SuperEGA Registers

There were several video chipset manufacturers who produced EGA chipsets with extended capabilities, most typically an increased resolution of 640x480. These adapters were typically called SuperEGAs.

SuperEGA chipsets often extended the standard EGA register file, with new register indices defined for the CRTC, graphics controllers, sequencer and attribute controller.

ET2000

The Tseng Labs ET2000 was an advanced chipset designed to be adaptable to a variety of different graphics adapters, although it only ever appeared on three EGA cards: the Tseng Labs EVA and EVA/480, and the NEC GB-1 (a rebadged EVA/480). The plain EVA model lacks the 25MHz clock that allows 640x480 resolution.

It is comprised of three VLSI chips in PLCC68 packages:

ChipFunction
ET2000CRTC / Sequencer
ET2001Attribute Controller
ET2002Graphics Controller

A fourth chip, the ET2003 bit-slice processor, was announced but never saw production.

Clocking Select Bits

As with most SuperEGAs, the ET2000 in its full incarnation is typically paired with a 25MHz pixel clock - it also has a third crystal, a 19.96608MHz clock that is used as a pixel clock in 132 column modes, as well as clocking the memory address multiplexers.

bitsclock select
0014.381818MHz (OSC pin from ISA bus)
0116.257MHz
1025MHz or external OSC (J3)
1119.96608MHz

Extended General Registers

PortAccessDescription
7CXhWCMII Activation Port
3C8hWCMII Command Port

These are essentially the same decoded port - the CMII compatibility module will respond to A10 set as a special ‘wake’ address. It must be written to twice, with a data byte that has bits 7 and 6 set, to activate the card and begin hooking IO writes for translation.

Extended CRTC Registers

IndexNameAccessDescription
19hOverflow #2WHigh bits for V-Total, V-Display, V-Sync
1Ah?WET2000 BIOS sets bit 1 then reads 12h (?)
1BhX Zoom Start Column?Character clock of zoom viewport start
1ChX Zoom End Column?Character clock of zoom viewport end
1DhY Zoom Start Scanline?Scanline on which zoom viewport starts
1EhY Zoom End Scanline?Scanline on which zoom viewport ends
1FhY Zoom Start and End Scanline High?
20hZoom Start Address Low?
21hZoom Start Address Middle?
22h??
23h??
24h??
25h??

Extended Sequencer Registers

IndexNameAccessDescription
06hZoom TimingWControls timings for zoom/viewport feature
07hCharacter TimingWSet to 03, 02 or 01 in large column modes

Extended Graphics Controller Registers

IndexNameAccessDescription
0Dh?WInitialized to 0

Extended Attribute Controller Registers

IndexNameAccessDescription
14h?WInitialized to 0
15h?WInitialized to 0
16h?WBit 1 set in 132 column modes