Path: utzoo!attcan!telly!lethe!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!pmafire!uudell!twaddle.dell.com!jporter
From: jporter@twaddle.dell.com (Jeff Porter)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: New VGA chip?
Message-ID: <15109@uudell.dell.com>
Date: 13 Feb 91 16:11:10 GMT
References: <59500@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Sender: news@uudell.dell.com
Reply-To: jporter@twaddle.dell.com (Jeff Porter)
Organization: Dell Computer Corp.
Lines: 31

In article <59500@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>, v071pzp4@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Craig L Cole) writes:
|> In the March 1991 issue of Popular Science is a short article
|> describing a new chip that upgrades your current VGA to:
|> 
|>         2,048 x 1536 pixels
|>         7,000+ hues
|> 
|> It's a new D/A converter chip from Edsun Laboratories, Waltham,
|> Massachussetts. The chip, which runs about $20 replaces a chip
|> in your current VGA board.
|> 
|> Does anyone know about this? Can you get this chip? I'd like
|> to upgrade my current 286 VGA system with it.
|> 

I don't know about the part from Edsun, but Analog Devices is producing
several chips using technology from Edsun.  The ADV7141 and ADV7146
replace commonly used RAM-DACs such as xxx141 and xxx146.  From what
the applications engineer at Analog Devices told me, it takes a
significant software driver to take advantage of the increased
resolution/colors.  You don't really get more usuable colors or pixels;
the chip uses digital signal processing algorithms to interpolate colors
and intensities to generate anti-aliased lines.  Analog Devices has
an 800 number (1-800-262-5643) and they might send you the preliminary
data sheets on the parts.  (The chips are not in production volume yet.)

Jeff Porter

ps.  I think the Paradise VGA card uses a '141 RAM-DAC, so it is a
candidate for upgrades (assuming you have access to surface-mount
rework equipment).