Talk:Text mode

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] 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)

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)

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.

[edit] 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)

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)

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

[edit] 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)