all. It's not worth their while to custom up a BIOS for each and every required sync pattern out there. Unless you need a given monitor because you have the accompanying hardware with which it was designed to work, it's not worth your while to make it work on a PC. The easiest way to get some auxilliary use out of it is as a second, Windows-or-game-dedicated monitor, so it only has to display the resolution at which it works most easily. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Adrian Graham <agraham(a)ccat.co.uk> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2000 5:17 AM Subject: RE: Back to the A1097C monitor again