Ardent Tool of Capitalism

Nth Graphics Double Edge

@8FDA.ADF IBM XGA-2 Display Adapter/A
C8FDA.ADF Init file for @8FDA.ADF

194-255 Multimedia Products - MXGA Display Device Driver (by Software 2000)

XGA/XGA-2 Option v2.2 Updated XGAANI and XGAPNI.DGS
Dosdpmv.exe APM disk for DOS 5.02+ and Windows 3.1.

XGA206 Windows 95/98 XGA-2 Display Driver by Unal Z
XGA208 Windows 95/98 XGA-2 Display Driver by Unal Z

XGA2_NT4 Windows NT4 XGA-2 Display Driver w/ 16-bit color support
   Uses Unal Z's mini port driver and framebuff.dll modified by Ryan Alswede.

A.072 OS2 Warp 3/4, XGA/2, Rev 9.29, 1-14-98 (XGA2 640x480/800x600 64k)
   "Seems to have added a lot more DMQS monitor files too. All dated 10-9-97"
   Thanks to Dennis Smith for this find...

XGA-2 utilities by Unal Z
IBM XGA Files includes XGA212.exe (DMQS and WfW3.11)

XGA Common Information

Nth Double Edge
Nth Double Edge Back
Adapter ROM
MXGA Driver Information

Nth Double Edge "FAB-N0016-000" (dual 2 MB NAT03 shown)

Each of the two XGA-2 controllers is coupled with 2 MB of video RAM.

Nth Double Edge Back

U48-51 TMS55165DGH-80 256Kx16 DRAM

Adapter ROM

1x 27C256-15 32Kx8 CMOS EPROM, PLCC-32 (U22)

Nth_BIOS_v05 Nth Graphics Rev 0.5 (non-zero checksum — F2h)
Nth_BIOS_v07 Nth Graphics Rev 0.7 (non-zero checksum — 58h)

The ROM contains two separate code sections:

• a custom code by Nth Graphics (located at the beginning of the ROM)
• a slightly modified XGA-2 v3.00 code (relocated to ROM offset 6000h; contains one modified routine and an additional entry routine to test ROM section switching).

Normally only the XGA-2 portion of the ROM is mapped to the host's address space (C000h by default). The mapping can be switched to the Nth section (and back) using a ROM paging register idx 71h. The Nth section does not contain the 55AAh ROM "magic" and doesn't act as a standalone BIOS video ROM extension. It's only referenced (and temporarily activated) by the modified XGA section. See THIS code example for more information.

MXGA Driver Information

Source: 194-255 Announcement Letter

Multiple XGA (MXGA) Display Device Driver P/N 83G8292

The IBM Multiple XGA Display Device Driver will run in any environment in which the corresponding XGA-2 Device Drivers operate:

• OS/2 2.1, or later
• Windows 3.1

The IBM Multiple XGA Display Device Driver will support the following products from Nth Graphics that have two complete XGA-2 chip sets on a single graphics card:

• NAT01 — MCA with 1 MB of VRAM
• NAT02 — ISA with 1 MB of VRAM
• NAT03 — MCA with 2 MB of VRAM
• NAT04 — ISA with 2 MB of VRAM

It is possible to install as many as four of these cards in an ISA bus PC or Micro Channel architecture bus computer to obtain eight accelerated graphics displays operating in one PC.

Source: The Driver Manual (PC Mag, 12 Sep 1995)

Double Edge Experiences

Ryan Alswede said:
   QBMCA Id's the card as XGA-2, it boots with the XGA-2 ADF and NT driver detects it as XGA-2 allowing full 16-bit color as well out of Port A. Port B shows no video signal.

Christian Holzapfel said:
   Linux just does it! I'm on my 8595-P200 with Debian 3.0 "Woody", a Kernel 2.2 and XFree86 3.3.6.

Adjusted my XF86Config to an XGA-2, said it had 2 MB of memory, and asked it to do 1024x768 at 16 bpp. Picture came out brilliant, check out the X11 stats and the nice color fading of the background. Monitor reports it's still doing a 70 Hz refresh.

See the critical section of the config HERE.