ATI Small Wonder

The first version of the Small Wonder graphics card arrived in 1988. The 'Small Wonder Graphics Solution' to use its full title was a Hercules clone also able to support extended CGA modes like 640 x 200 in 16 colours as well as 132-column text.

	Released	1988
	Bus	ISA 8-bit
	Chipset	ATi18700-04
	Standards	Hercules, CGA, Extended CGA, Plantronics ColorPlus
	Memory	64 KB DRAM
	Ports	9-pin DSUB (TTL) RCA composite out (CGA only)
	Part #	18701 (Version 1), 18703 (Version 2)
	FCC ID	EXM5RSGSSC (v1), EXM5RSGSSC1 (v2)
	Price	1990: $169
	See Also

The Small Wonder had three fonts, but its third font wasn't the same as the IBM 'thin' font. It had narrower characters (5 pixels wide rather than 7) which I think got used in some of the card's extended modes.

 

Board Revisions

Two distinct versions of the Small Wonder exist: Version 1, as you see in the image above used the ATi18700-04 chip.

Version 2 (see 'More Pictures' further down) was a minor update on Small Wonder version 1. In 'Mono monitor' mode, it used the 720x350 mode (even for CGA simulation). It may also use the 8x8 font in CGA monitor/composite mode.

 

Competition

 

In the Media

 

Setting it Up

DIP switches on the Small Wonder cards are used to set the graphics mode and connected monitor type:

Switch	ON	OFF
SW1	MDA/Hercules graphics mode	CGA/Plantonics Color+ graphics mode
SW2	RGBI or Composite monitor	Monochrome monitor
SW3	Composite in Color	Composite in Monochrome (IBM PC portable)
SW4	(Used only on the very few 'g' versions of the card with a joystick port instead of the composite out)

Downloads

Operation Manual (missing) Get in touch if you can provide this missing item!	Original Utility Disk (missing) Get in touch if you can provide this missing item!	VGA BIOS ROM N1.00 (missing) Get in touch if you can provide this missing item!
VGA BIOS ROM v1.03 (missing) Get in touch if you can provide this missing item!

 

More Pictures

ATI Small Wonder version 2