High-resolution EGA Windows drivers by Michael Geary 12/9/86 INTRODUCTION ------------ This package of Windows drivers includes several high-resolution drivers for Enhanced Graphic Adapters with various monitors. Most of the drivers require a 24mhz adapter card to be installed in the feature connector of the EGA. Brief instructions for building this card are given below; more complete instructions can be found in the September 16, 1986 issue of PC Magazine, page 298. These drivers and the 24mhz adapter card will work with any EGA card that has 256K memory. They do not require one of the new "enhanced" EGA's. (The 24mhz adapter makes your EGA an "enhanced" EGA equivalent to the VEGA Deluxe card from Video-7.) The following drivers are included in this package: Filenames Resolution Display type 24mhz req'd ---------- ---------- ------------------------- ----------- E640X480.* 640 x 480 Multisync Yes E752X410.* 752 x 410 Multisync Yes E896X350.* 896 x 350 Standard ECD or Multisync Yes M720X350.* 720 x 350 Monochrome No These drivers have been tested with Windows versions 1.01 and 1.03. They should also work with future Windows versions. HOW TO INSTALL THE DRIVERS -------------------------- For each driver, there are three files, .DRV, .GRB, and .LGO. To use the drivers, these files should be copied to your Windows SETUP and BUILD disks. Follow these instructions to install the drivers on your Windows disks. 1. Make copies of the SETUP and BUILD disks and work on the copies, not the originals!! You will be deleting some files from these disks to make room for the new drivers. 2. Delete some files from the SETUP disk to make room for the .DRV files. I recommend deleting CGA.DRV, HERCULES.DRV, EGALORES.DRV, EMM.PC, and EMM.AT. For Windows 1.01 and 1.03, this frees up enough space. 3. Copy *.DRV from this directory onto the SETUP disk. 4. Copy *.GRB and *.LGO from this directory onto the BUILD disk. 5. That completes the installation of the enhanced drivers. Now put the SETUP disk in drive A: and run SETUP as you would normally. You will see the additional drivers listed when it asks you what kind of display you have. Choose the one you want and try it out! Note: If you install the 896x350 driver, you may find that the standard system font looks awfully tall and skinny. You may prefer the alternate font, which is normally used with a CGA, and will give smaller, but more normal looking characters. If you want to try this font, then on your SETUP disk, rename HIFONTS.FON as HIFONTS.STD and then rename LOFONTS.FON as HIFONTS.FON, and re-run SETUP. (You can rename the files back again if you change your mind.) This is also a useful trick with the other screen resolutions if you would rather fit more lines of text on the screen when using the system font. It doesn't affect other fonts such as used in WRITE. HOW TO BUILD THE 24MHZ FEATURE CARD ----------------------------------- To use any of these drivers except the 720x350 Monochrome, you will need to build a 24mhz "feature card" and install it on your EGA. This is a very simple card, with only one main component, a crystal oscillator. If you would like step-by-step instructions for building this card, I recommend getting the September 16, 1986 issue of PC Magazine, and following the instructions on page 298. Here are brief instructions for those who are familiar with building electronic hardware. You will need these parts, available from a number of suppliers, including JDR Microdevices, 1224 S. Bascom Av., San Jose, CA 95128; (800) 538-5000 or (800) 662-6279 in California. The total cost for parts will be around ten dollars plus shipping. JDR Item # Description ---------- ---------------------------------- OSC24.0 24.0 MHZ crystal oscillator HDR-80 2x40 breakable header strip P25x45 Bare 2.5 x 4.5 " prototyping board 14 PIN ST 14-pin low profile IC socket Cut the header strip so you have two rows of 16 pins each. Cut the prototyping board to about 1.5 x 2 inches. Push the short pins of the header strip through the holes along one edge of the board and glue it in place. (But keep the glue off the pins - you will be soldering on them.) In the middle of the board, push the IC socket through from the other side and glue it in place. Cut three short pieces of hookup wire, and connect the IC socket to the 2x16 header strip as follows (you will need to pass the wires through some holes in the board): IC socket Header strip Function --------- ------------ -------- 7 31 Ground 14 32 +5 volts 8 28 Signal To identify the pins of the IC socket, note that one end of the socket has a little notch in it. If you are looking at the bottom of the socket (where the pins are), and you have the notch at the top, pin 14 is at the top left. Pin 8 is at the bottom left. Pin 7 is at the bottom right. To identify the pins of the header strip, observe how it will plug in to the EGA card. On the EGA card, the topmost pin farthest from the metal bracket is pin 31. Pin 32 is right below that, and pin 28 is two over from pin 32. Most EGA cards have pins 31 and 32 marked (and pins 1 and 2). Finally, push the crystal oscillator into the IC socket. There will be a little dot at one corner of the oscillator. This end of the oscillator goes into the notched end of the socket. You may need to trim the oscillator pins a little bit to get it to seat fully in the socket. Finally, double check all your connections, and cut off excess length on the IC socket and header pins. (Don't cut off the header pins where they will plug in to the EGA! It's the pins that pass through the card that should be trimmed.) Plug the card into the EGA. Check that nothing looks like it is going to short out - you may want to cut a little piece of cardboard and put between the adapter card and the EGA, and tape or glue it in place. Finally, install the EGA back into your PC. To test it, first make sure that your normal display operations still work! Then, try one of the enhanced Windows drivers. If there's any problem, you may want to try running 120COLS.COM, which is included with these drivers. Just run 120COLS, and then give the command MODE BW40, and you should have a 120 column text display on your ECD or Multisync display (it won't work on a Monochrome display). If the enhanced Windows drivers and 120COLS don't work, but the EGA operates normally otherwise, there is a problem with your feature card, and you should remove it and double check everything. If in doubt, check the PC Magazine article mentioned above. CREDITS ------- These enhanced EGA drivers are based on the standard EGA Windows driver from Microsoft, and were adapted by: Michael Geary P.O. Box 1479 Los Gatos, CA 95031 (408) 354-0175 BIX: 'geary' GEnie: 'geary' AT&T Mail: 'geary' CompuServe: 76146,42