mmshah@athena.mit.edu (Milan M Shah) (09/19/90)
Since the topic was brought up by someone other than myself, I feel inclined to recount my experience with Video 7 and their SVGA (Shit VGA) cards. Company where I did some contract work this summer has a good mix of Northgate Elegance/33, AST Premiums/33, and any number of compatibles. Most have Video 7 1024i in them. They all have the same problem - if you try to use Codeview for Windows (and therefore have a second mono card in your system), your VGA screen will go black and white. Bad. Bad. Bad. I have tried n number of compatible mono cards, an original Hercules card, and an original IBM PC MDA card (yes, the original one). Same problem on all machines. No can debug. I took up the matter with them 2.5 months ago, and have since dealt with a trio of programmed droids names Dave, Angela, and Roger. Very smart machines, they are - they can tell exactly when you are away from your desk, call back, and leave the message "We are aware of the problem - a solution will be available in 2 to 3 weeks". On most machines, even the standard VGA driver that comes with Win 3 does the same thing. We tried a Paradise 1024i and, as a control, a PS/2 with built in VGA. Of course, they worked flawlessly. The Paradise worked in all VGA and SVGA modes. As far as I am concerned, the Video 7 1024i is not fully IBM compatible (note that it screws up even in standard VGA mode). I want a full refund. The new drivers do not work. In fact, they come with no documentation and only with a Windows program called V7setup. You guessed it - V7setup dies when you try to run it in either Real, Standard, or Enhanced mode. Their first promise to me was given on or about the 1st of June. I believe several 2-3 week periods have elapsed. But I cannot get past Dave-Angela-Roger. So, I ended up purchasing a Paradise 1024i, one for company, one for myself, and have half a mind to include code in my programs that detects a Video 7, tells the user to get a Paradise/other, and then quits. Moral: GO WITH PARADISE. Milan I don't work for any of the companies mentioned above...
aaron@jessica.stanford.edu (Aaron Wallace) (09/20/90)
In article <1990Sep18.194810.2713@athena.mit.edu> mmshah@athena.mit.edu (Milan M Shah) writes: >Since the topic was brought up by someone other than myself, I feel >inclined to recount my experience with Video 7 and their SVGA (Shit >VGA) cards. >Most have Video 7 1024i in them. They all have the same problem - if >you try to use Codeview for Windows (and therefore have a second mono >card in your system), your VGA screen will go black and white. Bad. >Bad. Bad. > >I have tried n number of compatible mono cards, an original Hercules >card, and an original IBM PC MDA card (yes, the original one). Same >problem on all machines. No can debug. > Were the Video 7 cards running in 8 or 16-bit mode? I'm not even sure if this can be configured on them, but they may have to be in 8-bit mode to work with other 8-bit cards that reside in the same address space. Mono cards and VGA cards tend to share the B000 space. And, as a good article in PC Mag stated, what happens is that the 16-bit card says send the data in 16-bits, even if it's intended for the 8-bit card. Some cards sense when there could be a conflict and auto-set themselves to 8-bits (maybe Paradise does?), and this addressing conflict isn't a problem with MCA (PS/2 VGA)... Just a hunch... Aaron Wallace
pfeifer@hpavla.AVO.HP.COM (Mark Pfeifer) (09/20/90)
/ hpavla:comp.windows.ms / aaron@jessica.stanford.edu (Aaron Wallace) / 1:09 pm Sep 19, 1990 / In article <1990Sep18.194810.2713@athena.mit.edu> mmshah@athena.mit.edu (Milan M Shah) writes: >Most have Video 7 1024i in them. They all have the same problem - if >you try to use Codeview for Windows (and therefore have a second mono >card in your system), your VGA screen will go black and white. Bad. >Bad. Bad. > The official response from Video-7 is that this is a bug in the drivers that they know about and are working on now. They put my name on a waiting list to be notified when new drivers become available. Mark
karl@ficc.ferranti.com (Karl Lehenbauer) (09/21/90)
In article <16980012@hpavla.AVO.HP.COM> pfeifer@hpavla.AVO.HP.COM (Mark Pfeifer) writes: >The official response from Video-7 is that this is a bug in the drivers that >they know about and are working on now. They put my name on a waiting list >to be notified when new drivers become available. The latest drivers on the Video-7 BBS (look in the "miscellaneous" download area) do not have this problem. -- -- uunet!ficc!karl "jackpot: you may have an unnecessary change record" uunet!sugar!karl -- v7 diff