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The Monochrome Display Adapter ('''MDA''', also '''MDA card''', '''Monochrome Display and Printer Adapter''', '''MDPA''') introduced in 1981 was IBM 's standard video display card and Computer Display Standard for the PC . The MDA did not have any graphics mode of any kind; it only featured a single Monochrome Text Mode (PC video mode 7), which could display 80 columns by 25 lines of high resolution text characters. The standard IBM MDA card was equipped with 4 s, of which 7×11 made out the character itself (the other pixels being used for space between character columns and lines). Some characters, such as the lowercase "m", were rendered 8 pixels across. The MDA featured the following character display attributes: ''invisible, underline, normal, bright (bold), reverse video,'' and ''blinking''; some of these attributes could be combined, so that e.g., bright, underlined text could be produced. .]] The theoretical total screen resolution of the MDA was 720×350 pixels. This number is arrived at through calculating character width (9 pixels) by columns of text (80) and character height (14 pixels) by rows of text (25). However, the MDA again could not address individual pixels; it could only work in text mode, limiting its choice of display patterns to 256 characters. Its character set is known as Code Page 437 . The character patterns were stored in ROM on the card, and so could not be changed by software. The only way to simulate "graphical" screen content was through ANSI Art . IBM's original MDA included a Parallel Printer Port (hence its original name of "Monochrome Display and Printer Adapter"), thus avoiding the need for a separate parallel interface on computers fitted with an MDA. SPECIFICATIONS Connector Pin numbers (looking at socket): Signal COMPETING ADAPTERS There were two commonly available competing display adapters:
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