11 Jun
2006
11 Jun
'06
4:47 a.m.
>> Wait--you had to buy a modulator for the CGA.
When I saw the 80x25 text
>> display of the CGA (on an IBM monitor), I decided that color wasn't for
>me.
>WHY?
On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Because if I had to read the darned text for more than
an hour or two, I
sorry, I should have made it clear that I was talking about the modulator.
From the late 70's until last year, even my living
room TV did not have a
built-in tuner.
was going to go blind. 0.31 mm (or was it 0.38 mm?)
color dot pitch makes
for some really bad looking text. Compared to CGA, the MDA text was
postively wonderful--and let's face it, on the PC, what does one write
programs in--text or graphics mode?
A B&W monitor on a CGA was as good as most of the micros at the time.
In those days, NO color display was really adequate for text.
When I got the Sony, I think the dot pitch was 0.25mm
which, while still
not up to monochrome, was passable. With my nystagmus, display
deficiencies are magnified.
and a B&W monitor was better than that.
But still no comparison to MDA on a monochrome monitor
in terms of display
and font quality.
~$400 and non-standard frequencies v ~$100 for a standard CCTV monitor
(plus, I could videotape directly from CGA)
And if you needed graphics, Hercules (or clones
thereof) was very nice.
True, the MDA text mode wouldn't let you change the font, but then there
was the Herc Graphics Plus card, which gave you quite a bit of downloadable
font memory.
Once aftermarket MDA monitors, and then Hercules boards showed up,
that did, indeed, became the way to go. But in those intervening years
until then, ...
Boy did Jenkins get bent out of shape when people began imitating his
[imporoved] imitation of the MDA!
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com