On 16 Feb 99, at 11:34, Dennis Noble wrote:

> While I am not positive, I beleive that putting an EGA monitor on a
> VGA card may damage either the card or the monitor. If I remember
> correctly (and I may not be) one of the wires used to carry video
> signal on the a VGA monitor, caries some type of voltage in an EGA.
>
> Dennis Noble
> Computer Parts & Upgrades
> http://www.computersalacarte.com
>
> >Dear List Members:
> >
> >I have an old Packard Bell P90 that was given to me a while back but it
> does
> >not have a monitor. I recently aquired an older Packard Bell EGA monitor
> >- Model PB1472W manufactured in 1989.  The P90 has a CL-GD5434 video
> >card.
> >
> >I noticed in my Jameco catalog a VGA adapter - Male DA15 to Female DE9
> >for $3.95.  My question is, will I be able to use this older monitor with
> >this
> old
> >P90. I am just going to fool around with Linux on it so I don't really
> >care about a fancy display...just something functional.

  Before IBM announced VGA (April 1987...), NEC's "MultiSync" EGA
monitor had already swept the market, and was being imitated by others.
Its key feature was that it would automatically adjust to match the
frequency of any video card over a fairly wide range.
  The new VGA standard used analog signal *levels* for red, green, and
blue, rather than the EGA's digital signals, but within a month or two,
NEC and others were able to supply adapters that would let a pre-VGA (9
pins, digital signals) MultiSync monitor run off a VGA (15 pins, analog
signals) connector.  It *looks* like a 9-to-15-pin connector, but
there's a bit more going on inside it, and there are a lot of 9-pin
monitors that it won't work with.


David G

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