🚀 go-pugleaf

In <643@seer.UUCP> ariel@seer.UUCP (Catherine Hampton) writes:


>In article <5553@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu> in comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
>smsmith@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu writes:
>>  I use a word processor called Nota Bene which is capable of displaying
>>Classical Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit.  Has anyone in Netland tinkered
>>around with it as far as the color display in EGA mode?  I was success-
>>ful in altering the colors it uses while in SLS mode (Standard Lang.
>>Supplement), but I can't get it to run on CGA. 

>I'm afraid the SLS will run only on an EGA, VGA, or on a true Hercules
>system with Ramfont.  It requires the 256K EGA at minimum to build
>the screen fonts for SLS mode.  (I use the SLS heavily, and have tested
>it on a number of machines and configurations.)

I believe that's all correct.  The reason:  Nota Bene needs a video
card that can learn new character sets.  I have a Hercules RAMFont
video card with this feature, and it's amusing to install various
character sets from Greek to Pictographic to 8 by 8 to Chess.
Unfortunately, software that knows about Hercules RAMFont is almost
nonexistant:  Nota Bene, BRIEF, and Sidekick Plus (poorly implemented)
is about it.  Anybody needing this sort of thing now would be well
advised to go with VGA, now that it's affordable.

On the other hand, if you run across a Hercules RAMFont or InColor
with RAMfont at a computer swap or surplus catalog, for about $35 you
can support Nota Bene's SLS mode -- and the color card supports CGA!
Just don't run any screen-saver software with it!

In theory, you can do strange character sets on CGA (I've even seen it
done).  But if the main CPU has to take over the video adapter's job
of drawing the characters, your sytem will be *slow*.
-- 

ergo@netcom.uucp			Isaac Rabinovitch
{apple,amdahl,claris}!netcom!ergo	Silicon Valley, CA