Maybe this: Matrox MGA Impression

i have seen this but board is too different.

Definitely a PCB variant of the matrox impression http://dosdays.co.uk/topics/Manufacturers/mat … .php#Impression

Would you be so kind and provide some clearer, more in focus, photos of both front & back.

weedeewee wrote on 2023-10-21, 09:48:

Would you be so kind and provide some clearer, more in focus, photos of both front & back.

Today i was able to get the card. So here you are;

Any ideas 😀 @weedeewee

Nope, curious though about what is underneath the damaged heatsink.

oh yeah, am I correct in counting the onboard ram as only 1 Megabyte ?

weedeewee wrote on 2023-10-30, 15:38:

Nope, curious though about what is underneath the damaged heatsink.

oh yeah, am I correct in counting the onboard ram as only 1 Megabyte ?

Based on the post screen of the card and this link : http://old.vgamuseum.info/home/1172-matrox-im … ession-isa.html

i would guess a LSI chip.

Could be the ISA version of the MGA Ultima, for which pictures are hard to find.

Thumbnail pic on page 114, bottom..

https://books.google.ca/books?id=E9TvMcu1mIwC … a%20isa&f=false

1Paste if long link broke...
2
3https://books.google.ca/books?id=E9TvMcu1mIwC&pg=PA114&dq=matrox+ultima+isa&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiria27k56CAxXcv4kEHRCOBREQ6AF6BAgIEAI#v=onepage&q=matrox%20ultima%20isa&f=false

edit: or I could cut and paste it I guess 🤣 ...

nice find.
That photo seems to have a Texas instruments dac. OP's card has a Brooktree dac.
Guess now someone will have to find a good high res photo of the one with the Ti DAC

edit: kinda odd though that vgamuseum https://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/cpu/item … ima-ultima-plus doesn't list any ISA ultima and mentions that the ultima cards have 2M of VRAM, with the plus version having 4M.

Kinda odd that if it was an award winner, or even recommended by any magazines, that we don't see more of them. Though in 93 ISA was old news, only the ppl with DX50 autocad systems prolly still interested in higher end ISA graphics annnnd the MGAs were supposed to be not good at autocad. Probably why what seems to be an ex-autocad box that I've got has an S3 card installed.

DerBaum wrote on 2023-10-30, 15:49:

i would guess a LSI chip.

I have removed the heatsink.

Holy crap it's hard to get further info on this. There's more info online about some US Top Secret Black Projects than this card. I got to Matrox website circa 1996, no pics, only a mention or two, dug up some discounters known to have surplus Matrox cards in past, nothing... although I found a different card I have not seen mentioned MGA-II Impression Lite VLB, the "3D" chip on a VLB card! ... the FCC database is useless, lots of stuff missing, even clicking on items listed they've got no materials for most of Matrox applications. .. few mentions on the side for "Ultima" range in general but not specifically ISA... Hey, we're not being "put on" by the guy who did the Bitchinfast 3D 2000 are we? 🤣 just kidding.

To me it looks like a cost reduced version of a Matrox impressions isa.

EDIT:
The impressions isa has 3MB ram in 16 chips, so in theory this card here should have 1,5MB.
ignore that because i just have seen the impressions uses 8 of the chips from the card of this thread and 8 chips that are different (and probably are 2 mb).

Maybe it is a OEM version... Manufacturers like to cut some costs by ordering weirdo versions...
It doesnt have the Matrox name printed on the front of the pcb, just the logo. And it does look like it never had the matrox sticker on the back too...(Or they just stopped doing that around that time)

Even today i can find traces of products on manufacturers websites without mentioning them directly.
For example i searched for some chips and found pictures of control units of another brand on the chip manufacturers website.
So i could imagine that matrox has shown or wrote about this card in the past... maybe not as a active sold product... more like a show piece of whats possible to make.

I really cant explain why the card was also sold as MGA Ultima (In ISA/ VLB versions)... Maybe i am missing a detail. The DAC? Is the dac the difference in names? I dont know...

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-10-30, 22:02:

Hey, we're not being "put on" by the guy who did the Bitchinfast 3D 2000 are we? 🤣 just kidding.

Hope not 😀