First post, by VileR
- Rank
- l33t
Been going through a big bunch of video BIOS images for research purposes, and there's this one which I can't really place:
Yeah, the filename indicates it's from an Octek card with a TVGA8800CS chip. But it's rather different from every other TVGA VBIOS I've seen:
- The initialization screen is similar to the usual Trident ones, but with no "Trident" or "TVGA" in sight. In fact those aren't mentioned anywhere in the BIOS dump.
- Instead we have Award Software... whereas Trident firmware of that era usually shows Trident and Quadtel, or just Trident
- The fonts look like those from Cirrus Logic's EagleII (CL-GD510/520) boards, which also happened to have Award firmware
- Some of those text strings below (about memory errors, and incorrect switch settings) are also the same as those in the EagleII BIOSes
- "C3-A128" or "-A128000" naturally turns up nothing on the web
From testing in DOSBox, it supports all TVGA8800/8900 specific text modes (50h-5Ah), and likely the graphics modes as well (5Bh-62h). Of course, lacking emulation of the actual chipset, the graphics modes don't produce a very useful display.
The thing is that some of the latter modes are listed on RBIL as 8800-only, others as 8900-only; so that doesn't narrow it down fully.
It's a long shot, but can anyone help pin down the TVGA chip, if it isn't some sort of clone, and maybe the actual Octek(?) card as well?
Init screen:
Text strings:
IBM COMPATIBLE.
02/06/89
C3-A128000
Mode
VGA BIOS C3-A128 Version 1.01
Copyright (c) AWARD SOFTWARE INC. 1984-1989. All Rights Reserved.
2/06/89 YWL 2/17/89 HSU
IBM IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OFINTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP.
256 512 7681024K DRAM, VGACGA
An error was detected while checking the VGA memory.
An error was detected while checking CGA/MGA memory.
The VGA monitor switches, sw 1-4, are incorrectly set.