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IBM Personal System/2 Image Adapter/A

The link doesn't mention frequency except for thatone remark about 75hz, so is this a fixed frequency card?
 
I have a 90EE IBM SVGA Display Adapter and some other video card meant for Japanese systems I think. There are other non IBM MCA video cards and those video capture cards that IBM made that use the passthrough slot.
 
IBM said:
The Image Adapter/A can connect to any display that is compatible with the IBM Displays, 8503, 8506, 8507, 8508, 8512, 8513, 8514, 8515 and 6091 19". To enable other displays to operate correctly you may need to override the display ID that is returned by the display.
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That would seem to cover most VGA displays.
 
Shadow Lord said:
Hi,

Just wondering if anyone has experience with the IBM Personal System/2 Image Adapter/A? Specifically does it work with a regular multisync VGA monitor or does it require a special monitor? Thanks!
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I've run the Image Adapter/A (3MB VRAM model) in a PS/2 Model 70.

Unlike an adapter such as the XGA-2, the Image Adapter/A is not freely programmable to any resolution and refresh rate combination. When you set it up, the software asks what type of (IBM) monitor you have and tailors your choice of resolutions, color depths and refresh rates accordingly. Most capable multisync CRT monitors will handle its output. Flat panel displays may not be so accomodating.

The card is one of the few that can run high color (16 bpp) at 1024x768 in the Microchannel world. It works best with Windows 3.1x and OS/2. The software stack for Windows 3.1x consists of a device driver or two for DOS and a driver for Windows. All have to be loaded in order for the adapter to work. The whole mess uses a fair amount of conventional memory.

I found the performance to be quite acceptable, though the IA/A is nowhere near as fast as something like an XGA-1 or XGA-2 card. It's a little faster than the 8514/A card.
 
uxwbill,

Thanks for that info. Exactly what I was looking for. I've never owned a PS/2 system and have absolutely no experience w/ MCA. However, its on my short "want list" (along w/ a NeXT) of vintage systems. So I watch fleabay hoping for a reasonably priced system and try and do my due diligence trying to learn about whats out there in terms of options/addons/etc. An Image Adapter NOS came up a few days ago. I passed it up since I wasn't sure it would be useful later...
 
Shadow Lord said:
uxwbill,

Thanks for that info. Exactly what I was looking for. I've never owned a PS/2 system and have absolutely no experience w/ MCA. However, its on my short "want list" (along w/ a NeXT) of vintage systems. So I watch fleabay hoping for a reasonably priced system and try and do my due diligence trying to learn about whats out there in terms of options/addons/etc. An Image Adapter NOS came up a few days ago. I passed it up since I wasn't sure it would be useful later...
Click to expand...

I'm glad that this information is what you were looking for. Were it me, I'd seek out an XGA-2 graphics adapter. The XGA-2 has good to excellent driver support across a wide variety of operating systems and is basically freely programmable to any display resolution or refresh rate that its video RAM (1MB) or RAMDAC (90MHz clock) can support. XGA-2 adapters are also relatively common and work in all of the desktop PS/2 machines that shipped with a 386SX or better CPU. Some of the XGA-2 RAMDACs are unstable if pushed to their maximum and show some misbehavior in the form of "snow" or slight misdrawing.

You should be able to find an XGA-2 card for $5-30 depending upon your luck.

There is a very nice rewritten driver known as XGA-206 or 208 for Windows 9x and NT4 users that really pushes the card a lot further and adds capabilities that Microsoft never provided with their XGA-2 driver. (Microsoft's XGA-2 driver on Win9x is really just an XGA-1 driver.) True color modes are not yet available with the NT driver. I don't know if there will ever be more development on it or not.

I tested an unofficial release of the enhanced XGA-206/208 driver that made it possible to run 800x600 at high color on an XGA-1 adapter with its video memory upgraded to 1MB. I believe I may have been the only person in the world to do so with the XGA-1 hardware. :D

There is also the ATI Graphics Ultra Pro card for Microchannel. While it has more video RAM and can manage high color at 1024x768, I have a hard time recommending it. It's expensive, some revisions are unstable, it runs hot, can be fiddly to set up in some machines, and the XGA-2 will blow it out of the water performance-wise. I have one, and as I'm sure you can tell, I'm just not that crazy about it.

By the way, the most current version of the Ardent Tools of Capitalism web site can be found here.

The Image Adapter/A was a pretty capable card, it's just unfortunate that the drivers weren't a little better and available for more operating systems. It also supported the connection of an IBM 3119 (or was that 3117?) scanner or a 4126-020 laser page printer. There is also the similarly named Image-I Adapter/A.
 
Thanks. I had gathered as much from your earlier post. I actually have an XGA-2 card (a revision two I believe) amongst a couple of other MCA cards (NIC and a modem) but there were so many options it is easy to be confused. Plus, it seems that not all MCA cards worked in all the PS/2s. Or maybe thats just me being misinformed... Lots of learning to do but that is what makes this hobby fun. Since I dug back into "vintage" systems of yore (1980s IBMs mostly) I've come to learn so much more about them then I knew when I used them actively. Things that I saw before as "huh, why the heck does it do that" make sense now (or as much sense as why on god's green earth did the engineers do that?).

BTW: Thanks for the new address on Ardent Tools of Capitalism.
 
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