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Paradise VGA Card

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bugman2112

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2008
Messages
180
Location
Clifton Park, NY
I am trying to get my Paradise VGA card to work in my XT and could use help. It is labeled as a 16bit/8bit card. I have the manual and it definitely is suppose to work in an 8bit XT. I believe I have the 4 switches, and 2 jumper blocks set correctly (although the manual isn't the easiest to follow). I have tried this on a LCD screen, as well as, a VGA CRT monitor. I even tried an 8513 monitor, which the manual says works. The result is no video. I have several of these cards and get the same result. So I think I can rule out a bad card. This is close, if not exactly, my card for reference.
http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/graphics-cards/P-R/PARADISE-SYSTEMS-INC-VGA-16-BIT-VGA-CARD.html

Any help appreciated.
 
bugman2112 said:
I am trying to get my Paradise VGA card to work in my XT and could use help. It is labeled as a 16bit/8bit card. I have the manual and it definitely is suppose to work in an 8bit XT. I believe I have the 4 switches, and 2 jumper blocks set correctly (although the manual isn't the easiest to follow). I have tried this on a LCD screen, as well as, a VGA CRT monitor. I even tried an 8513 monitor, which the manual says works. The result is no video. I have several of these cards and get the same result. So I think I can rule out a bad card. This is close, if not exactly, my card for reference.
http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/graphics-cards/P-R/PARADISE-SYSTEMS-INC-VGA-16-BIT-VGA-CARD.html

Any help appreciated.
Click to expand...

What have you set the jumpers to?
 
JUMPER BLOCKS

W1 closed
W2 Pins 1 & 2 closed

SWITCHES 1-4
note: brackets () indicate current selection

sw1 display timing
(PS/2) or multi-frequency

sw2 VGA Mode switching configuration
(PS/2 style) or PC/AT style

sw3 - factory - off

sw4 autosense selection
(autosense for 16 bit bios) or autosense disabled, force 8-bit

This is the current settings, although I've tried various combinations. Does anything stick out as an absolute factor? The autosense (per the manual) isn't suppose to be a problem because it should automatically go to 8bit in an 8bit slot. The reason for the option (again, per the manual) is becasue some 16 bit slots (in clones, etc.) couldnt really use the 16bit capabilites of this card.

By the way, the XT motherboard has switches 5 and 6 set correctly to indicate a video card other than monochrome or CGA (other, EGA, VGA, etc). Also, the BIOS is dated November of 82, which meets the manuals requirement cut off of October 82.
 
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Does the XT just beep, like there's no video card present at all?

I had a similar issues (others here have as well) and when I put the video card into my zenith 8088 XT clone, it worked just fine. I suspect there is something weird in the XT, more than likely the BIOS. I don't recall what video card I was using at the time, but I will be getting back to this when I button up my XT in a few weeks.

Is Nov 82 the latest XT BIOS?
I wonder if it could be patched to make work? I really want to use my XT over my z8088, but this and a few other incompatibilities have made it not as desirable.

Whatever the solution may be, it is good information for our wiki page:
http://wiki.vintage-computer.com/index.php/8bit_Friendly_ISA_VGA_cards
 
There are no errors beeps, and the computer seems to post normally because the drive boots. Just blank video. The card came with a BIOS check program that when run, reports November 1982. Its not the newest, but according to the manual, anything later than October 1982 should work.

Any chance for a resource conflict? I have a floppy drive controller and serial port in slot 8 (closest to CPU). I also have a Co-processor.
 
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bugman2112 said:
JUMPER BLOCKS

W1 closed
W2 Pins 1 & 2 closed

SWITCHES 1-4
note: brackets () indicate current selection

sw1 display timing
(PS/2) or multi-frequency

sw2 VGA Mode switching configuration
(PS/2 style) or PC/AT style

sw3 - factory - off

sw4 autosense selection
(autosense for 16 bit bios) or autosense disabled, force 8-bit

This is the current settings, although I've tried various combinations. Does anything stick out as an absolute factor? The autosense (per the manual) isn't suppose to be a problem because it should automatically go to 8bit in an 8bit slot. The reason for the option (again, per the manual) is becasue some 16 bit slots (in clones, etc.) couldnt really use the 16bit capabilites of this card.

By the way, the XT motherboard has switches 5 and 6 set correctly to indicate a video card other than monochrome or CGA (other, EGA, VGA, etc). Also, the BIOS is dated November of 82, which meets the manuals requirement cut off of October 82.
Click to expand...

Try to alter Sw4 so it forces 8-bit bus operation.

In addition, is it an orignal IBM XT, or a clone?
 
bugman2112 said:
I'll make sure I try that this evening. It is an original XT, 5160.
Click to expand...

Ok. That might higly possible be the problem, since if only half the bytes of the ROMs on the card can be seen; the XT won't recognize it as an BIOS extension and hence ignore it. It won't even give you the error message of no video display because that test is skipped when SW1 nr5-6 is set to None/EGA/VGA/Other.
 
So, do you mean because its an XT that there is no way it will work. Or are you saying that is why its important to force the 8bit opertation through SW4?
 
bugman2112 said:
So, do you mean because its an XT that there is no way it will work. Or are you saying that is why its important to force the 8bit opertation through SW4?
Click to expand...

It is about why it is imporiant to force it to 8-bit operation because the system bus in the XT is only 8-bit. AutoSense doesn't nessecarely mean Auto-Detect.
 
Got it! I can't wait to try it again. It would be great if I could get this to work. Not only do I have all the manuals, but I actually have the 360k disks that came with it that has the programs which lock down emulation modes (MCGA, HERC, CGA, etc.) so they don't reset after a warm boot.
 
Success. I already had the jumper SW4 set on force 8-bit, so it wan't that. On a whim, I inserted the VGA support disk and blindly typed VGA VGA. VGA.exe is a program used to change modes on the card. You can choose VGA, CGA, EGA, MONO, HERC, MCGA.

The card is supposed to start in default VGA mode. I swear the manual says nothing about needing to load this program before video is usuable. It wouldn't really make sense to not be able to see any post information. But whatever, I'm just happy I got it to work. I've played a few games and compatability seems decent.

If anyone out there needs a copy of these utilities for the paradise 16bit/8bit VGA card, please don't hesitate to PM me.
 
I had a similar issue with an ATI VGA Wonder card that only displayed
in monochrome. Originally thought I had a bad card.....then one day
I ran the setup program on the diskette and it brought up a menu that
lets you select the default display mode. Changed it to VGA color and it
worked fine. Once you set the mode the card stores it until you change it.
 
bugman2112 said:
The card is supposed to start in default VGA mode. I swear the manual says nothing about needing to load this program before video is usuable. It wouldn't really make sense to not be able to see any post information. But whatever, I'm just happy I got it to work. I've played a few games and compatability seems decent.
Click to expand...
Somebody problably used the card with anothe kind of monitor before you got it.
 
Unfortunately this card doesn't seem to retain any kind of setting. So I have to blind boot every time (or include the mode set in my autoexec). Not a big deal, just not optimal to trouble shoot a boot problem should one arise. I'd have to put back my CGA card.
 
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bugman2112 said:
Unfortunately this card doesn't seem to retain any kind of setting. So I have to blind boot every time (or include the mode set in my autoexec). Not a big deal, just not optimal to trouble shoot a boot problem should one arise. I'd have to put back my CGA card.
Click to expand...

Maybe one or several of the "factory setting - Do Not Alter" switches will put it into VGA-on-startup mode. Sometimes they just put that in because they simply didn't know what the switches did. If you got the manual, it may provide the information you need. Till then, just put the driver into the Autoexec.bat file.
 
I picked up an 8bit Paradise VGA card the other day and I trying to confirm the direction of the 4 switches.

There are no "on-off" markings like on the MB switch of my 5155. There is an "open". From the way the video card behaves I am guessing open is "on".

I have searched around for a manual and found plenty of dead links. Can anyone confirm the switch direction?

Thanks,

Matt
 
This is not a reply to correct the problem but a weird xt situation that occured i was building 2 identical xt computers all partd had matching pairs using monochrome monitors when i put the units together the printer port on one did not work switched printer cards and both computer printers worked put cards back to retry and printer port did not work again switched cards again both printer ports worked
 
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