Hi,
i need help about one more thing here. Recently i have bought EGA card which i don't even know name. Looks great, but on the card, there is a marking ASEM MGA II. When i tried to search, nothing is shown on google.
When i plug this card to any motherboard, i receive the beeps, but if anybody has similar or same card, i would like to know DIP switch settings. There are 8 switches, so it is too much to try all the combinations 😀
Maybe the card is ok, if i know the switch settings, and maybe is faulty, but i would like to try. If there is anything else to try, any suggestion is welcome.
Thanks in advance for any help.
This looks like a quite typical Super EGA card from the late 80s. The Padise EGA ("PEGA") chip is a highly integrated "single-chip" EGA solution. Well, actually not a full EGA card, as there still are a couple of TTL chips on that card as well, but it is one step higher integrated than the dual chip Genoa and C&T EGA clones. The additional crystals at 25 MHz and 27 MHz make it likely that this card supports 132-column text modes on standard EGA monitors and 640x400 and/or 640x480 graphics modes on appropriate multi-sync monitors.
Many EGA clone cards have four of their DIP switches configured identically to the IBM EGA card, so your best first choice is to configure DIP switches 1-4 like you would configure an IBM EGA card, connect an appropriate monitor and scan converter, and hope for the best. The extra switches might be to configure boot-up emulation (those cards often can emulate CGA, MDA and Hercules well enough that even programs that perform register-level access work well on it) or the availability of extended modes, although the configuration for "primary monitor color multi-sync at PEGA, secondary MDA (if installed at all)" might also be one of the reserved configurations for the first two switches. If you read the IBM switch configurations the right way, you will find out that they are sequentially numbered 0 to IIRC 12, while 13, 14 and 15 are "reserved". As DIP swithch "OFF" indicates a binary bit of 1 in the IBM scheme, your card is currently set to the invalid "IBM configuration 15", which by itself might be a reason for the BIOS beep.
Also if you intend to use the card in a PC/XT-type computer, make sure you set the on-board DIP switches to "no video card / EGA / PGA" (how ever the manufacturer calls that configuration). If you set those DIP switches to CGA 40-column, CGA 80-column or MDA, the mainboard BIOS requires a matching (BIOS-less) card to be installed and operated by the mainboard BIOS.
This looks like a quite typical Super EGA card from the late 80s. The Padise EGA ("PEGA") chip is a highly integrated "single-chip" EGA solution. Well, actually not a full EGA card, as there still are a couple of TTL chips on that card as well, but it is one step higher integrated than the dual chip Genoa and C&T EGA clones. The additional crystals at 25 MHz and 27 MHz make it likely that this card supports 132-column text modes on standard EGA monitors and 640x400 and/or 640x480 graphics modes on appropriate multi-sync monitors.
Many EGA clone cards have four of their DIP switches configured identically to the IBM EGA card, so your best first choice is to configure DIP switches 1-4 like you would configure an IBM EGA card, connect an appropriate monitor and scan converter, and hope for the best. The extra switches might be to configure boot-up emulation (those cards often can emulate CGA, MDA and Hercules well enough that even programs that perform register-level access work well on it) or the availability of extended modes, although the configuration for "primary monitor color multi-sync at PEGA, secondary MDA (if installed at all)" might also be one of the reserved configurations for the first two switches. If you read the IBM switch configurations the right way, you will find out that they are sequentially numbered 0 to IIRC 12, while 13, 14 and 15 are "reserved". As DIP swithch "OFF" indicates a binary bit of 1 in the IBM scheme, your card is currently set to the invalid "IBM configuration 15", which by itself might be a reason for the BIOS beep.
Also if you intend to use the card in a PC/XT-type computer, make sure you set the on-board DIP switches to "no video card / EGA / PGA" (how ever the manufacturer calls that configuration). If you set those DIP switches to CGA 40-column, CGA 80-column or MDA, the mainboard BIOS requires a matching (BIOS-less) card to be installed and operated by the mainboard BIOS.
I have lost You at IIRC 😀 My knowledge about all this You mentioned is pretty low. The thing i understood is, if i'm lucky, i can try set the switch like IBM EGA card, right? I have EGA monitor, and i intend to use that card in 486 PC, just for Monkey Island and older Lucas and Sierra P'N'C games 😉
Searching for IBM EGA DIP Switch settings.....
thanks for now, will let You know of results.
Use this table: http://www.techhelpmanual.com/65-ega_switch_settings.html, so set switches 2 and 3 to on ("Primary EGA connected to enh. color monitor, use high resolution text modes"). The standard BIOS setup should be set to video type: EGA/VGA, but on a 486 board, it likely is already set that way.
This is my definite guide to EGA DIP switch setting: If you read the dip switch settings as binary numbers, with "ON" being zero and "OFF" being one, the EGA configurations like this (the description of the settings is slightly more verbose than in most references, but you actually need that verbosity to really understand the meaning of those codes)
1EGA card secondary (use other card for boot messages; other card better be present) 200: 0 0 0 0 - MDA primary, EGA has a CGA monitor connected (disable 350-line graphics modes), initialize EGA to 40-character mode 301: 0 0 0 1 - MDA primary, EGA has a CGA monitor connected (disable 350-line graphics modes), initialize EGA to 80-character mode 402: 0 0 1 0 - MDA primary, EGA has an EGA monitor connected, initialize EGA to 80-character mode, use CGA-compatible (ugly low-res) text modes 503: 0 0 1 1 - MDA primary, EGA has an EGA monitor connected, initialize EGA to 80-character mode, use enhanced EGA text modes 604: 0 1 0 0 - CGA primary, EGA has an MDA monitor connected, initialize CGA to 40-character mode 705: 0 1 0 1 - CGA primary, EGA has an MDA monitor connected, initialize CGA to 80-character mode 8 9EGA card primary (used for boot messages, other card may be absent) 1006: 0 1 1 0 - EGA has a CGA monitor connected (disable 350-line graphics modes), boot in 40-character mode. A MDA card may be present as well 1107: 0 1 1 1 - EGA has a CGA monitor connected (disable 350-line graphics modes), boot in 80-character mode. A MDA card may be present as well 1208: 1 0 0 0 - EGA has an EGA monitor connected, boot in 80-character mode, and use CGA-compatible text modes. A MDA card may be present as well 1309: 1 0 0 1 - EGA has an EGA monitor connected, boot in 80-character mode, and use enhanced EGA text modes. A MDA card may be present as well (recommended for EGA only + EGA monitor) 1410: 1 0 1 0 - EGA has an MDA monitor connected. A CGA card may be present as well, and if it is present, it is initialized in 40-character mode 1511: 1 0 1 1 - EGA has an MDA monitor connected. A CGA card may be present as well, and if it is present, it is initialized in 80-character mode 16 17invalid switch settings for original EGA: 1812: 1 1 0 0 - often used on super EGA cards for "EGA has a multi-sync monitor connected, an MDA card may be present as well" 1913: 1 1 0 1 2014: 1 1 1 0 2115: 1 1 1 1 (this one was set on your photo)
Whereever this table says "MDA", you may also use a Hercules card/monitor. A "Hercules monitor" and an "MDA monitor" is actually exactly the same thing, and a Hercules cards behaves similarly enough to an MDA card that the BIOS doesn't notice the difference at all. The graphics mode of the Hercules card is not supported by the BIOS. As the MDA only supports a single text mode, the DIP switches never indicate what kind of mode to use on an MDA card.
mkarcherwrote on 2025-07-08, 21:02:Use this table: http://www.techhelpmanual.com/65-ega_switch_settings.html, so set switches 2 and 3 to on ("Primary EGA connected […] Show full quote
Use this table: http://www.techhelpmanual.com/65-ega_switch_settings.html, so set switches 2 and 3 to on ("Primary EGA connected to enh. color monitor, use high resolution text modes"). The standard BIOS setup should be set to video type: EGA/VGA, but on a 486 board, it likely is already set that way.
This is my definite guide to EGA DIP switch setting: If you read the dip switch settings as binary numbers, with "ON" being zero and "OFF" being one, the EGA configurations like this (the description of the settings is slightly more verbose than in most references, but you actually need that verbosity to really understand the meaning of those codes)
1EGA card secondary (use other card for boot messages; other card better be present) 200: 0 0 0 0 - MDA primary, EGA has a CGA monitor connected (disable 350-line graphics modes), initialize EGA to 40-character mode 301: 0 0 0 1 - MDA primary, EGA has a CGA monitor connected (disable 350-line graphics modes), initialize EGA to 80-character mode 402: 0 0 1 0 - MDA primary, EGA has an EGA monitor connected, initialize EGA to 80-character mode, use CGA-compatible (ugly low-res) text modes 503: 0 0 1 1 - MDA primary, EGA has an EGA monitor connected, initialize EGA to 80-character mode, use enhanced EGA text modes 604: 0 1 0 0 - CGA primary, EGA has an MDA monitor connected, initialize CGA to 40-character mode 705: 0 1 0 1 - CGA primary, EGA has an MDA monitor connected, initialize CGA to 80-character mode 8 9EGA card primary (used for boot messages, other card may be absent) 1006: 0 1 1 0 - EGA has a CGA monitor connected (disable 350-line graphics modes), boot in 40-character mode. A MDA card may be present as well 1107: 0 1 1 1 - EGA has a CGA monitor connected (disable 350-line graphics modes), boot in 80-character mode. A MDA card may be present as well 1208: 1 0 0 0 - EGA has an EGA monitor connected, boot in 80-character mode, and use CGA-compatible text modes. A MDA card may be present as well 1309: 1 0 0 1 - EGA has an EGA monitor connected, boot in 80-character mode, and use enhanced EGA text modes. A MDA card may be present as well (recommended for EGA only + EGA monitor) 1410: 1 0 1 0 - EGA has an MDA monitor connected. A CGA card may be present as well, and if it is present, it is initialized in 40-character mode 1511: 1 0 1 1 - EGA has an MDA monitor connected. A CGA card may be present as well, and if it is present, it is initialized in 80-character mode 16 17invalid switch settings for original EGA: 1812: 1 1 0 0 - often used on super EGA cards for "EGA has a multi-sync monitor connected, an MDA card may be present as well" 1913: 1 1 0 1 2014: 1 1 1 0 2115: 1 1 1 1 (this one was set on your photo)
Whereever this table says "MDA", you may also use a Hercules card/monitor. A "Hercules monitor" and an "MDA monitor" is actually exactly the same thing, and a Hercules cards behaves similarly enough to an MDA card that the BIOS doesn't notice the difference at all. The graphics mode of the Hercules card is not supported by the BIOS. As the MDA only supports a single text mode, the DIP switches never indicate what kind of mode to use on an MDA card.
Hi, that was a lot easier to understand.
I figure it out on Your first post that 2 and 3 needs to be on, rest off (so far). I have bring the EGA monitor down from attic, one 486 with working OTI EGA graphics card, and i will try to change the cards to se if there is any differences.
Will let You know if it is working (fingers crossed)!!!
Now the EGA monitor doesn't work!!! Last time it worked normally, now there are colors, but no characters, only white lines or dots...
Need to wait one guy i know, who fix monitors and TVs for last 30 Years, he's on vacation right now 🙁
Can't do nothing until he sees if it is fixable. Maybe i will order MCE2VGA from Serdashop, just to try this card.....
Now the EGA monitor doesn't work!!! Last time it worked normally, now there are colors, but no characters, only white lines or dots...
It doesn't look like anything is wrong with it, there is full screen deflection, both horizontal and vertical, bright picture with good focus. The problem seems to be wrong frequency - which might very well be bad DIP settings on the card.
Without a manual for your exact card model/type it's hard to tell if the DIP switches are correct or not. Also keep in mind in most cases "1" is off and "0" is on, this is because the switch is just a simple connection to GND, so the logic is reversed.
Now the EGA monitor doesn't work!!! Last time it worked normally, now there are colors, but no characters, only white lines or dots...
It doesn't look like anything is wrong with it, there is full screen deflection, both horizontal and vertical, bright picture with good focus. The problem seems to be wrong frequency - which might very well be bad DIP settings on the card.
Without a manual for your exact card model/type it's hard to tell if the DIP switches are correct or not. Also keep in mind in most cases "1" is off and "0" is on, this is because the switch is just a simple connection to GND, so the logic is reversed.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, thanks!!!!
You were right, it worked, but i must have tried this card on normal, VGA monitor, and the switches were left on VGA!!!!!
You save me, i was so sad....
Now to try this EGA card....
No luck, i tried at least 30 positions, but it always beeps 🙁
Maybe is the card faulty, who knows? If someone had any ideas, i will be glad to try it.
Thanks in advance 😉
No luck, i tried at least 30 positions, but it always beeps 🙁
Maybe is the card faulty, who knows? If someone had any ideas, i will be glad to try it.
It seems all the chips on this card are in sockets. Sometimes the sockets get oxidated and the contact is poor, or maybe some chips were never inserted properly to begin with. So try removing and re-seating them again, one by one.
I strongly suggest doing one chip at a time, to not confuse the PAL chips, which goes where. These do not have any stickers or markings on them to tell them apart. The rest is standard 74 series and DRAMs and the PCB even has them all listed.
Removing the big chip is difficult without proper tools, the socket can crack if you apply any force wrong here. So leave that alone if you do not feel confident about removing it without causing damage.
Deunanwrote on 2025-07-09, 16:46:It seems all the chips on this card are in sockets. Sometimes the sockets get oxidated and the contact is poor, or maybe some ch […] Show full quote
No luck, i tried at least 30 positions, but it always beeps 🙁
Maybe is the card faulty, who knows? If someone had any ideas, i will be glad to try it.
It seems all the chips on this card are in sockets. Sometimes the sockets get oxidated and the contact is poor, or maybe some chips were never inserted properly to begin with. So try removing and re-seating them again, one by one.
I strongly suggest doing one chip at a time, to not confuse the PAL chips, which goes where. These do not have any stickers or markings on them to tell them apart. The rest is standard 74 series and DRAMs and the PCB even has them all listed.
Removing the big chip is difficult without proper tools, the socket can crack if you apply any force wrong here. So leave that alone if you do not feel confident about removing it without causing damage.
That was the first thing when i bought this card, and yes, i didn't remove PLCC chips only, was afraid to broke the socket. All other chips i removed, sprayed with contact cleaner and reseat them back 🙁
I didn't test LS chips, maybe this is the good thing to start (i have T48 programmer who can test LS)?
No luck, i tried at least 30 positions, but it always beeps 🙁
Maybe is the card faulty, who knows? If someone had any ideas, i will be glad to try it.
Thanks in advance 😉
30 positions? With 8 switches there are 256 possibilities, so 30 just scratches the surface. Which switches were you playing around with?
I agree with mkarcher: the first four are pretty canonical, so you can set those to known, conservative stettings (eg. 0 1 1 0 - so EGA card primary and CGA monitor attached, i.e. 15.7kHz output). That leaves you with four unknown switches for a total of just 16 possibilities. Cycle through them one by one (count binary from 0000 to 1111) and you try all options.
I had similar issues with an EGA card from an Olivetti M240. The card turns out to output 25kHz by default instead of 15.7kHz (CGA/low-res EGA) or 21.8kHz (hi-res EGA), as that is what Olivetti specced their monitors at prior to EGA and rather than change monitors they modified the card output. Telltale feature was the presence of additional oscillator crystals on the card; normal EGA only needs 16.257MHz - this card had 24MHz and 27.256MHz crystals (and a socket for the missing 16.25MHz oscillator. Once I added the missing oscillator I was able to get it to work on a regular EGA monitor. Of course, I neglected to document the needed switch settings, but mine had 6 switches (with the first four being standard), so yours will be different anyway.
If I look at your card I see three oscillator cans: 16.257MHz, 27.256MHz and 25MHz. That almost certainly means it supports a wider range of frequencies than standard EGA and it's probably feeding one of those to your monitor now, which explains the image you see on screen. Given it does have 16.257MHz, it should be able to do standard frequencies if you find the correct setting.
It could be that one of the memory chips is faulty. These are 4-bit DRAMs but 64kbit only so good chances are all of them must work properly for the BIOS to detect video memory. And there is no easy option to test them either, other than maybe trying to swap in a known good set from another card? Completly broken DRAM chips also tend to run either hotter or much cooler than their working counterparts, but that is often difficult to measure, and it doesn't change much for chips that still kinda work, like for example only 1 bit of out 4 is glitched.
There's also that TMM2018 which I suppose is the character RAM? That one is static memory and the pinout should be compatible with 6116, so the programmer might be able to test it.
dionbwrote on 2025-07-10, 08:41:30 positions? With 8 switches there are 256 possibilities, so 30 just scratches the surface. Which switches were you playing aro […] Show full quote
No luck, i tried at least 30 positions, but it always beeps 🙁
Maybe is the card faulty, who knows? If someone had any ideas, i will be glad to try it.
Thanks in advance 😉
30 positions? With 8 switches there are 256 possibilities, so 30 just scratches the surface. Which switches were you playing around with?
I agree with mkarcher: the first four are pretty canonical, so you can set those to known, conservative stettings (eg. 0 1 1 0 - so EGA card primary and CGA monitor attached, i.e. 15.7kHz output). That leaves you with four unknown switches for a total of just 16 possibilities. Cycle through them one by one (count binary from 0000 to 1111) and you try all options.
I had similar issues with an EGA card from an Olivetti M240. The card turns out to output 25kHz by default instead of 15.7kHz (CGA/low-res EGA) or 21.8kHz (hi-res EGA), as that is what Olivetti specced their monitors at prior to EGA and rather than change monitors they modified the card output. Telltale feature was the presence of additional oscillator crystals on the card; normal EGA only needs 16.257MHz - this card had 24MHz and 27.256MHz crystals (and a socket for the missing 16.25MHz oscillator. Once I added the missing oscillator I was able to get it to work on a regular EGA monitor. Of course, I neglected to document the needed switch settings, but mine had 6 switches (with the first four being standard), so yours will be different anyway.
If I look at your card I see three oscillator cans: 16.257MHz, 27.256MHz and 25MHz. That almost certainly means it supports a wider range of frequencies than standard EGA and it's probably feeding one of those to your monitor now, which explains the image you see on screen. Given it does have 16.257MHz, it should be able to do standard frequencies if you find the correct setting.
That was the picture from my working card (OTI 037), the one i want to "revive" doesn't gave any picture, it only beeps (white screen, like i didn't even turn the pc on). Monitor i have is Philips PRO 9CM073, EGA of course.
It could be that one of the memory chips is faulty. These are 4-bit DRAMs but 64kbit only so good chances are all of them must work properly for the BIOS to detect video memory. And there is no easy option to test them either, other than maybe trying to swap in a known good set from another card? Completly broken DRAM chips also tend to run either hotter or much cooler than their working counterparts, but that is often difficult to measure, and it doesn't change much for chips that still kinda work, like for example only 1 bit of out 4 is glitched.
There's also that TMM2018 which I suppose is the character RAM? That one is static memory and the pinout should be compatible with 6116, so the programmer might be able to test it.
I have arduino memory tester, will try to test the modules. So TMM2018 can also be tested in T48? Will try that also...
Thanks
butjer1010wrote on 2025-07-10, 09:54:I have arduino memory tester, will try to test the modules. So TMM2018 can also be tested in T48? Will try that also...
tibpal20 […] Show full quote
It could be that one of the memory chips is faulty. These are 4-bit DRAMs but 64kbit only so good chances are all of them must work properly for the BIOS to detect video memory. And there is no easy option to test them either, other than maybe trying to swap in a known good set from another card? Completly broken DRAM chips also tend to run either hotter or much cooler than their working counterparts, but that is often difficult to measure, and it doesn't change much for chips that still kinda work, like for example only 1 bit of out 4 is glitched.
There's also that TMM2018 which I suppose is the character RAM? That one is static memory and the pinout should be compatible with 6116, so the programmer might be able to test it.
I have arduino memory tester, will try to test the modules. So TMM2018 can also be tested in T48? Will try that also...
tibpal20l8-25cnt and tibpal16l8-25cnt - could i test them somehow?
Thanks
