Trident TVGA9200

The TVGA 9200 chipset arrived in 1993, operating on either the 16-bit ISA or VESA Local Bus.

	Released	1993
	Bus	ISA 16-bit or VESA Local Bus
	Standards	MDA, Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA, SVGA
	Memory	1 MB or 2 MB (FPM DRAMs)
	RAMDAC	External
	See Also	Trident TVGA9000 Series Trident TGUI9440

The Trident TVGA9200 comprised the following variants:

• 9200CXr (1993) - for the VESA Local Bus chipset, 1 or 2 MB of FPM DRAMs (512Kx8 or 256Kx4).
• 9200CXi (1993) - I have no info on this variant

The TVGA9200CXr was the first of the 9200 series, operating on the VESA Local Bus only. Like the 9000i Surf, the 9200CXr had an embedded 24-bit TrueColor RAMDAC and FIFO buffer. It retained Trident's commitment to backward compatibility with register-level support for MDA, Hercules, CGA and EGA. 80ns DRAM memory is recommended for higher screen resolutions and/or colour depths. This chipset is possibly the successor to the TVGA8900CXr (which I have no information on). It was succeeded by the TVGA9400CXi, which added a hardware cursor.

The TVGA9200CXi was able to run at up to 1280 x 1024 in 16.7 million colours with 2 MB of video memory.

The TVGA9200CXr can be found on the following graphics cards:

• Ara Tech Optima 9200 CXR (FCC ID: K2K9200CXR-ARA1A)
• Trident Microsystems PTI-92CXR (FCC ID: HNG920CXRBBS2TLA1)

 

Competition

I personally have no recollection of the TVGA9200 series from the early 90s. It's like Trident went through a lull before the TGUI9440 came along in 1995. With both variants being 'CX', I suspect these ICs were sold to manufacturers for a more specific purpose and they never touched on the retail/consumer market. If you know any information about the 9200 series and who they were sold to, let me know.

 

In the Media

There's nothing in the media that I could dig up about these chipsets.

 

Setting it Up

In order for this chipset to work in Windows 3.x you must install both the DOS and Windows drivers.

Downloads

TVGA 9200CXr Datasheet 1993 Trident TVGA9200CXr Graphics Controller datasheet

 

More Pictures

Ara Tech Optima 1 MB card with Trident TVGA9200CXr (1993)