IBM model 5154 EGA monitor fonts

[Floppies_only]

Gang,

I've been reading the early IBM PC documentation and I've noticed that one of the books appears to give the option of setting the character box on an EGA monitor to either 8 X 8 or 8 X 16. Regrettably, the method for doing so is not stated, at least not where I looked (which was all over the PC/XT Tech Ref, DOS 3.0 - 3.2 Tech Ref, and DOS 3.3 manuals). Lesse if I can remember this correctly. You use display.sys to specify the font file (ega.???) in the config.sys file. I'm just wondering, is it possible to get color characters on an EGA monitor with the ascenders and decenders that appear on the 5151 monochrome monitor? I find that character set to be extremely attractive. Is it only possible under program control? Or can you set DOS to that mode, run your character-based program, and have the font set that you want?

Thanks for any help,
Sean

 

[Chuck(G)]

I don't see why not. The large character box is 8x14, which should work well for the MDA font set. If you don't have it, find some willing soul to scan you the EGA technical reference from Options and Adapters (about 170 pages). There's a complete BIOS listing and a pretty decent explanation of the workings of the EGA. For example, did you know that you can display from a character set of 512 characters on the EGA? (There's a mode where attribute bit 3 selects between character sets).