I've posted the EISA chipset benchmarks over here for anyone who's interested: -

EISA Graphics card benchmark results

Cheers,

moturimi1 wrote:

the Miro Rainbow Win 4 MB EISA card = Miro Crystal 32 Eisa with 170 MHz RAMDAC.

Just to clarify: are the two cards exactly the same or does the Miro Rainbow have a better RAMDAC then the Crystal? How about chipsets and memory, are there any differnces?

Shadow Lord wrote:

moturimi1 wrote:

the Miro Rainbow Win 4 MB EISA card = Miro Crystal 32 Eisa with 170 MHz RAMDAC.

Just to clarify: are the two cards exactly the same or does the Miro Rainbow have a better RAMDAC then the Crystal? How about chipsets and memory, are there any differnces?

Yea can confirm the Rainbow has a better RAMDAC than the Crystal (see my card below... only 135MHz!)

Chipset and memory are the same though oddly enough... I wonder if there is much difference... other than greater refresh rates / frames.

Oh, and before I forget... for a small fortune, a new edition to the EISA family, New Old Stock (NOS) and still to unwrap!: -

Whats the chipset for that card?

THese used I believe a custom asic, but they could be had with a cirrus logic VGA daughter board (because these don't do VGA otherwise).

The MAC versions were highly desirable, and used to cost $1000+ (could be as much as $4000) when new.

I haven't had a chance to open the box as yet... plan to do this soon, over the weekend if I can. I do know that the chipsets are custom / proprietary... to Supermac, with no VGA core, similar to the earlier 3D graphics cards like 3Dfx if I remember correctly.

I only know of one other person to have this card, and they have used / tested it in at least one of their systems... and may be able to share more about it (Anonymous Coward): -

My Ultimate VL/EISA 486

From their thread: -

There's not much to know really. It has 3MB of VRAM, and it can display up to 1024x768 in true colour. There is another mode that is slightly higher resolution, but it is kind of weird. It's something like 1152x910. As far as I know, this card only supports 24 bit modes...not 15 or 16-bit, at least I wasn't able to set those with the driver that I downloaded from the metropoli ftp.
As far as I know there is a VGA add-on for this card so that you don't have to use the pass through cable. Judging by the connectors, I would say that a memory expansion or decoder card may have existed, but I doubt that would be easy to find.

This card was reviewed in a 1994 issue of PCmag. When it came out in 1993 it was pretty good, but I believe cards like the S3 964 and Mach64 are faster.

Hey guys....long time no chat.

I bought a lot that included a DEC EISA pentium 60 system part out (cards, EISA motherboard w/ Pentium 60 cpu Card, proprietary PSU) and of the the cards is that SuperMac 24 EISA card. I also found an ET4000AX EISA version too, so probably going to pair those together for a Pentium 60 EISA system in the future.

I don't see any software or EISA configuration files for the SuperMac 24. Is there software available from anyone to upload to the vogons site?

dogchainx wrote:

Hey guys....long time no chat.

I bought a lot that included a DEC EISA pentium 60 system part out (cards, EISA motherboard w/ Pentium 60 cpu Card, proprietary PSU) and of the the cards is that SuperMac 24 EISA card. I also found an ET4000AX EISA version too, so probably going to pair those together for a Pentium 60 EISA system in the future.

I don't see any software or EISA configuration files for the SuperMac 24. Is there software available from anyone to upload to the vogons site?

Ahh... be careful with that ET4000AX... that is an Opti-local bus card (not EISA) I believe and may damage the card and/or board that you install it on. Have you a picture of this card?

Coincidentally, I had just opened the box today and uploaded the disk data (see attached). Yet to scan the manual though. Enjoy!

Anonymous Coward wrote:

There's not much to know really. It has 3MB of VRAM, and it can display up to 1024x768 in true colour. There is another mode that is slightly higher resolution, but it is kind of weird. It's something like 1152x910. As far as I know, this card only supports 24 bit modes...not 15 or 16-bit, at least I wasn't able to set those with the driver that I downloaded from the metropoli ftp.
As far as I know there is a VGA add-on for this card so that you don't have to use the pass through cable. Judging by the connectors, I would say that a memory expansion or decoder card may have existed, but I doubt that would be easy to find.

This card was reviewed in a 1994 issue of PCmag. When it came out in 1993 it was pretty good, but I believe cards like the S3 964 and Mach64 are faster.

Included in the box was a pass through VGA cable should another card with VGA core support... similar to the EISA/VL system you installed it on.

The S3 964 and Mach 64 were both VLB though?... and @ 33MHz? ... For the EISA bus Spectrum 24 even to compete against those, restricted at only 10MHz show's it was quite a strong performer for it's time.

The only other time i've seen / used this VGA pass through to piggy back a higher end graphics adaptor was with 3D cards I had back in the 90's... 3Dfx and the like. Those were good times.

At 8MHz, EISA is 33MB/sec, so it's not exactly slow. In theory VLB is up to 133MB/sec. but realistically you're never going to exceed 50MB.sec.
I think in this case, whatever chip is on the card makes a bigger difference than the bus.

I don't know if I can consider the Spectrum/24 impressive compared to a Mach64 considering the price and the brute forced design method they used. It's a full length card with a bazillion ICs and appears to have 3 RAMDACs.

386_junkie wrote:

Ahh... be careful with that ET4000AX... that is an Opti-local bus card (not EISA) I believe and may damage the card and/or boar […]
Show full quote

dogchainx wrote:

Hey guys....long time no chat.

I bought a lot that included a DEC EISA pentium 60 system part out (cards, EISA motherboard w/ Pentium 60 cpu Card, proprietary PSU) and of the the cards is that SuperMac 24 EISA card. I also found an ET4000AX EISA version too, so probably going to pair those together for a Pentium 60 EISA system in the future.

I don't see any software or EISA configuration files for the SuperMac 24. Is there software available from anyone to upload to the vogons site?

Ahh... be careful with that ET4000AX... that is an Opti-local bus card (not EISA) I believe and may damage the card and/or board that you install it on. Have you a picture of this card?

Disk.jpg

Coincidentally, I had just opened the box today and uploaded the disk data (see attached). Yet to scan the manual though. Enjoy!

Spectrum 24 - EISA bus - Win 3.1.rar

That's awesome! Thanks! Kudos to you to opening up a rare box like that.

And yes, its an Orchid ProDesigner IIs EISA ET4000AX card. EISA in the name, and EISA on the BIOS chip. I've never seen one before. Can't remember exactly where I got it, but when I saw it, I had to have it for my EISA builds.

dogchainx wrote:

And yes, its an Orchid ProDesigner IIs EISA ET4000AX card. EISA in the name, and EISA on the BIOS chip. I've never seen one before. Can't remember exactly where I got it, but when I saw it, I had to have it for my EISA builds.

Oh really!?... there is a proper EISA card with the Tseng ET4000AX chip!? ... I had only believed there to be only Opti-local bus cards with this chip but that is awesome!

You definitely have to upload a picture of that card now if you're able and have the time.... would be great to see, thanks

Here it is. An actual EISA ET4000AX. I have NOT tested it yet, and I need to clean up some corrosion on the EISA fingers before I do. I'm hoping it works, but yes...EISA ET4000AX does exist. Thankfully the EISA collection has the configuration files for it. That has been invaluable for a bunch of EISA cards I have.

Weird, I didn't know this existed...

Its alive....

dogchainx wrote:

Its alive....

Nice. This is an Intel Xpress board. DEC used these in their DECpc ST.

I believe its from a DECpc 560ST. I'm hoping it'll fit in an ATX case with some modifications for a hacked together DECPC 560ST build. It has the front panel display connection on the motherboard that HP used in their massive netservers...would be interesting to find that front panel to see if it'll work. Apparently that front panel part has the on/off reset buttons and LCD display information?

But yeah, ET4000AX EISA alive and well!

dogchainx wrote:

ET4000AX EISA alive and well!

This is good news... and should hopefully be a fairly easy comparison with a Tseng ET4000 ISA equivalent... if you plan on doing.

Thanks for posting all the pictures... great to see!

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Weird, I didn't know this existed...

Indeed.

When I initially started this thread I only had a couple of EISA graphics cards myself... with limited knowledge of many others, so I was curious to know of any other cards that were out there.

I'm pleased to have found that EISA graphics cards were produced by just about all (if not, the main competitors at least) that manufactured graphics adaptors in this time. Albeit, there are not many floating about, and we are pleasantly surprised to learn of some new oddities... like this Orchid Tseng based card.