The address raised my attention; the location is now an unrelated packaging company, but "Essex Monitor" was also known as "Proview" or 唯冠 and was quite active in digital TV business back in mid-2000's but declined a decade later.

The brand/company is still alive in mainland China, targeting budget market (sub-US$100/RMB¥500) of LCD monitors.

Not sure if those info helps though. 😅

Thanks.
Eventualy I found the fcc "report" for this device, and found out too that it was made by Proview.
Sadly there is no substantial information in the fcc site. Unlike other products where I could find pictures or even schematics.
The trail went cold again 😝

Strange, it looks like it's connected to the MEMR and MEMW lines on the bus but that doesn't make much sense when it's not connected to any of the address or data lines.

jmarsh wrote on 2023-04-20, 20:13:

Strange, it looks like it's connected to the MEMR and MEMW lines on the bus but that doesn't make much sense when it's not connected to any of the address or data lines.

Ummm As far as I can tell, the connected pins are B1, B3, B7, B9, B10, B29, B31, D16, D18. All are power pins...

OK, this is hilarious.
I rummaged through my shelves and found a TV Card in a box, and.. it is the same card that I was looking for information for!
I had another one all that time, complete in box with the manual, remote and all the cables 🤦🏻

I'm attaching the manual and some photos for future reference.

"No software required"

Hmm, this is interesting. I wonder what makes it run under DOS or Windows (3.1?).

And it's funny to see "PC-TV CONVERTER will Auto detect and display PAL NTSC standard" taped out. 😅

dormcat wrote on 2023-05-07, 19:31:

"No software required"
Hmm, this is interesting. I wonder what makes it run under DOS or Windows (3.1?).

nothing, its an external standalone tuner card .. taken out of its box and shoved into ISA slot to provide power 😀

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-05-08, 06:02:

dormcat wrote on 2023-05-07, 19:31:

"No software required"
Hmm, this is interesting. I wonder what makes it run under DOS or Windows (3.1?).

nothing, its an external standalone tuner card .. taken out of its box and shoved into ISA slot to provide power 😀

Wait, so it's just a tuner that powered by an ISA slot and uses the monitor to output TV signal but has no communication with the computer for functions like recording, frame grabbing, etc.? Well that explains why the system requirement is so low; video capturing back then required much better hardware.