terence@ttidca.TTI.COM (Terence Davis) (12/15/90)
I know it's been a while, but I've finally got all the hardware and software together and working for my PS/2 combination/NEC Graphics Engine. First off, the hardware: IBM PS/2 70-A21 NEC Graphics Engine with 256 Color capability NEC Multisync 4D The Software: OS/2 1.2 SE NEC Windows 3.0 driver NEC Graphics Engine OS/2 driver Installation of the card was simple. I added the extra memory daughter card (for the 256 colors) myself. It fits easily onto the main board. The NEC GE itself fits into the left most slot (as you're looking from the front of the PS/2) with the graphics extension. I only have one board in the machine, but it looks like a second full length board might come close to the NEC GE. I think it will fit, but it'll be close. This is a concern since the 70 (and 50) series PS/2 have only 3 slots. I figure one for the higher res video adapter, one for a memory board and the last one for a SCSI controller to hang a big disk and CD-ROM off of. I had to move the Sync-On-Green jumper to remove the green hue to the picture. This is covered in the NEC GE manual. Anyway, setup went fine and the NEC GE passed its diagnostics. Then I tried to install Windows 3.0 (since I didn't have the OS/2 driver yet). I had downloaded the Win 3.0 driver from the NEC BBS, but the Windows setup complained that the file was missing or corrupted. I should have investigated further, but I wanted to install OS/2. Maybe I'll try again later. The OS/2 install went fine. In the PS/2 reference disk configuration menu I had the NEC GE enabled, even though it wasn't going to be used. This caused no problem with normal operation in VGA modes. Even Windows 3.0 in the DOS compatibility box worked fine (although at normal VGA resolution). Finally, the OS/2 driver arrived ($199 list). It is impossible to order the driver directly from NEC, you MUST go through your dealer. The place I bought the monitor from, Computer Factory, was unable to get it for me or they wouldn't go through the trouble. It did, however, take them 2 weeks to figure this out. The place I bought the NEC GE itself from, Disc/3, got the driver in a little over a week. I was very pleased with their service. Disc/3 is a local Santa Monica place, while Computer Factory has many stores. Anyhow, the bottom line is: Make sure you keep in touch with your dealer, and if possible order the OS/2 driver with the card. I was stupid and waited 2 months. Also I'm not sure mail order houses are much better. The one I called, PC-BRAND, had a good price on the card but had no idea about the OS/2 driver. I guess since OS/2 is not on everyone's computer and even fewer of the ones that do have the NEC GE, it's not a real high priority for NEC to get the driver out. This is an understandable platform, but I think it should be possible to purchase the driver directly from NEC. They did say I could get an update from OS/2 1.1 -> OS/2 1.2 but I needed to already have the 1.1 driver. So, how did it work. Well it does indeed accelerate graphic functions. I haven't done any benchmarks, but obscured windows do get redrawn MUCH faster. My screen saver, DeskPic, works faster. In particluar, one saver which fills the screen with colored rectangles runs very much faster. One other note about the screen saver. It has a background picture feature. On standard VGA this takes up about 500K or so, however on the 1024x768 screen it takes up ~2 megabytes!!!! Needless to say I am living without my M31 backdrop. I have found some problems with the driver and some notes. First, many of the pop-up dialogs, such as the one that displays if the Dialog Editor can't find its help files, have the bottom of the first line cut off. This is not a terrible problem, but annoying. The fonts used in the OS/2 command windows are not the prettiest. I don't know if it's due to the smaller size, less pixels per character or what, but the screen fonts don't look as nice as they used to. Also, Charles Petzold's PMMANDEL program locks up as soon as it displays the frame window. I don't have the source code so I can't figure out why. It used to work with the NEC GE installed but before I installed the OS/2 driver. One installation note: The driver install places a new display.dll into /os2/dll. This new one is absolutly NOT able to operate without the special driver loaded from config.sys. It effectivly locks up the machine. I discovered this thusly: I have two config.sys type files. One for OS/2: config.os2 and the other for OS/2 with the DOS compatibility box on (for running Windows 3.0): config.dos. I've got two batch files dos.cmd and os2.cmd which copy the appropriate config.??? file to config.sys. The NEC install makes changes to the current config.sys, so when I typed os2 to eliminate the DOS compatibilty box, I killed things. I had to boot up with the OS/2 install disk to fix things. The one procedural note I've found so far is to wait until the machine is completely booted and settled down before doing anything, i.e. clicking on a program or icon. I have frozen the machine several times with a segmentation violation by doing this. On the whole, I think this is a great setup. Having 1024x768 resolution is really nice for programming. In general I can have two windows open at a time, without overlapping. This is great for watching a compile while using a communications session, or checking the file manager against a text file, etc. Once, I have more PM programs to use, I think I'll see a real increase in screen redraw speed. Some notes about the NEC 4D. Its a nice monitor, but expensive. It is also VERY deep. I thought my computer desk was real deep but with this thing on it the screen seems to be too close and the keyboard is forced up too close to the front. It sync'ed up to the high resolution no problem and the NEC GE install program had a preconfigured setup for it so I didn't have to worry about things like back-porch delay and the like. Although it's FCC class A, it doesn't mess up my TV as much as my old Compaq portable machine does. As I write this I'm using a Zenith FTM 1490. The 4D just doesn't have the same color brightness, although I haven't noticed any distortions or glares. All in all I'm very happy with the monitor. Although if Zenith made a flat screen monitor of high enough resolution I'd probably have gotten that instead. If you have any comments or questions please send them to me at: terence@ttidca.tti.com Terry