How do I detect if I have a colour or monochrome monitor?

Detecting if you have a colour or monochrome video card is trivial. You can use the values stored in the BIOS data segment to determine this.

Here is some C source example of how I do it.

        /* video card mono/colour detection by Dark Fiber
         * returns 0=mono, 1=colour
         */
        int detect_video_type(void)
        {
                int rc;
                char c=(*(USHORT*)0x410&0x30;

                /* C can be 0x00 or 0x20 for colour, 0x30 for mono
                if(c==0x30)
                {
                        rc=0;   // mono
                }
                else
                {
                        rc=1;   // colour
                }
                return rc;
        }

Categories: HowTo, HardWareVga