VOGONS


First post, by Stormbringer

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Gentlemen,

Been lurking here for a while but now I have a reason to post... I'm trying to restore a Deskpro286 and got myself a Video card recently. Unfortunately I cant find any documentation out there on it at all.
Its some kind of "Ventura CHROMA 200017 Video Card TSENG ET4000AX Gold Turbo 2.0". Has anyone heard of this card or do any of these jumbled words make sense? what the heck is the "Turbo 2.0"? It has a composite output but I'm not able to get that sucker working. Also, it had a sticker on a chip that said "Pal 206" which leads me to believe this is for over the pond use. under the sticker I found the markings pal16l8dcn.

On a side note, I this is replacing an EGA card that I have which DOES output to composite in grayscale if someone wants to make an offer, let me know. Its an Everex EV 659A with some odd feature card slapped onto it. I am pretty sure that feature card is what is enabling the composite output to work. the feature card has "ATWOOD RESEARCH GSC-EP" on it. Also, what came in the deskpro286 that I purchased was a teleprompter card "Telescript PC Prompter Controller Interface made in the usa 125-401 rev a".

Reply 1 of 3, by keropi

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don't pay much attention to the name, it's just a Cheng chipset vga 😀
the "pal 206" sticker on the PAL16 chip does not nescesarrily mean that it is for PAL output. PAL16 series chips are "Programmable Array Logic" ones and 206 is most likely the code version burned to it...
I can't help on the composite output , maybe there is a Tseng DOS utility to activate it, I am sure someone here will know

🎵 🎧 PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 2 of 3, by idspispopd

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Tseng ET4000AX is an excellent chip for ISA cards, should be a very good performer. Probably overkill for a 286, a slower card shouldn't make a difference.
This card?

Dissection of the name:

  • Ventura : Brand/maker
  • CHROMA : Series/model
  • 200017 : Model number
  • Video Card : ...
  • TSENG ET4000AX : Chip designation (brand and model)
  • Gold Turbo 2.0 : Marketing mumbo-jumbo

Regarding PAL: Modern flatscreen TV's don't care that much about PAL or NTSC, they should just sync. I suppose you will need some kind of vendor specific utility to enable the output.

Reply 3 of 3, by Stormbringer

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Yep, thats the card all right!

It works fine with VGA, has 1meg of ram - I assumed it would have been 512 but hey, awesome!

Havent tried the s-video yet but I did try the composite and got no signal on both of my TV's. Apparently the higher end TV's sometimes do PAL and NTSC but again, I dont know if that PAL 206 sticker means its PAL or the output just isnt enabled yet (I tried all the jumpers). I thought there might be some kind of utility for it but I cant even find mention of the maker anywhere on the nets! I'd really like to get the composite working but I guess thats not a big deal...