I'll check mine and see what kind of font it is... I can maybe dump the ROMs and send them to you.

^ great , thanks!

All Tseng cards have this font.

wow... any idea why? just so they can stand out? I took some quick pics:

maybe there is another newer bios out there with normal L character?
I realize this is next to nothing to complain but still - I'd love a "normal" lowercase L character 🤣

@Keropi: I got http://retronn.de/imports/hwgal/hw_tseng_et4000ax_1.html
It looks quite similar. If you want a ROM image for comparison PM me.

As far as I know all Tseng cards have this weird looking "l". Not sure why... but it's how it is 😉

I found a newer BIOS revision - it has a "normal" l this time but the zero is slashed - maybe they needed one character different at all times 🤣

@elianda
that's the exact same card , what's the BIOS version on your card?

edit:
now I remember why I did not bother with TSENG cards:

vga mode: flashing checkerboard

ega mode: flashing black transparency of some sorts

Good to know there are other fonts... I might have seen them, but it's not important to me. I'm kinda used to them as I had ET4000 for some years in those times 😉

I _HATED_ that 'l' with a passion with my tseng. its so bad ugh.

keropi wrote:

@elianda
that's the exact same card , what's the BIOS version on your card?

Took me a while to gather all the cards from the archive, but here you go:

Card 0: 01/07/93 V8.00 (Machspeed) - this card is not in my gallery at retronn.de, only difference here is that it doesn't have an odd/even BIOS, layout is the same otherwise
Card 1: 04/15/92 V8.06 - notation as in linked gallery entry
Card 2: 04/15/92 V8.06 - notation as in linked gallery entry

I must be the least OCD person on this site... The Tseng 'l' doesn't bother me at all, nor does the slashed zero... (I slash my zeros in handwriting anyway, makes for less confusion)

stamasd wrote:

I must be the least OCD person on this site... The Tseng 'l' doesn't bother me at all, nor does the slashed zero... (I slash my zeros in handwriting anyway, makes for less confusion)

I'm fine with it, too. Reminds me a tiny bit of the "l" character in cursive handwriting..
Perhaps we do just have a bad taste ? Haha. 🤣

Btw, I just checked my own dump I use for PCem. It is the ordinary one.
I secretly hoped I got the freaky font.

keropi wrote:

I found a newer BIOS revision - it has a "normal" l this time but the zero is slashed - maybe they needed one character differen […]
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I found a newer BIOS revision - it has a "normal" l this time but the zero is slashed - maybe they needed one character different at all times 🤣

@elianda
that's the exact same card , what's the BIOS version on your card?

edit:
now I remember why I did not bother with TSENG cards:

vga mode: flashing checkerboard

ega mode: flashing black transparency of some sorts

if you set the tseng to EGA mode with VMODE these problems are gone.
But I would like to correct the image-ajustment of my et4000 between vgatextmode 80x25 and lowres vga 320x200. they differ around 1cm on my tft.

Are all tseng card suppose to have problems like that because I have not noticed and commander keen4 is usually one of the first games I try in a system?

I can not remember seeing these issues with ET4000 cards.

It depends on the card. Some ET4000 cards with 256color are mostly OK, but I can confirm that my diamond-speedstar-vga needs the svga-fix on some games.
The ET4000/w32 are even worse. My PCD4L with ET4000/w32 produces ugly glitches on PriratesGold and also in TowerAssault.
I think those ET4000's are hyped too much. Though they are fast, but not too compatible. S3 and CL seem to have the better cards.

I have had to use SVGA fix in Keen games to get stuff to run without visual glitches...

And as far as topic title goes, I also had an issue with strange L chars on my ET4000 card and a while ago I ended up hacking the ROM with my own font :

The font got tweaked a bit more after the photos were taken. One thing I discovered was that there were a row of characters in the ROM that were used to override some chars in the main set i.e the zero in first pic, mine had a line going through it rather than a dot in the middle and couple other chars weren't what I made the such as T and Z).

dr.zeissler wrote:

It depends on the card. Some ET4000 cards with 256color are mostly OK, but I can confirm that my diamond-speedstar-vga needs the svga-fix on some games.
The ET4000/w32 are even worse. My PCD4L with ET4000/w32 produces ugly glitches on PriratesGold and also in TowerAssault.
I think those ET4000's are hyped too much. Though they are fast, but not too compatible. S3 and CL seem to have the better cards.

At least my ET4000/w32p vlb card has no problems with commander keen 4. I have not tried those games you mentioned though.

Perhaps the problem originates from video BIOS rather than hardware ? It would be nice to have the BIOS dump to test on my card (once I get back home).