It's really a damn shame. It's been 12 years, and still no leads.

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2021-07-09, 10:25:

It's really a damn shame. It's been 12 years, and still no leads.

Yep, I am still working on it in the background, would be nice to get it working, saw something somewhere that these might have been used in Silicon Graphics workstations, but cannot remember where I saw it, but that is my next avenue of investigation.

That's possible. I think EISA was used in a few non0x86 systems. Pretty sure Digital Alpha was one of them. I didn't know about Silicon Graphics though.

SGI used EISA in a few systems. https://techpubs.jurassic.nl/manuals/0650/dev … _html/ch18.html

Looks like some custom glue logic to connect the Intel 82350DT EISA chipset to the CPU bus. There is a really REALLY amusing error in that link though.

As I have been on the net research another product, been multitasking and having a look into this again, think my SGI lead was a red herring. My research came back to that NASA post https://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/SBIR/successes/ss/019text.html, noticed it had a powerpoint attachment, so I was able to expland the picture better, those boards on the left hand side, I am sure even though it is stilly blurry is our card. So started digging for "OptiVideo MPEG-2 Encoding Workstation", and came accross this link http://www.openlab.co/forums/thread/20714/1#p38666

Plenty of detail in there, key points:

New Product Reduces MPEG-2 Data Storage and Transmission by 30 to 60% PALO ALTO, Calif., October 16, 1995 -- This fall, Optivision Inc., a leading developer of premium video and image compression technology, will introduce the OPTIVideo(tm) MPEG-2 Encoder and OPTIVideo MPEG-2 Workstation

(1995 date range)

The OPTIVideo MPEG-2 Encoder features the groundbreaking CLM4400 chip-set, jointly developed by Optivision and C-Cube Microsystems

Each Workstation comes equipped with one of Optivision's new OPTIVideo MPEG-2 Genlock Decoders

(Although that is the encoder, sounds similar to the chipset on what we have)

The new MPEG-2 Encoder will be available as a fully configured Workstation and will sell for an estimated U.S. list price of $45,000. Separate board level OEM pricing is available upon request.

(so maybe the boards were available seperatly, but cool I have part of a 1990's $45,000 workstation!)

Housed in an industrial quality, Pentium(tm) based chassis, the OPTIVideo MPEG-2 encoding Workstation delivers a complete "out-of-the-box" encoding solution. Additionally, a multi-standard (NTSC/PAL) monitor, VGA monitor, speakers, CD-ROM drive, device control interface, and more than 2 Gigabytes of disk storage are included with each Workstation.

(Okay, looking for a pentium EISA motherboard from aroung 1995, not that helpful but)
(So socket 7 or 8 (pentium pro), not entirely sure but they were around 95)
(Makes me laugh I tried this board in a 486DX-50 build!)

The OPTIVideo MPEG-2 Encoder, MPEG-2 Workstation, MPEG-2 Genlock Decoder, and mpegStudio are trademarks of OPTIVISION, Inc. All other products mentioned are trademarks of their respective companies.

OPTIVideo MPEG-2 Encoder is a two board set, featuring the Encoder and Optivision's Digital Video Input Board

(mentions of mpegStudio again, maybe if we can find a copy of the software, it might contain drivers, long shot but never know, or trying to find more out on the encoder board may be another avenue of investigation)

Only one I can find on a certain auction site is a listing for OPTIVISION OPTIVIDEO MPEG2 AUDIO VIDEO ENCODER PCI CARD BOARD AP-2042, so same naming convention (AP), same chips used on the board as our EISA card, large connector maybe for that digital video input board.

Would it have been fesiable to have the decoder as EISA and the encoder as PCI? Maybe this is a newer version, but there is also defiantly motherboards out there with both EISA and PCI, such as this bad boy for example (also on a certain auction site) ALR 10010-B 2437 7x EISA Dual Socket 7 64MB Motherboard Combo Triton II PCI-EISA

Not adding the ebay links as they are massive and for purposes of history will disappear after time. I would love to have that motherboard in a build, but for it's cost of just over $500 that is a little too rich for me. Why do I always get old projects with bugger all information on?

Again, no drivers yet, but a few more clues and avenues to investigate, the search continues.

Been working also on this again, along with my new EISA build, no luck so far.

1) EISA ID for my card is !OPV0602, so different from your EISA ID.

2) Tried to make a EISA Config file for it, nothing amazing, tried to assign an IRQ and DMA, but on boot system still states it is configured incorrectly, damn. Attached the file anyway. So it maybe looking for some other configuration information, memory maybe, need to see what it says to the BIOS on boot for that check, must be a bit of software somewhere.

I discovered why the configuration was not working, despite the file being accepted by the software and loaded into NVRAM, seems it is not being properly saved for some reason. This could be because I am using a Hint P-EISA board at present and that has some EISA capabilities missing and just does not like this fancy board.

Or there is something else that is needed like a overlay file that some EISA boards also need, but as you can see from the dates progress is slow, really need to get my proper EISA motherboard operational again.

There is currently another OPV9100 up for sale on ebay (no software of course).
https://www.ebay.com/itm/153842789247

The only thing of note is that it has a sticker on it that reads "AP 2003 Rev M", so it seems maybe they were being sold through a third party that used their own internal part numbers. I did a brief search and still came up with nothing unfortunately.

>Condition: Used “WORKING”

cool, I would ask about that

"WORKING" = I'm too lazy (or unable) to test it, so I'll take a chance and sell it as working, and if it's broken it's easier to just issue a refund.

sounds like a recipe for a free card

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2022-09-08, 02:50:

There is currently another OPV9100 up for sale on ebay (no software of course).
https://www.ebay.com/itm/153842789247

The only thing of note is that it has a sticker on it that reads "AP 2003 Rev M", so it seems maybe they were being sold through a third party that used their own internal part numbers. I did a brief search and still came up with nothing unfortunately.

I have the same label on the back of mine 'AP-2003 REV M 9803080' the one on eBay has the number 9803086 a serial number maybe? Now the label on the socketed chip I picked off mine and cannot find where I made a note of what it said, but the chip underneath is a QuickLogic QL12X16B-OPL68C.