Bondi wrote on 2022-02-02, 16:28:
creepingnet wrote on 2022-02-02, 15:08:
Here's pics of VersaVideo
Interesting! Thanks for the pics.
Is this indeed a video card as they call it? Or it's a MPEG decoder? How does it work? And does it work in DOS?
I tried to post that in the thread above, but was kind of excited to see the thread 🤣
- The card is a mpeg1 Decoder (will confirm again later) card, it seems (per the manual) it does not record audio though (though it could probably be rigged to if one were to pass the audio source from the heaphone jack to the line-in of say, a Versa M or P laptop which has a sound card using alternative software).
- It does work in DOS. There's a program called "FullTV" that allows playback through the card to be displayed on the laptop's screen. Seems it uses 320x200 mode as well (not sure if true color or 256 color).
- The card seems primarily aimed at NEC Versa Ultralite/E/V/M/P model laptops such as those I own (I have a NEC Versa 40EC, V/50, M/75, and P/75) which are PCMCIA x2 16-bit Systems. The install program specifically lists off the NEC versa laptop computers I have + the one I don't (Ultralite) to determine installation I believe.
- The Dongle is composite input and has a "headphone out" on it, which makes sense, the Versa Ultralite/E/V models don't have a sound card so all sound is handled through the PCMCIA card, likely as just a passthrough. But the P/75 had ESS AudioDrive and the M/75 & M/100 have Crystal CS-4231-KQ WSS chips in them so those might be usable to record MPEG1 off of to a hard drive with sound.
That said, reading the manual for the laptops vs. the card, they tend to point to the Phoenix Card Services as being better, which is highly odd since I have the entire drivers collection from the NEC FTP, and the Ultralite/E/V/M/P all shipped with Cirrus card services (SCIRRUS.EXE being the main TSR). However, it seems I'm getting something out of Cirrus.
How the Cirrus services work is it sends a command to power up the PCMCIA port and then uses a series of "reference files" to determine the settings for the card, IIRC this card lives at address 380h (heck, the reference files for Cirrus are plaintext). These card services also tend to connect themselves to a NEC provided PCMCIA utility that allows you to hot-swap PCMCIA cards in Windows 3.1 in real time and it can auto-detect the card type if there's a resource file for it - picks up this card + my Aironet, WaveLAN Silver, PCMCIA Ethernet, and Xjack modems all surprisingly well, though it can be janky at times.
I have managed to get this card working somewhat - once - in DOS using the FullTV app, but I have not yet got it working in Windows 3.1 yet. I might want to do some exploring to see if I can find some more DOS programs for this kind of card. Part of why I picked it up is to make some YouTube videos with my old Windows 3.1/DOS laptops....just to claim I am one of the few, if any others, on YouTube recording on a 486 :XD.