Talk:Text mode

PC Common Text Modes

Moved here from the article:

Clarification request and warning: If this table refers to text modes (as the title of this page states), listing graphics resolution just as a character generator's property, there is something wrong with the 640×480 modes, because on VGA at 80×25 (video mode 03h) we have 9×16 character matix, thus giving 720×400 dot resolution. I am not sure about 80×50 mode if it uses 8×8 characters or 9×8, but anyway the resulting resolution would be 640×400 or 720×400 — not 640×480! If we are talking about graphics modes, which also have some standard text resolutions, 640×480 mode (video mode 12h) uses 8×16 (or 8×8) characters, so the text grid is 80×30 (80×60), not 80×25. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.172.21.161 (talk • contribs) 16:20, 1 July 2006 (UTC2)

The table is accurate. The text screens of the era were 4000 characters=80 characters wide (a punch card width) x 25 lines high. You might have to think of it from the text-based point of view to see this. --Ancheta Wis 04:51, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By this comment you just show that you don't even nearly understand what is being discussed. Please don't post dummy comments nor try to cease dispute if you are not aware of the topic. --217.172.21.161 18:16, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ancheta Wis, if you like the arithmetics, you can try to divide 480 dot lines by 25 character lines and think a little about the result. Hint: the character cell can't have fractional height (19.2 dots) nor width of course.

You call that a text mode table? This is a "text mode table". I took the liberty of adding the proverbial 80x30 (8x16 pixel chars) text mode, used that on all IBM PC compatibles without problems since the dawn of Dos Navigator... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.173.104.205 (talk) 13:34, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That font

What is the name of the font used during booting (see here) and used in the BIOS (see here). It seems to be the same font across all BIOS / mainboard manufacturers. I guess it is stored in the Video BIOS. --Abdull 12:23, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're referring to the IBM PC compatibles, right? The font is stored in the display adapter, and in modern adapters it's more or less the same as the VGA ROM font. There is actually some minor variance among manufacturers. And yes, in each VGA-compatible card there are at least two size variants of the font, i.e. 8x8 and 8x16. 8x16 is the one used in the default 80x25 text mode. --Viznut 07:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For IBM PC compatibles it is the code page 437. --Ricardo Cancho Niemietz (talk) 10:07, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

MCGA

I think mcga should be mentioned. 640x400 8x16 Font. Isn't it the default IBM PC compatible mode mentioned up there? -- 14:21, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

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Mouse arrow cursor in textmode in FreeBSD

How it is possible that in FreeBSD in text mode mouse cursor has shape of arrow like in graphic mode? In Linux when GPM is running there is also mouse cursor but it is rectangular. 148.81.137.4 (talk) 03:03, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

hmm, in many VGA text modes the cursor is actually independent of the video mode, and is similar to the "hardware sprites" used in older home computers, the "text mode cursor" simply doesn't use this cursor mechanism available in the VGA hardware, but simulates a cursor with a block graphics character, similar to how old terminals worked.

The textmode cursor in FreeBSD is handled by syscons and the information on how it works can be found at http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/dev/syscons/scmouse.c?rev=1.44 173.81.25.50 (talk) 20:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC) [reply]

Restriction of VGA text mode

I recently wrote a new article with a section Linux console#Hardware restrictions of VGA text modes devoted to VGA text mode; note that I wrote almost all this from my head and I apparently made a mistake with “8192” (is 16384 a correct value?). Now I think that that piece of text would fit better to this article rather than to a Linux-specific one. Maybe even in a table format, not for VGA+ only but as a comparison between various hardware platforms. Any objections? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 11:41, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's rather specialized, whereas this topic was more general. Though it seems that it's become focused on the VGA stuff... However, the Linux console's use of VGA mode is just one example of how it's adapted (there are other operating systems, and they do things differently). Splitting off that aspect into a new topic would improve this one. Tedickey (talk)

Do you suggest creating an article like VGA-compatible text mode? Or what topic do you mean? BTW I made SVGATextMode redirected to Linux console#Text modes but now I realized that it was another mistake. If such article on VGA+ text modes existed, it would be a right target to redirect SVGATextMode: I think that no separate article is needed, because virtually same things need to be described. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:14, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

yes, something like that. The beginning (almost half) of this topic is fairly general, but then becomes very specific to VGA-compatible text mode. Tedickey (talk) 01:16, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Interlaced or progressive

Were text modes and their associated graphics modes interlaced or progressive on the display when connected through native connectors (not composite video outs), was there any difference between CGA/MDA/EGA (digital) and VGA (analog) conectors? --Dmitry _{(talk •contibs )} 14:15, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Most probably all these used progressive video, interlace was only used for PAL/NTSC/SECAM compatible video. MDA/Hercules/CGA/EGA did not used converted TV's but real monitors, and all used a 9-pin DE9 connector (often called a DB9 connector) . VGA (still) uses a 15-pins (3 rows) DB15 (actually a DE-15F) connector. except for the size of the shell a big difference. Mahjongg (talk) 22:31, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So, both VGA and earlier "digital" interfaces like EGA/CGA (which basically required a "smart" monitor with a DAC and singal generator) essentially used progressive scan in text modes, and interlaced scan was briefly used for high-res graphics modes like SVGA, XGA, UXGA etc. because some monitor makers wanted a cheaper solution? --Dmitry _{(talk •contibs )} 13:26, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

advantages of text modes as compared to graphics modes

The "clarification" is true in a limited sense, but ignores the last twenty years or so, to put the digression into context TEDickey (talk) 00:35, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]