Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Speaking of interesting and uncommon pieces of history, I was browsing eBay today and ran across a very odd variant of the 8514 Ultra... an ISA/Microchannel combo version.

I never knew such a thing existed...

cool

As odd as http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons … 00_ISA_EISA.jpg

Eisa + ISA

I use this card in this machine:

^
Weird. I'm guessing the little dip switches are for changing between EISA and ISA mode?

@retro
Dude... you manage to dig up some odd crap. First of all, an S3 911 is probably one of the worse choices you could make for a 386 DOS machine, since those first-gen S3 chips suck pretty hard at DOS. But, even putting that aside, it'd be pretty redundant to hook the ATi card to that S3 card... they're both 8514-based designs with similar accelerated capabilities, and the S3 supports higher color depths.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

@retro
Dude... you manage to dig up some odd crap. First of all, an S3 911 is probably one of the worse choices you could make for a 386 DOS machine, since those first-gen S3 chips suck pretty hard at DOS. But, even putting that aside, it'd be pretty redundant to hook the ATi card to that S3 card... they're both 8514-based designs with similar accelerated capabilities, and the S3 supports higher color depths.

🤣 😦 The problem is that I'm scavenging about for scraps! I guess this old stuff is about 20 years old now...

I ran 3DBench, and get 25.0 using this ISA card. If I swap it out for a Dell Nitro PCI card, I get 71.4. That's on a 5x86 133MHz system. I guess using this ISA card is a bit like pressing the turbo button. Off, that is. 😉

Old usenet archives are a good source to keep handy when hunting for old hardware parts. For example, here`s a decent list of various video chipsets and their capabilities. You certainly aren't going to find every detail about every piece of hardware ever made, but such resources can at least offer some insights about the more common bits, so you're not wandering completely blind.

A good guide to follow 'back in the day' was to avoid anything marketed as a 2d-accelerator or Windows accelerator as they were often slower in dos than pure-VGA designs.

The ATI card seems to be a 8514A clone. It was probably working all the time.
Plug it in with another VGA card and use a application that utilizes the 8514A.
For a first try Dosshell with the 8514A Video driver is sufficient.
Or try Win 3.1 with the 8514A driver for video.

(Original 8514A: http://mail.lipsia.de/~enigma/neu/ps2/8514a.jpg)

I think you don't require to hook the Vesa connector...
Only if you want to plug the monitor cable permanently to the Ati card. It resembles probably only the VGA through that is implemented on PS/2 systems directly as MCA Bus feature.

I would go for the Paradise PVGA1A first. As early ISA video card it's very ok.

Some time ago I have done some benches with Duke3D, also with a few ISA cards:
Duke Nukem 3D mit DNRATE / P166MMX

Card 320x200 640x480
V7 Vega ISA 9 -
http://mail.lipsia.de/~enigma/neu/pics/cl_vga.jpg
Paradise PVGA1A ISA 23 -
http://mail.lipsia.de/~enigma/neu/pics/pvga1a.jpg
WDC90C11 ISA 32 9 +
ET4000AX ISA 14 3 with VESA 1.2 from SC2000
early version 3 with UniVBE 6.70
http://mail.lipsia.de/~enigma/neu/pics/et4000.jpg
other ET4000AX 32 9 UniVBE6.70
1 MB 34 UniVBE 6.70
Trident
TVGA 8800C 512kB 17

Your beep codes sound like what my 386DXL was doing before I replaced the old video card that wouldn't POST with a Mach64 ISA. The video card is not being recognized by the BIOS for some reason or it's being diagnosed as bad so it's giving you the video card not present or not working beeps. Cleaning the contacts on the card with a pencil eraser might help if any pins aren't making good contact. I used to know of a way of getting down inside the slot and cleaning those contacts but I haven't done it in so long I wouldn't even know where to find the information. If cleaning the contacts doesn't help, you're probably going to have to replace the card.

everyone, many thanks for the info! 😀 sliderider, please note that the ATI 8514 card is a co-processor only card. In order to get it to function, I need to use it in conjunction with a regular VGA card.

Maybe you can pair it up with an ATi VGAWonder XL24. That would be a pretty sweet combo.

It works! Using a 386DX-40 and a bus speed of 13.3, I get a magnificently bad score of 1.9 using PcpBench, with its default mode 100.
Ah...retro junk - even when I get bad scores, it feels good! 😁

Be careful with such a high bus speed and older ISA components, you might burn something in the long run.
I tried 13.3 MHz quite often and on first glance it seems to work, but then 'things happened' as, graphical glitches, unreliable IDE transfers (bye bye written data) and freezes due to unreliable reads.
I usually go for 10 MHz which is just moderatly overclocked.

I would like to have some impressions how well the 8514A clone works in Win 3.x. (1024x768x256)
Especially it's speed compared to the original 8514A.

Yes, you're right. 10 MHz is the best overclock to go for. After all, there's not much point in overclocking a 386. It's better to use a 486 or Pentium for that. I was just messing about. Re: 8514A + Win 3.x. That's a good idea. I might install Win 3.x one day, and check that out!

Amigaz wrote:

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_QyE3126ASao/TStiDa9QDXI/AAAAAAAACSY/SPzFSezorg0/s800/IMG_0520.JPG […]
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Beautiful! 😁

Malik wrote:

Amigaz wrote:

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_QyE3126ASao/TStiDa9QDXI/AAAAAAAACSY/SPzFSezorg0/s800/IMG_0520.JPG […]
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Beautiful! 😁

Agree, I believe this is one of the last quality built Compaq computers...built like a tank

More Amigaz Compaq porn here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jivemaster2005/Compaq486

And it's 386 "little brother" with a CX 386-->486 upgrade

http://picasaweb.google.com/jivemaster2005/Compaq386

Amigaz wrote:

And it's 386 "little brother" with a CX 386-->486 upgrade

😳 got any pics of those? 😁

Tetrium wrote:

Amigaz wrote:

And it's 386 "little brother" with a CX 386-->486 upgrade

😳 got any pics of those? 😁

Can take a pic of my boxed CX 386--> 486 upgrade if you want....

Re: 8514A + Win 3.x. That's a good idea. I might install Win 3.x one day, and check that out!

Wait... you were trying to test it out, and you don't have Windows installed? You do realize that card is almost entirely useless in DOS, right? As in, DOS programs aren't even going to be aware of its existence, save for a few games and shells and such that include their own 8514 drivers (which should work on the Mach8).

Wait... are you aware that the 8514A was introduced in 1987 with the same system that introduced VGA? This was 5 years before Win 3.1 got released and it is considered as predecessor of the later Super VGA cards and Win2D graphics acceleration functions.
Of course no one uses the original software f.e. CAD programs that utilized the 8514A anymore. But Win 3.1 is somehow a more common OS that still can use this card.
So I consider the Mach8 much more interesting than a SuperVGA card. There is no big disadvantage either, he even could use both cards at the same time in parallel...

Wait... are you aware that the 8514A was introduced in 1987 with the same system that introduced VGA? This was 5 years before Win 3.1 got released and it is considered as predecessor of the later Super VGA cards and Win2D graphics acceleration functions.

Yes, I'm aware of that. But you said yourself, nobody uses the few DOS programs that could take advantage of the 8514/clones... Windows is about the only remaining common software that can make use of the card. So, if you're not using Windows, the card is pretty much useless, as I stated before.

There is this game 😀
http://www.classicdosgames.com/game/Mah_Jongg_-8514-.html