Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 / Fahrenheit 1280 Plus
The Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 launched in late 1991 and used an S3 chipset, the 86C911. It was so-called as it was able to display at resolutions up to 1280 x 1024.
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Released | November 1991 (1280), October 1992 (1280/D), Early 1993 (1280 Plus and 1280 Plus/VLB) |
| Bus | ISA 16-bit (Fahrenheit 1280 and Plus), VESA Local Bus (Fahrenheit 1280/D and Plus) | |
| Chipset | S3 86C911 "Carrera" or 86C924 (1280) or 86C805 (1280 Plus VLB) | |
| Standards | Hercules, MDA, CGA, EGA, VGA | |
| Memory | 512 KB or 1 MB VRAM | |
| RAMDAC | AT&T ATT20C490, Sierra SC11483CV or Sierra SC15025CV | |
| Ports | 15-pin DSUB (analogue video out) | |
| Part # | 830-0106-X (Fahrenheit 1280) 830-0116-X (Fahrenheit 1280 Plus) |
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| FCC ID | DDS7EF0691-91-ETH (Fahrenheit 1280) DDS7EF892-32-FGA (Fahrenheit 1280 Plus) DDS7EF0093-93-FVL (Fahrenheit 1280 Plus/VLB) DDS7EF1092-02-FLB (Fahrenheit 1280 Plus/VLB) |
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| Price | Jan 1992: $299 (1 MB) street price Mar 1992: $499 (1 MB) or $449 (512 KB) list price Feb 1992: $319 (1280s Hi-Color) Mar 1992: $299 Aug 1992: $399 (1 MB) or $329 (512 KB) list price for new 24-bit true color version with speed boost |
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| See Also | Orchid Fahrenheit |
In its original form, the Fahrenheit 1280 supported resolutions up to 1280 x 1024 in 16 colours, 1024 x 768 in 256 colours, or 640 x 480 in 32,768 colours. The 1280 x 1024 resolution ran interlaced at 48 Hz, but 1024 x 768 could run non-interlaced at 70 Hz.
In August 1992, Orchid released an updated version of the Fahrenheit 1280 which now used the S3 86C924 with its increased colour depth at 640 x 480 to full 24-bit colour. They also claimed a 7% performance improvement over the earlier 911-based cards.
A local bus version called the Fahrenheit 1280/D arrived in October 1992 with decent performance gains over the ISA version. Unfortunately, the S3 86C911 can only process 16-bit instructions so when the card is fitted in a 32-bit local bus slot it becomes the bottleneck.
The Fahrenheit 1280 Plus arrived in 1993, alongside the new Fahrenheit VA and VA/VLB, with which it shared the same board design but without all the audio components. This used S3's 2nd-generation chip, the 86C805, and came with 1 MB but could be upgraded to 2 MB. The Plus was available in both ISA and VESA Local Bus variants (called the Fahrenheit 1280 Plus/VLB).
Board Revisions
The Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 card came in a number of board revisions including 2/A4, 2/B2, 2/B3, and 2/B4.
Competition
Compared to its competition at the time (Genoa WindowsVGA, STB Wind/X Ultra, Actix Graphics Engine and Diamond Stealth VRAM), the Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 was similar in performance. The S3 86C911 was able to process graphics instructions faster than the Tseng Labs ET4000AX when both were run on a variety of proprietary local bus systems, but all fell far short of the astoundingly quick ATI Mach32-based cards including the ATI Graphics Ultra+ and ATI Graphics Ultra Pro.
In the Media
If you use Microsoft Windows regularly and find yourself watching your screen repaint at a snail's pace, then consider the Graphics Ultra and Fahrenheit 1280 video cards, the first of a new breed of affordable Windows accelerator cards optimized for Windows. Both deliver snappy Windows graphics that far out-pace the fastest Super VGA cards.
Each gains its performance from a combination of a high-speed graphics coprocessor and video random access memory (VRAM). Unlike less expensive and more common dynamic random access memory (DRAM), VRAM is deal-ported. With VRAM, the video coprocessor writes data to VRAM and the video RAMDAC reads data from VRAM at the same time. The advantages of VRAM are twofold: faster graphics performance and support for 70-Hz and 72-Hz monitor refresh rates that are easy on the eyes.
Both cards use similar graphics coprocessors. ATI's Graphics Ultra graphics co-processor is register-compatible with IBM's original 8514 chip and extends the 8514's capabilities. Orchid's Fahrenheit 1280 is built around the S3 Carrera chip, which includes the most vital 8514 register commands.
Though similar, these cards have their differences. In addition to the graphics coprocessor, the ATI card houses ATI's VGA chip, 256K of dedicated VGA memory, a mouse port, and a Microsoft-compatible mouse in a card that is only 6 inches long. Installation is a snap because the setup software indelibly records information about monitor type, bus width, and mouse specifics into EPROM on the card. When you reboot, the Graphics Ultra reads its EPROM and initializes itself accordingly.
ATI supplies 256 color Windows drivers at 800-by-600 and 1,024-by-768 resolutions. At the latter resolution, there are three drivers; one uses small fonts that are appropriate for use with a 19-inch monitor; a second has standard 8514 fonts; the last incorporates ATI's Crystal fonts anti-aliasing technology to make on-screen text easier to read. In addition to WIndows, ATI includes software drivers for AutoCAD, GEM, Lotus 1-2-3, and Ventura Publisher. ATI also sells the Graphics Vantage ($499) which is functionally identical, uses only DRAM, and runs slower than the Ultra.
Orchid's Fahrenheit 1280 represents slightly newer technology, and the preview version of card and driver proved to be slightly less polished than the Graphics Ultra. The Fahrenheit 1280, an 8-inch card with VRAM, uses a single video chip (the S3 Carrera), which provides VGA compatibility and adds the bit block transfer (BitBlt) and line drawing features of the IBM 8514 chip.
The Fahrenheit 1280 has switches to select monitor refresh rate and to enable a speed booster. The latter enables the card to access the PC bus with zero wait states, giving an added boost to performance. There is also a jumper for motherboard compatibility, to work around nonstandard bus timing signals.
The Windows drivers for the Fahrenheit require changing a jumper on the card to switch between 16- and 256-color palettes. Orchid has plans to deliver separate drivers for each color depth soon. Though the S3 Carrera chip and the AMI VGA BIOS claim to be fully compatible with the VGA specification, the Fahrenheit 1280 would not work with the Windows standard VGA driver when tested in PC Labs. However, it performed flawlessly with a sampling of other VGA software. Orchid also includes drivers for AutoCAD and WordPerfect 5.1.
Orchid intends to make available a Fahrenheit upgrade kit with a Sierra RAMDAC and 32,768 color Windows drivers. A Windows 3.0 driver supporting 16 colors at 1,280-by-1,024 resolution is also currently in development.
When tested with Version 2.0 of the PC Magazine Labs Windows benchmark tests on a 33-MHz 80486, both cards consistently outperformed two of the fastest Super VGA cards, the Diamond SpeedStar Plus and the ATI VGA Wonder XL. In the BitBlt, line drawing, and rectangle filling tests, the Graphics Ultra ranges from 3 to 12 times faster than the Diamond card. The Fahrenheit 1280 is 2 to 10 times faster than the Diamond card for the same set of tests.
In reporting the performance scores, we listed the ATI Graphics Ultra first, since its performance was best. ATI's graphics adapter features both a VGA chip and coprocessed video, its enhanced 8514 chip.
The Orchid Fahrenheit 1280, as mentioned above, adds some 8514 features to the basic VGA chip, placing it in the middle of the development spectrum. More than just featuring the frame grabbing functionality of the Diamond SpeedStar Plus with its Tseng Labs ET4000 chip, Orchid's S3 chip performs some of the necessary computations, as opposed to standard CGA and Super CGA, where those instructions are performed by the CPU.
Both cards generally matched or bettered the NDI Volante, a video card with both Texas Instruments' 34020 (a graphics coprocessor) and the Tseng ET-4000 graphics engines. Our tests were run on a 486 PC; those with slower machines should see even greater relative performance improvements.
If you are willing to pay a little more for slightly higher performance, and can use the slot saved by a built-in mouse, the ATI Graphics Ultra makes for snappy Windows graphics. If your budget is more modest, the Fahrenheit 1280 will show a significant improvement in Windows performance when compared with the current crop of Super VGA adapters."
PC Magazine, November 1991
The Fahrenheit 1280 performed about average for an S3 card. It ran Excel and Word for Windows nearly 3 times faster than super VGA. PowerPoint ran at one-third the speed of super VGA, as usual.
The Fahrenheit 1280 operates flicker free except at its interlaced 1280 by 1024 resolution, and you get 32,768 screen colors at no extra cost. The board comes with drivers for numerous DOS programs, too. The warranty lasts four years, and technical support is super, if you don't mind paying for the telephone call. All told, the Fahrenheit 1280's low price and significant perks make it a good deal."
PC World, March 1992
Orchid's proprietary Windows 3.1 software drivers contain a new setup utility that places mode and color selection controls into the Windows Control Panel.
A 512K version of the Fahrenheit 1280 is also available and can be upgraded to 24-bit color capability with the addition of VRAM.
List Price: Fahrenheit 1280 (1MB version), $399; Fahrenheit 1280 (512K version), $329."
PC Magazine, August 1992
Setting it Up
The Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 has four DIP switches accessible on the backplate. The first two are used to set the monitor's vertical refresh rate:
| Configuration | 640 x 480 | 800x 600 | 1024 x 768 | 1280 x XX* | |
| SW1/SW2 | Off/Off (default) | 72 Hz | 72 Hz | 60 Hz | 43 Hz |
| SW1/SW2 | On/Off | 72 Hz | 72 Hz | 70 Hz | 48 Hz |
| SW1/SW2 | Off/On | 60 Hz | 56 Hz | 45 Hz | N/A |
| SW1/SW2 | On/On | 60 Hz | 60 Hz | 60 Hz | N/A |
*XX can be 1024 or 960.
On the Fahrenheit 1280, SW3 is used for compatibility purposes on some computers that have video shadow ROM enabled in the BIOS.
| Configuration | Meaning | |
| SW3 (Shadow ROM) | ON | When video shadow ROM is enabled and the system won't boot. |
| OFF (default) | When there is no conflict. |
On the Fahrenheit 1280/D, SW3 has a different purpose - it adjusts the timing of the 1280/D so it will work properly when installed the local bus slot of a Superboard 486. If your CPU speed is 20, 25, or 33 MHz, set this to ON. If you are running a 50 MHz CPU, set it to OFF.
| Configuration | Meaning | |
| SW4 (Speed Boost) | ON | Boosts the speed of text and graphics operations from 10% - 25% by setting the card to run with zero wait states on bus accesses. |
| OFF (default) | Standard speed. |
The Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 Plus has these jumpers:
| Configuration | Meaning | |
| JP1 | 1-2 | IRQ9 enabled. Enables the use of IRQ2/9 to control the use of the Vertical Interrupt. |
| 2-3 (default) | IRQ9 disabled. | |
| JP2 | 1-2 | Motherboard compatibility on - Enables the Fahrenheit 1280 to operate when installed in motherboards which use non-standard bus timing signals. Set this to 1-2 if the system does not boot. |
| 2-3 (default) | Set to this if the sign-on message is scrambled at boot up or graphics modes are scrambled in the software you are using. | |
| JP3 | 1-2 | 1 MB of VRAM installed. |
| 2-3 | 512 KB of VRAM installed. |
Downloads
Operation Manual Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
Original Utility Disk Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
VGA ROM BIOS v1.1 Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
VGA ROM BIOS v1.2 Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
VGA ROM BIOS v1.3 Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
VGA ROM BIOS v2.1 Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
VGA ROM BIOS v3.0 Get in touch if you can provide this missing item! |
More Pictures
An Orchid Fahrenheit 1280 Plus with FCC ID DDS7EF892-32-FGA
