Display Adapter The MCA video card called
Display Adapter has a Japanese font containing nearly 7,000
glyphs stored in its
ROM, which enables PS/2-based computers to display
Japanese text without loading the font into memory. Similar to the IBM 5550, the display resolution in character mode is 1040×725
pixels (12×24 and 24×24 pixel
Mincho font, 80×25 text) in 8 colors. The graphics mode is 1024×768 pixels in 16 colors. This is the same resolution as
8514/A and
XGA/A, but not compatible. The first Display Adapter was installed in the model 5570-S, also known as the first Micro Channel machine of PS/55. It had a compatibility problem with PS/2 applications. Since the model 5550-S released in 1988, the
Display Adapter II that improved the PS/2 compatibility was introduced. In the
boot sequence, the Display Adapter enables
VGA on the motherboard, and it passes the video signal from the motherboard to adapter's
VGA connector. When using Japanese DOS, VGA is disabled, and the Display Adapter switches its video selector from VGA to own video chip. In addition, it added the 256 color mode (1024×768 pixels in 256 colors chosen from 262,144 colors). The adapter has 1 MB of video RAM, and 256 KB of RAM for user-defined characters. Most PS/2-based models have compatibility with the Display Adapter II. VGA and the following display modes are supported: • 1040×725 pixels with 80×25 characters in 8 colors or
monochrome • 1024×768 pixels graphics in 16 colors or monochrome • 1024×768 pixels graphics in 256 of 262,144 colors Later, XGA and VGA-only models were released. These later machines cannot run the special Japanese DOS, instead requiring the use of
DOS/V with software-rendered kanji.
JIS layout keyboard The following keyboards have the
PS/2 port. These keyboards have new
scancode sets (81h, 82h, 8Ah) to support additional keys for Japanese
input method. • 5576-001 - Same layout as 5550 type 1 (5556-001) keyboard. • 5576-002 - Japanese layout based on
101 Enhanced keyboard, but uses
Alps Electric Co. mechanical key switches. • 5576-003 - Space-saving version of 5576-002 • 5576-A01 -
OADG reference keyboard. • 5576-A01 -
OADG reference keyboard. == Models ==