identify ISA vga card, paradise chip

[Elvi]

When i saw some info here on the forum regarding paradise chipped graphics cards i came to think of the only card i have with one of those chips and now i wonder if western digital made it or what, it does have a marking from compaq on it but i highly doubt they made it.
The chip is PVGA1A and here you can look at it for a tiny bit more detail + image
http://electricdreams.ath.cx/card/paradisepvga1a.php?current=3&s2=1

 

[Compgeke]

That is one interesting looking card. I would see if it has a video BIOS message that appears when you 1st turn on the system (the Oak Technology and Trident ISA cards I have display a quick message) or I would try running the Top Bench program as found in the PCs and Clones section I believe to see what it reads the video card as.

 

[FishFinger]

I used to have a card like that. It came with my Compaq Portable 386. It only had 256KB like a normal VGA rather than the 512KB most Paradise cards had - so while it had the Paradise chipset it didn't have the memory to handle any of the enhanced Paradise modes.

The video BIOS was fairly generic too, it just reported itself as a standard VGA in most of the software I tried.

 

[Elvi]

That is one interesting looking card. I would see if it has a video BIOS message that appears when you 1st turn on the system (the Oak Technology and Trident ISA cards I have display a quick message) or I would try running the Top Bench program as found in the PCs and Clones section I believe to see what it reads the video card as.

i can't seem to find this top bench program you speak of and no this card doesn't show anything at boot.

 

[Compgeke]

Top Bench

 

[Elvi]

Thanks but the program didn't say anything more than what i found on the card itself, Paradise pvga1a but i did find out that it was a 256kb model.

 

[Elvi]

Anyone have any other tricks up their sleaves to possibly identify this card fully?

 

[Trixter]

I don't know what else there is to say -- it's a Paradise PVGA1A chipset card, which were very common and generic. If the one listed in the first link is yours, you can clearly see the Compaq sticker on it, so it is a Compaq-OEM'd Western Digital VGA card using the Paradise chipset. If you're looking for a brand name, you won't find one.