dan@blender.UUCP (Dan Keizer) (01/10/90)
I have recently aquired a 386 machine with a vga board. The manual says it is a "EXPERT TopVGA 3000 SERIES VGA Adapter" and the manual is dated october 24, 1988. Very bright red in color and seems to be typeset with ventura. Anyway ... the machine boots up with the following message: TVGA BIOS C3-128 Ver1.03 256K VGA MODE Note that the text "256" and "VGA" are displayed in yellow, not white. The manual describes how to set the switch settings to use either an analog or digital monitor. This requires moving one switch. The beast has six switches, of which, the manual does not describe their use. It fully supports CGA/EGA/MONO/HERC/VGA/extended row/column definitions, but only described by the software. I want to know what the other switch settings are for. It should be for changing the board to be in a different configuration, at least one would think so. The distributor has no information on it. Not that they're telling me anyway. Anyone else using a board like this and know what these switches do? (BTW: I have only 256K, one bank, of memory installed on the board, and it does take another 256K, that's what the previuos text describes on bootup. Any help is appreciated. Dan Keizer calgary!wsscal!dan or calgary!xenlink!blender!dan
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (01/13/90)
In article <87@blender.UUCP> dan@blender.UUCP (Dan Keizer) writes: | I have recently aquired a 386 machine with a vga board. The manual says | it is a "EXPERT TopVGA 3000 SERIES VGA Adapter" and the manual is dated | october 24, 1988. Very bright red in color and seems to be typeset with | ventura. Anyway ... the machine boots up with the following message: | TVGA BIOS C3-128 Ver1.03 | 256K VGA MODE How about "Trident" copyright. Sounds like a Trident chipset and BIOS to me, although I have seen lots of cards based on it, like Hedaka and Logix. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me
dlow@hpspcoi.HP.COM (Danny Low) (01/16/90)
>Note that the text "256" and "VGA" are displayed in yellow, not white. >The manual describes how to set the switch settings to use either an analog >or digital monitor. This requires moving one switch. The beast has six >switches, of which, the manual does not describe their use. It's quite possible that the other switches have no use. The engineer may have used the 6 switch part because that was the company standard even though he needed only one of them. Danny Low "Question Authority and the Authorities will question You" Valley of Hearts Delight, Silicon Valley HP SPCD dlow%hpspcoi@hplabs.hp.com ...!hplabs!hpspcoi!dlow
charlie@csnz.co.nz (Charles Lear) (01/23/90)
In article <87@blender.UUCP> dan@blender.UUCP (Dan Keizer) writes: >TVGA BIOS C3-128 Ver1.03 >256K VGA MODE That's the Trident chipset and BIOS that is installed on your machine. Trident cards seem to be very popular in the Far East at the moment, we get all our DataExpert machines supplied with either an 8 or 16 bit Trident card and we have never had any problems with them. The card should come with a disk of drivers for popular software. I have come across a couple of hassles with my favourite programs (VPIC etc) not working properly with the Trident VBIOS, I think it is just a matter of time before there are enough in the US market to make direct support by software authors worthwhile. I have never had any hardware problems or incompatibilities with the card, however a couple of months back someone in Australia mentioned having a hard time getting it to sync properly in 1024x768x16 mode: the cure was to replace the 40.000 MHz crystal on the card with a 37.500 MHz one. I have never personally done that so can't say for sure if it works, or if all TVGA cards will have the same fault. Disclaimer: Computer Sciences NZ has nothing to do with DataExpert computers. I own half of the company which has the New Zealand distributorship for DE. ============================================================================== Charlie "The Bear" Lear Snail: Box 12-175, Wellington, New Zealand The Cave BBS: 64(4)643429 24hrs V21/23/22/22bis Free Access 157MB online! UUCP: ..!uunet!vuwcomp!dsiramd!csnz!charlie Domain: charlie@csnz.co.nz ==============================================================================