Constant,

Oops.  This part is inaccurate:

"[ ... ]  The bits needed to draw the screen
image are only accessed on the "forward" sweep,
while the gun is "off" during the retrace."

The screen memory is being accessed during the
whole process, but the gun is "off" during the
retrace, making it possible to hit the video
RAM during that part of the cycle without snow.

The trick is to do your splashing around in the
video RAM during either the horizontal retrace
or vertical retrace.  The vertical takes more
time, but there's only one of those per refresh,
while the horizontal is quicker, but there are,
what, 200 or more in a refresh.

~~Garry
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


Original Message:
-----------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 13:19:12 -0400
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [SURVPC] snow on a CGA monitor

Constant,

The "snow" on a CGA monitor is caused by two devices
accessing the video memory at the same time (the CPU
and the video processing chip (I used to know the part
number).

There is a register on the card which can be read by
a program and which indicates the state of the video
processor at any given moment.  Among other things it
indicates when the electron gun in the monitor is in
one of its retrace cycles.  The bits needed to draw
the screen image are only accessed on the "forward"
sweep, while the gun is "off" during the retrace.



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