Paradise / Western Digital

Paradise was a graphics chipset manufacturer for the IBM PC and its compatibles. Toshiba used a Paradise VGA chipset in its 1989/1990 range of laptops, including the T3100SX, T3200SX, T5100/100, T5100/200, as did NEC in its PowerMate laptop range and Compaq in its Portable 386.

Paradise were bought out by Western Digital around 1987 or early 1988.

 

Color/Mono Card

Launched: 1986 ?
Bus: ISA 8-bit.
Price: ?
FCC ID: DBM7E2COLOR/MONO

This card is believed to be an MDA and CGA card. It has the Paradise PPC-1 chip which gives the card its parallel port capability. Ports-wise it has a 9-pin D-SUB and a parallel port.

A PPC-2 chip was also produced, which added bi-directional capability to the parallel port interface.

 

 

PEGA 1A

Launched: 1986
Bus: ISA 8-bit / Embedded.
Price: ?

The PEGA 1A chipset was an EGA chipset housed in an 84-pin PLCC. It was a multi-mode video controller with an integral 6845 CRTC (Cathode Ray Tube Controller).

The PEGA 1A chipset was used on the Amstrad PC1640 motherboard to provide EGA, CGA, MDA, Hercules, and Plantronics COLORPLUS compatibility.

PEGA 2A

Launched: 1987
Bus: ISA 8-bit / Embedded.
Price: ?

The PEGA 2A chipset was an EGA chipset housed in an 84-pin PLCC. It included all of PEGA 1A's capabilities but added 640 x 480 EGA, 132-column text mode, locking registers, and 30 MHz maximum dot clock.

 

PVC 4

Launched: 1985?
Bus: -
Memory: -

The PVC 4 chip from Paradise was a single-chip video controller which integrated a 6845 CRTC and other logic, greatly reducing chip count on CGA, Plantronics COLORPLUS, Hercules graphics, MDA and AT&T 6300 video implementations.

A PVC 4A was also produced that added 132-column text mode. Both chips were housed in 100-pin PFP.

 

 

PVGA 1A

Launched: 1988
Bus: ISA 16-bit
Memory: 256 KB up to 1 MB
RAMDAC: Inmos or Bt (both 8-bit colour depth)
RAMDAC Speed: 40 MHz (Inmos), 50 MHz (Bt)
VESA Standard: No
FCC ID: DBM5UEVGAPROF
BIOS Dates: 07/14/88
Known BIOS Versions: 003056-007

This SVGA chipset from Paradise (also shared with Video7 as their VEGA chipset) was a multi-mode VGA video controller with hardware and BIOS level compatibility. This means it provided 100% IBM VGA, EGA, CGA, MDA and Hercules graphics compatibility.

It was packaged in a 100-pin PLCC or PFP.

It added a non-standard 800 x 600 x 16 mode, which was supported by the game Wonderland. This mode requires a 240 KB frame buffer, but you most likely need a card with 512 KB of video RAM to support this mode.

 

PVGA 1B

Launched: 1988
Bus: ISA 16-bit
Memory: 1 MB

This SVGA chipset from Paradise/Western Digital was similar to PVGA 1A, but added 1024 x 768 x 16 interlaced mode and 45 MHz dot clock support.

 

WD90C00

Launched: 1989
Bus: ISA 16-bit
Memory: 512 KB (100ns)
RAMDAC: ADV476KN50 ( 8-bit colour depth)
RAMDAC Speed: 50 MHz
VESA Standard: No
FCC ID: DBM603316
BIOS Dates: 05/21/90
Known BIOS Versions: 003145-110

A Super VGA card that uses the Western Digital WD90C000-JK chipset.

PVGA Plus (WD90C90)

Launched: 1989?
Bus: ISA 16-bit
Memory: 256 KB

 

Other pics: 1

Unknown Paradise Card

Launched: 1994
Bus: VESA Local Bus
Memory: ?
RAMDAC: ?
RAMDAC Speed: ?
VESA Standard: ?
FCC ID: L8G-1000VL2M
BIOS Dates: ?
Known BIOS Versions: ?