Hi, there's some CGA stuff on the old Paradise website.
https://web.archive.org/web/19971212070357/ht … paradise12.html

CGA Cards: MGC3 utility v7.0
https://web.archive.org/web/19970722111443/ht … CGA/mgc3v70.exe

CGA Cards: Autoswitch Monochrome utility v1.1
https://web.archive.org/web/19971212070357/ht … GA/asmonv11.exe

DOS Days also has some driver disks, generally speaking.
Other sources are internet archive and Vogons drivers.

Thanks for archival Paradise site...somehow that elephant missed me.

Unfortunately the "Basic Video" utility isn't archived but at least there is a filename to search for.

Edit...nope no results, on ftp indexers, various retro ftp sites, web archive. The MGC utilities do not apply to Basic Video Card.

For clarification..."Basic Video Card" and "Hi Res Graphics Card" are same thing. They are also slightly modified "Color/Mono" card from mid 80s.

I'm interested in any kind of software/drivers/utils associated with any of those Paradise model names.

Ive always found it curious that Lotus and Ashton Tate are always listed for the wide array of software support for Plantronix.

Must have been an optional driver for specific versions to make graphs that has been lost to time

I also find it curious there was no game support for Plantronics. It was released not even a year after CGA. And designed to allow easy modification of CGA code.

I think same about Olivetti M24/AT&T 6300 monochrome mode.
It was a simple extension to CGA mode 6h and supported by many LCD/plasma computers. And PC emulators, later on.

Also, I'm really depressed that native EGA wasn't really being supported by games.
It always was lame old 320x200 16c mode. On my 4,77 MHz PC, full EGA/VGA resolution was slow but usable.
Even SVGA in 800x600 16c worked fine, at same speed as full VGA.
I could play Magnetic Scroll's Wonderland in 800x600 16c, along with AdLib music. On a 4,77 MHz! Not even a 10 MHz Turbo XT!

Considering that Super EGA cards existed in 1986 and were being supported by paint programs of that period,
it's sad that no graphics adventures in the 80s had used normal PC resolutions, as being common in productivity software.

But back to Plantronics Color Plus.. I find it sad that 640x200 4c hadn't been supported (except for GEM maybe).
Not even CompuShow 2000 supports it, merely had 320x200 16c option.

And that's really sad, because it's much better than 640x200 mono.
The colours aren’t being useful, but having 4 shades of gray on a composite monitor is neat.

Imagine how many of these 320x200 4c CGA text adventures games from the 80s could have had pretty,
readable 80x25 text and reconizable still images!
The pixel artists could have had made more appealing pictures for each room.

Edit: Here's an example. Now let's imagine it in 640x200 4c.

Source: https://pixelatedarcade.com/screenshots/25472

Edit: Or this one, Amazon by Tellarium.
With 640x200 4c, there would be much more space for text!
Everything wouldn't have to be so cramped.

Source: mobygames.com

Edit: Here's a final example. A monochrome CGA game in 640x200.
Now let's imagine if Olivetti/AT&T 640x400 mono had been supported, too.
Mono bitmaps are tiny. A second set for 640x400 mono surely was possible.
But even Plantronics in 640x200 4c would have helped to smooth out the image and use less crude dithering .

Source: http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Wiki/index.php … raphics_Adapter

Don't want to derail my own thread 😀 But IMO,

16kB of VRAM is about the optimum to get any sort of detailed graphics over a system as slow to access VRAM as 4.77MHz 8-bit bus and cpu of IBM PC.
Olivetti's M24 had twice more, but it has 16-bit bus on a 50% faster clocked 8086.

It's also quite noticable that entire M24/AT&T 6300 mode application is in business apps, there is about one game I know of.
Plantronics application is also solely in biz/productivity area, just quite smaller.

Now when people talk CGA games they in 99% of cases talk about games outside of CGA age (1981-1984). Look at masterpieces of 1984, King's Quest, Alley Cat, Sokoban, Zaxxon, those are some nice looking games, sharp for the age, but there are no details. When the actually detailed CGA games started rolling out in EGA and VGA age, having a 4.7MHz CPU was the bottom of a barrel. These late and great CGA games would never target an average computer in CGA age, it was just not powerful enough. Who in Broderbund played Prince on 4.77MHz CGA and said, ok this is fine? Now imagine twice less performance for better looking Plantronics standard.

Nope this was not possible in early 80s. We shit on CGA too much, but IBM knew what they were doing. They knew the gaming market was non existent. IMO most people that cried about slow XT gaming and ugly CGA looking games were people who used it when it was already passe bcz they couldn't afford better. Comparing it to Amigas and VGAs and stuff. Like I did.

So, yeah. My opinion is that Plantronics was never meant for games because such market was slim to none in that particular time.
When the time came that game devs work with 4bpp assets and regular computer is able to hold twice as many kb's in storage and RAM, so EGA years, maybe somebody in Apogee looked back at those CGA+ standards to see if it's worth releasing EGA games for them, and saw they have negligible and fragmented user base.

Hi. If you know the CGA chip of your Paradise CGA card you can search for it separately.
The PVC4, for example, was being integrated in certain PC/XT motherboards, such as Commodore PC1, PC10-III or PC20-III.
Searching for the computers might lead to driver disks that shipped with these computers.
Especially Atari PCs and Commodore PCs had been mass-produced, I think.
Good luck! 🙂

Thanks, but I specifically need someone that has that floppy.

The chip in question is PVC2 and it is completely undocumented. It is to be used in conjunction with 6845 to provide video generation part.
The chip lauds from 1984 but I can see designs starting only in 1986, with Paradise Color/Mono ISA card, integrated video of Olivetti M19, and Commodore PC-1.

I believe it was 1988 when Paradise decided to slap on an extra 16MHz clock for Hercules compatibility on the Color/Mono ISA card, and called it "Hi-Res Graphics Card".
Few years on, this product was renamed to "Basic Video Card".

So these would be 4 examples of PVC2 based CGA cards. Maybe there is more, but probably more obscure than these, like Wang models.

What I am really looking for, is to reverse the content of the configuration register of the PVC2 chip.
By taking note of documented PVC4's manual, and by reversing M19's BIOS I can see the register being used.

I'm looking for utilities disk of Paradise PVC2 based card such as this Hi-Res one, maybe it has a graphics test or tune program, to see if it can reveal more about the register usage.

If there wasn't PC-1 repair manual with labeled pinout of PVC2 chip, I wouldn't even know what the pinout is.