Genius monitor success and problems

Support and general discussion.
Post Reply
emendelson
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed 12 Jul, 2017 6:50 pm

Genius monitor success and problems

Post by emendelson »

Thanks to JohnElliott, I've got Genius-monitor support running and I'm now trying to get the WordPerfect 5.1 Genius text and graphics drivers working.

First, I've created a full self-contained PCem system that can be used for testing. I know I can't post a download link here, but if anyone wants a copy, please send a private message or e-mail me at em36-at-columbia-dot-edu. It contains a copy of WPDOS 5.1.

Here are the issues so far. The system starts up by displaying about 72 lines of text (with the gmc_ansi driver loaded), but the machine sometimes starts in 40-line mode, and I have to delete the NVRAM to make it start up again in 72-line mode.

JohnElliott said that he used a smaller font than the standard MDA font (if I remember correctly), but it may need the standard font instead, because the default Genius setting is 66 lines (run the GMC program for this information), but the system starts up showing a 72-line screen. Of course, I'm just guessing at this.

I can set WP to fill the 72-line screen by starting WP with the switch /SS-72,80. But I can't get any of the WP Genius text drivers to work. I can select the Genius graphic driver, but when I try to use Print Preview (Shift-F7-Preview), the image is scrambled. However, I can press Exit (F7) to get back to the text screen.

For anyone who wants to experiment with my prebuilt system, WP is in C:\WP51. You select text and graphics drivers by pressing Shift-F1. F7 is the key that exits any menu. If you select text driver that causes the screen to go blank, then restart the system, and start WP with the /F2 switch. This preserves the DOS text driver, so you can press Shift-F1 and select a different text driver.

Meanwhile, thanks to JohnElliott for building in Genius support - and thanks to anyone who wants to experiment with this further.
Post Reply