ISA 16 bit VGA for a 8 bit slot

[carlos12]

Hi! I'm looking for a VGA card for my 8086 system. The problem is the 8 bit ISA cards seem to be quite scarce. It looks far easier to find and buy a 16 bit card. I read on minuszerodegrees.net that there are some 16 bit ISA card that work on 8 bit slots on 8086/88 systems. I watched this table: http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/5150/vga/5150_vga.htm

But there's a card that is not on that table, the OAK OTI 087X. I read the databook of this card and it says:

"Integrated bus interface for PC/XT/AT and local bus implementation". But on the inside the text only speaks about AT, 286, 386 and 486.

Do you think this one could be used on a 8 bit slot? Can the computer be damaged is finally incompatible?

Thank you so much.

 

[modem7]

I read http://www.vgamuseum.info/index.php/cpu/item/328-oak-oti-087x

The Oak OTI078X is a chip.
For example, the card you linked to is a Raytech model RT-3203, a card that uses the Oak OTI078X as its 'heart'.
There will be many different VGA cards that also use the Oak OTI078X chip.
There may be some VGA card makers that used the OTI078X chip on their card, but not made their card 8-bit slot compatible.

(And there are cards out there that are 8-bit slot compatible, but require a 286 CPU or better [because of the code in the card's BIOS chip].)

 

[Plasma]

If you already have the card just try it out. If it doesn't work nothing will be damaged.

 

[Eudimorphodon]

I use an OTI-077 in my Tandy 1000 HX and it's fine. The '087 looks like it's about the same chip except they added truecolor mode support (077 is only 256 color) and rudimentary local bus support. (While retaining normal ISA compatibility.) All the older Oak VGA cards I've used have worked fine in XT class machines, so I would hazard an ISA version of a 087 has a more than reasonable chance of working as well. (Although some details may well depend on how the company implemented the chip on the actual card.) I would agree that the chances of it damaging anything just trying it are minimal, worst case it's just not going to work.

(Note that sometimes the problems people run into with arbitrary VGA cards that according to the datasheets should work in 8-bit mode but don't in practice are because 186 code snuck into the BIOS. If that's the case your 8086 might need a V30 upgrade. IE, what modem7 said.)

 

[dhau]

All my Trident 8900C, 9000i work in XT, also all the ATI VGA Wonder. The only one that didn't work so far is a card with Realtek chip, but it also doesn't work in all 286 systems, so may be this specific card is at fault.