Windows 1.x in VGA mode

[JohnElliott]

I've been meaning to get round to this for the last three years or so.

The drivers that come with Windows 1.x only go up to EGA resolution, 640x350. But by patching them, it's possible to make them display in 640x480 VGA and 800x600 VESA modes.

I've written a utility to do this, which you can find here.

 

[DOS lives on!!]

It works on my Windows 1.01 machine! Now, I'm using it on an old video card, but I'll try it on a newer one and see if the picture's any better.

 

[JohnElliott]

And I've now done the equivalent patch for Windows 2.03. Obviously that already supports VGA, so it only needs to create a driver for the 800x600 mode: http://www.seasip.info/DOS/Win1/win2vesa.html

 

[SomeGuy]

Extremely cool!

Of course, I have been running Windows 2 at 1024*768*16 interlaced on my Video 7 VGA 1024i for a while now

But now people won't need one of the few ISA cards with a Windows 2 driver, or a special emulator to get some more resolution.

 

[njroadfan]

Stupid question, does Windows 1.0x support more than 16 colors?

How many 3rd party video drivers were made for Windows 1/2? I can't imagine too many. I'm curious as to what cards supported 256 colors in Windows 2.x besides that Paradise card DOSBox SVN builds support.

 

[JohnElliott]

Stupid question, does Windows 1.0x support more than 16 colors?

Yes. If you happen to have a Vermont Microsystems Image Manager 1024 kicking around.

How many 3rd party video drivers were made for Windows 1/2? I can't imagine too many. I'm curious as to what cards supported 256 colors in Windows 2.x besides that Paradise card DOSBox SVN builds support.

You can download those Windows 2 drivers which have come to light at http://toastytech.com/guis/indexlinks.html -- the file is 'Paradise & Video 7 Driver'. It contains the following drivers:

./Tseng/VGA800.DRV: 800 x 600, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours
./Tseng/VGA1024.DRV: 1024 x 768, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours
./ET-4000/disk1/WIN386/VGA800.DRV: 800 x 600, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours
./ET-4000/disk1/WIN386/VGA1024.DRV: 1024 x 768, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours
./V7-VEGA/800X600.DRV: 800 x 600, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours
./V7-VEGA/640X450.DRV: 640 x 450, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours
./V7-VEGA/640X480.DRV: 640 x 480, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours
./V7-VEGA/720X540.DRV: 720 x 540, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours
./V7-1024i/UTILDSK1/VGA800.DRV: 800 x 600, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours
./V7-1024i/UTILDSK1/VGA1024M.DRV: 1024 x 768, 1 bpp, 1 planes, 2 colours
./V7-1024i/UTILDSK1/VGA1024C.DRV: 1024 x 768, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours
./V7-1024i/UTILDSK1/VGA640.DRV: 640 x 480, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours
./V7-1024i/UTILDSK1/VGA720.DRV: 720 x 540, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours
./V7-1024i/UTILDSK2/VGA2400.DRV: 640 x 400, 8 bpp, 1 planes, 256 colours
./V7-1024i/UTILDSK2/VGA2480.DRV: 640 x 480, 8 bpp, 1 planes, 256 colours
./Paradise/Disk2/PVGA.DRV: 640 x 480, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours
./Paradise/Disk2/PVGA256.DRV: 640 x 480, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours

(Seems to me that the GDIInfo structure in PVGA256.DRV is telling fibs...)

 

[bear]

I do have an Image Manager 1024 kicking around but have so far been unable to dig up Windows drivers, for any Windows version.

I have a copy of a damaged driver disk from a chap in the UK, which at one time had Windows/386 drivers for it. But the damage is in the root directory where the Windows/386 driver was. I was able to recover all the CAD drivers, which were in subdirectories.

 

[Xacalite]

There were cards based on HD63484 ACRTC with support for early Windows versions.
1280x960x1bpp with some hardware raster operations... nice, isn't it?
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthre...ard-by-the-Moniterm-searching-for-the-Drivers

 

[JohnElliott]

./Paradise/Disk2/PVGA.DRV: 640 x 480, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours
./Paradise/Disk2/PVGA256.DRV: 640 x 480, 1 bpp, 3 planes, 8 colours

(Seems to me that the GDIInfo structure in PVGA256.DRV is telling fibs...)

I've looked into this; the GDIInfo and physical_device structures are populated dynamically at driver startup, which is why the one in the file claims to be the standard 8-colour VGA.

You can configure PVGA256.DRV for a custom resolution using the [Display] section of WIN.INI. The driver supports keywords 'Width', 'Height', 'Colors', 'Colours', 'Custom', 'Memory', 'OEMData' and 'Switching'.

 

[JohnElliott]

Stupid question, does Windows 1.0x support more than 16 colors?

Yes. I've emulated enough of the IM1024 to support the Windows 1.x driver, IM1024.DRV.

 

[SomeGuy]

Yes. I've emulated enough of the IM1024 to support the Windows 1.x driver, IM1024.DRV.

Nice. How does Micrografx In-A-Vision look? Some of the sample graphics contain shading and should scale up nicely. (BTW the Micrografx Designer 1.1 sample files can be saved in In-A-Vision format)

 

[JohnElliott]

The short answer is: They don't render properly. Back to the coding mill for me, I'm afraid.

 

[JohnElliott]

Nice. How does Micrografx In-A-Vision look? Some of the sample graphics contain shading and should scale up nicely. (BTW the Micrografx Designer 1.1 sample files can be saved in In-A-Vision format)

OK, I've now got the rendering sorted out (polygons with more than 255 vertices! qsort() comparing pointers rather than what they point at!)

Here's GRFXDSGN.PIC as drawn by the standard 8-colour driver and the IM-1024 driver. Let me know if you want me to screenshot any of the other samples.

 

[bear]

I've been searching for Windows drivers for the IM-1024 for years. No idea they were there all along. Cheers, John! Now just the Windows 2.x drivers to recover!