From: peter@caro.trl.OZ.AU (Peter K. Campbell)
Subject: Re: Tseng Labs 24bit SUPER-VGA card
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne, Australia
Distribution: aus
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 04:24:43 GMT

OK, I've been to the PC Show, so now I've got a story to tell.  To start
off with - all of my information comes from Microarts, who are effectively
the Melbourne distributors for Tseng (that is, whenever Tseng puts out
something new, they have it first) as well as MediaVision (PAS-16 soundcard).
The either incorporate or include Chips & Bits Australia, which may
explain this.

For those who asked, their details are:
	Microarts Australia Group
	359 Clarendon Street
	South Melbourne
	Victoria  3205
	Phone: (03) 696 5955 or (008) 335 148
	Fax:   (03) 696 1942
They also have another office somewhere in Melbourne, but I can't find the
info offhand.

I have no affiliation with the company, just several friends who have
bought computers and/or cards off them, and have been quite satisfied.
Mind you, if any of you from Microarts are reading this and would like
to give me a discount for the plug, feel free :-)

I do not know who to get Tseng et. al. from in Sydney or Perth, but I
suppose the local Green Guides there should tell you (or don't they
have them there?).

Anyway, on with the story.  I was told that Tseng, flushed with the
success of their initial graphics cards (esp. the Tseng 4000) decided
to branch out into other areas; I think it was LCD screens in laptops
(don't quote me, I was there the entire day & got a bit tired).
Whilst this was happening they weren't concentrating all that much
on the main PC market, which is why nothing really came out whilst
others were developing S3 type "accelerator" chips.

However, someone beat them to the punch & they got severely burned,
hence decided to rip right back into the PC area.  To capture future
market they came out with, as it turned out, rather extravagant claims
as to what they would provide, i.e. the previously described X32
with graphics accelerator, 24 bit colour to 1280x1024, local bus,
and due out by June.

They eventually realized that this just couldn't be done just yet
with the current hardware, and so have put that project slightly
on the backburner.  They didn't give much warning of this - if you
read the PC show blurb in the booklet for Microarts you'll see it
actually says that they would be demonstrating the X32 at the
show; they didn't find out otherwise until a week beforehand.

However, what they did have was flyers for the new card.  This
is the W32 (gone back a letter due to cut-down), which is meant
to be identical to the previous description I gave for the
X32, except that it only has 16 bit colour (64K) in 1024x768
and 1280x1024 resolution modes, with due date by end of 
September.

It is still meant to support up to 4Mb of DRAM, however.  Now,
you only need 4Mb if you want 1280x1024 x 24 bit; the support
for the W32 would only need a bit over 2.5 MB.  So, I don't
know if there will be a simple upgrade from the W32 to the X32
like there was with the Sierra dac on the ET4000 originally or
not.

Bus support - it says 16/32 bit support, so I presume there will
be two versions of the card - one for the ISA 16 bit slot, and
the other for the 32 bit local bus.  Don't quote me, however.

Now, the MA guy said that the cards had only missed the PC Show
by a week, i.e. they will have a few advance copies in THIS
WEEK, with main production coming in by the end of the month,
with all drivers for Windows & OS/2 (seamless).

So, we are currently hassling MA to see the card when it comes
in.  A friend of mine usually buys new Tseng cards as soon as
he can get his hands on them, so with any luck I'll be posting
another article within a week to say how great it is - but don't
hold your breath ;-).

For those of you who can't wait, you could contact Tseng directly
in Taiwan (good luck); their phone number is +886-2-713-9974 and
Fax is 886-2-712-1075.

If anyone knows anything more or thinks some of the above is
wrong, please correct me.

Standard diclaimer:  I have no affiliation with any of the
companies mentioned, except as a customer, and the use of
trademarks (ET4000/W32 is now a trademark of Tseng) is in
no way meant to represent anything on my behalf that might
get me sued.

Peter K. Campbell
p.campbell@trl.oz.au
Newsgroups: aus.computers.ibm-pc