Back to the A1097C monitor again

There are some really cheap PCI video cards that come with pretty good software for tweaking the scan rates via their "centering" utility. I've got a Trident 9680 board that came with such a utility and I'm able to do some pretty decent tweaking, though I've not been able to make it talk to any DEC monitors, even those that I've managed to get to work in other applications. (these were private brand-labelled SONY GDM 1950's) I'd not get into too big a rush, though. I agree entirely that using a 19" monitor beats hell out of a 15 and probably even a 17" monitor. However, my experience has been that the adapters that specifically convert the various video modes designed for multisync monitors often introduce problems because of the limited attention a vendor can apply to a limited-demand product like this. If you have some equipment and are really determined to make this work, I have a lot of tricks you can try, but I won't bore everybody on this list with all the grim details. If you're not afraid to make the necessary modifications, you absolutely can make this work, but it's a lot of effort. Experience , by the way, has taught me that hardware is easier to hack than unknown software. The video BIOS should be modified, but, I guess, doesn't have to be. If you know something about video BIOS code, then what you must consider is what each mode does and how it does it. Then you have to program the video timing generator (starting with the programmable PLL) to generate the right clocks, and then you must program the video generator and the DAC, if it's separate, to generate the same effect to the viewer that the unmodified circuit does to a multisync monitor. IIRC, the default mode is 720x384 or some such, which is the text mode (it might be x400, and it might even be 640x400) but in any case, the thing I've commonly seen is that a modified BIOS uses a different character generator (programmed into RAM in the video hardware) to generate a character set that will create the same characters normally seen at the low-res text scan rate, but with twice as many dots, hence looking more or less the same as you'd expect. Take a close look, think about it, and see if you'd rather do that than just letting it sit with the hardware it's supposed to go with. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Adrian Graham <agraham(a)ccat.co.uk> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Friday, July 28, 2000 8:26 AM Subject: RE: Back to the A1097C monitor again HP on monitor