Re: IIGS Upgrade info (another question)

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

In article <2sroe9INNpf1@no-names.nerdc.ufl.edu>,
 <where@maple.circa.ufl.edu> wrote:
> Ok, so say I'm playing with something like "Tutor Tech" that seems to use the
> double hi-res screen, and do color stuff. Most of the screen is typically 
> white, but any white text is usually awash in pink. If I hop over to the
> control panel and tell it I am using a monochrome screen then jump back
> ot the program, the screen looks ALOT better (but it's in B/W). Does this
> sound like a good candidate for the VGC upgrade?

Nope.  If you get clean black and white in double hi-res mode after
setting the IIgs to "monochrome" mode, then there is nothing wrong with
your VGC.

The problem was simply that Tutor-Tech (and similar programs) expect
you to be using a monochrome monitor, and don't know about the IIgs,
so they don't enable monochrome mode themselves.  If colour mode is
enabled, then you end up with random colours along the edges of the
text, depending on the exact horizontal position and adjacent pixels.

By comparison, the "Apple II Desktop" program (a.k.a. MouseDesk 2.0)
included with IIgs System 1.0 through 2.0 _does_ know about the IIgs
and enables monochrome mode when you launch it.  If you go into the
control panel while in the Apple II Desktop program, and you have
display type set to colour, then the Apple II Desktop display is
unreadable (and in colour) when you return.


The VGC fault only appears on very early IIgses (someone else mentioned
a serial number range).  It is exhibited as flickering pink fringing
effects in monochrome double hi-res graphics mode.  You should have
display type set to Monochrome if you want to have a chance of seeing
this.

On some IIgses, it also affected 80-column text mode, but only with
certain combinations of foreground and background colour.

A friend of mine had to use yellow on brown text to get a visible
80-column display, and he liked the colours so much he has stuck with
them ever since.  (Yuck!)  :-)
-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand