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Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA)

IBM's next standard after CGA was the Enhanced Graphics Adapter or EGA. This standard offered improved resolutions and more colors than CGA, although the capabilities of EGA are still quite poor compared to modern devices. EGA allowed graphical output up to 16 colors (chosen from a palette of 64) at screen resolutions of 640x350, or 80x25 text with 16 colors, all at a refresh rate of 60 Hz.

You will occasionally run into older systems that still use EGA; EGA-level graphics are the minimum requirement for Windows 3.x and so some very old systems still using Windows 3.0 may be EGA. There is of course no reason to stick with EGA when it is obsolete and VGA cards are so cheap and provide much more performance and software compatibility.

Next: Video Graphics Adapter (VGA)

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