Search the FAQ Archives

3 - A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M
N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z
faqs.org - Internet FAQ Archives

comp.os.msdos.programmer FAQ part 4/5
Section - - Which video adapter is installed?

( Part1 - Part2 - Part3 - Part4 - Part5 - Single Page )
[ Usenet FAQs | Web FAQs | Documents | RFC Index | Houses ]


Top Document: comp.os.msdos.programmer FAQ part 4/5
Previous Document: - How can I redirect printer output?
Next Document: - How do I switch to 43- or 50-line mode?
See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge

 The technique below should work if your BIOS is not too old. It uses
 three functions from INT 10, the BIOS video interrupt. (If you're using
 a Borland language, you may not have to do this the hard way. Look for a
 function called DetectGraph or something similar.)

 Set AX=1200, BL=32 and call INT 10. If AL returns 12, you have a VGA. If
 not, set AH=12, BL=10 and call INT 10 again. If BL returns 0,1,2,3, you
 have an EGA with 64,128,192,256K memory. If not, set AH=0F and call INT
 10 a third time. If AL is 7, you have an MDA (original monochrome
 adapter) or Hercules; if not, you have a CGA.

 This worked when tested with a VGA, but I had no other adapter types to
 test it with.

User Contributions:

1
Ben in Seattle
Jun 2, 2026 @ 4:16 pm
Another solution is to use a parallel port loopback plug. It makes the PC think there is a printer attached. The benefit of this is it doesn't require anticipating the problem with ANSI.SYS escape sequences nor does it make you wait half an hour for the "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" prompt, as some versions of DOS do.

Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic:




Top Document: comp.os.msdos.programmer FAQ part 4/5
Previous Document: - How can I redirect printer output?
Next Document: - How do I switch to 43- or 50-line mode?

Part1 - Part2 - Part3 - Part4 - Part5 - Single Page

[ Usenet FAQs | Web FAQs | Documents | RFC Index ]

Send corrections/additions to the FAQ Maintainer:
jeffrey@carlyle.org (Jeffrey Carlyle)





Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:11 PM