Throwing old computer computer parts, mainly ISA graphics cards (porn) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 09:19:39 am
content: Caution: the contents of this thread are bodgy:Expect copious old graphics card porn.Someone in this forum section was asking about old computer parts about a month ago, so I might as well ask if anyone here wants them. Otherwise I'm going to brutally murder them for random ICs and connectors.I live near the airport in Sydney, Australia. PM or post here if you're interested in picking something up.I found it all neatly stacked in ESD bags a few council cleanups ago, but I can't vouch if any of it works. None the less: enjoy looking at the photos!MAIN-S2 BOARDBrother HL-8e (1989) printer mainboardBottom black connector looks suspiciously like IDE and the rest of the black connectors are for card-edges. Top white connector seems to be for memory (see later).I'm not sure what this main-board doesbut I'm tempted to hook up 5V to its screw points to find out. Alas I'd spiral into the wonderland of "maybe I have the serial pinout right THIS time" for several days and start to lose contact with my friends, family and university.EDIT: It's aBrother HL-8eprinter mainboard. Thanks PA0PBZWith it I also found what looks to be a memory module:Unfortunately the connector is symmetrical -- it works both ways, and I don't have a clue which is correctLarge graphics card twins1987 Truevision graphics cardTop and bottom, both cards are identical as far as I can see:Again I can't find a model number to ID these cards. When you find something likethisin the silkscreen...... you know the PCB designers are taking the piss out of you.These cards are extremely pretty. Designed out of at least 3 separate PCBS, they are separated by ordinary 2.54mm pitch headers and all of the components are on the inside.(Setting of this picture chosen to match beauty of the cards themselves):You should notice the very regular pattern of through-holes on the rear. That's the memory: SIL packageheaven:Chomp chomp chompCuriosly these cards have both a VGA output and an input. Perhaps they did live video layering/processing:True-vision TVB-573It seems this puppy was designed for processing:It also came with an info booklet about why the TGA format is so great, but I can't put up scans here because I have misplaced it.Interlace twinsTop card is missing its daughterboard.Interestingly they come with 3 BNC jacks as well as traditional D-sub VGA. They are not labelled, however I presume they're for video split into components.Various othersDual-slot compatibility?Multiple (outputs?):Trident card came with a manual:(Woot, mine has the full 1MiB!)EDIT: I love the fact they place trust in the hands of the consumer to track down and buy more DRAM chips. ATI/Nvidia/Intel would sever a thumb before asking a customer to even flip a dip-switch.Enjoy!

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 09:23:23 am
content: Tseng Labs were the ducks guts back in the day.

author: PA0PBZ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 09:38:17 am
content: The first board ("MAIN-S2 BOARD") is from a (nearly) first generation Canon laser printer or oem model. It was the 8 PPM model with the EPS cartridge. The 2 black connectors on the left are for font cartridges.Sorry, could not find better pics.

author: gregariz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 09:41:20 am
content: I feel old looking at these. When did that happen?

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 10:04:46 am
content: Quote from: PA0PBZ on April 24, 2014, 09:38:17 amAwesome3mB (max) 300dpi laser printer. There has not been as much improvement as I expected since 1989. They even had emulation code in the printer's ROM so it could be directly swapped for a competitor's item without fiddling with new drivers -- we have gone so far backward since thenTis a shame there is not much an old printer can be hacked into. I'm curious about its supposedoptional 'video' interfacehowever.

author: PA0PBZ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 10:19:07 am
content: Quote from: Whales on April 24, 2014, 10:04:46 amThat's where the "optional I/O" on the back comes into play. It's something common to what we call GDI today. I remember having a huge ISA card with some TMS DSP processors on it which hooked up to a pcb inside that optional I/O slot.

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 10:28:11 am
content: Quote from: PA0PBZ on April 24, 2014, 10:19:07 amDid it interpret graphics in a different format for printing, or was it a video output card?EDIT: Just a protocol for receiving bitmaps.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Device_Interface#GDI_printers

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 10:38:18 am
content: Inside the SIL heaven cardsOne of the daughter boards:Beautiful array of parts in an extremely tight layout. EDIT: Spot the black bodge wire!With only modern computer experience: It's a little scary to see power resistors and trimpots in a graphics card. They go with the 74 series logic of course O0I might nick those LM6364N's at least: they claim up to 175 MHz (at unity gain, I assume). Considering I don't have any op-amps lying around at the moment (), this is especially prudent.Here is the whole main-board. The second daughter board (not pictured) is almost a duplicate of it's memory section.Inside we can see Truevision branding. IDK why they decided to put that silk-screening in an invisible location -- perhaps they simply didn't care/notice.I'd really like to know if anyone can shed light on the seemingly random lines of text along the edges of these cards. They're a bit excessive for UUIDs even by today's standards, and I can't see them serving a practical manufacturing purpose (eg alignment).

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2014, 08:38:26 pm
content: The Tseng and STB graphics cards with 2 connectors are VESA local bus cards, and were 8/16/32 bit bus cards. Plug into a ISA slot and it was 8 bit. Plug into VESA local bus and it was 32 bit and a lot faster, only using the ISA bus for power. Think I still have a VESA local bus raid card around, it was fast for the time.

author: Fagear
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2014, 09:30:16 am
content: There are some great videocards!I have my own collection of old video/audio/other-MM cards and I realy want some of those card. But unfortunately I'm in Russia and can not pick them up.

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2014, 12:01:47 pm
content: Quote from: Fagear on April 26, 2014, 09:30:16 amFor the same reason I have not thrown them out yet, I'm still reluctant to take a soldering iron to them for parts. My inner hoarder (ooh shiny things!) won't release it's grasp on me.I think Imighthave an old P1 system lying around with ISA slots I could try to get some of them working in. Getting the software side (1987-93 operating systems + drivers) is probably going to be nigh on impossible, however.

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2014, 12:28:24 pm
content: Quote from: Psi on April 26, 2014, 12:24:25 pmOi! ISA porn only! -- we have standards in this thread.back when 256MiB would literally take that many SM packages.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2014, 12:34:07 pm
content: haha true, id not noticed

author: x689thanatos
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: February 01, 2015, 03:40:44 pm
content: Hello every one, I have just created an account because i look for more information about the truevision card.first, excuse me for my bad english.second point, Thank you EEVblog for your vidéos, always interesting and fun.Ok, back to what bring me here.This won't help you much, but the truevision 1987 sandwich cards labeled B and the card labeled C works together.I have these monster card connected together with a bridge

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2015, 05:06:51 pm
content: Hi, that appears to be the a very rare Truevision ATVista board. Truevision were an interesting company that was spun out of AT&T in 1987. They were later purchased by Pinnacle, which then merged with Avid. The ATVista was from their third generation of video capture/processing/output cards (the TrueVista series), and had broadcast-quality output in PAL or NTSC. There was also a NuVista, made for the Macintosh II. The list price was over $5000.You can see Truevision brochures with pictures of some of their early products here:http://www.thecomputerarchive.com/archive/Displays/Video%20Cards/ATT%20TrueVision%20lineup.pdfUnfortunately there are no photos in it of the ATVista, but that's definitely what your board is (It has the TI34010 Graphics Processor).I expect that the cryptic letters along the board edge are initials of the engineers who produced it.The OP's boards labeled I & K are VMAXX-10 from Interlace Engineering. I couldn't find out much about this company, other than they were also active in the GIS area. They made later cards called VMAXX-20 and VMAXX-30. One of his boards has a daughtercard called "Multi-standard encoder" with controls for either PAL or NTSC x "SQP" or "4FSC". This refers to the two ways of digitizing composite video: with square pixels, so that a NTSC frame would be 640x480; or aligned to the color subcarrier, for non-square pixels giving a stretched image of 720x480.the other brands of cards shown are just cheap consumer stuff

author: EEVmarty
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2015, 10:11:23 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on April 24, 2014, 09:23:23 amYep, the Tseng Labs ET4000 ;-)

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2015, 02:54:02 pm
content: Quote from: EEVmarty on February 03, 2015, 10:11:23 amAnd the 6000. Unfortunately they never got onto the 3D bandwagon or professional 2D CAD. When you looked at tests results in reviews the Tseng labs cards usually kept performing equally well at high resolutions compared to other cards.

author: elgonzo
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 03, 2015, 03:11:19 pm
content: Quote from: EEVmarty on February 03, 2015, 10:11:23 amThe glorious ET4000.Had one which supported 8bpp at 1024x768. Just transferring the data for one image in that resolution took ages over the ISA bus. Good old times...

author: SL4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2015, 03:35:32 pm
content: Helius beat me to it - Truevision and their Targa cards were the absolute top end of professional video cards -literallyvideo as opposed to generic desktop display technology.Not necessarily the highest resolution, but true 800x600 / 640x480 rasters - synced and displayed in true PAL/NTSC interlaced fields at 50/60HzThey held the flag high for the earliest desktop 'broadcast' video cards - notably with genlock inputs and sync overlay capabilities for on-screen character generators etc. These were expensive cards - living in the same room as Hercules, and SVGA cards for general purpose computing!Later cards, faster chipsets, and eventually 4:4:4:4 component digital processing allowed computers to take over all aspects of video generation.

author: VintageTekFan
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2015, 06:40:50 pm
content: Those 'dual slot' ones appear to be VLB - VESA Local Bus. It was an extension to ISA and a stop-gap before the transition to PCI.More info on wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_Local_BusAny chance you're willing to part with one or two ISA VGA cards? Older the better. I have needs...

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2015, 05:20:27 am
content: Quote from: VintageTekFan on February 03, 2015, 06:40:50 pmReally sorry, I threw them out last year.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2015, 08:58:51 am
content: @VintageTekFan: I think I still have a few ISA video cards. I'll try and find them if you are interested.

author: VintageTekFan
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2015, 02:05:47 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 04, 2015, 08:58:51 amI'd only need a single 8bit ISA slot VGA card. I'm trying to replace an old CGA card in a DMX lighting board.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2015, 04:59:50 pm
content: I found a 16 bit ISA Cirrus card today if you are interested. Thought I had tossed them all years ago. Still have a single 8 bit ( IIRC ) EGA card in an old box.

author: VintageTekFan
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2015, 06:06:17 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on February 05, 2015, 04:59:50 pmThanks, but the bus has only an 8bit connector.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2015, 06:30:15 pm
content: Will look in the Ewaste box tomorrow, i tossed a few ISA cards in there, and there might be a few 8 bit ones in there. If so i will pack them up and get them ready to post to you if you want.Want an ISA card Eprom programmer? It is in the box as well, got it years ago but the software is long gone.

author: Elanvrt
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: May 31, 2018, 09:55:55 am
content: I was a programmer and user of the Truevision VISTA card from 1990 to around 2000 when it was being phased out.VISTA was not just a video card, it was a complete computer-on-a-board, with its own processor (Texas Instruments 34010 graphic CPU)All data exchange was done using only two I/O ports. Therefore the card did not show up in the main CPU's memory map.All image data and software for the TI processor needed to be passed through this bridge.In-and output connectors are not VGA (that did not exist yet!) but PAL/NTSC compatible RGBA-sync. To work with composite PAL/NTSC, one needed a separate PAL/NTSC encoder or decoder unit.Direct output was possible on any TV monitor that supported RGB input, such as those with a SCART plug or a PGA computer monitor. We needed to construct a custom cable for these.Working for the Belgian Radio and Television. (until present), I developed a lot of software for the VISTA.Programming was done in Microsoft C, under MSDOS. VISTA used a driver called "STAGE". The TI processor had its own C compiler and assembler, called "BackStage".By the end, my VISTA card was capable of chroma keying, 2D and 3D image transformation (scaling, rotation) using my own routines written in TI34010 assembler.The card was used for quiz shows, weather forecast, election results and my crown piece was an animation package that was used for electronic processing of the cell-animation series "Musti"Of course, speed was nothing like current graphics cards. Image transform was not frames-per-second, it was seconds-per-frame.All source codes for the STAGE and BACKSTAGE drivers were supplied (where do you see that today?) so eventually I converted this driver for use with Windows 95 and 98.

author: kaz911
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2018, 10:55:29 am
content: Quote from: Elanvrt on May 31, 2018, 09:55:55 amJust a slight correctin - VGA was there from 1987 - 31 years ago - with DB15 connectors.Jolt Coke Can pictures in 320x200 in 256 colors!

author: Elanvrt
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: May 31, 2018, 03:30:11 pm
content: Okay, the ATVista card was released a few years later (1989) But its output was definitely not VGA compatible, because VGA sync pulses are incompatible with TV standard sync. In 1991 I had to modify my EGA/PGA monitor with a sync inverter to display VGA signals. In those days, colour monitors were too expensive to just discard :-)

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2018, 04:23:09 pm
content: I had a Trident card identical to the one shown - with 1024kB and all, used with our Nec Multisync 3D at astonishing 800x600@60Hz or 1024x768 interlaced (which was terribly flickery!).

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2018, 05:22:22 pm
content: Quote from: Elanvrt on May 31, 2018, 09:55:55 amTheTMS34010was used on a number of workstation-class graphics cards too, as well as arcade games. It was capable of some 3D graphics, especially the later 34020 variant with an companion geometry accelerator chip. They were also used in many X terminals around the 1990 timeframe.