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This post as a follow-up of he one below, that teaches how to erase the BIOS.

My post is more "serious". I'm currently releasing a true colour library for Quick-Basic. It's available now, I'm just writing the complete documentation about it (kinda 20 to 30 pages).

When I'm through with the writing, I will post here.

When I was programming the lib, I wanted to check the available VESA modes, and I had used in the Beta version the Vesa function &H4F02 to do this. In other terms, you activate a mode and read the error code to know if it works or not on the current machine.

Well, no concern with the recent hardware, but Antoni Gual warned me : this process can burn very old monitors ! When it does not work, it does not work... any longer !

Right, I have corrected this now (you MUST use function &4HF01 that only reads information about the modes), and the TC-Lib v1.1 is 100% safe. I can email to those who want preview wallpapers, 1024x768 of amazing Hi-Res raytracing 3D shapes (hyperboloids, ellipsoids, cylinders, etc...) randomly generated though the lib...

My two pence

leaving it in a state for a long time when it's being told to do something it just can't do, the probability of that happening is very slim. (But one of my monitors did start making a high-pitched shreaking sound when I tried to use a mode it wouldn't support. (I switched out of that *real* quick.) But other than that, I'm continually putting my video boards in modes they can't do. I haven't actually blown anything up yet.) The really big problem in the old days was sending a color-related command to a color-capable video board when only a monochrome monitor was attached. (*That* is extremely dangerous--literally. (You can set your house on fire.))

Calling 4F01 is always a good idea. However, all it tells you is what the video card can do. It has NO bearing on what the monitor can deal with. If you're worried about it, I'd have your program give users a warning to tell the program to go back to a text mode immediately if they see or hear anything "weird" happening (or don't see anything happening that's supposed to happen) and give them an option in the program to do that when they press, for example, Esc.

I actually never burned a monitor, but I will try some day...
I have been told the voltage in the coils is increased when the frequency rises. Any electronics expert there?
If the monitor is not self-protected the isolant in the coils can be damaged shorting some of the spires so the image degrades.

True or not, I did put a warning about it and a key to escape in my jpeg viewer mode selector.

monitors in the 21st century need to upgrade anyway. Be a hero.

"Burned" is a too hard word. In spanish we use burned also in a figurated sense, when the components smell, take a brownish color and the service people says "If I was you I would buy a brand new one".
In fact I wrote to Jark "brûlé" because i was using french. As my mastering of french is so bad as my english two things are possible.
1.- The figurated sense of burned is not correct in french.
2.- In front of doubt, Jark has supposed the strongest sense of the word (as I would do)

er... if you consider "burned" as "when the components smell, take a brownish color and the service people says "If I was you I would buy a brand new one" then the "burned" component is one that's just one step back of the total destruction... :o

...still a hard concept, IMHO.

if you see Black and White in a supposedly Colored VESA mode:

1. Wait and Panic
2. Buy a new monitor.