Orchid Fahrenheit
The Orchid Fahrenheit launched in 1991 was their first card to use an S3 chipset, the 86C801.
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Released | 1991 |
| Bus | ISA 16-bit | |
| Chipset | S3 86C801 | |
| Standards | Hercules, MDA, CGA, EGA, VGA | |
| Memory | 512 KB or 1 MB DRAM | |
| Ports | 15-pin DSUB (analogue video out) | |
| Part # | ||
| FCC ID | ||
| Price | Jun 1992: $329 | |
| See Also |
Board Revisions
The Orchid Pro Designer II card came in a number of board revisions including 1A, 1C, 2/08, and 2/810.
Competition
In the Media
"PROS: Fast AutoCAD performance
CONS: Expensive
The most outstanding feature of the Orchid ProDesigner II is speed—it tied for first place in the key AutoCAD tests. Other than that, the board has an average set of features and a fairly high $304 street price.
Like most boards in this roundup, the ProDesigner II offers flicker-free 72 Hz performance at all resolutions except 1024 by 768. That may limit your options, but on today's 14-inch multiscans, most people won't experiment beyond 800 by 600 anyway.
The board isn't quite plug and play, but unless a network board is present, you probably won't have to mess with the board's handful of jumpers. Driver installation involves issuing commands from the DOS prompt instead of simply choosing menu options.
Thanks to its speedy performance, AutoCAD users may want to consider this board seriously. In addition, by the time you read this, Orchid will be shipping a new version of the ProDesigner II (the IIs) that will list for $120 less and purportedly will offer the same speed, 70-Hz refresh at 1024 by 768, and a special upgrade that will support over 32,000 colors under Windows. These new features should make the Pro-Designer IIs one of the hottest Super VGA boards around." PC World, August 1991
CONS: Expensive
The most outstanding feature of the Orchid ProDesigner II is speed—it tied for first place in the key AutoCAD tests. Other than that, the board has an average set of features and a fairly high $304 street price.
Like most boards in this roundup, the ProDesigner II offers flicker-free 72 Hz performance at all resolutions except 1024 by 768. That may limit your options, but on today's 14-inch multiscans, most people won't experiment beyond 800 by 600 anyway.
The board isn't quite plug and play, but unless a network board is present, you probably won't have to mess with the board's handful of jumpers. Driver installation involves issuing commands from the DOS prompt instead of simply choosing menu options.
Thanks to its speedy performance, AutoCAD users may want to consider this board seriously. In addition, by the time you read this, Orchid will be shipping a new version of the ProDesigner II (the IIs) that will list for $120 less and purportedly will offer the same speed, 70-Hz refresh at 1024 by 768, and a special upgrade that will support over 32,000 colors under Windows. These new features should make the Pro-Designer IIs one of the hottest Super VGA boards around." PC World, August 1991
Setting it Up
I have no information of the hardware set up for the Orchid Pro Designer II.
Downloads
Operation Manual Original user manual for the Orchid Pro Designer II |
Original Utility Disk 5.25" floppy disk with drivers for the ProDesigner II series |
VGA ROM BIOS Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
More Pictures
