New answers tagged

2 votes

What did the 'turbo' button actually do?

On many PC cases, the turbo button would close a contact between the two wires in a twisted pair that connected to it; the far end of the pair would have push-on connectors (sometimes a two-pin 0.1&...
supercat's user avatar
  • 34.7k
5 votes

Were VGA palette's HSV math properties used in practice?

I don't think it's the same palette, but XCom/UFO used a palette composed of the same colors at different brightnesses so that it could do dynamic lighting with it. I think this may have been a ...
davolfman's user avatar
  • 237
3 votes

Were VGA palette's HSV math properties used in practice?

I would believe the question is not really answerable the way it is. For one,the default palette is a manufacturer side offering, as such intended for low effort application, the ones that do not take ...
Raffzahn's user avatar
  • 213k
2 votes

Was there a notable mainstream 640×480 monochrome display for PC earlier than MCGA

Speaking strictly about IBM PC and compatibles, there was no "notable mainstream" display or display controller with 640x480 resolution prior to VGA/MCGA that I am aware of. There were other ...
Sergey Kiselev's user avatar
5 votes
Accepted

Why weren't CGA colors selectable from palette?

TL;DR: It's a best effort result It's all about squeezing a maximum in capabilities from a minimum in hardware. CGA is a rather simple (*1) circuit build from basic TTL CGA does not work with a ...
Raffzahn's user avatar
  • 213k
93 votes

Why were those colors chosen to be the default palette for 256-color VGA?

TL;DR: It's All About How To Look At the Palette That way it doesn't look any hideous and ugly, or does it? How Come? What is the origin of the default 256-color VGA palette? IBM's BIOS code :)) ...
Raffzahn's user avatar
  • 213k
2 votes

Why were those colors chosen to be the default palette for 256-color VGA?

People may think of VGA as ugly now, but considering what came before it, it offered much more flexibility than most previous home computer color implementations. Those often offered 8 or 16 colors ...
RichF's user avatar
  • 8,663
25 votes

Why were those colors chosen to be the default palette for 256-color VGA?

The VGA default palette in the 256 colour mode (Mode 13h) first has 16 color entries from CGA (which is also same as default 16-color EGA palette and the only palette for 320x200 EGA mode) Next 16 ...
Justme's user avatar
  • 28.3k
4 votes

Why were those colors chosen to be the default palette for 256-color VGA?

If I recall, it's the 16-color default palette, followed by 216 colors chosen as the combinations of 3 luminance values, 3 saturation values, and 24 hue values. Having 24 hues for all nine ...
supercat's user avatar
  • 34.7k
1 vote
Accepted

Have I Screwed the CMOS by Booting With the Clear Jumper Set?

No, I'm just an idiot who didn't go back and check his assumptions. Maybe this will happen to somebody else, hopefully not. In the end I ordered a spare motherboard off eBay (relatively cheap, so not ...
Matt Lacey's user avatar
  • 2,144
0 votes

Was there a notable mainstream 640×480 monochrome display for PC earlier than MCGA

You may be looking for 'Hercules' graphics. This was a very non-square 720x384 monochrome but well recognized and cloned.
davolfman's user avatar
  • 237

Top 50 recent answers are included