Trying to get 256 color mode working in win98 (think I might need a driver?)

[Timo W.]

I'm going to expand on something Timo wrote. What he wrote is correct (except 3 MB is an option, just not a commonly used one - the SuperMac Spectrum/24, for example, has a 3 MB framebuffer) but you're not the first person here I've seen evidence some confusion about this kind of thing, so I'll try to spell it out in greater detail.

Hehe, I know. I own a Mac with a 3 MB SuperMac Thunder/24 graphics card myself and even made a thread about it here:

https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/co...permac-edition

But the TGUI 9680 card he uses has no 3 MB option, nor any other standard graphics card made for PCs.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

Not incorrect. You are wrong, as you just described AT, not ATX. What he said is 100% correct.

I did not describe AT. Most ATX power supplies also have a physical on/off switch, just as AT power supplies did, but are usually controlled by the PWR_ON pin on the Minifit Jr. connector that goes to the motherboard. There are some systems that keep this pin shorted to ground at all times and rely on the AC power switch on the back of the unit for power control.

https://i.imgur.com/72aWp5Ah.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/TpmqsOWh.jpg

Likewise, there were also AT systems that had soft power control. I worked on two such systems this year, one IBM tower and one Fujitsu FMVTowns. Both systems have a proprietary 3 pin connector and a bit of circuitry inside the PSU to enable soft power control.

AT and ATX are not black and white standard differences, there was a lot of intermixing of both standards going on for a number of years.

 

[J. Radon]

If the video card has empty ram sockets, you should be able to bring it up to 2 meg at least. Ought to be 2 pieces of 256k x 16 EDO SOJ.

Is there anything else I need to know to ensure compatibility? I've been scouring eBay and this is the listing I'm currently looking at: https://www.ebay.com/itm/363154438656
would something like this work?

 

[Krille]

Have you tried looking for the same type of memory already installed on the card?

 

[bear]

But the TGUI 9680 card he uses has no 3 MB option

Fair enough.

nor any other standard graphics card made for PCs.

Did you know that SuperMac made the Spectrum/24 (with the 3 MB frame buffer) for PCs? In ISA, EISA, and VLB varieties, even. You can think of them as "non-standard" if you like. But they exist.

 

[Timo W.]

No, never seen those for PCs.

 

[bear]

https://books.google.com/books?id=eX8w8B-OhIIC&ots=29mzMgERLK&pg=PA55

 

[Timo W.]

Interesting, but that's just an ad. Did you ever see one of those cards in the wild?

 

[bear]

Interesting, but that's just an ad. Did you ever see one of those cards in the wild?

Yeah, enough to have added several to my collection, plus a few more I left for others. They're not very common, but I wouldn't say vanishingly rare. A bit tough to love, since they only ever had Windows 3.1 drivers (plus a beta NT driver that can be downloaded from the internet).

 

[Timo W.]

Nice. Mind to share some pictures?

Do they work in DOS, too, or are these pure Windows accelerators like those Weitek 9000 chips?

 

[bear]

Nice. Mind to share some pictures?

Do they work in DOS, too, or are these pure Windows accelerators like those Weitek 9000 chips?

No VGA core. Windows only. Here's an EISA version for sale on eBay now: https://www.ebay.com/itm/154616291045