Uncreative Labs

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

Good luck with it, let me know how it turns out. Atleast the EISA card I have works with OS/2 (one of the OS's I use on my EISA 486).

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

I got the card in the mail today. I'll see how it works out as soon as I reinstall Windows and get PKUNZIP on my system so I can extract the drivers.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

Cool, let us know.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

I can't seem to get the card going because the software I have cannot find usable address space. Perhaps I have too much memory installed in this system to be able to use the board.

To Unknown K:

I got my drivers for a European webserver. I don't have anything much in the way of documentation though. What is the story with your driver set?

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

Spectrum/24 for Windows EISA notes

Driver software for the Spectrum/24 EISA card for Windows 3.1.

All files located in this directory are compressed into a self extracting
archive using the PKZIP file compression software. No software is required
to de-compress these files.

After your files have been downloaded, simply use the following command to
extract the files:

SPECEISA -D <destination>

Example: SPECEISA -D A:

The example above will place the unziped files on to your A: drive.
The "-d" option will extract the original directory hierarchy on to the
designated drive. Failure to use the -d option will prevent the software
from working.

Filename Size Date Description of File Contents
============ ======== ======== ============================================

SPECEISA.EXE 307569 07-01-94| Spectrum/24 EISA Disk Version 7/1/94
| This is the entire Spectrum/24 EISA
| installation disk.

=============================================================================

Windows 95 Note

The Spectrum/24 EISA board will not be updated beyond this driver version,
nor will it be supported under Windows 95. Windows 95 expects a
user-accessible base MMIO address, and since the Spectrum/24 EISA board
pre-dates these requirements by several years and offers no MMIO interface,
it will not be possible to retrofit or upgrade it to run under Windows 95.

==============================================================================
A Windows NT 3.5 compatible driver for the Spectrum/24 EISA card is
also available.
==============================================================================

Technical Support

For technical support for this product, you may call Radius Technical Support
at: 1-408-541-5700.

For priority access to technical support for assistance with this product,
please call Radius Technical Support at: 1-900-555-6275, or 1-800-573-6275.

Also virtually all of the information about this product, including
compatibility and common questions and answers can be found, free of charge,
on our technical faxback system at (800) 332-9225.

=============================================================================
Original Release Note

29 March 1994

These release notes contain the latest information about operating your
new Spectrum/24 for Microsoft Windows graphics display card and software.

-------- Release Notes ---------

1. Requirements

The Spectrum/24 drivers require a 80386 based CPU or better, and are
fully supported only in Windows 386 Enhanced mode.

2. Unnamed floppy prompt

If you attempt to install the Spectrum/24 software from your B: floppy,
you will see the prompt "Please insert the .", due to a bug in the
Windows SETUP program. Type "B:\" (or the name of the disk drive
holding the Spectrum/24 install disk), then click OK.

3. Third-party "shell" programs

If you are using a third-party shell program, such as the Norton Desktop
for Windows, and you experience problems while installing Spectrum/24
software, refer to the detailed section later in this file.

4. Applications with difficulties at 24 bits

- The Windows Program Manager will cause errors if you attempt to add
applications to a large group. See the detailed section later in
this file.

- The Microsoft Visual C++ setup program attempts to create a large group
and will issue two errors. See the detailed section later in this file.

- The "Aquatic Realm" and "Swan Lake" screen saver modules in After Dark
2.0 display strange bitmaps on devices with 24 bits of color depth.
Release 2.0a of After Dark solves this problem. Contact Berkeley
Systems Technical Support at 1-800-877-5535 for this upgrade.

5. Compaq Prosignia with motherboard SCSI

If you intend to install your Spectrum/24 in a Compaq Prosignia system
using a SCSI disk and the on-board SCSI controller, you need to take
an additional step after installing your Spectrum/24 but before actually
using the board. Refer to the detailed section later in this file.

==========================
-------- Details ---------
==========================

This file contains notes and information relating to the Windows driver
installation and usage which might not have made it into the release
documentation.

1. Restrictions
---------------
The Spectrum/24 drivers require an 80386 CPU or better, and are fully
supported only in Windows 3.1 386 Enhanced mode. Our experience has shown
that the driver operates correctly in Windows Standard mode only if an
extended memory manager (such as EMM386 or QEMM) is NOT used. Spectrum/24
will not operate at all in Windows 3.0 Real mode, and neither should you.

Ordinarily, this does not present a problem. Most 386 users use Enhanced
mode. However, when you perform an initial Windows installation, you must
select a VGA device as your initial graphics adapter when performing an
initial Windows installation. Then, once Windows has been installed, you
may use the Spectrum/24 Setup utility to change to the Spectrum/24 adapter.

2. Windows 3.0
--------------
SuperMac does not support operation of the Spectrum/24 EISA card and driver
under Windows 3.0.

3. Installation Notes
---------------------

. Unnamed floppy prompt

Because of a bug in the Windows SETUP utility, if you are installing
Spectrum/24 from your B: floppy, you might be prompted with the
particularly unfriendly message "Please insert the ." If you receive
this prompt, type in "B:\", or the path to the floppy disk drive
holding the Spectrum/24 install disk if you are using a different
drive.

. Third-party "Shell" Programs

The Spectrum/24 installation and setup program communicates with the
Windows Program Manager to install the Spectrum/24 group and program
icons. Some third-party shells, such as Norton's Desktop for Windows,
do not fully comply with the Program Manager DDE interface, and will
produce a system error during the Spectrum/24 installation.

To work around this problem, either change the SHELL line in your
SYSTEM.INI file to read "SHELL=PROGMAN.EXE" and restart Windows, or
launch PROGMAN.EXE from your preferred shell. Then, restart the
Spectrum/24 installation.

4. Applications with difficulty at 24 bits per pixel
----------------------------------------------------

Some applications have difficulty operating on a true-color device with 24
bits per pixel. Here are some of the applications which are known to have
difficulty.

. Program Manager

All of the bitmaps for all of the icons within a Program Manager group
must fit within a single 64K segment. Because of this, at 24 bits per
pixel a single group can hold at most 19 icons. Attempting to add the
20th icon to a group results in a message box indicating "Insufficient
Memory to complete the operation." The only solution to this is to
split the group into two smaller groups.

. Microsoft Visual C++

As one of the last steps in its setup process, Microsoft Visual C++
creates a program group with 22 icons. Because of the Program Manager
limitation described above, the addition of last two icons will generate
errors. Microsoft is aware of this problem and will be issuing a
corrective update.

In the interim, one solution is to create another group by hand
called "Visual C++ Doc", then move (using drag-and-drop) all the
documentation related icons to this new group. Then you may add the two
icons which fail: MFCNOTES.HLP and MFCSAMP.HLP, both in the MSVC\HELP

. Berkeley Systems After Dark 2.0

The "Aquatic Realm" and "Swan Lake" screen saver modules in After Dark
2.0 display very strange bitmaps on devices with 24 bits of color
depth. Release 2.0a of After Dark solves this problem. Contact
Berkeley Systems Technical Support at 1-800-877-5535 for this upgrade.

5. Usage of I/O Ports
----------------------

In some cases, in can be useful to know exactly which I/O ports are required
by your peripheral devices. This can be especially useful for isolating
unusual conflicts.

The Spectrum/24 EISA card uses the 32 I/O ports in the range zC80 through zC9F,
where "z" is the number of the EISA slot where the Spectrum/24 resides. For
example, if your Spectrum/24 EISA is installed in slot 4, the card needs
I/O ports 4C80, 4C81, 4C82, and so on through 4C9F. Because ALL of our I/O
ports exist in the EISA I/O space for our particular slot, if none of your
other cards violate the EISA specification in this regard, there should be no
possibility of an I/O port conflict.

Spectrum/24 EISA requires no IRQs nor DMA lines.

6. Compaq Prosignia with motherboard SCSI
------------------------------------------

There is a bug in the ROM BIOS for the on-board SCSI controller on all
Compaq Prosignia systems. This bug results in the upper half of one of
the 80486 32-bit registers (EAX) getting lost during a SCSI hardware
interrupt, which can occur at any time. This bug manifests itself as a
General Protection Fault in SPECBUS.DRV when the mouse is being moved while
the screen is refreshing at the same time disk activity is going on.

Compaq is currently working on update to their ROM BIOS, and has a corrective
patch disk available through their technical support. Until you receive
that update, you can use the "CPQSCSI.COM" program which is installed in
the system\supermac subdirectory of your Windows directory by the Spectrum/24
installation program. You need to a line invoking CPQSCSI in your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file. You must inform CPQSCSI of the IRQ number that your
SCSI controller is using; you can find out the IRQ number by running your
EBUS configuration utility. The default IRQ is 15; if this is the case
for you, a line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT reading:

c:\windows\system\supermac\cpqscsi 15

This program takes up only a few bytes of memory, and saves and restores
all of the 32-bit registers around each SCSI hardware interrupt.

If you need assistance with this procedure, contact SuperMatch technical
support.

7. NEC EISA Systems

Some revisions of NEC motherboards and CPU boards incorrectly limit the bus
address space to the lower 64 megabytes. This is in violation of the EISA
specification, and prevents installation of the Spectrum/24, since all our
possible addresses are above 64MB.

NEC is aware of the problem; their more recent motherboards and CPU boards
extend the address range to 256MB. This does not solve the general case, but
it does permit installation of Spectrum/24 at 0F00,0000 (240MB).

If you are experiencing problems with an NEC EISA system, you will need to
contact their National Service Response Center at 1-800-388-8888. Press 3
once the message starts. You will need to inform them of your date of
purchase, serial number, and model number of the unit experiencing trouble.

You will need to replace both your motherboard and CPU board with A73
Enhanced parts. The following are the earliest versions which allow
256MB addressing, although later revisions may be in place at this time:

Rev # Part Number
Motherboard: D7B 158-053306-003
CPU Board: C8A 136-263293-501A

The BIOS version should be 1.00.40 or later, and the System Configuration
Utility (SCU) should be 3.03.01 or later.

NEC has informed us that these modifications will be handled as a warranty
repair even if your warranty has expired. If the service personnel at NEC's
National Service Responce Center require the name of a technician, refer them
to Jim Galvin at 508-635-4755.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Somehow I got the card working. I think it might have been because I was running the EISA bus at 10MHz rather than 8MHz. It seems to be pretty quick for what it is. In 24-bit mode, I was getting 6MP/sec at 1024x768. I'll have to pop the ELSA back in there to see what happens. I think it is about the same speed as my Mach64 VLB...but I like this setup better since I can use another card for good DOS performance.

It's too bad Supermac never bothered to extend driver support much past Windows 3.1. I think the NT drivers were only ever made in Beta. Lazy bastards. Oh well, I'm lucky I'm a Windows 3.1 kind of guy. I guess the next step is to build a terminator and VGA passthrough cable.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

Were you using the VESA connection on the card or just running a monitor directly to the card?

Supermac made some nice Nubus cards for the 68K Macs, I have the Thunder/24 and Spectrum Series that the EISA card is based on (my Thunder has a DSP Addon board plus slots for GWORLD RAM wich caches the area offscreen for faster scrolling).

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

I think that running the monitor to the card is the only way to do it. The terminator is supposed to go on the dsub connector of the VGA card when the feature connector is being used. For now I just swap the monitor cable between cards as I need them.

Yeah, I think Supermac put much more effort into their NuBus stuff. Do you know if the modules from the Series IV cards will work on the EISA card...and do they require special software?

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

Well you needed special software to make the DSP cards do anything on the Mac so I would asume the same on the PC. I don't think Photoshop 3 for the PC even had DSP ability (you would need to check on it).

The software provided might use the DSP for some windows acceleration, but I am not sure (does the card has the 2 connectors on it)?

I forgot to bid on a Targa 2000 EISA card a few months back and it went cheap, still kicking myself on that mistake.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

My card has three of these dark grey strips that have high density pin arrangement. Since I don't have the manual I have no idea what they are for. I speculated that they must be for upgrading the memory capacity, or coprocessor boards.

The Targa looks like a pretty interesting card. Did you actually intend to use it, or do you just want it as a collectors item?

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

Both

I have a Targa 2000 PCI, Targa 2000 Pro PCI, and a Targa 2000 Nubus (modified by Avid) in my collection among others.

I collect the cards and have them setup in my lab (except the Nubus one since I am missing an Avid dongle to run it).

Just snagged a Digidesign 442 interface for my other Avid Nubus Media composer 8000. All I need is a decent length scsi cable and it will run (I hope).

Anything I snag gets used to play around with, anything sealed in a box gets opened.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

There is a 2 MB EISA ATI video card on ebay ending in a day or so if anybody is interested.

I have one so I won't bother getting another.

Item number: 190117332341

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

I'd just like to point out that the ATi GUP EISA is a poor choice in some situations since it cannot coexist with an Adaptec EISA SCSI adapter.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

Do you have a reference for that issue? I found my card did not like my system at all (I have an Adaptec uwscsi eisa card installed).

I have other brands of EISA scsi cards, but I wanted to keep the 68 pin drives since I am very short on 50 pin ones (plus is does 10MB/sec.)

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

I don't have any official documents. I just remember reading a lot of people complaining about the problem in the newsgroups a while back. It doesn't sound like they ever found a work around. I think they recommended going Compaq Qvision instead.