Video Seven VEGA VGA Demo Board \ VOGONS

Video Seven VEGA VGA Demo Board

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First post, by Brickpad

Posted on 2016-07-29, 15:44

Brickpad Offline

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Thought I would share with everyone a little gem in my collection. I was given this card roughly 15 years ago from a friend's father who was a former programmer for the U.S. Government. In fact, he gave me a lot of things, including an Apple //c, IBM PC3270 terminal emulator with model F keyboard, Seagate ST-225 drives, a Microsoft RAM card, and other nostalgic hardware. Unfortunately most of that ended up in the trash (Yeah, yeah, lynch me later. I'm still kicking myself for that!), but I did keep the RAM card and this VideoSeven VEGA VGA demo unit. I doubt this is a prototype, but i'm not sure where it would have been used? Unfortunately I can't get it work, but the DIP switches are in the correct position for VGA output. As far as I can tell this is a VGA / EGA card with, I think, 512K (8 x 64K). Underside reads: DEMO UNIT NOT FOR RESALE printed on the PCB, and Bad Mem Chip written in marker.

Reply 1 of 3, by clueless1

Posted on 2016-07-29, 16:04

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Nice! It's using the very first Cirrus Logic graphics chip from 1987. I wonder what the relationship between Video Seven and Cirrus Logic was. Look at this card from vgamuseum.info, it looks very similar to yours:
http://vgamuseum.info/index.php/cards/item/12 … ic-cl-gd410-420

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Reply 2 of 3, by Brickpad

Posted on 2016-07-29, 20:21

Brickpad Offline

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Joined: 2014-03-11, 03:25
Location: New Hampshire

clueless1 wrote:
Nice! It's using the very first Cirrus Logic graphics chip from 1987. I wonder what the relationship between Video Seven and Cirrus Logic was. Look at this card from vgamuseum.info, it looks very similar to yours:
http://vgamuseum.info/index.php/cards/item/12 … ic-cl-gd410-420

I always thought Video Seven made their own stuff, but apparently not. Cirrus did supply their chips for a lot of vendors though, if I am correct. That card is very close to mine, although it looks like it's using larger, rectangular crystals rather than the squarish ones on mine.

Reply 3 of 3, by j^aws

Posted on 2016-07-30, 00:03

j^aws Offline

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Brickpad wrote:
...Unfortunately I can't get it work, but the DIP switches are in the correct position for VGA output. As far as I can tell this is a VGA / EGA card with, I think, 512K (8 x 64K). Underside reads: DEMO UNIT NOT FOR RESALE printed on the PCB, and Bad Mem Chip written in marker.
...

I have the same card - there are at least 2 different PCBs for this card. It has 256K RAM and also does CGA.

Even though you mention the correct DIP switches have been selected for VGA, there are still jumpers missing from the central area of your board; this card is very sensitive to them missing and will not POST. IIRC, the jumpers can be found in TH99 or online. It's worth a shot, despite the marker saying 'bad mem chips', as this could've been diagnosed incorrectly.

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