Learning a Bit of Vga
Posted2 months agoActiveabout 2 months ago
usebox.netTechstory
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VgaRetro ComputingGraphics Programming
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Vga
Retro Computing
Graphics Programming
The post 'Learning a Bit of VGA' explores the author's journey into understanding VGA graphics, sparking interest and nostalgia in the HN community for retro computing and low-level programming.
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Nov 3, 2025 at 12:25 PM EST
2 months ago
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Nov 3, 2025 at 4:48 PM EST
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Nov 4, 2025 at 2:55 PM EST
about 2 months ago
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MDA = Monochrome Display Adapter (text only) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Monochrome_Display_Adapter
CGA = Color Graphics Adapter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Graphics_Adapter
EGA = Enhanced Graphics Adapter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Graphics_Adapter
VGA = Video Graphics Array https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Graphics_Array
With some others like the Hercules which was MDA upward-compatible and did graphics as well as text.
They didn't really do any graphics "processing"; just displaying memory-mapped pixels in various formats.
They were memory-mapped, and the MDA used a different memory block than the CGA/EGA/VGA, so you could have two separate monitors simultaneously, doing things lke running something like Turbo Debugger on the MDA text display.