John Hupp composed on 2015-06-10 10:28 (UTC-0400): > ...It worked with a Trident TGVI9680 PCI (ca. 1997) which has native VESA > 1.2 support supporting 14 modes....
John Hupp composed on 2015-06-10 14:50 (UTC-0400): > ...So I dug around and found an even older ISA card (a lowly 512KB Trident > TVGA 9000A), and I'm not seeing any issues like I have had with the Oak.... An 8900 is what I put in the first PC I built for myself. It was more or less a fluke that I chose it, as it turned out to have the most comprehensive mode support of any at the time. When I upgraded to a PCI system, I stuck with Trident, initially a 9440 IIRC, which didn't last, followed by 9680, which kept me going through my transition from DesqView into OS/2 as primary environment. > ...I am nonetheless happy to have a few things to work with to better match > an LCD's aspect ratio: Eric's trick, for instance, on cards that support > it. And I can also report that Japheth's setmxx seems to work as > advertised. Even on a VGA card with no VESA support, this will let you > get 34 or 60 lines, which is something I could not get from MODE on most > cards even with VESA support.... This may have to do with the native Trident support for 30 and 60 lines. Most others had only 30 or 60, if either natively, only if at all via VESA. > I did not test svgatextmode. If it works it would seem to have more > capabilities than setmxx, but after I started reading the included > documentation (much of which is for Linux), I was not clear about how to > install or use it, and under the circumstances I was losing for heart > for lengthening the long slog that this has been. Maybe another time > after I take care of some things that have been piling up. I don't remember any more because I only ever used other than 80x25 in DOS through apps supporting higher, but I'm thinking getting higher using Trident was relatively simple, maybe from a utility on the driver floppy shipped with Trident cards. It might be instructive to know some of the modes old cards supported natively. The video resource files that Borland's Paradox and Quattro Pro shipped with offered some help for those who could decipher their meaning. I did some of that way back when, resulting in upgrades of those resource files to work with newer cards after most of the old card makers disappeared and the PCs using them retired: http://fm.no-ip.com/PC/paradox.vid http://fm.no-ip.com/PC/video.rsc (Quattro Pro) Note that from among all that were available back then, only AMD aka ATI from those lists has native mode support surviving in gfxchips used in AGP and PCIe cards. This is what enables me through Snap (more evolved SDD) on eComStation (aka OS/2) to keep on running Paradox and Quattro Pro with an LCD. Text is not nearly as nice on an LCD as on a CRT, but it's acceptable, and keeps me keeping on without having to waste time trying to morph all the effort from decades past into equivalent utility from current apps. The older you get, the more there is to be said for not trying to fix what ain't broke. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
