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Information about Hercules video cards.

aitopes said:
Hello!
Sorry for delay.

The video conector have 9 pin.
And....the video card work fine with a Samsung Ambar monitor. Is an Hercules (clone, oviusly) card.

Ariel Palazzesi
Web: www.ucontrol.com.ar
Foro: http://www.ucontrol.com.ar/forosmf/index.php
Visita www.neoteo.com
Click to expand...

Ok, 9- pins. Now we're talking a possible Herc- compatible, but I still doubt it. My guess is a monochrome CGA-compatible, which is able to display grey-scale CGA type graphics on a TTL-mono monitor. (I have a similar board right here in my hands right now). My 'best guess' is based on the 'mga' designation on this board. Many manufacturers of Herc cloned would use the term 'HGA' to indicate that their card was Herc-compatible, while the term 'MGA' was usually used to indicate the CGA compatible boards.

Have you actually run a program on it in Herc mode?

--T
 
Terry Yager said:
Ok, 9- pins. Now we're talking a possible Herc- compatible, but I still doubt it. My guess is a monochrome CGA-compatible, which is able to display grey-scale CGA type graphics on a TTL-mono monitor. (I have a similar board right here in my hands right now). My 'best guess' is based on the 'mga' designation on this board. Many manufacturers of Herc cloned would use the term 'HGA' to indicate that their card was Herc-compatible, while the term 'MGA' was usually used to indicate the CGA compatible boards.

Have you actually run a program on it in Herc mode?

--T
Click to expand...

Do you know if the ATI small wonder graphics sollution (v2) does CGA output to a mono monitor?
 
Yup, it's an MGA. 64Kx8 RAM 23C01 character ROM.

ISTR that DOSSHELL under MS-DOS 6.x has a Herc driver and various character fonts. I'll do some digging for programming information tomorrow.

Windows 3.1 supported Hercules graphics as did quite a few games.
 
C'mon guys; VGA/CGA with a printer port?

This is an ordinary Hercules-compatible mono graphics and printer combo, common as dirt in those days, and practically every clone doing 'real' work had one; I'm amazed you haven't seen one.
 
per said:
Do you know if the ATI small wonder graphics sollution (v2) does CGA output to a mono monitor?
Click to expand...
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The Graphics Solution card was indeed a 'small wonder', but that name was used with the EGA card.

Of course the Graphics Solution can do CGA on TTL mono - that's what it's for:

It can display CGA, MDA, HGC, Plantronics, and ATI 132 columns on a mono TTL, a CGA, the PC Portable, a composite mono or colour, or a multi-frequency or MultiSync monitor (with a few caveats). Great little card in its day; still have a few..
 
MikeS said:
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The Graphics Solution card was in indeed a small wonder, but that name was used with the EGA card.

Of course the Graphics Solution can do CGA on TTL mono - that's what it's for:

It can display CGA, MDA, HGC, Plantronics, and ATI 132 columns on a mono TTL, a CGA, the PC Portable, a composite mono or colour, or a multi-frequency or MultiSync monitor (with a few caveats). Great little card in its day; still have a few..
Click to expand...

There WAS actually a card named "Smal wonder" made in 1988. I'm holding one right now, and here is the link to TH99: http://th99.dyndns.org/v/A-B/52893.htm

In addition to the Graphics solution, it got CGA compatible headers (lightpen & stuff). The Chipset consist of the ATI 18700 and ATI8824CDA. Do you know if it is as good as the regular Graphics soultion?
 
I stand corrected, thank you; I was thinking of the EGA wonder.

I'm looking at one of the cards and it does indeed say Small Wonder, Graphics Solution;
however, on the boxes it only says Graphics Solution, and I don't recall them ever being called anything else back then.

I take it you don't have the manual or you would not have asked your question. If you need any info or the software, PM me.
 
Hi per:

I got your PM and I'll gladly send you what I have, but you'll probably be disappointed.

I just looked at the manual and it doesn't mention the jumpers or auxiliary connectors at all (!); the cards I have are V1 and V3 (a completely different animal with a large daughter-card and serial & parallel I/O) so I don't know if the utilities will work with your V2 either.

m
 
MikeS said:
Hi per:

I got your PM and I'll gladly send you what I have, but you'll probably be disappointed.

I just looked at the manual and it doesn't mention the jumpers or auxiliary connectors at all (!); the cards I have are V1 and V3 (a completely different animal with a large daughter-card and serial & parallel I/O) so I don't know if the utilities will work with your V2 either.

m
Click to expand...

Pictures please...

My card looks like this (it's not my card, but it looks the same):
Small_Wonder_card.jpg
 
Geez, now you want pictures! I shoulda stayed out of this... ;-)
 

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MikeS said:
Geez, now you want pictures! I shoulda stayed out of this... ;-)
Click to expand...

Ver. 1 is the most similar (same chipset). Can you type the specs. & settings for it? The software would also be great. The only difference is the Chips count (one extra TTL and a coupple of extra Resistors on ver. 1)

*Edit*
Sorry, the Chips AND Resistor count is the same. My mistake. The only difference seems to be the organizion of the components and the fact that it uses DIP RAM instead of surface mount RAM.
 
Last edited:
per said:
Ver. 1 is the most similar (same chipset). Can you type the specs. & settings for it? The software would also be great. The only difference is the Chips count (one extra TTL and a coupple of extra Resistors on ver. 1)
Click to expand...
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Looks pretty well identical to me; 3 TTLs to interface to the bus etc., 2 memory chips, the ATI 18700 and a ROM/EPROM (and a transistor to drive the composite out). The number of resistors etc. is different among my V1 cards anyway.

Having trouble reading the disk; you may be SOL.

mike
 
MikeS said:
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Looks pretty well identical to me; 3 TTLs to interface to the bus etc., 2 memory chips, the ATI 18700 and a ROM/EPROM (and a transistor to drive the composite out). The number of resistors etc. is different among my V1 cards anyway.

Having trouble reading the disk; you may be SOL.

mike
Click to expand...

and the manual or box doesn't say anything about switch settings or graphic modes supported?
 
I looked around and the best programming reference that I could find is an old MGA "clone" manual. I scanned it and you can download it here.

If you need more, let me know. I'll leave the file up until Monday.
 
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