Continuing the discussion from this topic:
http://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=29802

Here is "universal video driver":

http://win2.ho.ua/files/MY.zip

Supports three modes: 0 - EGA (640x350), 1 - VGA (640x480), 2 - SVGA (800x600). Default mode is 0.

Just install Windows with it. Then you can add to win.ini section "[display]". Set variable "mode" to any you wish. Windows will apply it during next start (without reinstall).
Here is sample video:
[youtube2]http://youtu.be/F28wxrXlEow[/youtube2]

Driver was tested only in dosbox. It would be great to have the testing result from real XT hardware. If you want to use it with Win 386, just add my.3ex and my.386, which can be renamed from default ega or vga 386 drivers.

Thank you for attention.

Thanks! This is gonna come in handy

It looks nice!
But i can't use 1280x768?

No. Just one of three modes:
0: 640x350
1: 640x480
2: 800x600

May be later I'll enhance it.

Nathan Lineback had a Windows 2.x SVGA driver that could do 1280x1024... I think it's still up on his website.

Can it work with any SVGA or only Video 7 VGA 1024i?

http://toastytech.com/guis/miscb4.html It's 1024x768 with 16 colors. This display mode was made possible with a Video 7 1024i card.
http://toastytech.com/guis/miscc.html He also has Paradise VGA drivers that work in DOSBox. These can run Windows 2 in 640x400 with 256 colors.

It's Windows 2. People didn't have 19" screens in the 1980's, they were very lucky if they had 14" (640x480) and a computer that supported it in 16 colour mode.

I'd really like to see an Genius VHR emulator that allowed to run Windows 1.0 with 736x1008 resolution

I hacked support for it into PCE a couple of years ago, though I don't think the result ever left my PC. Apart from anything else, since I don't have the driver disk for the card (in particular, VHRBIOS.SYS), I had to do some sort of debugger trickery to get round the installation check in the Windows driver.



I've documented what I know of the hardware at http://www.seasip.info/VintagePC/mdsi_genius.html .

@John, much admiration for your work. Couldn't you still submit the patch to the developer, please? The more hardware supported, the better. And I would love to try Pagemaker with it

IBM 8514/a ... it did 1024x786 back in 87. Although the 1514 monitor was 16"...

Can't it use more than 16 colors?

I submitted a patch for Hercules InColor and Amstrad PC1512 support two years ago and that hasn't made it into his tree yet, so I doubt the Genius VHR would have any more luck.

There seem to be some drivers for an MCA version of the Genius card at http://files.mpoli.fi/hardware/DISPLAY/GENIUS/ -- including drivers for Windows 1.04, Windows/286 and Windows/386. The equivalent of VHRBIOS.SYS seems to be GMC_ANSI.SYS.

- John Elliott: Could you make Hercules InColor and Genius VHR patches for PCem/PCem-X? The Amstrad PC1512 isn't needed because it's already there, but the other two things would be certainly nice to have. And while I can't guarantee your patches would make it into main PCem, they would definitely make it into PCem-X which is my fork.

Don't expect anything in the short term.

By the way, the same archive also has Windows 2, Windows 3 and GEM drivers for the 'Cornerstone DualPage' monitor: http://files.mpoli.fi/hardware/DISPLAY/CSTONE/ If I read its GEM driver aright, that would support a 1600 x 1280 resolution and up to 16 levels of grey (at the same time? I don't know).

That is a pretty good archive. They also have Windows 1/2 drivers for the Persyst BOB/16 card: http://files.mpoli.fi/hardware/MISC/PERSYST/DRVR/

Took me longer than I should, but I've finally submitted a Genius VHR patch. Seems to work OK, at least with Windows 1.04 -- I haven't tried it with Windows/286 or Windows/386, for which drivers also exist.

Is there any driver out there that will allow use of PC1512's 640x200 16c mode in Windows 1.x or 2.x? Thanks!

I don't believe there is, and I don't think it would be practical to create one by binary patching from any of the existing Windows 1.x drivers. There is a DDK of sorts for Windows 2.x, so you could always try to create a driver using that.

I do recall reading (possibly on Cliff Lawson's site) that Microsoft did make a prototype Windows 1.x driver for the PC1512, but it was only for internal use at Amstrad. If it still exists (which I doubt) I expect it would be buried in a vault somewhere below Microsoft HQ.

I am not experienced in this sort of stuff... but I assume you can patch one for DOSBox (640x200x16c is 0EH)...

The best I can get (in DOSBox):



I really don't think this usable or maybe my patch is wrong but it is the best I can get. Not sure about Amstrad PC1512 though.

EGALORES is essentially 640x200 double-scanned, I guess that's as close as you can get with stock drivers.