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Help Me Identify These Old Cards

C

Cevyn

Experienced Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2011
Messages
59
Location
Hagerstown, MD, USA
I've had these cards in the bottom of my vintage hardware box for over 10 years now. I think I have an idea what they all are, but would like feedback from anyone who knows for sure, or who has one in a working system:

I think this is a CGA card, but not sure about any details:
P1030651.jpg

I know this is an EGA card, but I don't have an EGA monitor any longer :-(
P1030652.jpg

Some unknown Davong MFM/RLL controller....ideas? Could it be the controller for my Tandon 5mb drive?
P1030653.jpg

XT expansion chassis cards?!?
P1030654.jpg


I'm loving this forum, BTW! It's great to have found a community of folks who love tinkering with this old hardware like I do!! ~Cev
 
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The EGA card should work with a CGA monitor, that's what the switches on the end are for. :)
I don't remember anyone having an actual EGA monitor back in the day, we just bought the EGA card and used the CGA monitors until cheap PS/2 VGA monitors became available. I still have 2 EGA/VGA cards from that era.
 
Cevyn said:
I've had these cards in the bottom of my vintage hardware box for over 10 years now. I think I have an idea what they all are, but would like feedback from anyone who knows for sure, or who has one in a working system:

I think this is a CGA card, but not sure about any details:
View attachment 6304

I know this is an EGA card, but I don't have an EGA monitor any longer :-(
View attachment 6305

Some unknown Davong MFM/RLL controller....ideas? Could it be the controller for my Tandon 5mb drive?
View attachment 6306

XT expansion chassis cards?!?
View attachment 6307


I'm loving this forum, BTW! It's great to have found a community of folks who love tinkering with this old hardware like I do!! ~Cev
Click to expand...
1. Looks like a true blue IBM CGA card to me, but many clones were just that, clones, lol
2. You are probably right, I am not that well versed with EGA hardware.
3. Looks like many MFM/RLL cards of the early PC days, except for that external (DB9?) port, The wide backplate suggests its out of a 5150. If your Tandon is MFM/RLL I would assume it should work with it, same with any MFM/RLL controller.
4. The official IBM expansion chassis cards had a external plug I believe, but these could very well be for some 3rd party expansion chassis rig.
 
RWallmow said:
If your Tandon is MFM/RLL I would assume it should work with it, same with any MFM/RLL controller.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately it's not as straightforward as that. For example the first IBM/Xebec controller supplied in the IBM 5160 supported drives of: cylinders = 300, heads = 4, WPC = 0, Step Rate = 70 uS.
If one connects a drive that has say, 200 cylinders, an error will occur when the controller tries to step the drive past the 200th cylinder.
 
GottaLottaStuff said:
The EGA card should work with a CGA monitor, that's what the switches on the end are for. :)
I don't remember anyone having an actual EGA monitor back in the day, we just bought the EGA card and used the CGA monitors until cheap PS/2 VGA monitors became available. I still have 2 EGA/VGA cards from that era.
Click to expand...

I actually did have an EGA...it was a Princeton Graphics model, but the HV went out on it a looooong time ago and it got trashed. I always thought the text it displayed was very easy on the eyes.

I notice there are two composite connectors on it....any idea on how to set the switches so I can hook up a TV? And would it function as an EGA card in this regard? Thanks!
 
RWallmow said:
3. Looks like many MFM/RLL cards of the early PC days, except for that external (DB9?) port, The wide backplate suggests its out of a 5150. If your Tandon is MFM/RLL I would assume it should work with it, same with any MFM/RLL controller.
Click to expand...

Another post on this forum also has me thinking this card is an add-in for the 5150 as you suggested. This site has a line of text that reads "The Davong hard drive controller card has an external power input connection, and a standard four pin power connector on the card to feed the hard drive, visible in the top right corner of the picture." which makes me think that DB9 is for an external power supply. There is a 10mb drive hooked up there but this card may also support the 5mb models.
 
Cevyn said:
Another post on this forum also has me thinking this card is an add-in for the 5150 as you suggested. This site has a line of text that reads "The Davong hard drive controller card has an external power input connection, and a standard four pin power connector on the card to feed the hard drive, visible in the top right corner of the picture." which makes me think that DB9 is for an external power supply. There is a 10mb drive hooked up there but this card may also support the 5mb models.
Click to expand...
Makes sense because the 5150's power supply was considered too weak to power hard drives of the day, though they should have enough juice for an XT-IDE card and a modern 3.5" drive (since they draw a fraction of what those 5.25" hard drives draw) or even better yet a Compact Flash solution on XT-IDE card.

It should be fairly easy to follow the traces from that DB connector on back of card to the power header and see if that plug is indeed for an external power supply, and if it is and it is a DB9 like it looks, should be straight forward to build a new external power supply for that card by installing a DB9 plug on the end of one of those modern external hard drive power supplies.
 
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That last pair of cards strikes me as something like a poor man's network to link two systems. There's not half enough in the way of buffering (take a look at the IBM 5160 techref) to make a real bus expansion device--and the bypass caps on the data lines wouldn't make any sense.

My guess is that you had two systems, with two ribbon cables--and, of course, some driver software.
 
Chuck(G) said:
That last pair of cards strikes me as something like a poor man's network to link two systems. There's not half enough in the way of buffering (take a look at the IBM 5160 techref) to make a real bus expansion device--and the bypass caps on the data lines wouldn't make any sense.

My guess is that you had two systems, with two ribbon cables--and, of course, some driver software.
Click to expand...

I'm going to go with this....the problem is I took all those systems apart when I was a young teenager, and, well, I don't remember what I had NOR did I document what I had taken apart :-(

I'm beginning to think I had a second XT with the Davong controller, 5mb drive (or two), and expansion cards. I still have the cables that went between those cards...
 
Cevyn said:
I actually did have an EGA...it was a Princeton Graphics model, but the HV went out on it a looooong time ago and it got trashed. I always thought the text it displayed was very easy on the eyes.

I notice there are two composite connectors on it....any idea on how to set the switches so I can hook up a TV? And would it function as an EGA card in this regard? Thanks!
Click to expand...

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/graphics-cards/U-Z/VIDEO-SEVEN-EGA-V7-VEGA-LONG-CARD.html

Those connectors are listed as "unidentified"
 
On most EGA cards, the two RCA connectors go straight to the expansion header on the PCB--without the appropriate expansion modules, a dead end. Check the center conductors with an ohmmeter--they're usually NC.
 
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