This last bit was really problematic becuse the Z800
cannot execute the
VGA bios code
in the ISA board's rom.
Can't you get a VGA card where the registers are documented well enough
to at least put the think into a simple text/graphics mode without using
the BIOS ROM code? In other words, ignore the ROM and hit the hardware
directly from the Z80? I know I'd have tried soemthing like that if I'd
_had_ to use a VGA card with a CP/M machine...
The obvious solution, here, is to get a mono card. CP/M software didn't
support graphics unless the graphics were associated with a specific display
adapter anyway, so the use of a mono card, particularly one of the "short"
mono cards with two serial ports and parallel port on it would probably be
just the thing.
In the 80's Compupro sold a S-100 card called "PC Video" which was a
IEEE696 implementation of the IBM-PC video card. That way you could run
code on a Compupro S-100 8088 (or 80286) box which actually hit the
video hardware directly and it would work just like a PC-clone.
It is strangely relevant to the current thread that in the 80's there
were manufacturers trying to make a S-100 box work like a PC-clone; today
there are manufacturers trying to make a PC-clone work like a S-100 box.
Both seem like unnatural acts to me.
Tim.