From: becker@super.org (Donald J. Becker) Subject: Re: video card survey -- generic Tseng Labs card description Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 19:16:24 GMT
(If anyone knows where to order a ET4000 data sheet/manual, knows how
to program the dot clocks, or has a similar video card please email
me, becker@super.org.)
I just purchased what I believe to be the lowest-priced priced ET-4000
card available. The advertisement was from the September Computer
Shopper. It cost $89 +$2 credit card charge + $4 shipping = $95 total.
I ordered from "PIOTECH", the "East Coast" part of the ad, but they
get the boards from the CA address so you might as well order from
there.
Features:
ET4000, HiColor, 1M memory, ?synthesized, programmable dot clock?.
It's under $100.
Misfeatures:
Wierd, really wierd, lower-case L. I'm almost used to it, but it
takes a while.
Programmable dot clock.
Physical
The box is multi-color printed and titled with an barely-readable
script font. It comes with a 3/8" thick manual covered with the same
tree/leaf-like motif, the foam-surrounded board, and package of three
disk, two labeled 4MAX. No address or company names appear anywhere,
except for several references to the "ET4000 data book available from
your dealer".
The board is a 16 bit ISA with 8 256Kx4 DRAMs in sockets, a surface
mounted ET-4000, one socketed EPROM with a silver label stating ET4000
HiColor, one other socketed ROM-like chip (the RAMDAC?), a 50.000Mhz
crystal and a small number of glue logic DIPs. There is one DBc15
video connector on the panel, and no other connections (e.g. "feature
connector").
Logical
The board reports itself as a "Tseng Labs ET4000 with 1024K 2/1/92" at boot
time, or something close to that text. It comes with MS-DOS software,
including the usual set of test and utility programs, a font editor
and loader, several fonts, and drivers for various MS-DOS software
packages. I run Linux and X, so this didn't matter to me.
Comments
The package I received was not shop-worn, but it might have been a
return. The card-edge connectors were well marked and the manual had
a penned-in arrow to a warning on one page. The third disk in the
included software was a generic disk with a small green dot
hand-marked with "win 3.1". This disk had (obviously) Windows 3.1
drivers on it. Perhaps someone was just trying to do me a favor by
including a later release of the drivers.
I have had two problems with XFree86v2.0beta. Both may be my fault or
beta-release problems. The first is that X386 never reports the same set of
dot clocks. The first two are always the standard VGA rates, but the
rest change every time I start X. I get around this by having every
resolution have parameters for a range of dot-clock rates i.e.
1024x768 has listings for 64,65 and 66Mhz. The second problem is that
flipping through resolutions under X386 occasionally loses foreground
and background colors on one resolution only. I blame society...uhm,
I mean the beta version of XFree86.
I've run the board at 1152x900, but sometimes I get "sparklies". I
think I'm picking a bad dot clock, but I don't know. The image is
fine at 1024x768.
Ordering info
See Computer Shopper or email me -- I don't want to promote the place I
bought it from. Mine was shipped the day I ordered, and it arrived in
4 business days. It worked well enough that I tried to order 4 more
for friends today -- they were honest enough to admit that they
wouldn't have them in stock until Thursday. I will probably still
order them... many places would have taken my order and said "Our
computer says we have them in stock".
Don Becker (becker@super.org)
-- Donald Becker becker@super.org Supercomputing Research Center, Institute for Defense Analyses 17100 Science Drive, Bowie MD 21114 301-805-7482