After Linux 7.1 dropped support for old i486 CPUs and also began removing some old ISA and PCMCIA device drivers, there is some additional old hardware relics being cleared out of the in-development Linux 7.2 driver... The frame-buffer device driver for the old Hercules Monochrome ISA graphics card is now removed from the Linux kernel after decades at play.

The FBDEV subsystem updates typically aren't too interesting these days with more of the display work happening in the Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) subsystem instead, but for Linux 7.2 that's notable is the removal and that is finally sunsetting the Hercules Monochrome ISA graphics driver and its associated text console driver too. Yes, the graphics card that debuted back in 1982.

Linux 7.2 is finally saying goodbye to the Hercules 8-Bit ISA Mono graphics card that hasn't been relevant in decades. While not at all practical for modern computing, some do still sell them second hand on the likes of eBay and surprisingly for more than $200 USD for old PC parts collectors.

This merge today to Linux Git is what drops the Hercules Monochrome ISA graphics adapter driver and its associated console driver, lightening the kernel by more than one thousand lines of code that has been barely touched in decades.