🚀 go-pugleaf

From article <29eb978a@ralf>, by Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU:
> I stumbled across the following undocumented video mode on my Boca Super
> X VGA, which is a Tseng ET4000 chipset with 1M RAM, a Sierra HiColor
> DAC, and the Tseng ET4000 BIOS version 3.00.
> 
> Mode 3Dh (which can also be set with "VMODE 3D", an undocumented switch)
> sets a 1280x1024 graphics mode with 16 colors and 128x64 text (using an
> 8x16 character cell).

A few more notes and a question on this:
- The 1280x1024 mode is interlaced.
- Windows drivers are available (the board i saw had the drivers on the disk),
  they are also in the ET4000 driver package on cica and other archive sites.
- The 1280x1024 mode works OK on two Non-interlaced monitors (CTX 5468 &
  Nec 4FG) i tested.
- The 1280x1024 mode did NOT work OK on one Interlaced monitor (my own
  "multisync" CTX 3436   :-( )
- Somewhere i also saw (VPIC ?) that there is also a 1280x960 mode (3E) which
  preserves the 1:1 pixel ratio. (1280:960 = 4:3).
- The IRIS ET4000 based SVGA card i tested also had the buggy BIOS text mode,
  but i don't use graphics text modes anyway so that's not a problem.
- The older BIOSses do not support this mode, but newer ones do, presumably
  on the same board (same hardware ... )
  Also the VPIC program supports this mode, but notes that for older Bios
  versions a program 1280.COM should be loaded (for a DEFINCON SVGA-card).
  This indicates that there is a program (TSR) somewhere that implements this
  videomode for older BIOSses.
  I can make that program myself, using some code to save the register
  contents and put it in again, but if there is such a TSR somewhere I would
  like to get my hands on it....

I do not yet own a ET4000 board (still have the ET3000), but my friend has
one, and i might be getting one in the near future.

							Klaas
Klaas Hemstra  (hst@mh.nl)                      |   /  / ,~~~ ~~/~~
uucp: ..{uunet!}hp4nl!mh.nl!hst                 |  /--/  `-,   / ___ |_/ |__|
Multihouse Automatisering B.V. Gouda,Netherlands| /  / ___/   /  --- | \ |  |
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