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Tseng Labs


Tseng Laboratories, Inc. (also known as Tseng Labs or TLI) was a maker of graphics chips and controllers for IBM PC compatibles, based in Newtown, Pennsylvania, and founded by Jack H-N Tseng.

Founded in 1983, Tseng Labs' first product was designed to allow IBM PCs to run the CP/M Operating System. When an OEM deal for that product was cancelled, TLI introduced a combination multifunction and graphics, called Ultrapak, which upgraded IBM PC and XT compatible computers with some features of an IBM AT. Ultrapak also foreshadowed Tseng Labs penchant for enhancing graphics - by providing IBM Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA) and Hercules Graphics Card (HGC) compatibility along with their own special 132 column text modes. These extended text modes created a successful niche for TLI - the cards were popularly used by corporations for PCs that also emulated mainframe terminals that displayed 132 columns. The UltraPAK Short (a graphics-only version of UltraPAK) was the base design for the DFI MG-150, which was reported to be the best selling MDA/HGC compatible card of all time.

Future Tseng products continued to push beyond mere IBM compatibility. ColorPAK - the company's CGA compatible product - offered 'high resolution' 400 line graphics in 1985. The EVA and EVA/480 products of 1986 were the first recorded instances of a graphics chip company extending the IBM register set. EVA products enabled 130 more lines of graphics (640x480) than IBM EGA, as well as advanced features like hardware accelerated windowing, panning, and zooming.

Tseng migrated from a retail / commercial board supplier to OEM sales of their chips. Ultimately, Tseng Labs VGA controllers were found in PCs from major system and board companies including Compaq, Dell, IBM, NEC, STB Systems, Diamond Multimedia and several major Taiwanese add-in brands.

Tseng's best-known products were the Tseng Labs ET3000, Tseng Labs ET4000 and Tseng Labs ET6000 VGA-compatible graphics chips, which were highly popular between 1990 and 1995 (the era of Windows 3.x). The company's ET4000 family was noteworthy for unusually fast host-interface (ISA) throughput, despite a conventional DRAM framebuffer.


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