Random VGA question: 160x200 "high color" mode?

[Ryan Eisworth]

Have you tried on a Tseng ET4000, Video 7, or SpeedStar 24X? No idea if those will run it though I have a 24X at my disposal so I can check in a bit. I believe they all have high color or true color RAMDACs though.

On another note… a while back I read an article that said John Carmack (one of the Doom developers) is wrote Quake on a 28-inch 16:9 CRT made by Silicon Graphics/Intergraph that was capable of running at 2042x1152. See: <http://www.geek.com/games/john-carmack-coded-quake-on-a-28-inch-169-1080p-monitor-in-1995-1422971/>

The workstation next to the pictured monitor appears to be also by SGI/Intergraph, and looks similar to the Interserve 80, though the Pentium II was not out yet in 1995 so it is likely an older model: <http://www.ceu-inc.com/intergr_1d.html>

I’ve often wondered about computational power might be in that unit in mid/early 1995. The Pentium Pro had not been released yet, and I know Intergraph shipped multiprocessor Pentium Pro workstations, but prior to that if it is an x86-based machine, I don’t think it could have been faster than the 200 MHz P54CS.

Regards,
Ryan

> On Mar 1, 2016, at 9:30 PM, Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Awhile back a "pre-alpha" version of the PC classic "DOOM" was unearthed (dated Feb 28, 1993), and it claims to support a "high color" VGA mode.  From the README.TXT:
> 
>        "Use High-color DAC (160 x200, but great color!)
>        (Only newer VGA cards have this-if it looks OK, ya got it)
>        (This may--okay, will--REALLY screw up the playscreen's
>         graphics.  Just look at the neat colors and don't worry.)"
> 
> I've tried it on a number of machines (from the 386 era to a modern PC) and they all just end up showing garbage when this mode is enabled.  I cannot for the life of me find a reference to this mode existing anywhere, but I assume it must have worked on *some* SVGA chipset of the era since ID programmed in support for it.  I'm guessing it was cut because nothing else supported it (and because 160x200 must have looked awful, even with lots of colors...)
> 
> Does this odd video mode ring any bells with anyone out there?  Any idea what hardware to look for that might support it?  At this point I'm more curious about the actual hardware than getting this pre-alpha to run with it...
> 
> - Josh
> 
> 
> 
>