if you are buying another machine i would recommend testing first - bring a dos flop or cd to the shop and see what it does.
I ran into the same problem in my company : i wanted to give a nice new laptop to a customer who needed dos also - but ended up giving him a 5 year old Compaq... that was the only in-house machine that would run dos apps fullscreen...
I think I understand the problem, but I don't know how you can get the result you want from the equipment. I see similar ugliness and fuzzy characters here in Full Screen mode on my UXGA.
For some reason the OS only respects the selected font (from shortcut) in Windowed mode, but not full screen. I'd never noticed this before, I think its a bug but I don't think MS will ever fix it.
I suspect you have a second problem with the D series wide screen. The basic problem is that DOS was designed to work with 25 lines/screen, 80 characters / line. With 640*480 13-14 inch VGA (CRT) displays this produces characters the size you have learned to expect. Now you're using a 15" TFT display which has the same working area as 17" CRT - except it is wide screen format so the 80*25 model no longer applies to the screen area. This means you either get horizontally stretched characters filling the screen, or an unusable area to reduce the logical screen to the traditional 4:3 proportion.
The other problem I see is the fonts get fuzzy edges where the rendering system is attempting to smooth the edges by using half a pixel (impossible). You'll see similar effect if you use a TFT away from its optimum resolution.
Maybe the thoughts above will help you understand the issues and find a solution. Sorry, I don't know what else to suggest for your equipment.
For the DOS based Program that I use, I prefer to have it set to fill the entire screen and have no problems with fuzzy, ugly characters at all. The program also generates colored graphs and they look better on this D800 w/ WUXGA (at any resolution) than they do on the older Latitude LM 12" 800x600 16bit and not even in class with original IBM pure DOS grey-scale display.
You are correct about using the 'Windowed' and not Full screen and I copied the other Property settings used to have it fill the screen here:
Opening the same program from the Start;Run, I can run it in a tiny DOS box that I can't stretch any larger than about 13x7mm at 1680x1050 and changing to a lower resolution does increase the size. If I then ask this tiny program to display Graphics, it changes to a 'Full Size' display, so it may be that the settings I had copied would only apply to this particular (and only:robotindifferent: for me) DOS Program.
Rijko
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615 Posts
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March 22nd, 2005 11:00
if you are buying another machine i would recommend testing first - bring a dos flop or cd to the shop and see what it does.
I ran into the same problem in my company : i wanted to give a nice new laptop to a customer who needed dos also - but ended up giving him a 5 year old Compaq... that was the only in-house machine that would run dos apps fullscreen...
ejn63
9 Legend
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87.5K Posts
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March 22nd, 2005 13:00
dbuk
101 Posts
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March 23rd, 2005 00:00
I suspect there's nothing wrong with your computer, you simply need to find the correct settings.
This only works from a desktop or start menu shortcut icon, NOT from the Start/Run menu launching CMD.exe
1. Find the shortcut (or create a new shortcut) to the DOS (command) prompt.
2. Right click the shortcut icon and pick Properties. Look for the Full Screen option (in the Options tab in Windows 2000, I'm not sure where in XP).
3. Save the changes and test.
If necessary you should also be able to change the DOS prompt font from one of the Properties pages.
manfredunger
4 Posts
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March 23rd, 2005 07:00
Sorry. That does not work.
The basic problem I think is that the standard CPI character set simply does not fit high-resolution screens.
The best thing is you go into a shop and try it yourself. You would see the problem.
By the way, you cannot change the fonts for full-screen mode.
manfredunger
4 Posts
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March 23rd, 2005 07:00
Looked at the Website. Dont know how this should help me. Maybe you can tell me exactly which software from the Website I should use.
Thanks.
dbuk
101 Posts
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March 23rd, 2005 22:00
Art
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1.5K Posts
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March 24th, 2005 02:00
For the DOS based Program that I use, I prefer to have it set to fill the entire screen and have no problems with fuzzy, ugly characters at all. The program also generates colored graphs and they look better on this D800 w/ WUXGA (at any resolution) than they do on the older Latitude LM 12" 800x600 16bit and not even in class with original IBM pure DOS grey-scale display.
You are correct about using the 'Windowed' and not Full screen and I copied the other Property settings used to have it fill the screen here:
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=latit_video&message.id=18572
Opening the same program from the Start;Run, I can run it in a tiny DOS box that I can't stretch any larger than about 13x7mm at 1680x1050 and changing to a lower resolution does increase the size. If I then ask this tiny program to display Graphics, it changes to a 'Full Size' display, so it may be that the settings I had copied would only apply to this particular (and only:robotindifferent: for me) DOS Program.
Art
Message Edited by Art on 03-23-2005 11:35 PM