Talk:Hercules Graphics Card

Screenshots

Could use screenshots. Bastie 23:24, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I created the following using DOSBox in Hercules emulation mode: Prince of Persia, Carrier Command, Xenon 2. Bastie 06:15, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Three more: Basket Master, Simcity, Platoon. Bastie 05:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that fair use rules permit us to use non-free screenshots from computer games simply to illustrate a graphic card's capabilities. Are there any Hercules-compatible games which are in the public domain, or have been released as free software, which we can use? —Psychonaut (talk) 12:41, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Games

Does a list of Hercules-compatible games exist anywhere? 2fort5r (talk) 16:59, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Programming

I would have to dispute this: "programming for the Hercules card's native graphics mode was somewhat hindered by the fact that there was neither any BIOS support nor standardization from IBM". Coding the hercules graphics was dead simple as the programming section illustrates. I don't think anyone would use the BIOS for coding since it was so slow and the graphics memory was essentially just one big bitmap array. 207.245.0.194 22:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I bought a Hercules clone (forget the name) for my first PC, and its manual contained a short section with enough information about the registers and memory layout (including an example in assembler) to get started. I suspect the manual of the original card had the same information. The clone maker may well have copied the manual, along with the hardware. ErkkiRuohtula (talk) 16:55, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

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Gravislizard... dude... why...

> Deletes "large amount of unsourced material" including actual info on scanrates that took a lot of looking to find the stats on, then calculate, and is damn near impossible to actually cite, but is easily provable > Adds in a completely hopeless replacement link to a MONITOR spec sheet for a device that happens to be "Hercules" (more truthfully MDA) compatible, misunderstanding this as actually specifying what the video card itself outputs

Thanks for erasing that work, only to replace it with something that's incorrect - but is now coming up on at least one search engine as a highlighted result for me searching for "Hercules Text vs Graphics Scan Rate" to remind myself of it for a project because I lost the spreadsheet which originally had the numbers in. Spreading disinformation further onto the web, thanks to being over focussed on WP rules fascism yet forgetting another primary concept: make sure the thing that you're referencing in its place is actually THE RIGHT THING and that you've understood what the spec sheet is telling you, and what you're doing in general.

That spec sheet also suggests CGA has a "range" of output frequencies, even though it has a single fixed rate, because it's for a monitor that is compatible with CGA and a bunch of other CGA-like inputs. Hercules has two fixed rates, and MDA has one that sits in between the two and funnily enough is almost exactly what they state as the centre of that allowable input range. As it is for a lot of MDA type monitors. Other Hercules-workalike cards use other rates in the same general range.

I'd ask you how you'd suggest I'd source something pulled from the CRTC programming data for the card (available in a few precious places, and thanks to your editing, the output figures for it now nowhere but the edit history) plus photographs of the PCBs for various graphics cards then calculated together (the "source" for the result being the variables stated in the selfsame paragraph, and you putting those numbers in a calculator), but seeing as you can't tell the difference between what a monitor accepts and what a video card outputs, that's probably a bad idea.

So, anyone else got any ideas?

Also, the bit about it becoming a defacto standard for hi-rez mono on PC was deleted (again, how do you cite that? It's just something that happened. Do I need to cite a hundred different games, magazine reviews, sales ads for compatible cards, etc? Maybe a page on Mobygames that shows "Hercules compatible" titles?)... but doesn't referring to a dual-standard monitor that accepts both CGA and MDA input, but calls the latter "Hercules", one good sign of that? Could have just doubled up the citation onto that paragraph.

Nnngh. I want to fix this mess of overzealous censorship but I only came here to get the numbers, I don't have the time right now. Especially for working out quite how to provide the not exactly easy to find info in a way that satisfies the demand for every last single thing to have a citation, whether or not it's appropriate or correct.

Yrs sincerely, accountless editor who put that data in there out of a spirit of public service data preservation so it'd be useful for someone at some point.

(for easier reference for myself or anyone else looking for it: MDA = 16.257MHz crystal, 882 clocks per line, 370 lines = 18.432kHz horiz, 49.82Hz vert ... Herc Text = 16.000MHz, 882 clocks, 364 lines = 18.141kHz H / 49.84Hz V ... Herc Gfx = 16.0M, 864 clocks, 368 lines = 18.519kHz / 50.32Hz ... perhaps worth noting that's not at all "18.425 +- 0.500kHz") 92.11.250.170 (talk) 00:27, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

...actually going back to the history to double check some of that, it simultaneously gets even worse, along with maybe a small retraction needed.

The figures were actually given in a fully sourced block! You just deleted one half of a two part section noting that there's a nominal frequency, but the real ones are different. The first was preexisting, with that monitor spec sheet link (so OK, you didn't add it, but of the two things, that was the one to delete), the latter was what I added... with a link to a long VCF thread with the info in, which hopefully counts as a reasonable primary source as it was someone else doing the research and if anywhere is a good resource and a modern equivalent to a journal with peer reviewed papers about this stuff, then it'd be those forums.

At least that means I've half a chance of being able to revert that bit back in and maybe fix the monitor bit... once I've used the data for what I needed it for.

Probably a lot of the other edits were equally destructive and corrupting, but have even less time to deal with fixing that. 92.11.250.170 (talk) 00:32, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

• Checked history, didn't see what you are talking about. What was deleted ? Do you want to add HGC timing details ? Please explain, I'm willing to help! 4throck (talk) 12:07, 28 May 2022 (UTC)