Compaq Portable II and an Enhanced Color Graphics Card II

[John Draugr]

Hi.

I have a Compaq Portable II and I wanted to replace the CGA video card with an EGA card. I saw a Compaq Enhanced Color Graphics II card and it looks very similar to my current video card which is CGA. What looks similar is the following.

Inside the Compaq Portable II on the CGA video card is a set of pins that a small ribbon cable connects to from the internal monochrome 9 inch monitor. The pin set is as follows.

++++ +
++++ +

The + are pins. There are 4 pairs of pins then a gap and then one last set of pins. This layout is the same on the Enhanced card and my CGA card. So, I'm wondering if this card can work in my Portable II and allow me to still use the internal 9 inch monochrome monitor from the EGA card. Of course it would still be monochrome, and then have the ability to hook up an external EGA monitor to my Portable II and get EGA graphics. The last thing I noticed is that the pin label appears to be the same J401. It is labeled that on the CGA card and the EGA card and is that same looking pin layout for the ribbon cable as listed above.

Does anyone have any information on this or experience? Can I use the Compaq Enhanced Color Graphics II board instead of the current CGA card and still have the internal 9 inch monitor function as well as being able to hook up an external EGA monitor?


Any information is appreciated.


Thanks
John

 

[Terry Yager]

It's possible the card might work with the internal monitor. I'm not familliar with the inner guts of the Compaq II, but I do know that the ATI EGA Wonder board has a connector to jack-in the internal monitor in an IBM 5155 Portable. Not only does it work, but the card allows EGA resolution to be displayed on the internal screen, but only by interlacing. The flicker is hardly noticable in some programs, and very bad in others. YMMV.

--T