IMHO the best way would be to peel off the eprom labels up to the point you can read the eprom's part number , only this is a 100% sure way

Jolaes76 wrote:

I am thinking about dumping BIOS from my ISA and VLB cards (TSENG, S3, WD, Trident, Cirrus models) *NO PCI* I am having diff […]
Show full quote

I am thinking about dumping BIOS from my ISA and VLB cards (TSENG, S3, WD, Trident, Cirrus models) *NO PCI*
I am having difficulty identifying the chip types to feed into the EEPROM programmer.
I need some general advice like "Trident VLB cards usually use 27c512 compatible chips, WD uses xy... and so on.
Also I have read that many VGA BIOSes are over 32k in size, is that correct ?
Thanks for ANY insight!

Keropi's remark is absolutely right.
But I know that one does not always want to remove the sticker just to make a dump to save the BIOS.
You want to have your card in the best shape possible.

As a general rule I can say that these old ISA 16-Bit and VLB cards do have a 32 kB Bios. As long as they are not splitt in ODD and EVEN you can normally use 27C512 Chips as you intended.
I also dumped most of my VGA Bioses. I would like to provide these somewhere. It would be best to upload all old Bios dumps (for all sort of cards, motherboards etc) to one "source", as it is really hard to find the proper BIOSes nowadays.

To dump the chips I used a cheap G540 and it worked great. Now I've upgraded to a MiniPro TL866 because I had to dump a DIP40 Chip (BIOS of my Turtle Beach Pinnacle) that is not compatible with the G540.

moturimi1 wrote:

I also dumped most of my VGA Bioses. I would like to provide these somewhere. It would be best to upload all old Bios dumps (for all sort of cards, motherboards etc) to one "source", as it is really hard to find the proper BIOSes nowadays.

You can use vogonsdrivers.com. Contact squallstrife on this forum to get an account.

Thanks keropi and Dan for the tips,

OK, no concern for ruined stickers here 😀

But what to do when there is no identifiable part number ? Are all ISA/VESA VGA BIOS chips at least leg-compatible to safely assume this or that part ? Or only years of experience will teach me about making educated guesses...?

Some BIOS dumps I made came out right-looking (Copyright string etc readable at the start of file via Hex Editors) but others look sort-of "shifted" as if the ROM was divided into banks and not to be read back "linear" ( ODD and EVEN ??? )

I see that the VGA ROM dumps at VGA Museum also fall into these two categories: readable strings inside or looking garbage yet working when burned into a chip. I am a bit confused.

Why the need of separate EEPROM programmer to dump the contents?

Why not just put the card in a PC, and read the video BIOS contents while it is in the PC and just write it into a file?

Because AFAIK under DOS address lines might be shifted and how to be absolutely sure I have read the original content bit by bit ?

Jepael wrote:

Why the need of separate EEPROM programmer to dump the contents?

Why not just put the card in a PC, and read the video BIOS contents while it is in the PC and just write it into a file?

It seems that it is possible to dump the VGA BIOS directly from the card, as shown here: viewtopic.php?f=46&t=42560

vetz wrote:

moturimi1 wrote:

I also dumped most of my VGA Bioses. I would like to provide these somewhere. It would be best to upload all old Bios dumps (for all sort of cards, motherboards etc) to one "source", as it is really hard to find the proper BIOSes nowadays.

You can use vogonsdrivers.com. Contact squallstrife on this forum to get an account.

Will ask him!