PC Common Text Modes
Depending on the graphics adapter used, a variety of text modes are available on IBM PC compatible computers. They are listed on the table below :
| Text res. | Char. size | Graphics res. | Colors | Adapters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 80×25 | 9×14 | 720×350 | B&W Text | MDA, Hercules |
| 40×25 | 8×8 | 320×200 | 16 colors | CGA, EGA |
| 80×25 | 8×8 | 640×200 | 16 colors | CGA, EGA |
| 80×25 | 8×14 | 640×350 | 16 colors | EGA |
| 80×43 | 8×8 | 640×350 | 16 colors | EGA |
| 80×25 | 9×16 | 720×400 | 16 colors | VGA |
| 80×30 | 8×16 | 640×480 | 16 colors | VGA |
| 80×50 | 9×8 | 720×400 | 16 colors | VGA |
| 80×60 | 16 colors | VESA-compatible Super VGA | ||
| 132×25 | 16 colors | VESA-compatible Super VGA | ||
| 132×43 | 16 colors | VESA-compatible Super VGA | ||
| 132×50 | 16 colors | VESA-compatible Super VGA | ||
| 132×60 | 16 colors | VESA-compatible Super VGA |
MDA text could be emphasized with bright, underline, reverse and blinking attributes.
Video cards in general are backward compatible, i.e. EGA supports all MDA and CGA modes, VGA supports MDA, CGA and EGA modes.
By far the most common text mode used in DOS environments, and initial Windows consoles, is the default 80 columns by 25 rows, or 80×25, with 16 colors. This mode was available on practically all IBM and compatible personal computers. Several programs, such as terminal emulators, used only 80×24 for the main display and reserved the bottom row for a status bar.
Two other VGA text modes, 90×43 and 90×50, exist but were very rarely used. The 40-column text modes were never very popular outside games and other applications designed for compatibility with television monitors, and were used only for demonstration purposes or with very old hardware.
Character sizes and graphical resolutions for the extended VESA-compatible Super VGA text modes are manufacturer-dependent. Also on these display adapters, available colors can be halved from 16 to 8 when a second customized character set is employed (giving a total repertoire of 512 —instead the common 256— different graphic characters simultaneously displayed on the screen).
Some cards (e.g. S3) supported custom very large text modes, like 100×37 or even 160×120. In Linux systems, a program called SVGATextMode is often used with SVGA cards to set up very large console text modes.
Read more about this topic: Text Mode
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