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    The 9th column in VGA text mode would show on areas made of block characters ░▒▓ (176/177/178). I made a special font where each line would have 3 dots, so they'd align on the 9-pixel grid. The 9th column would also be seen on Font based "graphical" cursor
    – Jonathan
    Commented May 17, 2020 at 14:44
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    Only characters in the range 0xC0 to 0xDF get the 9th pixel column repeated, which not uncoincidentally is the box drawing character range. Text characters don't have this repeat so they can fill the entire 8x16 character cell while still having one column blank between characters.
    – user722
    Commented May 17, 2020 at 20:11
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    IIRC it also predates VGA .... you know there where CGA/EGA/MDA and herkules before VGA and the Text mode 80x25 was on EGA too and I think even CGA had that.
    – Spektre
    Commented May 18, 2020 at 6:00
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    @Spektre, If you mean all those cards had a 80x25 text mode, you’re correct. But they all had different character / pixel resolutions. The MDA and Hercules had 720x350 (9x14 pixel characters), the CGA had 640x200 (8x8 pixel characters). EGA had 640x350 (8x14 pixel characters).
    – StarCat
    Commented May 18, 2020 at 6:34
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    Yes, only VGA text mode has 720x400 active area resolution. And the text mode cannot be distinguished from other 400-line modes.
    – Justme
    Commented May 18, 2020 at 7:35